FICTION

By Maria Gregorio         

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The first time I went to the Rennie, I was wearing the shoes Daddy bought me for my birthday. Navy blue patent leather from the shoemaker on the same block we lived on, off 125^th Street and Seventh Avenue. They were my first heels so I was nervous, making sure my posture was right like he always kept telling me. Mrs. Carter made my dress in exchange for a week’s worth of laundry and cleaning I did with her at her home. She gave me a new hat as well; it was dark crimson with two goose feathers on the left side. Mommy would have been so proud of how sharp I looked. 

When I stepped inside, it was like being in a whole new country once again. Finely dressed men and women filled this grand-sized room. Penetrating my ears was the sound of life: the scream of trumpets, the dance of the bass, the crash of cymbals, the croon of the sax. Together they sang as one voice. Live music has an effect that no recording can give or replace. It goes straight into you like a tonic, a medicine. I was soothed with it instantly. I didn’t even realize how empty I was living before it all. There were two bands that took up what was almost a city block. 

You could never imagine, from the outside, how much of a palace was hidden within the red brick and brightly lit sign. Massive columns with colorful tiles loomed over the band. The tiles were patterned and intricate with indigo, green and red designs. The high ceilings gave the feeling of being small yet suddenly changed— as if your mind expanded while your body shrank— all at once. Above us were glass chandeliers I had only seen on television before then, and the lighting made everything look soft and tinted in amber.

Some women were dressed with sequins, others with simple but elegantly subdued fabrics. Some had fedoras cut slightly different from the men’s, but most were in a kind slouch hat like mine. I was amazed at how many types of hats there could be. There were a variety of shapes, and I especially liked ones with a net in the front. 

It was an extension of the best parts of 125^th Street, the classy side. Uncle Charles’s lady friend, Ms. Mabel, was wearing a stunning deep purple turban hat that framed her head like a crown. She had on a matching dress in a slightly lighter shade of purple, cut in the style like the one I had on, fitted down past the knees and curved in. She was as dark as my cousins in northern Bicol, the land of my mother’s ancestors. 

Count Basie was touring from Chicago, before he became the celebrity he is today. Jayla, this is what the future is, Daddy said. He really saw it then, where things were going. 

It was about two years after we had moved to Harlem. Back home, Daddy had been reading about Mr. Hughes and everything happening with the New Negro Movement and talked about it with excitement. He had wanted to move sooner, when Mommy was still alive, but she was worried about what might happen. We’d been in hiding since he defected from the Americans. I’m not allowed to talk about that with anyone. 

When Mommy died, Daddy became more determined about leaving the Philippines. He said nothing was the same, that he was tired of waking up every day with this reminder of her being gone. I was too. And when the U.S. market crashed, Daddy saw it as an opportunity for us. He said white folks aren’t used to struggle, but struggle is all we’ve ever known, so maybe we can fly out there with less worry. He said, no one’s going to be paying attention to someone like me now, because they lost their most prized thing – their money! Besides, it had already been almost twenty years since the Moro wars.

The idea of leaving got me excited, especially after we saw the pictures Uncle Charles sent from the local papers of what Harlem looked like. He was able to save money since he didn’t have a family yet and helped us pay for the plane tickets. Tito Bennie, Mommy’s brother, helped us with the passports. 

Uncle Charles told us all about the Rennie. He was working there as a bartender and said he would help Daddy get work there too, and even me, when I was old enough. Listening to Uncle Charles’s advice, asking questions, him telling us about things going on, even local gossip helped to get our minds off of our sadness. At least once in a while. But the sadness was always there, waiting to take over. 

It took some time for Daddy to get a job, which ended up as a waiter instead of as a bartender. They had just reopened the Rennie after renovations. Uncle Charles said there were new owners and something had changed. They raised the prices and some people were fired.

Daddy said when I turned eighteen I could go to the Rennie with him. So here we were a week after my birthday when Uncle Charles told us that a musician from New Jersey was going to be the headliner. He said Count was a new cat on the scene that was getting a lot of attention. Count wrote his own music, led a whole orchestra and played piano. The white folks were raving about him, too. They wanted him in Chicago, but the Rennie was able to get him to perform for a couple of nights.

So the timing was right. Count Basie inducted me, so to speak, to the Rennie that first time. Everyone was there – Mr. Du Bois, Mr. Hughes, Ms. Ella, Ms. Hurston. So many people Daddy had told me all about, including poets and authors whose works I’d read. 

