Alligator Bayou

by Donna Jo Napoli

  “Don’t get drunk,” Cirone says in my ear. “We’re sneaking out tonight.”

  The conversation is a mix of Sicilian, English, and French, with Latin speckled here and there. I don’t believe anyone is listening to anyone else anymore. Finally, Father May and Frank Raymond leave together. The rest of us go to bed.

  “Come on.” Cirone pinches my cheeks.

  My eyes opened at his words, but it took the pinches to pull me together. I run my tongue along the top of my mouth, scraping it against my front teeth. The grappa left a cottony feeling. I roll out of bed and pull on clothes and follow Cirone outside.

  We lope through the grasses toward town. It’s drizzling lightly. I tilt my head back and open my mouth. This feels good. “Where are we going?”

  “Speak English,” says Cirone in English.

  “You heard me,” I say in English.

  “The courthouse. Your favorite spot.” We run in easy strides.

  Only one boy stands on the sidewalk waiting. “You always last, you know that?” It’s Rock. He spits on the ground in annoyance.

  “We had guests,” says Cirone. “They didn’t leave till late.”

  “But we’re not last, anyway,” I say. “Ben and Charles aren’t here yet.”

  “They came and went. We got work in the morning, and Mr. Coleman extra mean for some reason. We got to be there at six o’clock on the dot. I only stayed so you wouldn’t get here and act dumb, walking in circles shouting for us. Good night.”

  “We got work in the morning, too,” says Cirone.

  “Then go sleep.” Rock waves and turns to leave.

  Bang! Bang bang bang.

  “Guns,” gasps Rock. “Run!”

  We’re already gone.

  twenty-four

  I’m out of the house before breakfast, calling, “Bedda! Bedda!” Where is that goat? The little doe Giada runs to me. So do Carina and Furba, and the young billy Duci, and all the others. But Bedda’s nowhere in sight. Neither is Bruttu, the old billy. My stomach turns. Please, don’t let this be so. I run toward the field. “Bedda! Bedda!”

  “Come back, Calo.” Cirone grabs me by the elbow.

  “I didn’t tie her back legs.”

  Cirone chews the corner of his thumb. “I forgot, too.” He’s speaking Sicilian. Somehow that makes things seem more real. But it can’t be. It has to be a nightmare.

  Don’t, Lord, please please don’t.

  Everyone’s at the breakfast table when we come in. We eat in silence.

  “So, Calogero.” Francesco puts down his coffee cup and stands. “You were out there calling a goat. A goat who didn’t come.”

  He loves that goat. I can’t stand it that I did this to him. “I’m sorry, Francesco. I forgot. I’m so sorry.”

  “I forgot, too,” Cirone says.

  Francesco’s mouth is a straight line. But now it quivers at one edge. Why does it have to be Bedda? Of all the goats, why her? He clears his throat and pulls on the tips of his mustache. “Let’s go find out if it’s too late for sorry. You and me, Calo. It was your job.”

  I walk with Francesco into town. We go straight to Dr. Hodge’s office. Bedda and Bruttu lie on the porch. Flies cover them.

  Dr. Hodge comes out immediately. He must have been watching from the window. His hands are behind his back.

  Francesco doesn’t look at him. His eyes are on the bodies. “You shoot my goat.”

  “I warned you.”

  “You shoot my goat.” Francesco shakes his head slowly, like it weighs so much he can hardly hold it up. Tears stand in his eyes. “You shoot my goat. My heart, it go like this.” He snaps his fingers. Then he drops his hand. “Now you better shoot me.”

  I can’t believe he said that.

  Dr. Hodge’s eyes open larger. “Don’t be absurd. I was afraid you’d come at me with your stiletto. But crying. Don’t do that. You’re a businessman. Act like one. Be sensible.”

  “You shoot my goat,” Francesco says so quietly I’m almost not sure he spoke. He puts his hand over his heart. “Now you better shoot me.”

  “You people, you’re all crazy. But, so help me God, I’ll shoot you if I have to.”

  We walk to the grocery on leaden feet, go in through the rear door. Francesco sits on the iron bed in the storage room, his hands in his lap.

  The bed is piled high with empty crates. I would move some aside, to sit near Francesco, but I don’t know if he wants me there.

