By: Peter Aronson

The world was weighing heavy on Bert Stein, grabbing and twisting his mind, bending him sideways.

He was having trouble thinking straight.

There was no poker game that night on the commuter train leaving New York City, because no one was in the mood.

Bert was looking at the Post, yesterday’s news, but not really reading, overwhelmed by today’s shocker, radio and TV having blasted the news just a few hours ago, so he missed his stop for the first time ever.

When his wife, Marge, picked him up at the wayward station, all he said, in a huff, was “Jesus.” Then a moment after he had gotten into the car and closed the door, he added, “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I spoke to Bill.”

Marge Stein steered the car through one quiet suburban street after another, the lawns getting greener and the houses getting bigger as they approached their home in Scarsdale, a fancy suburb north of the city.

Bert was staring out the window when he asked, “Kids ok?”

“Yeah, they seem ok. Gave them dinner. Then Dickie ran off with Pauline somewhere.”

As soon as they got home, Bert handed Marge his briefcase and he walked down the street to Bill’s house. He had called Bill from his office, and they discussed the situation, what could happen on a night like this.

When Bert returned home a half hour later, Marge didn’t say anything, had a serious, tight-lipped expression on her face, knowing she had no say in the matter, because Bert’s mind was made up. She watched her husband carry a long, brown canvas bag up the stairs and into their bedroom. She watched him close the door. He knew she was watching him, not liking what he was doing. He had told her in the car ride home from the station, “I have to do what I have to do.”

Bert opened his closet door. He unzipped the canvas bag and pulled out a rifle, with a polished walnut stock and a gleaming steel barrel. He had never held a hunting rifle in his hands before. Then he returned the rifle to the case and propped it up against the closet wall. He placed a small carton of ammo on his closet shelf. 

A few minutes later, as he and Marge ate dinner in the kitchen, she said, “It’s bad enough having that gun in the house. Do you really need to go to Virginia?”

“I told you, Marge, I’m going because I have to,” he said, between bites of green beans and chicken. “I’ll be home for a week, in case something happens. I’ll talk to Dickie. He’s a big boy, he can handle things the one night I’ll be away.”

After dinner, Bert sat in the den with his younger son, Paul, watching the TV news. Photos of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Lorraine Motel in Memphis flashed on the screen.

“I made hot fudge sundaes for everyone,” Marge said, as she entered the room, carrying a tray. She handed out spoons and parfait cups topped with whipped cream. They began eating as they watched.

“It’s a terrible thing that happened,” Bert said between bites, shaking his head.

“Yes, it is,” Marge said. “And he was such a young man. Only 39 years old.”

They were glued to the TV news, eating their ice cream slowly and watching mourners burst into tears as they consoled each other. Paul watched without saying a word.

The neighborhood was quiet every night, no issues. A week passed.

On the morning Bert readied to leave, he decided to telephone Bill and ask him, as an old friend, to sleep in their guest room for the one night he’d be away, just in case any trouble started in Harlem and spread north.

Marge reminded Bert that the pool guy was coming later that day.

“I forgot. Why’s he coming again?” Bert asked, wearing a suit and tie as he sipped his coffee.

“He said he’s got more details to discuss.” She hesitated for a second, then added, “You sure you can’t come home tonight?”

Bert shook his head in frustration. “Marge,” he said, “I already checked the train schedule. I’d get home too late. Bill will be here.”

Bert took the train to Washington, then a connector to Richmond. The trains were emptier and the stations quieter than normal. Bert knew he was moving against the tide, the people he saw seemed to have sad, tired looks on their faces. But Bert knew he was expected and that he had a job to do.

On the train south from New York, he had reviewed his leatherbound ledger, with 1968 embossed in gold letters on the front. He had compared sales figures for the current and past years for Gilman’s, the store he was visiting in Richmond.

Bert sold shirts, shirts he made in his factory in New York City with fine cotton fabric he imported from Europe.

Sales to Gilman’s had not increased in two years. He’d have to fix that.

