No Crystal Stair Read Free Page B

“Carter’s” “You know, kitten, you’ve never been poor. Never had to do without.”
    She was silent, watching him. “Sometimes ‘things’ make a difference.” He glanced at the one-story house he and some of his colleagues had converted into a hospital. “I’ve watched death, disease and poverty come in and out of this place day after day. I’d go crazy if I couldn’t withdraw.”
    â€œWithdraw?”
    He nodded. “Your mother has made me a comfortable retreat. I like the touch of elegance, the pretty table, my big leather chair. Hell, I even enjoy her parties.”
    That surprised Ann Elizabeth. She’d always believed that he never noticed. Or, at best, merely tolerated those events. A comfortable retreat . Would she supply that for Dan? Could she? Was that enough?
    â€œNow listen, kitten. Don’t worry about what your mother says or what I say or anybody else, for that matter. Only you can know what’s best for you. And you’ll make the right decision. You’re definitely your mother’s daughter.”

    She stared at him, eyes wide.
    He laughed. “Oh yes. You’ve got that same streak. That same core of inner pride, that sense of knowing you’re somebody. And that’s not a bad thing to have, Ann Elizabeth. It’s the kind of confidence no outsider can shake. And when you’re that sure of yourself, you’re not likely to make the wrong decision.”
    She watched her father disappear into the small hospital. She smiled at a woman who passed, waved to a boy on a bike. The boy was delivering medicine from her uncle’s drugstore. This was her world, this West Side where the majority of Atlanta’s Negroes lived. She felt comfortable within it. Reluctantly she opened her sociology book to do a little more studying. But she hadn’t finished even a paragraph when she heard the door open. She looked up startled to see her father returning so quickly, his face tense and anxious.
    â€œThere’s been an accident, Ann Elizabeth. I’ve got to go there right away.” He started the car and headed down Hunter Street. At first she thought he was going toward Auburn, but instead he skirted town and drove in the opposite direction through streets unfamiliar to her. Rain had begun to fall, and they day was growing as dark and dismal as her father’s face.
    â€œWhat happened, Dad?”
    â€œIt’s Mr. Suber’s boys. They’ve been in a fight.” He spoke as he always did of his patients. As if she knew them and would be as concerned as he. She had no idea who Mr. Suber was. He cares so much for all of them... She gazed out of the road in silence and felt the jolting as he turned down a cobblestone hill. Shortly after, he turned right into a dirt alley and stopped in front of a run-down house. He got a flashlight from the glove compartment and picked up his bag.
    â€œCome along, Ann Elizabeth. I may need help.”
    The door of the house opened before they reached it and a man emerged holding a kerosene lamp. “I’m glad you’re here, Doc. I’m scared. Zeke’s bleeding to death. Come this way.”

    Ann Elizabeth followed her father and the faint glow of the lamp through one dim room into another, where she almost stumbled over a tin washtub that appeared to be filled with blood. A wave of nausea swept over her as she was confronted by the smell of blood and cooking cabbage and a spectacle too hard to grasp. A young man—no, a boy—was lying on a couch and a woman was kneeling beside him, staunching a gaping wound in his neck with a cloth she dipped repeatedly in the tub.
    So much blood! Ann Elizabeth swallowed and tried to hold her breath. She mustn’t be sick. The woman moved aside and began to mumble almost incoherently.
    â€œOh, Dr. Carter, Please! Save my boy. They cut Zeke. He wasn’t doin’ nothin’. Lenny—he’s the