But then here were others, pinned to the opposite wall, spilling out of other big flat books, flows and gatherings — of silliness, of running and jumping, of yelling and delight. A woman laughed open-mouthed, a man beat time with sticks on a porch floor as two other men out in the dust before a spurt of campfire danced an ebullient jig. A congregation lustily sang. A man petted a horse’s face, the look in both of their eyes, horse and man, compelled and kindly. A boy called across a river to other boys rising like dolphins from the glassy water. Children rode a mule, old men played dominoes, gripping their laughter like it was a great fish they were landing by hand. A band marched, brass raised, down a sunny street. A little boy on a top step contemplated his stretched-out feet. An old woman whelmed with glee. A girl in a checkered headrag wiped sweat off her forehead, grinning over a big bowl of ice cream. A man in a dark suit bent over a tablet. Cascade of fellowship, of tickling or guffaws or brimmed-up festiveness. Children on top of a wagonload of cotton high as a house. Chuckling babies, women shouting in joy.
He turned away with tears in his eyes.
“Yessir,” Carmel said as he tapped the flats with the heel of his hand to straighten them, “you can see the true life of the race in these pictures.”
It took a minute for Delvin to draw himself together. A coolness came into his mind, and it was only then that he realized how tired he was.
The museum keeper had turned away, giving him time, rustling among his photos, gathering, careful to keep his fingers from the impacted centers of the paper.
“Ah, lord,” Delvin said.
“Yes, sholy. Like a mashed-up sweet potato.”
Delvin smiled. He indicated a photograph of men and women standing in front of a white-painted church with a half-finished steeple.
“That’s over in east Tennessee,” Carmel said. “That church has since been burned to the ground.”
It was the church where the funeral for the slain boy was held. “I’ve been there,” he said. “I
He told Carmel about the fire (set by unknown white men) and a little about his life as an undertaker’s assistant, parts of a past he rarely talked about for his aging but still lively fear of Chat-town police.
“That’s quite an education,” Carmel said. He looked at the boy who was disheveled and needed a haircut, but who had the gleam of intelligence in his fine brown eyes. “You just touring around the country?”
“You might say that.”
“They kick you out of the funeral business?”
“No, ’twern’t that.”
“You don’t have to go into it. We all from time to time stick our foot into the dung heap.”
“I’m looking to further my education,” Delvin said. Said it and meant it — had said it before — even though he was tired out by all the instruction he’d received in the van. But he liked the smell of the place, liked the old man puttering about.
“Racewise you got a full education gathered right here in one location, my boy.”
Delvin on the spot decided to postpone his rod-riding travels. He spent the night in a hobo camp outside town and returned the next day and the next. On the third the professor invited him to hang around and gave him little chores to do. On the fifth day he proposed that Delvin join him on the road.
He saw that Delvin carried a little blue notebook and a couple of cedarwood pencil nubs and told him to take notes if he wanted to.
“In fact,” he said, “I recommend it.”
He spoke to him of the great power and destiny of the African peoples. The Wandering Negro, he called them.
