Lilly

by Madelyn Bennett Edwards

  Later, Rodney had taken me to Dr. Switzer's house and he stitched my face and congratulated me on fighting back. He'd offered to help Rodney and me run away together and to keep the Klan and my dad from hurting Rodney's family once we were gone.

  Those were my thoughts as I looked across the table at Merrick, who looked confused, as if trying to understand how I could have been beaten so badly.

  "I guess that explains why you didn't go home to Louisiana the entire three years of graduate school—that is, until your grandfather died." Merrick had been my professor, mentor, lover. I'd told him Catfish was my grandfather.

  "Sort of. Can we talk about other things?" I couldn't tell Merrick what had happened.

  "Let me get adjusted to looking at you like this." We ordered hot tea and sat stirring honey and lemon into the darkening liquid, dipping the tea bags over and over, squeezing the excess out and removing them from the cups, the steam and tea fragrance wafting into the space between us. We each took a sip.

  "I have my thesis with me. I'd like to leave it with you and ask when I can take my last final exam?"

  "Okay. Tomorrow? Will that work? Are you prepared?"

  "Yes. I'll do fine, although I haven't been able to concentrate very much this past week."

  "Hmmm. Anything I can do to help?"

  "No, I'll be fine." We sipped our tea and I listened to the chatter of the other customers, horns blowing on the street, and the roar of a bus as it barreled down Utopia Parkway. Through it all I spotted a red bird perched in an oak tree in front of the entrance to park. It tweeted, then listened for a reply, and reminded me of sitting in the lush St. Augustine grass with my best friend Marianne, our backs resting against the outside of the old barn in the Quarters, Catfish asleep on his porch. Red birds called to each other—mating calls, love calls.

  I thought of Rodney. I thought of what I needed to say to Merrick. My face hurt. I strained to see out of my one fully-opened eye, dark sunglasses masking the space between me and this kind man who had made the past three years bearable.

  "Merrick." I talked into my cup. He reached across the table and, with his two forefingers under my chin, lifted my face to make me look at him. I kept my eyes downcast. He lifted my chin higher.

  "Susie, you're scaring me."

  "Merrick. I'm done with graduate school. I need to move on. You understand, don't you?"

  "Move on where?"

  "Well, I’m going to look for a job in the city. I have to be out of my apartment by the end of June."

  "But us. I mean, we can still see each other, right?"

  "I need a clean break, Merrick. You knew this would end."

  "No. I didn't. I don't want to lose you. Can't we work things out?"

  "I'm not like you, Merrick. I can't handle more than one relationship at a time."

  "Oh. Is there someone else?"

  "Yes."

  "How did that happen so fast? Last week we were fine?"

  "An old boyfriend."

  "Did he do this to you?"

  "NO! Never."

  "Then who?"

  "I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about us." We bickered but didn't argue. Merrick had too much class for that. When we parted he said he was still hopeful things would work out between us. I knew they wouldn't, but I let him dream on.

  *

  I was remembering all these things as I walked into my apartment after spending the night at Union Station waiting for Rodney, who never showed up.

  I answered the ringing phone.

  "Hi. It's Mari." Marianne Massey was not only my best friend, but also my half-sister, thanks to my dad's clandestine relationship with our help, Tootsie, Marianne's mother and Catfish's daughter.

  "Mari! Have you heard from Rodney? He didn't show up in DC" I knew she heard the panic in my voice and she tried to calm me before she told me what she knew about Rodney. Marianne and Rodney were as close as brother and sister. They considered themselves cousins since Rodney's Uncle Bo was married to Marianne's Aunt Jesse. Marianne was as worried about him as I was.

  Marianne said Rodney's law school graduation went off without a hitch. He was at the train station the next morning, ticket in hand.

  "Yes, he called to tell me he'd be in Chicago the next day and would stay with a cousin overnight" I started to cry. "He said he wanted me to meet him in Washington on Wednesday so we could be married. But he never showed up."

  Marianne explained that after Rodney hung up the phone with me and headed to the waiting area for the train to Chicago, two men grabbed him from behind.

