by Matt Ruff
“’Titia Dandridge,” he marveled. “So what have you been doing with yourself?”
“Oh, you know, same as you. Out in the world, having adventures.”
“Yeah?” He smiled. “Less fighting, I hope.”
She shrugged a shoulder. “I could tell some stories.”
“And you’re back here now?”
Letitia nodded. “You heard Momma died last year?”
“I think Uncle George might have mentioned it in a letter. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, I missed the funeral,” she said, in a tone Atticus might have used to describe missing a bus. “I think Momma was pretty mad at me for that. I started having a real bad run of luck.”
Atticus kept his expression neutral. Mrs. Dandridge had worked in a beauty parlor, but her real business was telling fortunes and putting people in contact with their dead relatives—talents granted her through some vaguely Pentecostal arrangement with Jesus. Atticus wasn’t sure what he thought about all that, but he knew Letitia took it seriously. “So you came back home to . . . make peace with her?”
“More like I ran out of choices,” Letitia said. “I’ve been staying with Ruby while I come up with a new plan. She thinks I should get a job as a maid up on the North Side, but that’s never going to happen, so . . .”
“So what are you doing here? Did George ask you to watch Horace?”
“No, Ruby’s going to look after Horace. I’m going with you.”
“You are?”
“Partway,” George said. He came out of the building lugging a grocery bag and a clutch of canteens and walked around to the open back of the Packard. “We’re going to give Letitia a ride to her brother’s place in Springfield, Massachusetts. That gets us within fifty miles of Ardham. We’ll catch our breath there, then go find Montrose.”
“Do we know how to get to Ardham?” Atticus asked.
“That’s the other reason we’re stopping at Marvin’s. He’s working for the Springfield Afro-American now, so I asked him to do some research for us. He’s going to get us a map of Devon County and see what else he can dig up.”
Having stowed the food and water, George consulted a checklist, ticking off items: mattress, pillows, and blankets; spare tire and jack; spare gas; road flares; first-aid kit; flashlights; reading material . . . “Looks like we’re all set,” he concluded. “I’ll drive the first leg. Who else wants to sit up front?”
Atticus and Letitia exchanged looks, grinning, kids again for a moment. “Letitia can ride shotgun,” Atticus said. “I’ll stretch out in back until you’re ready to change drivers.”
“Now, now,” said Letitia. “It’s a big front seat. Room for all three of us, if you want.” Playacting again, she slipped her arm in his, arched an eyebrow. “I don’t mind.”
The North Korean guerrillas were night fighters. By day they buried their weapons and hid themselves in plain sight among the civilian population. More than once while riding past a rice paddy, Atticus had studied the farmers in their cotton pajamas and tried to guess which of them would, come dark, trade his hoe for a rifle and bayonet. But if there was a trick to spotting Communist infiltrators, Atticus never learned it.
White people in his experience were far more transparent. The most hateful rarely bothered to conceal their hostility, and when for some reason they did try to hide their feelings, they generally exhibited all the guile of five-year-olds, who cannot imagine that the world sees them other than as they wish to be seen.
All of which is to say: He knew right away there was going to be trouble in Simmonsville.
It was a pleasant enough journey up to that point. They crossed Indiana, Ohio, and northwest Pennsylvania without incident. George knew the location of every Esso station along their route, so there was never a problem finding a restroom when they needed one. At their second stop, around midnight, George gave Atticus the driver’s seat and crawled into the back to get some shut-eye. Letitia propped a pillow against the front passenger door and slept curled up against it, now and then kicking Atticus in the thigh as if to keep him from nodding off at the wheel.
By sunup they were in Erie, Pennsylvania. They had a hot breakfast at Egg Benedict’s, a café recommended by the Guide—a recommendation George reaffirmed, jotting an entry in a pocket notebook. Afterwards Letitia insisted on taking a turn at the wheel. The Packard was almost too big for her—she had to scoot forward to reach the pedals—but she handled it just fine, though her heavy foot on the gas made George nervous. Atticus, dozing in back, heard his uncle urging her to slow down, slow down, no need to give the highway patrol any excuses. But Letitia told him not to worry, it was Sunday, and Jesus surely wouldn’t let anything happen to her until she’d had a chance to make up for missing church. George was still trying to answer that logic when Atticus fell asleep.
