Oakhart Social's Tristan Wraight Photo: Amy Jackson Smith
Around here, the folks cooking your favorite foods are as close to celebrities as some of us get (unless you’re lucky enough to corner Dave Matthews on the mall). So, for this year’s annual Food & Drink Issue, we decided to take a look behind the scenes—beyond your pork belly tacos and pain de campagne—at where our chefs, sous chefs, bar managers, retailers, bakers, and brewers eat on their off-hours, how they source hard-to-find ingredients, and what they crave when no one’s looking. (No surprise there: They like fast-food as much as the rest of us—and some aren’t even ashamed to say it).
Donna Lucey, who never expected to settle in the South, moved to Charlottesville with her husband in 1992. She says she was pleasantly surprised by the community of writers and artists she found here.
Photo: Jackson Smith
Local author Donna Lucey has made it her life’s work to research and write about “badass women.” Her stories often focus on spirited women born into conventional families, who defied expectations and social norms. But even in 2018, such stories can be a hard sell. Publishers tend to want to publish biographies about famous people, Lucey says, which leaves out women who may have done remarkable things but were ignored in their own times. “It’s really frustrating because there are endless men who are famous, but women have been lost to history,” she says.
With her latest book, Sargent’s Women: Four Lives Behind the Canvas, Lucey says the fame of American portrait painter John Singer Sargent provided the hook she needed to sell the story of four fascinating women, three of whom he painted, one of whom he mentored. This month the book, which was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice, will be awarded the Mary Lynn Kotz Award for Art in Literature.
Given annually by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Library of Virginia since 2013, the award, which comes with a $2,500 cash prize, recognizes an outstanding creative or scholarly book that is written primarily in response to a work (or works) of art.
Lucey’s book beat out well-known biographer Walter Isaacson’s Leonardo da Vinci, a number one New York Times bestseller, as well as Laurie Lico Albanese’s novel Stolen Beauty, about painter Gustav Klimt, and Christina Baker Kline’s novel A Piece of the World, about the woman in Andrew Wyeth’s painting “Christina’s World.”
The Gilded Age
Sargent’s Women takes an intimate look at the lives of four women in a singular age.
“I’ve always loved the 19th century and the Gilded Age,” says Lucey, whose five books touch on the epoch in some form or other. “I love that era because of the sheer exuberance and the over-the-top, eccentric characters. In some ways it was grotesque.” She gives the example of one of the male characters in Sargent’s Women, who thrusts his arm into a fire after beating a man in a jealous rage. “You can’t make this stuff up,” Lucey says. “If I were to write this as fiction people would say, ‘This is a little bit over-the-top.’ And, in fact, every inch of it is true.”
But it was Elizabeth Chanler, an orphaned Astor heiress, who first drew Lucey to the project. Lucey’s previous book, Archie and Amélie: Love and Madness in the Gilded Age, focused on Chanler’s brother, committed to an insane asylum for losing the family money. In a family that suffered the loss of both parents when the children were young, Chanler was the one, Lucey says, “who had to take care of everyone, and the one everyone adored in a family that was really unmoored.”
Her other subjects are Elsie Palmer, who grew up among intellectuals and artists and, after years as a spinster and the family caregiver, ran away to get married; Lucia Fairchild, who gave up her family’s money to paint miniatures and live in an artists’ colony; and Isabella Stewart Gardner, the New York City transplant who never fit into her husband’s puritanical Boston society but would end up contributing her significant art collection to the city.
Lucey winnowed down her selections from the over 900 portraits Sargent painted. In a way, one woman led her to another: “All of these women knew each other,” says Lucey. “It was a very rarefied world. When I was up at the Astor house in the Hudson Valley talking to the owner of the house, right next to me was a miniature by Lucia.”
The final four subjects “seemed very personal in a way that many of Sargent’s portraits don’t,” she says. That’s in part because Sargent knew these women and their families well. “He had this uncanny way of seeing into their souls,” she says, “capturing their personalities and characters…through his choice of clothing and his choice of composition.”
Take, for instance, Sargent’s portrait of Palmer, her wide eyes and blank stare set off by her blunt bangs. “It freaked out everybody in London when they first saw it,” Lucey says. “They thought she was insane. …It has this weird aura to it, and in a way her life played out in that way, ending with her marrying this crazy spiritualist.” Likewise, Sargent’s portrait of Gardner captures her plain features but bold style, attired as she is in a long black dress with a dramatic neckline. Lucey laughs, recalling that while on her book tour at Chanler’s summer home in Newport, Rhode Island, just as she began talking about Gardner, out of nowhere a black balloon floated into the crowd. “It was like she was making her grand entrance. …It was almost uncanny. Typical of Isabella that she would want to be there.”
As for Lucia Fairchild, you won’t find a Sargent portrait of her as her story is really about how, watching Sargent paint her sister Sally, Fairchild was inspired to learn to paint. “I love doing that kind of bait and switch,” Lucey says. “Sally was the golden child, the one that Sargent painted over and over again… She was the one who was going to be a star, but she ended up doing nothing with her life.” Her sister, on the other hand, befriended Sargent and became an artist in her own right. While doing research for the book, Lucey found an uncatalogued scrapbook at the Boston Athenaeum, and in it, she says, is “this incredible Kodak portrait of Sargent lying in the foreground, and in the middle ground was Lucia, the ugly duckling sister, taking notes.”
While Lucey say she has a special spot in her heart for Fairchild because her story is “just so poignant, and she was so courageous,” there was an added benefit to including her in the narrative: “She was one of the few people who actually recorded [Sargent’s] personal thoughts, his impressions and opinions about art and music and literature…She was one of the people who kind of caught his personality.” As in the moment when Fairchild fell in love with Henry Brown Fuller, her future husband, and Sargent warned her that “terrific love” could lead to “terrific hate.” (He turned out to be right.)
For Lucey, Sargent would prove more difficult to delineate than the women he painted. “He burned all of his papers. He was gay and had to hide that,” Lucey says. “He lived right across the street from Oscar Wilde,”—the Irish playwright who was convicted of “gross indecency” in 1895—“and so he knew what happened to people who expressed their sexuality openly.” But though Sargent destroyed his personal papers, he left behind “incredibly erotic male portraits,” Lucey says, some of which were found only recently in a storage unit housing Gardner’s furniture.
Lucey in Montana in 1979. In a farmhouse basement, she uncovered a trove of diaries and photo negatives from the forgotten photographer Evelyn Cameron, who became her next subject. Photo courtesy of Lucey.
The writing life
It is this sort of psychological detective work that attracts Lucey to biographical research. Growing up in suburban Connecticut, she dreamed of moving to New York City and becoming a writer. After graduating from Georgetown University, she got a job at Time Life as a photo editor. While working on a series of books about women in the 19th century, she pitched a volume on women in the American West and ended up in Montana. There, in the basement of a wheat farmer, she stumbled upon several thousand photo negatives and 35 years’ worth of diaries, all belonging to a woman named Evelyn Cameron. The discovery led Lucey to write Photographing Montana, 1894-1928: The Life and Work of Evelyn Cameron.
“That was the Gilded Age on its head,” Lucey says of her story of the pioneer artist who taught herself glass plate photography. “She was a very wealthy woman from England who, instead of embracing the Gilded Age life, renounced it and reinvented herself out West.”
It was research, too, that brought Lucey to Charlottesville in 1992, only then it was the research of a different writer: her husband, Henry Wiencek. At the time he was working on his book The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White, about a plantation-owning family, the people they enslaved, and the descendants of both. The research was only supposed to take a year, but eight years passed by and they set down roots. Lucey, who never expected to settle in the South, says she was pleasantly surprised by the community of writers and artists she found here.
In her second book, I Dwell in Possibility: Women Build a Nation, 1600-1920, Lucey expanded her scope in order to explore the ways in which American women helped shape the country even before winning the right to vote. But she got such a kick out of writing the chapter on the Gilded Age, she says, that it led her to write Archie and Amélie. Throughout her writing career she has followed her research wherever it takes her, and “one thing has led to the next.”
Recalling her days at Time Life, she says, “I always had this visual sense. So I feel [Sargent’s Women], in a way, is a culmination of making use of imagery and diaries and letters, and plumbing, trying to figure out the psychology of these people.”
‘How women get buried’
In the case of Sargent’s Women, she says,“None of these women had been written about before except for Isabella Stewart Gardner, so there wouldn’t have been any interest except [for] Sargent. He was the key.”
“[All these] women did such amazing things,” she adds, “and yet nobody knows about it.”
