Josie Ch. 02

Josie - Chapter 02 - by Polly+Anna (3653 words) Our Lady in 1923 Jacksonville Florida (2/5/20)

March 1923

Josie's father and brothers had played ice hockey, and she remembered her dad's advice, that on the ice and in life people in large part make their own luck. By paying attention, and being prepared and ready for anything, one can take advantage of the randomly distributed happenstance that comes every person's way. Eddie Rickenbacker, America's 'Ace of Aces' with 26 aerial victories in the recent war, was building his high-end luxury cars with amazing technical advancements like four-wheel brake systems derived from his experience in automobile racing.

Rickenbacker, who lived in New York City, had just recently married Adelaide Frost Durant, a professional singer from Detroit and the former wife of Josie's neighbor, William Durant's son. The Rickenbackers were a thoroughly modern couple, she was older than he - significantly more than the few months that Elanor was older than Edsel, she was a divorcee, and she seemed to have a very tight relationship with her former father-in-law.

Detroit was the industrial center for all types of mechanical manufacturing. Besides the elder Mr. Durant, there were thirty or forty senior managers and parts suppliers who lived in her neighborhood alone. The Rickenbacker Motor Company built their cars in Detroit, and both Henry and Edsel were investors. Edsel was interested in aviation, the Rickenbackers had a summer home in Jacksonville, and Eddie was looking to start an airline down in Florida.

As the Ford's pilot, Josie had accompanied Henry and Edsel to Paxon Field, just west of the city of Jacksonville. Eddie's pitch was convincing, and Florida Airways was founded by himself, his fellow aviator from France Reed Chambers, and others including Percy Rockefeller - William's son, Edsel Ford and Anne Tracy Morgan - daughter of John Pierpoint. Henry, contributed three of Bill Stout's 2-AT 'Sky Pullmans,' and temporarily Josie's services. She was instructed to memorize everything that she was exposed to in Florida, in an effort to improve Stout Airways back in Michigan.

Josie flew paying passengers in both directions along the Jacksonville, Tampa and Miami, triangle. Harriett and Blake drove down, together with Josie they decided that a little sun - and not having to explain to "Singing Sam"'s minions why there would be no deliveries for three months - was in order. One day as Josie was waiting for them to arrive, Blake wanted to make several stops to film "natural phenomena," as well as waiting for her scheduled departure, just passing time by idly watching the steam freight train waiting at the interlocking- crossing just north of Paxon Field dad's advice paid off again.

Anne Madgigine Jai Kingsley Gowan was the most delicious shade of chocolate, and she was totally elegant wearing a long slinky pale peach-colored dress with a matching pillbox hat and a tiny mesh veil when she walked up to Josie. She was dressed in her straight-line white dress, white turban style hat with its golden 'Fenix' medallion, and obligatory brown leather flight jacket with epaulets. She introduced herself and then said, "Sometimes Miss Tracy likes to 'pull my leg,' but you really are flying that big aeroplane aren't you?"

"Miss Tracy?" Josie said.

"Well, both Miss Tracy and Miss Veitch, their given names are Anne," said, "I call them Miss Tracy and Miss Vietch, it gets really confusing otherwise since I am an Anne as well, they call me Madge."

"Well, yes Anne," said Josie, "I fly the 2-AT Stout 'Air Pullman.' Six days a week, here to Miami - one day down and back up the next, one flight a day stops at Tampa enroute."

"Please, you can call me Madge," she said, "mom is the only one who actually calls me Anne, and that's just because Anne Madgigine Jai Kingsley, was her great grandmother's name."

"So," asked Josie, "you work for my boss?"

"Oh no," said Madge, "I work for my mother, Miss Charlotte, she was the caterer for the party Saturday night at Miss Tracy's."

"Well," said Josie, "you obviously know them better than I do, I wouldn't feel comfortable calling Ms. Anne Tracy Morgan or Doctor Anne Vietch Murray Dike by their given names."

"Oh," said Madge, "they aren't all huffy or snooty or anything, really they are quite sweet ladies."

That is what Josie had heard, that the Annes were sweet on each other. The two women had traveled the globe together and shared homes in New York City, Jacksonville and in France near Soissons along the "Chemin des Dames" at Blérancourt. Not that Josie minded, she enjoyed what she and Harriett did with each other on camera, and she liked it when Blake got them to "try new positions" together, ostensibly so that he could "see what the camera would see." Many times she thought that Blake did it simply because he enjoyed watching them have sex together, not that Josie complained, she liked Blake too.