When he woke they were at a truck stop in Auburn, New York. George went to refill the canteens and Letitia took an apple from the grocery bag and got out to stretch her legs. Atticus, without thinking about it, grabbed a banana.
He was standing beside the Packard rubbing sleep from his eyes when he heard laughter coming from over by the diesel pumps. A truck driver and one of the pump jockeys were grinning at him and elbowing each other in the ribs. Atticus looked at the half-eaten banana in his hand and felt his face get hot. For roughly the millionth time in his life he asked himself, Is there any way I can just ignore this and get on with my day? and he reflected that it was the minor slights that were the hardest to let pass. Then the jockey began thumping his chest and hooting like an ape, and Atticus tossed the banana aside and put up his fists.
But before he could step to, a pyramid of oil cans stacked by the pumps collapsed with a crash. The jockey dropped his gorilla act and ran to stop the cans rolling every which way. One got under his foot and he slipped, taking a hard pratfall. The truck driver burst out in fresh laughter and several other customers joined in. Atticus didn’t laugh, but he decided to consider the insult paid. He lowered his hands and turned away and saw Letitia strolling back towards the car, no longer holding her apple.
They got under way again. Atticus drove and Letitia lay in back with her chin propped in her hands, looking pleased with herself. George, reviewing his travel notes, said that he wanted to stop in Simmonsville for lunch. “There’s a restaurant there called Lydia’s that I got a good report on. As long as we’re passing by I thought we’d check it out.”
“Where is this?” Atticus asked. George showed him on the map: Simmonsville was a flyspeck in the dairylands south of Utica, a region that, in Horace’s atlas, would probably have been populated by cattle-devouring trolls who picked their teeth with the bones of unwary motorists. “You really want to stop in the middle of farm country? Why don’t we just keep going till we hit Albany?”
“No, I hear you,” George said, “but the guy I got the tip from said the woman who owned the place couldn’t have been friendlier. Told him to come back anytime.”
It took them another hour and a half to get there, driving east on the state highway that was sometimes four lanes but more often two. Along one of the two-lane stretches they saw a billboard announcing the upcoming grand opening of the New York State Thruway. The announcement was illustrated with a cartoon of a white family literally flying to their destination in a bubble-top hover car. “Look, George,” Atticus said. “It’s the future.”
At the Simmonsville junction a volunteer firehouse had been erected between the two road branches. A shirtless blond muscleman in tan canvas pants with gray suspenders sat on a bleached wood chair out front, soaking up the sun and puffing on a cigarette. He watched the approaching Packard with interest, eyes narrowing when it chose the road into Simmonsville.
“It’s a red brick building,” George said, focused on his notes. “Should be on the left-hand side, on the far end of town.” Atticus, who’d caught the fireman’s look and read the message there, said nothing, only watched in the side mirror until the firehouse was out of sight b
ehind them.
The road ran south past scattered houses before curving east onto an abbreviated main street with half a dozen shops. The shops were all closed and the street was deserted except for a kid on a bicycle doing lazy figure eights in front of a feed store. Next to the feed store was a vacant lot with a fence thrown up around it to form a small paddock. A big brown mare stood forlornly inside, flicking its tail at the cloud of flies that rose from the dust.
Beyond the paddock was an uninviting pile of whitewashed brick with SIMMONSVILLE DINETTE hand-painted on the plate glass window. “That must be it,” George said.
Atticus eased the car to a stop but kept it idling. “I thought you said it was called Lydia’s.”
“It’s the only brick building,” George observed. “And it’s in the right place.” He gestured at the road ahead, which ran on between open fields. “End of town.”
“I don’t know, George. I don’t like the looks of this.”
