RUNAWAY ROSE
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Robert met with Tom and Rose at the American
the following evening. Rose maintained her disguise. Even in the liberal
atmosphere of the establishment, she still felt that it was better to be safe
than sorry. Robert had no such problem. As a white man, he was in a position of
relative power and status in the South, even if he was a Northerner. Despite
the fact that the Civil War had ended nearly fifty years before, many of the
old prejudices and tensions remained.
Robert was somewhat surprised by Tom’s
intelligence and well-spokenness. Although Robert had traveled more than many
people of his time, and had seen more than many, he had rarely been to the
South before he came to New Orleans, and, in the early twentieth century, the
majority of the United States’ Negro population still lived in the South. Even
after he had moved to New Orleans, he had resided in a mostly white area and
had worked in a white theater. While Robert, an indefatigable wanderer, had
traveled throughout much of New Orleans, he hadn’t seen it from the same
perspective as Rose and Tom and had a different viewpoint. The evening was an
eye-opener for him.
In the open, relaxed atmosphere of the
American, people of all races—not just Negro and white, but others, as well—mingled
freely. In Robert’s experience, much of the interaction between the races was
in the form of employer and employee, with the employer usually being white and
the person of another race the employee. In this establishment, people of all
races worked and relaxed together, with employees serving food and drinks and
performing on the stage and patrons mixing freely. Yet even here there were
boundaries, and most people sat in unvarying groups. They tolerated each other,
but the groups often remained separate. Still, some people did cross the
boundaries, and there were few raised eyebrows at the mixed group of Tom,
Robert, and Rose.
Robert commented upon the fact that people
acted much more naturally in this environment, with much less of the false
behavior that so often characterized racial interaction in the city. Rose
explained that in this establishment, many of society’s rules were left
outside. A white person could treat a Negro with respect without being looked
down upon, and Negroes could drop the protective buffoon act. Many of the
stereotypes regarding Negroes came from this protective act, which, Rose
explained, often served as way of averting aggression. The racial boundaries in
the South were deeply ingrained, with white people holding a position of power,
and the buffoon act helped to avert aggression by making those in power laugh
and mock those who performed it, and reduced social tensions by convincing them
that they were, indeed, in their rightful position. It was an age-old form of
adaptation, used for untold millennia by those at the bottom of the social
pyramid to provide a margin of safety for themselves and the society in
general. Still, it was not an absolute adaptation, and sometimes it backfired,
with the stereotypes becoming so deeply ingrained that they became a cause for
further aggression rather than a way of preventing it. In addition, many of the
adaptive behaviors were difficult to maintain, being offensive, unnatural, or
unworkable. The adaptive behaviors, and the stereotypes, changed over time for
all levels of society. But change came hard, and it would take a more receptive
social climate than the one currently in place to make real change.
The three sat around a small table, talking
and eating, late into the night. Rose proudly announced which songs she and Tom
had devised when several singers, both Negro and white, got up on the stage and
performed a number of different songs. Their subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle
protest songs had been adopted by people with similar views, and their
continued performance helped keep the ideals alive.
*****
As the weeks passed and the mild New Orleans
winter turned to spring, Robert and Rose spent a great deal of time together.
They often met at the American in the evening, sometimes accompanied by Tom,
whom Robert had developed a lot of respect for. He thought well of Rose’s ‘grandfather’,
and, after a couple of weeks, took to joining them on the streets when they
were performing. The amount of harassment dropped precipitously after this,
since people tended to be more respectful of the efforts of a white man than
that of a Negro man and his granddaughter.
Robert got Rose a ticket to his play one
night and took her out to dinner afterward. Rose looked around the theater
during the play and noticed how small the audience was. She suspected that
Robert would soon be looking for a new job.
There had been a not-so-subtle shift in their
relationship. Both Robert and Rose had grown up in the fourteen months that
they had been apart and were able to pursue a more mature relationship. Robert
no longer chased every girl in sight, growing bored and dropping them within a
short time; instead, he concentrated his efforts upon Rose. Rose, for her part,
was much more secure, much more confident, than she had been before, and she
was no longer grieving for someone she refused to mention.
Though she never spoke of Jack, she had come
to accept the fact that he was gone, and she had to move on. Although a portion
of her heart would always belong to Jack, she was ready to truly move on—and to
love again. What she had experienced with Richard had been a part of that
healing process, but now she was ready for a steady, loving relationship. She
had never loved Richard, but as April passed, and the second anniversary of the
sinking of the Titanic was remarked upon in the newspapers, she realized that
she had grown to love Robert, and he her.
On April 16, 1914, Rose left the slum hotel
she had been staying in and moved into Robert’s small apartment. Rose was
surprised when Robert insisted that they sleep apart—her experience with
sharing living space with men had taught her that they wanted something from
her—but soon realized that his insistence was out of respect for her. Though
surprised, she was not offended, and they lived together semi-platonically
until the beginning of May.
*****
Early in May, Rose and Tom got a surprise
when Tom was offered a job playing the banjo at the American. She was pleased
for him—it was a great opportunity—but concerned about their street performing
business. The American stayed open late, and few of its employees were to be
found out and about during the day. Rose thought that she might be able to
perform alone, singing a cappella, possibly with Robert working alongside her,
but she still worried.
