“Oh, he wants to see me all right. But I don’t want to see him,” Mill said.
“What you saying?” Maggie said. “You’ve got yourself a perfect nephew. Little washed out, color wise, but that ain’t his fault.”
Mill slid in beside me. With her eyes, Maggie ordered Eleanor to move over so that she, Maggie, could sit on my other side. When Maggie started chatting with Eleanor, Mill elbowed me. “I told you I don’t have any money, son.”
“And I told you I don’t want it.”
“But you want something. So what is it?”
A woman took to the pulpit before I could speak. She began praising the Lord.
“Is she the minister?” I asked.
“She’s the warm-up act,” Mill said. “She gets to holler and shout, but she doesn’t get to call herself preacher, so nobody listens to her.”
Next came the choir, which cawed out a horrid version of “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”
“Anybody ever tell you that all black people can sing, just send ‘em on over here on Sunday morning,” Mill said, yawning. “Tired?”
“I cooked until midnight and was back at it at five this morning.” “For what?”
“Hot lunch after the service.”
“For the members of the congregation?”
“And their guests. It’s served around nine in the morning, but we call it lunch, since we’ve all been up since God knows what hour. Lunch is five dollars, if you’re interested. But we give it out for free to anyone who shows up at our back door. It’s for the homeless. It was your granddaddy’s idea.” The choir was followed by deacons’ statements. Then came the minister. “This man can’t hold a candle to your grandfather.”
“Why?”
“He has no power. He’s into highjinks, like all the modern preachers. He hasn’t been speaking for two minutes, and he’s already in high gear. He’s got no more timing than a bull has with cows. Your granddaddy was quiet and severe, but he gave the congregation something to think about. People these days just want dancing and screaming. They all want to carry on like Pentacostalists.”
“You were right when you said that I wanted something from you,” I told her.
“You want to know all about your daddy and your granddaddy and so on. But why should I talk to you? I don’t like your father. I don’t like your mother. And I can’t say I like you.” Mill held her hand against her mouth to hide a grin. I let her last words stand, to make her live with them.
The service went on for an hour. It felt a marathon. I don’t know how anyone managed to sit through it, except by dint of practice or the ability to sleep while sitting with one’s head straight. It was broken, occasionally, by the choir, and by the universal obligation to get up and walk by a collection hat as the minister and his acolytes watched the size of the bill that fell from your hand. Then there were prayers, and Bible readings, more prayers, announcements, the sermon — and designated moments for people to swoon in the arms of Jesus.
“Don’t believe a word of it,” Mill said as one woman after another got up and screamed and had to be revived.
It struck me as a miracle that the entire congregation hadn’t fallen asleep. I felt hungry, and itchy, and anxious to talk. Maggie, Eleanor, Mill, and I ended up together at a table in the church cafeteria. I paid for my lunch and for Mill’s before she could open her purse. “I don’t need anybody paying my way, son,” she said. “But I guess I have to give you one family story now, to get you off my back.”
“What kind of story?” Eleanor asked.
“I’ll tell you one about my father, Langston Cane the Third, who ministered at this church.”
Mill said Langston Cane the Third took over the Bethel A.M.E. Church on Druid Hill Avenue in 1930. “We had just moved to Baltimore after seven or so years in Oakville, and my father — your grandfather — didn’t like Baltimore one bit. By comparison, it was cramped, crowded, dirty, and uncivil. Although the Bethel A.M.E. Church had a large congregation, it was short of money. It was running a deficit. Yet Cane believed that parishioners were giving generously.
“They called him the Reverend L.C. He wasn’t a tall man, but he stood so upright and dignified and walked so much like an African head of state that people thought he was taller. People thought he stood six feet tall, although he was just five ten.”
I knew the story. My father had told it to me ten times.
