A Heart Divided

by Cherie Bennett

  “Your mom hates me.”

  “What’d she say to you?”

  “Basically, that I’m a Yankee dirtbag who isn’t good enough for you.”

  “My mother never said anything like that in her life.”

  “You’re right. She’s Southern. She said it in a way that made me want to say thank you.”

  He kissed my temple. “If you hadn’t mentioned that I signed the—”

  “But she already knew, Jack! She said so.”

  “Then there was no point in your bringing it up.”

  “Okay, I am totally confused,” I admitted. “She already knew, and you knew she knew—”

  “No, I guessed. She and Chaz’s mother are friends. If she hadn’t heard it from Olivia Martin, she’d have heard it from Crystal’s mom, or Terry’s mom, or—”

  “So why didn’t you just talk it over with her?”

  “Kate. Did it seem to you like that conversation we just had in there was helpful?”

  I bristled; it was if he was speaking to a child. “So, what, you play games with her instead of just getting things out in the open?”

  “If that’s what you want to call it.”

  “I call it not standing up for yourself,” I said, my voice rising.

  “Can we just drop it?”

  “No. How long do you plan to hide who you really are?” I demanded. “Long enough to live out your mother’s dreams? Go to The Citadel? Marry Sara?”

  “I don’t know, okay?” He was yelling now.

  “No, it’s not okay!”

  We stared at each other across an abyss. For a long moment, the only sound was the last of the summer’s crickets, the ones too hopeful or stubborn to die. But winter would come no matter what they did. Everything had a season. Nothing lasted forever; not even love. I thought about losing him and couldn’t breathe.

  “I’m not going to pretend I understand about you and your mom,” I began, struggling to find the right words.

  “But I shouldn’t have told her you signed the petition without asking you first—even if she did already know about it,” I admitted, my voice low. “It just kind of … came out. I’m sorry.”

  “Me too.” He let his head fall back against the headrest and pulled me close.

  “I wanted her to like me. I really, really did.”

  “It’s okay. It doesn’t matter.” He stroked my hair. “She can’t tell me who to love.”

  Love. It was the first time he’d used the word.

  “You told me once that you didn’t know what the word love’ meant,” I reminded him.

  “That was then. This is now.” Then he kissed me, and the rest of the world, including Sally Redford, didn’t matter at all. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized: Jack had introduced me to Dora, a woman old enough to be my grandmother, only by her first name.

  13

  was over. After all, she got what she wanted: a vote on the flag. Turned out her campaign had only started. It was no longer about getting a vote; now it was about convincing students how to vote. She hoped to use McSorley’s month-long delay to rally people to the “right” side. Every day, she and her supporters set up a campaign table outside the cafeteria. JUST SAY NO buttons adorned jean jackets and backpacks. Meanwhile, quite a few people sported Confederate battle flag pins. With surprising magnanimity, McSorley permitted it, so long as everyone remained civil. He said we were learning to use the democratic process.

  I was passing out buttons with Nikki in front of the cafeteria, and she was telling me about her weekend—she and her boyfriend, Michael, had bicycled from Redford to Nolensville—when Jack came by with Chaz and some of his other proflag friends. He separated from them and loped over, snaking an arm around my waist. “‘Sup, ladies?”

  “Just out here fighting the good fight, Jackson,” Nikki said. “Button?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t like my clothes to speak for me, but thanks.”

  “Or maybe you just want to play both sides,” Nikki suggested.

  Which was sometimes my suspicion, too. But I stuck by my guy. “Everyone doesn’t have to wear a button, Nikki,” I said.

  “In this town, the name Redford is almost as powerful as that flag,” she declared, handing Jack a flyer. “Not taking a stand is tacit approval of the status quo. Think about it.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he teased, and stuck the leaflet in his pocket. “Kate, meet me after school by my car. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  “Aren’t we supposed to help paint the set?” I asked.

  “That can wait.” He nodded at Nikki, kissed me quickly, and left.

  She got more flyers from the box. “So, you two happened fast.”

