This Side of the Sky by Elyse Singleton

Author:Elyse Singleton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

LILIAN

. . . like fighting Joe Louis . . .

LOOKING FOR WORK in Philadelphia was different from finding a job in Nadir, where word of mouth from a relative or friend led you to someone who was hiring. In Philadelphia you had to go from building to building, not knowing who took on colored and who did not.

I would wear either of two outfits: a man-tailored black suit with narrow red lapels and red faux pocket flaps beneath the hips of its skirt, or a belted navy blue dress with a navy-and-white checkerboard middy collar. I bought them with money I had saved back in Nadir, and paid too much to admit their prices to Myraleen without her saying, “Guess when you walked in the store, they saw a fool coming.”

“We’ll let you know if anything comes up,” said a white girl with spit curls framing her face. I had filled in the blanks in two pages of forms, hearing my mind’s voice say at every new line, These people aren’t going to hire you.

In the office of a box-making company, I talked to a secretary in cat-eyed glasses. Her eyes, at once quizzical and knowing, told me I had definitely entered the wrong place. She wanted to show me something. I followed her down a hall with office doors on each side. She stopped at one and opened it. At a long row of file cabinets, a fawn-colored girl on her knees stuffing folders between other folders, shivered. Her head was down; her eyes, loyal to her task.

“See,” the cat-eyed woman said. “We already have a Negro girl working here.”

“You don’t need another Negro here, do you, Sarah?” The girl glanced up furtively. Before I could say that’s all right, she said, in a thin voice, “No.”

I would stare at my reflection when I passed a store window, searching for something that was wrong with me, something terrible about me, a deep flaw those people detected. At a bus stop downtown, a dark-skinned man with mixed gray hair looked me up and down. He did not appear old but as if he had been in the world just long enough not to be afraid of it anymore. “Trying to find a job?” he asked. I nodded, embarrassed. “I figured you were, out here waiting on a bus in the middle of the day like this, all dressed up. I’m retired myself. Where’ve you been checking?”

I recited the list. He shook his head. “Oh, no, no, darling.” I could tell he, too, was originally from the South. “Those places just use white folks. Why don’t you give Andover Meats a try?”

Mudear would have claimed God sent that man. It didn’t seem so at first. Nick O’Connor, the boss, sat at a desk troubled by scattered forms, a bloodstained rubber glove and stacks of three-ring notebooks choked with papers. His scalp was as hairless as air in front, but from the middle of his head to his neck, short thick red curls clung as if they had staked a claim and refused to leave.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.