  I stand in front of him. “I’m sorry.” I have to stop talking or I’ll cry.

  We stay that way a long time. The air grows hotter and stuffier. We pant.

  Someone knocks on the front door.

  “Should I open the store?”

  “We’re not open today. Today we’re in mourning.”

  “I’ll go out front and tell people.”

  Francesco doesn’t answer.

  I go around to stand on the front step. When people come, I tell them we’re closed for luttu—I don’t know the English word for mourning. I know so many words. Reading the newspaper has taught me thousands and thousands. But that one is missing.

  People don’t seem to mind, though. They don’t ask what luttu is. They just go away. Maybe they think it’s some crazy Sicilian ritual. Maybe they all think we’re crazy. Maybe it’s not just Dr. Hodge.

  Crazy murderers. Dr. Hodge said he thought Francesco would come after him with a stiletto. And he’s an educated man. Like Mr. Snyder. All these educated men. But Dr. Hodge—how could he? He knows us.

  I sit on the front step now. As the morning passes, I realize: no one white has come by. They all know the store is closed. They know what’s happened. It’s like they’re one giant family, news passes among them so fast.

  Carlo brings food at midday. He tries to get Francesco to come home with him. Francesco stays put on the bed.

  I sit on the front step all afternoon. How could I have forgotten to tie Bedda’s legs? I love Francesco. I hate myself for doing this to him. I rest my arms on my knees and my head on my arms and I sleep.

  Evening comes. Rosario and Cirone show up. We walk around to the back of the grocery and go in to see Francesco.

  “I closed the stand early,” says Rosario. “Let’s go home now. It’s time to eat.”

  Francesco actually gets up. Thank heavens.

  We walk home and Carlo serves spaghetti with tomatoes and homemade venison sausage. Francesco’s favorite meal. No one speaks as we eat.

  “It was good.” I wipe my bowl clean with a hunk of bread. “Thank you, Carlo.”

  “I’ll go sit on the grocery step now,” says Carlo. “You go to bed, Francesco.”

  “It’s still light out.”

  “Sorrow doesn’t care about the light. Go to bed.” Carlo presses his palm to his forehead. “I’m off to the grocery.”

  “I’ll go with you,” says Giuseppe.

  “Why?” I ask. “No one will come shopping at night.”

  “Let them go,” says Francesco. “It’s better that they should sit there. It’s better that everyone should know we’re in mourning.”

  “Everyone knows already,” I say.

  “But they have to hear our side,” says Francesco. “They have to know that Dr. Hodge killed our goats. He was supposed to like us. To respect us.”

  “Carlo and Giuseppe can’t tell them our side. They don’t speak English.”

  “Then you go with them. You be the translator.” Francesco hangs his head that sad way again and shakes it. “He called us ‘you people.’ He said we’re crazy. Dr. Hodge, he said those things. He shot our goats, and he said those things.”

  Carlo and Giuseppe and I go back to the grocery. They sit on the step and I walk back and forth on the sidewalk out front. The first stars show through the dusk.

  A clattering noise comes from inside the grocery.

  “Rats,” says Giuseppe. “I’ll take care of them.” He goes around the rear. I hear him walking inside. He opens the front door and looks out
at us.

  “You!” shouts Carlo in English from beside me.

  I whirl around and look where he’s pointing.

  Dr. Hodge is walking along the sidewalk with the man who runs the candy store, Mr. Chehardy. Dr. Hodge looks at Carlo, stops, and stands at attention.

  “You broke my little brother’s heart,” Carlo says in Sicilian.

  “Don’t speak that mumbo jumbo at me,” says Dr. Hodge.

  “You made him think you were his friend,” Carlo says in Sicilian as he walks toward Dr. Hodge. “You fooled him. But you never fooled me. You broke my baby brother’s heart.”

  “No one understands you, old man. No one understands any of you. Get out of my way.” Dr. Hodge walks on.

  Carlo lunges at him.

  “Don’t stab!” yelps Dr. Hodge. He beats Carlo on the head with one fist and pulls out a pistol.

  Lord! What’s going on? “Stop!” I shout. “Carlo doesn’t have a knife. He doesn’t have anything.”

