In the Neighborhood of True by Susan Kaplan Carlton

Author:Susan Kaplan Carlton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2019-03-26T21:10:05+00:00

We drove in Davis’s banged-up Rambler down the spine of Peachtree, past the Steakery, the place kids went after school for Coca-Colas and onion rings, past a few churches, and past the lone temple, my family’s temple, where six hours earlier I’d been saying Kaddish for my father. A mile or so later, we pulled up to the Fox Theatre. Everyone called it the Fabulous Fox (everyone but Max), and now I knew why.

The theater had the razzle-dazzle of Radio City Music Hall, where I’d actually been exactly once, since it cost a fortune to see a movie there.

A zigzag line of Negro men and women, boys and girls, queued up outside the building—up the building, really. “What’s going on there?” I asked, nodding my chin to the left.

“Colored-only ticket line,” Davis said without a hiccup in his voice. “Leads to the Crow’s Nest.”

“It’s not that way in New York.” But even as I said it, I wasn’t sure it was true. There was no colored-only line, but I honestly couldn’t remember sitting next to a Negro person at the movies, and the last time I took a train to Harlem to see a movie at the Roosevelt, even though Harlem–Lenox Yard was only three stops north on the IRT, was never. I didn’t want Max and his know-it-all-ness to be on my mind, but he popped in against my will.

Davis opened an elaborate carved door in the front of the building, and I walked on an actual red carpet into an explosion of gold (not so very unlike the temple, really): gold walls, gold lights, a gold railing, and gold stars painted on the cobalt ceiling. This was my kind of sky—glittery and entirely indoors.

While I freshened up in the bathroom, reapplying my brand-new and as-yet-unmelted Fire & Ice in front of a giganto mirror, Davis stood in line for refreshments. One Coca-Cola, two straws.

Davis led me to an empty row toward the back of the theater, so there was no need to put Nattie’s posterior advice into action. Before I sat down, I fingered the fancy upholstery on the cushion, a six-pointed star, like a Jewish star, with a monogrammed F in the middle. The whole place was so swell, I couldn’t help thinking everyone, including people in the (Jim) Crow’s Nest, should be in the cushy seats.

I glanced up there, but my angle was off and I couldn’t see a single face.

When I looked back to our section, I saw a short man in a gray suit seated ahead of us. Something about the curve of his shoulders made me think—for two seconds—it was Dad. In those two seconds, I’d convinced myself Arthur Robb could have gained twenty pounds. Or aged twenty years. Or acquired a tan or a sudden need for glasses. Or a new gray suit. I remembered how I’d been wearing a gray jumper the day he died. I hadn’t wanted to take it off; if I took it off, the day would be over, along with the possibility of a different ending.

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