She cites the true story regarding the fate of Sargent’s portrait of Elizabeth Chanler. After her death, Chanler’s son took the portrait with the intention to sell it to the highest bidder. His family advised him to donate it instead for the tax break. But when he approached the National Portrait Gallery, the museum didn’t want it, Lucey says. Chanler was not considered important enough. (The portrait now hangs in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, where it is a major feature of its Gilded Age collection.)
Likewise, says Lucey, the Houghton Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts—Harvard’s rare books and manuscripts library—rejected the donation of Chanler’s papers while accepting those of her husband, John Jay Chapman. Again, Chanler was not seen as sufficiently important.
It’s a vicious cycle in which women and their contributions are not recognized as important, therefore they aren’t written about and don’t develop any prominence or lasting impact on the historical record. “This is how women get buried,” Lucey says. In some of her research, as was the case with Elsie Palmer, Lucey says she was the first person to read all of her subject’s papers. Yet she was drawn to these women because, “They lived in a very conventional world and they all managed to shock in some way… These were the great museum builders, the people who helped create American culture.” It’s the discovery of them that has helped shape the trajectory of her writing career, she says. “The fun of my life is to uncover hidden stories of women who have been forgotten.”
Even when women are remembered and written about, Lucey says, they aren’t always given their due. In the case of Gardner, she says, too often it is the art student she sponsored, Bernhard Berenson, who is given credit for her art collection. He did conduct art purchases for her, Lucey says, but everything was her decision. “She was the one who bought a Vermeer, before he was even famous, on her own.” And besides, she says, pointing out a double standard, J.P. Morgan and Henry Frick had art buyers, too, but are still given credit for being great collectors. “[Because Gardner] was so unconventional, and such a character, she’s portrayed in a kind of cartoonish way and never given the credit as the serious art student that she was.”
“The fun of my life is to uncover hidden stories of women who have been forgotten,” says Lucey, who has written four books.
Recognition
Sargent’s Women has brought Lucey the most attention of all her books to date. In addition to the Kotz award, it is a nonfiction finalist for a Library of Virginia Literary Award, which will be announced October 20. Lucey says she was especially thrilled to win the Kotz award. “It’s so wonderful that they honor people who write about art,” she says. “This is a unique kind of award.”
Indeed, Amy Bridge, the executive director of the Library of Virginia, says, “There is no prize like this in the country.”
The award is named for Virginian Mary Lynn Kotz, a contributing editor at ARTNews and author of an award-winning biography of artist Robert Rauschenberg. It honors Kotz’s ability to write about art and artists in an accessible way, says Lee Bagby Ceperich, director of library, archives, and special collections at the VMFA.
Lucey will be recognized at a special event at the VMFA on October 19, and give a brief talk about her work. It’s a particularly apt setting, Lucey says: “They have a fantastic collection of Sargents in their new McGlothlin Galleries.”
The near decade’s worth of research Lucey did in archives, libraries, and private homes to complete Sargent’s Women “is not for the faint of heart,” she warns. But in the same way that Sargent was captivated by these extraordinary women and compelled to record their expressions in paint, so Lucey was compelled to record their lives in ink. Through this undertaking, she helps to ensure that their stories won’t be buried any longer.
Editor’s note: The author and subject are colleagues at Virginia Humanities.
Longtime housing activist Joy Johnson helped found PHAR two decades ago, and still leads its board of directors.
Photo: Eze Amos
When Joy Johnson moved to Westhaven in 1983, she was a single mom with four young children. She barely had time for everything that needed to be done, let alone those things that seem like you can put them off indefinitely.
But the fliers kept showing up – in her mailbox, on her door, by her street, at her neighbor’s – and she kept reading them.
They came from the Westhaven Tenants Association, which was comprised of mostly older residents and focused on updates to the project’s apartments, which had been built two decades earlier.
Johnson was busy, but she was interested. “People said to me, ‘You like to read all that stuff,’” she says. “They told me I should get involved.”
From those early tenant association meetings, Johnson went on to become an integral leader in the organization and became known for speaking up. (In the annals of Charlottesville’s local news, Johnson’s name is hard to miss.) In 1998, she helped the city’s disparate public housing associations and tenants’ groups band together into a single advocacy organization: the Public Housing Association of Residents.
PHAR gave Johnson and all of the residents of the city’s 376 public housing units a vehicle to make themselves heard. Two decades later, the organization’s role has grown from advocating for repairs and improvements to individual public housing developments to becoming a voice in the city’s ongoing debate around low-income and affordable housing.
From leading a class-action lawsuit against the city’s housing authority for excessive utility fees to making sure residents have a say in redevelopment, members of PHAR have fought for the rights of Charlottesville’s low-income, chronically underrepresented citizens. Sixty-seven residents have taken part in PHAR’s internship program, and most have gone on to serve on PHAR’s board of directors. A handful have served on the board of the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority, which controls the city’s public housing, and more have worked on various other city boards and commissions.
Rather than passively allowing the city to determine housing policies, PHAR’s members seek to lead the city’s public and affordable housing redevelopment and improvement process. And the years of showing up at meetings, getting in front of the microphone, and saying what residents want and need has paid off. CRHA Director Grant Duffield says PHAR’s 2016 policy publication, “Positive Vision for Resident-Directed Redevelopment,” has become “a guiding document for CRHA and the community as a whole.”
“For 20 years, PHAR has shown anyone who might think otherwise that the most vulnerable members of our community can speak up and advocate for themselves,” says UVA researcher Laura Goldblatt, a member of the Charlottesville Low-Income Housing Coalition. “They’re a model of what responsible and respectful community organizing and solidarity looks like.”
On September 29, PHAR celebrated its 20th anniversary with a party at Carver Recreation Center. Photo: Eze Amos
“Charlottesville’s history with public housing, like most cities’, is tainted by its direct connection to urban renewal in the 1960s,” says Brandon Collins, PHAR’s lead organizer.
The city’s first public housing development, Westhaven, was built for residents displaced by the destruction of Vinegar Hill, a 20-acre historically black neighborhood situated just west of downtown. Commercially, the land was in an incredibly valuable location, and the city used a measure allowing the new housing authority to demolish “unsanitary and unsafe” homes to force residents out. But while the neighborhood may have had some issues, like any other, it was also home to the city’s largest concentration of black-owned businesses. Former residents say it was a tight-knit, independent community.
“This taking of black land and community was fundamentally unfair, and left a once thriving community in ruins” says Collins. It’s something he says people have “barely had a chance to try to recover from.”
The Westhaven Tenants Association, began by its residents, was a step toward that recovery. For two decades prior to Johnson’s arrival it had been advocating for tenants’ rights—but on a relatively small scale.
“Even though the tenant organization was well-organized and on point with what they were saying, their biggest fear was to speak in front of City Council,” Johnson says. But she was more than happy to take on that role.
At her first City Council meeting, Johnson highlighted the issues the group wanted addressed—trash in yards, lack of fencing, and deteriorating conditions. At the time, the city councilors were also the housing authority board of commissioners, and they questioned Johnson’s motives, wondering if she was speaking for herself or for everyone at Westhaven.
“The idea was to make it like it was just me complaining,” she says. “They had been the city councilors and housing authority commissioners for years but had not set foot in public housing.”
Soon after that first meeting, the city councilors and other city officials toured Westhaven. After that, Johnson says, things started to move more quickly.
Still, by the late ’90s, the city had an unimpressive rating from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development on its public housing management and maintenance. Charlottesville had eight public housing developments, most built in the 1970s and not significantly updated or improved since their construction. And while each of the housing developments had its own advocacy association, like Westhaven’s, they were generally focused on individual improvements, and sometimes pitted against one another. When it came to citywide housing policy, low-income residents still didn’t have a seat at the table.
Johnson and other resident association leaders realized they neededa collective voice to advocate for their rights. The groups “passed a hat,” as Johnson puts it, to cover the cost of filing an application for nonprofit status, and PHAR was born.
Westhaven, Charlottesville’s first public housing project, was built in the 1960s to house residents displaced by the destruction of Vinegar Hill. Photo: Jack Looney
As Johnson’s advocacy experience grew, she began traveling to national housing conferences and learning from other activists, like Willie “J.R.” Fleming.
Fleming calls himself a human rights enforcer. He was born in Chicago’s Henry Horner Homes and spent his formative years at Cabrini-Green, one of the country’s most notorious public housing complexes.
Cabrini-Green, at its height, had 3,607 units and housed more than 15,000 people on Chicago’s Near North Side. Though infamous for violence and neglect, Fleming says it’s often overlooked that the housing development also served as a community for its residents. People knew their neighbors and looked out for each other, they shared what they had with others who didn’t have as much or any, and they felt a sense of place.
