To the Family of 121b

A chronicle following a family during the Harlem Renaissance. Updated weekly. 

Chapter 2: Lilacs for Lila 

While his sister pictures shiny possibilities under neon lights, the young man of 121B has been sauntering down the other side of the street, money in tanned palm and loafers on tapping feet. He whistles his way past the butcher’s, past the Jones’s crumbling bungalow, and finally reaches the corner store. Inside, he gives the young man on duty a curt nod, receiving a wide blue-eyed gaze in return. Newbies, he rolls his eyes. He’d once worked here, as an assistant back when the LaBerres had actually kept the shop themselves.

 “It’s a family institution, this place, one of the last of its kind. And a family institution it’ll stay!” he could hear Mr LaBerre, the aging patriarch, booming in his gravelly voice, ringing the bell for one of the assistants to come by with his tea. LaBerre had had two sons one of whom had immigrated to Chicago to find work. Something to do with telephones; he’d trained to be. Goodness knows he’d made money, though. Joined the mob up there, his mother had always predicted darkly. Maybe he had- but the bottom line is, when old Mr LaBerre passed from kidney disease, his eldest and Chicago-living son sold the store and gave his younger brother a job in the Windy City, too. A job in the company he owned, it seemed. Again, 121B’s matriarch had shaken her head. Al Capone’s company, more like, had been her only response when he’d informed her of the entire LaBerre family moving. They’d given him and all the other assistants recompense: a handsome sum of six dollars, and the opportunity to keep working for the new owners. His mother had sternly declined that offer: no son of hers would work for strangers, thank you very much. That too, strangers from all the way uptown! She’d shuddered at the very proposition.  Stay home for all I care, she’d huffed, and wait till you turn 20 so you can join your father. But you’re not working there, for those…people.

So it was with great pompousness and an air of disdain that any family member, or even any neighbourhood resident, came to LaBerre’s anymore. Thank the Lord that the new people kept the name and the sign intact, the young man chuckles in his head, or there would’ve been riots. He places his order with an appropriately wrinkled nose, and the bewildered young fellow at the counter scuttles to find the stamps, blonde fringe falling across his sweaty forehead. Finally placing a handful of stamps on the glass counter between them, he stares up at his customer, who very carefully and after much deliberation, chooses three of them. The customer then proceeds to ask how much they were for, and sniffs at the price before handing over a few cents. He has a fairly large sum left over, and the assistant awaits his next request. I’ll spend what’s left on a gift to give Lila tonight, and I ain’t finding that here, the customer smirks, ordering for a bag to carry the inch-sized sheets of paper. The ever-helpful blonde behind the counter hands him a paper bag for them, even packing them in with shaky fingers and knitted eyebrows. The young man of 121B considers berating the poor boy for crumpling his stamps, but decides against it. He has places to be, gifts to buy and girlfriends to meet, after all.

His sister has also taken her decision. Tonight, she will sneak out to Delaro’s- she knows exactly where it is, having wistfully gazed at the ‘cool’ crowd in their feathers and bow ties duck under the neon sign quite often.  Who says it’s only for the ‘cool’ kids? She tosses her hair in a sudden, foreign, burst of confidence and struts back to her own door. She looks at the shimmering metal 121B, so bright in the sun that it almost hurts her eyes, and back down at the ticket.  It has a pretty girl, with her short and presumably straightened charcoal hair falling dramatically down the sides of her face, a red-feathered hat on her head and heels that seem as tall as the buildings over on Manhattan island. She wears a glittery dress, so sequinned that it seems like all the stars of the night sky had somehow fallen to earth as glimmering red-plastic circles and been stuck on the silk that is draped across this picture-girl’s body. The dress is indeed short- short enough that, had her mother seen anyone in it, she would have gasped and averted her eyes before lecturing her daughter on ‘scandalous clothes’.

Does everyone dress like this for jazz night? A sudden shadow of doubt falls across the girl’s mind. I have nothing like this to wear. My best dress is twice as long and nowhere near as glittery. Perhaps a trip to Millie’s Boutique is in order.

