Chapter 43 #2
“Oh, my.” Rita reached for Ozzie’s hand to help steady herself.
Ozzie stood, just as stunned. His wife was going to Penn Law.
She was going to become the lawyer she had always dreamed of being, and at one of the premier schools in the country.
Suddenly, it felt like the collar of his white shirt was too tight on his neck.
“I knew well that the only way I could get that door open was to knock it down. Now it’s your turn,” Sadie said, pushing her gold-rimmed glasses up her nose.
“Thank you, thank you.” Rita embraced Sadie, and they rocked.
Martha touched Rita’s elbow. “I’m committed to helping deserving Negro students like you have the opportunity to break through these bullshit ceilings. This scholarship, named after our first Negro woman to graduate Penn Law, is just the beginning.”
“Well, this causes for a toast,” Raymond said, flagging down the woman with the tray of drinks.
Yes, a drink, Ozzie thought. He needed something to slow down the thumping in his chest.
“To Rita becoming one of the finest lawyers this city has ever seen.” Raymond held up his glass. They all drank to that.
“I’d like to propose a toast too,” Rita said.
“To my new husband. Without him, none of this would be true.” She held up her glass.
Everyone looked at Ozzie, and as he held his glass to his lips, he realized that he was the only one who had drained his entire flute on the first toast. He leaned over and kissed her cheek instead.
“Congratulations, baby. Dreams do come true,” he said, just as the music changed to a slow and somber tune.
“Oh, Rita, I want to introduce you to my soror. She is the current national president of our sorority. Maybe you will consider joining us one day.” Sadie winked and whisked Rita away, with Martha following behind them. The two men were left alone.
“Ozzie,” Raymond said. “Rita tells me you are working for the shipyard and that you volunteered for the army.”
Ozzie straightened his back. “Yes.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a… warehouse specialist.” The lie felt tart on his lips. “I’m in the process of going back to school also. One of the benefits of the G.I. Bill.” He moved from one foot to the other.
“Wonderful. Which university?”
“I’ve put in applications at Lincoln and Cheyney State.
I’m hoping to start spring semester,” Ozzie offered, and as the schools that he had been so excited to attend rolled from his lips, he remembered that the Alexanders had both attended Penn, and that Raymond had attended Harvard as an undergraduate.
All of a sudden, his dreams felt foolish and small.
“Ambitious, just like Rita. I love it.” Raymond clapped him on the back. “Come, let me introduce you around.”
The party was now in full swing, and Raymond stopped to introduce Ozzie to a dentist and an orthodontist who were arguing over whether eighteen-year-old Hank Aaron had made the right choice leaving the Indianapolis Clowns for the Boston Braves.
Then they stopped in the kitchen, where a bar was set up and a man in a black suit was pouring the real stuff. Ozzie felt his tongue salivate as Raymond got into a conversation with three men holding double old-fashioned glasses.
“Ray, I love this album by Bud Powell,” said the man wearing a tweed sport coat. “It’s one of his best, but whenever I hear it, it reminds me of how awful things got for the brother. He’s one of the baddest piano players I’ve ever heard.”
“Yeah, that beating he took on Broad Street by the railroad police changed the trajectory of his life,” commented Ray.
“Don’t it always.”
“Friend of mine said Bud is up at Pilgrim State now. You know—the psychiatric hospital. Got him on shock treatments. Said the doctors don’t even let him near the piano.”
“That don’t make no sense. That cat was a genius.”
“Whitey sure knows how to break a man.”
Ozzie nodded in the right places; while he had never been beaten down by the police, he’d had his run-ins with the authorities.
“Gentlemen,” Raymond finally interrupted. “Where are my manners. Ozzie, these loudmouths are my dearest friends. John Francis Williams, Lewis Tanner Moore, and M. Hubbard. These men are the best damn lawyers in the City of Brotherly Love.”
“And don’t let no one tell you different.” Lewis slapped Raymond five, and they all laughed.
