Soul Kitchen
an excerpt

Covenant Cemetery, Solomon Alabama,
November 18, 1963

Audrey was the only white person at the funeral. Around all of Frankie’s family—the ebony women with the sharp cheekbones, the cinnamon men in black suits, the little coffee children looking like snowmen in white—Audrey was certain that even if the world ended, she would die knowing that she was surrounded by people who loved her.

It was cold. Audrey could see her breath steaming in front of her. Two of Frankie’s younger cousins were shooting pretend pistols and smoking imaginary cigarillos. An adult grabbed them both, and Audrey knew that the only reason they were not being taken outside and whipped was because they were in a church.

“Audrey?” Frankie’s mother, Rosalina, put her hand on Audrey’s hand. Audrey noted that, for the time, she wasn’t wearing any dazzling bracelets or bangles, and her fingers were free of all but two rings—her wedding ring and Frankie’s class ring. “The service is about to start. Do you think you can make it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Audrey, lacing her fingers. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

There were a lot of things that Audrey loved about Francis Assisi “Frankie” Wells, but the one that she loved most was when he would appear below her window and serenade her. He had a group, Frankie and The Robin’s Eggs, and Audrey had seen them perform more times than she could count, but she though he was at his best when he was singing to her. He sang Little Richard, Elvis Presley, The Beach Boys, The Isley Brothers, Martha Reeves, all the Gospel songs that they both knew (which weren’t very many), and especially The Four Seasons, Audrey’s favorite group.

“Sing ‘Sherry,’” she would beg, leaning on her windowsill, “Please? For me?”

Frankie would pretend to fuss and agonize, with Audrey laying on the pleadings, until he would open his mouth and out would come that glorious voice, trained on seventeen years of church choir and backyard concerts and piano lessons. Audrey was certain that the angel choir was good, but paled in comparison to Frankie Wells.

It was even more precious that he would sing to her. At night, he would cross the town lines, almost a mile, from his home in Solomon to hers in Smithy, and sing. They both knew that if Frankie was caught, a poor colored boy singing to the youngest daughter of a rich white man, he would be lynched on the spot.

He would also take this time to talk about his race-relations work. “Me and my brothers are taking a train up to Washington D.C. to hear the Doctor speak.”

“You—just you and your brothers are going up North? You could get killed!”

“I know, Audie, but,” he looked away, “It’s important. I’ll send you a postcard.”

“Oh! If I didn’t love you, I might have to kill you.”

Frankie grinned at his friend.

They both knew better than to try meeting anywhere else; Smithy First Baptist Church was full of old men and women who still called the majority of Solomon “former slaves” or “Negros” or God forbid the word that Audrey’s older sister Katherine was once slapped and Rita whipped with a switch for saying; Winston Churchill High School was still segregated. The few times that Audrey went downstairs and outside, or when Frankie went inside, one of them had to run and concoct lies upon lies to hide their tracks.

Ten days before his death, Frankie went to Audrey’s window and sang for her. Then he produced a small package wrapped in tinfoil. “I know I missed your birthday, but if you come downstairs I can give you your present.”

Audrey put on her coat, slid down the banister to avoid walking on creaky steps, and used a newspaper to keep the door open. “Happy eighteenth birthday, Audrey Hall,” he said, tossing her the package. She opened it.

“I can’t believe this,” she said, examining the strand of pearls. “Why are you so good to me?”

Frankie shrugged. “You’re my girl.”

They embraced. They sat under a tree, holding hands. “I’m going over to Montgomery,” he said, “There’s gonna be a real big protest. Doctor King and John Lewis and everybody’s gonna be there, Audrey.”

“Don’t get yourself killed, or I won’t be your girl anymore.”

Frankie pretended to be hurt before hugging Audrey again. “You’ll always be my girl.”

They parted ways then, blowing kisses.

They met ten years earlier. Frankie’s father, Martin Wells, was working as a farmhand on Frank Hall’s farm. The two men were drinking a beer after hauling bales of hay from one end of Smithy to the end, when Martin mentioned that he had a son about Audrey’s age, and wouldn’t it be nice if they played together? Frank agreed that it was a fine idea, andtold Clara about it at the dinner table.

“Oh, Frank, that’s wonderful! You know, I met Martin’s wife, Rosalina, last month when you held that picnic for all the workers, and she was the sweetest thing, all decked out in red and a headscarf—Katherine, eat your vegetables, dear, they’ll make your hair curly. Ginger, don’t try and hide your beans under your chicken bones, I can see them plainly. Vivian, don’t give the kitty table scraps, he’ll get fat. Mary Anne Hall, do not make faces at my table! Judy Katrina, stop laughing or I’ll warm my hands on your behind. Now, what were you saying, dear?”

Frank chewed thoughtfully on his beans before saying, “It would be nice for Audrey to have a friend. You know she is on her own so much.”

“Mmm. Harriett Leigh, if you roll your eyes one more time I will that little head of yours, do you hear me!”

Then, from the other end of the table, came the voice of Frank’s eighty-seven year old grandmother, Bettie. “Are you inviting coons to my house, Franklin Hall?”