He thought of Marge – and the pool and the cost. When he committed to building it and put down that $2,000 deposit, he was sure he’d be able to afford it. But he found business to be fickle.

He checked into the hotel and freshened up. He was wearing his best navy blue, pin-striped suit, with a white cotton shirt and red tie with small navy blue squares.

When he strode out of the hotel an hour later, he was so focused on his meeting that he almost ran right into the newsstand, with a guy holding up a newspaper with a headline:

Nation Still in Mourning, Some Unrest Lingers

Bert didn’t even notice, focused as he was on his task at hand.     

After a 10-minute walk, he arrived at Gilman’s.

“Hello Bert, it’s nice to see you. Please, sit down.”

“Nice to see you Tom.”

Tom Gilman was the store vice president, son of the store’s founder. They were meeting for lunch in the Virginia Room, the flagship restaurant in Gilman’s flagship store.

In the past, Bert loved looking around the grand dining room, the fancy crystal and bronze chandeliers, the marble pillars, and the polished parquet wood floors – surrounding all those ladies in their tidy dresses and fine spring hats and the scattered businessmen filling the room.

But today was more somber, that’s for sure. He could tell from the look on Tom Gilman’s face, he could tell from the sparse crowd in the restaurant.

A young waitress came over.

“Good afternoon gentlemen, would you like to order?” she asked.

“Thank you Sadie,” Tom Gilman said.

They glanced at their menus, ordered and started talking.

“Most of my colored staff have been calling in sick,” Tom told Bert. “You know, King’s death is an extra big deal down here.”

Bert noticed that Sadie and one other waitress were Black and all the customers sitting in the fancy dining room were white, except for two women at one table.

“Frankly, I’m surprised any of them came in today, with all that’s going on,” Tom said.

A few minutes later, Sadie carried a tray over, then placed sandwiches and coffee on the table. Bert glanced at Sadie’s face, looking for signs of emotion.

Bert didn’t want her to think he was staring at her, so he looked away as soon as her eyes met his, but she noticed. Didn’t make it obvious, but she always knew when someone stared at her, sort of had that innate sense.

Bert and Tom ate, then it was time for business.

Bert took out the swatch book from his briefcase.

“Tom, from London, we have this beautiful cotton fabric. No one else in America sells it and you’ll be the first store in the South to have shirts made with it. All I know is, the Brits and the French love it.”

Bert handed the swatch book to Tom, who then ran his fingers over the fabric, eyeing the pretty colors, the floral patterns, feeling the soft cotton.

“I can offer Gilman’s a three percent discount if the store orders 15 dozen or more shirts,” Bert said, offering this incentive, as he usually did, after the buyer had had a chance to see what a fine product he was offering.    

Bert didn’t notice, in fact no one seemed to notice, that Sadie was standing off to the side, against the wall, watching Bert and Tom do their thing. Bert had no idea she was able to hear everything he said.

She was listening, tuning in, tuning out. She had that ability. When she tuned out, she thought about her older sister, Jez. Jez had met Dr. King one time, at school a year ago after he gave a speech. Wouldn’t wash her hands for two days after shaking his hand; they all knew he was the man that gave them strength, gave them the strength and will to stand up straight and set anyone right who suggested that Black folk couldn’t do what white folks could.

Jez told Sadie not to go to work today, to stay home and pray for Dr. King’s soul. But Sadie said she could pray for him at work, she had to anyway, because she needed the money. And then came this guy Bert, from up North, trying to sell stuff while Dr. King’s soul was in the process of rising to the heavens.

Bert had been going on for almost an hour – the cups and plates had come and gone. When Bert, finally, stopped talking, stopped pushing his product and shut up and excused himself to go to the bathroom, Sadie watched him walk to the back. When he finally disappeared, she made a noise, one of those “Uh huhs” – couldn’t hear it, unless you were right next to her, but she said it alright.

