“When you finish that be sure to check inside the attic, because when that storm hits I don’t want rain leaking in.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered.
Once the last shingle was nailed into place, Benjamin climbed down from the roof and crawled into the cramped attic. The heat of the day was still trapped in the narrow space and he had barely enough room to move around, pull loose the rotted board that was there, and nail a new one into place. By the time he finished, the rain was coming down in torrents.
“Benjamin,” Claudia said, “it’s way past suppertime. Do you want me to fix you a sandwich before you start home?”
“I’m mighty grateful for the offer, Miss Claudia,” he answered, “but Delia will have supper waiting, so I’d best be getting on home.”
“I understand.” Claudia smiled and handed him the two dollars she’d promised.
The rain had slowed to a misty drizzle when Benjamin drove down Cross Corner Road and turned off at the road leading to his house. As he pulled into the yard he noticed there was no lamp burning in the front room, which was unusual. He climbed down from the pickup truck, worried that Delia or Isaac was sick in bed, but when he opened the door and called out no one answered.
“Delia?” he called again. Still no answer.
The house was small enough that she would have heard him regardless of where she was; nonetheless Benjamin walked through it room by room, calling out for her. When there was no sign of either her or Isaac, he began to worry. He searched around back in the smokehouse and in the barn. There was nothing. No sign of struggle, no Delia, and no Isaac.
In all the years they’d been married this was the first time she’d not been there when he got home from work. There was usually a stew simmering on the stove or the smell of fresh-baked biscuits. No matter how late he’d worked, there was always a warm greeting and a welcome home hug. Now there was no note, no indication of where she’d gone. It was all wrong. It was not Delia’s way of doing things. He tried to remember the women friends she visited: Bessie, Bertha, Mariam, Luella.
Benjamin got back in the truck and drove to the closest house, which was Bessie’s.
“I ain’t seen Delia in two, maybe three weeks,” she said.
He moved on to the next house and the next. By the time he got to Luella’s it was well past midnight, and there was not a single lamp lit in the house. Benjamin pounded on the door.
“Will,” he called out, “I got to ask Luella something!”
A sleepy-eyed Will finally opened the door. “What you want?” he grumbled. “Luella’s sleeping.”
“I got to know if Delia was visiting with her today.”
“Go ask Delia,” Will said and started to close the door.
Benjamin pushed against it. “Delia’s missing. Her and Isaac both.”
Will pulled the door back. “Come on in,” he said, then went and woke Luella.
Moments later she came rushing in with a bunch of worry lines tugging at her face.
“Delia and Isaac left here before suppertime,” she said. “They should’ve been home hours ago.”
“Did she say if she was coming straight home?”
Luella nodded. “Said she had to get supper started.”
Benjamin got in the truck, turned it around, and started toward home; this time he crawled along at a snail’s pace. As he drove he looked first right then left, his eyes all the time searching. About four miles down Cross Corner he caught sight of something pink alongside the road. He stopped and climbed out.
Even before he reached her, Benjamin saw the flowered print of Delia’s favorite dress. Isaac was lying face down a few yards away.
When he kneeled beside her he found Delia’s head swollen to twice its normal size and her breath coming in short desperate gasps. Benjamin let out a scream that rattled across the Alabama countryside and woke people in houses as far as five miles away.
“Don’t do this, Delia!” he cried. “Please, don’t do this!”
He lifted both Delia and Isaac into the bed of the truck then turned and headed back to Bakerstown, flooring the gas pedal the whole way.
The Bakerstown hospital served both colored and white. Coloreds were housed on the ground floor, whites on the second and third. On Wednesday night there was no Negro doctor or nurse on the floor, but Sam Goldsmith had gotten his medical degree at Columbia University in New York and didn’t hold with the segregationist ways of Alabama. He ordered both Delia and Isaac into examination rooms.
Delia was gone before Doctor Goldsmith finished his examination. She’d suffered two cervical fractures and internal bleeding. There was no hope of saving her.
He turned to Isaac, whose eyelids had fluttered open.
“Can you hear me, son?” the doctor asked.
No answer.
“Do you know where you are?”
Still no answer.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
Isaac closed his eyes.
“Get this kid to X-ray,” Goldsmith ordered. “I want the head, neck, and that right femur.” He then turned to the assisting nurse and said, “Call upstairs and have them get an OR ready.”
“Upstairs?” she replied wide-eyed. “Don’t you think we should wait and—”
“Upstairs,” he repeated, his tone severe and unapologetic.
For almost four hours Benjamin stood staring out the window of the colored waiting room. The rain drizzled against the pane, but he could see nothing of the outside world. The only thing he saw was his own reflection: a man wide and tall with tears streaming down his face and skin as black as the night.
“Why, God?” he moaned. “Why?”
Benjamin
Standing there looking at myself in that hospital window, I see a dead man. If God takes my Delia and our baby Isaac, then He might just as well take me too. Without the two of them, I got no reason to be living.
They’s my life. Them two is my reason enough for getting up in the morning. I can’t think what a day would be like without seeing Delia standing at the stove with the coffee pot already bubbling or coming home in the evening and not hearing her tell Isaac them fanciful tales of hers.
