Though An Army - Final Chapter

Harlem, NY 1922 

 

“Rector!” welcomed Nessa as the apartment door opened. She sounded as enthusiastic as if she hadn’t seen him in a month. 

“How do you know it’s me?” laughed Rector Beauchamp. “Anybody could come walking in through this unlocked door.” 

 “Were you able to get a day at P.S. 119?” Nessa asked. The school was diagonally across from their apartment on 134th Street and a sometime source of employment. But as she came out of the kitchen and saw him in his work clothes, she knew the answer. 

“Miss Larson said she didn’t need a substitute teacher today,” he explained. “I changed real quick, hurried downtown with Jim Rosco, and was able to get a day loading the S.S. Lafayette on Pier 51.” Rosco was a boarder with their upstairs neighbors, Tony and Ella Stevens. He worked as a longshoreman on the West Side, mostly handling passenger luggage for the French Line. 

“When do you think you’ll be able to get a regular teaching job?” wondered Nessa. 

“My best guess?” asked Rector. “Never.” He had been thinking about this for the better part of a year now, since not long after their arrival in New York City. “I don’t think they want to hire any regular teachers at all, not to mention Negroes. They hang on to those Class 1 licenses like it’s their grandma’s engagement ring. They save so much money by hiring subs, it’s no wonder they won’t give out a regular license.” 

“Sadie got a job over there,” objected Nessa. 

“The cake lady? She taught for five years in North Carolina before she got here, and they still wouldn’t hire her until she got a master’s degree from Columbia. And hired a locution teacher so she could learn to talk like a white woman. And why do you think she sells all those cakes? She got that Class 1 license and she still can’t live on what they pay her.” 

“It sounds to me like you’re giving up,” said Nessa. “Did you even go over there this morning?” 

“Yes, I did, baby.” He paused because he didn’t like her challenging his word this way. He took a deep breath and then went on, “Yes, I did. But I am really thinking about signing on regular on the ships.”

Nessa understood his pause; appreciated his restraint. She waited a moment before going on. “Baby, you have a college diploma.” 

“Yes, I do,” Rector answered. “But not one that they recognize here in New York. Leastways not when it’s held by a Negro.” 

This was something that Nessa understood very well. She had been going downtown with Ella Stevens everyday to clean rich white ladies’ homes and she didn’t like it. Maybe these South Carolina Negroes were used to taking care of white folks, but she was from Boley, Oklahoma and she was a high school graduate. For her it was like anthropological fieldwork, not a career. And she had something to say on this same subject that she hadn’t told Rector about yet. “I went to register at Hunter College today,” she began. 

“That is great news!” smiled Rector. “How did that go?” 

“Not well,” admitted Nessa. “They don’t recognize my diploma.” 

“Don’t recognize it?” He began shaking his head. New York. “Any options?” 

“Actually, the lady there took some time asking about Boley High and the courses I took there. She listed the exact credits I still need to get a New York diploma. And she told me who to speak to at Wadleigh High School if I want to take them now.” 

Rector was thunderstruck. “With a bunch of young girls?” he asked. “You’re a grown woman.” 

“Yes, I am,” said Nessa. “But that is not what’s making me hesitate.” She smiled. 

Rector shook his head again, this time in puzzlement. He shrugged and made a face as if to ask, “What?” 

Nessa smiled a little more broadly. “I’m three weeks late,” she said. 

The puzzled look stayed for another second or two. Then understanding dawned across his face, his jaw dropped, his eyes opened wide, and he rushed to take his wife in his arms. “Baby,” he laughed. “That is the best news! You had to wait all this time to tell me that?” 

“We won’t know for awhile. I could just be late. But I couldn’t wait any longer. I just had to let you know.” 

Rector just said, “That is the best news!” And then, again, “That is the best news!” He hugged her and hugged her. 

Nessa finally pushed herself back a few inches from his tight embrace. “Baby, I have to ask. If it’s a boy, can we name him Ezekiel?” 

He pulled her close again. “Why would you even need to ask?” said Rector Beauchamp. “Of course we willl. Of course our son will be Ezekiel.” Nessa blinked back her tears. “Ezekiel Owalv,” she said, adding the Creek and Seminole word for “prophet.” “Because our children can never forget that they’re native, too.” 

Somewhere nearby a neighbor cranked up a Victrola. The trumpet and trombone notes of the opening bars were unmistakable, “There’ll Be Some Changes Made.” It was the most popular recording in Harlem that year. Already embracing, Nessa and Rector began to dance along. But the juxtaposition of sad and happy news gave the song a different meaning. Rector would give up teaching, Nessa college; but there would be a new baby. Nessa’s Daddy was gone, but perhaps she would have a son. The world as it was had taken so much from them, but there was still promise of a world to be. They were still living. They were still standing. They could still continue the struggle. 

So Nessa began to sing along with Ethel Waters. And now the song had stopped being a story about a disappointed lover. Today it had turned into a story about entire peoples and about that promise, the promise of a world to be: “There’s a change in the weather, a change in the sea From now on there’ll be a change in me My walk will be different, my talk and my name Nothing about me’s going to be the same.” 

When the record ended, Nessa wanted to say something more about Ezekiel, her Daddy. But the elevated train was going up Eighth Avenue, just down the block, and it drowned out all conversation with its loud clatter. Today, though, even the rattle of the IRT had taken on a new meaning: He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live again?” And I said, “Lord God, only You know.” There was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. So the Lord God said to the bones, “Here! I bring breath into you and you will live! The breath entered them and they came to life, a vast multitude. 

And so it was.