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Letters on the Table

Page 20

by Pattie Howse-Duncan


  As if on cue, Lily Mae opened her eyes, saw the assemblage and began rearranging herself to a sitting position.

  Clarence reached for her other hand.

  Thomas cleared his throat.

  Drew pulled two handkerchiefs from the inside pocket of his sports coat and silently offered a short prayer. “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Speak through us today.”

  The sheriff wiped the lenses of his thick black glasses and pulled out a pad and ballpoint pen.

  William wrestled with the feeling of dread within him.

  Clark wished Savannah were beside him to hear the news Katherine had waited almost her entire life to hear.

  Lily Mae nodded at Clarence to begin. Looking into her eyes, he began unfolding what had been locked up for decades.

  “I turned twelve years old on the twenty-fourth of May in 1941. It rained hard that entire day just like it had for four days before that. My papa made me a wooden tackle box and inside he put three lead sinkers, three fishing hooks, a store-bought cork bobber and a long line of string. That doesn’t seem like much these days but back in those days most folks, no matter your color, were either already poor or they were getting close to it. Times were hard, and I was tickled to death to have my own tackle and a box to put it in. That meant I could fish on my own whenever I wanted and didn’t have to borrow anybody’s stuff. The only thing he asked of me was to be sure I told somebody before I headed out.”

  Clarence paused and then slowly nodded his head as if his brain was secretly sending his mouth courage to continue. “I woke up the next day before the sun rose and saw that it was still raining hard. I told Papa I was going fishing on the backside of the lake in spite of the weather. I remember him telling me not to expect much from the fish because of the rain, but he knew it was burning me up to have my very own tackle and not be able to use it.”

  “He reminded me as I walked out the door to be careful because the dirt roads were flooded, and the water was rising. That didn’t scare me none because I was headed on foot through the back way to my lucky fishing spot. The one up under the pier. Most boys my age didn’t have the gumption to climb through the tall reeds to get to it but if they had caught as many big catfish as me, they’d have done what I did.”

  Katherine sat only inches away from Clarence, mesmerized by his words. He had transported them back to a time when many folks sustained their families on what they raised, hunted or caught.

  Without taking her eyes off Clarence, Lily Mae slid her hand out of his grasp and used both of her leathery hands to hold Katherine’s dainty one. It was her attempt to try to pass strength and courage from her body into Katherine’s because she knew Katherine’s heart was about to break in two.

  Clarence continued. “By the time I walked that distance from our place up to the road, the dawn was breaking through, but it was still raining mighty hard. I saw my father was right about the road flooding. But really, by that morning it was more of a wet, muddy strip of sludge than a flooded road. That road hadn’t been paved yet so it was always a mud hole when it rained. This was the worst I’d ever seen it though. Wasn’t long and I spotted Miss Effie coming down the road. She was trying her best to walk barefoot in all that mud, but she was slipping and sliding all over the place.”

  Katherine was confused. This was not a name she recognized. “Who? Do I know her? I don’t have any idea who you are talking about.”

  Lily Mae’s nephew, Thomas, clarified. “Effie was the daughter of James and Ernestine Barnes. She lived in our part of town. I’m sure you never met her.” His jaw was tense, and his voice was commanding. Everyone in the room witnessed an inkling of what he sounded like in his federal courtroom. “Continue, Clarence.”

  Clarence obliged. “Effie had her shoes wrapped in an oilcloth bag and was holding it over her head. She must have had her work clothes in that bag too because she sure couldn’t walk into work dripping all over somebody’s beautiful wood floor. She was working over at the Morris place, that big house halfway between Kingston and Burke, and it was a good three-mile walk for her every morning.”

  “I yelled out, ‘Hey, Miss Effie,’ but I guess she didn’t hear me because she didn’t look towards me. I figured I’d wait till she caught up to where I was under the pier and then I’d greet her. She might not have heard me from the rain, but I think it was because of the truck pulling up behind her.”