“Thank you gentlemen,” Sadie said a few minutes later, as she placed the check in front of Tom Gilman, because she knew who he was. As she left the table she took a hard, quick glance at Bert, eyes locked for a split second. Bert noticed, sent a quick shiver up and down his spine.

A half hour later, in the upstairs’ office, Tom Gilman signed the order Bert had written up. Twenty-five dozen shirts, at a negotiated 4 percent discount, one of the largest orders Bert had ever taken outside the big cities of New York, Philly and DC.

When the meeting was over, Bert left the store and found the nearest phone booth, so he could call Marge and deliver the good news. He went on and on about the “huge” order and then, finally, Marge told him about the visit by the pool guy and that they would start work in a week.

“Good, I can’t wait to jump in this summer,” Bert said. He told his wife he loved her, then a moment after he hung up, he was startled by a hard knock on the phone booth door. He turned around and saw that it was the waitress from the restaurant, that Sadie, no longer wearing her Gilman’s uniform, but wearing a pleated blue skirt and red blouse. She was smiling, waving, as if she had just found an old friend.

“Bert Stein, right?” Sadie said, too loudly and too enthusiastic for Bert’s liking.

Bert opened the phone booth door and looked at her. “Yeah, that’s right. How do you know who I am?” he asked warily.

“Oh, I know a lot of things,” she said, still smiling and bursting with enthusiasm. “We met this morning, kind of, remember?”

“Yeah,” Bert said, suspicious, looking around to see if anyone was watching, because she was attractive and young, and he was married and much older, and she was Black, and he was white, and Why in God’s name was she approaching him like this?

“Don’t worry, I ain’t gonna bite you,” she said. “I’m going out tonight. Care to join me?”

They were standing in the middle of the sidewalk, in front of Gilman’s, beginning to draw a few eyeballs, making Bert increasingly uneasy.

“No, what?” Bert said, fumbling. “I’m not looking for anything. I don’t want to go out.” He paused, adding, “How do you even know I’m staying in town? Maybe I’m catching the next train home.” He glanced around again to see if anyone was watching them, or listening to their conversation. He was feeling more and more awkward, self-conscious. “Who are you, anyway? Aren’t you a teenager?”

Sadie laughed. “For the record, I’m a mature adult. I’m 22. I’m a college student. I don’t mean anything by it. You’ve got nothing to do tonight, except sit in your hotel room all by yourself.”

“You think you know everything, don’t you?” He shook his head.

She smiled. “I only know what I know.” Her smile was now smug, with eyebrows raised, head cocked, arms crossed – her exclamation point to her words.

“I’ll pick you up in your hotel lobby at seven. And Bert, I’m kind of casual – get rid of that tie, ok?”

She walked off, leaving him dumbfounded and stuck on the sidewalk, wondering if she really knew what hotel he was staying at, because he certainly never told her. But he hadn’t told her his last name, or even his first name, for that matter. Or anything.

He was so nervous back at the hotel that he paced in his room for an hour, nursing a scotch and water. He would not go downstairs, he decided, because he wasn’t going.

The knock on the door came at 7:10.

Bert couldn’t believe that this young woman had the guts to come up to his room and knock on the door. Wasn’t his no show a clear enough message?

“Come on, Bert, like I said, ‘I ain’t gonna bite.’ And you don’t even need to tell your wife,” Sadie said, way too loud for him, because what if someone heard her?

She knocked again. He had stopped pacing, was standing frozen in his room, glass still in hand, wearing his white undershirt, suit pants and socks.

What if he was out and his wife called his room?

He was not a liar, had never done anything he shouldn’t have done. He didn’t move, didn’t say a word.

“I’ll be downstairs seated in the lobby waiting,” Sadie finally said. “Take as long as you like.”

Jesus – what was she trying to do to him?

She was sitting in the fancy lobby, in a soft, cushioned, cream-colored chair, surrounded by stone pillars, gilded walls and a frescoed ceiling, reading a book, like she didn’t have a care in the world, just waiting.

