Catfish Alley

by Lynne Bryant

  I follow Daddy as he approaches the edge of the bank. He stops dead still to look at the scene below, and I don't think he meant for me to hear him say, "Damn!" As I come up behind him, I squint at the mist rising up off the river, trying to see what he's looking at. There's a group of men, I'm not sure how many, standing around the base of a big live oak tree. Curls of smoke are coming from their cigarettes as they stand around talking and laughing. Two boats are pulled up on the bank of the river. Is Daddy taking pictures of some big fish they've caught? But they wouldn't be fishing at night, would they? A coon hunt, maybe? Men around here always hunt raccoons at night.

  Daddy says, "Come on, Jimalee," and starts down the bank, picking his way through the thick clumps of dead winter underbrush. I start to follow him and I glance once more at the men below, who are milling around talking with each other in different combinations, and that's when I see him. I stand frozen to the ground and I cannot will my legs to move.

  A colored man hangs from a rope wrapped around a thick live oak branch that extends beyond him out over the river. His muddy boots dangle above the water's edge. The man's back is to me and I can see the white palms of his hands tied tight behind him with thick rope. His shoulders are slumped and his head is twisted at an odd angle from a rope that cuts deeply into the back of his neck and holds the weight of his body suspended from the tree.

  Daddy turns and sees me standing still. "Move, I say!" he yells. I jump at his words, and drag my eyes away from the man hanging in the tree and start down the hill. The men below hear Daddy yell and look up at us.

  "Hey, Ray," one of them calls to a man standing near the tree. "Purvis's here."

  I recognize the man who walks over to my daddy. It's Ray Tanner. He's probably twenty now, but he went to our school when I was little. I remember him because he was always so mean to us little girls. I was only nine then, but I remember how glad I was when he dropped out of school to work at the sawmill. I shudder as he claps Daddy on the back.

  "Hey there, Purvis. We got us a dead nigger for you to take pictures of."

  "What happened?" Daddy asks in a flat voice, pushing his hat back and looking up at Ray Tanner. It seems to me Daddy's avoiding looking at the colored man hanging in the tree.

  "Oh, me and the boys had to teach this nigger a lesson. He was messing in white folks' business." Ray says this matter-of-fact-like. "This your boy?" he asks, pointing at me.

  I cringe and pray Ray Tanner doesn't get any closer to me. I can already smell the stink of his moonshine whiskey and cigars. I duck behind Daddy as he replies, "Yep. I reckon we'd better get set up."

  I move in a daze, following Daddy's instructions. We get the tripod set up, and Daddy sets the big camera on top of it and clamps it down. The men laugh and push each other, trying to be in the front of the photograph. In the end, it's Ray Tanner who's front and center, grasping the colored man's boots and swinging him around to face the camera. My stomach lurches as the rising sun lights up the swollen bloody black face of the man hanging above a smiling Ray Tanner. One of the men behind Ray says, "They'll sure enough let you in the Klan after this."

  "Yep," Ray answers, never taking his eyes off the camera. "I think this'll show 'em I'm ready."

  Finally, it's over and we start to leave. I want to run up the riverbank and never stop until I'm home in my bed with the covers over my head. I'm so ashamed of my daddy right now I feel like I'm dying inside. As I'm dragging the tripod up the bank, I hear Daddy say to Ray Tanner, "Oh, yeah, need to know his name."

  "Zero Clark," says Ray proudly. "He won't be bothering no white women no more."

  All that silent ride home, as the slow-climbing winter sun lights up the hoarfrost on the pastures, I can't get Ray Tanner's words and the laughter of those men out of my mind.

  I don't know what that colored man did to deserve to die like that, but the image of his bloody, lifeless body will come to haunt me for the rest of my life.

  Del Tanner

  I can't look at her and there ain't nothing I can say. Jimalee Purvis has stopped talking and I can feel her eyes on me, looking to see what I'm gonna do. What can I do? Daddy's dead. Purvis's dead. I reckon all this died with them. I sure don't want no part of it. Now that I know what happened, I wish again I'd never found that damn postcard, wish I'd gone over to the cemetery and buried it with Daddy. Maybe it would haunt him instead of me. Zero Clark's blood is on my daddy's hands, not mine. Thinking about that man's name makes me wonder.

