My Water Path

by Timothy Joseph

  Russell pulled his foot away and made the men rise and stand with their faces toward the cross, their cuffed hands at their backs, and the gas can untouched next to them. He had the reporters take a bunch of photos. He made them turn around, ripped off their dunce caps and masks, and more camera flashes lit up the night.

  “What I’d like to do is tie all five of you to this cross, drench you with this gas, light you on fire, and say you bungled the job. Believe me, I would do it if I could get away with it.”

  He looked at us. “We’re taking these bastards downtown and booking their asses. I’ll call the FBI and will turn this over as a federal hate crime. That way, they can be tried both by the State and by the feds. They will be in prison for a very long time. Hate crime is not something the FBI thinks highly of.”

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned. It was Moses. “Grandpa,” I said, surprised. “I’m so sorry you have to see this.”

  Russell called out, “Get these jerks to jail where they belong.” The officers started leading them away.

  Moses looked at me, his head shaking slowly. He said one quiet word, “No.”

  I turned to Russell. “No. Let them go, Russell.”

  Russell turned and stared at me. “What? Bull! These pricks aren’t going to see the light of day for twenty years. We have far more than we need to put them away.”

  Moses said, “Russell, my friend, let them go home to their families, please, and we’ll get back to ours.”

  Russell threw his arms up. “It ain’t gonna mean a damn thing if you let them go, Moses, not a damn thing. Letting them go won’t change them one bit.”

  Julie squeezed my hand. I repeated what was very hard for me to say. “Let them go, Russell. Unless I sign a complaint, you don’t have much.”

  “Oh, yes I do! I don’t need your complaint. Not in a federal crime, and that’s what this is. I have all the photos, witnesses, and evidence I need.”

  “Just let them go home to their families like Moses is asking,” I pressed. “If this won’t do any good, I doubt years in a penitentiary will do more.”

  “Damn!” Russell spit out. “Damn!”

  “Please, Russell.”

  He looked at Moses. Moses smiled and nodded slightly. Russell turned toward the men. “Look at me, all of you.” They did. He reached for one of the cameras and held it out. “You see this? I have what I need right here to put all of you in a federal prison for a whole bunch of your worthless lives. And I have the ability to do it, right here.” He shook the camera in their faces.

  “If you or any other damn KKK creeps do anything like this again, or there’s a cross burned anywhere around here, or a stone thrown through a window, or an effigy strung up on a rope, your asses will be in prison before the damn fire is out. You hear me?”

  Nobody moved. “Do you hear me?” he shouted. “I want an answer!” All five nodded.

  He turned to one of the reporters. “Write on a sheet of paper that, of free will, each of these men admits to this hate crime they inflicted on this date. You know what to say.”

  He told one of the cops to have each man sign and date the report, and take the driver’s licenses of every one of them. He told them they could come to the station tomorrow and pick up their licenses after he took their mug shots and fingerprints for the confessions.

  He stared them down again. “Your families and everyone in this state will know who you are, and I’ll send you the cover story of the paper with your pathetic faces on it to your prison cell if there is just one instance of this crap. I’m damn tired of your ignorant, dumbass KKK prejudice. I will put you away faster than you can light a match to your fart, let alone a cross. Just give me a reason.” Russell glanced at Moses. “I’m sorry, Moses. I’m pissed.”

  Russell paced in a circle as the reporter finished writing, the officer gathered the licenses, and each signed the paper. He looked at me. “Are you absolutely sure this is what you want to do?”

  “No, it isn’t what I want to do. I want them to suffer. I want them to go to prison and hate every minute. But Moses doesn’t want their families to suffer, and neither do I.”

  Russell made an angry noise in the back of his throat, and he pointed to an officer. “Timmy, toss the damn cross in their truck along with the shovels, bales, and the gasoline, and take everything to the pound. Mark the truck and everything else as evidence. They will remain there indefinitely.” He looked at the men. “Don’t even think of trying to get your truck back. It’s evidence to put you where you belong.”