Robert offered her a surprising solution. His
play had closed a few days earlier and he was looking for something new to do.
Much as he liked acting, he wanted a break, and came up with the most
outrageous plan Rose had ever heard of.
Years earlier, Robert had briefly traveled to
Alaska. Although he hadn’t stayed long—just long enough to learn a bit about
gold mining—he was now struck with the desire to return. Rose wasn’t sure why—possibly
it had to do with the fact that New Orleans was persistently warm and humid,
and he wanted to go someplace a bit cooler.
The night after Tom had been offered the job
at the American and had accepted it, Robert and Rose met there to watch him
play. There was no dearth of singers available, which was why Rose had not been
offered a job. Tom had tried to insist that they be hired together, but Rose
had insisted that that wasn’t necessary, that he could take the job without her
if need be. Tom had looked skeptical, and was concerned for what would happen
to Rose, but he had finally given in.
Rose and Robert were listening to him play
the banjo when Robert had sprung the news on her that he wanted to leave.
"Have you ever been to Alaska?"
Robert asked her suddenly when the song was over.
Rose shook her head, puzzled. "No."
"Ever thought about going there?"
Rose shrugged. It had never really occurred
to her. "Not really. Why?"
"I’m thinking of going there."
"Oh? When?"
"Next week."
"Next week!"
"Yes. I need a break from acting, and I
want out of New Orleans. This place is too warm, and I was here last year, too.
It’s only going to get hotter."
"Do you plan on coming back?"
He shrugged. "I don’t know. Probably
not."
"Guess I’d better find a new place to
live, then." Rose acted calm, but inside she was hurt. What about the words
of love he had spoken to her? Was he just going to up and leave her as he had
so many other women? Maybe she shouldn’t have trusted him.
"Why don’t you come with me?"
"Come with you? To Alaska? What would we
do in Alaska?"
"I don’t know...pan for gold in the
rivers, hunt caribou, defend someone’s rights..."
"Don’t tease me."
"Sorry. But I’m serious. It would be an
adventure. I’ve been to Alaska before, and it’s a beautiful place. I bet you
would like it, even if you are a city girl."
"I don’t know...isn’t this kind of
sudden? How would we get there? What would we live on?"
"I have some money saved. There hasn’t
been much extra I wanted to spend money on. We would take a train from here to
San Francisco and take a ship up to Alaska—"
"A ship?" Rose looked at him as if
he had grown two heads.
"Yes. A ship. If you haven’t been on one
before, it can be kind of hard to get used to—the ship rocks you a lot, and
some people get seasick—but it really isn’t that bad."
"I’ve been on a ship before, and I’ve
never been seasick." Just heartsick after the last ship she had been on
sank and took the man she loved with it.
"What ship have you been on?"
"Oh, the Mauretania. I went on a trip on
that one once." And it’s true, she thought. She had crossed the
ocean to Europe for that ill-fated trip on the Mauretania.
"Where did you go?"
"That’s a secret."
Robert shook his head, grinning at her.
"I’ll solve your mystery yet. Let’s see, you’re an actress, you defend
people’s rights, you traveled on the Mauretania...this gets more interesting
all the time."
"Humph." Rose scowled at him,
half-jokingly.
"But what do you say? Do you want to
come to Alaska with me?"
Rose sat back, considering. She wanted to go
with him, but she didn’t want to set foot on another ship. She also wasn’t sure
what she would do in Alaska. She had no idea how to pan for gold, or hunt
caribou—not that she really had any taste for hunting anything. She didn’t like
killing. On the other hand, it would be an adventure, a chance to go somewhere
that she had never been before, and see a side of life that she wasn’t familiar
with. And, she thought, it might be a good idea to get on a ship
again before the old fear cripples me. Most ships never hit icebergs, she
reasoned, and most ocean trips end successfully. Besides, I really have no
reason to stay in New Orleans, no real way of making a living here.
"All right. I’ll go with you."
Robert was surprised at Rose’s sudden
acquiescence. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, trying to think
of what to say. He had been prepared to argue with her further.
Rose giggled, earning a glare from Robert.
She tried not smile, but he looked so comical with his mouth hanging open.
Finally, he laughed, too.
"Great. When do you want to leave?"
"I don’t have anything to do, really,
except pack up my few belongings and say good-bye to Tom. How soon do you want
to leave?"
"How about in two days? We have to get
to Alaska by mid-June, or it will be too late in the year. The summers are
short up there."
"That’ll work. It’ll give us time to
pack, get train tickets, and tell the landlord we’re leaving. But..." She
waved a finger at him. "...I am not hunting any innocent caribou, and
you’ll have to teach me how to pan for gold. I am a city girl, after all."
He laughed. "I can teach you anything
you need to know. Someone once said I would make a great teacher."
"You certainly taught some of those
chorus girls in New York a thing or two," Rose told him saucily.
"Hey!"
Rose giggled, then raised her beer glass.
"To adventure, whatever we might find."
Robert laughed, raising his glass as well.
"Right!"
They clinked their glasses together, spilling
beer on the table, and laughed even harder.