It was another one of those weird boy-things, guys loved to see their girl with another girl, it gave them a chance to recover and get hard again. Most of all it showed guys in concrete terms how somebody else that wasn't a threat to their manhood found their girl to be desirable. Josie could tell that Harriett enjoyed it too even though she was too shy to say so. That was kinda what Harriett's relationship with Blake was like, he was the extrovert who took her for a fun ride while allowing her to pretend that it was her "just placating him."

Josie wasn't brought up like Harriett, she didn't go to the fancy schools, and wasn't taught how to be all prim and proper. Growing up amongst the wealthy acquaintances of her father Harriett was like Ms. Morgan, privately schooled, she was a world traveler, taught to be a society wife and a philanthropist. But Harriett's family had lacked the business and political acumen of Anne's parents John Pierpont Morgan and Frances Louisa Tracy Morgan. Failing to diversify, the double whammy of U.S. involvement in the war and Prohibition afterward bankrupt the Elsinores.

Josie had been a guest at a party thrown at the Annes' home, it was not specifically a celebration of the new airline, but it was treated in that way by the several guests who were involved in the venture. Composer Cole Porter was there as was novelist Mercedes de Acosta and her lover film actress Alla Nazminova, she introduced her to Tallulah Bankhead, a Broadway actress whose father, grandfather and uncle were Representatives and Senators.

Josie now recalled seeing Madge at the party, not as a guest but as a manager of the serving staff. In the short time remaining before her departure they talked about catering and how the logistics of planning a big party were similar to and different from running a successful airline. Josie invited Madge to "try air travel out," and a date was set two days hence. Madge flew with Josie to Tampa in the morning and then caught the returning flight back in the afternoon.

On Sunday they picnicked in Orange Park and Josie remarked that they were crossing 'Kingsley Avenue.'

"Zephaniah Kingsley was my great, great, grandfather," Madge said.

"Oh," said Josie, wondering what else to say. Being from 'up north,' she had read about "the peculiar institution of slavery." She remembered reading the diary of Mary Chestnut in school.

"Like the patriarchs of old, our men live all in one house with their wives and their concubines, and the mulattos one sees in every family exactly resemble the white children and every lady tells you who is the father of all the mulatto children in everybody's household, but those in her own."

"Let's take a drive," Madge said after they had finished eating."

They drove to a splendid hotel at the foot of Kingsley Avenue.

"Four generations ago, just before the turn of the last century, my great-great-grandfather Zephaniah, a white Quaker planter originally from South Carolina came to Orange Park, it was called bosque de laurel then, as an Empresario. He purchased my namesake at an auction in Cuba. Back then, Florida was a part of Spain, and Havana was the capital. He was obviously interested in her sexually, but he didn't just buy her and rape her, well at least not any more than any other man didn't just marry a gal back then and take her home and rape her. She was of the Wolof tribe in Senegal.

"I know all of this because he preserved the history and taught his children to pass it down. Zephaniah married her in a Wolof ceremony in Havana before he brought her to Florida. He built a big house exactly where that hotel sits now, and he named it 'Ma'am Anna's House,' she ran it and the plantation. He freed her on her 18th birthday, and although he was a polygamist and he took other women, other enslaved black women as concubines, she was always first to him.

"Although he had three others, she was the only one he married. He was white but he respected her traditions, it was a Wolof ceremony not a Spanish one. He held slaves, but he freed his concubines and his nine mixed-race children. He educated his slaves and did not meddle in their personal affairs, that is something that bosses don't even refrain from today. He let them have side businesses, save and buy their own freedom. After the United States took Florida, he had to flee to Haiti because of his writings promoting the genetic mixing of races as a way to make all of humankind better. It was all a really, really complicated situation."

"So is that what happened here?" Josie asked, "Did he leave in 1819?"

"No," said Madge, "It's more complicated than that."

"Okay," Josie said, "your great-granddad thought your namesake was cute, if she looked like you that's understandable, he married her, and they built a big house on the Saint Johns River, and-"

"I'm cute?"

"Didn't you already know that?" Josie said smiling.

"Do you mind a very long drive?" Madge asked. "I'll show you where I grew up."

