The Given Day (Coughlin 1)

"I don't understand the question, sir."

"What else?" the captain said for a third time.

"Sir, I'm not following you."

"Grew up poor, I imagine?" The captain leaned forward ever so slightly, and Luther resisted the urge to push his chair back.

Luther nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Sharecropping?"

"Not me so much, sir. My mother and father, though, yeah."

Captain Coughlin nodded, his lips pursed and pained. "Was born into nothing myself. A two-room thatched hut we shared with fl ies and field rats, it was. No place to be a child. Certainly no place to be an intelligent child. You know what an intelligent child learns in those circumstances, Mr. Laurence?"

"No, sir."

"Yes, you do, son." Captain Coughlin smiled a third time since Luther had met him, and this smile snaked into the air like the captain's gaze and circled. "Don't muck about with me, son."

"I'm just not sure what kind of ground I'm standing on, sir."

Captain Coughlin gave that a cock of his head and then a nod. "An intelligent child born to less than advantageous surroundings, Luther, learns to charm." He reached across the desk; his fingers twirled through the smoke. "He learns to hide behind that charm so that no one ever sees what he's really thinking. Or feeling."

He went to a decanter behind his desk and poured two helpings of amber liquid into crystal scotch glasses. He brought the drinks around the desk and handed one to Luther, the first time Luther'd ever been handed a glass by a white man.

"I'm going to hire you, Luther, because you intrigue me." The captain sat on the edge of the desk and clinked his glass off Luther's. He reached behind him and came back with an envelope. He handed it to Luther. "Avery Wallace left that for whoever replaced him. You'll note its seal has not been tampered with."

Luther saw a maroon wax seal on the back of the envelope. He turned it back over, saw that it was addressed to: MY REPLACEMENT.

FROM AVERY WALLACE.

Luther took a drink of scotch. As good as any he'd ever tasted. "Thank you, sir."

Captain Coughlin nodded. "I respected Avery's privacy. I'll respect yours. But don't ever think I don't know you, son. I know you like I know the mirror."

"Yes, sir."

" 'Yes, sir,' what?"

"Yes, sir, you know me."

"And what do I know?"

"That I'm smarter than I let on."

The captain said, "And what else?"

Luther met his eyes. "I'm not as smart as you."

A fourth smile. Cocked up the right side and certain. Another clink of the glasses.

"Welcome to my home, Luther Laurence."

Luther read the note from Avery Wallace on the streetcar back to the Giddreauxs.

To my replacement, If you are reading this, I am dead. If you are reading this, you are also Negro, as was I, because the white folk on K, L, and M Streets only hire Negro housemen. The Coughlin family is not so bad for white folk. The Captain is never to be trifled with but he will treat you fair if you don't cross him. His sons are mostly good. Mister Connor will snap at you every now and again. Joe is just a boy and will talk your ear off if you let him. Danny is a strange. He definitely does his own thinking. He is like the Captain, though, he will treat you fair and like a man. Nora is a funny thinker herself but there is not any wool over her eyes. You can trust her. Be careful with Mrs. Coughlin. Do what she asks and never question her. Stay well clear of the Captain's friend, Lieutenant McKenna. He is something the Lord should have dropped. Good luck.

Sincerely, Avery Wallace Luther looked up from the letter as the streetcar crossed the Broadway Bridge while the Fort Point Channel ran silver and sluggish below.

So this was his new life. So this was his new city.

Every morning, at six-fifty sharp, Mrs. Ellen Coughlin left the residence at 221 K Street and ventured down the stairs, where Luther waited by the family car, a six-cylinder Auburn. Mrs. Coughlin would acknowledge him with a nod as she accepted his hand and climbed into the passenger seat. Once she was settled, Luther would close the door as softly as Captain Coughlin had instructed and drive Mrs.

Coughlin a few short blocks to the seven o'clock mass at Gate of Heaven Church. He would remain outside the car for the duration of the mass and often chat with another houseman, Clayton Tomes, who worked for Mrs. Amy Wagenfeld, a widow who lived on M Street, South Boston's most prestigious address, in a town house overlooking Independence Square Park.

Mrs. Ellen Coughlin and Mrs. Amy Wagenfeld were not friends-- as far as Luther and Clayton could tell, old white women didn't have friends--but their valets eventually formed a bond. Both were from the Midwest--Clayton grew up in Indiana not far from French Lick--and both were valets for employers who would have had little use for them had they placed just one foot in the twentieth century. Luther's fi rst job after returning Mrs. Coughlin to her household every morning was to cut wood for the stove, while Clayton's was to haul coal to the basement.

"This day and age?" Clayton said. "Whole country--'least what can afford it--is going electrical, but Mrs. Wagenfeld, she want no part of it."

"Mrs. Coughlin neither," Luther said. "Enough kerosene in that house to burn down the block, spend half my day cleaning gas soot off the walls, but the captain say she won't even discuss the subject. Said it took him five years to convince her to get indoor plumbing and stop using a backyard privy."

"White women," Clayton would say, then repeat it with a sigh. "White women."

When Luther took Mrs. Coughlin back to K Street and opened the front door for her, she would give him a soft, "Thank you, Luther," and after he'd served her breakfast, he'd rarely see her for the rest of the day. In a month, their interactions consisted solely of her "thank you" and his "my pleasure, ma'am." She never asked where he lived, if he had family, or where he hailed from, and Luther had gleaned enough about the employer-valet relationship to know it was not his place to initiate conversation with her.

"She's hard to know," Nora said to him one day when they went to Haymarket Square to purchase the weekly groceries. "I've been in that house five years, I have, and I'm not sure I could tell you much more about her than I could the night I arrived."

"Long as she ain't finding fault with my work, she can stay silent as a stone."

Nora placed a dozen potatoes in the sack she carried to market. "Are you getting on well with everyone else?"