Where the River Ends - Charles Martin [40]
I was amazed. “How do you know all this?”
“I’m a Charleston girl.” She smiled. “We’re raised to know this stuff.”
It was after midnight and we had come full circle, just a few blocks from her house. She looked at me. “You tired?”
I shook my head. “No, I think the walk did me good. I don’t know what you people put in that lemonade but it ought to come with a warning.”
She laughed, grabbed my hand and we walk-jogged a few blocks back toward the water. Pulling me along she said, “They close at one, so we might get there in time.”
“Who closes at one?”
The streets were quiet, lit by the occasional passing car or gas streetlamp. A couple of cats fought over a Dumpster and somewhere in the distance a high-pitched dog bark was followed by a low-pitched response. We ran back out onto Rainbow Row and crossed over to a corner liquor store. She pushed open the door, where we found an elderly black gentleman wearing a crimson sweater-vest. He sat behind a counter, one long leg extending beyond the counter, a penguin wingtip tapping in rhythm to the jazz coming out of the solid-state radio above him. One eye was cloudy but his beard and mustache were trimmed and his pink shirt had been pressed and starched. Abbie crossed the floor and he stood, beaming. “Must be some party if they sent you shopping at this time of night.”
She pulled my hand. “Mr. Jake, this is my friend Doss Michaels.”
He looked at me through his one good eye, sizing me up. Abbie turned to me. “Mr. Jake used to work at the theater. He taught me how to dance.”
He laughed an easy laugh but never took his eyes off me. He was quiet a minute then extended his hand. “You that boy I heer’d about the other night that helped Miss Abbie?”
I nodded. “I am.”
He waved his hand across the store. “Then anything you want is yours.”
She stepped closer and wrapped an arm around his waist. “Mr. Jake, I wanted to show Doss the cellar.”
He walked around the corner, pulled on a recessed handle at the floor level and lifted a large door. She flicked a light switch and the three of us descended some old wooden steps into the basement.
It was cool, and some water dripped somewhere. From what I could tell, the basement had been made entirely of large, hand-cut bricks. Mr. Jake explained, “This here is one of the tunnels out of the original old city of Charleston.” He waved his hand across the room like a buzzing bee. “They runned the len’th of the city. During Hugo, they filled up with ocean water…that flushed out all the rats.” He laughed again, something he did a lot of. “Some have collapsed. Some remain. Few know about them.”
I ran my hand along the wall and listened. He continued, “When I was a kid, I used to come in through a city drainage pipe out near the wharf, walk a couple of blocks through these tunnels with a candle in my hand and pop up inside the theater. They wouldn’t let me in the front door, so I come up underneath. I’ve seen more shows there than…anyone living I s’pose.”
Abbie turned toward me. “Mr. Jake is being modest. He started his acting career at Dock Street, then took it to New York where he starred in more than one on and off Broadway show.”
He nodded, remembering. She grabbed his hand. “Mr. Jake, you still remember our first dance?” She kicked off her shoes and turned to me. “I was six. Dock Street needed a fillin and doing so involved a very complicated number with Mr. Jake.” I leaned back against the wall while Abbie led and Mr. Jake remembered. His heels scuffed the brick floor taking two steps while the man in his memory took one. His face told me everything I needed to know.
They finished, his breathing was heavy but his smile had grown. She stood on her toes, kissed him on the cheek and said, “Mr. Jake, you’re still the best.”
“Miss Abbie”—he pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket, shook it loose and wiped his brow and neck—“you do an old