Mississippi Trial, 1955

by Chris Crowe

  The boys didn’t move. “Told you,” said one. “He’s crazy.” They all laughed and splashed water at him.

  “Wait here,” I told Emmett. “I’ll go grab my lunch sack and you all can have whatever’s left in it.”

  I started back to the tree where I’d left my stuff, but Emmett followed me. “Shoot,” he said, “I d-don’t want to stand out there with that old sun b-beating down on me eating my lunch. No snakes up around that tree, is there?”

  When they saw him follow me up on the shore, Emmett’s friends whooped and laughed. “Go, Bobo!” one yelled. “Go, you crazy boy!”

  I turned around and faced him. “Look, it’d be better if you stayed down there. My friend’s sleeping over there, and he probably doesn’t want to get woke up.”

  “Hey, any friend of yours is a friend of mine,” Emmett said with a grin. “Now let’s see what Ruthanne p-p-packed us for lunch.” He wasn’t going to listen, so I figured the best thing to do was to give him my lunch and get him out of there. I handed him the sack as his cousins kept laughing and yelling at him. He ignored them.

  Unfortunately, R.C. didn’t.

  He came up from behind and shoved me out of the way so he was facing Emmett himself. “What the hell’s goin’ on here?” he said slowly. R.C.’s face was red and he smelled like stale beer. “Looks like you caught yourself one helluva colored fish, Hiram.” He snorted through his nose, cleared his throat, and spit at Emmett’s feet. “Too bad it’s a trash fish. You’ll have to throw him back.”

  I had a feeling something real ugly was about to happen. For some reason, maybe because he didn’t know R.C., Emmett didn’t seem worried at all, even though his cousins had backed away without making a sound.

  “Let’s not have any trouble, R.C.,” I said. “I was just giving Emmett our leftovers.”

  “Givin’ our lunch to a nigger? You must be as crazy as your pa was. I’d just as soon throw our food to the fish as see it go to waste on this trash.” He snatched the sack out of Emmett’s hand. “You leave this be, Hiram, or I’ll fix you, your grampa, and your whole family real good, I swear to God.”

  R.C. glared at me with pure hatred, and I backed off, afraid to do anything more.

  “Hey,” Emmett chuckled nervously. Finally, he must have gotten some good sense, “I d-d-didn’t mean nothing. My friend here was sharing his lunch, and—”

  R.C. shoved him in the chest. “White folk don’t share nothin’ with colored, boy. Nothin’.”

  Emmett staggered back a step but didn’t shut up. “Look, I didn’t mean anything by it, b-b-but he did say we could have that sack. Why d-don’t you just let me have it, and we’ll get out of here.”

  “Don’t you hear, boy, or are you just tired of breathing?” R.C. threw the lunch sack down and kicked it out of the way. “I’ve had enough of your uppityness.” He lunged forward and grabbed Emmett in a headlock. “You so hungry, I’ll feed you lunch.” R.C. dragged him over to where’d he’d been fishing. Emmett struggled and complained at first, but R.C. tightened his grip around Emmett’s neck, and he quieted down, half scrambling, half being dragged behind R.C.

  When they got to the riverbank, R.C. threw Emmett on the ground and held him there with one knee on his chest. He reached over and pulled his fish line out of the river and laid the fish across Emmett’s bare stomach. When a fish twitched, Emmett flexed upward and tried to twist away, but R.C.’s knee kept him pinned. “Lemme go!” Emmett yelled. “Get off me.”

  “Lunchtime, boy,” R.C. said as he pulled his pocketknife from his pants. He opened the blade and held it over Emmett.

  Emmett froze.

  “C’mon, R.C.,” I yelled, “cut it out.”

  He waved his knife at me. “I warned you once, Hiram. Ain’t gonna do it again.” Then he smiled. “’Sides, I ain’t doin’ nothin’ but givin’ this uppity black boy his lunch. You hold still, boy,” he said to Emmett, “I’d hate to see you get hurt by accident.”