If ever there was two people what deserve to live it’s Delia ’n Isaac. Isaac, he’s just a baby, he ain’t even had time to sin. And Delia ain’t never done one wrong thing in her life. It was me what pushed her into loving before we was married. I been down on my knees asking God to punish me instead of her.
Please, God, I say, let Delia ’n Isaac live; then you can do what you will with me. Hell with all its fire ’n brimstone can’t be no worse than this.
And Then Sorrow
It was near dawn when Doctor Goldsmith came to Benjamin in the waiting room.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I did what I could, but your wife’s injuries were too severe.”
You could almost hear the crack of Benjamin’s heart breaking. “What about Isaac? Is he okay?”
“He will be,” Goldsmith answered. “He suffered a pretty bad concussion and a broken leg, so I’m afraid he’ll be walking on crutches for a while.”
Benjamin bowed his head. “Thank you, sir. I know you tried to save my Delia, and I’m mighty grateful for that.”
“Would you like to say goodbye to her?” Goldsmith asked. His voice was soft and respectful, not what Benjamin would have expected.
“Yes, sir, I would,” he answered.
Doctor Goldsmith had a nurse take him back to the room where they’d left Delia. She was lying on a table with a clean white sheet covering her body. Only her swollen head was visible.
“Lord God, baby,” Benjamin moaned. “Who did this awful thing to you?”
Benjamin reached beneath the sheet and lifted her hand into his. It was cold and heavy, the fingers stiff and curled inward. He stood there for a long time, tears rolling down his face as he swore to Delia that he would never stop loving her and he would care for their son as long as there was breath in his body. Moments be
fore he left the room, he bent and kissed her mouth. It too was cold and hard, nothing like the lips he had kissed every day for more than a decade. When the agony of such a loss became too great to bear, Benjamin closed his eyes and stumbled from the room. He walked with a shuffling step and his back hunched. Painful as the grief of this night was, Benjamin knew the worst was yet to come.
~ ~ ~
Isaac was still in the hospital the next day when they buried Delia, and Benjamin was thankful for that. He had no wish to share such sorrow with the boy. Isaac would have time enough to grieve. He’d have a lifetime to remember the horror of that night; there was no need to pile this misery onto the load he’d be carrying.
Luella came and stood beside Benjamin as a number of people stepped forward to say prayers and speak of what a wonderful woman Delia was.
“I ain’t never knowed a more kindly woman,” Bessie said. “The Lord is surely settin’ a place for her at His table.”
There was a chorus of halleluiahs and amens; then Luella stepped forward.
“There’s not one here who Delia ain’t helped out some time or another,” she said. “Now we got to repay them kindnesses! We got to see Benjamin and Isaac is taken care of.”
Another chorus of halleluiahs and amens echoed.
Benjamin was the last to speak. His voice trembled, and several times he had to stop because the lump in his throat was in the way of words. After saying how blessed he’d been to have Delia as his wife, he thanked the Lord for saving Isaac. He tilted his face to the heavens and said, “Lord Jesus, I know the Bible says vengeance is thine, but I got to lend a hand here. You got my Delia safe in your arms, but that bastard what did this to her is still walking the earth and he’s gotta pay.”
“Brother Benjamin,” Pastor John said, “it ain’t our place to right the wrongs of this world.” He was going to recite a passage from the Book of Isaiah, but by then Benjamin had turned and walked away.
Luella ran after him and grabbed onto his arm. “Benjamin,” she pleaded, “you got to let the law take care a’ this. Isaac needs family, and he ain’t got nobody but you. If you get your fool self killed—”
“I ain’t gonna get killed,” Benjamin answered and shook loose his arm.
~ ~ ~
Later that afternoon Benjamin returned to the hospital. At first it appeared Isaac was sleeping, but when he entered the room the boy opened his eyes.
“Hey, Daddy.”
In three long strides Benjamin crossed the room, then leaned over and kissed his son on the forehead. “How you feeling?”
“I ain’t too good,” Isaac answered. “My leg ain’t moving.”
Benjamin nodded. “I know. It’s broken, but the doctor says you’ll be good as new in time.”
“Is Mama gonna be good as new too?” Isaac asked.
Benjamin gave a sad shake of his head, then bent and pulled the boy into his arms. For a few moments he held him close, not speaking the words aloud but praying for strength.
“Isaac,” he finally said, “I know how much you love your mama, and she’s got the same love for you. Me and your mama, we’d never do anything to cause you hurt but sometimes things happen and we got no say in—”
Isaac pulled back a bit and looked up at Benjamin. “What you talking about, Daddy?”
“Your mama was hurt way worse than you, Isaac. The car that hit her messed up her insides something awful—”
“It weren’t no car, it was a truck,” Isaac said. “It was a damn truck what hurt Mama. Ask Mama, she’ll tell you. She seen it better ’n me.”
“I can’t ask your mama, Isaac, she’s gone to rest.”
Isaac yanked himself loose and looked square into his daddy’s face. “What you mean, rest?”
“Your mama’s gone to be with the Lord.” Benjamin answered. “She fought real hard trying stay alive but—”
“Mama’s dead?”