  Dr. Hodge has the pistol in both hands now and he’s using it like a club, smashing Carlo in the forehead. Smashing and smashing, as if he’s lost his mind. Blood gushes.

  I run to grab Dr. Hodge from behind.

  “Get out of the way, Calogero!” Giuseppe’s standing in the doorway with a double-barreled shotgun!

  Where are you, Lord?

  “Look out, Doctor!” calls someone across the street.

  Arms grab me from behind. I stumble backward.

  “Be quiet,” he says in my ear. It’s Joe Evans. “Run home. Get Francesco.” He lets me go and races off down the first street.

  Dr. Hodge shoots at Giuseppe and misses. He slams the pistol even harder on Carlo’s head. Carlo crumples.

  “Stay down,” Giuseppe calls to Carlo. “Stay out of the way so I can shoot.”

  Dr. Hodge backs into the middle of the road and aims at Giuseppe again. He presses his finger over and over, but his gun won’t shoot. He must have broken it on Carlo’s head. He pulls his cloak closed to hide himself.

  Giuseppe aims–bang bang.

  Dr. Hodge still stands. Blood runs down his leg. “Someone give me a gun!”

  Giuseppe jumps off the step and picks up Carlo. Together we carry him inside the grocery and lay him on the floor. “Go for Francesco,” Giuseppe says.

  I run home. “Giuseppe shot Dr. Hodge!”

  Francesco jumps off his bed, still fully dressed. “Is he dead?”

  “No.”

  “Did he shoot back?”

  “He shot first, and missed. When he tried again, his gun wouldn’t work. He broke it on Carlo’s head.”

  Francesco’s already got his cap on and he’s halfway out the door with Rosario and Cirone right behind. “Where are they?”

  “At the grocery.”

  “We’ll go to Carlo and Giuseppe. But you, Calogero …” Francesco squeezes my arm. “You go find Father May.”

  Francesco and Rosario and Cirone and me, we all go running back toward town.

  And there’s Dr. Hodge limping down the street toward his office with a crowd of people in tow.

  “Go for Father May,” Francesco shouts to me.

  I turn a corner and run.

  But I hear the crowd. They surround Francesco and Rosario and Cirone.

  I run flat out. Father May is staying in the guesthouse on the other side of town. It’s so far. We need help faster than that.

  Frank Raymond.

  I turn up the next street. There’s a crowd outside Wilson’s saloon, directly across from Blander’s barbershop. I press myself against the wall and pray the shadows hide me as I make my way toward Frank Raymond’s.

  “Bloodthirsty things!” shouts John Wilson. “They stayed in that grocery all day. What do you think they was doing? Plotting. They was plotting this murder.”

  Murder? What murder?

  “Our good doctor. Our dear doctor!”

  He’s crazy! Dr. Hodge is alive!

  “Y’all heard them bragging, didn’t you? They said they already killed two white clerks at a plantation store and they could do as they pleased because they got the money to get out of anything. Did you notice that? Did you notice how they always takes your money, but they never spends theirs? They got so much, they make the rest of us look like paupers.”

  What’s he talking about? How could my uncles brag? They don’t even speak English. When would any of us ever even go into a plantation store?

  “Sicilians, they’s the worst.” It’s Mr. Rogers, Willy’s father. “More monkeys than people. I hear they shot the good doctor in the groin. That’s how low they stoop.”

  “Cold-blooded murderers.” It’s Mr. Coleman. “They killed our doctor and he’s our coroner, too. How we going to get along without him?”

  “Y’all cross them and they never forget,” says Mr. Rogers. “They’ll murder without a second look.”

  “We got a scourge on our hands,” says John Wilson. “Tell you what, folks: my saloon is open. Free whisky and beer to any responsible soul who will help wipe out this scourge.”

  “They already got three of them,” comes a cry. It’s Fred Johnson. “I saw Sheriff Lucas and his deputies haul them off to jail.”

  “Jail? Jail’s too good for them animals.” John Wilson shakes a fist in the air. “Anyway, they ain’t got them two did the shooting. As I hear it, they’s still back at the grocery. Probably plotting who to kill next.”

  “I ain’t waiting around to see who it’ll be.” One man raises a rope.

  I gag.