When Reverend L.C. took over the church, he found that money was draining away from it faster than water through a sieve. It had a five-thousand-dollar deficit that was growing larger every month. The membership had taken a beating in the last year; the immensely popular preceding pastor had left and created his own church, taking with him a third of the A.M.E. congregation. The Reverend L.C. had to stanch the hemorrhage of A.M.E. members and win back some who had left. On one hand, he had to take strong actions. But on another, the wrong actions would drive even more members away.
For several consecutive Sundays, the Reverend counted the number of people in his sanctuary. He watched, row after row, to see how many people were dropping money into the bowls. He knew he had six hundred members, and he believed that four hundred and fifty of them were giving, at an average rate of fifty cents each. That would have meant $225 each Sunday. But the collection was consistently turning up no more than $120. The Reverend assigned a volunteer from the Young People’s Bible Study group to assist the woman in charge of collections, Rita Dougall. But Rita Dougall always managed to get away from the young man before she sealed the money in an envelope and turned it over to Langston’s wife, Rose.
Rita Dougall was a mainstay of the church. She knew every member. Her mother and grandmother had been active members; her father had once been the church secretary. She baked cookies and supplied lemonade for every church function, and had other church members to dinner every Sunday night. If she left the church, she would take seventy-five people with her. For the past five years, she had managed the Sunday collections.
The Reverend calculated that Rita was skimming a hundred dollars a week off the top. Probably sharing the proceeds with the bishop.
He knew he couldn’t confront her without direct proof. He couldn’t remove her arbitrarily from the position — she would fight for it, and pull people away from the church if she were forced out. The idea hit Reverend L.C. one Saturday night as he worked on a sermon. He would talk about the importance of volunteer service. He would describe it as the backbone of a community. He would hail some of the most generous volunteers in the history of the Bethel A.M.E. Church, and, as he was approaching the current era, he would say that volunteers were so critical to the functioning of the modern-day church that he planned to host a reception for them soon.
The promise of a celebration sent a hum of excitement through the sanctuary. The next Sunday, to a bigger congregation than had been seen in months, the Reverend L.C. announced that a volunteer awards ceremony would be held by the church — hosted by the Reverend and his wife — in three weeks’ time. There would be a free lunch before the ceremony, speeches made, and certificates of recognition handed out.
The Reverend and his wife organized the event. Rose and other volunteers baked for days, setting aside cookies and cakes and pies. The Reverend had certificates typed and framed, consulted with five church seniors to make sure nobody was left out, wrote a paragraph of praise about the good works of each award recipient, and developed the major award for Rita Dougall, the collections maestro.
At the climax of the ceremony, the Reverend made a twenty-minute speech about Rita’s good works, presented her with a certificate, a bouquet of flowers, and a formal letter of thanks from the bishop, and awarded her with the new title of director of youth services. Another person — a close ally of the Reverend’s — was made collections coordinator. Rita Dougall was edged out of the money by being promoted.
“He was a clever weasel, your granddaddy,” Mill said. “Time for me to get on home. Why don’t you find your manners and
offer to drive me?”
“I didn’t know you didn’t have a car,” I said.
“I have a car. But I don’t like driving downtown. Too many fools on the road for me.”
“You’re fortunate to have a fine young man drive you home,” Eleanor said. “I can’t get my own husband to drive me to church.”
“Never you mind about this so-called fine young man,” Mill said. “If he’s so fine, what’s he doing in Baltimore? Where’s his family? Where is he working? Where are his wife and children and pay cheque?”
“Shush,” Maggie said. “Don’t judge people so harshly, Mill. Especially, don’t judge on the Lord’s day, in His building.”
“I wasn’t judging nothing. I was just asking questions.”
“Judgmental questions,” Maggie said.
“Oh, leave me alone,” Mill said, “and stop judging my questions.” They all laughed.
“Don’t forget to pick up your papers on the way out,” Maggie told me.
Mill held on to my arm on the walk to the Jetta. It was still there, with windows and wheels intact. Nobody was guarding it any more. It was one of the few cars still parked on Druid Hill Avenue. Mill told me to turn left on North Street and right on Hilton and left on Alto, and then I’d find my way to her street again — and then she began to snore. She awoke with a start when I turned off the ignition in front of her house.