“Ah, come on. You know better than to judge a book by its cover.”
“A book can’t refuse you service,” Atticus noted. “Or spit in your water glass.”
But George was insistent, so against his better judgment Atticus pulled into the gravel lot on the east side of the building. He parked the Packard facing outward and left the key in the ignition, just in case.
The dinette was small, just a few tables and a counter with a grill top in back. There was only one customer, a man in a porkpie hat who sat at the counter, mopping gravy off a plate with a crust of bread. He looked around as they came in, his eyes turning to slits in a fair imitation of the fireman. The teenaged boy behind the counter had the opposite reaction, his eyes going wide as if George, Atticus, and Letitia were Green Martians who’d teleported in from Barsoom. This look of startlement lasted for all of a second before being replaced by a mask of poorly feigned indifference: the white man’s double take.
“Hello there,” George said, with an exaggerated friendliness meant to stress that they came in peace. “We’re just driving by today, and we thought—”
The customer slammed his hand down on the counter, making his plate and the counterboy jump. He stood up, adjusted his hat, and made for the door, looking as though he might steamroll Letitia, who was in his way. But she stood her ground and at the last moment he sidestepped, only brushing her shoulder as he went past and out.
“So,” George said to the counterboy as if nothing had happened, “do we just seat ourselves?” The counterboy blinked and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, which George chose to interpret as a yes; he took a chair at the table nearest the door.
“George,” Atticus began, then sighed and sat down too.
Letitia remained standing, flicking something invisible off her shoulder. “I’m going to use the ladies’,” she announced. She headed into the back of the dinette, even as the boy came out from behind the counter carrying menus. He did a little dance to keep from colliding with her, knocking over a napkin dispenser with one flailing arm.
“So what’s good?” George asked, picking up the menu that the counterboy dropped in front of him. “What do you recommend?” The boy just blinked and swallowed; Atticus was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with him beyond the usual. “Tell you what,” George said. “Why don’t we start with some coffee?”
Looking both relieved and freshly startled, the boy retreated behind the counter. He set up cups and saucers and was reaching for the coffeepot when a phone rang. The boy turned towards the sound, paused, and turned back towards the pot. The phone rang again and he repeated his two-step of indecision, this time managing to somehow sweep the cups onto the floor. He stepped back from the shattering of crockery, threw up his hands, and on the third ring went running into the back. Atticus watched him go. He heard the phone being picked up and heard the boy say softly, “Hello?” So at least he wasn’t a mute.
Atticus looked at George. “You got a good report on this place, huh?”
“It was from a few months ago,” George said, shrugging. “Obviously the place is under new management, or something.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah, OK, but we’re here now.”
“Doesn’t mean we have to stay. We get back in the car, we could be in Albany in ninety minutes.”
“Nah, we’re here, let’s just order.”
“George—”
“We’re here,” George said. “And we have every right to be. I’m a citizen. You’re a citizen—and a veteran, for God’s sake. Our money spends as good as anyone else’s.”
“I hear you. But this citizen likes to get value for his money, and if the food here is anything like the service—”
“Hey, that other guy cleaned his plate . . . Anyway, I’m hungry. Let’s give the nervous kid a chance.”
But the nervous kid was taking his time coming back. For that matter, so was Letitia. Growing restless, Atticus leaned back in his chair and stretched. His knuckles brushed the wall, and he noticed that the dinette’s interior brick was coated with the same whitewash as the exterior. He looked up: The ceiling was bright new wood, unpainted, except for two rough support beams, thick as phone poles, that were slathered in white. He checked the floor, next: new linoleum, inexpertly laid down.
“Hey George,” Atticus said.
“Yeah?”
“You remember that time when I was little and you and me and Pop took that trip to Washington, D.C.?”
“Sure, of course I do. That’s where I first met Hippolyta, remember? But what makes you think of that now?”
Looking at the wall again, Atticus repeated a trivia question from that long-ago road trip: “Why is the White House white?”