Her best dress is a below the knee, ‘sensible’ (in her mother’s words) ‘old-lady’ (in her brother’s opinion) pinstriped green dress. It has a turtleneck that her father had deemed ‘gorgeous’ upon purchase, but she suspects that was because it had been her mother’s choice, and her mother had been standing right there with her infamously stern glare on full force at the time. Millie’s Boutique over on Lenox Avenue- where Josie Canard, the most popular girl in Machesney High School, shopped- did stock pieces of clothing similar to the one on the glossy ticket. I’ll go shopping tomorrow, the girl decides. When will I ever get another chance to see the high life like this? Maybe I’ll even meet Josie and her crowd, and once they see I’ve been invited to Delaro’s they might even talk to me properly, or even…

Her mind wanders off into perfect scenarios, taking place under the disco lights inside Delaro’s, which would forever change her place on the social ladder. Snapping out of her daydream to knock on the door, she realizes it’s open and walks across the newly- waxed linoleum to the kitchen- only to see a her father clenching his jaw and nursing his left hand, while her mother, turned pointedly to the stove, clutches a spatula. The daughter doesn’t even want to think about what happened here, and trudges back to her room.

To the Family of 121B

A chronicle following a family during the Harlem Renaissance. Updated weekly.

Chapter 1: Guess What's Coming to Dinner?

The sun sets over the rickety roofs of Harlem, streaks of orange and pink across the sky as though a painter had haphazardly run his brush along it. People whistle as they jog down the cobbled pavements, work caps being pulled off rumpled heads as men make their ways home. In nondescript building after nondescript building, women push meatloaves and pies in and out of ovens. Children squeal in their runs up and down the gravel roads. All is as it should be, and in 128^th Street’s redbrick building, in ground floor apartment 121B, it seems like a normal evening.

If you stood on the peeling mint-green wood of the porch and looked in through the floral-curtained window, you would only see a family settling down to dinner. Not an unusual sight anywhere in the world: four people sitting around their oaken dining table. The father sits at the head of the table, as is customary, and the mother; pulling an apple pie out of the rusty oven, laughs at something her daughter says. The son is helping himself to hearty servings of mashed potatoes, and now the husband is digging into the chicken placed before him with a ferocity that is attributed to men on battlefields.  Piling her hair up onto her head and shrugging off her calico apron, the mother finally takes her seat at the table. Dinner conversation is casual, uneventful. Slowly, members of the family excuse themselves- the son goes off to write ‘meaningful’ poems for his girl, the daughter runs to her room and pulls out her sheets of music. The mother produces a stack of mail that they should sort through, but her husband tells her they’ll handle it tomorrow, because it’s Thursday and all such boring things are done on Thursdays- or so he insists. They head upstairs, arm-in-arm, and all seems right with the world. Across the street, a woman pulls her shawl up over her greying curls. She shuts the curtains of her own dusty window, wrinkly caramel hands shaking, just after the lights in 121B flicker off. She smiles contentedly before her eyes begin drooping shut, her teak chair still rocking in the dark.

The next day, as the ships begin to toot their horns in the harbour across the river, and orange begins to swallow up the darkness above them, the residents of 121B awaken. Not all of them, of course- the son lies in his room, snoring into his magenta bedspread. The girl is awake: she puts on her makeup, careful not to make it obvious enough for her parents to catch on, and rummages through her wardrobe.  What should I wear to school today?  She thinks.

Back in the dining room, her father is rubbing his bleary eyes vigorously, earning himself a tut-tut from his wife as he struggles to comprehend what is being said in the pile of letters before him. Placing a ceramic plate of steaming bacon on the table, the woman wipes her hands on her apron and takes a seat next to him. Opening, reading and sorting envelopes, she works at a mechanical pace- and her husband chews on his bacon thoughtfully as he watches her. Their son comes out of his bedroom, quietly closing the door and placing a tiny lock on the door. The mother seems to have a problem with this, asking him what secrets he keeps that entail locking the door to his bedroom. What’s in there that the rest of your family can’t see? Is her stern question.