  Clarence stopped and studied his calloused hands as if the script was etched somewhere on his skin and he had forgotten his next line. Without uttering a word, Thomas reached over and rested his hand on Clarence’s back. He looked over the rim of his glasses perched on the end of his nose and nodded at Clarence with a look that indicated, Proceed.

  Clarence took in a big breath. “Katherine, your daddy stopped to help Miss Effie that morning. He was going to help her get out of the rain and drive her over to the Morris place. It was on his way to where he was headed. I saw him get out, open the passenger door for her, and then get back into the truck. He put it in gear and started to drive on but his back tires were spinning and he started sliding across the mud.”

  When Clarence referenced May 24, 1941, Katherine knew this story was somehow going to be linked to her father. In the timeline of her life, it was not only the day her father disappeared; it was also the day her mother lost her will to live.

  She turned to Lily Mae for help and saw only grief in those tired brown eyes. She then looked in the faces of all those gathered, and she saw looks of utter agony. It was clear to her there was an avalanche of inescapable pain headed directly towards her.

  “You saw my father stop to help someone that morning?” Katherine muttered, but more to herself than to Clarence. She had to say the words aloud to make sure she was processing it correctly. The one mystery in her life was unfolding, and she knew this time it wasn’t just another bad dream. Her mind was frantically trying to rebuke this evidence. “Are you sure it was him, Clarence? Did you even know my father? You were only twelve. You might have been mistaken.”

  Clarence studied her face, taking in her fear. “Your daddy used to pay me a few coins when he needed help unloading a big order of special lumber off the boxcar down at the train station. I knew him, Katherine. He was always good to me.”

  Lily Mae whispered weakly, “That was the kind of man your father was, Queenie. He was a good, good man. The kind mamas want their little boys to grow up to be like.” She then reached up to wipe the tears from Katherine’s eyes. Several others in the room took that as an opportunity to wipe their own.

  “My father was on his way to work on a house in Burke that morning, but he never showed up. I don’t ever remember hearing anything about a second person disappearing that same day.” Katherine shot off questions like a marksman at a firing range. “Was she ever questioned about my father’s disappearance? What did she say? Where is she now?”

  The sheriff spoke his first words since Clarence had begun his monologue. “I think it’s fair to say we now know Miss Effie was never seen again after that morning.”

  Katherine gasped and placed her hand over her heart. Whimpering, she uttered, “I just don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.”

  “I started climbing out from under the pier to see if your daddy wanted me to push from the back of the truck so it wouldn’t slide but just that quick, I saw another car headed his way from the other direction. At first I didn’t recognize the car, but then it got closer and that’s when I got scared. It was a big shiny black Oldsmobile with whitewall tires. I’d seen that car only one other time and I knew the person who owned it was trouble when he’d been drinking.”

  Clarence paused and addressed both Thomas and the sheriff. “I’m not going to tell the story of what I saw that man do down in our neck of the woods at the Fisher’s place. That happened at least a year before our story here.” In unison, Thomas and the sheriff nodded in agreement
. Clarence then looked at Lily Mae to receive the ultimate approval. She too nodded, so Clarence began again, this time looking at the windowsill as he spoke. His hushed voice continued, reliving the secret.

  “It was old Tate Sullivan and his drinking buddy, Walter Campbell. Sullivan was driving and he pulled his car across the road so your daddy couldn’t pass. I knew right off when they climbed out of that car they were drunker than drunk and they looked mean. Looked like they’d been hunting trouble all night.”

  “Tate Sullivan? Was that Wanda Sullivan’s father?”

  “Yes, Queenie. That’s him.”

  “He had something to do with my father’s disappearance? Wasn’t he somehow related to Sheriff Sullivan?”

  “Tate was Sullivan’s brother,” affirmed the young sheriff. I don’t know if Don was crooked when he took office in 1920 but if he wasn’t, old man Tate Sullivan and his cronies didn’t take long to convince him he needed to look the other way while they took control of his county.”