  He put his hand on the shoulder of Moses and looked at the men. “I want you to understand that if it weren’t for this black angel of yours, you’d be on your way to prison right now. This man is your ticket home to your families instead of a cage where you belong. I want each of you, one at a time, to look into this man’s eyes, and I want to hear you say you’re sorry, and I want to hear you thank him. Starting with you, Ben Simpson. And I damn well better feel like you mean it, or you’ll be looking out from behind bars.”

  Ben Simpson looked at Moses before staring at the ground. “I’m sorry.”

  Russell shook his head. “May I remind you this here black man you hate so much is your ticket home! This is the man you want to burn on your stupid cross. This man is trying to save your worthless ass. He’s the only thing between you and prison, and you can’t look at his face because his skin is black. You pathetic piece of garbage. I’ve had enough. You’re going to prison. Let’s go.”

  Ben Simpson stiffened and looked at Moses. “I—I’m sorry.” His face was unreadable. “I really am sorry.”

  “Now the thanks,” Russell snapped.

  “Thank you…sir…for letting me return to my family. I have two boys.”

  Russell pointed to Ronald Fletcher. “Your turn, Fletcher.”

  Fletcher complied, as did the others.

  Russell had one more thing to do. He looked at his officers. “Divide them up and drive them to their homes. Be sure and have your lights flashing and your siren on when you pull up to their houses. Let them figure out how to explain to their wives and neighbors the free taxi ride home. And take a stake, pound it in their front yard, and hang their pathetic white dunce cap on it. Gentlemen, if that cap is removed in less than a week, you’ll be in my jail. You all hear me?”

  The reporters were taking photos and writing down what was happening in a frenzy. Julie asked them to remain behind after the police left. She talked briefly with them about an article and said they should all meet in the morning at the Sentinel office.

  The following day, the front page of the News Sentinel had three photos. One was of the backs of five men in dunce caps facing the cross, their hands cuffed behind their backs. Another was of the five men facing the camera with their hats and masks on the ground in front of them and policemen with rifles pointed at their heads. The faces of the men were shaded so you could not recognize them. The third was a photo of Moses, with me and Julie next to him, and officers to the side. The headline read, “Forgiveness from a black angel keeps five Klansman from twenty-five years in the federal penitentiary.”

  The article began, “Only for the goodness of Moses Kent are five Klansmen home with their families today instead of behind prison bars. Last night, a heinous hate crime at the residence of our mayor, Jory Sheppard, was attempted.”

  The story filled the entire front page, was picked up by the Associated Press, and made newspapers around the nation. It was on the evening local news and the national news, and numerous photos were printed, including the men sprawled out on the ground being cuffed, Russell standing with his foot on the one man’s head, and one Klansman apologizing to Moses, his face blurred.

  The New York Times showed Moses with the cross on the ground behind him. The caption read, “The impossible took place in Tchula, Mississippi when the KKK found it had a black angel.”

  The article went on to acknowledge and commend Moses for his beliefs and his dream of freedom from fear
and anger for all people. They compared him to Martin Luther King Jr., because he, too, believed nonviolence was the only acceptable demonstration for black people, regardless of the violence shown by whites. As the reporter on the national news showed the photographs, he said, “It was as if King came back to life in Tchula, Mississippi, disguised as Moses Kent.”

  A few days later, a senior from Truman State University in Missouri appeared in my office and introduced herself as Marsha Rivers. She was working on her master’s thesis in civil rights and had read the news articles about the “Black Angel”. She wanted to know if she could interview me.

  We talked for an hour before I took her to lunch, and talked another two hours while we ate. She continually took notes and changed tapes in her small recorder.

  “The person you really want to talk to is Moses, isn’t it?” I said after getting tired of watching her fidget in her seat.

  “Yes,” she admitted. “I was going to ask if it would be okay.”

  “More than okay. You just need a whole bunch more tapes, maybe a bushel basket full.”