“Grandmother Bettie, the Wells family is perfectly civilized and--”

“Darkies! Coons in this house, I thought your mother taught you better than that, Franklin. I do not think that having Audrey Jane around coons will do her any good, will it, Audrey Jane?”

Audrey was poking at a chicken bone with her little finger. She didn’t answer. Bettie harrumphed mightily and went back to criticizing Clara’s cooking.

Later that night, when Frank and Clara were on the porch having their nightly bourbon and Bettie was snoring in the attic room, Mary Anne crept across the hall from the “Big Girls” room—the room that she shared with Katherine, Rita and Vivian—to the “Little Girls” room, where Ginger, Judy, Hattie and Audrey slept. Mary Anne tip-toed very carefully around creaky floor boards and places she knew where the ghosts of Edward and Naomi and Tom appeared and sat down on Audrey’s bed. She knew that Audrey wouldn’t be sleeping. “When you meet Martin Wells’ son,” she said quietly, “what will you do?”

Audrey’s face was white in the moonlight. “I will say hello,” she said.

Martin Wells brought his son, Frankie, to work a few days later, on a bright, warm Saturday. Frankie’s mother, Rosalina, had dressed him in a smart shirt and clean, starchy blue jeans. Clara, in a rare moment, had allowed Audrey to wear a t-shirt and blue jeans. Martin and Frank greeted each other before Martin said, “Oh, allow me to introduce my son. Frankie, this is Frank Hall, the man I work for; and this is his daughter, Audrey.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Frankie, this is my daughter, Audrey. Audrey, this is Frankie. Now, why don’t you two go off and play?”

Frankie and Audrey looked each other over before walking away into the trees. Martin shook his head. “That girl must be a handful. Lord, Frank.”

“Yep,” said Frank. “My pride and joy, all eight of them.”

The two children walked farther back into the woods until they reached a tree with a large hole in it. Audrey stepped up on a rotting log to reach down into the gash and pulled out a baseball that was falling apart at the seams. They tossed it back and forth until Frankie said, “How many sisters do you have?”

“Seven,” Audrey said. “Katherine-Rita-Vivian-Mary Anne-Ginger-Judy-Hattie.”

“Oh,” said Frankie. “I got three brothers and four sisters. Johnny-Harry-Paul and Suzanne-Naomi-Ruth-Lucie.”

“I wish I had a brother.”

“No, you don’t,” Frankie said, smiling. “They’re big and mean and they steal your things and push you around.”

Audrey shrugged. “My sisters do the same stuff.”

“Oh.”

Walking back to the farm, Audrey said, “You know I’ve never shown anyone else that hole.”

“Really?”

“Cause before I never had anyone else I wanted to see it.”

Their fathers were baling hay and moving it onto a truck. When they saw Audrey and Frankie coming out of the woods, Martin asked, “Son, did you have a good time?”

“Yes, sir,” said Frankie.

Frank asked, “And did you have a good time, Audrey?”

“Yes, sir,” said Audrey.

The fathers smiled at each other. They didn’t know just how important a meeting they had made.

The Reverend Lindsey Washington Delaney presided over the service. He spoke of Frankie’s love of animals, of baseball and dancing, of star-gazing, cloud watching and singing. Audrey, along with Rosalina and Frankie’s four sisters, wept quietly throughout the service. She, along with his four sisters and three brothers, carried the casket across the street to Covenant Cemetery and set it down on the net that would lower it into the grave.

Reverend Delaney read from Ecclesiastes and the book of Ruth as gravediggers lowered Frankie down into the ground. The women wailed and screamed and pulled their hair; Audrey would have though they were being tortured if she hadn’t been one of them.

They sprinkled dirt into the grave—it was over. Rosalina put her small hand on Audrey’s shoulder. “Audrey? We’re going back home for lunch. Are you coming?”

Home. Audrey felt something rent inside her, something big and scary, and it was she could do to choke out a “No, thank you” before sprinting away, towards the woods.

The ball’s leather skin was almost all peeled off, and it stank to high heaven, but Audrey tossed it against a tree until it got dark. She replaced it with the greatest care, then curled her legs under her skirt and wondered when people would notice that she was missing. Frankie would have known. He knew everything thing about her, from her favorite pair of socks (grey argyle, present from Mary Anne) to the record she wore out three, nearly four times (The Four Seasons, “Big Girls Don’t Cry”) to her favorite sister (Mary Anne).

Audrey let her hear rest against the tree behind her and asked Frankie to send someone good.

Audrey had been missing for twelve hours when Grant Martin, a farmhand for Audrey’s father, walked into that particular part of the woods and saw her. He was part of a search party headed by Frank, who would have rolled heads if they stood in the way of his baby girl. She looked so small, so fragile. Gently he picked her up—she was asleep—and walked quickly through the trees, calling to the others, “I got her! I got her!”

At the house, Grant gave the girl to Frank, who picked the leaves from her hair and carried her inside. Her mother, Miss Clara, hesitated, and asked Grant if she could do anything for him.

“Tell her it was Grant Martin that found her,” he said, before leaving.