  "They slipped their arms under Rodney's armpits and practically lifted him off the floor and carried him down the hall and out the front doors." She was talking fast and I had to hold the phone close to my ear to catch every word. "A pickup truck was at the door of the train station, and the men threw Rodney into the cab, squeezing him between two burly guys with baseball caps and sunglasses." Marianne said that the driver of the truck took off while the man sitting shotgun tied a bandana through Rodney's mouth, gagging him. Then the guy slipped a dark sack, like a pillow case, over Rodney's head, secured it around his neck, and tied his wrists together in his lap.

  "They were almost out of Baton Rouge when Rodney heard a siren and the driver of the pickup said, 'Oh, shit.' They pulled over and the driver got out. The man next to Rodney pushed a gun into his side and pulled Rodney's head down."

  Marianne said that two state troopers met the driver on the side of the truck. One of the troopers argued with the driver and told him to get back in the vehicle while the other trooper started towards the passenger side. Two men in the bed of the truck stood up with guns.

  "The cop yelled at them to get on their stomachs and when he reached the window on the passenger's side, the man with the gun on Rodney turned and shot at the cop, but missed. From what Rodney's dad told me, there was a gun fight—two cops, four armed outlaws, and Rodney, with a sack over his head and his hands tied together, lying across the bench seat of the truck."

  She said the newspaper report told how the cop on the street shot the two guys in the bed of the truck when they came up shooting. The truck driver didn't have time to get his gun out of the cab in time, so the trooper trapped him against the truck and handcuffed him while he held the two wounded men at gunpoint. The other trooper returned fire and killed the man who held Rodney captive and a bullet hit Rodney's shoulder.

  "At some point, two ambulances arrived followed by back-up police officers." Marianne said. "They took Rodney to the hospital against his pleas to drop him at the train station. The men in the back of the truck were also taken to the hospital and I don't know what ever happened to them.”

  Marianne said Ray Thibault told her that Rod told him the story when they drove to Jackson, Mississippi.

  "Mississippi?"

  "Wait; there's more," Marianne said.

  She told me that the Klan had gotten Jeffrey. Confused about which brother was Rodney, the group of eight men from Jean Ville decided to split up and get them both. After all, they were Mulattoes and Senator Burton, my dad, said one of them had been fooling around with his daughter.

  Rodney's dad, Ray, owned the Esso gas station in Jean Ville and Rodney and Jeffrey helped him out whenever they were home. Ray told Marianne that the Klan picked Jeffrey up Saturday night in Jean Ville after he closed the station.

  "The men pulled a sack over Jeffrey's head, tied his ankles together and his arms behind his back, then hog-tied him by looping the tied hands and feet through a rope around his neck while he lay on his stomach in the back of a pickup," Mari told me. "He fought to keep his limbs in the 'up' position so the weight wouldn't pull on the noose and strangle him." Marianne said the men drove Jeffrey to First Bridge, a wooded area near the Indian reservation in Jean Ville, where they put him in a wheelbarrow and pushed him deep into the thicket, threw the rope that held his arms, legs and neck together over a tree and left him there.<
br />
  "If they'd taken him anywhere else, he'd be dead, but he was close to the St. Matthew Quarters and Joe Edgars was walking home from the grocery store. He saw the Klan leaving First Bridge in a truck," Marianne told me. "Joe said he ran through the woods so they wouldn't see him and ran directly into the tree where Jeffrey was hanging."

  Rodney's dad told Marianne that, for once, he was glad Joe Edgars was a hoodlum, because he had a knife on his belt and cut Jeffrey down. He said his son was barely breathing and that Joe left Jeffrey on the ground and ran to the first house in the St. Matthew Quarter for help. The preacher's wife, Miss Camellia, called the sheriff and then she called Ray.

  "I got there first," Ray told Marianne. "I still don't know whether the sheriff ever arrived. I took Jeffrey straight to Dr. David's house because it was only a few blocks away. Jeffrey wasn't breathing by the time we got there, so Dr. David did mouth-to-mouth and my boy finally took a breath."

