In the chap­ter titled “Paper” from “The Heav­en & Earth Gro­cery Store,” we delve into the vibrant dynam­ics of life in the Chick­en Hill neigh­bor­hood. Chona’s deci­sion to con­ceal Dodo from the author­i­ties does­n’t over­shad­ow the live­ly chat­ter of Pat­ty Mil­li­son, affec­tion­ate­ly nick­named Paper, who reigns over the gos­sip scene at Chona’s gro­cery store every Sat­ur­day. Known for her beau­ty, charm, and a knack for absorb­ing and dis­sem­i­nat­ing infor­ma­tion, Paper is the heart­beat of the com­mu­ni­ty. Her engag­ing per­son­al­i­ty attracts not only the local women but also men from var­i­ous walks of life, eager to share their sto­ries with her.

While the town grap­ples with harsh real­i­ties, such as Dodo’s bleak fate at the hands of the state, the gos­sip that flows from Paper’s lips is irre­sistible. She announces that “Big Soap knocked Fat­ty’s gold tooth out,” instant­ly draw­ing atten­tion and laugh­ter. The unfold­ing sto­ry reveals the his­to­ry between Big Soap, an Ital­ian immi­grant known for his gen­tle nature, and Fat­ty, a local hus­tler who mis­used his author­i­ty at work. Paper’s recount­ing of events paints a vivid pic­ture of the day’s dra­ma, filled with her ani­mat­ed retellings and mim­ic­ked actions that cap­ti­vate her audi­ence.

As ten­sions sim­mer and laugh­ter resounds, Paper expert­ly shifts between light­heart­ed ban­ter and insight­ful com­men­tary on the com­mu­ni­ty’s strug­gles, weav­ing togeth­er her obser­va­tions and the nar­ra­tives of those around her. Through her unique lens, the social fab­ric of Chick­en Hill is brought to life, show­cas­ing the com­plex­i­ties of race, gen­der, and the dai­ly bat­tles indi­vid­u­als face in a pre­dom­i­nant­ly white soci­ety.

Fur­ther intrigue aris­es when a strange man, poten­tial­ly from the state, appears at Chona’s store, prompt­ing con­cern about Dodo’s safe­ty. As Paper exchanges wary glances with her friend Addie, they pon­der who might be talk­ing too much about Dodo’s where­abouts. Paper’s promise to inves­ti­gate the sit­u­a­tion reflects her deep-seat­ed loy­al­ty to her com­mu­ni­ty and fore­shad­ows her role as a linch­pin in resolv­ing con­flicts with­in their tight-knit world. In this rich tapes­try of life, Paper stands out as a bea­con of resilience, humor, and con­nec­tion.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

C
8
Paper
hona’s deci­sion to hide Dodo from the state of Penn­syl­va­nia wasn’t
even the lead sto­ry when Pat­ty Millison—known as News­pa­per, Paper
for short—held court inside Chona’s Heav­en & Earth Gro­cery Store that
fol­low­ing Sat­ur­day.
Paper—whose smooth dark choco­late brown skin, perky breasts, slim
but­tocks, and wild corn­rowed hair was append­ed by her run­ning mouth that
could keep nei­ther secret nor food, for she ate like a horse but nev­er gained
an ounce—was a laun­dress who held court inside the Heav­en & Earth
Gro­cery Store every Sat­ur­day. Sat­ur­day was Miss Chona’s Sab­bath, which
gave Paper free rein to trade quips, juicy gos­sip, and oth­er vital local
infor­ma­tion out of Chona’s hear­ing. The col­ored maids, house­keep­ers,
saloon clean­ers, fac­to­ry work­ers, and bell­hops of Chick­en Hill who
gath­ered near the veg­etable bin each Sat­ur­day morn­ing to hear Paper’s
news, how­ev­er, loved her chat­ter. Paper knew more news than the local
papers, which she actu­al­ly nev­er read. In fact, there was a rumor about that
Paper couldn’t read at all—she’d been seen at the Sec­ond Bap­tist church
hold­ing the hym­nal book upside down more than once. That didn’t mat­ter.