Just like at Westhaven, there were Cabrini-Green residents who were actively advocating for their rights as tenants—even as the buildings were coming down around them. J.R. (stands for “Just Righteousness”) saw how his sister was forced to relocate when the city began demolishing the complex in 1995, and he was inspired to act.
At 45 years old, J.R. has now been a housing activist for more than half his life, but he says he was “an infant in organizing” when he met Johnson.
“PHAR was determined to fight off bad public housing policy regardless of who stood with them,” Fleming says. “I was impressed by their willingness to work in a collective and their commitment to learn different ways of fighting for residents’ rights.”
Fleming and members of his Anti-Eviction Campaign, which he co-founded in 2009, partnered with PHAR to offer their expertise working in public housing advocacy.
One result is a project PHAR began last year, in collaboration with the housing authority and Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville. The program trains public housing residents to repair and maintain homes, paying them to work 40 hours a week alongside Habitat volunteers and learn construction skills. With money the housing authority had allocated to repair 20 vacant public housing units, the first group of trainees set to work last spring.
Richard Shackelford, a 65-year-old Charlottesville native, is a resident of Crescent Halls and serves on PHAR’s board of directors. Photo: Eze Amos
Richard Shackelford—”Shack” to his friends and neighbors—grew up in Charlottesville, on the corner of Fifth and Harris Streets. In 2014, in his 60s, he moved to Crescent Halls, a public housing high-rise for elderly and disabled residents, after he and his wife lost their house.
Residents of Crescent Halls have long complained of poor maintenance and deterioration in the 105-unit building, which was built in 1976. In 2016, protesters outside the Monticello Avenue complex told of broken air conditioners and roaches. According to media reports, the cooling problems continued in 2018, when a backed-up sewage line also caused foul-smelling flooding.
When Shackelford heard about PHAR’s six-month internship program, which teaches residents to become advocates, he decided he wanted to be part of a group fighting for change.
The training initiative, begun not long after PHAR’s founding, remains one of the organization’s flagship programs, and a major part of its efforts to build capacity, or “people power,” as Johnson likes to say. The goal is to continue to build the network of community organizers and activists fighting for housing rights.
“At first, we had to help residents understand that they already had the skills, they were already ‘organizing,’” Johnson says. “In their day-to-day lives, they are organizers. Getting kids ready for school, having a cookout, planning a trip—that’s organizing. We’re teaching them to use those skills they already possess to become leaders.”
Nearly all the residents who complete the program go on to find jobs, the group says, and many have continued to work actively as housing advocates. Two former interns, LaTita Talbert and Audrey Oliver, are currently commissioners on the CRHA board
Shackelford completed the internship in 2016. It not only showed him that his concerns were bigger than himself, it taught him how to advocate for those concerns as a part of the policy-making process.“The internship program got me motivated to help people do better,” he says. “I thank God for PHAR.”
Now, Shackelford serves as a member of PHAR’s board of directors and the CRHA Redevelopment Committee, and he is vice-president of the Crescent Halls Tenant Association. He’s committed to addressing the problem of housing affordability in Charlottesville.
“I’ve been here 65 years,” he says. “I’ve got some history.” He says that working people like teachers, police officers, and nurses, who could afford to own homes in the city decades ago, are now priced out.
The median home price in Charlottesville is currently $412,700, according to Zillow.com. The median rent is $1,600—that’s roughly $1,200 more than someone making minimum wage (which is set at $7.25) could afford, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “Fair market rent,” set by HUD at 40 percent of typical rents, is higher in the Charlottesville area than in 95 percent of the state.
In taking on the affordability crisis, PHAR tries to lead by example, paying its interns $11 an hour—a sum that’s significantly higher than minimum wage, if still not enough to cover Charlottesville rents.
PHAR has also incorporated the larger issue into its advocacy work. In 2017, the group worked with the Legal Aid Justice Center and other community leaders to create a new advocacy organization, the Charlottesville Low Income Housing Coalition, to push for a city housing strategy that respects low-income residents and to raise awareness of gentrification.
Over the years, PHAR has had some contentious moments with city government, and even within the organization—some residents have criticized it as too confrontational and reactive. So the group’s Positive Vision for Redevelopment plan was built around the idea of focusing on public housing initiatives residents support, rather than those they are against.
The organization worked with hundreds of residents to find a consensus on ways they can help lead the city’s process of improving public and affordable housing. The resulting 18-page document outlines residents’ key priorities, including green space, workforce development, and access to medical care, childcare, grocery stores, and other businesses. Residents also say they want to be kept informed and involved in decision-making, and want to preserve the positive aspects of existing communities.
Much of what residents are seeking in the ‘Positive Vision’ is what was lost in Vinegar Hill. Rather than simply calling for redevelopment, PHAR organizer Collins says, the document asks for an approach that places residents in control, increases affordable housing stock, confronts gentrification, and makes some amends for urban renewal and the rest of Charlottesville’s negative racial history.
CRHA Director Duffield says that while his agency and PHAR haven’t always gotten along, he is looking to change that: “I am imparting on my staff the tremendous value that PHAR brings to the issue of affordable and low-income housing,” he says.
Charlottesville’s public-housing discussion differs from the conversation in much of the rest of the country, because the city is investing not just in maintaining or renovating current properties, but in building more.
“Charlottesville is unique in saying that public housing is valuable,” Duffield says. “A system that solely embraces private, voucher-based affordable housing, which is what many cities are moving toward, does not serve many of the individuals we are proud and committed to serving here.”
Plans call first for developing new public housing on city-owned land on South First Street and on Levy Avenue. Crescent Halls tenants would move there, and that complex would be redeveloped. PHAR members and CRHA are working together to hammer out the details, ensuring that residents have a say as development moves forward.
PHAR is also working on a program that will provide economic and employment opportunities for residents as the city undertakes redevelopment and development programs, like the partnership with Habitat for Humanity. The group is no longer just “at the table,” Collins says: PHAR is setting the table, serving the food, and letting folks know when it’s time to eat.
Johnson has led PHAR now for two decades. As its members celebrate those years and look to the future, many of them, Johnson included, are seeking the next generation of leaders to take the helm.
“To quote my co-worker’s 5-year-old, ‘It’s important work,’ says Wandae Johnson, PHAR’s new intern coordinator. “There is a large group of people who are no longer part of our community because they couldn’t keep pace with the rising cost of living facing us over the last decade.
“Housing is related to my child’s educational outlook, my job satisfaction…It’s related to my sense of safety, and my ability to be active within my community.”
“It’s important,” she concludes. “Why isn’t everyone involved?”
Author Ann Beattie picks Claire Rann's "Aim" as this year's fiction contest runner-up. Photo: Provided by author.
Aim
By Claire Rann
I see a pale circle of flesh. He is holding me toward the side of her neck, a few inches away. The skin looks tired and freckled. It quivers.
He did not take me out until a few seconds ago. His hand had been curled tightly around my grip in his coat pocket. I’d heard yelling but seen nothing. I was ready.
He’s never used me before. This is the first time he’s taken me out of the house, out of the dark desk drawer where I lay for weeks after he brought me home. A fine layer of dust had settled along my barrel. I didn’t get bored, though. I am used to waiting. And then everything happens so fast.
I’d heard the tiny lock click, seen the silver bar flash and twitch, but I didn’t know for sure he’d be taking me out. As he pulled open the drawer, I caught a glimmer of light. I felt myself being lifted, considered.
His hands felt hot and damp. They shook. He put me down on his desk. I heard a gulp, then the rattle of glass meeting the surface. He slid my magazine out and rummaged through a drawer. I heard him snap in each shell and felt the magazine push back into place. A satisfying weight rested in my grip.
He put me in his pocket, and we walked. The door to the house slammed; the car door shut; the engine rumbled. We drove.
I know what I am made for. I have no illusions about my purpose. Just the sight of me inspires a fearful stillness. Reverence, from some, admiration, even, but always with a hushed undertone. My presence can persuade, force a hand, protect. But really, I am built to kill. To propel a hard hot ball of metal at an alarming rate, one that stops pulses, rupturing the thin barrier between liquid and bone and the rest of the world. It is no great feat to burst this flimsy boundary, but I do it quickly and well. Efficiently.
He’d waited to take me out. We parked, then paced, his fingers rubbing the rough stippling of my grip.
I heard heels clicking along the concrete, and his gait quickened, following the echoing sound.
