The Judge blanched, looked at his feet, pawed the floor with his walking stick, then stepped forward as the line shuffled ahead. He looked straight ahead as he talked. “I haven’t heard that town’s name in thirty years. Where’d you hear it?”
“Army records. And a partisan. He called me and said he wanted to thank the Buffalo Soldiers.”
“The Italians don’t owe us nothing,” the Judge said. “We owe them.”
The line moved forward again. Herb felt the Judge pulling away from him. He could sense the old man closing down. He piped up: “The reports say three companies were destroyed in Sommocolonia. How’d that happen?”
“Oh, that was so long ago I can’t recall,” the Judge said evenly.
“You weren’t there?”
“I was there, but I can’t remember too much. Just a bunch of shooting. Running around, dodging. I don’t recall it too good, actually.”
“Neither does the Army apparently,” Herb said. “They called it a skirmish.”
Herb felt like he had punched the old man. The Judge, standing in line, swayed, pursed his lips, then looked down at his feet, then behind the counter, then out the window, averting Herb’s gaze. His eyes seemed to shift focus, gazing at something far away, like a crystal ball in the ceiling. Suddenly his eyes teared up. He wiped them with his hand and coughed. After a moment, he said softly, “Of course they would.”
“Would what?”
“Call it a skirmish. They hated us.”
“Who hated you?”
The Judge was silent. The line moved forward. By now the Judge had reached the counter. Herb stood behind him as he played his number, then watched as the Judge, holding his cane, limped past him to the door and out into the Harlem sunshine and stopped, leaning on his cane, one hand resting gently on the storefront glass. Herb followed him.
From the sidewalk the Judge stared at the traffic on Lenox Avenue. Several passersby greeted him as he stood against the window. A couple of cars honked. The Harlem air seemed to revive him. He was home. In Harlem, everybody loved him. He took a deep breath, stood taller again, waved at a couple of friendly faces, then reached into his pocket, pulled out a pen, and wrote on the back of a piece of paper. He handed it to Herb. It was an address.
“Talk to Carlos,” he said. “Ask him if he’s gonna dance this Christmas Eve.”
“What’s that mean?”
“You wanna finish your little report or not? Ask him if he’s gonna dance this Christmas Eve. Tell him I’m coming.”
“Christmas is in eight months.”
But the Judge was already gone, limping away, moving fast, down the crowded sidewalk, chin up, smiling in the radiant sunshine, greeting people, waving. A car honked at him, a woman stopped him, and leaning on his cane he shared a laugh with her, his hand on her shoulder. A passing motorist yelled out his car window on Lenox Avenue, “Hey, Judge!” and the Judge waved. A second pedestrian stopped, now a third, gathering around him. The Judge talked to them all, his arms open wide, cane in the air now, an old lion spreading his paws over his kingdom, laughing, the three gathered around him. Herb drifted closer to hear the conversation, which wafted into the crisp Harlem air.
“Judge! My boy is eight and wants to be a lawyer,” one said.
“Judge! We missed you at church.”
“Judge! Lemme ask you a question. If your ex-wife can’t find your kid’s birth certificate and you gotta pay child support, what’s that called legally?”
“A loophole,” the Judge said.
Laughs all around.
• • •
THE NEXT DAY Herb found himself standing before the door of a silent, battered brownstone on 147th Street, knocking with his heart in his mouth. Carlos answered.
“Mr. Ph.D.,” he said. “I already gave at the office.”
“The Judge said to talk to you. About dancing. On Christmas Eve.”
Carlos’s face darkened. “Judge talks too much,” he said. But he turned and walked inside, leaving the door open. It was an invitation. Herb entered and followed him through to a door and down a set of dimly lit stairs.
Carlos sat in a darkened armchair in his basement parlor full of old leather furniture. A yellowed black and white photo of a pretty young Puerto Rican woman hung over a leather armchair that faced an old and dreary television set. The lamps, the furniture, the rug—everything was old. A Puerto Rican flag, mounted on the wall, crisscrossed an American flag that lay underneath it.