Her neat wood­en frame house on Franklin Street was perched at one of the
main roads lead­ing up to Chick­en Hill, giv­ing her a view of the town in
front and the Hill in the back. Still, it wasn’t the loca­tion of her home that
allowed Paper to serve as the source of the most intre­pid reports on the Hill
or her being as capa­ble as the most able reporter from the nim­ble Pottstown
Mer­cury or even the mighty Philadel­phia Bul­letin. Rather, it was her effect
on the male species. Her beau­ty, her easy laugh­ter, glim­mer­ing eyes, and
instant smile for every stranger she met, made her a mag­net for men. Men
spilled their guts to her. Hard­ened thugs who gut­ted one anoth­er with knives
in alley­ways watched her sidle down the mud­dy roads of the Hill in the
after­noon and felt a sud­den urge to repent, recall­ing the inno­cence of their
child­hood, the glo­ri­ous yel­low sun­light that kissed their faces when they
burst out of church after Sun­day School in shirt and tie on Palm Sun­day,
whirling palm fronds in the air as their moth­ers laughed. Mild-man­nered
dea­cons who sat on their porch­es with grim faces after toil­ing all day as
smil­ing wait­ers in white jack­ets at the Pottstown Social Club serv­ing meals
to the town’s white fathers watched Paper’s proud breasts swing freely
beneath her dress as she float­ed past and sud­den­ly heard the sound of a
thou­sand drums pound­ing down the Ama­zon, accom­pa­nied by visions of
drown­ing their boss­es. Brick­lay­ers paved her chim­ney just to watch her
bend over the petu­nias in her glo­ri­ous­ly full-flow­ered yard. Mule skin­ners
hauled bar­rels of drink­ing water to her house just to hear the sound of her
laugh­ter. Pull­man porter roy­al­ty from the near­by Read­ing Rail­road float­ed
by her porch reg­u­lar­ly to drop off laun­dry and tell high sto­ries about trav­els
to far-off places like Iowa and Flori­da and even Los Ange­les, dream­ing of
doing the bun­ga-bun­ga with Paper, whom they saw as the wild local. White
men found her irre­sistible, which is why she held no lucra­tive maid’s job.
“I’m retired from days work,” she told friends with a laugh. “Too much
trou­ble. The men grope and the women mope.” White house­wives from
town who want­ed their hus­bands to climb the greasy pole of oppor­tu­ni­ty in
Pottstown’s thriv­ing bank­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing worlds made a steady trek
to Paper’s house bear­ing their hus­bands’ laun­dry, for she washed with such
thor­ough­ness and ironed with such pro­fes­sion­al skill that even Willard
Mill­stone Potts, the town’s chief banker, grand­son of Mr. John Potts
him­self, the old fart who lay in the grave­yard gath­er­ing worms, thank God
—para­chut­ed over to hell even if the bridge was out, the old black folks
prayed—sent his shirts to her house to have them cleaned and pressed.
Paper, as the old folks said, had turn—talent. Women found her fun­ny and
inter­est­ing, for unlike most men, she was curi­ous about their opin­ions, was
yet to be mar­ried, and swore she had no plans to. “I can do bet­ter with­out a
man,” she declared, which made her high cot­ton and one up on the Chick­en
Hill’s most respect­ed stateswoman, Addie, Nate’s wife, who was a
Townsend, and every­one knew those Townsends were too bold to live long
any­way. They’d been out of the South too long. Too black, too strong, too
bold. They refused to step off the side­walk when a white woman
approached; they for­got to avoid look­ing a white per­son in the eye. They
for­got all the behav­iors that, back home, could have you see­ing your life
flash­ing before your eyes as a noose was low­ered around your neck—or
worse, star­ing at iron bars for twen­ty years with your hopes flat­ter than
yesterday’s beer, dream­ing about old junk that you should’ve sold, or deer
you should’ve shot but missed, or women you should have mar­ried and
didn’t, hav­ing wan­dered face-first into the five-fin­gered karate chop of the
white man’s laws. A col­ored per­son couldn’t sur­vive in the white man’s
world being igno­rant. They had to know the news. That’s why Paper was so
impor­tant. She was a Pottstown spe­cial.
Thus, when she decid­ed that the lead sto­ry in her Sat­ur­day morn­ing
announce­ments at Chona’s Heav­en & Earth Gro­cery Store had noth­ing to
do with Miss Chona’s deci­sion to hide Dodo from the man from the state,
not one of the group of house­wives, bums, and fac­to­ry jan­i­tors stand­ing
about ques­tioned it. Every­body knew Dodo was doomed any­way. He was
Addie’s nephew, the child of her late sis­ter, Thel­ma, who died three years
after a stove in her house blew up and took the boy’s ears away. The
“spe­cial school,” which every­body knew wasn’t a school at all but rather
the hor­rif­ic Pennhurst sana­to­ri­um up the road in Spring City, was just
anoth­er injus­tice in a world full of them, so why dwell on it? Plus, Paper’s
gos­sip that Sat­ur­day was too juicy to ignore. She rolled it out like this:
“Big Soap knocked Fatty’s gold tooth out.”
