The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou [23]
When Schiffman gave me my check, we both grinned.
CHAPTER 4
I thought Godfrey Cambridge was one of the prettiest men I had ever seen. His features had the immutability of a Benin mask, and his white teeth were like flags of truce. His skin was the color of rich black dirt along the Arkansas River. He was tall and big and spoke English with the staccato accent of a New York-born descendant of West Indian parents. He was definitely the one.
He was introduced to me at a Greenwich Village party. He said that he was an unemployed actor, and because I mistook his curiosity for romantic interest, I pursued. We exchanged phone numbers and when I called and invited him to dinner, he accepted. Guy and Godfrey became a team in the first ten minutes. Guy enjoyed Godfrey's funny stories about his job as a taxi driver and his adventures auditioning for white musicals. We ate a four-course meal (I always used my cooking to enhance my sex appeal) and laughed a lot. After Guy went to bed, Godfrey and I sat in the living room listening to records and drinking cognac-laced coffee. To my disappointment, the jokes continued. Godfrey talked about crazy passengers, egotistic actors and tyrannical directors, and each story led to a punch line which begged for laughter. The stories became more forced and time moved haltingly. Despite my availability, my cooking and my willingness, together we ignited no passionate fires.
When I let him out of the house, he gave me a brother's kiss and I scratched him off my list as a possibility.
The Harlem church was full, with standees in the rear. A few white people sat in the middle rows, stiffly, not moving, not turning to look at the black people, who buzzed like hived bees. Godfrey and I had come to hear Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. He had just been released from jail, and was in New York to raise money for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and to make Northerners aware of the fight being waged in Southern states.
Five black men marched in single file onto the rostrum, their solemnity a perfect foil for the raucous welcome of the audience.
The host minister introduced Wyatt Walker, a Baptist preacher whom I thought too handsome for virtue and too young for wisdom.
He spoke, in a purely Baptist voice, of Alabama and the righteous struggle for justice. Fred Shuttlesworth, another attractive minister, was introduced. I wondered if the SCLC had a policy of keeping the ugly preachers at home and sending only the good-looking ones to the North. Shuttlesworth leaned his thin body over the podium, jutting a black hawklike face at the audience. His words were sharp and his voice accusatory. He became a hatchet of a man. Chopping away at our geographic security. What were we doing in New York City, while black children were being set upon by dogs, black women were raped and black men maimed and killed? Did we think New York City could escape the righteous wrath of God? This was our chance to join the holy crusade, pick up the gauntlet flung down in hate, carry it through the bloody battleground to the region of peace and justice and equality for all. The audience stood up and the Reverend Shuttlesworth sat down.
Ralph Abernathy was introduced next. He moved slowly and quietly toward the podium. He stood a few seconds, looking down at his hands, which rested on top of the desk. His speaking voice was a surprise and his delivery a shock. He didn't have the fire of Walker or the anger of Shuttlesworth. His message was clear and quick, and in an unnerving way, the most powerful. The South was in a phase of change, and everyone must pay for change because everyone will benefit from change. As Christians, we all should be ready for change because if we think about it, Jesus was the greatest changer in history. He changed the idea of an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. He ran the moneylenders from the temple because they were cheating the people and taught forgiveness even