“Did Judge tell you anything else?” Carlos said.
“No. Just said you’re a great dancer.”
“He said that?”
“Twice.”
For the first time, Carlos’s dark face lightened and a grin cut the corner of his mouth. Herb was amazed at the transformation. Dazzling. Handsome. Then the smile disappeared. The light went off, and the grimace returned.
“He ain’t too bad hisself,” Carlos said.
“At dancing? He can dance with his cane?”
“Naw. He can’t dance for shit. Never could. He talks good.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just what I say. He’s the talker. The narrator. He talks while I dance. The Judge can talk the horns off the devil’s head.”
Herb exhaled, puffing his cheeks. “Mr. Carlos: I got three weeks before I have to turn in my thesis. I spent all my tuition money. I got loans. Bills. No job. Everything depends on this thesis. If I don’t hand it in, I’m cooked. And you’re talking in circles. Jeez . . . Isn’t there a straight story anywhere around here? Just tell me what I need to know. Were you there or not?”
“Where?”
“In Sommocolonia.”
Carlos paused. A full minute passed before he spoke. “Just ’cause you can tie your sneakers and read a report someplace don’t mean you know more than a turd, kid.”
“What did I say to offend you?”
“You offended yourself! By reading the white man’s books.”
“I’m trying to find out what happened.”
“You need a Ph.D. to know the white man writes history any way he wants?”
“I don’t trust the books either.”
“Find another book then. It’s too late now anyway.”
“For what?”
“Everybody who was there is dead. And everybody who wrote it up is white. White officers. What you expect?”
“What happened?”
“Ask the Judge! He likes to talk. That’s all he does.”
“He won’t talk to me. He just laughs and makes jokes and said you’d explain it all. You guys are screwing with my head. I gotta finish school. I need a job now. That’s why I got to finish this Ph.D. Without this oral history, I got no Ph.D., sir. None. And without this Ph.D., what do I got? Nothing. No job, no future. Just debt. Because I was depending on him—and you—to talk straight! How I’m gonna get a teaching job without a Ph.D.? You think they’d hire me to teach at any decent university without a Ph.D.? I’m gonna end up teaching kindergarten after eight years of graduate study—thanks to you guys. I gambled on you guys. I thought you’d want people to know your story. But it don’t mean squat to you, does it? I should’ve found some white soldiers to write about!”
Herb grabbed his backpack, snatched his baseball cap off the couch, popped it on his head, and rose to leave.
“Wait a minute,” Carlos said. He tried to stand and a terrible coughing spell stopped him. He hacked a few moments, then gathered himself. He blew his nose, then glanced at Herb with watery eyes. He cleared his throat and shifted in his leather chair, as he rubbed his nose and hissed through his teeth, his lips parted slightly. Herb noticed the gold tooth gleaming in the streak of sunlight cutting into the dark room.
“You drink brandy, son?” Carlos asked.
“No.”
“Good. ’Cause I only
got enough for one.”
He poured himself a brandy from an old cabinet, then despite saying he had enough for only one, poured another for Herb. He raised his glass into the sliver of sunlight in the room and regarded it. Then he leaned forward and sipped deeply. The glint from the glaring sunlight struck Carlos in his hair, slick and smooth. Carlos’s upturned face, silhouetted by the yellow window light, looked noble, almost statuesque, and Herb decided again that Carlos must have been quite the looker when he was young.
“I signed up for the Army with my cousin Joaquin,” he said. “Joaquin was eighteen. Three years younger than me. When we reported they put us in a room. A captain came in and looked at Joaquin and pointed to a door that said ‘White.’ He pointed me to the other door marked ‘Colored.’ So Joaquin got sent to Belgium. He got his ticket punched there.”
He eyes glazed.
“He was a great little carpenter.”
“Did it bother you going with the black troops?” Herb asked.
“Shit no.”