Big Soap was a rel­a­tive new­com­er and a Hill favorite, a huge Ital­ian
named Enzo Carissimi—six feet six, majes­ti­cal­ly built with wide shoul­ders,
huge hands, allur­ing brown eyes, and a gen­tle nature—who was con­stant­ly
burst­ing into laugh­ter. He had emi­grat­ed from Sici­ly to Amer­i­ca at twelve
with his extend­ed fam­i­ly, one of the few white fam­i­lies still on the Hill.
Fat­ty Davis, a clever, stout, two-fist­ed, gre­gar­i­ous hus­tler who owned the
Hill’s only jook joint, was also twelve then, and the two became fast
friends. Fat­ty hap­pi­ly served as Big Soap’s trans­la­tor and Eng­lish tutor, the
two shar­ing a love of build­ing and hus­tling up dol­lars. After grad­u­at­ing
from high school, they worked at sev­er­al plants togeth­er, the most recent
being Flagg Indus­tries in near­by Stowe, which made steel nip­ples and
fit­tings for steam pipes. They often walked home from work togeth­er.
Paper’s announce­ment quick­ly drew a crowd. Rusty, stand­ing at the edge
of the group, received the news with dis­be­lief.
“You telling what you seen, Paper? Or what some­body told you?”
Paper’s huge brown eyes land­ed on Rusty, whose lean frame tensed as
Paper’s eyes took him in. “Rusty,” she said patient­ly, “I seen Soap knock
out Fatty’s tooth, okay? With my own eyes. Yes­ter­day.”
“How come I ain’t heard noth­ing from Fat­ty about it? I was over to his
jook last night.”
“Doing what?”
“That’s my busi­ness.”
“Did you see Fat­ty last night?”
“I wasn’t look­ing for him. I was tak­ing care of some busi­ness.”
“Well, what­ev­er that busi­ness was, Fat­ty wasn’t in it. ’Cause he drove to
Philly last night to get his lip fixed. His top lip had swolled up to the size of
a hot dog.”
The women stand­ing in the cir­cle laughed. Addie, work­ing the far end of
the counter near the back of the store, drift­ed over to lis­ten. “Were they
drink­ing?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” Paper said.
Rusty smirked. “How do you know? You smell their breath?”
Paper tipped her head and gazed at him sedate­ly. Rusty was hand­some,
she thought, but he looked ter­ri­ble when he smirked. She won­dered if he
knew how good he looked when he remained calm as opposed to mak­ing
those stu­pid faces. She decid­ed he didn’t. He was, after all, like most men: a
moron.
“What you got against me, Rusty?” Paper asked cool­ly.
Rusty, stand­ing with his hands in his over­all pock­ets, reached for his
cig­a­rettes and sud­den­ly couldn’t remem­ber which pock­et they were in. He
felt about his over­alls, find­ing him­self short of breath. He always felt like
this when Paper was around. “All this who-shot-John non­sense don’t mean
noth­ing unless you seen the whole thing, Paper. You seen it all?”
“Only the end,” she said.
“Which was … ?”
“I just said it. Soap popped him.”
Still pat­ting him­self for his cig­a­rettes, Rusty gave up and dropped his
hands in his pock­ets, feel­ing as if some­thing had slipped away. He heard
him­self plead, “C’mon, Paper … sto­ry it up like you know how. Put a lit­tle
pop in it, a lit­tle scoop, y’know.”
“Why should I?”
“ ’Cause if you tell it any oth­er way, it’ll sound like a lie.”
For the first time, Paper soft­ened a bit and smiled. Rusty, she had to
con­fess, had some curve in him. He had an inno­cence about him, and
despite the loose-fit­ting over­alls, his mus­cled arms and firm chest gave her
innards a kind of shove, one she hadn’t felt in years, not since she was
sev­en­teen and took her first and last bus ride out of Ves­tavia, Alaba­ma,
north to points unknown.
“I hear your aunt Clemy’s bring­ing her cheese cook­ies to the repast after
church tomor­row.”
“She calls ’em cheese straws.”
“I don’t care if she calls ’em George Wash­ing­ton. If she brings ’em, will
you remem­ber your friends?”
“I might.”
Sat­is­fied and now with a full audi­ence, Paper launched in.
“I was weed­ing in my gar­den when I seen Fat­ty and Soap come up the
Hill from work. They stopped a few feet from my yard and Fat­ty said, ‘Go
’head, Soap, do it. I know you wan­na. Go ahead. Do it. Get it over with.’ ”
Here she demon­strat­ed, stick­ing out her low­er jaw, her body curv­ing
with her back arched. This drew laugh­ter from the crowd, which now
includ­ed sev­er­al new cus­tomers who wan­dered in, stranger col­oreds from
near­by Hem­lock Row, Phoenixville, and Stowe, a few day labor­ers who
lived at white farms out­side town and came to Heav­en & Earth on
week­ends to enjoy the sights and sounds.