“I have to be back in my room by nine,” Bert said, when he walked up beside her. “A good meal is something my wife would want me to have, so having a simple dinner in Richmond is not a bad thing.”

He noticed she was dressed nicely, wearing a pleated red dress, a white blouse buttoned to the neck and a navy blue and yellow plaid sweater, the sleeves pushed up almost to the elbows.

“I’m starving, how about you?” Sadie said as she closed her book, a Baldwin, dropped it in her purse and was up and walking out of the lobby before Bert had time to think or answer.

“Sure,” Bert said, self-consciously, looking around, as he trailed after her.

“I know a place with down and dirty Southern food. You’ll love it,” she said.

They walked a few blocks through the quiet, dusky streets of Richmond, the low sun peeking through, bouncing off office windows, a few scattered people going home from work. They were a middle-aged white man, a young Black woman, clearly together, together in step if not in thought, heading somewhere. Below the Mason-Dixon line, just a week after Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down by a white man.

They walked past a newsstand and all they saw were the large, somber headlines staring out at them.

Bert felt short of breath, slightly dizzy. What was he doing, walking around town as evening turned to night, walking with this young Black woman? He felt awkward, like people might be staring at him, wondering, especially at a time like this.

He exhaled so forcefully and anxiously that Sadie looked over at him.

“You ok, Bert? You look hot – we’re almost there.”

She saw Bert was sweating, his open-collared shirt soaked through at the armpits on this spring night. They entered a place called The Shack.

They eased past the few diners and sat down, and all along Bert is thinking, Jesus Christ, how the hell am I going to get out of this?

But Bert was stuck, as if he was glued in place. His mind said one thing, but his body said something else. Not sure why, but after a moment, he realized he was staring at Sadie. Not at her, really, but at her persona.

“I’ll buy the first round, then it’s up to you Mr. New York City Businessman. What do you want?” 

Sadie was standing in front of Bert, hands on hips, again, one self-assured young lady, Bert realized, which is why he couldn’t get up and walk out, stuck to her for some unexplained reason, left him wondering.

She returned to the table with a scotch and water for Bert and a shot of Jack Daniels for herself.

She smiled at Bert, then gulped her shot before Bert had a chance to lift his glass.

He shook his head, then slowly took a sip.

She reached for her purse. “You know, you make really beautiful stuff,” she said, as she opened her bag and pulled out a blue cotton shirt.

Bert was startled.

“Yeah, I know, I do shock people sometimes,” she said, smiling. “This is your company, right?” She spread the collar and showed him the label – Buckley Shirts, NYC.

Bert nodded, more in disbelief than in agreement. “Yeah, that’s my company,” he said. He then thought for a second, before his look hardened. “But how do you know so much about me?”

A waiter interrupted them, dropping two large platters on the table filled with BBQ, butter-drenched collard greens and candied yams, the steamy aroma rising into Bert’s face. A basket of warm salty ham biscuits was placed on the side.

“I suggest that you scoop up some of those sloppy greens and plop them on top of a biscuit and take a bite, and if that don’t send you to heaven and back, nothing will,” Sadie said, doing it as she talked.

She smiled with a mouthful and wiped her hands with a napkin. “Almost as good as my mother’s,” she said, chewing, swallowing and nodding. She wiped her hands and then held up Bert’s shirt.

“This is beautiful,” she said, running her forefinger across the shirt. It’s so soft.” She nodded at him. “You sell a lot?”

Bert took a noticeable breath, looking at this young woman in front of him, evaluating her, uncertain. He took a forkful of food, chewed slowly, swallowed, hesitated for a sec, then offered up: “Yeah, we have to. I have a lot of employees. Got a lot of mouths to feed.” Bert nodded cautiously, but confidently.

Then there was silence. Sadie took a sip of water, nodded gently. She let the Black Southern surroundings settle onto Bert.

They ate. No talking. Ate some more.

A few moments later, she half smiled and nodded, “Awfully good Bert, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, delicious,” he said, nodding back.