“Argo,” he yelled. His fingers stopped fidgeting, and he gripped me tightly. “Argo! I need to talk to you.” His voice was unsteady and loud.
The clicks paused.
“Mr. Davidson, I have nothing to say.”
We moved in front of the voice.
“This is bullshit. No one will tell me where Angie’s gone with the kids.”
“The judge made her decision,” she said. “There’s nothing left to do.” The clicking continued, but we moved with her, and again she stopped.
“Those are my kids, goddammit.” His voice grew louder.
“You need to get help, Joel.” She was curt. “Go to AA, start getting your life back together, and request another hearing—”
“That’s bullshit! She can’t do this. You can’t do this.”
Another voice farther away called out, “Mrs. Argo, is there a problem?”
“No, officer, this gentleman was just leaving,” Argo said.
Heavy footsteps started in our direction. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you…”
That’s when he reached for me. He must have grabbed Argo with his other arm while he aimed me at her neck.
And now here we are.
“You can’t let this happen,” he says, his hand quaking slightly as he speaks. “You can’t let them take my kids away.”
―
I’d heard them before, two high voices, singing and shouting. Usually far from me. Their feet thrummed up and down the padded stairs. Once, though, a set of small feet pitter-pattered toward my resting place.
“Nate, we’re not supposed to go in Daddy’s office,” said one little voice.
“Stop being such a sissy Mollie,” said the other. “He doesn’t even do anything in here anymore.”
The little hand slid out each drawer in the desk before getting to mine. His fingers jerked the handle over and over, but the silver bar between my dark resting place and the air and light wouldn’t budge. Then I heard Joel’s deep bellow, admonishing the little hands with high voices for playing in his office. They cried and left, but he did not follow. The door shut. He checked my drawer again and again, pulling the handle over and over to feel the bar’s reassuring clink.
―
The firm voice—not the one at whose neck I stare, but the other, the one who called out before—speaks again. She is closer. Her voice does not waver. “Sir, put the gun down,” she says. She sounds in control. She must also have a gun.
I shift a hair to the right as his head moves to address the cop.
He says, “Stay out of this.”
He corrects me back toward the woman with the shivering skin. His hands become hotter and his breath quicker, each exhale bobbing me slightly up and down.
A jolt forward, and now I am pressed against the brown curls of the woman, who sobs. Flecks of silver and white hide at her roots.
I itch to be used.
His finger barely rests on my trigger. It will take just the tip to decide, the bend of two small knuckles. It all happens so fast. There will be a spark, a flash of burning in my barrel and then all will go black for a nanosecond, and I will see the shiny tip fly and pierce. It will sear a hole where it hits. I’ll hear the casing arc behind me and clink against the ground.
Another shell will already have snapped into place, ready to fulfill its promise. It, too, is dutiful. We do not change our minds like those who control us. Once we are set into motion with the flick of a finger, it has been decided. The mechanics do not change. When called upon, we are unyielding.
―
That night in the office, after the little voices had left, after he’d satisfied himself that my drawer hadn’t been opened, another, deeper voice entered.
“Joel,” she said. “What the hell is going on?” The door shut.
“The kids were messing around in my office.”
“They’re five years old. Don’t scream at them.”
“You baby them.” Another drawer slid out, and I heard a bottle clatter against the desktop.
“There’s something else,” she said. Papers slid across the surface above. “What exactly did you charge at Kankakee Arms and Ammo?”
―
Outside, Argo breathes faster, exhaling in sharp spurts. “Joel, please,” she says, nearly panting through each wet quick breath. “Please don’t do this.”
From this distance, if he used me, her head would shatter. It would cover us both in blood and brain and sharp splinters of skull. The blast would force them apart.
The anticipation is getting to me.
“Joel,” the cop says, “think about what you’re doing. Think about your family.”
―
“Who do you think you are, opening my mail?” The floor creaked as Joel stood. “You have no right, you—”
“When I’m the one supporting us, then, yes, I do have the right. How could you spend that kind of money right now? Without a job, with a mortgage—”
“I know that!” he said. “God knows, I know. After that last interview, after I’d driven to the middle of nowhere and sat there for hours with a bunch of kids in their dads’ suits, they have the nerve to tell me I’m overqualified for the position, but thanks for coming. I needed to let off some steam.”
“You didn’t tell me that.”
“Why would I tell you? So you can explain to me how I fucked it all up again?” Liquid swished as he took another gulp from the bottle. “I saw the range on the drive home and shot a few rounds. I figured it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have around the house. For protection.”
“You can’t just bring a weapon into our home without saying anything to me. We have two small children, Joel, we―”
“I’m so tired of your lectures.” Joel’s voice vibrated the desk. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me.”
“Do you know what you’re doing to us?” Angie said. “You sit around the house all day in your pajamas, drinking in your office, spending money we don’t have, and now you go out and buy a gun―”
I heard him step to the side of the desk, and then glass shattered against the wall.
“Shut the fuck up, Angie,” he yells. “Just shut up.”
More objects clattered against the wall and then against the floor. Glass, metal, many different thuds.
“What the fuck are you doing?” she said. “Stop tearing your office apart. You’re acting like a child.”
Slam. Slam. Slam.
“Get off my fucking back,” he said.
―
His grip tightens.
“You’re making me do this,” he says. “You’re letting Angie and the judge take them.”
“No one is taking your kids away, Joel,” the cop says. “Put down the gun, let Mrs. Argo go, and let’s talk about this.”
“I’m done talking,” he says. “Nobody listens. I make one mistake, and all of a sudden I’m unfit.”
He presses me further into her as he speaks.
She whimpers. “Please, you’re hurting me.”
―
That night, the little voice hadn’t whimpered. She’d wailed.
Through the ricocheting slams and thuds, the deeper voices yelling, I heard the door creak open.
“Mommy, Mommy,” said a high-pitched voice moving across the room.
Then I heard a different kind of thud, the sound of a hard object hitting something softer than the wall or the floor. The little voice wailed. Everything else stopped.
“Oh, sweetie, oh God, you’re bleeding,” she said. Then, more sharply, “Get the fuck away from us, Joel, don’t touch us.”
―
That was weeks ago, long before he finally took me out.
Now, his hand loosens slightly with Argo’s cry, but he keeps me pressed to her temple.
“You can make this stop,” he says. “You can tell Angie not to take them away. She listens to you. You know I’m not a bad guy. You know Angie is too angry to see. She’s not thinking about the kids. They need me.”
He no longer sounds like he wants to hurt her. He does not want to use me to do what I am made for. I will wait once again, gathering dust in the darkness.
“That’s a tough situation, Joel,” the cop says. “We can work this out, but you need to give me the gun.”
“Shut the fuck up,” he says. “Mrs. Argo, please, you have to help me. You have to make her see what’s she’s doing.”
His hand trembles.
“They’re afraid of you,” Argo whispers. “Mollie, Nate, even Angie… they’re all so scared.”
“No, no, Angie exaggerates—”
“Mollie still has nightmares,” she says. “She won’t leave Angie’s side, she hardly sleeps… they’re broken, Joel.”
His grip loosens. I am hardly pressed against her any more.
“I’m sorry,” he says. His voice splinters. “I didn’t mean to… ” He lets the sentence hang, half-finished. A hot wet drop falls along my spine.
“Tell them I’m sorry.”
I am swung violently upward. I see the stubbled skin of his neck, the lump of his throat for a split second before
BANG
and I fall. The casing rushes away and clinks against the concrete.
I land and bounce with a clatter seconds before his body meets the ground opposite me in a tired slumping collapse.
It is not what I expected, but I am satisfied. I have served my purpose.
Author Ann Beattie picks Gail South's "Home," as this year's fiction contest winner. Photo: File photo
Fans of fiction
C-VILLE Weekly and WriterHouse partnered again this year for our fiction contest, in which readers submitted works to be judged by author Ann Beattie, who was the Edgar Allan Poe professor of literature and creative writing at the University of Virginia. Forty-seven entries were received, and they revolved around a variety of subjects, including an intergalactic voyage, pizza night and a high school reunion. The winning author, Gail South, receives $500 and a one-year WriterHouse membership; the runner-up, Claire Rann, gets $250 and a one-year WriterHouse membership. You can read Rann’s story, “Aim,” here.
Home
By Gail South
Eric curbed the old Chevy next to the sidewalk. He glanced around to make sure no one was close, then tugged off his T-shirt—gritty with sweat and muck from digging in orange dirt—swabbed it under his arms, and snatched a brown one off the passenger seat. He sniffed it, shrugged, and pulled it on.
