Toni Morrison - Song of Solomon

Milkman followed in her tracks.

Chapter 11

The women’s hands were empty. No pocketbook, no change purse, no wallet, no keys, no small paper bag, no comb, no handkerchief. They carried nothing. Milkman had never in his life seen a woman on the street without a purse slung over her shoulder, pressed under her arm, or dangling from her clenched fingers. These women walked as if they were going somewhere, but they carried nothing in their hands. It was enough to let him know he was really in the backwoods of Virginia, an area the signs kept telling him was the Blue Ridge Mountains. Danville, with its diner/bus station and its post office on the main street was a thriving metropolis compared to this no-name hamlet, a place so small nothing financed by state funds or private enterprise reared a brick there. In Roanoke, Petersburg, Culpeper he’d asked for a town named Charlemagne. Nobody knew. The coast, some said. Tidewater. A valley town, said others. He ended up at an AAA office, and after a while they discovered it and its correct name: Shalimar. How do I get there? Well, you can’t walk it, that’s for sure. Buses go there? Trains? No. Well, not very near. There is one bus, but it just goes to…He ended up buying a fifty-dollar car for seventy-five dollars out of a young man’s yard. It broke down before he could get to the gas station and fill the tank. And when he got pushed to the station, he spent $132 on a fan belt, brake lining, oil filter, gas line filter, two retreads, and a brand-new oil pan, which he didn’t need but bought before the mechanic told him the gasket was broken. It was a hard and bitter price to pay. Not because it wasn’t worth it, and not because it had to be in cash since the garage owner looked at his Standard Oil credit card like it was a three-dollar bill, but because he had got used to prices in the South: socks two pairs for a quarter, resoled shoes thirty cents, shirt $1.98, and the two Tommys needed to know that he got a shave and a haircut for fifty cents.

By the time he bought the car, his morale had soared and he was beginning to enjoy the trip: his ability to get information and help from strangers, their attraction to him, their generosity (Need a place to stay? Want a good place to eat?). All that business about southern hospitality was for real. He wondered why black people ever left the South. Where he went, there wasn’t a white face around, and the Negroes were as pleasant, wide-spirited, and self-contained as could be. He earned the rewards he got here. None of the pleasantness was directed at him because of his father, as it was back home, or his grandfather’s memory, as it was in Danville. And now, sitting behind a steering wheel, he felt even better. He was his own director—relieving himself when he wanted to, stopping for cold beer when he was thirsty, and even in a seventy-five-dollar car the sense of power was strong.

He’d had to pay close attention to signs and landmarks, because Shalimar was not on the Texaco map he had, and the AAA office couldn’t give a nonmember a charted course—just the map and some general information. Even at that, watching as carefully as he could, he wouldn’t have known he had arrived if the fan belt hadn’t broken again right in front of Solomon’s General Store, which turned out to be the heart and soul of Shalimar, Virginia.

He headed for the store, nodding at the four men sitting outside on the porch, and side-stepping the white hens that were strolling about. Three more men were inside, in addition to the man behind the counter, who he assumed was Mr. Solomon himself. Milkman asked him for a cold bottle of Red Cap, please.

“No beer for sale on Sunday,” the man said. He was a light-skinned Negro with red hair turning white.

“Oh. I forgot what day it was.” Milkman smiled. “Pop, then. I mean soda. Got any on ice?”

“Cherry smash. That suit you?”

“Fine. Suit me fine.”

The man walked over to the side of the store and slid open the door of an ancient cooler. The floor was worn and wavy with years of footsteps. Cans of goods on the shelf were sparse, but the sacks, trays, and cartons of perishables and semiperishables were plentiful. The man pulled a bottle of red liquid from the cooler and wiped it dry on his apron before handing it to Milkman.

“A nickel if you drink it here. Seven cents if you don’t.”

“I’ll drink it here.”

“Just get in?”

“Yeah. Car broke down. Is there a garage nearby?”

“Naw. Five miles yonder is one, though.”

“Five miles?”

“Yep. What’s the trouble? Mebbe one a us can fix it. Where you headed?”

“Shalimar.”

“You standin in it.”

“Right here? This is Shalimar?”

“Yes, suh. Shalimar.” The man pronounced it Shalleemone.

“Good thing I broke down. I would have missed it for sure.” Milkman laughed.

“Your friend almost missed it too.”

“My friend? What friend?”

“The one lookin for you. Drove in here early this mornin and axed for ya.”

“Asked for me by name?”

“No. He never mentioned your name.”

“Then how do you know he was looking for me?”

“Said he was lookin for his friend in a three-piece beige suit. Like that.” He pointed to Milkman’s chest.

“What’d he look like?”

“Dark-skinned man. ‘Bout your complexion. Tall. Thin. What’s a matter? Y’all get your wires crossed?”

“Yeah. No. I mean … what was his name?”

“Didn’t say. Just asked for you. He come a long way to meet you, though. I know that. Drove a Ford with Michigan tags.”

“Michigan? You sure Michigan?”

“Sure I’m sure. Was he supposed to meet you in Roanoke?”

When Milkman looked wild-eyed, the man said, “I seen your tags.”

Milkman sighed with relief. And then said, “I wasn’t sure where we were going to meet up. And he didn’t say his name?”

“Naw. Just said to give you some good-luck message if I was to see you. Lemme see…”

“Good luck?”

“Yeah. Said to tell you your day was sure coming or your day…something like that…your day is here. But I know it had a day in it. But I ain’t sure if he said it was comin or was already here.” He chuckled. “Wish mine was here. Been waitin fifty-seven years and it ain’t come yet.”

The other men in the store laughed congenially, while Milkman stood frozen, everything in him quiet but his heart. There was no mistaking the message. Or the messenger. Guitar was looking for him, was following him, and for professional reasons. Unless … Would Guitar joke about that phrase? That special secret word the Seven Days whispered to their victims?

“The drink abuse you?” Mr. Solomon was looking at him. “Sweet soda water don’t agree with me.”

Milkman shook his head and swallowed the rest hurriedly. “No,” he said. “I’m just…car weary. I think I’ll sit outside awhile.” He started toward the door.

“You want me to see ‘bout your car for you?” Mr. Solomon sounded slightly offended.

“In a minute. I’ll be right back.”

Milkman pushed the screen door and stepped outside on the porch. The sun was blazing. He took off his jacket and held it on his forefinger over his shoulder. He gazed up and down the dusty road. Shotgun houses with wide spaces between them, a few dogs, chickens, children, and the women with nothing in their hands. They sat on porches, and walked in the road swaying their hips under cotton dresses, bare-legged, their unstraightened hair braided or pulled straight back into a ball. He wanted one of them bad. To curl up in a cot in that one’s arms, or that one, or that. That’s the way Pilate must have looked as a girl, looked even now, but out of place in the big northern city she had come to. Wide sleepy eyes that tilted up at the corners, high cheekbones, full lips blacker than their skin, berry-stained, and long long necks. There must be a lot of intermarriage in this place, he thought. All the women looked alike, and except for some light-skinned red-headed men (like Mr. Solomon), the men looked very much like the women. Visitors to Shalimar must be rare, and new blood that settled here nonexistent.