Chapter 27 Tabitha
Charleston, South Carolina
July 1920
Tabitha woke with a headache. Dread crawled up her body before she tossed back the blanket, readied herself for the day, and left her apartment. The last time she’d felt this way was when she found out about Joseph’s death. She stepped off the trolley, steeling herself for a long day. She kept her eyes sharp and her hand on the pistol in her pocket.
She’d tossed all night, questioning the decision to stand up to Sam. It was bad enough she sometimes had to fight off the men who came into the restaurant, but now she had to watch for Sam. She didn’t need the extra bother. Maybe it would have made sense to let him have what he wanted, but then she reasoned, she was delaying this end. They were eventually going to come to this place. If she waited, he might want more.
Tabitha rounded the turn to the back of the buildings and saw a figure by the back door. Relief washed through her when she saw it was Brady, not Sam.
“Good morning, sir. What are you doing out here?”
“Waiting for you, miss.”
She stuck her key in the lock. “You can go now,” Tabitha said, knowing he needed to be in his own store. She pushed on the door. Instead of it falling open, it got stuck on something. Tabitha pushed, and the sharp sound of metal scraping sent a shot of alarm through her. She pushed again, and this time she had to put her weight on the door to move it a few inches.
Brady looked as alarmed as she felt. “Let me try.”
Tabitha moved aside, and he pushed hard until he finally opened it all the way open. Tabitha wished it was still closed.
The wagon was what was in the way. It was broken into pieces. She stepped in past it, further into the kitchen and restaurant. Everything was strewn about. The chairs and tables were knocked over. Rice and flour were spilled. Brady was at her side inspecting the wreckage too.
Rage rolled through her. Sam didn’t have time to follow her. He was busy destroying her place.
“Why does he have to be so evil?”
Brady didn’t reply. It was a question with no answer. A conversation that didn’t have to be had. He was evil because he was angry.
“He means to intimidate you,” Brady said. “He’s probably done. He knows he can’t try to talk to you again.”
Tabitha put down her bag and went to the closet for the broom. Brady picked up two of the wagon’s wheels and took them outside; then he came back in for the other two and then more pieces until the entire thing was out of her kitchen. Tabitha wasn’t sure what to do first. She put the broom aside and decided to pick up the tables and chairs, praying the whole time none of them were broken, especially since they were so old.
“I think you should report this to the police.”
“For what? What would they do?”
“You can make them aware that you’ve had trouble so if...”
“If what?”
“If he comes back, there’ll be one account on the record.”
Tabitha supposed he was right, but she couldn’t imagine he’d come back again. “This business is all I have. This is how I feed my children.” She shook her head. “He’s not just hurting me.”
Brady reached for the broom. “A man like that don’t care about his children or yours.”
She walked to the front door. It was there she discovered how he got in. A broken piece of the pane.
The broken glass and openness made her feel exposed. She placed a hand on her churning stomach. “You should go.” She whispered the words. There was no way for Brady to hear her, so she repeated myself... louder.
“I’ll help you get this cleaned up.”
“No.” She crossed the space to where he was. “I’ll do it. I’ll open late or not at all.” Her thoughts of what Sam had done raced through her mind and emotions. “I need to see about the wood to cover this window and a better door.” The money she hid under the floorboard in her apartment entered her mind, bringing more irritation with it. She glanced down, leaned over, and picked up a splintered piece of wood from one of the broken wheels. “And the wagon. I can’t operate without something to tote supplies.”
“There’s a man, Herbert, over on Market Street. He works wood. I can go fetch him.”
“No.” She spun toward him. “You have your own store. I’ll leave this one closed, and I’ll walk over.”
“He’ll come right away if I ask him.”
Tabitha walked to the sink. She dipped a cup in the water pail and took a sip. Tension left her parched. She walked back to an overturned chair and picked it up. “Are you saying he won’t come for me?”
“Not right away,” Brady said. She could tell he was disappointed to say it. “You’re a woman.”
“That’s a reason to not want my money?”
“It’s a reason for him to make someone else more important than you.”
She sighed. “Why must men make the entire world so difficult to live in?”
Brady swept some of the flour into a pile. Then he reached into the closet for the dustpan, pushed the pile onto the metal plate, and emptied it into the trash box. He looked at her, but he didn’t reply.
Brady was not a man who made anything difficult. She imagined he didn’t like being lumped with Sam, and she should improve her statement, but the knot in her throat and chest swelled as her eyes roamed the destruction. “I will open today. Even if it’s late. I won’t fail on account of him.”
