The Blue Orchard by Jackson Taylor

Author:Jackson Taylor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchstone
Published: 2010-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

• 20 •

When Sam’s sophomore year starts, I ask about his classes and he says, “You’re not interested. You’re never interested. So why pretend?” and he stomps off.

I learn from Dr. Crampton that Sam is trying out for the football team. “You know, Mrs. K., his husky size is very desirable, and he could eventually make varsity.” Crampton, as the team’s doctor, never makes mention that I work for him, but he takes an interest in Sam and is guiding him along. I’m grateful for that. Sam says all the boys on the football team think Crampton is the greatest. When one of them is having a problem he goes by Crampton’s office. Crampton listens, no doubt in the same gifted way he listens to me, and afterwards offers his advice or help. He’s sincere when he says, “The best cure you can give someone with a problem is to listen.”

Through Crampton we get some tickets to the Negro USO, housed in the Forster Street YMCA, which at night has become a home away from home for black servicemen. Dr. Crampton knows when they have a good headliner, and so far we’ve seen Cab Calloway, Lena Horne, and Jimmie Lunceford. The soldiers there are swell jitterbuggers.

As a USO it’s almost too successful. It threatens the Y’s primary purpose of keeping young boys off the streets. To relieve the Y of the USO, Crampton with his friend C. Sylvester Jackson comes up with a plan to gain permission from the school board to let colored servicemen use the Penn Building at Seventh and Cumberland Streets to make a bigger USO.

When we go to the colored USO, I give Dewey strict rules about drinking. No way do I want to be sitting there like a couple of trashy drunks. The last time, C. Sylvester Jackson came over and said he’d like to meet my husband. C. Sylvester Jackson is interesting and always impeccably groomed. He and Dr. Crampton have known each other since they were boys but Jackson is more conservative. The only mad touch on his gray or black suits is a fresh red carnation in his lapel which I don’t recall ever seeing him without. He manages some kind of estate for a wealthy family by the last name of Boyd, and he does Dr. Crampton’s taxes and other accounting. “I’ve heard nice things about you helping folks so they don’t lose their insurance,” he says, shaking Dewey’s hand. Dewey appreciates this gesture.

A few nights later we go out with Dewey’s friends Scotty and Evelyn Albright. That night there is an upset that starts at the restaurant while we’re waiting at the bar for a table, when everyone, including myself, foolishly begins to drink gin. Conversation turns to politics and a stranger seated at the bar asks who they are favoring in the election. Dewey shoots his mouth off. “Anyone but that SOB Carl Shelley,” he says. The stranger laughs and buys us all a round of drinks. Dewey likes anyone who buys drinks.

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