The Summer We Got Saved

by Pat Cunningham Devoto

  “Did I tell you,” Mary said, “that we got another letter from Tab and Tina yesterday?” She directed her question to Miss Hattie’s end of the table. The other end was in no mood for small talk.

  Miss Hattie tried to go along. “Oh really. Is everybody still having a wonderful time, like I knew they would?”

  Nobody else said anything. Tom shook the ice in his empty glass and Helen reached around behind her to the huntboard and retrieved the pitcher.

  “Yes,” Mary said, going on without them, “seems Tab has a friend who speaks French and won’t tell her what she’s saying.” Now she looked to Helen, who was not a traitor and only smiled, going immediately back to her fried chicken.

  Tom had had enough, as it never took much for Tom to have enough. The glass of iced tea sat down stridently in its coaster. “You know what you’re doing, don’t you? Splitting the vote. That’s what the hell you’re doing,” he declared, forgoing apologies to the ladies for cussing in front of them. “You’re splitting the damn vote, and that means Wallace is a shoo-in.” He looked at Charles and tried to cover an almost evil grin by taking a drink of tea.

  Mary had put a hand on Charles’s knee, but she couldn’t contain him. “That’s absolutely hogwash, Tom, and you know it. A. W. Ladd never had a chance—will never have one, not if he runs for the next twenty-seven years in a row.”

  “‘Hogwash’?” Mary said. “Charles, you sound like you’re running for dogcatcher.” They stared at each other and both started laughing.

  This only gave Tom cause. “You can both sit there and laugh if you want to, but A. W. Ladd was a viable candidate before y’all started all this nonsense with Brad La . . . La Stupid.”

  Mary burst out laughing again. “Oh, very clever, Tom—as usual.” She hadn’t meant to say it, and immediately she added, “Sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

  “I hope to goodness you did not mean that.” Helen was pointing her drumstick at Mary, as Tom was not allowed to answer an insult from a woman and, in addition, was probably not aware he had been insulted.

  Miss Hattie picked up the dinner bell and rang loudly, adding her own voice. “More biscuits, Ora Lee. Hurry on now.” Ora Lee eased open the kitchen door, bored with all of them. She came to hold the bread basket in front of Mr. Ben.

  “I do think y’all will like this second batch,” Miss Hattie said, “sweet-potato biscuits, a new recipe Bessie Turner gave me last week at missionary meeting. And speaking of missionary meeting, Mary, you haven’t been for the last three times.”

  “And . . .” Tom had not finished with them. “And think of how this looks to everybody else in town, you lining up with the rich Jew against your own people.”

  “Now listen here, Tom.” Charles was halfway up out of his chair.

  “Enough!” Mr. Ben had finally decided to enter the fray. He held his silverware on either side of his plate, his hands clinched into fists. Narrowed dark eyes glared out at them through wire-rimmed glasses. The whole room stopped eating, “I’ll not have talk like that at my table. Are you forgetting we wouldn’t even have a church to pray in if it hadn’t been for the Rosensteins?” Mr. Ben settled back in his chair, easing into a more normal tone. “We don’t forget our debts, no matter who, no matter what.”

  It was at about this point in the campaign that the cross thing happened. That’s how everybody in the family referred to it, “the cross thing.”

  It was on a Thursday morning that Jimmy Vallen—every bit of fourteen and the neighborhood paperboy/town crier—rushed in the back door to tell about it. Mary was in the midst of making pancakes, a family treat, so everybody had come to breakfast on time. Charles was sitting at the table, glancing at the morning headlines, when Jimmy banged open the back door into the kitchen. Mary was flipping the last of the pancakes onto the platter. Evidently feeling she alone wasn’t worthy of his news, he motioned for her to follow him as he walked straight through to the dining room to tell it to the head of the household and everyone else present—Charles Junior and the twins. He began without taking a breath, knowing that the moment they heard, they would be grateful for his coming. “I was the first one seen it, ’cause I’m the first one to be out and about in the morning, you know.”