  "You say that black man was named Clark?" I ask her.

  "Yes. His given name was Thomas Clark, but people around here called him Zero," she says, studying me.

  I'm feeling like a grasshopper pinned on a Styrofoam board. "He any relation to that Clark woman was a schoolteacher at some school called the ... uh ... what was it?" I search my mind trying to remember what she and the Reeves woman called that school.

  "The Union School? That was the elementary school for black children. It was established right after the War. As a matter of fact, it was on your property."

  "Yes, ma'am, that one."

  "Zero Clark was Grace Clark's brother."

  My head is starting to ache. "Does she know? I mean ... that my daddy ... you know ..."

  Jimalee Purvis ain't cutting me no slack. "You mean does she know that your father lynched her brother?"

  "Yes'm."

  "I don't know the answer to that, Mr. Tanner. It's something I've asked myself for seventy-one years. I've never talked to a soul about what happened that night until today. Other than leaving Clarksville to finish college at Tougaloo, Grace Clark has lived in Clarksville all of her life, just like you and me. I can't imagine that she wouldn't have some idea of what happened."

  "There weren't nothing ever done about it? To my daddy, I mean?" I ask, knowing what the answer will probably be.

  She's looking me dead in the eye and I can't look away. "Mr. Tanner. No jury in the state of Mississippi would have convicted a white man for a crime against a black man in 1931. A black man could not even testify in court against a white man. Everyone just turned their heads. My own father, who justified taking that photograph by saying he was documenting history, took Ray Tanner's guilt to his grave."

  She pushes herself up in her chair like she's getting ready to leave. There's one more thing I got to know before she goes. "Why did your daddy make a postcard?" I ask.

  Her shoulders slump and she shakes her head. "Near as I could tell, it was like an initiation. Ray Tanner wanted to be a Klansman, and that was part of what he did to prove himself to the Grand Dragon. The Ku Klux Klan circulated postcards like that one all over the South during the twenties and thirties."

  I sit with this for a minute, not knowing how to take in that hanging a man was something to brag about — something to be proud of.

  Miss Purvis gets to her feet and leans on her cane. "Well, Mr. Tanner, now you know exactly what kind of man your father was. And now you know that a black man died at his hands, for no other reason than the color of his skin. You'll have to decide for yourself what to do with this knowledge. Most prefer to close their eyes to it — it's just too ugly for most people to acknowledge. Some of us keep it to ourselves, like I have, and it haunts us and makes us bitter. Some try to make things better, like my brother has with his legal work. It's yours to wrestle with now. I'll be going."

  I hold the door open for her as she leaves my office. The young girl rushes to help her into the car. As I stand and watch them drive away, my employees are starting to pull in to the lot. Eddie Davis and Mac Sullivan get out of an old beat-up Dodge pickup, laughing and talking. They're probably about the same age as that boy in the picture was, nineteen, maybe twenty. Those two black men been working for me for two years. It hits me — ain't neither one of them ever missed a day or been late.

  I make up my mind and step out of the office. "Hey," I holler to them. They both freeze and stare at me real scared-like. It turns my stomach today to see that look in their eyes. Am
I that much like my daddy? Do they know? As they walk over to me, I'm feeling all mixed-up. Hell!

  "I need y'all to start clearing out that warehouse where I keep the old wood. You know, the stuff I get from old houses and barns around here."

  They're looking at me sort of relieved, like they're glad they ain't in trouble and sort of like I've lost my goddamn mind. Maybe I have.

  "Yessir, Mr. Tanner," Eddie says. "Uh ... what you want us to do with that wood, sir?"

  "Oh, hell, I don't know," I say, getting frustrated. "Just put it behind the bay where we store the two-by-fours. We'll put tarps over it 'til I can figure something out."

  "Yessir," they say as I turn and walk away. When I stop to look back at them they're shrugging their shoulders and shaking their heads, but they're headed for the warehouse.

