by Karen Hesse
jerry
went away to have the long sleep.
i could have standings upstairs and
call downstairs
things for jerry to do
and he did do what i say.
after i did leave the fresh air of sara chickering the first time
to have seeings of daddy in new york,
jerry had leavings too.
sara chickering says he did go to find me.
sara chickering did have such sad feels when jerry did
leave and i did leave too. she
did ask all people who
do love dogs to bring home her jerry.
but no one had knowings where jerry did go.
then a lady did send a letter from connecticut,
and sara chickering did go all that way to see
if the lady had jerry.
when sara chickering did come to the house in connecticut
she made callings from outside
and jerry did bark all the happy feels in his heart
and sara chickering knew she did find her own jerry.
and he did come home to wait with sara chickering for me.
and when i did come again to stay
and i did bring my daddy,
jerry did come with me every day to the post office
to fetch sara chickering her mail.
but today i did go to the post office without my friend jerry.
i did have to tell my feet every time to make one step
and one step more.
my feet did feel so lonely.
if a dog dies between night and morning,
neighbor,
it is blamed on the
klan.
a threat came from the klan, in the form of a letter,
advising me to be careful what i print
and what i say,
or the day would come
when i would not print or
say anything again.
it has come to pass that ordinary,
sensible,
hardheaded vermonters
are entertaining these
kluxers.
but surely the moment will pass,
and the same ordinary,
hardheaded,
folks who invited them in,
will sensibly suggest the klan
pack up their poison
and go.
the president and his wife
will be coming through town soon
on their way to plymouth
to visit the grave of their young son,
taken this year from them,
the same year that brought me esther.
sara chickering helps me dress up
like i am a goblin
and i do dance through the doors of the schoolhouse
and i do sing a goblin song
in my clothes of green that sara chickering did sew for me.
leanora sutter did dress like a gypsy
and she had sittings by a cauldron
where she did stir the air inside with a big shovel
and she did tell the fortunes to the bob-haired
chatterbox girls
and now they do not have fearings
of being old maids
because leanora did tell them
it would not be so.
the room did have streamers of black and orange.
and owls and black cats and witches on their brooms had flyings
up the walls.
we did eat of carrot cake and cheese sandwiches and
we did drink pots and pots of cocoa
and i don’t ever have rememberings of so much fun.
one of the things i like best about mr. hirsh is
that he didn’t move himself up here
thinking how rich he would get
on the backs of some rustic vermonters.
he just came up to keep his daughter happy
and to sell shoes.
johnny reeves’ mother
slipped me a letter
when she came in the store to do her shopping.
i think johnny’s in trouble,
she wrote. i caught him with
a schoolgirl, she wrote. he said he was teaching her
about the good book,
but it looked like something different to me.
he’s a good son, she wrote,
but he’s been awful
quick to anger lately.
i know how important that klan is to my johnny,
she wrote.
maybe you men could see to helping him,
lost lamb that he is,
maybe
you
could lead him back to
god’s pasture.
we threw johnny reeves
out of the klan.
imagine a grown man
a preacher
forcing himself on a child.
viola says:
what you looking at, harv?
harvey turns from the mirror to look at viola.
would you say my head is small?
viola looks at the enormous
locust stump of a head on harvey’s shoulders.
yes, harv, your head is small.
harvey grins.
it doesn’t matter, he says. small heads can have
as many brains in them as big heads.
i happen to know i have a very well-filled head.
viola smiles and says:
harvey, that sounds like the reasoning of a man
with a small head.
meeting of the klan
and every man standing
demanding those coloreds, the sutters,
get out of town,
and the hirshes,
worse for the hirshes,
who stained a pure
christian woman
by mixing their jew selves
up with her.
but the shoe man and his kid, they’re just living there.
in private, harvey pettibone handed me rat poison
from his store.
pour it in sutter’s well,
he said.
but it’ll kill them!
no, he said, though
it will make them pretty
sick.
and he didn’t look too happy about any of it,
but the exalted cyclops was looking on
so harvey pushed the poison at me.
that’s when the roar started inside my head.
there is only one way
to redeem myself
with my klan brothers.
only one way
to redeem myself
with god.
someone did shoot my daddy
right through sara chickering’s door.
and my daddy did have so much
blood rushing out of him
and sara chickering did leave me alone with my daddy
and i had so quiet talkings to my daddy and
sittings on the floor
next to his poor head
and he did listen to every thing i did whisper in his big white ear
but he had the bad kinds of breathings
and all the blood kept
rushing out of my daddy
and the bullet went clink in
the water pail.
i was called to see to ira hirsh,
who moved here from new york with his little girl.
i found a soft-nosed rifle ball had passed
through ira’s left arm above the elbow,
scratched a two-inch gouge across his chest,
then passed through his right arm
to land in a
waterbucket beside the table.
sara chickering sounded rattled enough
when she phoned from iris weaver’s.
sara chickering, who never gets rattled.
doc, i left him with esther. i’m sure he’s bleeding to death.
h
urry.
when i got to sara’s kitchen,
she had ira on the floor and she and
esther were holding handkerchiefs tightly to the wounds.
sara said he was sitting at the table after dinner
and in his lap was esther, not leaning back in his arms as usual,
but leaning forward,
studying the crossword puzzle he’d just finished.
someone came onto the porch, so silent, and sara’s dog
dead.
the curtain was shut. they must have aimed their rifle
through the keyhole.
why would someone do such a thing?
i asked sara.
klan,
sara answered.
one viola sleeps,
she is so soft and warm when she sleeps,
and i am silent as i come in
from night riding.
sent a boy to do a man’s job.
then i wasn’t man enough
to finish it. i never thought it’d come to
this. thought i’d be helping the law,
not breaking it.
viola pats the bed for me to
join her.