The son rolls his eyes and turns the key pointedly. His mother takes a deep breath, ready to let out another torrent of words, when she hears a gasp next to her. The husband is staring at one of the letters, eyes wider than she’d thought they could even be. She asks him what the matter is, and even the son is curious enough to stop his tantrum and find out. Just as the man of the house opens his mouth, a door slams elsewhere in the house. The daughter saunters into the living room, hair done and dress smoothed out, evidently and understandably unaware of the mounting tension in the room. 

Their father continues speaking, detailing the offer he’s received in the letter before him. Their mother is unable to hide her surprise despite expressing a sudden interest in cleaning the stove. The daughter’s eyebrows go higher and higher up her forehead as she, undoing the style she’d spent thirty minutes on, scrapes her hair into a comfortable ponytail. The son just stands agape, his early-morning brain trying to take in this information, trying to grasp what this entails. His mother is apparently trying to scrub the stove into nonexistence, while his sister resumes her indifferent attitude and grabs a plate from the shelf. The husband meets his wife’s eyes and immediately asks his son to get him some stamps.

At this time in the morning? His son yawns. Yes, the father replies, handing him three quarters and telling him to get whatever he wants with the change. The son laughs and says he can take a hint, stomping out the door without a second word. The mother turns to the daughter, handing her a casserole, and telling her to take it to the neighbours. The daughter dazedly pulls on her slippers and follows her brother, waving goodbye to her parents as she steps out into the sunlight.

The sun sets over the rickety roofs of Harlem, streaks of orange and pink across the sky as though a painter had haphazardly run his brush along it. People whistle as they jog down the cobbled pavements, work caps being pulled off rumpled heads as men make their ways home. In nondescript building after nondescript building, women push meatloaves and pies in and out of ovens. Children squeal in their runs up and down the gravel roads. All is as it should be, and in 128^th Street’s redbrick building, in ground floor apartment 121B, it seems like a normal evening.

If you stood on the peeling mint-green wood of the porch and looked in through the floral-curtained window, you would only see a family settling down to dinner. Not an unusual sight anywhere in the world: four people sitting around their oaken dining table. The father sits at the head of the table, as is customary, and the mother; pulling an apple pie out of the rusty oven, laughs at something her daughter says. The son is helping himself to hearty servings of mashed potatoes, and now the husband is digging into the chicken placed before him with a ferocity that is attributed to men on battlefields.  Piling her hair up onto her head and shrugging off her calico apron, the mother finally takes her seat at the table. Dinner conversation is casual, uneventful. Slowly, members of the family excuse themselves- the son goes off to write ‘meaningful’ poems for his girl, the daughter runs to her room and pulls out her sheets of music. The mother produces a stack of mail that they should sort through, but her husband tells her they’ll handle it tomorrow, because it’s Thursday and all such boring things are done on Thursdays- or so he insists. They head upstairs, arm-in-arm, and all seems right with the world. Across the street, a woman pulls her shawl up over her greying curls. She shuts the curtains of her own dusty window, wrinkly caramel hands shaking, just after the lights in 121B flicker off. She smiles contentedly before her eyes begin drooping shut, her teak chair still rocking in the dark.

The next day, as the ships begin to toot their horns in the harbour across the river, and orange begins to swallow up the darkness above them, the residents of 121B awaken. Not all of them, of course- the son lies in his room, snoring into his magenta bedspread. The girl is awake: she puts on her makeup, careful not to make it obvious enough for her parents to catch on, and rummages through her wardrobe.  What should I wear to school today?  She thinks.

Back in the dining room, her father is rubbing his bleary eyes vigorously, earning himself a tut-tut from his wife as he struggles to comprehend what is being said in the pile of letters before him. Placing a ceramic plate of steaming bacon on the table, the woman wipes her hands on her apron and takes a seat next to him. Opening, reading and sorting envelopes, she works at a mechanical pace- and her husband chews on his bacon thoughtfully as he watches her. Their son comes out of his bedroom, quietly closing the door and placing a tiny lock on the door. The mother seems to have a problem with this, asking him what secrets he keeps that entail locking the door to his bedroom. What’s in there that the rest of your family can’t see? Is her stern question.

