Steve Cash - Time Dancers

Winding through the Deep South, our train passed through parts of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Life in the rural areas seemed much the same as it always had, but when we slowed down, weaving our way through cities and towns, the effects of the Great Depression could be seen in each one. Whole blocks of buildings and businesses were closed, boarded up, and abandoned. In every city of any size, I witnessed men, women, and families on the move with little to eat and nowhere to go. Jack said, “Believe it or not, Z, things are better now than they were a few years ago.” As we crossed the Mississippi River and entered St. Louis, I saw the same effects. Still, it was midday June 1, the sun was shining, the city was bustling with more traffic than ever, and it felt good to be there. I turned to Opari. Before I could say a word, she whispered, “Welcome home, my love.”

Outside Union Station, Jack hailed a taxi and we loaded what little luggage we had into the trunk. Jack sat in front with the driver, while the driver watched the six of us in his rearview mirror, piling into the back, including a blind Mowsel in a beret, who grinned wide when he felt the man staring at him. He tilted his head in the man’s direction and removed his beret. “I smell the scent of the great river,” Mowsel said, “but tell me, sir, how is the baseball team faring, the one named for the Cardinal? I have heard much about them.” The driver continued to stare at Mowsel in silence for several moments, then turned to Jack. “Where to, mister? And is that kid for real?” Jack gave the driver Carolina’s address, then looked straight ahead and smiled. “You’ll have to ask him,” he said, “but as far as I can tell, they’re all for real.”

It was a tight squeeze for us on the ride to Carolina’s house, even with Opari sitting on my lap. I sat on the far right side and Mowsel sat on the far left with Geaxi to his right. Whispering in his ear, Geaxi described for Mowsel the people, automobiles, buildings, churches, trees and parks, anything and everything we passed, while he leaned his head out the open window to catch the changing scents and sounds along the way. Mowsel wanted to remember it, but more as a guide and internal map than an aesthetic experience. Ray sat in the middle and Nova sat pinched in next to me. At the intersection of Olive and Grand, I felt something prodding my right side and lower back. I asked Opari if she could reach down behind me and find what was causing it. She did and pulled out an old Post-Dispatch newspaper, rolled up and wedged between the seat and door. Opari unrolled it and read the date—May 7, 1937. The front page was covered with an enlarged photograph of the German zeppelin, Hindenburg, burning in the sky over Lakehurst, New Jersey, on the previous night. We had heard of the event in Cuba, but none of us had yet seen a photograph of it. In the photograph, underneath a massive ball of fire exploding above them, people could be seen running for their lives. None of us spoke. The photograph itself defined the horror of the tragedy. Opari began to roll the newspaper back the way it was, but Nova reached out and grabbed the newspaper and kept staring at the image and the photograph. She didn’t say a word or make a move. She didn’t even blink. She was frozen. Finally, Ray glanced at me, then ripped the newspaper from Nova’s hands and threw it out the window, which prompted the driver to yell something back at Ray. Ray ignored him and gently lowered Nova’s eyelids with his fingertips, then held his hand in place over her eyes. Gently, he pressed her head down on his shoulder and she relaxed, falling asleep the rest of the way.

“She has done this before, no?” Opari asked Ray.

Ray looked up at Opari and nodded, then whispered, “More than once.”

“Is she also having visions again?”

“No…not visions.”

“What then?” Opari whispered.

Ray turned his head as far to the right as he could and looked at me. “Dreams,” he said.

Carolina’s neighborhood was in full bloom. Overhanging trees and thick green hedges made her house barely visible until we turned into the long driveway. The driver let us out under the stone arch and Jack unlocked the big house first, then the carriage house above the garage and swung the louvered windows out wide. He told Ray to let Nova rest in Carolina’s room overlooking the “Honeycircle.” Jack said a soft breeze filled with the scent of honeysuckle might be just what she could use.

Geaxi, Opari, and I opened all the windows of the big house, letting the fresh air circulate. Jack had closed everything tight when he left for Cuba, nearly two months earlier. As I walked from room to room the hot, slightly musty air made the house seem old for the first time. In Caine’s room, I paused, then remembered something. I looked in his closet. I was fairly certain it would be there. I reached up and pulled down the shoe box where I knew he kept it, along with neat’s-foot oil and a clean cotton cloth. I took the lid off the shoe box and picked it up. It was small, made for a child, and old, a relic by modern standards, but the stitching still held and the leather was soft. I put one hand inside and pounded the pocket with the other. It was Mama’s glove and it fit me perfectly. I rubbed the pocket slowly with my fingers and thought about Mama. I could see her cutting and stitching the leather. She’d laughed at my first dream, which was baseball, but she’d also created with her own hands and imagination the means to pursue it. Mama gave me her glove and Papa gave me his baseball and they both gave me what was inside—the Stone of Dreams. Unconsciously, I reached down and felt for the ancient egg-shaped black rock. I took it out and held it in my palm, staring at it, wondering what it truly was, what it truly meant.

“Z…where are you?” It was Opari and she was standing in the doorway, but she didn’t see me in the closet. I walked out, holding the Stone and still wearing Mama’s glove. She glanced down at my hands. “Zianno, what are you doing?”

I paused, then slid the Stone back in my pocket, placed the glove back in the shoe box, and put the shoe box back on the shelf. I turned and walked over to Opari and took her hands in mine. I held them up to my lips and kissed her palms. I looked in her eyes and they were black as coal, just like Mama’s. “I suppose I was dreaming,” I said.

Opari smiled and kissed the back of my hands. “Then I must wake you,” she said, leading me toward the door. “Come, my love. Jack is about to open Carolina’s safe.”

We hurried downstairs and through the alcove leading to the little room Carolina called Georgia’s room. It was her sanctuary in the big house and always had been. Books filled the oak shelves and Georgia’s piano still sat in its place against the wall. Carolina’s beautiful cherrywood desk and Tiffany lamp rested in front of the only window in the room. Her desktop was crowded with photographs of Jack, Star and Caine, Owen Bramley in various parts of the world, and one picture each of Nicholas and Solomon. As we entered, Jack was opening the window for fresh air. Mowsel sat on Georgia’s piano bench, staring somewhere beyond the little room, and Geaxi sat next to him.

“Where’s Ray?” I asked.

“He stays with Nova,” Geaxi answered.

Just then, Ray burst through the door. “You ain’t opened it yet, have you? I love to open safes. You never know what you might find.”

I looked at him. “How’s Nova?”

“Asleep,” he said. “She’ll be fine in a while.”

I glanced at Opari and her expression said differently. She was concerned for Nova.

Ray walked over and ran his fingers along the edge of Carolina’s desk, admiring the grain and color of the wood. He sat down on the corner of the desk. “Where’s she hide it, Jack? No, don’t tell me. Don’t even move. Let me look around first and I’ll tell you where it is.”