  "They aren't sure how long he'd gone without oxygen, and that's the big problem," Marianne sighed and finally paused. Then she started to cry because Jeffrey had not regained consciousness since he'd arrived at Jean Ville General Hospital Saturday night. "Five days."

  I didn't know what to say. Marianne was spent from telling me the story and she still had not given me any information about Rodney, except to say, "Jackson, Mississippi?" Did he know about Jeffrey? Was he alive?

  "How's Rodney? Is he still in the hospital in Baton Rouge? Where is he?" I was frantic, but Marianne said she'd told me everything she knew, that Ray didn't know what happened to Rodney after he jumped out of the car in Jackson, which confused me even more.

  She said she would call me when she had more information. I was hysterical when I hung up the phone. I could picture Jeffrey and Sarah from only a week ago—so alive, so in love, so full of hope and promise. Just like me… and Rodney. I tried not to think of Rodney with a bullet through his shoulder, bleeding, maybe dying.

  *

  I waited another week for Marianne to call me with news, any news. Finally, unable to hold onto my patience any longer I picked up the phone and called her. Tootsie answered.

  "Hi, Toot. I need to talk to Marianne." I was curt and short, nervous, not in the mood for small talk.

  "Susie. How you doing?" Tootsie drawled on in her southern-Negro cadence, slow as honey dripping from a cone.

  "Tootsie, I really need to talk to Marianne. It's important."

  "She's at work, Susie. Want me to tell her to call you back?" Marianne was a nurse at Jean Ville General Hospital. I didn't know what shift she was working.

  "Please." I hung up before I burst out crying.

  By the time Marianne called me back that night I was into my second glass of wine, pacing my small apartment, crying and scratching the welts that had broken out on my arms.

  "Hi, it's me. Look. I saw Ray at the hospital tonight. Jeffrey is still in a coma and it doesn't look good. They aren't sure how much swelling he has on the brain. Only time will tell." She was crying and I could tell she was more worried about Jeffrey than about Rodney. I didn't speak, just let her cry it out and get hold of her thoughts.

  "So, Ray told me what happened to Rodney last week. He picked Rodney up at the Baton Rouge jail and drove him to Jackson. Ray said he had a plan to get Rodney out of the South before the Klan got to him like they'd gotten to Jeffrey."

  Marianne said Ray banged his car up with a hammer and, somehow, got a black eye. He would go to the sheriff of Hinds County in Jackson and say they'd been attacked by Klan members and that they beat him and took Rodney.

  “That way the sheriff would be looking for Rodney, even though Rodney would be long gone.” Marianne said.

  "Ray said they didn't talk much during the four-hour drive to Jackson from Baton Rouge that night but that Rodney asked Ray about Jeffrey's condition. Rod asked his dad to call your apartment and give you any news, and you would relay it to Rodney when he calls you every day." Marianne took a deep breath and paused.

  "Only he hasn't called me once, and it's been almost two weeks." I tried to hear what Marianne said through her sobs.

  "About an hour out of Jackson, Ray said they realized they were being followed. Rodney watched a black Ford Fairlane trail Ray's grey Buick on Highway 64," Marianne said. "When Ray slowed to turn off the main highway onto the farm road that led into the west end of Jackson, Rodney jumped out with his backpack strapped on his back, holding his duffle bag to soften the blow. He landed in a ditch, and that's the last time Ray or anyone has seen or heard from him."

  "Did Ray go through with his plan with the sheriff in Jackson?" I was confused and scared.

  "Yes, but he said it hasn't gone anywhere. The authorities in Mississippi are worse than the ones in Louisiana." Marianne stopped talking and I could hear her inhale sharply, as though trying to catch her breath. We were both quiet for the longest time while I thought of questions to ask her, but couldn't come up with any.

  *

  The next day, I picked up my mail at the university post office. Rodney's familiar handwriting stretched across a long, white envelope. I ripped it open and read it standing near my post box.