 The son rolls his eyes and turns the key pointedly. His mother takes a deep breath, ready to let out another torrent of words, when she hears a gasp next to her. The husband is staring at one of the letters, eyes wider than she’d thought they could even be. She asks him what the matter is, and even the son is curious enough to stop his tantrum and find out. Just as the man of the house opens his mouth, a door slams elsewhere in the house. The daughter saunters into the living room, hair done and dress smoothed out, evidently and understandably unaware of the mounting tension in the room. She wonders what’s for breakfast, and is told to shut up by her brother.

Their father continues speaking, detailing the offer he’s received in the letter before him. Their mother is unable to hide her surprise despite expressing a sudden interest in cleaning the stove. The daughter’s eyebrows go higher and higher up her forehead as she, undoing the style she’d spent thirty minutes on, scrapes her hair into a comfortable ponytail. The son just stands agape, his early-morning brain trying to take in this information, trying to grasp what this entails. His mother is apparently trying to scrub the stove into nonexistence, while his sister resumes her indifferent attitude and grabs a plate from the shelf. The husband meets his wife’s eyes and immediately asks his son to get him some stamps.

At this time in the morning? His son yawns. Yes, the father replies, handing him three quarters and telling him to get whatever he wants with the change. The son laughs and says he can take a hint, stomping out the door without a second word. The mother turns to the daughter, handing her a casserole, and telling her to take it to the neighbours. The daughter dazedly pulls on her slippers and follows her brother, waving goodbye to her parents as she steps out into the sunlight.

She strolls onto the street, shoe soles slapping the warm pavement. She smiles at the street vendor, selling his trinkets with aplomb, hat pulled low over his dark eyes. She waves at the woman who lives opposite, receiving a faint shake of a wrinkly hand in return; and finally knocks on the red-orange wood of the neighbours’ front door. The brass knocker shines in the sun, and the girl shakes out her hair, all practicality forgotten- she must look presentable. The woman opening the door takes the casserole from her and thanks her profusely. This woman’s husband lost his job yesterday, and the apparently all-knowing woman of the house next door had thus sent her a token of support. Times are hard; the woman mumbles in gratitude, and I thank the Lord for people like your mother.

Overcome with emotion, she grasps the girl’s hand in her own worn ones. She blesses her, her mother, her brother, her entire family and insists that God will be good to them. She takes a bracelet off her own wrist, insisting on ‘repayment’. The girl insists that she requires no recompense, and that her mother would be quite unhappy if the girl took back anything other her neighbour’s happiness. The woman seems to understand, and sadly waves goodbye. Just as the girl turns off the step, the door creaks open again, peeling flakes of wood blowing off it in the morning wind. The woman hands her a piece of paper.

For a young girl like you, she smiles shyly. I was going to go, but as you can see…you should take it. Have a good time, all right? She impulsively hugs the girl, enveloping her in paisley-print cotton and sweaty skin, before stepping back in and shutting her door. The girl turns away and jogs quickly down the front steps, as if scared the door will open again. She studies the sheet, which upon closer inspection seems to be a ticket of some sort. FREE ENTRY INTO DELARO’S JAZZ NIGHT it reads. ONE DRINK AND AS MANY SONGS AS YOU PLEASE. AMATEUR NIGHT ON FRIDAYS- COME BELT OUT YOUR TUNES! The girl almost laughs.

 As if she would go to one of these…’jazz bars’. The cooler crowd from her school went to these, and ‘invitees-only’ attended the best of these shows. She had apparently been handed such an invitation- one that could immensely improve her social life. Should she take the chance? Her mother frowned upon such frivolity, claiming these places were just ‘money-sucking pits’ that made you pay exorbitantly for mediocre acts.  She wondered if her mother spoke from experience because of how vehemently she condemned these places. But it’s free, she thinks, so what could be wrong in it? It can’t ‘suck my money away’ if it doesn’t cost anything, can it? I hear these things are the berries!* The girl has sort-of made up her mind now. She takes a deep breath, catching the eye of the woman across the road and smiling politely- what would her neighbours think if they saw her dressed like this, headed to a place like this? The girl makes up her mind, and tucks the flyer into her pocket.