  Someone steps in front of me and presses his back up against me so hard that I’m squashed against the wall. “Stay quiet!” comes a sharp whisper. It’s Frank Raymond.

  The crowd goes down the street toward our grocery like a herd of wild things.

  Frank Raymond stays there for what feels like forever. Then he turns around and holds me up by the shoulders. “Blander told me you were here. You’re crazy.”

  “What’ll they do with that rope?”

  “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

  “We’ve got to find Giuseppe and Carlo. We’ve got to get the others out of jail. We’ve got to tell the truth. Dr. Hodge is alive. No one killed anyone.”

  “Shut up.”

  “They–”

  Frank Raymond claps his hand over my mouth. “No one can stop a mob. All you can do is get out of the way. You understand?”

  I nod.

  He lets go of me. “Let’s…”

  “You find Father May!” I run before he can say more.

  I’m running and running, but when I get to the grocery, no one’s there. The front door’s closed and the back’s been bashed in. I go inside. The bed in the storage room is overturned. The chair by the chimney is on its side. There are voices outside. Coming closer. I go into the front room and press myself into a corner and sink to my haunches. If they have a lantern, I’m caught.

  A man and boy come into the storage room. “Looks like the show has already moved on to the slaughterhouse, son.” They leave.

  The slaughterhouse. I’m going to be sick.

  Someone else comes in through the rear door. “Calogero? Calogero?” Frank Raymond squats before me.

  “The slaughterhouse,” I manage to say.

  “I know. And there’s talk of storming the jail. And of catching other Sicilians, two others, in Milliken’s Bend.”

  “Beppe and Salvatore.” I stand up quick. “Someone’s got to warn them.”

  “Father May took care of that. He’s friends with someone who knows them. I promise.”

  I’m crying.

  “It’s insane.” Frank Raymond throws his arms around me and holds tight.

  “It’s my fault. I forgot to tie up Bedda.”

  “Stop it. None of this is your fault. And you have to get someplace safe. You have to think of yourself now. Have you got a place to go?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then go. Run away. Don’t tell me where. I don’t want to know. That w
ay if the mob gets hold of me, I can’t tell them anything, no matter what they do.”

  twenty-five

  I run the road out of town, but as soon as Frank Raymond’s out of sight, I turn and race back. The shortest way to the slaughterhouse is to cut through town. I’m slick with sweat and panting hard and the only noise I hear is my own heartbeat. I’ve got to get there fast. I run in the center of the road. Others are running, too. But not as fast as me.

  I can see it now. The slaughterhouse is lit up so bright, it looks as if it’s on fire. Outside, people stand in the grasses in little clumps of three or four. Whites with whites; Negroes with Negroes. Everyone’s talking. Children race through the crowd playing tag. More people are coming. The people I ran past on the road, they’re coming here.

  If anyone recognizes me …I race for the woods, expecting to hear a shout, maybe even a shot. I dash behind a pine and cling. The bark cuts my cheek. People are coming in buggies, like to the tournament. Coming for a show, all right.

  Sheriff Lucas! Get here fast!

  I hunch over, run to the closest window, and press myself against the rear wall. I pull up on the window ledge and look in.

  Giuseppe and Carlo are on their knees with their backs to me. Their hands are tied behind them. Men stand in front of them, arguing, everyone talking at once. White men. I can make out faces. John Wilson, Mr. Rogers, Fred Johnson, and others. And, Lord in Heaven, there’s Frank Raymond and Mr. Blander.

  “All of them did it,” says Wilson in a booming voice.

  For a second everyone’s quiet.

  “This ain’t no court of law,” says Blander in a flat tone. “They’s procedures to follow. Facts to gather.”

  “We done gathered the facts,” says Wilson.

  “No, you didn’t.” Frank Raymond steps forward, but Blander catches him by the arm. Frank Raymond shakes him off. “They have a right to defend themselves.”

  “You want a trial?” Rogers turns to Giuseppe. “Who killed Dr. Hodge?”

  “No one!” shouts Frank Raymond. “He’s not dead! Dr. Hodge is alive!”

  Giuseppe mumbles in Sicilian. I’m not sure he even understands the question.

  “And you?” Rogers leans toward Carlo. “What you got to say for yourself?”