“War of 1812,” George said. “British soldiers put the executive mansion to the torch. Then later when the slaves rebuilt it, they had to paint the walls white to cover up the . . .”
“. . . the burn marks,” Atticus finished for him, as the fire truck pulled up in front of the dinette. The man with the gray suspenders was driving; another fireman and the customer in the porkpie hat were in the cab with him, and two more men were riding on the sides of the rig.
George slid his chair away from the table. “Back door?” he suggested.
“Might be better to make a stand here, take them one at a time as they come in,” Atticus said.
The firemen formed a skirmish line beside their vehicle. Gray Suspenders was armed with a fire ax and one of the other men had a baseball bat. But before they could rush the dinette, something caused them all to turn and look back the way they’d come. They stood motionless for a moment, and then the man with the bat walked west out of view. Another man followed him, and another, and finally the guy in the porkpie hat, leaving only Gray Suspenders beside the truck with his ax lowered and his arms spread in a gesture of dismay.
Atticus and George were leaning towards the window trying to see what was going on when Letitia returned at long last from the ladies’ room, moving calmly but swiftly. Her forehead was beaded with sweat and there was dust in her hair. “Time to go,” she said.
She didn’t need to say it twice. They slipped out the front door and ran for the car, George and Atticus both glancing over their shoulders at the mare now loose in the street, rearing up kicking at the men who surrounded it. The man with the bat stepped too close and took a hoof in the ribs.
George yanked open the passenger door and slid across the front seat to the driver’s side, Letitia and Atticus piling in after him. Atticus was pulling the door shut again when Gray Suspenders belatedly noted their departure and let out a shout. George gunned the motor and drove out of the lot in a spray of gravel.
They sped east through the fields. While George kept an eye on the rearview, Atticus threw a questioning glance at Letitia. “The counterboy ran out the back,” she explained. “But before he did, I overheard him on the phone talking about these scary Negroes who’d taken over the restaurant. I thought we might need a diversion.”
“We may need another one,” George said. The fire truck was chasing them. George gripped the wheel and gave the Packard more gas. “Letitia, honey,” he said, “would you do me a favor and reach, real careful, under my seat?”
The gun was a .45 Colt revolver, reassuringly large. Atticus nodded. “I was hoping that was on the checklist,” he said. He held out a hand, but before turning the revolver over to him Letitia swung out the cylinder, verified that all six chambers were loaded, and snapped it closed again.
“Try not to kill anyone,” George said. “But see if you can get these fools to back off.”
“I’ll do my best,” Atticus said. He gave Letitia another look, then took the gun and turned to roll down his window.
A shiny blur caught his eye. Across the narrowing field to their right was another road, and a silver car with smoked windows was racing along it, running neck-and-neck with the Packard.
“George,” Atticus said.
“I see it,” George said. The two roads converged at a crossing up ahead, but with the fire truck coming up behind them he couldn’t slow down. Instead he pressed the accelerator all the way to the floor and laid on the horn.
The silver car sped up too.
Atticus thumbed back the hammer on the Colt and fired a warning shot high across the field. This brought no reaction from the silver car, but as the gun’s report faded away there was a second, thinner pistol crack from behind them. Porkpie Hat was leaning out of the fire truck, holding his lid on with one hand and aiming a snub-nosed revolver with the other.
“Hell,” George said. Letitia shut her eyes and whispered urgently to the Lord. Atticus leveled the Colt at the silver car.
At the last second, the silver car gave way. The Packard roared through the crossing and the silver car cut in behind it with a squeal of brakes, skidding to a halt directly in the path of the fire truck. The truck bore down on it, horn and siren merging into one long bray.
The truck swerved. To Atticus looking back it seemed that it swerved too late, but in the instant before impact the whole vehicle jolted sideways as though some external force had given it a shove. It missed the silver car by a hand’s breadth, then cut back across the road, out of control, and crashed through a fence into another field. He glimpsed a fireman catapulting through the air even as the truck was swallowed by a great billowing cloud of dust.