  R.C. swung his leg over and sat on Emmet’s stomach, then he slid the fish up to Emmett’s neck. His knife blade flashed in the sun.

  “Come on, get off,” Emmett yelled as he bucked upward, trying to throw R.C. off, but R.C. was too big for him.

  “Hang on, boy, you don’t want me to drop this knife on some vital part, do you? Just set still while I get you some lunch.” He pulled the largest fish off the stringer and held it in one hand with its white belly facing up. “Carp. You coloreds love carp.” He stuck his blade into the tail end of the fish and cut up to its head, letting the blood drip onto Emmett’s chest and face. He gagged and yelled for help, but R.C. held him.

  R.C. threw his knife into the ground just inches from Emmett’s face. Emmett didn’t move, didn’t yell. His eyes looked huge. Then R.C. scraped the guts out of the fish and shoved them in Emmett’s face.

  Emmett thrashed and twisted his head from side to side, and R.C. threw the fish carcass into the river so he could use one hand to hold Emmett’s head still and the other to hold the guts over Emmett’s mouth and nose.

  “R.C., he can’t breathe,” I yelled. “You’re going to kill him!”

  He ignored me, and when Emmett finally opened his mouth for air, R.C. shoved the guts in and rolled off Emmett, laughing. “You wasn’t as hungry as you thought, boy,” he said as Emmett retched and rolled on the ground. R.C. shook the blood from his hands onto Emmett. “Guess fresh carp don’t much agree with you after all. That be the case, you best learn not to be so uppity around white folks, and you’d damn well better not be comin’ around here askin’ for any food again. Seems to me you don’t like what we got to offer.”

  Emmett knelt on all fours, coughing and spitting. When he caught his breath, he turned and glared at R.C., and then at me before sliding into the shallow edge of the river and wading back to his cousins. They hadn’t moved since R.C. woke up.

  R.C. picked up his pocketknife, wiped the blade on his pants leg, folded it closed, and shoved it into his pocket. “Let’s get out of here, Hiram. I’m done fishin’.”

  He picked up his stuff and headed back up the path to the truck. I stayed behind, sick to my stomach, embarrassed, and scared. Emmett and his cousins waded upstream with Emmett walking between two of them, leaning heavily on their shoulders. I wanted to say something, to yell that I was sorry, that I thought R.C. was evil and messed up, but they were too far to hear by then. Besides, I’d had my chance to do something, but all I’d done was watch R.C. humiliate that boy.

  I felt dirty and weak.

  And ashamed.

  CHAPTER 9

  During supper that night I felt so lousy about what R.C. had done that I could hardly face Ruthanne. Grampa could tell I was upset, and before I could slip upstairs to sulk in my room, he said, “Hiram, let’s go set in the living room and you can tell me what’s eating you. Ever since you got home from fishing, you’ve looked more miserable than a crawdad in a stew pot.”

  Frankly, I was glad for the chance to unload my feelings on Grampa, and he let me ramble about what had happened. I didn’t get into all the gory stuff, but I did tell him that R. C. Rydell had done some awful things to a Negro boy while we were fishing. I could barely keep my voice from shaking.

  “And the worst thing, Grampa, was that I just stood there. I could’ve pulled him off. I should’ve done something, but I didn’t know what to do.” I felt my face turn red. “Truth is, I was scared.”

  “R.C. didn’t do any permanent damage to the boy, just a little roughhousing that went too far. Besides, Hiram, boys like R.C. are as unpredictable as a mad dog; if you’d’ve gotten in his way, he might have ripped into you.”

  “But I should have done something. You should’ve seen how that boy looked at me when he left. He thought I was his friend.”

  “That’s where he made his first mistake. Coloreds around here know better than to push themselves on white folks. There is no friendship between whites and coloreds, never should be, never will be. Even a fool oughtta known that.”
<
br />   “R.C. wasn’t just acting unfriendly, Grampa; he was torturing him. It was crazy. Why would anybody act like that?”