"Nope," Josie said, "Let's take another drive."

It took nearly two hours to traverse the forty miles between Orange Park and Fort George Island, in those two hours Josie heeded her mother's advice and mostly just listened to Madge.

"Slavery was different in Spanish society, it was more medieval, more about class and family connections. There were no 'blanket restrictions,' people held status and rights, including the right to hold property through their family. Spain had been conquered by the Moors. An affluent interracial family with significant business interests and political connections, like the Kingsleys, could easily have a higher status than a white family.

"The institution was clearly wrong, but it was an economic system, one's status could change. Peasants and slaves owed labor to lords and masters who owed fealty and military service to the crown. Back there at Laurel Grove, the plantation slaves were taught to be blacksmiths, carpenters, stockmen, distillers, spinners, weavers, experts on growing and ginning cotton. It was a complete economic system; they weren't merely field hands. Zephaniah made sure that his children including the girls, were all well-educated and he left all of his holdings to them and their mothers. He married two of his mixed-race daughters to local white plantation owners.

Josie sat in silence thinking what a Godsend her mother's advice was, she was sure she couldn't say anything of value in the moment. She had been taught that "slavery was unequivocally wrong, and those who practiced it were evil people." But this beautiful, articulate black woman was painting a far more nuanced picture.

Had Zephaniah not purchased Ma'am Anne, her beautiful namesake would not exist. The institution of slavery was just plain wrong, just as the British institution of "transporting" 50,000 so-called "Irish criminals" to Maryland and Virginia during colonial times was wrong. But Josie herself existed because some ancestor had been a 'debtor.' A 'criminal' unable to repay a debt within the specified time.

"What are you thinking?" Madge asked after a pause.

"That I don't know anything about anything," said Josie.

"Then I will just call you Socrates," Madge said. "Not knowing makes you really smart."

"You have to meet Harriett," Josie said smiling, "she'll like you."

"You don't..." Madge said, feigning hurt feelings. "Trying to pawn me off already?"

"Nope, I do. I like you Madge," Josie said, "and Harriett will too."

"So during the War of 1812," Madge said, "the State of Georgia invaded Florida, and they captured Jacksonville, Ma'am Anne burned Laurel Grove, rather than have it fall to the invaders. After a time, the Americans left, but six years later they bought Florida from Spain. Meanwhile, the Spanish Crown gave Ma'am Anne Fort George Island in compensation, and in recognition of her loyalty. By the terms of the treaty purchasing Florida the U.S. government had to recognize those grants.

"Zephaniah was a pain in the territorial government's ass. He tried to get them to respect the status of the free black people here, who were mostly bi-racial anyway. He wrote and published a pamphlet that redefined slavery as an intermediate step and argued in favor of interracial marriage. He wasn't popular here, and so after a time, he moved to Haiti. But because of the treaty provisions Ma'am Anne and his other wives and children inherited his estate.

"He was different, he tried to influence people, and some of his ideas seemed to conflict with other ideas he held. But he was proud of his family, when he entertained visitors at Laurel Grove Ma'am Anna always sat at one head and his children and concubines sat along the sides of a long dining room table. In a magnificent antebellum house that was filled with oil on canvas portraits of African women."

"The man knew what he liked," said Josie.

"Which should be incredibly sexy," said Madge.

"But it's not," Josie said.

"No."

"Not even just a little," said Josie.

"Yeah," said Madge, "it is a little sexy."

"Like you."

After a pause, Madge said "just a little sexy?"

"No," said Josie, "you're a whole lot sexy."

Madge showed Josie her house, it was a mile or so from the big plantation house that a relative had sold to an outsider, much to Madge's regret.

"There were fields out there," Madge said pointing to the distance, "that produced indigo, cotton, okra, oranges, and other vegetables. Great, great, granddad instituted a daily quota. But his slaves were off when they finished it, some of them had their own personal gardens from which they sold vegetables. It was wrong, but there are factory workers who are treated far worse today, and nothing grows out there now."

"Is it hard to talk about?" Josie asked.

"Sometimes," Madge said, "I want to hate him at the same time that I want to love him."

"We all want to be proud of where we came from," Josie said.

"Exactly."

"So where are you from Josie?"