she makes room for me in her sleep.
i cannot get in bed with viola.
when i couldn’t put the poison in sutter’s well,
i went to harvey. he said they’d come after me, the klan would.
i don’t have any choice but to run.
esther might have heard the gunman
with those ears of hers,
but she won’t talk about it.
how grateful i am that she was leaning forward
over mr. hirsh’s crossword puzzle.
if not she would have taken the bullet herself,
straight through,
and she wouldn’t be alive now,
clinging to my nightgown,
even as she sleeps.
sara chickering did feel afraid this morning
to go out and do the milkings
and deliverings of her creams and butters.
i did come out in my chore clothes to help her
and she had smilings for me
and chasings off of her afraid
like a big horse, rolling off the itchings.
it did take a long time
for all the people who wanted to have talkings with us
but we did finally have done all the chores
and i did stay home from school.
been interviewing people all day,
trying to figure who stood on sara chickering’s porch
and fired a shot through her kitchen door.
mr. hirsh is at the randolph sanatorium,
resting comfortably.
how’s the child resting i keep asking myself?
how’s the person resting who fired that shot?
and where the hell is merlin van tornhout?
persecution is not american.
it is not american to give the power of life and death
to a secret organization.
it is not american to have our citizens judged by
an invisible jury.
it is not american to have bands of night riders
apply the punishments of medieval europe to
freeborn men.
the ku klux klan must go.
daddy says:
the k.k.k.
went and burned down the great bethel african church in chicago.
i feel that old rope of dread
dragging up the ridge of my spine
daddy, i say,
the klan burns down a negro church in illinois,
they rob a catholic church in burlington,
they try killing a jew right here.
well, they’re just giving white folks a bad
name.
giving white folks a bad name, daddy repeats
and he starts to laughing, and then,
i’m laughing, too.
until the laughter turns on us and we are wringing grief,
our faces touching,
our hands entwined.
first time we’re right together like that
since mamma’s gone.
i hate calling for help.
but i just couldn’t get to the bottom
of ira hirsh’s shooting
and i couldn’t let go,
especially with things in town the way they
are with the klan.
detective came over from boston, a mr. wood.
it didn’t take him long to uncover all the dirty little
things that were going on here,
the letters sent to mr. hirsh
threatening to tar and feather him
if he didn’t move out of sara’s place.
it was merlin van tornhout wrote those letters.
i thought i knew merlin. he’s got some roughness to him,
but i never thought he’d try killing anyone.
especially with that little girl on mr. hirsh’s lap.
but merlin disappeared the night of the shooting.
what else can i think?
detective wood says it was merlin for sure.
says he come up on foot around dusk,
peered through the keyhole in the kitchen door,
saw mr. hirsh seated at the table
with esther on his lap.
thought he could get two with one shot.
says merlin fired through the door
as soon as sara left the kitchen to put the dishes away in the pantry.
just doesn’t sound like merlin van tornhout.
harvey says:
viola, what have you done with my phonograph and records?
viola is silent. she simply hands harvey a thank-you note.
it is with sincere appreciation
that we accept these useful gifts.
the residents at the winslow home for the aged
will get such pleasure from your donation of
a phonograph
and fine record collection.
harvey says:
what did you do, viola?
viola says:
i’m trying to buy back your good name, harvey pettibone.
you with your broom sales
and your liquor smashing
and your klan.
but you don’t make it easy.
harvey turns like a slow mule
and lumbers back into the room
where his phonograph once sat.
he touches the table where the feet of the
phonograph left a divet in the lace cloth.
merlin van tornhout couldn’t have shot ira hirsh.
i know
because he was here
standing by the well.
i know merlin was here.
he looked straight at me,
i looked straight back.
it happened the same time someone
shot a bullet through
sara chickering’s kitchen door.
whoever fired that shot,
it couldn’t have been merlin.
i saw them
in their hoods,
in their robes,
like ghosts.
they were like ghosts. but
it was the klan who
knocked at my door.
who came after me.
why come after me?
i am redeemed.
they do say that merlin van tornhout
did shoot my daddy.
i think merlin did go on the heaven train
after the bullet did come through sara chickering’s door.
no one can see merlin since that night.
he did go like the kittens, and lewis, and my mamma.
but he did not come onto sara chickering’s porch with a rifle
before he left on the heaven train.
merlin didn’t make a bullet shoot through my daddy.
i know.
i did see who did.
percelle johnson found
johnny reeves
wandering,
exhausted,
hungry.
he was branded on the back
with the letters
k.k.k.
and was suffering from shock,
unable to give
any
explanation of his condition.
it’s been weeks now
since merlin van tornhout disappeared.
i don’t know where he’s gone.
darn that boy.
the radio station over in schenectady
broadcast his description.
but it didn’t bring him back.
merlin’s got family down near boston.
they put the word out on the boston stations, too.
no reply.
we got word that a boy was found,
but it wasn’t merlin.
that boy went home to
his true family,
and merlin’s still missing.
percelle johnson found
a baby girl,
two days old,
stuffed in a shoe box,
wrapped in newspapers,
tied with a heavy cord,
and left behind a tree to die.
what is this world coming to?
i always wanted a baby girl.
harv caught me sniffling over the pork chops.
there, there, vi, he said, patting my shoulder with his beefy hand.
there, there.
i wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.
thirty years ago
the people of this country
tolerated 200 lynchings a year.
now, though the klan does its best to stir up racial strife,
there have been
only five lynchings reported.
we have antilynching laws on the books.
but that isn’t why necks
are less often
swinging in nooses.
it is the people
saying no.
i swear i saw merlin van tornhout yesterday.
he was walking along a back road in plattsburg, new york.
i slowed down, called “hey, merle.”
he looked up.
called “hey” back.
i turned the packard around,