  I smiled. “Yeah.”

  “Dropping Sara Fife’s ass makes me think Jack hasn’t turned into a total wuss after all.”

  Odd remark. “What are you talking about?”

  She handed a freshman a flyer. “We used to hang out.”

  “You and Jack? Did his mother know?”

  “Sally Redford is … interesting. My mom does volunteer work with her at Redford Women United. It’s a charity that—”

  “Helps women get off welfare, I know all about it. I’m just surprised. She’s so conservative, and your family is so liberal.”

  Nikki shrugged. “It’s a good cause, what difference does it make?”

  “Yeah, but his mother acts like the Confederate flag is her family crest.”

  “Things like that didn’t separate us when we were kids. We all used to be friends. Believe it or not, even Sara.”

  “I guess this was pre-Crimson Maidens.”

  “Very,” Nikki said. “Sara used to be the kind of girl who gives every kid in the class a valentine card so that no one feels left out. When I was a kid, I went to Redford House for Jack’s birthday parties. Sara and Jack came to my birthday parties, too.”

  “Gee, lucky you. So what changed?”

  “We grew up. Middle school, that’s when all the parents freak.”

  “How does that make Jack a wuss?”

  Nikki shrugged again. “When his mother changed the rules—‘Nicolette is a lovely girl, Jackson, but I’m sure she’d be more comfortable with her own people’—Jack folded like a taco.”

  “He was only a kid,” I protested.

  “Then. What’s his excuse now? Everyone likes Jack. What’s more, they respect him. If Jack Redford came out publicly against that flag, it would mean a lot, and he knows it. He’s not a kid anymore.”

  Though mid-October, it was Indian-summer warm that afternoon when I met Jack in the parking lot after school. He rolled down the Jeep windows and pulled into the long line of cars snaking out onto the street. “So, what’s the big surprise?” I asked.

  “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise anymore.”

  Chaz’s vintage red Mustang convertible was behind us, top down, music cranking, a small Confederate battle flag flapping from the antenna. Crystal sat next to him; Sara was in back with a guy I didn’t recognize. As we pulled onto Franklin Road, Jack gave a friendly salute as the Mustang roared past us. Chaz saluted back. As he did, Sara’s eyes caught mine for an instant.

  I would be remiss as a mother, Kate, if I didn’t warn you that there’s no future in your relationship with my son.

  According to Sally Redford, I was as inappropriate for Jack as the Argentinean riding instructor had been for her.

  But Sara Fife was just right. It was obvious that Sara still thought so, too. All of which went under the heading Things I Don’t Want to Think About.

  Apropos of nothing, I said, “My dad had a Mustang just like Chaz’s when my parents first got married.”

  Jack laughed. “My dad, too.”

  I couldn’t picture Sally Redford tooling around in a hot convertible. The woman’s hair hadn’t moved in decades. “You never talk about your dad,” I said.

  “Not much.”

  “Does it make you too sad?”

  “More like mad
.”

  “Do you remember him?”

  “Of course. I was almost eight when he died.” I didn’t press, but I could tell from the faraway look in his eyes that he was going back in time. “We did everything together. He was a terrific athlete. But what he loved most were ideas.” Jack chuckled. “His idea of a bedtime story was telling me an Aesop’s fable. Then we’d discuss the moral choices of the fox or the frog or whatever. His dream job was to teach philosophy.”

  “Did he ever do it?”

  “No. He did what every Redford man had done before him, went to serve his country. Joined the air force. Five years later, we came back here to the family homestead. Dad started working on his doctorate in philosophy at Vanderbilt.”

  “I thought he died on a mission,” I said hesitantly.

  Jack’s face hardened. “A damn training mission, in Alabama. He was in the reserves.” He laughed bitterly. “Ever since it happened, my mother has talked about the ‘nobility’ of his sacrifice. But somehow it’s lost on me.”

  Jack pushed a CD into the stereo and cranked it up, his way of saying he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I couldn’t imagine how horrible it must have been to have his dad die when he was so little, and for no good reason at all. It was really too big for words, and I was glad to let the music save me.

