One Day in Roxbury

Sometimes I imagine the day he met her.

It was probably on Massachusetts Ave., under a gray Boston afternoon sky. He probably saw her from across the street, because he lived on the west side of Mass Ave, across from the New England Conservatory where she went to school, on the east side of the street. He probably first saw her a couple of blocks north of Columbus, a few blocks south of Boylston.

He probably just got off the trolley, the orange line, after returning from Marsh Chapel to his flat. For him, home was temporarily the very edge of Roxbury, where he could feel like he belonged, if only for a few hours, as the evenings set in and through the night, until he would have to do it all again at BU the next day. Forget that some people called it the South End. To him, this was Roxbury, where his people were.

In Roxbury, he could see the people that he saw back home on Auburn Ave in Atlanta. Nevermind the fact that their accents were nothing like in Atlanta. Somehow, here in Roxbury, the Beantown accents weren't as harsh as they were over on Commonwealth where he spent his days, or the ones that he'd heard about down in Southie. (He'd never been to Southie, and he didn't mind if he never went there.) In Roxbury, he could get a hot plate of the food he grew up on. Or pick up the latest Billy Eckstein record. And perhaps most importantly, in Roxbury, he could get a haircut. Sometimes he didn't even need a haircut; he just went to the barber shop to be at ease with his people, wasting the hours away.

As he hopped off the trolley that particular day, he wondered if any of his friends from home would ever experience what it was like to sit in the front of public transportation. He wondered if it were better to sit in the back; at least that way they didn't have to endure the stares from folks who knew that he could sit up front in Boston, but most of his kind didn't even though they could. He always told himself that he didn't care about their stares, but he knew that he really did, because he never sat closer to the front than the third, maybe fourth row. Just trying to play it safe, so to speak.

Maybe it was a Monday. That way, when he saw her, he was confident enough to step to her because his razor lining was still somewhat fresh from the previous weekend's cut. And he was probably still riding the high of having gotten chosen once or twice at the gathering for which he had gotten that cut. Maybe it was the all-Boston black graduate student dance, down at the Rosemont Ballroom. He had been a hit that night. Maybe he really showed those up-north negroes a couple of things about jitting; just a few moves he picked up at the 'House. And as a reward for cutting a decent rug that night, he left with his pockets full of napkins and paper scraps, all bearing magic codes to contact more than a few soft-handed, silky-haired admirers of his footwork.

Usually he wouldn't have looked over his shoulder across the street. Usually he would have just carried on to the west side of Mass Ave, leather briefcase slung over his shoulder. But today was different. Today he was expecting a letter from home. Rumor was that his old friend and mentor Howard was coming to assume the deanship of Marsh Chapel, at his school. This was great, he thought, it was too bad that he would be graduated by the time Howard arrived in the fall. Well, maybe he could stay one more year, and find something else to study. No, he had already committed to moving on, to Crozer. And he couldn't delay his return home any longer. His people needed him there more than ever. He was tired of being a student. And, Boston was just too danged cold.

Anyhow, in hopes of getting a letter confirming Howard's new gig, he allowed his eyes to avert themselves from their routine path. Today, he canvassed Mass Ave looking for the postman, to see if he had already come or not. He looked left, looked right, looked south, looked nor...

Whoa! Who is that, he probably thought! She is incredible! He knew that he had to say something to her. Maybe he considered to himself how he would cross back over the street to get to where she was. He couldn't yell across Mass Ave to her. Not this time. She would never hear. And even if she did hear him, why would she stop whatever she was doing to pay him any mind? He would look like a crazy man, yelling across the street to her. Plus, she looked to classy for some stuff like that. No, not this time. Not her. He had to get on 'cross that street for her.

So maybe he made his way across. He probably tried to breathe naturally, which was hard because he was nervous and excited to see her, and he had just dodged Edzels and trolleys crossing the street to get to her.

Collecting his breath for a moment, he probably said, "Hi, have you seen the postman?" DANG!!! That's the best I could come up with!? SHOOT! I know I could have done better than that! That was so jive! She probably smiled, and said "No, as a matter of fact I have not. But if you wanted to introduce yourself, all you had to do was just that. You'd like to get thrown in jail, a Negro boy running in front of cabs like that!"

Wow, he must have thought, she sounds like me! And my sister, and my Mama! This is my lucky day...

I'm sure that she was gorgeous. She was probably coming from her voice class, preparing for the coming weekend's performance at the Conservatory. Some said that she was the best Negro singer that they had ever heard. She could sing classically like the white girls in her class, but she still sang like she had seen other things, other genres in her day. They loved her at the Conservatory, becuase she was an experiment of sorts. The deans wanted to see what would happen with the spirit filled voice of a southern negro girl mixed with a classical training. She had succeeded in the experiment beyond anythign that the head masters could have imagined.

But right then, on Mass Ave, he most likely didn't know all of that. All he knew is that he had to find something else to say to her; anything!

"Hi, I'm..."

"I already know who you are, Martin. I'm Coretta."