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Ninety Days Inside The Empire: A Novel by William Appleman Williams

Maggie and Mr. Hank

Page 3

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"He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence."

Ah, pestilence. Mr. Hank had known his share of that. Back in Mobile his father had been a successful crook. Stole and hassled steady money but wasted too much of it on poker and pokin'. 'Bout once a month he worked on his wife. Nothing too serious, never touched her face; just a fist into the side of the breast and a knee into the pubis.

Mr. Hank used to run out into the yard and cry. No, in truth he bawled. Out of mind with the fear and the tears. Then his mother would come out and hug him and make him a cup of some chocolate and chicory drink, and then they would go to bed next to each other and the next morning pretend that nothing had happened.

The trouble was, really, that the man truly liked the boy who would become Mr. Hank. He wanted him to get the training to become better than himself on the streets. Wanted him to become a first rate responsible crook. That is the only way father Blake in Mobile could imagine his son making it in a white world.

So first the air rifles, then the .22s, and finally the shotguns. That was protection. Next came the marketable skill. Father Blake liked cars, fast cars; maybe hooked on Baby Face Nelson and Bonny and Clyde. Who knows? You remember Clyde writing Henry Ford complimenting him on the swiftness of the Ford, saying he copped one whenever he could. All that meant a job - really an apprenticeship - in a junk yard. Graduating from cutting and welding and patching to fixing and chopping and tuning engines and the new hydraulic systems. Mr. Hank's mother was reading him Blake and his father Blake was getting him ever more money for splicing together get-away cars, with lots of room for contraband in the trunk.

But whether it was, shall we say guilt or maybe even remorse, father Blake was adamant about girls. No getting anyone pregnant. And no beating on them.

And then came Pearl Habor. There was no way he could avoid the draft. His mother had twisted his ear through high school and his father had educated him to a fare-thee-well with engines. They took the oath together, and his father was dead driving a jeep too fast within a year. The Navy grabbed young Mr. Hank and made him an airplane mechanic, and quickly put him on a carrier in the Pacific.

So now he was the only black chief on the flight line at the Naval Air Station. And so good that even the aces asked for him to work on their engines and hydraulic systems. But still took a lot of shit from most of the white enlisteds as well as the white officers. Most of all married to Maggie. Met her at the end of the war and got married even before they went to bed. Since then they had balanced it all out on a more regular basis.

That was a long memory for Mr. Hank. He looked at his drink, gentled it aside with a thumb.

"Where the hell is Maggie?!!?"

He walked to the corner by the front door and hefted his 12 gauge shotgun and stepped out on the porch. Walked back in, switched the light, came back out and sat down off on a corner of the steps. He was out beyond the bulb, tucked-in in a corner shadow that gave him a sight line up the street.

Maggie was a lonesome mile away, moving faster up higher on the balls of her feet. Her thighs had been tingled by the vibrations of a car easing up behind her. It was running dark, purring along on lust. She wondered it if was one of the rich bastards. She felt them watching her as she walked away from the fancy house where she was mother, sister, and auntie and tough cop to children neglected by the white rich.

She had learned long ago that many white and black men wanted to fuck her. Those types took her early with pain and without pleasure or joy. Later she had twice known sex with love. Wet and easy and happy. Fun and scary all at once. One had been killed by the police, the other just up and left. Now she was a one man woman. Mr. Hank was big and moved her and she loved him and he was always there.

She slowed, rolling a bit back and forth on her heels and toes. The car eased past her and stopped to block the corner where she turned into the street where she lived with Mr. Hank. Two doors slammed and she confronted the men.

The black one said, "Hello there, Lady."

The white one said, "Hi, Mrs. Blake. We thought we'd give you a lift on home."

She stopped, kept rocking gently, ready to move.

They were tall, lean and smiled nasty mean.

"Just right, Miss Marjorie," the black one allowed. "Give you a little ride up to Heaven and drop you down on your front yard."

They were close enough now for her to place them.