  Chapter 19

  Billy Webster

  The November wind has a bitter edge today and Travis and I wrap our coats tightly around ourselves, holding our hats as we rush up the steps of the old brownstone row house in Bronzeville. I ring the bell, praying this is the right place. After days of searching everything from the Chicago phone directory to dozens of bars and music venues, last night Travis and I stumbled across a South Side hangout called the Chat Room. One of the group of ancient men at the bar said he knew Slider Jackson.

  "We go way back," he bragged. "Slider don't come out much no more. Keeps to himself in that old house of his. I can't even get him to play a game of checkers." The other men nod and listen as I explain my connection with Mr. Jackson, and one of them gives Travis directions to Mr. Jackson's house. As we thank them and prepare to leave, the man who seems to be the spokesman for the group says, "Yep, since his woman died, seems like all he do is sit around smoking them cigars he likes and listening to old records. Maybe you young folks can get him out of that house."

  I couldn't help but feel a twinge of sadness when I heard those words "his woman." I thought of Grace Clark and all the years she'd wasted loving a man who had obviously completely detached and made a new life for himself here in Chicago. Why did he do that? Why would he leave behind a loving family and a woman who doted on him and never return, not even for a visit? I was curious last night to hear more about this woman the old man referred to, but decided to save my questions for Mr. Jackson — if he answers the door, that is. Travis steps back and studies the architectural details around the porch and windows while we wait, shivering in the cold.

  "This place is amazing," says Travis, reaching out to touch the stones making up the arched entrance. "It's got to be one of the first of these built around here."

  Travis is filling me in on brownstones and what the Bronzeville community was like back in the thirties, when the door finally creaks open three inches. An old black man's stubbly chin comes into view behind the thick door chain, followed by a pair of full, unsmiling lips and a long tipped-back nose with wide, flat nostrils. I can see the old man adjust one side of a pair of black-rimmed glasses as he bends his head downward to get a better look at me. I feel a surge of excitement. This man appears to be the right age. Maybe we've finally located Slider Jackson.

  "Help you?" he asks, stepping back from the crack in the door and making eye contact with me. Travis steps up behind me and the man looks wary. I'm getting the sense that a white man appearing on his doorstep is making him nervous. I hurry to explain our visit.

  "Hello, sir. My name is Billy Webster and this is my friend Travis Sprague. We're looking for Albert Jackson, Jr., and we got this address from a friend of his at the Chat Room."

  "What business you got with him?" asks the man. He takes a step back, still holding the door, and I can see his bony profile in a faded flannel shirt and worn black pants that hang like curtains from red suspenders on his thin body.

  "My grandmother is Mattie Webster from Clarksville, Mississippi. I was hoping he might remember her," I say, noticing the ever-so-slight shift in the visible part of his face when I mention Gran's name. Suddenly the heavy wood door slams shut and I hear the rattle of the chain before the door is jerked open, revealing a slightly stooped but still tall man, an expression of wary curiosity on his grizzled face. I notice the tremor in his hand as he extends it toward me.

  "I'm Albert Jackson, Jr., but most folks just call me Junior. You mean to tell me Mattie Webster is still alive?"

  My hand is lost inside his larger one as he shakes it heartily and then continues to hold it. "Yessir," I answer. "She's still alive and kicking. She'll be really happy to hear I found you." I watch him closely as I add, "She still plays cards every week with your sister, Miss Adelle, and their good friend, Miss Grace Clark."

  "How about that?" he says. His smile looks sad now and his expression becomes distant as he releases my hand to rub his own across his head. He shakes his head slightly. "It's sho been a long time since I talked to them folks down South." He looks me up and down and I think of the charmer he must have been. "Miss Billy Webster, you are the spitting image of Mattie Webster!"

  He seems to suddenly remember that Travis is standing behind me, and after I introduce Travis again, he asks us in.