He slipped off his shoes, removed the damp insoles and pulled out the money. He tied his shoes back on, shoved the money into his sagging jeans pocket, and headed down the pedestrian street where people sat around outdoor tables with cold beers and plates of food.
He pulled open the post office door, conscious of his filth and smell. He asked a man in a crisp uniform for the smallest mailbox available. He would probably never use it, but he needed an address for job applications. Plus, an address made you feel a little more civilized. Like you really did belong someplace. Though if you gave a P.O. box, prospective employers often asked for a street address. Especially if they thought you didn’t have one.
He pulled the folded money from his pocket, peeled off two 20s, and shoved them back into his pocket. He bought a money order made out to his daughter, Liz, with the rest. He wrote her name, then his ex-wife’s address. He hoped it was still correct.
Liz hadn’t responded to his e-mails, though they hadn’t bounced back. He had the same e-mail as always, but in his last post he asked if she would respond if he changed his address to sorryIfuckedup yourlife@gmail.com. She didn’t respond to that e-mail either, but he hoped she at least got a chuckle.
He drove to Food Lion and grabbed a cart. He tossed in two gallons of water, bananas, bread, carrots, onions, potatoes, and a hefty package of beef stew meat. He got some peanut butter, grape jelly, and chocolate chip cookies. He added it up in his head then picked up a 12-pack of Pabst.
He headed down Arno Road, turned onto the gravel trail, then the dirt path, then into the secluded spot where everyone with a car—five now—parked. Sheila, a young black woman who was living at the camp when Eric arrived, had a big pot that she kept beside her tent. He pulled out his camp stove, grabbed her pot, and went about making soup. Right on time, Sheila returned with her kids.
“Got some stew on,” Eric nodded at the blue plastic bags. “There’s bananas and stuff in those bags. Take what you want.”
“That’s awfully nice of you,” Sheila said. The boy eyed the bag.
“How’s it hanging, dude?” Eric held out his hand and Jamil high-fived him. “There’s cookies in there, and assuming it’s okay with your mama you can have some after you do your homework.”
Eric leaned over and put his hand on the little girl’s head. “You too, Punkin. But you just gotta help your mama watch this soup.” He nodded toward the river. “I’m going to go clean up.” He glanced at Sheila. “There’s beer in the cooler.”
He took his soap and towel and made his way through the woods, across the City Circuit Trail, and down to the secluded swimming hole. He glanced around then stripped down to his blue flip-flops and stepped into the water. People complained about it being cold, but compared to lakes in Michigan, where he was from, this was tepid. He quickly moved to a depth that covered his privates, careful to hug the thong of his sandals with his toes. There were sharp rocks and glass and who knew what all on the bottom of the river. The water was too murky to see through, but he had cut his feet here before.
He scrubbed his body with a bar of soap tied up in a hand towel, then dunked his head and scrubbed his wiry gray hair. The muscles in his arms and legs stiffened with pain in the cool water. He was getting too old for this kind of life.
He pressed his body against the force of the water and made his way to shore. He quickly dried off and pulled on his least dirty pair of jeans. He rolled them up to his knees, grabbed the work clothes that he’d been wearing for several days, then waded back into the river with the bar of soap. He squatted down and scrubbed the clothes against the rocks.
He twisted the waterlogged jeans through his cold red hands, then laid them dripping on a large boulder. He did the same with his shirt and socks, then wrung the jeans again. He hung everything from the line he had strung between two trees next to his tent.
He opened a beer and stashed another in his tent. He made sure Sheila got one, then stuck a couple in Brad’s tent. Brad was probably out hustling, but he’d be in soon. The earthy smell of stew drifted through the campground. Eric spread the word that stew would be ready in a while, and if anybody wanted a cold one they better hurry. The beer disappeared almost instantly.
Sheila dished out steaming bowls for her and the kids and they sat on the ground and ate soup and slices of wheat bread. Eric filled a big green Tupperware bowl, then he walked through the woods by the tents and shanties calling out that soup was ready. Brad showed up just in time—he was good at that.
“I’ll take this down and wash it,” Brad said when the pot was empty. “Give me your bowls and I’ll take them too.”
At dusk Eric sat in the green canvas chair to read. Roger Rowe cranked his generator to run his TV. He had a shanty on the other end of the camp filled with all kinds of shit people said he had brought in on a trailer behind his SUV. Even inside the shanty, you could hardly hear the TV for the noise of the generator, but Roger said it was the last vestige of a normal home. He usually just ran it long enough for one sitcom a night. Otherwise people complained vigorously. Eric was glad to be on the other end of camp. The noise of the generator didn’t bother him as much as people arguing about it—he’d already heard enough arguing for several lifetimes.
“Man, you got anymore beer?” Brad handed Eric his clean bowl and spoon.
Eric shook his head. “Sorry dude. Don’t you have any of that rocket fuel you usually drink?”
“Yeah. I was hoping for another cold one—don’t get those too often. Hard to carry beer and ice walking two miles.” Brad pulled off his baseball cap and scratched his head. His dark locks fell into his face. “It’s supposed to get stinking hot this week. I’ll try to get some money for beer tomorrow.” He pushed his hair back and slid his cap over it.
The next day was a scorcher, and all day Eric’s muscles burned from brutal labor and a fiery sun. All he thought about was how good that river would feel at the end of the day. When work was done, he drove straight to camp.
He saw the sign posted on the big oak as soon as he turned onto the dirt trail. He didn’t stop to read it, he knew there would be more—there were always more. He parked in the grass. Another sign was posted just beyond his car. It was the same message as always—camping here was illegal and people had to move.
A few people were gathered at the fire pit, though it was too early and too hot for a fire. They were having a bitch session about how they weren’t hurting anybody and where the hell were they supposed to go when there was nowhere to go. He didn’t bother to join—he knew how it would play out. People would gripe until there was nothing else to say, then they’d start talking about where they might go. Another spot in the woods, another town, crash on somebody’s couch until they wore out their welcome.
Just like the other camps. The first was that great place in Michigan where he stayed almost a year. It had been there for 10 years. They had a mess hall, an area for families, a place for games; they even had an infirmary. Every night after dinner people played euchre. It was a good bunch of people. They didn’t tolerate drunkenness or even meanness at that camp.
Then a couple teenagers—kids who lived in warm houses with soft beds and parents who loved them—thought it would be a whole bunch of fun to beat the living shit out of a couple of 60-year-old women. The city closed the camp after that. Then there was the place in Jackson, then one in Detroit. One was an old farm that had been fallow for years, but it was on a lake and authorities said they were worried about water contamination. The truth was, people with fancy vacation homes didn’t want to see a camp of derelicts while they were buzzing up and down the lake in their boats and Jet Skis. He couldn’t blame them. There was a time in his life—a time not so long ago that now seemed like a dream—when he would have felt the same way. Another camp closed because business owners said having homeless people nearby was bad for business. They were probably right.
Eric wished he had picked up some more beer. He could go back out, but he was filthy and exhausted and this news just made his body ache that much more. He took an extra-long bath in the river, then pulled out the pint of whiskey. He plopped down in his chair and took a hefty swig. He didn’t usually drink this early in the day, but it wasn’t every day he got evicted.
The notice said anything left here would be “cleaned up” a week from today at 9am. That meant men in hazmat suits would show up with a bulldozer and a dumpster. It’d take some extra man hours because the tents were spread through the woods. It’d be hard to doze—they’d either have to take out some trees or clean up a lot by hand. It’d take a dumpster or two just for the trash pile behind the camp. Then the 23 tents and shanties packed to the hilt inside and out. Three plywood shanties with couches and chairs and camp stoves. John and his generator. The antenna on top of his shack that picked up two or three channels, depending on the weather.
Those with cars—like him—could haul some of people’s belongings to another place, except people didn’t have another place. They’d be wandering now. Nomads. You go somewhere for a night, then you get up in the morning and carry every single item with you to another place. If you stayed in a shelter, you were only allowed two trash bags full. People learned to leave things behind, start all over. If you had a good tent and the possibility of pitching it someplace, you’d carry it. And a sleeping bag. A few clothes. Food. Water. Maybe one small item of purely sentimental value. Nothing else.
He took another swig of whiskey. The burn felt good in his throat. It was a good thing he only had half a pint, because he’d probably drink every drop even if he had a whole quart.
He picked up his book. A used bookstore across from the library had a small table outside marked “FREE.” There was usually something or other on it and Eric had picked up several books over the last few weeks. This was Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators. He’d read pretty much anything. Like every other person on the street, he hung out at the library a lot—to get warm, get cool, stay dry. To sit in a real chair. He read magazines and newspapers, short stories. Novels were hard because you started one and then had to put it back without finishing it. You had to have a local photo ID and a street address to check out books. He didn’t have either.