Benjamin gave a solemn nod. “I know it’s a real hard thing to hear, Isaac—”
A red hot anger flared in the boy’s eyes. “You’re lying! Mama ain’t dead. You’re just saying that to scare me!”
Benjamin moved forward and again pulled the boy close.
“I wish I was lying,” he said sorrowfully. “They tried to save your mama, but she was too bad hurt.”
Isaac broke away again. “Ain’t nobody tried to save Mama.”
“Isaac, I know your heart’s hurting, but Doctor Goldsmith is a good man. He’s the one who fixed your leg, and he really did try—”
“I ain’t talking about no doctor.”
“Who you talking about?”
“The man what hit us. It weren’t no accident.”
“It had to be an accident,” Benjamin reasoned. “Nobody’d do something like that on purpose.”
“He did,” Isaac sobbed. “You wasn’t there, Daddy, you don’t know.”
Benjamin held the boy in his arms until the worst of his crying slowed.
“You’re right, Isaac,” he said. “I wasn’t there, but you was. You can tell me what happened.”
Seemingly glad for the opportunity to tell his side of the story, Isaac sniffed back his tears and said, “Mama and me was coming home from visiting Miss Luella ’n Jerome, and we was walking on Cross Corner Road. We was trying to hurry ’cause it already got dark.”
He stopped for a moment, and the fearful look in his eyes made Benjamin think he was reliving the moment.
“It’s okay,” Benjamin said, “take your time and just tell me what you can remember.”
“I remembers it all, Daddy. I ain’t got no doubts. We was listening for the motor sound, then the truck come ’round the bend and ran smack into me ’n Mama. He did it ’cause we was colored.”
“Nobody does a thing like because—”
“He did so!” Isaac shouted. “He said it!”
“What’d he say?”
“He said we was damn niggers, then drove off.”
For a long while Benjamin held Isaac in his arms, the boy sobbing softy as a calloused hand rubbed his back.
“It’s okay to cry,” Benjamin whispered. “Crying’s good for the soul. It lets the misery out instead of keeping it bottled up inside.”
No child’s tears can last forever. Eventually weariness sets in, and their young soul runs dry. When that finally happened Benjamin asked Isaac if he knew the man driving the truck that hit them.
“I ain’t never before seen him,” Isaac said, “but I know he got a face with hair.”
“Do you know what kind of truck he had?”
Isaac nodded. “Blue like yours. Mama thought you was coming home, that’s why she stepped in the road and started waving.”
“Was it old like mine?”
Isaac shrugged. “I can’t say for certain ’cause it was dark ’n he was going fast.”
“Anything else you can remember about the truck?”
Isaac thought a minute then said, “Yeah. It had a black tire on the front and a tire with a white middle on the back.”
“A whitewall tire?” Benjamin asked. “One with a white circle all the way around?”
Isaac nodded then began sobbing again. “I ’specially remember the back tire, ’cause I seen it when he drove off.”
Benjamin stayed beside Isaac until late in the evening, but all the while he was sitting there he was picturing the trucks he’d seen around Bakerstown. He couldn’t remember a blue pickup with a whitewall tire, but he’d find it. In time he would find it, no matter how long it took.
Moving On
The morning after Delia was laid to rest, Benjamin drove into Bakerstown and went directly to Sheriff Haledon’s office. A round-faced deputy sat at the front desk.
“I got to report a crime,” Benjamin said.
Without glancing away from the paper he’d been reading Deputy Moran asked, “What kind of crime?”
“Murder,” Benjamin answered.
“Murder?” The deputy looked at Benjamin with a raised eyebrow. “Is
this some nigger fighting nigger thing?”
“No, sir,” Benjamin said. “A man run down my wife and boy when they was walking on Cross Corner Road.”
“If you ask me, that sounds more like an accident.”
“It weren’t no accident. My boy seen it and he said—”
“Boy? How old is this kid?”
“Eleven, but he got a good eye and he saw—”
“Eleven?” The deputy laughed. “You want me to start investigating a murder because of what a kid says?”
“It’s your job!” Benjamin said angrily.
“Don’t get uppity with me, boy!”
The sound of shouts brought Sheriff Haledon from his office. “What’s going on here?”
“I got a wise-ass nigger trying to tell me how to do my job,” the deputy answered.
“Sir, that ain’t the way it is,” Benjamin said. “I come here to report somebody murdered my wife and near-killed my boy.”
The sheriff recognized Benjamin. He’d done work for Missus Haledon, and he’d done a good job. He painted their back fence and repaired a broken window in the storage shed. He was blacker than most but known for being polite, unlike the smart-mouthed coloreds who lived on the far side of Bakerstown.
“I’m real sorry to hear about your missus,” the sheriff said. “Come sit in my office, and I’ll hear what you got to say.”
As they walked away the sheriff turned and shot an angry glance back at the deputy.
Once the sheriff was willing to listen, Benjamin explained what Isaac said.
“The driver was a white man with hair on his face; a beard or maybe a heavy mustache.”
“I ain’t being negative,” the sheriff replied, “but that description fits half the men in Clarkson County.”
Passing Through Perfect Page 12