It was the biggest gathering I’d ever been to. Uncle Charles and Ms. Mabel gave me a tour of the place during intermission while Daddy went to the card tables. It was smoky in the casino section, the only part I didn’t like at all. People playing seemed consumed with their bets and I didn’t like the feeling I had when I walked through there. I noticed though, that the women looked like they made some good money. They were wearing low-cut tops and short dresses I’d only seen in those magazines that Daddy has hidden away in the closet. 

“Uncle Charles, can I get a job doing that? It looks like they get a lot of cash from the customers.”

“Oh Jayla, your Daddy would have my head on a plate if I ever got you a job like that,” he said laughing. “The cleaning crew is more what we had in mind. It would keep you safe.”

“Safe? From what?”

“Maybe you can work with me at the Savoy,” Ms. Mabel winked at me.

“You think so?”

“Mmm. I don’t know, Mabel.”

“Why not?”

“It doesn’t hurt to ask, right Jayla?”

“What do you do there?”

“I do what them girls are doing, but we don’t wear skirts that short,” she laughed. “But it’s a nice place. Nice people. And much smaller than this place, for sure. I can’t imagine working here, it’s so big and so many people. I think I’d get dizzy after a couple hours of it.”

The next day, I talked to Daddy about it.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I said no. That’s it. You got a job already.”

“No I don’t!”

“Yes you do. With Mrs. Carter.”

“That’s not a job! And I don’t want to do laundry!”

“I said no. And that’s enough of that.”

A few weeks later, Daddy got let go from the Rennie. They told him he was not moving fast enough. By that time I had forgotten that I even considered working at the Savoy. Daddy was all I had and I couldn’t fight him on anything like that. But what really made me feel bad, was how down he looked that day they told him he was fired. It was like Mommy died all over again. 

In the days that followed, he stayed in bed and in the mornings, and instead of getting up and having coffee with me, he’d lay in bed and stare at the ceiling. I would ask him, don’t you want to have breakfast, and he’d say no, you go ahead. And then he’d just lay there and stare at the ceiling with this hallow look on his face that made me feel so low too.

One day it hit me. We were on our last container of sugar, our cupboards were empty. Even though we hadn’t eaten in two days, for some reason having just that bit of sugar and coffee helps you forget about how bad things are. That last piece of bread. 

“Daddy, I want to work at the Savoy. Please, let me. I can bring in some decent money.”

He was quiet for a long time. I could see his eyes pool up from defeat. For as long as I live, I’ll never forget that moment. 

He nodded his head. That’s all he did. Then he went back in his room and laid down.

Slowly, things turned around. Daddy became more friendly with the Jewish shoemaker down the block and was able to get some hours with him, and I started at the Savoy. Ms. Mabel trained me on the basics of how to upsell, how to keep a conversation going, how to make customers feel comfortable. She taught me how to act confident, even when I didn’t feel it.

“Even when you feel bad, you have to pretend like you don’t. The whole country, the whole world, feels bad now. So you, you be better. You show them that there’s still hope inside you. That’s what people need right now. Hope. And Joy. It’s real easy to complain and be miserable. And you’re young. You only need to use a little bit of whitening cream and soon enough you’ll be high yellow. And you got good hair and a good enough body. You got your life ahead of you, girl.”

Ms. Mabel’s full name was Ms. Mabel Jones Washington, but she wanted to be called Ms. Mabel because those were her parents’ names and although she was proud of them and their memory, her first name felt more who she was. Even after she marries, she said, she’ll want to be called Ms. Mabel.

Nights at the Savoy were filled with spirit. No church service could ever compare to that. At times it was hard for me to keep my eyes off the couples dancing. Ms. Mabel was patient with me at first, but after some time she’d get annoyed. I wanted to do what they were doing, it looked so fun. One couple with a tall, lean woman and a stocky man that reached only up to her shoulders had everyone surrounding them because of their smooth dancing. Another couple of similar height to each other, the woman with a flowy rose-colored skirt, took over the floor. They moved fast and made it look easy. Everyone was cheering and hootin’ as they spun and twisted and then the man would flip the woman over his head! It was wild and thrilling to watch. Even Ms. Mabel stopped and shouted when it got that good. The entire room would be transfixed watching the dancing couples in the center.

A few months later, Ms. Mabel said that a new up and coming dancer was going to perform at the Rennie and she wanted me to come. She said she and Uncle Charles would take me and Daddy to see her. Her name was Pearl Primus.

It is so ironic, Ms. Mabel said. How the white folks be coming up to Harlem like this more and more. They don’t let us into their clubs even though we let them into ours. They know we need their money to survive. Anyway— I’m so excited about Ms. Primus – one of us! – who says she plans bringing in African, African! dance up here. 