“Hey man!”
Eric looked up to see Brad sauntering over. He nodded.
“Looks like they’re kicking us out of here. Shit. Where the fuck they think we’re going to go?” He sat down in Eric’s second chair. “Least you got a car to sleep in.”
Eric nodded.
“Though back in the day, I would of called it a piece of shit junker. Man, I used to have me a shiny black Toyota Highlander. Bought it brand spanking new—V6, all-wheel drive. And the sound system—like you’s at a concert or something. Now that’s a car I could’ve slept in.”
“But you went bankrupt trying to pay for it.”
“Got laid off. Just like you, I guess.” He picked up Eric’s whiskey bottle and shook it. “Looks like you need some spirits.”
“Got any?”
“Not much.” Brad prowled around his tent for a minute and brought back a bottle that had just a few swigs. The men quickly finished off both bottles.
“I got some money today. Let’s go get some booze. Or beer. A few cold ones would go down real smooth about now.”
“Too tired. I don’t care enough to move.”
“Gimme your keys, I’ll go.” Brad pulled two 20s out of his pocket. “I’ll buy.”
Eric eyed him warily. “Can I trust you? Straight to the store and back?”
Brad grinned. “Sure man. I’ll get us a case of cold ones. And ice.”
Eric pulled out his keys. “Come straight back.” He tossed the key ring to Brad who caught it easily in his left hand. Eric had a sinking feeling as he watched his car disappear up the path.
He thought about walking over to the fire pit where people were still hanging out, but he could hear enough to know that folks were angry. And resigned. Hell, he was resigned too. Resigned past the point of getting angry. If any one of these people—including him—owned a fancy house in town and brought their kids to that fancy paved trail, they’d be screaming about the derelicts too. And those people doing the screaming—put them on the street for a couple days and they’d change their tune so fast it’d make their heads spin. He picked up his bottle, then remembered it was empty. People gathered like this up north would at least be playing a round of euchre while they contemplated their fate.
He read until his eyes strained in the fading light, then pulled out his small flashlight. He shined it on the aerodynamics handbook. It lasted about 10 minutes before it went dark. He had bought batteries the other day, but they were in his car.
Fuck! Brad should have been back by now.
Eric picked up his whiskey bottle and felt the emptiness. He slung it in the woods and leaned back in his camp chair with his fingers laced behind his neck. If he tilted his head in just the right way, he could see a single star through the tree cover.
He closed his eyes. If he had been a praying man he would have prayed for some way through this. But he wasn’t a praying man, and so he picked up his chair and carried it to the circle and sat beside Sheila.
“Where’s the kids?”
She nodded toward her tent. “Eshe’s sleeping and Jamil’s doing homework. I ought to be in there with them.” She sighed. “I came out here because if I stayed in there, I was going to cry. I can’t do that, I gotta be strong.”
Eric nodded. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. We could go back to Mama’s, but that man living with her is such bad news.” She shook her head again. “I got to figure out something and then go tell those kids what that something is.”
“What do you tell kids?” Eric said, as much to himself as to her. “My daughter’s grown and she still doesn’t understand. Hell, I don’t understand.”
“Jamil read the notice. He’s heard people talking. Eshe doesn’t know what’s going on, but she understands anger. And fear. Kids pick up on that stuff real quick. Even babies. Jamil said, ‘Where will we go now?’ and I said, ‘I’m going to go out and talk to people and you do your homework and watch your sister. They’ll be a plan.’” She shook her head. “I don’t like lying to my children that way. Too much lying in the world. I want my babies to believe in Jesus and do right, but it’s hard. I know we’re all gonna find salvation in the next life, but my children’s got a long time till then. The street ain’t an easy place to instill the kind of values kids need to be ready when they meet their maker.” Her voice was low and confidential.
Eric had been watching the small fire while he listened and when she stopped talking, he turned to look at her. She had been pretty once but life on the street had taken its toll. Still, she obviously took pains to look nice. Her hair was straight and shiny, her body still almost plump. Sometimes she even wore makeup though he couldn’t tell in the firelight if she was wearing it now. What he could see was a stream of tears shining on her dark cheeks. He reached over and took her hand, interlocking her fingers with his. She grasped his hand and they sat there quiet like that, steadfastly holding on to each other.
Author’s bio
Gail South says the first time she tried to write a short story it turned into a novel. To date she has written three novels and says they generally take on issues of social justice. “Home” is part of Lana, a novel that South has begun submitting to agents, which centers on Eric, a homeless man, and Lana, a widowed elderly lady whom he befriends.
“We’re so separate in society socially and racially,” South says. “I like to take different parts of our society and put them together and see what would happen.”
One of South’s novels, “The Solitude of Memory,” was a 2012 finalist for the PEN/Bellwether prize for socially engaged fiction, founded by Virginia author Barbara Kingsolver. The novel was about desegregation and tells the story of a black teacher, a white teacher aid and their families.
“My favorite part is just discovering these characters and what makes them work,” she says. South is “fascinated with people” and says she loves hearing snippets of conversations while dining at a restaurant, and often sees someone and makes up a story about them in her head—what their background is, what motivates them.
About the writing process, she generally has characters in mind as well as an outline, but she just starts writing and “things come together.” The majority of the first draft of Lana was written during an artist’s retreat at northern Michigan’s ISLAND Hill House, where she was awarded a fellowship. And much of the editing of the novel was done during three separate fellowships at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
South has loved writing since she was young (her first and only play was written in fifth grade), but says she made a conscious decision in high school that she would not be a starving artist. She got her degree in marketing from Steed College, and worked as an account executive in Tennessee for 14 years. She moved 20 years ago to Charlottesville after marrying her husband, Dave Metcalf, and a few years ago received her MFA from Goddard College, in Vermont.
Jeyon Falsini wades through a crowd in front of his club, the Ante Room (at the time, the Main Street Annex), on the night of a big hip-hop show—Project Pat. He starts pointing out the players on the scene.
Seems like just about everyone is a party promoter.
There’s David Wayne, owner/operator of SB Entertainment and the official host of the night’s event. He’s polished—a chef by day, scenester by night—and as active in Richmond as he is in Charlottesville.
Then there’s Robert Douglas, aka Blacko, aka Blacko da Rappa. Douglas has the outsized presence of Blonko—although maybe not as loud or edgy—and the regional ambitions of Wayne. He runs Wild Boyz Entertainment. He’s also the agency’s chief talent.
Douglas isn’t “da Rappa” all that often these days, he says. His performances are mostly as a deejay or vocalist for Double Faces Gogo Band. Performing isn’t even necessarily his focus anymore. He’s finishing up a business management degree at PVCC, and he’s looking to push Wild Boyz to ever greater heights.
Blacko, along with that throng of promoters, emcees, singers, deejays, videographers and producers milling around outside the Ante Room, is also looking to grow the scene for African-American music in Charlottesville and Central Virginia. He wants to push urban music—not just hip-hop—in an area where it’s scarcely given media attention, an area where it operates underneath the notice of the workaday crowds going about their business.
“It’s a few people that appreciate it,” Douglas says. “I have a following because of my background, because of the rap background and nightlife and doing the promotions. I have a good group of people in support, that’s what’s kind of keeping it going. We’re keeping it going.”
Blacko vs. Douglas
Why are there so many promoters on the C’ville hip-hop and R&B scene? Basically, you have to be a promoter to make it as a performer, according to Falsini.
The scene isn’t all that large, so if you’re a deejay or an emcee and you want to fill the Ante Room or the M&M Lounge for a hip-hop dance party, you have to promise the venue a full house. You have to share the risk.
“Robert and I got to a point where we liked working together, so we started hosting parties,” Falsini says. “He would get a deejay, put it all together, and those parties were successful.”
Photo: Jackson Smith
From there, Douglas launched Wild Boyz, a one-stop shop for nightclub parties. He still throws down at the Annex, but he’s also taken his act—both the parties and Double Faces Gogo Band, which he manages—to other venues like the M&M Lounge and Restaurant on Preston Avenue and the recently closed Fusion’s Restaurant and Lounge in Culpeper. Douglas says his goal is to keep pushing beyond C’ville’s borders.
“I’m trying to get us further and further up north, and to Richmond,” he says. “Wherever I deejay, I try to spread the word about the band, and I deejay every weekend.”