"My grandparents were Irish 'swags,' itinerant farm workers who eventually saved a little money and settled down in Oakland County, just north of Detroit. My parents worked for Harriett's parents and we grew up together. The Elsinores were brewers, their ancestors came from Holstein, which was part of Denmark back then, but they were German. Most of their business was in Canada, but when Canada entered the war against Germany Harriett's grandfather made the disastrous business decision to move the family business to the United States. They bought a brewery in Detroit because they had other business there, but the U.S. entry into the war negated all of their efforts, and then Prohibition bankrupt them."

"You can stay the night if you want," said Madge, "I will drive you back to Paxton in the morning."

"Are you sure," said Josie, "it's like an hour, probably."

"It will be fine," said Madge and she started to remove her satin yellow Rayon dress by removing the pins that held it to her brilliant white slip.

"Can you take me by my place," Josie said, "I'll have to change for work."

Meanwhile, Madge had slipped the full straight cut slip off over her head and was standing in front of Josie wearing her fancy brocade Side Lacer, its garter hooks holding up an under bust corselette over a black chemise and knickers, it was tightly pulled in to flatten her chest and give her that "it" look.

"Are you just going to stand there?" Madge said.

"And admire you like a movie star," said Josie, "why yes, I think I just might."

"Me," said Madge, as she unlaced her brassiere, "a movie star, the sun has done fried your brain."

Josie lifted and removed her slinky, shiny, jade green, Rayon dress that fell straight on her body. It wasn't a fancy bespoke item like Madge's, but it had a matching slip that prevented immodesty when wearing the translucent dress.

"My you look nice," said Madge, looking at Josie's simple white bandeau brassiere with its shoulder straps, her matching light elastic "Lastix" girdle that flattened her belly giving her that long lean look, and her jade green bloomers.

"Good enough to eat?" Asked Josie

"We'll see," said Madge, removing her corselette and chemise

Madge stepped out of her silky black crepe de chine knickers, and then ran her hand provocatively through her curly black pubic hair. Josie was mesmerized for a moment by her beauty before she followed suit removing her jade green Rayon bloomers.

"Where's your hair girl," Madge said looking at her pubes. Josie was just getting used to its absence.

"Blake shaves it off," Josie said.

"Blake?"

"Harriett's husband," said Josie.

"Harriett's husband shaves your spot?" Said Madge. "Does Harriett know?"

"Yes, of course," said Josie. "It makes it easier for him to French."

"French?"

"Yeah," said Josie, "make love like in France, with our mouths. What I was hoping we were going to do."

"I know what it is girl," said Madge, "I just never heard of a guy doing it to a girl."

"Blake enjoys it," said Josie, "doing it, or watching me and Harriett do it to one another."

"I have to meet this fellow."

"Aww," said Josie, "don't want me anymore?"

"I'll eat you for dessert tonight," said Madge, "and you can get that fellow Blake to eat me if he ever gets here. Smoky Mountains, huh, some bear prob'ly ate him."

Madge took her hand and led her to the bedroom, and they sat side by side on the edge of the bed and they kissed slowly at first but then with increasing fervor. Soon tongues were involved and gentle nibbling on lips and earlobes. Kissing one another on shoulders and breast bones and nibbling on rib cages. The kissing, especially those on the necks and ears and shoulders was accompanied by tight loving embases.

Josie took Madge's larger than her own breasts into her hands and gently massaged them. Poor 'girls' they had been locked away inside that brocade prison all day. Josie circled her nipples with her fingers and then with her tongue and kissed her lovingly. Madge meanwhile played with Josie's smaller yet perkier than her own breasts rubbing the pointy nipples between two fingers much to Josie's delight.

It was sort of weird not having someone tell her to do this or to do that and not having to worry about camera angles or what could be seen. Josie realized that this was the sort of thing that was missing from her life. Undirected spontaneous sex. She loved the choreographed, practice till you get it perfect for the camera sex that she and Blake and Harriett shared. But variety was the spice of life wasn't it. There was no reason not to have both.

Madge moved a bit and they rolled onto the mattress with Josie on top in a classic soixante-neuf, each kissing the other's most sacred of places. Madge was planting little pecks of kisses all over the neighborhood in a seemingly random pattern while Josie was playing more with the little tight curls. She had heard that thickness was what made hair darker and Madge's were very thick, thick and wiry, and black as midnight. Harriett before Blake shaved her was light thin and blonde, the opposite, "wouldn't that contrast look great on screen," she thought. Now Josie was doing it.