  Katherine was flooded with memories of the sheriff’s visits to her mother after her father disappeared. “I remember his face and voice and the memory of him conjures a strange odor, a stench of something bad. What was that? Do I remember a smell about him?”

  “Queenie, evil has a bad smell to it. It was his soul you smelled. An evil soul.”

  “Do you think all these years Wanda has always known her father might have been connected to my father’s disappearance?”

  “She must have known it all these years. She’s always had a lot of hate towards you stored up in her. You had something her family never had. It was your strength she hated the most. The weak covet strength, and if they can’t have it for themselves, they set out to destroy it in others. That’s a lot of ugliness to grasp.”

  During the talk of the lineage of Tate Sullivan, Father Drew exited and returned with a glass of water which he handed to Clarence, who took several large swallows and mopped his brow with his handkerchief. Sweat was streaming down both temples as he turned his head to look Katherine directly in the eye.

  “You’re probably going ask me why I didn’t climb out from under that pier and do something. That’s the demon that’s haunted me every day of my life since May 24, 1941. I’ve got nothing to say for an answer other than I was frozen like a dead bird in winter. I was yellow. I just hid and watched it all happen in front of me. It’s the one thing in my life I’m most ashamed of and Satan won’t let me forget it.”

  And it was then that Katherine realized those streams of sweat had turned into streams of tears. She got up from Lily Mae’s bedside and sat on the floor at Clarence’s feet, holding one of his big calloused hands with her left hand and one of Lily Mae’s with her right. When the storytelling began, she had no way of predicting it would turn into a confession from Clarence.

  With a voice so choked she could barely say the words loud enough for anyone to hear, Katherine said, “I know this is hard, but I need to know what you know. Please. Please.” Her eyes were begging while her heart was breaking.

  Clarence struggled, trying to know how to say the next part, but there was no going back now. “The two drunks started yelling at your daddy and then old man Sullivan pulled out a gun and aimed it towards the windshield right for Miss Effie’s head. He told his drunk buddy, Walter Campbell, to get Miss Effie out of your daddy’s truck and that’s what he did. She was kicking and screaming and put up a good fight as he was pulling her out. I figured old drunk Campbell didn’t expect her to be so strong because she got in a couple of good licks before he knocked her to the ground. I couldn’t see her once she fell because I had my head down low, but I could still see your daddy. He was yelling at both of them and trying to get to Miss Effie and saying they had no right to do that to a woman. Then they turned on him and asked him what he had been doing with her all night long. They said some ugly things, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable saying that to you, Katherine.” He then looked at Lily Mae for a nod of assurance which she gave him.

  “It made them mad that your daddy was trying to protect her, so Sullivan knocked your daddy to the ground and both of the drunks started kicking him hard and he was scrambling trying to get out of their reach. If it wasn’t just one big mud pit, I think he could have, but he couldn’t get his footing.”

  “In all the commotion I guess one of the drunks fell over Miss Effie and it was then they realized she wasn’t moving. She must have died as soon as her head hit, I suspect. It was hard to tell one drunken voice from another, but I could sure pick out your daddy’s voice, it had a sense of righteousness about it. The other two voices just sounded drunk and angry, full of meanness aimed for destruction. “

  He paused and inhaled a gulp of air and held it tight within his lungs. Then he slowly exhaled, parting his lips like he was blowing out candles, trying to gather the energy or the nerve within himself to continue.

  Lily Mae said in the strongest voice she had left, “I’m mighty proud of what you’re doing right here and now, and I know you’re doing it for me. Takes a big man to go back and tell this ugly story. You’re making it sound like it happened last week. Tells me you’ve wrestled with it even more than you ever let on. I wish we’d done what we’re doing now the very day this good sheriff was sworn in.”

  “I’ve been scared my whole life about the telling of this story. Used to be afraid for what might happen to me and my people. Then I moved all my worry over to what this story might do to Katherine. If a person has wondered most of her life what happened to her daddy, I know it would be hard to find out almost seven decades later. Especially finding out this kind of brutal truth.”