  Charles calmly lowered his paper and, as if he had been expecting Jimmy for breakfast, said that, yes, he realized this because he remembered Jimmy had told him on numerous occasions that he had to get up at five o’clock every morning to be on time to pick up his papers and fold them before he could throw them.

  Jimmy, because of his years of accumulated experience, was looked upon with great admiration, even awe, by Charles Junior and the twins. So if anything, they were honored to have Jimmy in their presence, even if they were sitting there in their pajamas. Mary had followed him in the room with a steaming plate of pancakes. The stage was set for his news.

  “The way it happened was this,” addressing Charles, although the others were welcome to listen. “I was riding my bike up Hawthorne, throwing all the while, nearly to the Trousdales’, when I spotted it way up the block, still glowing and smoking.” He paused, waiting for the question.

  “What glowing and smoking?” Charles Junior obliged.

  “It is not the biggest one I ever seen. That one is in the yard of First Baptist around Easter time, the one in the middle with the purple cloth draped around it where Jesus was hung, but this one’s bigger than the ones on either side, where the thieves was nailed up.”

  “You saw a cross burning.” Mary put down her pancakes.

  “Yes, ma’am, right there on the front lawn of the Rosensteins’ house, and nobody seen it but me—it being so early and all. I peddled straight away up there to have myself a look-see. Then I, quick as you can imagine, knocked on the Rosensteins’ door to tell ’em about it, ’cause I knew they would still be asleep, them not getting up ’til eight o’clock.”

  Charles’s attention to the cross was momentarily diverted by Jimmy’s seemingly intimate knowledge of the sleeping habits of the Rosensteins. “How in the world do you know when the Rosensteins get up in the morning?”

  Jimmy wasn’t even challenged. “The kitchen lights is never on when I pass. The maid don’t come walking down the street ’til eight-fifteen, when I’m finishing up my route. So anyway, he comes to the door after I knocked for seems like twenty minutes, hair all messed up and still in his bathrobe, and I say—handing him his paper, of course—was he aware somebody done burned a cross in his front yard?” Jimmy paused, having picked up the smell of the pancakes, and he looked at Mary and then at the empty seats that would have belonged to Tina and Tab had they been there.

  “Would you care for some pancakes, Jimmy?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.” And he was in a seat immediately, borrowing a napkin from Charles Junior and tying it around his neck. Mary passed him her plate and silverware and began to pass the pancake platter around the table. She sat down in her chair, glancing at Charles and waiting for the rest. Jimmy continued, while remembering his manners and waiting his turn. “And you know what he said? Looked out at the cross still smoldering away in his own front yard and he says, ‘It’s about time. I was beginning to feel all of our work was going for naught.’” He turned to Charles Junior, who was hanging on every word and holding the pancake platter. “Naught means zero—learned that in school.” Then he forked three pancakes, took the platter from Charles Junior, and placed it on the table in front of him. “Would you pass me the syrup, little Charlie?”

  “Not as big as the one at the First Baptist Church on Easter, you say?”

  “No, sir.” His mouth was full of pancake. “But nigh on to as big as the smaller ones.”

  “Was it burning full out when you saw it?”

  “No, sir. Looked like it was just half-burned to begin with.”

  “And you say you were the first to see it? Nobody else was out there at the time?”

  He paused to swallow, making sure that this fact was clear to everyone present. “Y
es, sir, the very first one. Not a soul out there before me.” He took another big bite—as paper carrying is hard work. “Course, I did tell plenty others as I was finishing up my throwing.”

  “And did the rest of the family come out and see it?”

  “Girls wasn’t home—off at camp in Vermont.”

  “How did you— Never mind.”

  “Course, the wife seen it and she commenced to blubbering.” By this time, his mouth was stuffed with pancake and he was fast losing interest in the subject. “My pa said I should come by here and tell you, you being such a pal of Mr. Rosenstein, going to high school together and all, working on the campaign together and all. Would you gimme that syrup bottle again, little Charlie?”