  Forty-five minutes later, Jack pulled off the state highway and followed a country road until a sign told us we were in Pulaski, Tennessee. And here, Jack unveiled his surprise: He’d arranged for me to interview Ron Bingham, the white separatist I’d read about in the newspaper. When I asked him how he’d pulled this off, he mumbled that he’d “made a few calls.”

  “You’re sure he’ll talk to me?” I asked.

  “He talked to the Tennessean, he’ll talk to you,” Jack assured me.

  The Bingham family lived in a small frame house just outside of town. There was a yard sign advertising his plumbing company. TRUST BINGHAM: FIFTY YEARS OF BEING THERE FOR YOU! A tire swing hung from an oak tree, and children’s toys were scattered around the front yard.

  Bingham’s wife, Velma, answered the door. She wore yellow stretch pants and a floral shirt. Her blond hairdo featured upswept bangs like the spoiler on a hotrod. After a warm welcome, she led us into the living room, shooed away two little kids who were watching cartoons, and poured us glasses of lemonade. Ron would be home shortly, she said; he was over in Summertown working on a septic tank gone bad. She ushered us into his cramped office, instructing us to make ourselves at home until her husband arrived.

  I looked around. Cheap wallpaper meant to look like wood paneling covered the walls, peeling in the corners. Over the desk was a framed newspaper clipping featuring a photo of a group of young white men. The caption identified them as members of WAR, the White Aryan Resistance.

  “You know what the creepiest thing about this is?” I made a sweeping gesture with my hand. “It all looks so normal. The house. The kids…”

  “Why, Jackson Redford, as I live and breathe!” a voice boomed.

  I turned to see a man in his forties stride into the room. He was trim, with a movie-star grin under an orange Vols baseball cap. He wore battered jeans, work boots, and a denim shirt, its sleeves rolled up, with BINGHAM PLUMBING embroidered over the chest pocket.

  “Ron Bingham.” He pumped Jack’s hand. “Call me Ron. It’s an honor to meet you, boy. The Redford family is what Southern pride is all about.”

  So that’s why he’d agreed to the interview. The name of the boy I loved had opened the door. Before I could digest that sickening tidbit of information, Bingham was introducing himself to me. When I shook his hand, I noticed the tattoo on his bicep of a white cross inside a black oval. At the center of the cross was a diamond; inside the diamond was a single backward apostrophe. I asked him about it and he eagerly lifted his sleeve higher to give me a better view.

  “Cross of the Klan,” he said proudly. He tapped the apostrophe mark. “That’s a blood drop. Stands for the blood sacrificed for the white race.”

  All righty, then. I asked him if I could record our conversation; he readily agreed. I set the cassette recorder on the coffee table and took a seat on a battered wooden folding chair, which left Ron and Jack to share the brown leatherette couch.

  “Any friend of Jackson Redford is a friend of mine,” Ron told me, pulling off his baseball cap to reveal a blond crew cut. “So, what can I do you for, young lady?”

  I wasn’t sure how much Jack had told him, and I didn’t want him to suspect my loathing for everything he believed in, lest he end the interview before it even began. “I’m trying to write about the Confederate flag and be fair to both sides,” I explained. “I really would like to hear your point of view.”

  “Not a problem. You’re Jack Redford’s girl, that’s enough of a recommendation for me.” He crossed one leg over the other and jiggled it impatiently as he spoke. “Well, firstly, the big problem is they try to say the Confederate flag is the flag of racists.”

  “They?” I echoed.

  “You know. The Mud People, Queer Nation, Communists, the Children of Satan Jews who control the media. The Godless. The mongrelized. There’s a lot of ′em out there.” He reeled this off like a grocery list.

  His foot jiggled faster. I nodded as neutrally as I could.

  Ron leaned toward me. “We dare to say aloud what others only think. We say: ‘Rebels! Be proud! Stand tall! We are the South! Let us wave our pride!’”

  “But there are lots of white Southerners who disagree with you, aren’t there?”

