Octavia looked over at Memphis with a bit more kindness. “I expect you’re right, Mr. Johnson.”
“Bill, please.”
“Bill,” Octavia said, preening. “Go on, then, Memphis. Bill, let me get you some milk to go with that meat loaf.”
Octavia turned toward the kitchen but snapped back one last time, a finger pointed at Memphis like an arrow set to fly. “You better live at the foot of the cross and do right, Memphis John.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Memphis said. He didn’t feel like “Yes, ma’am”ing his aunt, but he recognized a reprieve when he heard one and knew it was the wise choice.
“Thank you, Mr. Johnson,” he said softly once Octavia had left the room.
Bill’s smile was a half-formed thing. “That’s all right, son. Old Bill is always happy to do a favor for a friend. After all, a man never knows when he might need to ask for a favor in return,” Bill answered, his smile finally unleashed.
“Memphis, where are you taking me?” Theta gasped as they traipsed through Fort Washington Park, dodging a sudden cascade of late-straggler leaves shaken down by the wind.
“Almost there, baby. I promise!”
They’d spent the evening dancing at the Hotsy Totsy, but Memphis had wanted to be alone, promising Theta that he’d take her straight to the top tonight. The booze had made them a little loose, and they laughed happily as they kicked at the piles of dead leaves, jogging tipsily past amused bystanders and grouchy old-timers clucking that that “wasn’t how you do.” Finally, they came to the very edge of the park, where it dead-ended at the stripe of gray that was the Hudson River and the small red lighthouse that sat perched at the tip of Manhattan.
“That?” Theta asked, her breath coming out in a chilly puff.
“Didn’t I say I’d take you straight to the top? Just so happens I know the password for that joint.”
When they reached the lighthouse door, Memphis drew a wrench from his pocket and hit at the lock till it fell open. He grinned. “Told ya I knew the password.”
He led Theta up the narrow iron steps, around and around, until they came out in the lighthouse’s lantern room. Theta gasped when she saw the water lapping at the bumpy shoreline of Manhattan, the distant, twinkling shore of New Jersey, and the dark river in between, aglow with the occasional sweep of the lighthouse’s far reach. It was just a lighthouse, but it felt like the top of the world.
“They say they’re gonna build a big bridge right here, going from Manhattan over to New Jersey,” Memphis said. “So we oughta enjoy the view while we can.”
Memphis stood behind Theta and wrapped his arms around her, resting his head beside hers. “Watch the light now,” he said, and they held their breath while the bright beam shone out a welcome into the world, guiding ships confidently up the river. It seemed for a moment as if the light were coming from the two of them, as if they’d already steered themselves to a safe place.
“A mighty river ribbons through the light / Sing hey to the nightingale, sweet song of night / Sing hey to the tower that shines so bright / Sing hey to the stars and she who mourns their light.”
“Gee, that’s pretty. Who wrote that?”
“I guess I did. I said light too many times, though.”
“I didn’t notice,” Theta said.
“I sent some of my poems to the Crisis today,” Memphis said, handing Theta his flask.
She took a sip, wincing as the alcohol burned her throat, then handed it back to Memphis. “What’s the Crisis?”
“Just the most important journal in Harlem. It’s edited by Mr. W.E.B. Du Bois himself. Lots of people have had their work published there—Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston.”
“Memphis Campbell,” Theta said, grinning.
“Maybe,” Memphis said wistfully. “May… be.”
“You found anything new on that crazy eye symbol?” Theta asked.
“Nothing yet. I swear, I’ve searched every book I can find about symbols and eyes. I don’t know where it comes from, but it’s got to have an origin. Everything comes from somewhere, and somewhere is everywhere. Everything is connected, my mama used to say,” Memphis quoted, imitating the gentle rise and fall of his mother’s musical Caribbean accent. “Gonna take you back to my homeland sometime, and then you’ll know. You’ll see the thread that stretches across the ocean.”
“Did she ever take you?” Theta asked.
Memphis stopped smiling. “Naw. But she used to tell Isaiah and me all sorts of tales about Haiti’s history and all kinds of African folklore, about our family and where we’d come from and how we got here. Origin stories. I tell you, my mother had a story for everything.”