Falsini says Douglas sets himself apart from the sea of local promoters by working the scene like a job. He hosts parties on a regular basis, and he adds value in multiple ways. On top of promoting shows and booking the entertainment, he offers security, professional photography and videography and a photo booth for some events.
“Me and Jeyon, we go back,” Douglas says. “He did a lot of what helped me get started. I called him one day; he had an empty building. I said, ‘Can I throw a party?’ I never really tried it, but I said, ‘I got a band, you got a building,’ and it’s been going ever since. Look what he got, and look what we got.”
Douglas still considers the Ante Room home. Double Faces was the headliner at the grand reopening on February 27, when the venue rebranded from the Main Street Annex. And he says he’ll drop whatever he’s doing to be there when Falsini asks him to deejay an event. That’s saying something—when he’s not promoting parties, Douglas works in facilities management for UVA, and he expects to finish his business degree next year.
While he’s not sure where the degree will take him in terms of his next career move, he’s certain it can only help his efforts with Wild Boyz, which he says has taken on a number of new acts in the past several years and worked with other players in the promotions game.
But there’s more than a hint of competition on the scene. Streetz Blonko says his outfit, 700 Block Entertainment, has been more successful at pushing beyond Charlottesville than Wild Boyz.
“The difference is we do party promotions everywhere,” he says. “I’m from Charlottesville, but I’m trying to get major, go to New York, North Carolina, everywhere.”
Hip-hop in the ’ville
Nowhere in C’ville’s urban music scene is competition more alive and well than among local rappers. Douglas says that on top of losing some of his passion for rhyming, he gets turned off by the sheer number of people who think they can make it big as an emcee without putting in the work.
And those numbers are indeed large, according to Streetz.
“There’s a lot, yo,” he says. “I’ve been rapping since I was 9 years old. I went to prison for like nine years. When I came home in 2012, there were a handful of rappers. Now every other week I see another rapper, dozens more rappers.”
Streetz, whose biggest break was opening for Waka Flocka Flame in D.C. on September 14, 2013, says there’s definitely talent in town. The problem is the good emcees haven’t gotten the attention they deserve. That, plus the fact that the crowds are often small, drives some of them to larger markets.
Plus, there’s that whole competition thing.
“In the black community, there is a lot of jealousy,” he says. “Nobody wants to see the next person make it. Even if you hot, they aren’t going to share your shit on Facebook. It’s a hatred thing; it’s a jealousy thing. It hurts me real bad.”
Damani Harrison, formerly of hip-hop group The Beetnix and recently departed artistic and education director at the Music Resource Center, sees the opposite. He sees a unified hip-hop scene. He reckons if he got all the rappers in town together who support each other, it would shock most locals.
“I don’t think there is media coverage about it,” he says. “But I want to show the community how many active rappers there are in the area, the amount of unity and love there is among them.”
Harrison says it would be difficult to ballpark the number of hip-hop acts in and around Charlottesville, but in his decade and a half at the MRC he says the number of local rappers he saw “was tremendous.”
“There is this massive hip-hop scene, and anyone that is in it knows about it through social media,” he says. “Every single day, I am seeing a high-quality video of someone from Charlottesville. I can’t keep up with the amount of people doing quality work. I am talking about legit, go to the studio, cameras and lighting videos.”
Harrison points to MRC alums C-Ryan and William “Chaos Chytist” Rhodes as examples of locals making nationally recognized hip-hop. “They just moved to Atlanta,” he says. “They make a lot of money now.”
Douglas himself has plenty of songs and videos floating around on the Internet, and he has a studio where he still records and produces for other hip-hop artists. But he says the main thing that has pushed him beyond hip-hop to music like go-go is the fact rap isn’t what it used to be.
“I think it’s because everybody just follows a trend,” he says. “Hip-hop isn’t original anymore. Everybody used to put their heart into it. …We used to stand in a circle and battle, and people used to show up to the showcases. The rappers don’t have that support no more.”
Ready to go-go
Jeyon Falsini, founder of the Main Street Annex—now the Ante Room—where Blacko deejays and where Double Faces Gogo Band performs, says to make it in the local hip-hop and R&B scene you have to be a promoter and rapper. Photo: Eze Amos
Charlottesville is relatively unique in having a go-go scene. The genre, which places heavy, layered percussion underneath R&B, hip-hop and other musical forms, was born in Washington, D.C., in the 1960s under the direction of the likes of Chuck Brown, the Young Senators and Black Heat. It’s never really taken off in other areas of the country. Arguably the biggest national hit a go-go band ever had was DJ Kool’s “Let Me Clear My Throat.”
Donnell Floyd, founder of D.C.-based Familiar Faces, is one of the performers currently carrying the go-go torch. He says there are three or four bands in the district, like Backyard and Rare Essence in addition to Familiar Faces, that can bring 300 to 400 people out to a show three times a week.
The topflight go-go bands play about 50 percent originals in addition to the covers, according to Floyd. Other bands, Double Faces included, stick to the crowd-pleasing covers. Floyd says go-go bands often get a bad rap because they rely so heavily on covers, but that’s the way it’s been back to the early Chuck Brown days.
Indeed, when Blacko talks about Double Faces’ music, there’s an edge of defensiveness.
“We cover everything—a lot of people don’t know that,” he says. “It’s really a lot bigger than what people think is just a go-go band. We’re go-go, but we’re bigger than that.”
Floyd, on the other hand, says there’s nothing wrong with being “just a go-go band.”
“I say the opposite. Go-go is like steroids for any music,” he says. “What makes go-go is what you put underneath, the percussion you put underneath the foundation. Chuck Brown put go-go underneath jazz and blues. Backyard puts it underneath rap and hip-hop, Rare Essence is under R&B. I wouldn’t say we are ‘not just a go-go band.’ We absolutely are. I sent my kids to college on go-go.”
For what it’s worth, Double Faces has had its share of success as well. An offshoot of the now defunct The X Band, the band’s been shifting between eight and 10 members for the last three and a half years. Dean “Phace” Smith is the frontman and constant, and Blacko’s been onboard as vocalist, deejay and manager since the beginning, transitioning from his role as keyboard player in The X Band. Some of Double Faces’ musicians come from gospel backgrounds, where Harrison says you often find the best players in town.
Blacko says he can book Double Faces for two or three nights a week during the summer, but it’s sporadic. Sometimes one gig a week is all he can ask for. The high point of the Double Faces run was probably playing the Tom Tom Founders Festival two years ago. But Blacko has hope the band can keep moving up.
“A lot of people that have checked us out are pleased, but a lot of clubs and venues haven’t gave us the shot yet,” he says. “A lot of people haven’t gave us that voice and let us be heard.”
The voice you will hear if you get the pleasure of seeing Double Faces is loud, party-driven and highly sexual. Indeed, a sub-genre that’s often tied to the likes of Floyd’s Familiar Faces is “Grown & Sexy” go-go, and Double Faces falls pretty firmly in that camp.
Jeyon Falsini says Double Faces is “really amazing” at taking contemporary songs and filtering them through its percussion section, which includes a drum kit, cymbals, cowbells and wood blocks.
“It’s percussion on top of percussion,” Falsini says. “I like to call it ‘black jam-band music.’ They jam out and do solos. It’s a great party sound, and I can always count on Double Faces bringing out a crowd. Always.”
Sometimes there are horns in go-go, but not in Double Faces. Guitars aren’t featured; keyboards provide much of the instrumentation.
In addition to the Ante Room, Falsini says go-go bands are finding a place at Rapture and the M&M Lounge. While the hip-hop scene in Charlottesville has had trouble maintaining consistent venues due to occasional outbreaks of violence, Falsini says the go-go crowds are more mature and easygoing—everyone’s just there to enjoy the music and dance.
Harrison says the go-go scene has value for black music fans in general.
“I see the stuff [Blacko] promotes, and I love what he’s doing out there; that is, actively attempting to keep live music in the urban community alive,” he says.
The next stage
DJ Blacko (aka Robert Douglas) performed July 8 at Fusion’s Restaurant and Lounge in Culpeper with The Double Faces Gogo Band. Photo: Ron Paris
When he started Wild Boyz Entertainment, Douglas says all he had “was a laptop and a dream.”
“Now I have a couple thousand followers,” he says. “When I first started, I had a couple hundred. I am running close to 20 grand a year off of entertainment, and I put myself through college.”
Which side of the business will flourish—hip-hop, R&B, deejaying or go-go—is anybody’s guess, but go-go seems to have as good a chance as any. Floyd figures the genre is still strong around D.C. Is it where it was at its height two decades ago? No. But in the last five years, he says, it’s done well.
