“You wanna dry?” he asks me, and I nod in a daze.
Mama comes back into the kitchen, slippin’ into her apron, but she freezes. Her and me both just starin’ at Clay. That’s when it hits me: neither one of us has ever seen a man washin’ dishes before. The first time you see such a thing is a marvel to behold.
And it don’t end with dishes, neither. Uncle George complains about our ’56 RCA set, cuz the Yankees are playin’ and he wants to watch Mantle, and he can’t hardly get no reception. Nobody asked him to do a thing, but Clay just walks on over to the TV, looks at the knobs, then pushes it out from the wall and slides around in back of it. “Boy, if you don’t know whatchu doin’ back there,” Uncle George starts to say, but before he can finish the thought, Clay’s got the picture coming in like it was a new set straight outta the Sears Wish Book. Mama looks at him like he just landed a spaceship.
“How you know how to do that?” Mama asks.
Clay shrugs. “You just gotta play around with electronics a li’l bit.”
“Well. Thank you, Clayton. I gotta tell ya: picture looks better right now than when we first brought it home.”
Clay smiles shyly. Uncle George kinda shakes his head like he can’t believe what he just witnessed, and Mama don’t say a thing when Clay thanks her for the meal and I walk right out the door with him.
“You just charmed the shit outta her!”
He laughs. I got my arm through his, and we just walk. I don’t know where we’re goin’, and I don’t care.
“Never thought I’d see the day when my mother would be so charmed by a young man, but I knew if anybody on the green earth could do it, it’d be you,” I tell him. He gives my arm a squeeze.
“Girl, you better quit flatterin’ me. You know I already got a pretty high opinion a myself.”
“Guess you just gonna have to live with your big fat ego,” I say, and kiss his cheek. He offers the other one to me, and when I lean in to kiss it, he quickly turns his head and catches me with his mouth. Ain’t that somethin’? Crazy as I am about him, the fool still thinks he needs to trick me into kissin’ him proper. I could eat him alive.
“Wanna go drivin’?” I ask him, knowing what I’m really asking. Can I be alone with you and eat you alive?
He makes a face like he just got bit by a mosquito.
“Wish I could, but I got work in the mornin’. Told Pop I’d open the shop. Five a.m.”
“Five a.m.? What kinda lunatics need their cars worked on that damn early?”
He chuckles and kisses my nose. “The dumbasses of the world.”
We walk downtown just talkin’, and it’s nice. Even doin’ nothin’ at all is nice with him.
We’re passin’ Brickney’s Music World when Clay stops us. He stares in the window with somethin’ like longing.
“What’s wrong?”
He inches to the side.
“Come here,” he says. He points to somethin’ through the window, inside the store. It looks like a small trumpet, but it’s silver and shiny.
“That is an E-flat soprano cornet. It’s meant to play delicate, mellow music, but it’s a work of art just sittin’ there without makin’ a sound.”
He’s right. I don’t know a thing about instruments, but it is a beautiful sight. We both look at it until a man on the other side of the glass steps into view and glares at us. We back away.
“Evvie. The music I could make on that thing would knock you out!”
“Looks pricey,” I say.
“Yeah it’s about an arm and a leg. And a neck and a foot.” He slowly nears the window again. “But that I could deal with. It would take a mighty long time, but I could save up. I’ve done it before.”
He keeps starin’. He wants it bad, but this is not a store for us.
“Have you asked Mr. Rance at the pawn shop?” I ask, even though I’m pretty sure I know the answer.
He laughs to himself. “Couple times. Last time, he told me to stop askin’. I’ve checked around. Seems like this is the only soprano cornet in the county. Hell. Might be the only one in South Carolina.” He sighs, and I’m struck, not for the first time, by the blind stupidity of Arthur Brickney and all the others like him. It ain’t illegal for me and Clay to go into his shop, but we wouldn’t dare.
Over the years, Brickney’s made it quite clear that he’s only interested in white customers. The few times Negroes tried to patronize the place, he wouldn’t let ’em touch any merchandise and tripled—sometimes quadrupled—his prices on the spot if they showed any serious interest in makin’ a purchase. Anything to get rid of ’em. I’m sorry, but my nigger money works exactly the same as their white-people money, because guess what: it’s the SAME money. Now, if you run a business, the object is to make money, ain’t it? Jesus. I think years a hatin’ colored people so hard must cause some kinda brain damage.
I take Clay’s hand and lead him away from this idiotic establishment and walk us toward the park.
“Someday you’ll be up north, where I bet they got tons a them cornet things! Just hundreds of ’em all over the place.”
Clay snickers. “Yeah, I heard they grow up there like weeds.”
“That’s right! You can have one for every day a the year!”
Just inside the park is a playground for li’l kids. Since there ain’t no kids here right now, Clay and I sit in the swings.
“Tell me about your thing, Evvie.”
“My what?”
“You know! Your thing. The thing that gets you excited when nothin’ else does. The thing that can take the blues away. Stars and such for you. Right?”
I almost forgot I’d told him about that.
“I don’t know
