The whirr of the alarm clock key rotating backwards and the metallic sound of bells woke her. Jayme Cordillera slapped at the wind-up alarm, but only succeeded in catapulting it off the night table, where it continued its rattling complaint. She dropped her pillow on top of it to muffle the sound until it stopped. She sighed and turned on her side collecting the last echoes of her dreams in the mid-morning stillness, filing them away in her brain in case they proved interesting enough to write down later.
After a while, she flopped the clock and pillow unceremoniously onto the bed, took a sleeveless blouse from the closet and pulled a patched, but clean pair of size 14 dungarees down off the back of the chair.
9:10 a. m.-- she had to get going so she could put the last touches on that sideboard for Mrs. Greyhaven, who lived in the very last Cherry Creek residence up the road. As Jayme padded barefoot into the kitchen, birdsong drifted in on the slight summer breeze. Until around ten, things were always on the quiet side in this cast off outskirts of Cherry Creek that people called Over Creek.
The outskirts were where the colored folk lived, along with a few spanish families. Many of her town friends told her that she ought to mind living 'way out here', but the fact was, she didn't. Cherry Creek was nowhere near as bad as many places in America. Times were, that even if you did mind your own business in some remote place, some fool'd still come by with a brick or a noose, or even some torches to burn a body out of an honest living or worse, an honest life. But none of that had ever happened here, far as she knew.
Oh, of course, the usual condescension and strange looks reserved for 'her kind' was prevalent in a few of the town's social circles. She was sometimes referred to as the town's 'colored carpenter', or as the 'town cuckoo', seeing as how she first arrived. Nothing worse was said to her face.
She was well aware that elsewhere she might have been refused treatment when she turned up four years ago and three towns out of place--some strange Negro woman having a catatonic episode on the Poets and Writers Colony steps. But they'd taken her in, been kind enough to notify her family. The doctors had even encouraged her writing during as part of the treatment.
She'd had relatives here, so she found it easy to stay when they'd released her on the condition that she check back at the Colony on a regular basis. She went into town maybe three or four times a week.
There were a couple of places that served her just like everyone else when she wanted a lunch on her way to the PWC. Although she knew the general store clerks would cheat her at times, Jayme only had to go there twice a month for supplies she couldn't find in Over Creek.
And Jayme knew very well that if it hadn't been for Cadlin and Scotty getting a hold of some of the electrical tools she'd needed and putting her in touch with a good and fair distributor to supply lumber, she wouldn't be doing half as well. Heck, she might have had to skip town broke, PWC agreement or no. Far as she could tell, as long as you stayed away from the wrong settlements and establishments, you could get to feeling just like a normal human being.
It was just the same here, in this small, rather isolated colored neighborhood called Over Creek because it sat over the other side of the creek from the town proper. True, seldom did her folks visit Cherry Creek, many preferring the more exciting city-like atmosphere of other towns two or three times the distance away. And seldom did 'genuine' Cherry Creek citizens visit here. But, if you stayed away from the wrong social circles, you'd find yourself as welcome here as her friends had made her feel back in town.
Once in a while, she reflected that she ought to feel ashamed about how good a life she led when other colored folks had it so bad. And yet, things had been the way they were, wherever it was that way, for a longggg time. She didn't see that there was anything anyone outside of God could do about it.
One of her city uncles had suggested that maybe her father had beaten all the fight, wit, spine and half the life out of Jayme a long time ago, and that there wasn't any way that she'd be a help to anybody else ever. But, here she was, on her own, doing well and making enough money to send some back to her mom and siblings besides.
When it came to the rest of the world -- what she knew was that she was was asleep. What good would she be to anyone running around crashing into walls before she'd gotten herself mentally straight and strong enough to lean on? So she didn't reflect on doing anything for now but living and healing until the Lord saw fit to show her what other good she might do.
There was a soft rustle of feathers as she started the coffee. A large crow flew in and perched sideways on the handle of the kitchen cabinet door, one leg balancing, waiting for the half teaspoon of Bustelo he always got whenever she filled the percolator. He cocked a round, amber eye at her and slowly outstretched glossy basalt wings, beak parted in a manner of subtle flatter.
She had named him 'Riven' for this reason, an acknowledgement of the old myth that if you split a raven's tongue it would gain the powers of speech. Jayme could swear the bird did so through his often-odd mannerisms. She put the last half teaspoon into his tipped back beak and began breakfast.
* * *
She and her cousins had put up the barn in the backyard themselves, this is where she awled her trade; she had several projects in progress at the moment. Twenty feet away was her modest garden, with a stand of corn (which had attracted Riven in the first place) and assorted fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Jayme shrugged Riven off her shoulder as she walked, the sign between the crow and her that he could go and raid the garden for breakfast.
It gleefully flew off into the stand of corn as she waved to Mr. Halwell and Mr. Tucker, graying men off on their usual morning constitutional. She knew later that they'd be playing dominos and cards, on Mr. Tucker's porch (as it was his turn to host), jawing and laughing with some of the other outskirt elders. The sound of children chanting songs for double dutch reached her ears as she fished the key for the barn padlock out of her dungarees.
Jayme tipped her head back to the gorgeous blue sky. Her big brown eyes took in lazy clouds wreaths. Four birds skimmed the sky and she felt her innards levitate with that quick flight in a kind of dreamy elation as she forgot the world. Then she opened the door; shoved her white headband further back, moving her shaggy, black, below the shoulder length mane out of her face.
She'd put on some Ella Fitzgerald or Thelonious Monk on her mother's record player, rub some WD-40 into the screws and hinges, give the vine and flower wood burning art work a once over, and polish Widow Greyhaven's handsome new side-board till it shined. She'd hitch the makeshift, but sturdy two-wheeled cart Cadlin and Scotty had helped her build to the back of her modified Indian Scout, carefully cover and secure the sideboard onto it for delivery.
As she'd ride off, Jayme would hear the sounds of sirens in the distance. She'd say three quick prayers: one for the lives of those that needed the help of those sirens, one for the strength and wisdom of those that would provide it. And one that the sirens had nothing to do with her missing best friend from the Poets and Writers Colony.
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