Paper, glanc­ing at her audi­ence, had to work to keep the smile off her
face as she con­tin­ued. “You know how Soap is. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. He
said, ‘I ain’t gonna do it, Fat­ty.’ But Fat­ty kept on him, say­ing, ‘Go ’head,
go ’head, get it over with.’ ”
And here her eyes sparkled and she stood up straight, her beau­ti­ful face
shin­ing in the sun­light that glowed into the store win­dow, the light bounc­ing
off the fruit and veg­eta­bles and cas­cad­ing into the cor­ners of the Heav­en &
Earth Gro­cery Store, illu­mi­nat­ing the pep­pers and car­rots, the Saltines and
apple peel­ers, mak­ing life seem as full and new and fresh as the promise of
Penn­syl­va­nia had once been for so many of those stand­ing about who had
come up from the South to the North, a land of sup­posed good, clean
free­dom, where a man could be a man and a woman could be a woman,
instead of the real­i­ty where they now stood, a tight clus­ter of homes
enclosed by the filth of fac­to­ries that belched bit­ter smoke into a gray sky
and tight yards filled with goats and chick­ens in a part of town no one
want­ed, in homes with no run­ning water or bath­rooms. Liv­ing like they
were down home. Except they weren’t down home. They were up home.
And it was the same. But moments like this made life worth­while, for Paper
was a bang­ing drum. And rolling out rumors and news chat­ter was her
gospel song, always melo­di­ous and joy­ful.
She stood among them, her eyes glis­ten­ing. “Soap didn’t want to give in,
but Fat­ty kept knock­ing at him, say­ing, ‘Go ’head, Soap. I’m a man. Go
’head.’ You could see the idea kind of hit Soap,” she said. “It kind of
growed on him. And with Fat­ty push­ing him along, I reck­on his mind told
him it was okay.”
And here she chuck­led.
“So he balled up his fist … and I mean that white boy reached back and
sent that big fist of his ram­bling through four or five states before it said
hel­lo to Fat­ty. It start­ed in Mis­sis­sip­pi, gone up through the Car­oli­nas,
stopped for cof­fee in Vir­ginia, picked up steam com­ing out­ta Mary­land …
and boom! He liked to part Fat­ty from this world. It land­ed on Fatty’s face
some­thing ter­ri­ble. I can still hear the sound of it. Knocked Fat­ty clean off
his feet and sent that gold tooth of his, the front one, sent that tooth
ram­bling.”
“Then?” Rusty asked.
“Weren’t no then, Rusty,” she said. “Soap turned and went on home. And
Fat­ty set there on his poop hole. After he fig­ured out his head was still on
his shoul­ders, he got up and start­ed crawl­ing round on his hands and knees
like a dog poop­ing a bone.”
“And what’d you do the whole time?” Rusty asked.
“What you think? I went out there.”
“You did not!”
“Sho nuff. I come out my yard and said, ‘Fat­ty what’s the mat­ter?’ He
said, ‘My gold tooth’s gone!’ It took us a good while search­ing round in the
dirt, but we found it. That put a lit­tle dip in his stride, putting that thing in
his pock­et. He walked off with a hole in his teeth the size of Mil­wau­kee.”
Rusty and the oth­ers laughed, and when the cack­ling died down, Paper
stuck a tooth­pick in her mouth. “Dick Clemens, who works over at Flag­gs,
he come by lat­er and told me what hap­pened. Turns out some big-shot
inspec­tor had come out there. He’s a top dog. Shows up twice a year from
Philly. They got to spic-and-span the whole place when he comes. Wash
down every­thing: the machines, the win­dows, the truss­es, the posts, all the
gad­gets. Got to give the beau­ty treat­ment to every­thing.
“Well, Fat­ty had just got a pro­mo­tion over there, and Soap was under
him. They were a team, but Fat­ty got too big for his britch­es. He got high
sid­di­ty order­ing that white boy around. He had Soap doing all the work
while he sat around nap­ping.”
She paused, sur­vey­ing the crowd, and out of instinct glanced at the
emp­ty chair at the far end of the counter where Miss Chona nor­mal­ly sat,
lord­ing over the sweets. The chair was emp­ty.
“When the big inspec­tor come to the room where Fat­ty and Soap was, he
point­ed to one of the fire hoses hang­ing on the wall and said, ‘Has this fire
hose been tak­en out and test­ed?’ Fat­ty told him, ‘Yes sir, it’s been test­ed.’