Carlos sipped the brandy and absently flicked a blind of the window.
“Old Judge was right about one thing, though. Me, I couldn’t do nothing but dance. I used to imagine that I would one day really do something with my dancing. See, dance changes people. Dancing makes you free. It makes people happy. I used to practice all the time when I came to Harlem. I was seventeen. I never took dance lessons. I learned from the Cubans. Mario Bauzá. Machito. I learned in the clubs, dancing to their music. They liked me. I traveled with ’em as a dancer. That’s how I met my wife, Angela. She used to say, ‘Every girl I meet in Manhattan says they danced with you.’ I’d say, ‘That’s because I danced with every girl in Manhattan—till I met you.’ She loved to dance. We were a pretty good team.”
“Then what happened?”
“Same thing that happened with Joaquin. You find yourself in a room with somebody you care about, except now it’s not your cousin, but your wife. And this time it’s not no Army room, but a hospital room. And the Big Man comes in Himself—and he says, ‘You, Angela, go this way. And you, Carlos, go that way.’”
Carlos was silent for a moment.
“I got a son living in Florida,” he said. “But he don’t come home much. I don’t see why he should either. I’m the last to leave the room, son. Me and the old Judge.”
“Because his wife’s dead too?”
“That’s the least of it,” Carlos said.
• • •
FOUR HOURS LATER, Herb walked into the blaring sunlight of 147th Street, the sun pressing his eyelids and his head, making them feel like a hundred hammers ringing around his ears. He staggered home to his apartment, set out his books and typewriter, and began to write. For the next four days he pushed deep into his thesis, writing into the night hours, and was nearly finished when he appeared at Sylvia’s at the time he knew the Judge usually came to eat. Sure enough, the Judge walked in. When he saw Herb, he grabbed a tray and sat with him.
“I saw Carlos,” Herb said. “I drank his brandy.”
The Judge chuckled. “That means he likes you a little.”
“I didn’t know he was your commander.”
“He was second lieutenant. I was just a grunt.”
“What about your captain?”
The Judge smiled. “The captains were white. The good ones were killed early on. The rest of them didn’t know shit. Most were rejects. Castoffs from other units. Southerners mostly. Couldn’t find their ass with two hands. The first and second lieutenants ran everything. That was Carlos. Did he tell you about his buddy over there?”
“He didn’t say he had any buddies. He had a cousin who fought with the white Army who died.”
“Not him. Carlos had another buddy. A hell of a buddy.”
“When he left, he said don’t call him again. He’s done. He ain’t talking to me no more.”
“I ain’t either. I’m done with it.”
“But he told me to tell you that he would dance this Christmas.”
“Eve, son, Christmas Eve. He can dance like the dickens, Carlos can. You know, back before the war, he danced for Machito, he tell you that?”
“Yes.”
“And Mario Bauzá. Lionel Hampton. They all wanted Carlos. He was something. He only dances once a year now. At Minton’s. Every Christmas Eve. When Count Basie comes for the annual Christmas Eve ball there.”
“With who? His wife is dead.”
“We dance together.”
Noting Herb’s silence, the old Judge said, “What’s wrong with us dancing together?”
“Y’all are . . .” Herb paused and wiggled his hand in a wavy motion to signify homosexual. “Special friends?”
The Judge laughed. “We’re special, all right. He didn’t tell you about the Christmas dance?”
“He didn’t say that. He just said he was a star dancer. And that you can’t dance. That you’re the narrator.”
The Judge laughed. “I ain’t the narrator. I’m the producer. I’m like the guy in the sound booth who tells the musicians what to play.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Didn’t he tell you anything?”
“He told me everything.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“What else is there to know?”
“Well, it don’t matter. Ain’t you got enough for your thesis now?”
“Yeah, I do. Except for this stupid dance business.”
“Well, you ain’t writing a thesis on dancing, son. Carlos gave you the info. So run along home now and don’t stop for bread. Go finish your report.”