  “Well, I am of the opinion that they don’t deserve the honor of that name. Do you understand what these so-called enlightened people want? They say they want to tear down our flag. But what they really want is an end to their own white race, and you can take that to the bank, young lady.”

  He stopped to shake his head at the horror of this notion before he went on. Then he slumped back and a grin split his face. “Sometimes I have to laugh. They don’t even know. They are our best recruiters. You tell a young Southern white man you want to take his flag and his heritage away, know what he does? He runs right over to us.” He held his arms wide. “And we say, ‘Come on, son. You’re one of us. This is your home.’”

  He went on in this vein for a while, expounding on a litany of ills that faced America and how everyone other than his brand of white Christians was responsible for these ills. He said all this in a reasonable tone of voice, as if it actually made sense.

  Finally, I asked him what he thought should happen to all the people who, in his estimation, were ruining America. His eyes twinkled as he spoke. “Do you know what the motto of the Confederate States of America was, Kate?”

  I allowed that I did not.

  Ron cocked his head toward Jack. “Ask your boyfriend.”

  “Deo Vindice,” Jack said.

  Ron’s grin widened. “Yes-siree Bob. Deo Vindice. With God As Our Defender. This was the Confederate motto. This is the motto we live by today.”

  “I see,” I said. “So God is on your side.”

  “You make sure your tape gets this,” Ron said, leaning toward my cassette recorder. “Make no mistake about it. The white Anglo-Saxons are the true Israelites. We will smite the enemies of God’s chosen people. And then the world shall be returned to our righteous hands.”

  14

  religion, then the home games with Franklin West and South Columbia High were holy days. They were the Rebels’ chief rivals for the division title and the subject of conversation everywhere I went.

  The game with Franklin West came first. That Friday evening, my mom was in Nashville, doing research for a freelance magazine piece about the city’s best day spas. Portia and I were waiting for our respective rides to the game. I was going with Jack, of course. Portia was going with her friend Cassidy, accompanied by Cassidy’s mother.

  My sister kept checking her reflection in the hallway mirror. She was wearing a dainty pink sweater set that she said was s
imilar to one owned by Madison Honeywell, fashion arbiter of Redford East Middle School—and a touch of pink lip gloss. “But this ponytail makes my face look fat,” she declared.

  “No, it doesn’t.” I didn’t look up from the pages I was reading—my transcript of Ron Bingham’s interview. It was like a terrible car accident. One part of you wants to look away and not see something so horrible, but another part of you is fascinated.

  “Kate, should I cut my hair?” Portia asked.

  “Hey, I love your hair, sugarplum,” my father drawled from his beloved Barcalounger. On his lap was the Styrofoam container of deep-fried catfish takeout that my mother had forbidden in a preemptive strike against high cholesterol.

  Portia looked aghast. “Daddy, you had a Southern accent just now.”

  “Danged if I didn’t.” My father grinned wildly.

  She looked even more horrified. “Okay, no offense, Daddy, but you sound retarded. If Cassidy comes in, please don’t say anything dumb.”

  He wiped tartar sauce from his chin. “Well, hush my mouth.”

  “Kate, make him stop.”

  Before I could respond, there was a loud honk. Portia peeked out from the living room curtains and gasped. “Kate. Look!”

  I got up to look outside. There was a blue Lexus in our driveway. Cassidy sat in front, next to her mother. Two boys were in the back.

  “So?”

  “That’s Barney, the boy I told you about,” she hissed. “And his friend Alan. I didn’t know they were riding with us. What should I do?”

  “Get your purse. Go outside. Get in the car.”

  “Squished in the backseat with two boys?”

  “What two boys?” my father called.

  Portia’s eyes pleaded with me for rescue.

  “Just some boys in her class,” I said.

  Dad frowned as Cassidy’s mom honked again. “You’re much too young to date, Porsche.”

  “It’s not a date,” I assured my father.

  Portia mouthed “Thank you” and reached for her purse. I told her she looked great and gave her a quick hug.