“This is Ozzie Philips, Rita’s husband. He’s a manager at the shipyard, just got out of the army.”
“Very honorable of you,” John said, sipping from his glass.
“Make yourself right at home. Get a drink,” Lewis pushed.
“Good to meet you,” Ozzie said.
Then the men turned their backs and returned to their conversation. Ozzie couldn’t find his way into their discussion, and unable to shake the feeling that he didn’t belong, he slunk away and sidled up to the man behind the bar at the rear of the kitchen.
Once he had a fresh drink in his hand, he felt some of his power return.
Raymond took hold of Ozzie again and introduced him to a doctor and a judge.
Then a restaurateur and his wife. All the names blurred together.
Each professional introduction felt fancier than the last, and as the night wore on, the liquor stopped giving him courage.
Ozzie felt his confidence seep out of him like the helium from a party balloon.
Echoing inside of his head was You ain’t shit, and you’ll never measure up to these men.
Raymond got pulled into a lengthy chat, and Ozzie excused himself for another stop at the bar, but the bartender had stepped away.
Ozzie looked around and then helped himself to an aged Scotch that went down so silky smooth that before he had swallowed good, he was pouring another fistful.
Then he found a stool just off the kitchen that was unoccupied.
It had a full view of the living and dining room, but he was shrouded in darkness and out of sight.
As Ozzie watched the people laugh and dance, it was crystal-clear that this was a party of “who’s who” in Negro society.
Ozzie had not met another working-class man without a title or a degree, not unless he included the maid and the bartender.
How had these folks gotten so financially far in life?
What was Ozzie doing here pretending like he had anything in common with them?
He moved materials down at the shipyard for seventy-five cents an hour.
They lived in his wife’s great-aunt’s house.
In that moment, he felt like he didn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out.
Rita had invited him to one other work event since he had returned home.
The Alexanders had held an NAACP fundraiser in their offices at Nineteenth and Chestnut streets last month.
To that event, Ozzie had worn the same suit.
He wondered now if Raymond Alexander had noticed and pitied him for it.
Was Raymond looking down his nose at Ozzie, knowing instinctively that he didn’t measure up?
It was easy for him to introduce Ozzie around his fine home, because the job of the host was to make a guest feel welcome whether he was worthy or not.
That was just good manners and did not mean Ozzie had Raymond’s respect.
Perhaps Raymond’s kindness had all been a hoax for Rita’s sake, because the Alexanders were invested in her future with their law firm.
They’d helped her get a full scholarship to University of Pennsylvania, for goodness’ sake.
Once she became one of them, and fully ascended into their world, what would Ozzie have to offer her?
He couldn’t catch up to these folks in the room right now, even if they gave him a pocketful of money and a head start.
“Hey, good-lookin’, what’s cookin’?” Rita had sneaked up on him. She smelled of champagne, and her cheeks were flushed. “Babe, this is simply the best night of my life. Are you having fun?”
This was the best night of her life? Not the night their wedding reception had spilled out onto Ringgold Street, where they had danced under the stars and then made love until the sheets were sliding from the bed?
The music playing on the phonograph had gotten louder. A horn was whining. It sounded like Miles Davis. Ozzie tapped his feet on the white oak floor as a strumming pounded in the back of his head.
“You been socializing?” she asked, sitting down in his lap.
He draped one arm around her waist while thinking: How long would it be before Rita’s girlhood crush on him wore off, and these high-siddity men in suits got her attention?
“Of course.”
“I saw Raymond introducing you around.”
“Yeah.”
Rita balanced herself on his thigh. “He’s great and so supportive of Sadie’s career.”
“I bet he is, he can damn near pass for white. Doors must fall open at his command.” The comment had floated through his mind and left his mouth before he could filter it.
“What did you say?” Rita turned her face toward his, her brows knitted.
“Nothing.” He cleared his throat.
“Don’t be rude. We’re guests in their home.”
“I know exactly where we are,” Ozzie retorted.