  June 12, 1974

  Dear Susie,

  I'm safe for now, with a friend, but I can't tell anyone where I am because I'm being followed and threatened, and the phone where I’m staying is tapped, so no phone calls, either.

  After I last spoke with you, some guys grabbed me and I was shot, not seriously, and put in jail. Dad bailed me out. I don't know if you’ve talked to anyone and know what happened to Jeffrey. He's in bad shape… in a coma, the last I heard. I'm really worried. I wanted to go to Jean Ville to see him but Dad said the Klan and a posse your dad organized had the hospital staked out.

  I asked my dad how anyone found out about us and he told me your dad knew. I questioned dad about that and he said, "Bob Burton is not the saint everyone thinks he is," and that he's a dangerous man. Dad told me that even though they were supposed to be friends, that friendship had been based on ulterior motives of your dad. My dad said your dad was anti-Klan until he found out about us.

  That made me think.

  What happened next is a story movies are made from. I'll try to write you again to tell you about it but I want to get this letter in the mail now, while I have someone who can take it to the post office.

  I love you more than anything. Don't give up on me.

  Yours forever,

  Rod

  I held the letter with both hands against my chest. At least he was safe, for now, or at least he was when he wrote the letter.

  I looked at the postmark on the envelope. It had been mailed from Jackson a week before. If the phones were tapped and he couldn't go out in public to mail a letter, was he really in a safe place?

  Chapter Three

  ***

  Catfish

  The summer heat rose from the pavement and was oppressive by mid-afternoon while I pounded the pavement looking for an apartment. I labored over the decision—was this for me or for us? I wanted Rodney's input. What would he like? Would Queens be right for him?

  I'd go back to my university apartment during the hot afternoons and try to keep busy. All morning while I was out, I really wanted to be near the telephone.

  I packed boxes of dishes and art I had collected over the years as well as all my personal items. The apartment where I had lived for three years was furnished, so other than one over-stuffed chair with an ottoman and a couple of side tables and lamps, I didn't have much to move. I'd saved some money and could afford to buy a new sofa and a bed, but I wanted Rodney to help me pick them out.

  I didn't have school projects, papers to grade, or assignments with due dates and I needed to stay busy so I tried to organize the stories Catfish had told me through the years. I'd promised him I would write them all down and publish a book that would show the world what slavery and post-Civil War life had been like.

  He did
n't get to tell me all his stories.

  I ran to the Quarters the afternoon following his funeral, with a bloody nose and a gash on my face where my dad had hit me. I sneaked into Catfish’s house and looked around his living space for the first time. It occurred to me that in all the years I'd visited with Catfish on his back porch, he'd never invited me inside.

  I remember running my hand over the four-drawer chest in his small bedroom with pictures of Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy hanging above it. Without thinking, I had opened the drawers in his bureau, looking for a handkerchief to stop the blood running down my face from my cut cheek.

  In the bottom right drawer was a yellow legal pad with "STORIES" printed on the front. I started to slowly flip through the pages. On each page was a caption in block print. "Annie," "Mr. Van," "Mr. Henry," "Alabama," "Mama." And other names: "Audrey," Bessie," "Maureen," "Big Bugger," "Lizzie," "George." Each had a one-page explanation of who they were, approximate dates they were born and died, and a list of good and bad traits. Halfway through the tablet, the pages became blank, but I kept flipping, faster, driven to find something of Catfish I needed.

  On the very last page, "Suzanah," was printed at the top.

  I sat on the edge of his small bed and read the words made of painstaking letters that squiggled and curved and dropped below the lines. I knew this was his last attempt at writing and that his aged hands strained to form the sentences.

  Suzanah,

  I tried to make some more stories for you so when you come back I can remember what to tell you. I know you gonna come back. I hope these help your book.

  I missed you while you been up North at school.

  Love, Cat.

  I remember holding the tablet to my chest and wrapping both arms around it and myself. The stories he'd told me and the ones he'd left me to imagine on my own were rich with history and truth that he wanted people to know.