Baker Kevin - Strivers Row

STRIVERS ROW

A Novel

KEVIN BAKER

To my mother, Claire Slade Baker,
with all my love,
for all that she has given me throughout my life,
and as always
to Ellen
Je tadore

Contents

Jonah Dove, minister of the Church of the New Jerusalem, in Harlem
Amanda Robb Dove, his wife
Milton Dove, Jonahs father, and the founder of the New Jerusalem
Sophia Sophie Dove, Jonahs sister and Miltons daughter
Malcolm Little, a hustler
Louisa Louise Little, his mother
Earl Early Little, his father
his brothers
Reginald Little
Philbert Little
Wilfred Little
Wesley Little

his half-brothers
Butch Little
Earl Little, Jr., a.k.a., Jimmy Carlton

his sisters
Yvonne Little
Hilda Little

his half-sisters
Ella Little
Mary Little

Miranda Dolan, a cabaret singer
West Indian Archie, proprietor of a policy bank
Sammy McKnight, a pimp
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., minister of the Abyssinian Baptist Church,
and Harlems first black city councilman
Isabel Washington Powell, his wife, and a former dance hall performer
Charlie and Ed Small, proprietors, Smalls Paradise
Alton Pappy Cousins,
steward of the Yankee Clipper
the kitchen crew of the Yankee Clipper
Lionel Beane
Willard Chandler
Sandy Thorne

Malcolm Jarvis, a friend of Malcolm Littles, from Roxbury
Laura, another friend from Roxbury

Jakey Mendelssohn, owner of a small department store in Harlem
Sadie Mendelssohn, his mother
Lazar Mendelssohn, his cousin, and a refugee from Europe

Harlem waits.

Patched and tarred. Hawked and bitten in the winter, smothered and melted in the heat.

Harlem waits...

Under its broad skies, pincered between two rivers. Within sight of salvation, the citys lights, the jeweled bridges. Battered and besieged, on its knees but unbowed. With blood in its mouth

Harlem waits,
and listens for its savior.

MALCOLM

He thought about the rabbits sometimes, lying awake at night in the little room in Ellas house, under the eaves.

It had been back in West Lansing, when he was twelve years old, just after his mother had taken ill and they had all been split up. A Sunday afternoon in the late fall, nearly winter. The smell of something burning off in the distance. The men and boys walking through the yellowed grass, holding the straining dogs tight on their leashes. Malcolm was walking with Mr. Gohannas and Big Boy, dangling the .22 off his hip, trying to whip it all about like hed seen the gunfighters do in the Western serials. He held it to his eye and aimed it here, there, even at the backs of the men around him, until one of them turned and caught him.

You watch that gun, boy, he scolded. Dont you be pointing it at nobody!

Malcolm had dropped his head down, holding the gun steadier, glancing up furtively now at the other men to see if they had noticed his shame. All of them darker than he was, their skin the color of burnt coffee or railroad coal, faces lined and creased like worn car seats. Wearing their field overalls and work boots, redolent with the scent of mens sweat and dirt. Some of them with their boys next to themwearing their handed-down overalls; faces exactly the same only smoother, as if all the creases had been ironed out. Their ragged hair knotted up in burrs and tangles, like the farmers they were and would always be.

Get ready now, Mr. Gohannas told them, his voice urgent though still kindly.

Right bout here

The men stopped at the edge of an open field. At its far end Malcolm could make out a tangled clump of bent scrub trees, and thorn bushes. The men looked at each other, a few of them nodding solemnly, then they let the dogs go and began to fan out, kneeling in the high grass.

Here they come now!

The loosed dogs had run straight toward the thicket, baying and scuffling their way in past the lowered tree branches. There was silence for a few, long momentsthen the renewed sound of pounding feet, as the first rabbits flew out from the bushes. Lean, gray, winter hares, leaping ahead with their eyes wide and their long ears back, the dogs scrambling after them.

Easy now, the man nearest to Malcolm whispered tenderly to his son, a boy younger than Malcolm was, toting a shotgun.

Let them come back

Leaving the hounds still immersed in the brambles, the hares made a wide, panicked bolt around the perimeter of the field. Running so fast and hard that Malcolm thought they must surely escapethe only sound their powerful, widened winter feet thumping softly over the grass. He could not understand why the men hadnt fired, all these old, slow, black men still staring out from the bushes, and he rose as if to run after the rabbits. But then he felt Mr. Gohannass hand on his arm, pulling him back downand sure enough, the hares turned and headed back, toward their hidey-holes in the thicket.

Now! the man next to him exclaimed, and his boy fired the crude old shotgun. The blast knocked him flat on his back but the bird-shot picked off one of the galloping hares in midair, flipping his thin gray rabbit body head over heels, leaving him to twitch and heave on the ground.

The rest of the men and boys fired at nearly the same time a fusillade from all their battered, ancient guns that stunned and nearly deafened Malcolm. He shut his eyes, and lowered his head against the noise. When he looked up again he could see five or six more hares on the ground. The younger boys already running out to claim theirs, picking them up by their long ears and smashing their heads with lengths of lead pipe if they were still moving, an act that made Malcolm look away, and his stomach turn over.

Here now, Mr. Gohannas told him, placing a gentle hand on his chest and turning him around.

The dogs were already flushing the thicket again, and a few minutes later out came more hares. Running slower and a little raggedly this time, if just as frightened. For all of their fear they ran in the exact same direction, around the edge of the field. Making the same long loop back to their homes, the men firing and yelling exultantly as they turned.

Malcolm fired wildly himself, his shot rustling the branches in some nearby trees, the men nearest to him snorting in surprise and indignation

Where you shootin, boy?

but he had an idea now. The dogs went in to flush the hares a third timeboth dogs and hares moving noticeably slower now and after he reloaded Malcolm scrambled out of the blind before Mr. Gohannas could stop him, Big Boy calling plaintively after him.

Hey, where you goin, Malcolm?

He was already running up along the border of the field, his cracked, patent leather city shoes slipping along the dead winter grass. He ran to a spot that was halfway along the hares trajectory, as best he could figure it, just before the point where they were bound to turn and head back to their thicket. He heard the alarmed shouts of the men behind him, but he ignored them. Kneeling and aiming carefully this time, taking down one hare, then another, before they ever got back within range of the rest of the hunters. The exhausted creatures always flipping over the same way, their long back feet catapulting them over in one final, cinematic somersault.

When the shooting stopped it was Malcolm who ran out after them this time, plucking his hares up by their big ears. Ignoring the continuing, angry shouts of the older, blacker mensmiling to himself, to think how he had been able to figure it out when the rest of them had not. They broke cover and ran up to him, Mr. Gohannas among them, his wide, brown face looking uncomfortable behind his spectacles.

Thas not right!