  “No explaining some people,” Grampa said. “There are some ignorant white trash peckerwoods here in the Delta who are just plain mean. Maybe they’ve got things bad. Maybe they’re mad about something. Maybe they can’t hold their liquor. You can’t understand them, son, and it’s no use even trying.”

  “Should I tell the sheriff?”

  Grampa shook his head. “I’m sure Sheriff Smith knows all about R. C. Rydell. That boy’s been in and out of trouble his whole life. From what I hear, most of it’s just dumb old peckerwood things like bullying people, swearing in public, boozing. But one thing’s sure: He doesn’t have the brains or the gumption to do anything much worse than what he did today. I don’t approve of what he did, but you also got to remember, Hiram, this is the Mississippi Delta. Sounds to me like that colored boy just didn’t have any sense. R.C.’s no good, and I’m damn sorry for what happened, but that boy brought trouble on himself.”

  I didn’t know what to think, and I didn’t want to talk to Grampa any longer, so I said good night and went upstairs to my room. Some of what Grampa said about R.C. made sense, but I couldn’t think of anything anybody could do to deserve getting treated the way Emmett had been. Why had R.C. been so hateful to a kid he didn’t even know? And what if lots of people like R.C. existed? What if they all got together?

  They’d be dangerous to almost everyone, not just to Negroes.

  Back in Arizona, I’d heard about how the Mormons had been chased out of most places they had lived until they’d finally settled in Utah, a desert nobody wanted. It was hard to believe that Americans could be that cruel to other people just because of religion, or race, or anything. The Nazi slaughter of the Jews, that seemed different—and worse. For one, it was an ocean away, foreigners hurting and killing other foreigners, and the Nazis weren’t Americans; they didn’t have the principles of freedom and democracy that we had. Maybe in a way, they just didn’t know any better, or maybe old Hitler was just able to pull off mass hypnosis or something.

  And maybe that’s why Dad acted so crazy about the South and segregation. Maybe he realized that bullies would always find somebody to pick on, if not the Negroes, then somebody else.

  And I didn’t want it to be me or anybody I loved.

  In fact, I didn’t want it to be anybody at all.

  My head was so jammed with troubles that night that I could hardly keep it still on my pillow; plenty of my restlessness was because of what R.C. had done, but a whole lot of my tossing and turning came from my wondering if maybe Dad wasn’t so crazy after all.

  Grampa claimed he was feeling better, but his skin stayed gray and loose, and he hardly ever showed the passion for things that he used to when I was little. I tried to talk him into going fishing once in a while, but he said he didn’t think he’d have the energy to reel in anything bigger than a minnow. Normally, I would have been bored, but I knew I wasn’t going to be in Greenwood much longer, so I didn’t mind spending time with Grampa. He still seemed lonely, and sometimes I worried about what he’d do when I was gone. Except for sitting around the house, checking on his land, and doing business at the courthouse, the only thing Grampa did that wasn’t just regular living was his work on the White Citizens’ Council. He never talked to me about what exactly he did, but I figured he was some kind of big shot on the Council; some nights two or three men would come over to talk to Grampa about what was going on. Twice since I came to Greenwood, he’d left at night for Council meetings and came back late, long after I was asleep. I figured it was boring political stuff he was working at, probably had something to do with battling desegregation and all that. Seeing him so involved reminded me of Dad: all worked up and smack in the middle of some issue.

  Thursday I stayed close to home, spending as much time with Grampa as I could, and it was like old times: After Ruthanne’s breakfast Grampa and I got into the pickup and drove over to the courthouse and then out to the fields. We didn’t stay in either place very long, and ended up at the River Café by noon. After lunch we went home so he could take a nap. When he woke up, he sat in his favorite chair and read Civil War history books until Ruthanne had supper ready. After supper he went back to the living room to read The Greenwood Commonwealth, and we talked about the news, his childhood, and whatever else he felt like talking about. A knock at the door interrupted us, and Grampa answered it: Some guy came by wanting to borrow the truck. “Key’s are in it,” Grampa told him. “Just make sure it’s got some gas left when you’re done.” He walked back to his chair smiling; I could tell it made him feel good to help out his neighbors.