She finished up, then he took his last bite of BBQ.

“Ok, Bert, we have to go now,” she said.

Sadie began to pay, but Bert insisted. He put money down on the table. 

When they got outside, there was a car waiting. The air seemed to slap Bert, clear his brain of liquor.

“Who’s that guy behind the wheel?” he asked warily, as he peered into the dark car. “I think I’ll walk back to my hotel.”

“Bert, the night’s just getting started. I need to show you something.”

“You already did.”

“Yeah, you’re right, Bert. But I need to show you something else.”

He knew he shouldn’t get into the car, knew it like the day was 24 hours long. But for some reason, his mind went one way and his body went another.

They drove through downtown Richmond, the hum of the car echoing across mostly empty, quiet streets. If there was unrest in Richmond that night, it was in another part of town.

They pulled up to Gilman’s, with only the exterior and a bare minimum of interior lights shining, then turned down an adjacent side street.

“What are we doing here?” Bert said, concerned, wondering, as he looked out onto the dark, isolated street.

“You’ll see,” Sadie said, as she got out of the car and motioned for Bert to follow her, which he did, again, for some reason he still couldn’t fathom, his body moving even though his mind was saying, This probably is not a good idea. I don’t even know her.

She removed a key from her purse and opened the Employee Entrance.

“I don’t think we should be doing this,” Bert said.

“It’s ok, nothing’s going to happen,” she said.

Bert shook his head, but followed her anyway, succumbing to the inevitable, that he couldn’t say no, going through the dark doorway, following Sadie and her flashlight down a long, dingy corridor, then down a long, dark stairway and an even dingier and darker second corridor, until they came to a doorway. She opened the door to a pitch-black room.

“Uh – no,” Bert said, shaking his head, not moving, finally drawing the line. “I need to get back to my hotel – now.”

Sadie shined her flashlight into the room. “My God Bert, do you think I’m going to rape and pillage you?” She shined the light on her face, smiled at him, and said, “Bert, all I want to do is show you something.”

He stared at her for a second, then another, then sighed so loudly it made her smile.

“Bert,” she said, as she walked into the darker-than-dark room, “For God’s sake, relax and follow me.”

He shook his head, but still walked into the room. “Now, Bert, take a look over there,” Sadie said, as she shined her flashlight towards a rusted, metal shelf filled with old, broken cardboard boxes.

“What? That shelf?” he said.

“Yeah, look more closely,” she said, as she walked towards the shelf and shined the light between two boxes. She shoved one box left, one right, to create more of an opening.

Bert walked closer and looked where the light was shining.

“See what that says?”

“Something … lunch?”

“Look more closely.”

He moved closer and lowered his gaze. Sadie shoved the boxes further apart and shined the light in the opening.

Bert looked, squinted and read. The faded black letters on the peeling white wall looked like they had been scrubbed with a large brush, because the letters bled horizontally, a failed attempt at erasure, three words blurred around the edges.

“That’s what you wanted me to see?”

“Yeah, the store that’s paying you all that money, Bert. Thought you should see that.”

Bert was still peering between the boxes, the broken boxes sitting on that rusted, sagging shelf, looking at those words, made visible by Sadie’s flashlight, like a single beacon shining down a long, dark, ugly path.

Colored Lunch Counter

“You know Bert, the Virginia Room, where you ate lunch this afternoon, was for whites only not too long ago. When I was 11, my mother brought me to this store. We couldn’t eat in the Virginia Room if my dear life depended on it. We had to eat down here, in this dark, dingy, windowless cellar, away from all the white folks.”

“Now they let me work there. I’m still not sure I’d feel comfortable sitting in that chair you sat in this morning and eating food.”

“Why’d you bring me down here?”

“Because you sold shirts to these people. You made money from them.”

“Well, you work here. You make money from them, too.”

“Except there’s a big difference, Bert. A big difference. With tips and all, no place could pay me like the Virginia Room. And I need the money. Damn, I need the money. You – you got a thousand stores to choose from all across the country. You got a choice, I don’t.”