  “Guess they all realized Miss Effie must have hit her head on a rock when she was knocked to the ground, so Campbell checked to see if she was still breathing. When he turned and looked at Sullivan and shook his head, I guess we all knew she was gone. You’re daddy started screaming at them and he said he was going to go back into town and find the sheriff and tell it all, from beginning to end, and they’d have to pay for their sins.

  “Those two drunks just laughed in your daddy’s face. They laughed so hard Sullivan had to lean against his car to keep from falling down. Old Campbell did swagger and fall, laughing so hard. But, by this time your daddy had gotten back on his feet and his voice thundered like a cannon ball boom when he yelled, ‘How dare you laugh at what you’ve done. You’ve killed a good, innocent woman, and I’m going to make sure you pay for it.’

  “Sullivan stopped laughing and switched to anger as quick as you flip a light switch and he started screaming mean, saying things like, ‘Why do you care about a colored woman? What did she mean to you? Just wait till I get back and tell my brother, and you know he’s the sheriff. I’ll just have to tell him what Campbell and I saw when we drove up on you two and found you with her in your back seat. And don’t think we won’t tell the entire town of Kingston how we saw you drag her out of the car and beat her up and knock her head on that rock. We’ll tell it just like it happened.’”

  Clarence stopped to suck in more air. The room was silent. The words were excruciating to hear.

  “It was then that Campbell added, ‘I saw it happen just like you said, Boss, and I’ll tell it a hundred times if I have to. I’ll put my hand on a Bible and swear it.’

  “My heartbeat sounded like a drum pounding in my head and my gulp felt like it had its own echo. I was afraid they’d hear me, and I knew if they did, they’d think nothing of killing another one of us.”

  Everyone shuddered at his implication.

  “Your daddy pushed past Campbell and scooped up Miss Effie in his arms and then he gently laid her down in the front seat. I couldn’t see that part very well, but I think he was probably straightening her dress, so she’d look decent when he reached the sheriff’s office in town. That’s the kind of respectable man your daddy was.”

  He gave Katherine a moment to let it al
l sink in because the hardest news was yet to be told. Each time Katherine dabbed her own tears she did the same to Lily Mae’s.

  This time it was Lily Mae who spoke in a hushed voice, one that was quickly losing its strength. “Queenie, you’re looking at me with the same pain in your eyes you had the first day I met you when you were nestled way up in that tree. I wanted to take your pain away then just like now, but you need to know what I’ve known all these years.” She paused and added, “I’m proud of my girl.”

  Those gentle words were what Katherine needed. She then looked at Clarence and nodded to indicate she was ready for more of the onslaught.

  “Those two drunks,” Clarence continued, “watched your daddy close the passenger side door and walk toward his side. When he got face-to-face with them he yelled, ‘I won’t stop with the sheriff. I’ll go straight to the Attorney General and tell him personally and if for some reason you have him in your back pocket, too, I’ll not stop until I’ve met with the governor!’

  “I’m here to say by the time he led up to the words about going to the governor, he was bellowing it with such force, I’d have thought the folks clear across town could ‘a heard him. He was angry, and more than that he was strong and determined. I’d never seen a man look like that before. He was going to make sure the men who killed Miss Effie would pay and not a person in this world was going to stop him. I could tell that’s what he intended.

  “I watched him as he stormed past the two drunks and got in his car and started the engine. I thought to myself, He’s really going to do it. He’s going to turn those wicked devils into the law. In all my long life, I can honestly say even to this day I’ve never seen any man more committed than him. But just as he began to shift the car into gear, Sullivan walked right up to your daddy’s side of the steering wheel, raised his gun, and pulled the trigger. Your daddy slumped over the steering wheel and I knew instantly he was dead. Wasn’t nobody going to know what really happened now except three humans and one of them was a yellow chicken hiding in the marshes.”

 

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