As for Charlottesville’s scene, Douglas is likewise optimistic. He says Double Faces is taking more and more phone calls from people outside of Charlottesville, and more local doors are opening. “What the business degree has taught me is how to talk to the people we haven’t opened doors with,” he says.
But it takes hard work, Douglas continues. You have to work it like a job. You can’t run up a bar tab that’s bigger than your paycheck. And you can’t allow yourself to get paid in “beer and wingdings.”
Perhaps most importantly, you have to remember the crowds don’t just show up. You have to get out there and spread the word. You have to promote.
“I don’t want to speak ill, but everybody comes up and automatically wants to be in competition,” Douglas says. “It took years to get where we are, and we’re still not accepted everywhere around here. No one’s knocking down our doors. I booked these shows myself.”
GAGA for go-go
Go-go is a musical genre that places heavy, layered percussion underneath R&B, hip-hop and other musical forms.
Originated in Washington, D.C., in the 1960s
Dance music that emphasizes audience call-and-response
Go-go pioneers include Chuck Brown, the Young Senators and Black Heat
In the mid-1960s, “go-go” was the word for a music club in the D.C. African-American community
BLACKO’S PLAYLIST
DJ Khaled and Jay Z, “I Got the Keys”
Blacko’s take: “Jay Z’s latest track has been on repeat. It’s pretty dope.”
Fat Joe and Remy Ma, “All the Way Up”
Blacko’s take: “I like all kinds of music, though. My playlist consists of stuff from Lil Wayne to Hall & Oates.”
Backyard Band, Street Antidote
Blacko: “My Backyard repeat is the whole new Antidote CD. I listen to the whole CD…no favorites.”
Northeast Groovers, Any Track
Blacko’s take: “I just like when NEG let they beats ride and bring in the crank and 808s.”
Suttle Thoughts, “Love Is Stronger Than Pride”
Blacko’s take: “I listen to my man Steve Roy and Suttle Thoughts almost every day. This is a real laid-back joint. They’re my highway band.”
Double Faces Gogo Band, “We Do It”
Blacko’s take: “I wrote that one myself.”
You’ve heard it before
Photo: File photo
You may be more familiar with go-go style than you think. Here are some artists who have sampled Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers’ percussion-heavy tracks.
Nelly’s “Hot in Herre” sampled “Bustin’ Loose”
Wreckx-N-Effect’s “I Need Money” sampled “We Need Some Money”
Run DMC’s “Run’s House” and Duran Duran’s “Come Undone” both nod to “Ashley’s Roachclip”
In an attempt to find C'ville's best taco, we put nine to the test. Photo: Tom McGovern
We can’t be the only ones who’ve noticed that Charlottesville’s cuisine scene is trending toward tacos. Even fine dining spot C&O offers a version on its late-night menu. But who would win in a blind battle? We put nine to the test, choosing only restaurants in the city and only those open for lunch, to save our judges from slipping into ta-comas. (We also asked some local chefs to weigh in on their favorite taco fillings, toppings and tortillas. See their Restaurant Week menus here.)
Who’s the real winner in this battle? Pretty much everyone—the readers, the judges, the taco joints, even the photographers. Nevertheless, only one could win. Would it be local legend La Michoacana? Old standby Baja Bean? Or perhaps one of the upstarts—Brazos Tacos, The Bebedero or Yearbook?
Starting with a list of 12 tacquerias, our field of competitors shrank to nine when Aqui es Mexico, La Tortuga Feliz and El Tako Nako were unavailable at tasting time. Still, our judges pressed on—heads tilted, taking in every savory bite. Here’s who came out on top.
Our annual look at Charlottesville's movers and shakers.
Discussions for this year’s list of the most powerful in Charlottesville turned not toward one particular person but an entity that truly affects Charlottesvillians’ daily lives—the Virginia Department of Transportation. Don’t worry, you’ll still see some familiar faces (last year’s power-topper Mark Brown remains embroiled in a battle with the city over the Water Street Parking Garage), as well as newcomers, such as craft beer giant Devils Backbone and Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy. And don’t forget impactful changes, such as the Landmark Hotel finally being transformed into a thing of beauty—hey, one has the power to dream, right?
Two years ago John Rubino moved his metal sculpture studio from McIntire Plaza to IX Art Park. He pays approximately the same rent for substantially more space. Photo: Eze Amos
“This is just a glorious space,” says the artist, his eyes drinking it all in. Many people would probably balk at that assessment. The place is roughed-in and decidedly unfinished—lots of raw wood with minimal concessions to human occupancy. There are lights and a number of electrical outlets and exposed ductwork for air and heat overhead. A few tables tucked into the corners serve as individual work areas within the otherwise open space, with just a few beams, a few area dividers of exposed sheet rock and empty floor. It’s not much to look at, unless you look at it from a certain perspective, and from a certain set of needs. And that’s exactly the way the artist sees it—as a blank slate for doing creative work.
The artist and the owner of this building were not sure they wanted to be featured in an article on the redevelopment of downtown. So I offered them anonymity because the story of this space is so interesting. The artist knew the owner had unused space in his building. He also knows the value of inexpensive studio space to people doing creative work. So he convinced the owner to do a few small-scale accommodations and rent out semi-private work studios. When the artist hears of a fellow creative looking for studio space, he sends him or her to the owner. There are currently three tenants in the space—each with his or her own work area, littered with tools of the trade and plastered with trials and essays and works-in-progress. And everyone seems happy. The tenants get inexpensive studio space, the artist gets the satisfaction of helping the cause of art, and the owner gets a little extra income from his property at the cost of a few minor renovations. Win–win–win.
Correction: win–win–win–question mark. Because it’s unclear how long it can last.
It’s part of the logic of a booming development cycle and a restless economy that sparsely utilized, post-industrial spaces like this one will inevitably get bought up, redeveloped and upscaled. A space that might have started its life 100 years ago as a warehouse may lie fallow for a while after something in the economy shifts. But eventually it will sprout into apartments or boutiques or restaurants or into the combination of residential and office and retail that city planners call, with angelic choirs and showers of light pouring down from the heavens, “mixed use.” Fly a camera drone straight up over this part of town, and what you’d see is one of the most diverse, nonredeveloped areas remaining in Charlottesville. The city calls it the Strategic Investment Area (or SIA). It constitutes 330 acres roughly bounded by the CSX railroad tracks and by Avon Street on the east and Ridge Street on the west. It’s been on a slow fuse for years, and now it’s about to explode.
As redevelopment proceeds in this transition zone south of the Downtown Mall, property values are going to rise. And that is a situation that the owner knows quite well. He wants to sell, and he has a price in mind. Sooner or later he’s going to get that price. The artist can see the writing on the wall—right alongside the art. “It’s a pretty amazing space,” he shrugs, “and it’s probably going to go away at some point. But until then, let’s do something.”
The artist introduces me to one of the tenants. I ask what he finds appealing about working here: “The great thing about this space,” he says, “is the location, and also the raw quality of it—that you can with a little bit of work turn it into a nice studio/workshop.” He mentions that a group of colleagues have talked about finding a similar collaborative “making” space somewhere: “The idea is to get out in the community a bit more,” he says.
He has just relocated his studio from a town about a half-hour drive away, where space was plentiful and cheap but the commute was “ridiculous.” I ask him what he thinks will happen when the building gets sold. “To me,” he says, “what’s most important is to have a good space that supports the work. I imagine when it goes away, we go away. You start moving further and further away to find the space.”
And therein lies a story—one that hasn’t yet been acknowledged or identified, much less addressed, in all the city’s planning for the SIA. Economic development and speculative reinvestment aren’t the only things happening in this neck of the woods. There is also a healthy amount of grassroots creative activity—artists and nonprofits and cultural provocateurs doing their thing. There is The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative in a nondescript brick box near Spudnuts (itself gloriously, scruffily, endearingly nonredeveloped). Just across Avon Street there is an old service station housing two socially aware nonprofits: the Urban Agriculture Collective of Charlottesville and Charlottesville Community Bikes. And then there’s the IX Art Park, which houses the Maker Space and a sculpture studio, not to mention the open space of the park itself, a flexible communitarian plaza—home to Fleaville and music and theater and civic events and festivals. And all of that is on top of whatever other solo-shot studio spaces may be squirreled into the low-rent nooks and crannies of the neighborhood.
Enabled by low overhead and nonredeveloped spaces and the occasional enlightened property owner, cultural pioneers are busy adding verve and vibrancy and economic kick to this part of town right now, not in some utopian mixed-use future. What happens to all of that when the redevelopment freight train starts rolling through?