Bert shook his head in frustration. His mouth was clenched shut, he was sweating an oil slick, his anger was building. He had had enough of Sadie, of her dragging him all over town, of her manipulations. He looked her dead in the eyes, a straight shot from him to her: “Young lady, someday you’ll understand. I have to feed my family, I have employees I have to pay. I got a job to do.”

He nodded knowingly, confidently at her.

He stared at her, she stared right back, didn’t give him an inch. Then she drew closer and said, “There’s more to it than just you selling to Gilman’s. You know that Bert.”

His head went back a notch. “What are you talking about?”

Sadie shook her head. “Jeez, you’re lost, aren’t you?” She kept shaking her head. “Jeez, Bert.” She paused, then said, “What about that gun, Bert? What about that gun?”

Bert Stein’s mouth opened a bit, but no words came out.

He shook his head slightly, in shock at what she had just said.

How … His mind was tumbling through this confrontation, through this evening, trying to make sense … How was it … He kept a lock on Sadie, getting angrier. How …

He was in shock.

“You just don’t understand,” he finally said. “You just don’t get it.”

He kept staring, and she stared back.

Her face relaxed. She almost smiled, but not quite.

“No, Bert, you – you – don’t get it.”

She took a noticeable breath, then another. Then her gaze narrowed, no longer close to a smile. She moved towards Bert, about a foot away. “Bert, when I was still a kid, my momma and I had to walk past a lot of white people and ask where the stairs were to the colored restaurant – in the basement. There wasn’t even a sign.” She chuckled and shook her head. “The white folks really didn’t want us around. I guess they were afraid of us – afraid of me and my momma.”

She paused before adding, “I was a scary kid, Bert. I had my crayons. I carried them in my plastic purse, in case I had time to draw. I used to love to draw, Bert.”

Sadie shook her head, rolled her eyes something fierce, mocking. “You know with that gun, Bert, what you gonna do – shoot some poor Black boy marching in your street? No Bert, all you’re gonna do is shoot your foot off. That’s what you’re gonna do.”

Sadie shook her head at poor Bert – sweating, wilted and speechless – just standing there.

“We better go now,” she said.

The only words she said to Bert in the car ride back to Bert’s hotel were: “I needed you to see that, Bert. And I needed you to hear what I had to say.”

That night was one of those nights when Bert wasn’t sure he slept at all, just lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, wondering what had just happened. When the clock struck six the next morning, he wondered if he had dreamed that night with Sadie, if somehow his inner thoughts had conjured up a delusion.

He opened his briefcase to check on his order, to make sure he had in fact received an order for 25 dozen shirts from Tom Gilman. It was there, as vivid as the blue ink on the paper.

He realized he had two hours until his train, thought he’d run over to Gilman’s, to see if Sadie was there, working in the restaurant, to make sure she was a real person. But he didn’t want to know.

Then the hotel phone rang. It startled Bert, he paused before answering.

“Oh, hi Marge … good morning.”

He listened, shook his head.

“No … no, I wasn’t expecting a call from anybody else. No.”

On the train ride home Bert, in a daze, never noticed the lightning, nor did he hear the thunder crack as the train sped north, through Delaware, then Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and into New York, cutting through a slashing springtime storm.

When the commuter train finally arrived in Scarsdale, Bert didn’t call Marge to pick him up, nor did he hail a cab. He did something he had never done before. He set off on foot for the mile walk home, the rain still cascading down. Within two minutes, he was sloshing in water-logged shoes and his suit coat and shirt had soaked through, the shirt sticking to his back, shoulders and chest. His hair and head were so drenched that water ran down the slope of his head from every angle. He desperately clutched his briefcase to his chest, so that his papers – the Gilman’s order – didn’t get wet. Then the wind picked up and the rain came at him sideways, smacking him in the face. The sky ahead grew even darker. The rain seemed to pelt him and earth from every direction.