We got all dressed up again to see Ms. Primus. A third stage was set up in front of the band. All the lights were off and there was just a raw drumming sound. She had on a green-patterned head wrap and wore all white. As the lights slowly came on over her, she moved slow, her arms encircled then bent her body in full synchrony with the music. I got chills watching her. 

The rest was a journey. She told a story through her dance. She did a kind of ballet mixed with something different, something I’d never seen before, as if her body itself was a musical instrument, and with it she traveled through the mountains and the sea on foot. She took us with her and lived an entire lifespan in a place that was familiar yet new.

That was the happiest I’d seen Daddy since the time when Mommy was alive. When we got home, it was then I realized he was drunk and more talkative. He told me again about the time when he and Mommy met. He slurred his words a bit.

“Your Tito Bennie led me up miles to where your grandmother was living and all these people were lined up at back of the house. I was like, what’s all this? Bennie said I told you that my mother is a healer. My sister has started doing it too, with my mother’s guidance. So there’s more people coming to meet her and to give some offerings and ask for help. I was like, wow man. I thought it was a bunch of bull until I watched what was happening. Then for a while I thought she was witch or something,” Daddy laughed and shook his head.

“A week later I came down with something. I was throwing up and shitting blood. I had a fever. I couldn’t eat. I was passed out most of the time. She came in with your grandmother and repeating some strange words I didn’t understand in a low voice. I was scared to be honest. But I was too weak to move. And within a couple of days, I felt like a different person.”

Daddy smiled whenever he spoke about this. Then that next morning he woke up sick.

Mommy said that when I was older she would teach me more about native healing. She said she wanted me to focus on my studies and didn’t want me to get distracted. She said I was always a restless child, so best thing was to focus on one thing at a time. But she was gone before I had a chance to learn how to heal people. And now Daddy was sick, real sick, and I wished I knew what to do.

Daddy started coughing a lot. I got cough medicine from the pharmacy, which was expensive, it cost a day’s worth of pay. I didn’t mind, but it didn’t seem to help much. Instead he got worse. He became pale and wasn’t holding down any food. I was scared. Another day passed and he was dry heaving. 

I couldn’t sleep. The entire night I was wondering about what I should do. If I go to work, I thought, what if he gets worse. But then we needed every penny of my earnings so I could get him to the doctor. 

When I got home that night after my shift he was worse. He could barely talk. I was crying and apologizing, feeling like I had abandoned him. 

“You had to work, it’s okay. Jayla, I don’t want you to worry about me. Call Uncle Charles.”

So I did. But by the time he got there, Daddy passed.

I was in such a state. It was Christmastime, the streets had all these festive lights, and I had just lost Daddy. Both my parents were gone. 

The following few months were a blur. I continued to work at the Savoy, that was what kept me going. After my shifts, I would come home and cry myself to sleep. When it was time to work again the following day, somehow by the grace of God I had some kind of strength enough to put on a smile that I didn’t feel. I put more force into it. I remembered what Ms. Mabel told me. She was softer on me. She knew what it was like to lose a parent, she said. And to be an only child. 

She let me take longer breaks. During those breaks, I started watching the dancers more carefully. I studied and memorized their moves. When I got home I’d practice by myself. Uncle Charles got me a record player and some albums. And one night, one of the regulars who saw me swaying as I was leaning against the wall, reached out his arm for me to join him. And that was magic.

I shook my hips, followed his lead and improvised. I didn’t know what I was doing really, but for the first time in my life I wasn’t worried about looking a fool. I felt at home and like I was in the company of family.

Next thing I know, the entire place was clapping and cheering. I heard someone say, alright, now go on, girl! Even Ms. Mabel was smiling at me.

After that I met some other regulars that could Lindy Hop like nobody’s business. I asked them if they could teach me. The man that put his arm out to get me to dance that first time, his name was Marcus. He and his girl Bessie introduced me to Howard, who became my dance partner, and a few weeks later, I was doing flips over him.

Now it’s summer and nineteen-thirty-six feels like a hundred years ago. On the one night I don’t work, I am out dancing with Howard. I still have trouble sleeping so I decided it was time to start writing this all down.

I see how fast things get bad. More people living out on the streets, more and more girls having to sell their bodies, more of our men getting sick, some killing themselves with booze because of what’s being done to us. Even more getting killed by the pigs.

I think about how bad my people have it. I wonder about how long it will be before things get bad again for me. So I write to tell myself how I’m gonna getting through this. So one day maybe I can look back at it all and remember what I’m capable of. I say to myself, tomorrow is another day. What new dance can I learn? What new dance can I create?