  We enter a front room that looks like it hasn't changed since the 1930s. Faded patterned carpet covers the floor and the furniture is spare, consisting mostly of a pair of worn wingback chairs near the small fireplace, where a gas heater has been added. The heater glows with a low flame filling the room with stuffy heat. There's a table between the chairs, and I notice a stubbed-out cigar in an ashtray and a cup of black coffee beside it. A beautiful antique upright piano sits in the corner, and beside it a drop-leaf table holding several boxes of records and what looks to be an old turntable. More boxes of records sit on the floor near the piano.

  Mr. Jackson offers me the chair opposite him and Travis sits on the piano stool, glancing longingly at the box of records. I know he's dying to dig through them. Mr. Jackson eases slowly into his chair and is offering us coffee, when he's seized by a paroxysm of coughing that seems to leave him exhausted. When he's able to stop he reaches for his cup.

  "Are you okay?" I ask. "Can I get you anything?"

  He shakes his head. "No, I'm all right. Just an old man with bad habits. Doctor keeps trying to get me to give up cigars, but a man can't give up everything, now, can he?" He notices Travis reaching carefully down to flip through the box of records on the floor. "You a jazz fan, Travis?"

  Travis jumps like a little boy caught stealing candy and straightens. "Yessir, I am. You've got an unbelievable collection here. May I?" he asks, gesturing toward the boxes.

  "Sure, help yourself," Mr. Jackson says. "How 'bout you pick us out something? I always like a little music playing." He turns back to me and smiles. "Now, what y'all want with an old man like me? Both y'all live down there in Mississippi?"

  "No, we both live here. I work for the Chicago City Planning Division, but I grew up in Clarksville. I visit Gran every couple of months or so, and last time I was home we were talking about restoring the Queen City Hotel. Do you remember the place?"

  Mr. Jackson sits back in his chair, extends his long legs in front of him, and closes his eyes as Travis places the needle on the record and the sweet, scratchy sounds of a trumpet begin to wend through the room. I'm realizing that this is not going to be a quick process. I glance over at Travis, who seems equally lost in the music. I stifle my impatience with the two of them and wait.

  "Duke Ellington," Mr. Jackson mumbles.

  "Not many people have this one," Travis answers.

  "You know, I've got a solo on that one," Mr. Jackson says, seeming to completely forget about me.

  "No shit?" says Travis. "This is so cool, Mr. Jackson. I've looked for this album for years."

  Now, I like jazz, but these two are acting like Pentecostals about to speak in tongues. When Mr. Jackson finally answers my question, I don't even realize at first that he's talking to me.

  "I got my start there, you know," he says.

  "You mean at the Queen City Hotel?" I
ask.

  "Yep, I wasn't nothing but a boy. Mr. Louis Armstrong took me on."

  "Yessir, I've heard the story. That must have been pretty incredible for you."

  "The early days, when the Queen City was hopping, was heaven for a young boy like me growing up dreaming about being a jazz musician. Mr. Louis Armstrong gave me my first break."

  "Gran showed me the picture of all of you that was taken the first night you played for him," I say. "Y'all looked so happy."

  "Lord, but we was young," he says, laughing. "I can still see Gracie's pretty face watching me so proud that night I played with Louis for the first time. I went on the road with him that very summer — 1931. We traveled all over the country. It weren't no life for a woman. Although, I did try to get Gracie to marry me and come on the road with us."

  I nod. "She told us the story of how you came to Tougaloo and found her, tried to convince her to run away with you. The last part of the story I heard, she put you off until Christmas. I guess she must have turned you down?" I can't read the expression on his face when I say this, but it feels to me like something shut off. I want to know so much more, but I'm afraid to push him.

  "So the Queen City's not in such good shape no more, huh?" he asks, clearly changing the subject. I glance over at Travis, who raises his eyebrows and shrugs his shoulders, as if to say, "Oh, well."

  "No, sir. As a matter of fact, it's pretty sad. But a couple of people in the restoration business who've been looking it over seem to think that we can bring it back to its original condition. There's a white woman down there who wants to put it on a new African-American tour they're starting. They're thinking of maybe making it a community center — maybe even offering a jazz program — you know, get young people involved...."

  "What's that you say?" He squints his eyes and looks at me. "African-American what?"