Driving the King by Ravi Howard Page B

in a street fight,” I told him.
    He took it off and regarded it a bit before he cocked it back on his head. “You know, I just might.”
    â€œNot that dime-store mess. Get a Stetson,” I said.
    â€œThen I’ll get you a new billfold while I’m at it, Nat. Can’t carry that kind of money in that dusty wallet you got.”
    With that he tipped his hat and headed on down the street.
    â€œYou don’t owe us anything,” Marie told me.
    â€œI can do what I want to do again, so I want to do for my folks.”
    After I followed Marie into the office, a car crossed the bell line and stopped at the gas pump. A black woman was behind the wheel of a DeSoto, wood-sided and full of white children. When she came in, Marie spoke while she took the gas money and counted out the change. The name on her uniform said Lena.
    â€œLet me get a receipt, Marie, because the woman I work for now will swear up and down I took her damn change.”
    â€œI got you. Something else, too,” Marie told her.
    She counted out Lena’s change and tapped on a basket of purchase orders. Lena lifted the stack and took a sheet of paper. Some of the kids had gotten out of the car, and one had jumped on the bell line. She looked back to make sure they didn’t see her fold that paper into her apron pocket.
    â€œNosiest children the world has seen. Will run tell any-and everything.”
    Once she left, Marie lifted the stack and gave me one of the same pages. “Women’s Political Council” printed across the top. A newsletter. A list of officers ran down the right-hand side, and my sister’s name was near thebottom. Marie Jeffries. Transportation Committee. That’s not all she wanted me to see, though.
    â€œI’m only showing you because you asked about her last time.”
    Though the ink of the machine turned everyone’s picture purple and dotted, the face above the column was Mattie. Letter from the Editor. And the signature, the first name familiar, and her married name. Matilda Allen.
    Marie looked over my shoulder to see what I was reading. And she left her chin right there, and that bit of sighing she did came down on my collarbone.
    â€œYou got a whole new life coming to you. So you don’t have to dwell.”
    â€œHow is she?”
    â€œShe’s fine.” Paused too long. So much she could have said then.
    Yes, my years had been long, but they had been just as empty. I had gathered no memories strong enough to quiet the old notions.
    â€œLike I said. A whole new life.”
    Marie and Mattie had gotten close when we dated. We had gone to see Murder in Harlem with Marie and Pete at the State Theater. I like that girl, Nathaniel. You and me, both , I’d told her. My sister helped me pick the ring, and she was the one who sold it for me, and used that money to pay off the note on the Packard.
    â€œWould it be better if she’d waited for you?”
    I shook my head. I saw the women who had waited on Kilby men. Young women. Old women. I’d watched enough of the regulars age in the visiting room, getting years-deep in the waiting.
    â€œYou’ll have somebody soon.”
    Marie straightened up the newsletters and hid them beneath the purchase orders. She had told me to move on. And I surely would. But I needed to see Mattie’s face, and hear her voice, if only to say good-bye. That was as close to the good times as I could ever be again. Friend was not enough, but it was all I could have. But before I could see a friend, I needed a stranger.

Chapter 10
    M ama Nonie’s Grill sold coffee and doughnuts in the front vestibule, and a small luncheonette served sandwiches and hot plates in the main room. A long row of high-back booths stretched beyond the pony wall. The girls would come around and talk to you, see what was on your mind. And if you had come looking for something in particular, they would show you to the back stairs that led to