“I’m about worn out with the games between you two,” Herb said.
“You don’t have to stick around us now, son,” the Judge said, smiling. “I ain’t seen Carlos in a month of Sundays. Not since we saw him in the restaurant together. We got no conspiracy against you. We helped you get the monkey off your back. You’re finished now.”
“But I just don’t understand the dance, is all. I understand what happened over there. I’m not stuck on that. I wish y’all would come together and tell me what I don’t know.”
“Well, you got what you need. I gave you all I could. Carlos did the same. Now write your thesis and live happily ever after.”
Herb sipped his iced tea angrily and set the glass down hard. “Jeez! No wonder black folks got nothing. No money. No houses. No history. Nothing. Without the right history, how are people gonna know what you did? They think all we did was float balloons in the war and serve as quartermasters! There were a million blacks who served in World War Two! Fifteen thousand in Italy alone. Most were casualties!”
“You don’t have to tell me about casualties, son.”
Herb was silent. The Judge’s smile was gone.
The Judge peered out over the restaurant, then down at his tray.
“If I give you a chance to see Carlos dance—no promises—but if I give you the chance to see him go at it on the dance floor, would you promise to leave me alone?”
Herb felt hurt. He liked the Judge.
“I thought we were friends.”
“We are, son, but you remind me of things I can’t think about no more. I’m in the last October of life looking for a few more Aprils. I don’t want to remember no more. I expect Carlos is the same. You promise or not?”
“All right.”
The Judge scribbled yet another name and address on a piece of paper. He slid it over to Herb. “Lillian Johns,” he said. “She lives in Brockton, Massachusetts. Here’s her address. Go and see her. She knows everything.”
“Was she there?”
“I already gave you everything you need,” the Judge said. “I’m finished now. I ain’t answering no more questions about the war. Got no more time to talk about the past. It’s all done.”
• • • r />
LILLIAN JOHNS was eighty-eight and lived in a neat house on a quiet street in Brockton. She was a slim, dark brown woman with dancing eyes and a wide smile. There was a deep beauty to Mrs. Johns that Herb, even as a young man, found attractive, and she was as warm and as kind as her smile suggested. She sat in her modest living room with pictures of grandchildren and silverware in a tall wood cabinet.
“I don’t know why the old Judge sent you here,” she said. “He knows more about what happened at Sommocolonia than I do. I wasn’t there.”
“I explained that,” Herb said, “but he said you could explain it better.”
She smiled sadly. “Is it about the dancing?” she asked.
“Yes, it is. They won’t talk about it.”
She smiled. Herb noticed a sadness behind the brown eyes. “I guess my generation is not that good at talking about old things. Can’t blame us. I don’t like old things myself. How do you know the Judge?”
“I met him through school. He introduced me to Carlos.”
She chuckled. “You know those two only live five blocks from each other? I’m told they don’t see each other that much. I told them they oughta talk to each other more. But men are so stupid. Still, I love them both.”
“Were you married to one of them?”
“Heavens no,” she laughed.
“Why do you care for them then?”
“Because . . . Have you ever been to New York Christmas Eve? At Minton’s ballroom, where they have this big dance? With the Count Basie Band?”
“No. What’s that got to do with the war?” Herb asked.
“It’s got nothing to do with the war,” she said. “It’s got to do with a man.”
• • •
THAT DECEMBER, six months later, Herb Melton—newly christened as Herbert Melton, Ph.D. History, Columbia University, and enjoying winter break from his university teaching job in Burlington, Vermont—got up at 5 a.m. and drove nine hours through a heavy snowstorm to New York City. He motored to 118th Street in Harlem, filled up the gas tank, then swung around the block for a good hour, patiently waiting for a parking space to open up. When it did he squeezed his ancient Plymouth Duster with 134,000 miles on the odometer, heat running full blast, into a space across the street from Minton’s Playhouse. He was careful to note the “No Parking” signs. He was an old hand. This parking space was good all day and night.