  “Did you see any other signs in the yard or any markings on the cross?”

  Jimmy shook his head, no.

  “Why did you ask that?” inquired Mary. “Are there usually signs or markings?”

  “If it’s the Klan, more than likely there would be. I have a feeling that this is a prank that’s emanated from the opposition—which one, I haven’t a clue—just part of politics this day and time.” Charles took a last sip of coffee and stood. “I better get over there. I’ll call and let you know what’s going on.”

  He called Mary when he got to the farm that afternoon. “By the time I got there, the police had arrived, along with most everybody on the block. They took pictures and asked a lot of questions—mostly perfunctory, I think. There’s not much to go on. It was a rather pathetic-looking cross, as cross burnings go. Half-burned. Whoever it was didn’t stay around to give it a good light.

  “Was Reuben terribly upset?”

  “That was the funny thing. I think he was delighted, as if, for the first time, someone was taking into account his liberal bent and the fact that he wasn’t his father.”

  “What’s this ‘liberal bent’ stuff, white man? We’re in that same boat.”

  “Nobody would bother us. We’re too much like them.”

  “Do I resent that? Should I resent that?” She laughed.

  Charles laughed in turn. “Sometimes it’s not all bad being able to hide in the forest with the rest of the trees.

  “Reuben was a hoot. He was laughing and joking around with the neighbors. I’ve never seen him so chatty. Saying that it was not the quality of cross that one might get if one lived in south Alabama. In the Black Belt, they did themselves proud with their crosses. This, he said, was your typical north Alabama cross, too utilitarian, no imagination.

  “Another funny thing. The neighbors came over, ready to offer condolences and he was having the maid serve iced tea on the lawn. I think some of the neighbors left thinking he was a little touched in the head.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you something else strange. Your sister Helen? She called this morning, and of course she had heard about it. Actually had driven by to take a look. Said she thought it was so tacky to do such a thing, she might even vote for Brad, Cousin John Lester or no.”

  Two weeks later, they found the culprit. Not because of precision police work. The police had forgotten all about it and had gone on to other things. The culprit confessed. He was a schoolboy. Said he’d been buying a hot dog at the soda fountain at Woolworth’s when the man sitting next to him had struck up a conversation and offered him fifty dollars to make a cross and place it on the Rosensteins’ lawn, pour gasoline on it, and light it up. He had confessed because his father had found what was left of the fifty dollars and thought the boy had come by it in some illegal way and was about—according to the boy—to beat the tar out of him. But the boy said that there was nothing illegal about it at all. He had just been sitting at the counter, having a hot dog, and the old man sitting next to him had been having a big glass of sweet milk and had started talking to him and hired him to do a job. He didn’t know why the man wanted it done, but it was the most money he had ever earned.

  Paul Davis, down at the paper, ran the story, never mentioning A. W. Ladd’s name, but using the exact words the boy had used. So everybody knew who was responsible, even if the police wouldn’t conduct any further investigation and the other candidates wouldn’t accuse any one person.

  The result was—much to the delight of the La Forte campaign—that Brad La Forte began to pick up quite a few crossover votes from people shamed into leaving the A. W. Ladd camp.

  Mr. Ben let it be known at Sunday dinner that the original Klan would never have done such a thing. Now he felt obligated to vote for Mr. La Forte, even though he might not agree with his politics.

  CHAPTER 32

  The Rising Tide

  DID I MENTION that Brad called a couple of nights ago?” Charles was trying to be casual about it, trying to see if it sounded ridiculous coming out of his mouth. “Said if he was elected, he would seriously want to consider me for Conservation Commissioner, and asked if I was interested.” Charles stopped to see if Reuben had any reaction that was discernible. There was none, so he continued. “Of course I said yes, but only if I could name a state park after myself.”