“Come on in, son, and tell me what it is you want.” Mill kicked a National Geographic magazine out of her way as she stepped into the hall.
“I want to know about my father. And his father. And the two Langston Canes before them.”
“Why?” She indicated for me to sit down. I sat in a sofa that sank a foot on contact.
“I just need to know.”
“Why don’t you just get on with having a job and starting a family and forget all that stuff?” “Can’t do that.”
“You’re not one of them, I guess. You’re not a real Cane. You’ve fallen off the treadmill, or never gotten on it. You like to look about you. You’re more like a woman. Women like to look about them. Men charge straight ahead.”
“I don’t know about the man-woman thing. Some men charge ahead, others don’t.”
“What kind of stories do you want to hear?” Mill asked.
“Stories about my father, and grandfather, and my great- and great-great-grandfathers, and their wives. Stories about you, too.”
“I’m not telling you any stories about myself, or about your father. But say I tell you something about the others. What are you going to do with it?”
“Write about it.”
“Write what?” Mill asked.
“A novel.”
“How are you going to do that? I don’t have enough stuff to fill a whole book.”
“I’ll use my imagination to fill in the holes.”
“You’ll be using a lot of imagination, in that case. What’s the point of filling most of a book with your imagination?”
“That’s what writers do. That’s what I want to do.”
“Well, don’t ask me to read it. But if you have your mind set on writing a book, I’m not going to stand in your way. Come with me.”
I followed Mill down a dusty hall and into an old bedroom overflowing with boxes, chairs, books, domestic goods. “This box, here,” she said, tapping it with her foot, “has stuff on your grandparents. You can look at it if you want. But only this box.”
The cardboard box had letters, high school photos, certificates, church documents, and transcripts of oral history interviews that Langston the Third and Rose had given. I opened an old letter. Its corners crumbled. It was dated April 1917. One year before they were married.
“My dear pagan buzzard,” it began. “The carnations were beautiful. Thank you! But we can’t go on like this. My parents would never consent to my being courted by a Protestant, and I have trouble seeing the viability of it myself. Although, I must add, that you fly a league or two higher than most all of the world’s pagan buzzards. There are other fish in the sea. Cast your net accordingly. With sisterly affection, Rose.”
A response, also dated April 1917:
Dear Rose,
How about a photo, so that I might contemplate your sisterly affections, and consider how to convert them into something less austere? All’s well at Lincoln. Am keeping first-class grades, although I don’t know what I’ll do next year, with the war heating up. With a kiss blown your way, Langston.
Chapter 11
LANGSTON CANE THE THIRD was the fourth of nine children of Langston Cane the Second and Lucinda Richards. His father was also an A.M.E. minister, and Langston the Third was born in 1896 in the family’s parsonage in Annapolis, Maryland. His meager education in the local segregated school was supplemented for an hour each evening by lessons from his father in spelling, arithmetic, geography, and African American history. That was what his father called it, even at that time. “People will call you all sorts of names, but don’t you listen to them. In this house, you’re an African American. And don’t you forget it. Look at your skin. Look at it. Be proud of that color, son. It marks your African heritage. Your heritage is as rich as the Nile is long.” By the time Langston was twelve, the lessons included memorizing the Lord’s Prayer in Latin, and learning phrases in Greek and French. Langston senior reinforced the lessons with the back of his hand when his son failed to pay attention. After the lessons came Langston’s chores. He washed dishes. He washed the kitchen floor. And he pumped well water, even in the wind and rain. Snow fell only a few times each year, but the wind off Chesapeake Bay was almost enough to knock him down.