Brady picked up a second pile of rice and flour and pitched it in the trash box. She took the broom from him before he started making the next pile.
“I’ll finish this. If you can get this man to fix the window and door, please go for him.”
With Brady’s help, she did open that day. And she opened the next and the next without seeing or hearing from Sam, but he had not gone away. Tabitha found that out on the fourth day—the day after she cooked her okra stew—because that was the day many of the men who ate at her restaurant became sick.
Word spread that Tabby’s Place served bad food, and she lost her customers overnight. All of them.
***
Rain poured down in sheets as Tabitha pushed open the door to the restaurant. With the horrible sales she had each day, she should have stayed in bed on this dreary morning, but her hopes and dreams wouldn’t let her. She would not fail. Not this fast.
Hopeful she would get her customers back, she continued to cook each day. A few wandered in, nowhere near what she needed to live. She was going to have to do something to save her business. She had to figure out what.
Tabitha pulled eggs, salt pork, and grits from her stores. One meal would have to do for anyone who gave her their patronage. Once she was done cooking, she sat with her bag and removed a paper and pen. She’d been so distracted by the weather, she’d forgotten she’d grabbed the newspaper on the way out of her building. There was an advertisement for The Young Women’s Christian Association Colored Branch of Charleston.
She’d heard of this YWCA many times. They trained girls by teaching them domestic homemaker skills but also fed them and prepared them for work. Tabitha hoped to one day be able to donate money to the cause. Mama had taught her to be generous with charity when she could, but Tabitha had not given a dime to anything since leaving home. Not really. Maybe that’s why she wasn’t blessed. She had planted nothing. If she hadn’t learned anything over her lifetime, she’d learned no seed, no harvest.
She fixed a plate for Brady and walked it over to his store. She hadn’t seen him since he’d stopped in for a biscuit earlier. He was busy sewing a man’s pair of pants at the waist. He did tailoring on the uniform pants he sold, and he’d told her he had a few pants to get done for a pickup order this afternoon.
Even among the thread, buttons, and fabric scraps, finding a place to set the plate was easy. Brady was neat and his counter was long like he’d fashioned it for a store that would have ten men waiting in line at once. Tabitha had never seen it busy, not even close, but like her, this man had dreams. She sat next to Brady, scanning the pages of the Chronicle. She favored it over the other three Negro newspapers. There was a story about the YWCA and their need for food donations.
“I’m going to close and take the food to the YWCA.”
Brady’s brow wrinkled. Keeping with what he was doing, he asked, “That on Coming Street, right?”
“It is. The rain has stopped. It’ll be a fair walk, but I want to do some good with what I have.”
Brady raised his eyes to hers. “I’m sure the women there will appreciate your charity.”
“I’m glad not to waste it.”
She left Brady to his work and his worry. He still didn’t like the idea of her moving about with Sam’s discontent in the air, but what was she to do? She had a living to live out, and she’d fail her children if she let Sam steal her faith.
Her route to the YWCA was the same as the one home. She went up Concord Street, turned on Market, and headed straight until she came to Meeting, and then turned on Calhoun, except she continued to Coming to reach the YWCA. Tabitha parked the wagon on the grass and knocked on the front door. After a minute, a woman opened the door.
“My name is Tabitha Cooper. I own a restaurant on Market Street. My business was slow today. I have this food. I didn’t want it to go to waste.”
The woman was cautious, inspecting Tabitha first and then her wagon. “Where on Market?”
“Six, ma’am. Tabby’s Place.”
“Six. Is that by the docks?”
“Yes.”
“It’s early. Why is your day over?”
“Business is slow. I only serve lunch most days and dinner three days a week, depending on the loads the men have.”
The woman continued to ask questions, obviously disbelieving Tabitha had good intentions. Tabitha reached into her pocket and pulled the mailer out and showed it to her. “I received this just this morning. I thought this sounded like a useful cause. I haven’t donated much to charity.” Looking back at the wagon, she said, “It’s enough for quite a few.”
“We have thirty-one girls here.”
“Well, this should feed most of them if they don’t eat much.”
“I wish I could accept it, but I can’t. We’re already preparing dinner for this evening. Perhaps they could use the food at Emanuel Church. They are always in need in the soup kitchen and don’t have to be as choosy.”
Tabitha nodded. Disappointed, but then also feeling silly for thinking that they would take food for the girls from a stranger.
