Page 91 of Meet Me on Greenwood

"Do you beat these men up before you send them north?" I asked.

"That was one of Sterling’s men. Honestly, I think Larry Page sent him. I’m not very secretive about my shipments." His jaw tightened. "I’m okay with people knowing about those, but the length of the tunnel, and where it goes—they can’t know that."

I swallowed. "What will you do with him?"

"We’ll put him in a crate with some food and water and ship him to Alaska. With any luck, he won’t make it, but if he does, we have people who will take care of him." The steel in his eyes took me off guard. He was serious. "At least this way, he has a chance to live. He just needs to decide whether to take it or not."

"Why not let him go?"

Houston took a seat on a wooden bench, removed his glasses and wiped off the condensation on the lenses using his shirt. "If I let him go, they’ll know about the tunnels. I can’t risk that, not even to keep my hands clean—not even to fulfill my Hippocratic Oath. This is too important." I eyed his bloodied knuckles, and Houston pulled his sleeve down to cover them.

"Why do they even care?" I asked.

"They have their own operations going. They want be a major supplier to the Black businesses. I have a mind to give it to them, but if they learn about the tunnels, and about the people we send North…" He shook his head.

"So, this is not about alcohol? Or guns?"

He shook his head. "It’s not, but it is a convenient by-product. I have a handful of wealthy Black investors. Everyone gets a cut, but most of it goes back into Greenwood. My practice hasn’t been profitable since it opened. This is how I keep afloat."

I looked at him for a long moment. The cut above his eye. His steadiness. Houston wasn’t trying too hard to convince me. He wasn’t performing; he was just waiting for me to decide what to do with his revelation.

"That first night. There was someone in the house?" I asked.

He nodded. "A young girl who was being targeted by Sterling. I got their entire family out. He was going to hurt her."

The pieces began to fall in place. Why I’d felt uneasy with my encounter with Gray Sterling, and all the sounds I heard at night. It had been people escaping through the underground tunnels.

"And that extra plate Lettie made for breakfast that day? It was for someone you were helping, wasn’t it?"

He shrugged. "I’ll never turn down a second helping from Lettie, but yes."

"Why do you care so much about this? You are risking your life for a community that you aren’t a part of. You could live your life, marry Sarah, and get a fat inheritance. Why this?"

"I know," he said quietly, "when my mother died, I had nothing. Her church in Arkansas pitched in, and it was the only reason I was able to pay for my tuition to med school. It only happened because of the Black men and women who cared."

The way he said it stopped me. "Your mother attended a Black church?" I came away from the railing, my dress clinging to my frame. "What are you telling me?"

He looked up, and in the thin light, I could see him deciding whether to tell me the truth.

"My mother was a Black woman," he said. "She worked herself to the bone cleaning houses until she’d had enough." His voice had gone quieter, like he was bracing for something. "I never knew my father, but my mother was Black." His eyes met mine, his words coming more slowly. "Which means so am I."

35

Gema

He’s Black, but White

"You've been passing?" I asked, sitting beside him.

"Since I was seventeen." Houston exhaled slowly. "I told myself it was practical. That I could do more from the inside. That the practice, the position, the access—" he stopped. "Somewhere along the way I lost track of whether I believed it, or whether I was simply afraid."

"So, you moved here where no one would know you."

He nodded. "My mother is buried here. I wanted to be here with her."

"And the people you move north?"

He nodded. "I couldn't save my mother. I couldn’t change the oppression she was born into, but I could pretend to be white and use my medical skills for something good."