Saving Savannah by Tonya Bolden

Author:Tonya Bolden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

It seemed a forever walk, deeper, deeper into Southwest. On they walked until they came to a place Savannah found more frightening than that street of drab row houses, Barrows’ Meat Market, and the Open Eye Saloon.

Alley after alley, crammed-together shanties.

Crude wood.

Crumbling brick.

Tar paper roofs.

“They call this area Beggars’ Bay,” said Lloyd. He had stopped at the mouth of an alley. Entering, he reached back for Savannah’s hand.

Savannah was glad for that hand, rough but warm and pulsing good, as she sidestepped broken glass, rusted tin cans, spied pot-bellied barefoot boys, girls. A shriveled old woman in a battered bonnet, filthy striped skirt, and plaid blouse staggered past.

Grown-ups cussed, babies wailed.

Savannah smelled grease, gases, greens, human waste.

A rat skittered across their path.

How many newspapers report scenes like this?

A one-eyed mangy cat gave chase.

And this?

Savannah tightened her grip on Lloyd’s hand.

“No indoor plumbing,” he whispered.

Newspapers to windows.

On page one, or two—anywhere in the paper?

Pipes, busted buckets, table legs, rags, fence planks, strewn upon the ground.

Mother’s sermons on how blessed she and Charlie were …

Random stories about people to whom the Association gave food, clothes …

Passing by, in the street, grinders, cart men, washerwomen, chimney sweeps, tinkers …

The sight of veterans missing arms, legs …

Illustrations of Bandits’ Roost, Bottle Alley …

None of it compared to standing amid such dense and pressing need.

Her emerald velvet-and-chiffon dress … her silver dancing shoes, the white evening gloves, that silver-and-rhinestone peacock-shaped hairpin … It could probably feed a family for a week—or more, maybe a whole month! Now that would be some real renewal.

“No electricity,” Lloyd whispered, giving Savannah’s hand a squeeze.

One home had an old headboard as a door. Faded lettering on the brick revealed the dwelling’s history as a stable.

A little boy, watchful, wary, hunched atop a mound of rubble, was wolfing down a piece of bread with one hand, clutching a well-worn book in the other.

The forgettable, the forgotten.

“Lloyd!”

A husky man with a bent back lumbered down into the alley.

“Brother Spencer!”

The two men embraced.

“You coming to the meeting on Thursday night, right?”

“Be there!”

“Bring everybody who work with you at the Navy Yard.”

“Lined up already!”

“Good man!” said Lloyd. “I’ll see you then.”

Seconds after the bent-back man headed farther down the alley, Lloyd checked his pocket watch. “Enough for one day?”

Savannah nodded. “What happened to him, his back? Spencer, is it?”

“He fell off a scaffold at the Yard. He didn’t stay bandaged up and in bed long enough.”

“Why on earth not?”

“Mouths to feed.”

“He lives here?”

Lloyd shook his head. “But he got family here.”

They were near a home outside of which a middle-aged woman in a housedress and boots was working a water pump. Nearby a girl in a faded red-check pinafore dress, with a proud, alert bearing, was sweeping three crude wooden steps.

This needs to be on the front of every newspaper, every day!

“You are right, Lloyd,” Savannah whispered, heartsick and roiling with rage. They were back again at the mouth of the alley. “People need more than patches. They need …”

Steps away and they were still holding hands.

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