  Later that evening some men picked Grampa up for another Council meeting. For a while after he left, I sat in the living room reading the newspaper and listening to the radio. The man who had borrowed the truck had already returned it, so I thought about taking it and cruising Greenwood, but there wasn’t a whole lot to see in Greenwood at night. Besides, there really was only one person I wanted to see, even though I wasn’t sure how I could see her or if she’d want to see me.

  By 10:00 I was bored and restless, so I went for a walk. Greenwood’s dead quiet at night, and as I walked along River Road, the only thing I heard except for the buzz of the summer locusts and the sound of an occasional car or truck, was the soft flow of the Yazoo River down below the sidewalk. After a few blocks I turned left on Fulton Street and walked onto the bridge that crossed the river.

  Halfway across stood a girl looking over the railing. The dim streetlight at one end didn’t do much to break up the shadows that blanketed most of the bridge, but as I got closer, I could see that she had blonde hair and was staring at the dark water flowing beneath us.

  My chest got tight when I recognized her. She didn’t move as I approached, and I had to work to take a breath before I spoke. “Naomi? What are you doing out here?”

  She answered without looking up, without a trace of surprise. “I’m lookin’ at the river, Hiram Hillburn, and thinkin’ about an old friend.”

  I stood next to her. “Been here long?”

  “Just every night since I heard you were back in Greenwood.” She bumped her shoulder into mine and turned her head so I could see her. Wow, she was even prettier than she was when we were kids. “Where have you been? Did living in Arizona make you forget your Mississippi friends?”

  “Naomi, I—”

  “Don’t go fretting about it, Hiram.” She smiled and nudged me with her hip. “I’m just teasin’.”

  “Really, I’ve wanted to see you and all, but I’ve been pretty busy since I got here, and I wasn’t sure, you know, how you’d feel if I just showed up one afternoon.”

  “I would’ve felt right fine about it. It’s not like I get many visitors out to the house. R.C. and Pa make dang sure of that, believe me. You of all people oughtta know that I’d be hoping you’d show up, but I knew your grampa’d been sick and all, and that you were tending him. Still, you can’t blame me for wishing you’d come and see me. It’s been an awful long time, Hiram.” She spoke without sadness, and seeing her smile and hearing her beautiful Southern voice made me glad I’d come to the bridge that night.

  “I have seen R.C. a few times, and I asked about you.”

  “R.C.” Naomi rolled her eyes. “I’d like to wring his neck. Do you know that he waited two whole days before he even told me you were in town? Not that I see him much anyways, with him working days and tomcattin’ around at night, but he should’ve been a little more thoughtful, and I let him know it too.” Naomi was the only person alive who could scold R. C. Rydell and get away with it.

  “He hasn’t changed much, has he? I mean, he’s bigger and all, but he’s still R.C.” I almost told her what he had done to Emmett at the river, but I decided bad news about her brother wouldn’t do her any good. She already knew—better than anybody—the kind of guy he was.

  “I wish he’d turn
over a new leaf,” she said. “He used to be just ornery, but lately he’s been worse than that, almost like he’s trying to get into trouble or trying to prove something. Sometimes I worry about him, Hiram, that he’s looking for something he’s never going to find.”

  Enough about R.C. I’d had all I wanted of him lately. “So, how’s your dad doing?”

  Naomi blinked when I said “dad,” but her expression didn’t change. “Fine. Same as ever. Everything’s just fine at home.” Her voice was hard, firm. I knew she didn’t want to talk about her father, so I just stood there looking at her, looking at the Yazoo, and neither one of us talked.

  Finally, she spoke again. “Hiram, you ever want to get away? You know, just take a break from everything?”

  “Are you kidding? I’ve been trying to get back to Greenwood for seven years. Sometimes my dad really bugs me, and for the last few years, it seems like all we do is fight, so I couldn’t wait to get away from home.”