  Reuben smiled but didn’t laugh. “Don’t feel insulted by that. He’s just trying to show you that he appreciates your support.”

  “Why should I feel insulted?”

  “It’s so demeaning, a political appointment, like a payoff. Probably a pittance of a salary, and you would have to travel down to Montgomery every time the legislature meets.”

  Charles didn’t say anything, but since that phone call from the candidate, he had begun to see things in a new light. It had never occurred to him that he might be considered for a post of that caliber. Sure it was a political payoff, but somebody had to fill the position, and Charles would do an honest job. Probably do it better than most.

  After Brad had talked to him, he lay in bed the whole night, wide-awake, thinking of what that could mean to him, to his family, to the farm. He had watched Mary sleeping and had been afraid to mention it to her, to get her hopes up.

  He wouldn’t tell Reuben, but the yearly salary for that position was almost twice as much hard cash as he had ever cleared on the farm in a year.

  People like Reuben looked at all the acreage, at all the workers swarming over the fields in the cotton season and they just naturally assumed. But it was large amounts of money in and large amounts out and not much left in the final reckoning.

  Now, for the first time in years, that old feeling began to creep in. It had not been there for so long—since he had first come back to the farm. Now when he drove onto the property each morning, the whole place began to take on a dingy, worn-out look. The fields ill kept—the workers slow and undependable—and fences that he had overlooked before needed mending now. There was farm equipment that he now realized would have to be replaced in two or three more seasons, tractors and combines, which meant thousands upon thousands of dollars outlaid. Something he had not even wanted to think about before, because before there was no way of thinking about it.

  As he drove onto the farm this morning, his truck automatically turned down the road to the springhouse. Could he be the one, would he have to be the one to break the line—the first one in over a hundred years to sell off the whole thing? The thought had never even entered his conscious mind. Now it could, because the additional thought had occurred to him that if the politics worked out like he wanted, he might be able to do both—keep the farm and make ends meet. He could look at everything more realistically now—now that there might be avenues of escape.

  He would check the springhouse, the rest of the farm, and then leave to drive back into town to Bainbridge’s La Forte for Governor campaign headquarters.

  He never really had dreams—except for the Nat King Cole dream. That one, he would have every once in awhile. He never knew what triggered it. He would just wake up the next morning and tell Mary he had had the Nat King Cole dream. She would be brushing her hair or her teeth and would raise an eyebrow. “You Alabama good old boys,” she would say.

  And he would say, tryin
g to keep the disgust out of it, “Don’t put me in that category.” She would rinse her mouth out or put down the brush and say, “Sorry.” And that would be the end of it—for her, but not for him.

  Many times during the day, he would see parts of the dream flash through his mind, negative pictures backlighted in an eerie blue, flashing before his eyes as if posed snapshots from his old Kodak Pony camera. It would begin with a picture of Mary and him, sitting in the audience of the Boutwell Auditorium in Birmingham. He had saved for six months so they could take this little weekend trip to Birmingham, a getaway, a surprise for Mary. She had been working as hard as he had since they’d come back to the farm. It had been hard for him, and he knew something about the farm life. She had known absolutely nothing about country living. She had been raised in the city, had had her own car by the time she was fourteen, had always had cooks to prepare all of her meals. She had been thrown into a situation where she had no indoor plumbing, not even any electricity for the first years, but she had stuck it out. Finally, they had moved to town and had the modern conveniences. It had never been easy, not with five children and so little money.

  He had planned for them to stay at the Tutwiler, have breakfast in bed. He would tag along behind her while she shopped. They would eat at Ollie’s Barbecue for lunch, and to top off the whole thing he had purchased tickets—and good seats—to the Nat King Cole concert that would be in Birmingham that weekend.

  It had all gone according to plan. She had bought a hat at Loveman’s. He had told her how cute she looked in it. The saleslady had been amused that a husband had come along shopping with his wife, rare indeed. They had scurried around to find a chair for him while Mary tried on one hat after another, and he had smiled his approval.