‘Who test­ed it?’ ‘Well, Soap here,’ Fat­ty said.
“Soap didn’t know any more about test­ing a fire hose than a hog knows a
hol­i­day. But being Ital­ian and not speak­ing Eng­lish too good, he saw Fat­ty
nod­ding, so he said, ‘Aye, aye, sì sì,’ or how­ev­er them Ital­ians say yes.
“So the inspec­tor pulled the hose off the rack and shook it. A peanut
dropped out the noz­zle. He said, ‘I put that peanut in there six months ago
when I was here before.’
Fat­ty said, ‘But it’s a clean peanut, sir.’
“Well, that big cheese got mad and fired ’em both on the spot. On the
way home, I reck­on Fat­ty want­ed to clear things, since he knew Soap’s
mom­ma will whip Soap bow­legged for los­ing his job. You know how
Soap’s mom­ma is. That lit­tle lady’ll put that giant into a con­di­tion! She’ll
clean his ass up!”
The crowd guf­fawed, and as they dis­persed, sev­er­al remarked that Fat­ty,
ras­cal that he was, just had too many jobs, is what it was. He drove a cab.
He had a laun­dry ser­vice. He worked at the plant. Plus ran his jook joint and
ham­burg­er stand. Oth­ers spec­u­lat­ed that poor Big Soap felt he owed Fat­ty,
since Fat­ty had tak­en him down to join the Empire Fire Com­pa­ny before
they worked at Flagg and intro­duced him to the Irish­men down there who
sat around drink­ing beer and play­ing cards all day while mak­ing Big Soap
wash the company’s new fire truck and pull the company’s old horse-pulled
fire wag­on around the sta­tion just to prove to them he belonged, being that
he was the first Ital­ian in the fire company’s his­to­ry. Big Soap just had the
wrong kind of friends, they all agreed.
As the crowd chat­ted, Paper drift­ed away to the back counter where
Addie stood. She wait­ed until the crowd drift­ed far enough away so that she
could not be heard eas­i­ly, then leaned over the counter.
“Gimme a pack­et of BC Pow­der,” she said casu­al­ly, point­ing over
Addie’s shoul­der.
Addie reached behind her, grabbed the item, and tossed it on the counter.
Her eyes flit­ted left to the door near the veg­etable stand, stop­ping on a tall
Negro stranger in a white shirt and felt cap who stood over the veg­eta­bles
pre­tend­ing to regard the onions. Paper glanced at him, then draped her long
pret­ty fin­gers around the headache pow­der.
“You got a headache, Paper?” Addie asked.
“Naw. But that nigger’s gonna have one. It was all I could do to not tell
Rusty about him. Rusty would beat the tar out of him.”
“Maybe he’s from Hem­lock Row.”
“No. The Hem­lock Row col­ored are short­er, the heads are dif­fer­ent, and
they favors one anoth­er. He’s from the state.”
“The state ain’t got no col­ored work­ers,” Addie said. “Maybe he’s a
Pull­man porter.”
“If he’s a Pull­man porter, I’ll eat him with­out salt. Look at them shoes.
What kind of porter would be caught dead wear­ing them raggedy-ass shoes.
Plus, I know every porter that comes through here. I’m think­ing maybe he’s
a state man. Might be from the Pennhurst nut­house. Sent to fetch Dodo.”
“A col­ored? Col­ored don’t do noth­ing but clean the floor and cheer up
the tide out at Pennhurst, to my know­ing. All the same. He could be. How
we gonna know for sure?”
Paper thought a moment, then said, “Miggy Fludd, from Hem­lock Row,
she knows every col­ored up there. She might know who he is.”
Addie watched the man, then glanced away, wor­ried. “The state sent a
white feller out here to fetch Dodo three times. Same man.”
“You must’a real­ly hit his but­ton when you runned him off.”
“I ain’t run him off. Miss Chona run him off.”
“Well, she set him off,” Paper said.
The two watched as the man swiveled his head around quick­ly, look­ing
through the crowd­ed store and glanc­ing around, then moved from the
onions over to the okra, fin­ger­ing one, then anoth­er. Paper smirked, “That’s
some­thing. I nev­er met a col­ored who worked for the state before. You want
me to chat him up?”
“No,” Addie said. “He got to pass your house when he leaves. If he’s
dri­ving a car, write down the license num­ber.”
Paper chuck­led. “I’m aller­gic to that. I can write a few wee old let­ters on
a page here and there, but that’s it. You want me to tell Fat­ty? Fat­ty can