Read One With Others: [A Little Book of Her Days] for Free Online Page B

Didn’t want anyone to know because she thought they’d say, That poor woman with all those children and now she’s got cancer. An invisible woman.
In Hell’s Kitchen, in her shaky hand, in soft pencil, next to the sill overlooking the scraggly barren pear in front of her building she wrote:
Cheops 2575 BC –2150 BC
Moses 13th c. BC –Homer 9th c. BC
Hesiod 8th c. BC –Herodotus 485–425 BC
Socrates 469–399 BC
V, if I may ask why did you write that on your wall.
It’s handy. It settles a lot of arguments, and with growing enthusiasm, That’s not the first thing I wrote on the wall though, the first thing I wrote is over here:
Unless a proposition is necessary it is meaningless with meaning approaching zero. —Burroughs
I still haven’t figured it out, she adds with obvious pleasure. Then I wrote:
Be still, the hanging gardens were a dream. —Trumbull Stickney
After she died the photographer and I visit the apartment. I find what she scribbled next to where her phone had hung:
WHAT
FRESH
HELL
IS
THIS
below which:
INTERPOSITION
AND
NULLIFICATION
And a sampling from her own hagiography, the names:
Elegua [the trickster, guardian of the crossroads, messenger to god, lover of children; his numbers are 3 and 21; his day is Monday and his colors are black and red; his offerings are candy, cigars, and rum, and those too you would find on her shelves]
Saint Anthony [to help her find things buried in the archaeology of her apartment]
Santa Barbara [to protect her from lightning]
Obatala [king of the white cloth—a benign deity by the measure and history of the world’s big-brand religions, minus some sacrificial chickens and an occasional goat—the essence of purity, justice, and clear thinking, but overly fond of palm wine; one with whom she might have identified]
Ben Turpin [the cross-eyed silent film comedian]
+ + +
When I check into THE PEABODY the Jingle Bell Ball is about to begin. The lobby is jammed with tweens in designer dresses.
Lansky Brothers has moved its store into the Peabody from its old storefront on Beale Street. Tailor to Elvis, the Man in Black, and the johns of Beale.
And there he is Mr. Lansky, walking the floor, incarnate, draped in his measuring tape. Proverbial spring in his step. Inept at retiring, even at aging.
Mr. Lansky, did you know Henry Loeb, the late and former mayor.
I knew Henry very well. Big ox of a man, 6'4". He wore those white bucks, says the tailor to Elvis, the tailor to Johnny Cash, the tailor to the mayor of Memphis on whose watch the country lost its King.
Some leaders grow small and some grow tall in perpetuity.
Moved to Big Tree after all that went on.
Old King Cotton. He was never the real king. There was only the one King.
GRADUATE FROM ALL-WHITE HIGH SCHOOL, First Year of Choice: When MLK died kids were laughing and talking about how they should have killed that [N-word] a long time ago.
Did you hear the one about the [N-word] that...
Do you know why the colored want to send their children to the white school.
So they can learn to read and riot.
Do you know what they sang at King’s funeral.
Bye-bye, blackbird.
Memphis has one up on Dallas.
They got a president. We got a king.
So they slew the dreamer, and ever since they’ve been trying to slay the dream.
GRADUATE OF ALL-WHITE HIGH SCHOOL, First Year of Choice: Tried to time my trips to the restroom. Pick the right time I’d be alone with the sink and the mirror. Pick wrong, the smoking girls leaned against the sink in front of the mirror, Something stinks in here, smells like a [N-word].
Henry did not seek reelection. A fourth-generation Memphian. Wealthy. Jewish. Episcopalian. Big ox of a man. Liked to wear white bucks. Moved to Big Tree of all places. Big spread up on the Ridge. Sold farm implements. Had plenty of money. Made more money. Moved to be among those of his own get.
It’s almost closing time at the CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM, Lorraine Motel. I walk down to Mulberry, past big vacant blocks. I move quickly