  I asked where she was staying, and when she said she hadn’t found a place, I insisted she stay with us. Delighted, she followed me home, where I introduced her to Moses and Bess.

  Marsha and Moses were soon deep in conversation in the library. I made a pot of tea, and just as I placed it and two cups on the table between them, Marsha asked Moses, “I just have to ask, how did you deal with such prejudice and hate over your lifetime? And more, how can anyone explain such injustice?”

  There was no way I could leave without hearing his answer. Without a word, I quietly sat in a chair against the wall; they both knew why. Moses looked at his books lining the shelves. He reached over, pulled one from its place, and sat it on his lap. Looking at the book, he said, “The heartbeat of every novel is empathy. Empathy is the quality that links its characters with each other and with the reader. The villain is born through a total lack of empathy. He is a creature with no compassion. Those who feel differently than he does represent barriers to his survival, and thus must be moved out of the way, in any way—the more gruesome, the more he is nourished. He knows nothing of joy, only disdain, scorn, and contempt. But I’m convinced that within his scornful soul lies a tiny seed of kindness, something that wants to love and be loved, if only it can be found and nourished.

  “I tried to treat the injustice in my lifetime as I would a novel. Unable to rewrite the story as I would have wanted, I could only try to reveal to the villain that goodness outweighs hatred, with hope that just maybe that tiny seed might sprout. It takes goodness to find and nourish the seed, not hate.”

  “Oh, my,” Marsha said, checking to see that her tape was indeed capturing his words. “So that is why you asked for those KKK men to be taken home rather than to jail. Do you think your goodness toward them was felt or understood?”

  “I do not know the answer to that. However, I do know that jail would only fuel their hatred.”

  Marsha wrote in the notebook on her lap, then looked again at Moses. “Mr. Kent, I can honestly say I don’t know of a single person who would have taken your path that night, or today.”

  Moses looked at me. “I believe you do,” he said, as Marsha’s eyes followed his.

  * * *

  She stayed all week, talking at length with the kids, Bess, Russell, and of course, she couldn’t leave Moses alone. On Friday afternoon, she dropped by the office on her way back to the university.

  “I want to thank you for all your trouble,” she said. “You have no idea what this will do for my thesis. Moses is the most uncommon man I have ever met. You know, I’ve never met Gandhi, but just maybe I’ve come close. It is amazing how he raised you, and it will be a challenge for me to effectively incorporate the love shared between black and white within the undercurrent of racial prejudice and the civil rights movement—talk about a dichotomy. Look what has happened to you both. You have a lot to be proud of.”

  “No,” I said with a smile, “I have a lot to be thankful for. That man took over as my dad. I was just very lucky.”

  “Do you mind if I call if I have questions, or if I stay in touch until I’m done with my thesis? I’d like to know what’s going on with Moses in case there is anything else I can use.”

  “Sure, call anytime. You’ve got a great thesis topic, and I’m happy we could help.”

  A month later, Moses received a letter from the president of Truman State University, thanking him for being so generous to the student, and explaining how important he was to her thesis. The president was grateful as well, and he was excited—excited about what was being written.

  65

  Doctor Moses

  NOTHING OF CONSEQUENCE happened in our area of Mississippi after the cross-burning fiasco, and it seemed things were getting noticeably better. The truck and the cross sat in the pound rusting and rotting along with the dunce caps and sheets taken from the Klansmen.

  The principal of the high school asked me if I would honor the graduating class with an address from the mayor. I said I would be pleased to, if it could be a co-address. I told him I would like to introduce Moses to address them, for he would likely have something far more meaningful to say than I would. The principal was well aware of Moses and liked the idea.

  “Moses never went to high school,” I said, “yet, in my lifetime, I have not known a wiser man.”

  “Well, how about I fix that and give Moses his high school diploma?”

  Goose bumps covered me. “Oh, wow.”

  I told Moses I volunteered the two of us to address the graduating class, and that he needed to remember the address he had given to my graduating class, because he was going to give it again. Moses said, “I can’t rightly remember what I said, but I’ll come up with something for the kids.”