She turned to step off the porch.
“But, Miss Cooper, is it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“We could use help with cooking instruction. Might you be able to teach a cooking class for us?”
“A class?”
“Our current cook is fine but not gifted in instruction.” She smiled for the first time. “Some of our young ladies are sensitive to her tone.”
“I would be happy to assist.”
“That’s good. What would be the best day for you?”
“I could come on a Saturday afternoon. I’m usually done by three.”
“Fine. What should I make sure to get at the market?”
“I can make do with whatever you have as long as you have some basics. I can cook without meat if I have to.”
“Really?”
“Yes, ma’am. Cooking is what I do.”
They agreed on Saturday, and Tabitha left for Emanuel. The church was most appreciative. She repeated the same the next day. On the third day, she needed change. Mama always said three days of nothing was long enough. Jesus got up on the third day, and any child of hers needed to be able to make a decision in the same way.
Tabitha stepped outside the restaurant, looked outward to the small slit between buildings where she could see the water, and wondered where the men were eating. There was nothing close for Negroes. She had to figure it out before they got used to eating wherever that was.
The next day, she served the few customers she had and closed up. With Brady at her side, she went to the docks to find answers. Tabitha found some of her former customers, standing and sitting around on the boards, eating sandwiches. She approached, went directly to a man name Ferg whom everyone knew and respected as the unofficial spokesman for the Negro men on this dock.
He gave Brady a courteous tilt of the head and then gave her his attention. “Miss Tabitha, what can I do for you?”
“You can help me get my business back.”
“Why would I do that when you ’bout killed some of us?”
“I did not.”
“We were sick from your stew. I ain’t never paid to be sick,” Ferg barked. “I just got to feeling better.”
Another man, Rosebud, spoke up. “I missed two days of work behind that. I might be short on my rent.”
“I don’t have a dirty kitchen,” Tabitha said. “It was Sam, the man who used to work for me. He was trying to run me out of business.”
They didn’t look like they believed her.
Brady spoke up. “It’s the truth. He made a firm enemy out of himself. I was there. I overheard his threat.”
Tabitha placed a hand on Brady’s arm. She appreciated his help, but this was her problem. She was tired of men thinking they could do what they wanted with her life.
She said, “My own daughter was ill. I swear to you on her life that Sam put something in that meat, and he tore my whole restaurant up trying to scare me. You see I got a new door. I had to buy it to keep him out.”
“He had been telling us you didn’t keep no clean kitchen.”
“You know Hank wouldn’t do that to you.”
“Hank been gone,” Ferg barked again.
“But I was cooking for the last year. All of you know that, so why would I change?”
No one replied.
“Where are you getting your meals now that you’ve abandoned me?”
One looked over her shoulder, and she turned to see a sandwich shop down the walk. White owned. She knew of it. “You can’t tell me that you’re paying for food out the back door of a white man’s shop.”
Again no one spoke.
“I will feed you all for a week without a cost, build your confidence back up in me, if you will tell the others about what Sam did and convince them to come back.”
Rosebud was thoughtful for a minute and then said, “I don’t much care for these fat ham sandwiches he sellin’ us.”
Ferg smirked. He was apparently tired of the gristly ham too. “I’m sticking my neck out here for you. You best make good or you really will be finished.”
Relief filled Tabitha. She nodded and, with Brady by her side, went back to the restaurant.
“You did good making your case,” Brady said.
“I’ve never been so afraid of failing, but I’m tired of being treated like nobody. It’s happened too many times in my life.”
Brady’s brows creased. He put a hand on her shoulder. “You are the strongest young woman I know. My prayers are with you.”
Tabitha placed a hand on the one on her shoulder and looked down at it. The connection between them was warm and strong. “Thank you for being with me,” she said. “And I accept all prayers.”
Brady looked at her like he was seeing something in her for the first time. Their eyes locked and held for a long time before he left and went back to his store.
The next day, Tabitha cooked chicken and rice. By eleven she saw a line of men walking from the dock. At least twenty strong. Blood rushed into her heart. She skirted into the kitchen and began to scoop out their dishes. The aroma of garlic and other herbs greeted each of them as they crossed the threshold. Mixed with the hot buttered corn bread she served, the warmth of the food made them all eager to get their helping.
That lunch period she had a lot of eyes raised to hers as they checked her face for sincerity before walking away with their dish, but they’d come, and she sold out with only one plate remaining. Her last was for Brady.