Read Celeste's Harlem Renaissance for Free Online Page B

—”
    “Girl, you’re talking so low I can’t hear you,” he said. “Speak up! But don’t yell.” He pointed to the sleeping children.
    I repeated myself. What I wanted to ask was, “Why are you called Big Willie, being so skinny?”
    “Aunt Valentina’s a big Broadway star and a famous singer and dancer.” Maybe I was stretching her reputation a bit, but it sounded right to me!
    “This train’s probably burning coal my daddy dug. He’s a coal miner, see, the best around, and a union man. Him and his crew go way inside a mountain. He’s also been so far down in the ground he says he almost hears folks talk Chinese.” Big Willie grinned. “They call him Coal Dust Willie, ’cause everything he eats and breathes and wears is full of coal dust. We’re going to Richmond, Virginia, then West Virginia to meet up with him for the summer, then we’ll hike on back down here to Eagle Rock come fall.”
    “You mean he makes coal, like what they burn in stoves?” I liked his smile, too, showing that crooked front tooth. I liked that he was dressed neat, in a stylish brown knickerbocker knee-pants suit and stockings. A matching golf cap lay on a bag by him.
    “You can’t
make
coal.” Big Willie snorted. “You dig it out the mountain or the ground first. My daddy’s in the mines from can’t see in the morning to can’t see at night. He coughs a lot, and can spit it farther than anybody else.”
    He pointed to a black grape-sized bump on his dark brown chin. “See this big chunk a coal on my face? Daddy says that shows I was marked to be a miner, so I’m gonna work in the mines with him. What I really want to do is be a baseball player. I can fling a chunk of coal and hit a can off a fence twenty feet away, and I’m only fourteen. I can spit good, too. But I don’t cough.”
    I was trying to take in everything he said. I knew a lot about oil and kerosene, but not much about the coal-mining process. I did know that any kind of dust wasn’t good for the body, though. After all, I was going to be a doctor, and often read Mr. Hodges’s medical encyclopedia and other books. Big Willie’s father probably spit and coughed so much because of the coal dust in his lungs. “Baseball player sounds more like it, since you got those long arms,” I told him. “I bet you’re a good one.”
    He nodded slightly. “Better believe it! I’m gonna get on a team, too, after I’m through with the coal mines.” He stopped talking to push his brothers and sister around again. Poppa played second base with the Raleigh Colored Rangers on Saturday afternoons, until Momma got sick. I bet Big Willie would hate being in a dark, dirty coal mine when he’d rather be out in the sunny, fresh air throwing balls. I kept my mouth shut about that part.
    I was glad to talk with somebody my age — and a boy — for once. I liked bald-headed boys. Momma said you could see the shape of a man’s brain better when he was bald-headed. If his head was round at the top and then narrowed toward the neck, that meant he had a big brain and was smart. Like Big Willie’s head was. Him being so skinny — though at least he was tall — made me want to fix him a big meal and fatten him up.
    Celeste, you’re a mess,
I told myself, and laughed inside. Wouldn’t Aunt Society have a fit if she saw us and could read my thoughts! I smiled at him again and he smiled back. I closed my tear-swollen eyes, trying to imagine him pitching on Poppa’s team. Maybe the train ride to New York wouldn’t be so bad if everybody was as friendly as Big Willie was.
    Next thing I knew I was waking up to the train jerking to a crawl, then halting, and Mr. Smithfield yelling, “Richmond! Richmond, Virginia! Everybody for Richmond, get off here.” I struggled up straight from where I had been leaning against Mrs. Madison’s shoulder.
    “I didn’t sleep, watching these kids. But you were cuttin’
Z
s louder than the train whistle,” Big Willie said, and slapped