  I smiled, “Yes, you will.”

  * * *

  Graduation day arrived and the auditorium was full of students, faculty, and parents. I had given many speeches as mayor, but I was more nervous than at any other time in my life. I looked at Moses, both of us in cap and gown, and my heart pounded. The superintendent of schools addressed the assembly and turned toward me. He looked back at the mass of waiting eyes and ears.

  “We are exceptionally lucky,” he said. “You are going to hear from two of our most prominent citizens today, one you know of as mayor, friend, and father, and the other you may know of as a most special man, but I’m going to let our Mayor, Jory Sheppard, introduce our second convocation speaker today. Mayor Sheppard, thank you for addressing our graduating seniors.”

  I rose from my chair (the ground dropped out from under me for a second), placed my hand on Moses’ shoulder, bent over, and said, “Why am I so nervous?” While I was shaking like a twig in a tornado, he was rock solid. He put his hand on mine and gave me his nod and smile—that was all I needed.

  I put my hands on the sides of the podium to stop from shaking, looked out, and saw many adults and kids I knew. In the front row were Bess, Julie, Lucilla, Mayhew, and my son and daughter. I smiled at them, and Julie nodded.

  “It is a genuine honor to be asked to speak to you, and as well, a profound challenge. I’m supposed to come up with words that will somehow reach into your hearts and minds and make an impression that might just last past the party you’re going to after this.” There was laughter. It made me bolder. “And with everything on your minds at this moment, that is a near impossible task. But I shall try, not by making something up, but my telling you the truth. Knowing it is the truth just may make you think about it, maybe even remember it.

  “All of you will soon face great challenges, and all of you will have to make difficult decisions that will affect your whole life. Some of you will want to simply give up, look for the easy way out, or decide you can’t reach some goal. Don’t! When I was eleven years old and lost my father, I was all alone. I was to be put in a horrible place…”

  After relaying a brief story of my running away
, the storm that brought me to Moses, and how a white boy became part of a black family, I said, “Why have I told you this? To convince you to never give up. That old man in that tiny skiff didn’t give up, and you mustn’t give up during your storms. Because of him, I’m here today, standing in front of you as your mayor. Never, ever, relinquish your goals and dreams because of adversity, no matter the strength of your storms. And never be afraid to reach out for a helping hand, a mentor, someone to show you the way, just as I did. Harness your storms. Ride them, survive them, and let them teach you. Let each path you take make you stronger.

  “I am honored to introduce to you that wise man who saved a lost boy. This man, his wife, and two grandchildren, gave me the most important things in the entire world—their love and their home. This man, who was never able to attend high school, is the wisest, most brilliant and kindest man I have ever known or will ever know, and I am proud to introduce him to you. Please meet the man I call Grandfather, Moses Kent.”

  The auditorium exploded in applause and cheers as Moses slowly got to his feet and used his cane to come toward me. Filled with relief and pride, I reached around him and hugged him harder than ever. It took minutes for the clapping to quiet. Moses walked to the front of the stage, and the principal hurried to the podium, took the microphone, and handed it to Moses.

  He looked out over the auditorium full of waiting eyes and anxious minds. You could hear a pin drop. Moses raised the microphone, and with his other hand, pointed at me.

  “Don’t believe him!”

  My eyes widened.

  “I was not the brave one. I was not an eleven-year-old boy facing life all by myself. I only faced the wind, rain, and waves. That child was brave. Not just the storm upon the Mississippi, but the storm of losing the most important people in his life, his father and mother. Alone and nowhere to go, that was the true storm he faced. That frightened boy lived by himself in a cave and in a rowboat until a thunderstorm, surely sent from heaven, brought him to me. And though every attempt was made to take him away from us, because we are of a different color, he would not let it happen. He knew what he wanted, and nothing would get in the way, not jail, not the anger of prejudice, not the fists of evil, not even the loss of all that mattered to him.