In 1908, Langston’s father became the minister of the biggest A.M.E. church in Baltimore. He oversaw its move to a new location on Druid Hill Avenue, and found a part-time job for his son at the Afro-American newspaper on Saratoga Street. Langston learned about copy editing and typesetting. He ran errands. He lifted stacks of papers from a livery wagon. He was paid seventy-five cents a week, in pennies counted out one by one by the magnanimous publisher, F. Y. Pickard, whom Langston secretly dubbed Fuck You Pickard. Pickard knew everybody in town, received free tickets to every show at the Royal Theater, got free meals from the segregated restaurants, and carried on as if he were Napoleon Bonaparte. He lectured to Langston about clean living. He hectored him about conscientious work habits. He babbled endlessly about discipline and education, of which he had none. One week, Langston neglected to enter Pickard’s edits to a sentence about a restaurant that he favored. The copy, as submitted by a college student, described the restaurant as “serving good meals within the colored community.” Pickard, who hated the word “colored” and was always trying to find ways around it, had scribbled “superlative repasts for people of our race” on the copy, but Langston forgot to retype the review. As a result, Pickard ranted and raved and docked Langston’s pay for the week. Langston was infuriated. He’d been counting on buying a ticket to see Ruby Blake play piano at the Royal that Friday.
The next week, Pickard edited copy about a tenor from D.C. who was coming to sing at the Royal. The article went on about the tenor’s accomplishments and performances around the country. But one line mistakenly said “the unknown tenor from Washington, D.C.” instead of “the well-known tenor from Washington, D.C.” Pickard failed to catch it. Langston, in a spirit of vengeance, chose to overlook it. Pickard berated Langston when the newspaper came out and the complaints flooded in. Langston replied that he had carried out Pickard’s edits to the letter, and how was he to know that Pickard had wanted it to be “well-known” instead of “unknown”? Pickard replied, “For the same reason that, for the second consecutive week, I’m going to make your salary unknown to you.” “You can’t do that.”
“You’ll call me Dr. Pickard if you please.” Langston knew from his father that Pickard’s only doctorate was in bullshit. The man hadn’t been to college. “You can’t do that, sir.” “And why can’t I do that, young man?”
“Because
I worked for that money. I worked ten hours last week and you gave me nothing after one small mistake. And I worked ten hours this week and you’re giving me nothing after one small mistake. I am an African American, of the same race as Hannibal, who defeated the Romans in the Alps, and if you don’t pay me the two weeks I’m due, I will defeat you.”
“I don’t believe the world has ever seen that much mouth on a twelve-year-old. And just how do you plan to defeat me?”
“I will tell everyone that you refused to pay me. Everyone I know will refuse to read your paper. Every guest that eats at my father’s table. Every parishioner who knocks on my parents’ door. Every parent of every friend of mine in school. We will boycott your paper. We will mount pickets.”
“Take your miserable pay. You ought to be a lawyer.”
Langston pocketed the silver dollar and the half dollar — the first time he’d been paid in something other than pennies.
“Oh, and Mr. Pickard?” “It’s Dr. Pickard to you!”
“F. Y. Pickard?”
“Did you hear me? It’s Dr. Pickard.”
“You are no doctor. You didn’t even finish school.”
“Your insolence is otherworldly! Wait till your father hears how you’ve spoken.”
“You’re no doctor at all. My daddy told me. You’re a fake, Mr. Pickard, and I quit.”
“You’re fired.”
“I’m afraid I quit first. Good day.”
Langston endured four strokes of a paddle to each buttock that evening. Late that night, he heard his parents laughing.
“That boy’s got to get his mouth under control,” his father said.
“He seems to have gotten the better of Pickard, anyway,” Lucinda said. “You may have gone overboard with your stories of proud African warriors.”
Langston senior chuckled. “That boy will turn out just fine.”
Langston Cane the Third went to Frederick Douglass high school in Baltimore, graduated, and won a scholarship to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. His own father had studied there, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in sacred theology, and gone on to obtain a doctorate in divinity. All the expected things happened to Langston at Lincoln. He got top marks, became manager of the football team and led the freshman debating squad. But two other things happened. The United States prepared to enter World War I, and Langston met Rose Bridges.