“You talking like you ain’t got good sense. Like you left the screws from your head in Germany.” She sniffed, then peered at him more closely. “How many of those have you had?”
“Stop studying me, woman.” His voice came out raspy. “I’m cool.”
“Goddamn it. I asked you to pace yourself.”
“You don’t have to tell me nothing, I’m a grown-ass man.” Ozzie could feel Rita stiffen on his lap, and then she stood up.
“Make that your last one,” she whispered. “Don’t be embarrassing me like that time you punched Harold in the face. This ain’t no South Philly rent party.”
“Why you gotta bring that up?”
“ ’Cause you don’t know how to act once you get that liquor in you,” she said.
Ozzie didn’t like her tone. She didn’t know the weight that was pressed down on him so heavy, it was hard to breathe at times like these.
“I don’t need you policing me. I get enough of that at the shipyard,” he said the moment the music stopped.
Rita shook her head at him just as Sadie’s skirt swished around her knees at Rita’s side.
“You lovebirds all right?” Sadie asked, and Ozzie couldn’t tell if she had heard and was pretending that she hadn’t, but he didn’t miss the anger that flashed through Rita’s eyes.
“I was just coming to say my goodbyes.” Rita turned to Sadie and threaded her arm with hers. “Would you come with me as I thank Martha one last time?”
“Certainly,” Sadie responded, and then they moved through the crowd.
Ozzie drained his glass and sucked on an ice cube. He needed to pee and found the powder room through a small door underneath the stairs. As he was moving back toward the kitchen, a man with a thick mustache stopped him. “Hey, fellow. Could you make me an old-fashioned on the rocks?”
Ozzie shook his head to clear his thoughts. “Excuse me?”
“With whiskey, not brandy, please.” The man touched his pocket watch in his waistcoat pocket.
Then it dawned on Ozzie what was happening.
“I’m not the help,” he said, then pushed past the man and out the front door.
As he was closing the door behind him, he heard Raymond call his name over the music, but he did not stop.
He staggered down the front steps and into the fresh air, which eased the suffocating weight that had been sitting on his throat.
When he pulled the car around, Rita did not wait for him to get out and open her door. She plopped down in the passenger seat and said, “You sure know how to show your ass and ruin a good night.”
He pulled away from the curb. “Why didn’t you tell me you were applying to Penn?”
“What difference does it make which schools I apply to? The important thing is that I go.”
Ozzie flicked his turn signal and then made a right turn onto Broad Street, careful to stay in between the white lines. “The Alexanders tell you to keep that from me?”
“What? No.” Rita fumbled with her gloves in her lap. “It was a long shot. I didn’t even think I’d get in.”
“It would have been good to know what my wife was doing. I stood there smiling like a fool.”
“You played the fool all on your own. Drinking like a fish, then sitting in the corner by yourself like a damn recluse.”
He pulled to the corner of Ringgold Street and was glad to see a spot that he could slide the car into without needing to parallel park. Rita hopped out of the car before he could kill the engine. She had no reason to be mad. He should be the one upset.
He dropped his keys in the candy dish on the end table in the living room. The stairs creaked under his weight. When he reached their back bedroom door and turned the knob, he found it was locked.
“Sleep on the couch,” Rita shouted at him.
He tried again, softening his voice. “Come on, baby. Don’t be like that.”
“If you wake my aunt…” Her voice trailed off.
Rita was as stubborn as an elephant’s leg. There was no sense in trying to bend her. He shuffled down the stairs and then into the basement and flung himself on the green sofa.
As he tossed, he replayed Rita’s comment. You act like you left the screws from your head in Germany. He hadn’t left the bolts and nuts to his head, but he had left a chunk of his heart and a piece of his soul.
Katja.
His three-year-old daughter was lost to him, and that gutted him deep in his core. What kind of man was he?
And with Rita moving into this new elite world, he didn’t know what he could offer her either. He was happy for her and so proud, but in the same breath, he was more unsure of himself than he had ever been in his life.