The Sacred Place

by Daniel Black

  Ray Ray followed Enoch to Mr. Pet Moore’s house. Mr. Moore had worked in the General Store almost forty years, and Enoch hoped he might have heard something.

  Seeing the house in the distance, Ray Ray said, “Mr. Moore don’t neva say too much, Daddy.”

  “Well, we’ll see what he say today. You cain’t neva tell what a man might say when his heart get troubled. He mighta heard somebody say somethin’ ’round de store. We’ll see.”

  Ray Ray could tell, by Enoch’s tone, that his father wanted him simply to be quiet until Mr. Moore’s inquisition was over.

  Enoch removed his straw hat and knocked on the front screen door. He glanced at his son and tried to smile, but the corners of his mouth refused.

  “Yes?” Miss Gladys’s faint voice called.

  “How you doin’, ma’am?” Enoch hollered through the screen. He couldn’t see anyone, and he dared not open the door without permission.

  Seconds later, Gladys Moore appeared, and said, “Pet ain’t home, boys.” Her usual broad smile was softer, and she seemed preoccupied.

  “Oh, okay,” Enoch returned politely. “I jes, um, wanted to talk to him ’bout somethin’. Can we wait?”

  “Help yo’self, help yo’self,” Miss Gladys said kindly. “He be home directly.” She turned from the door without inviting them inside.

  So Enoch and Ray Ray sat on the edge of the Moores’ front porch, with their legs swinging gently. The house was hoisted by cinder blocks, stacked three high, so a man would have to be quite tall before he could sit on the porch and his feet touch the ground. Enoch noticed that Ray Ray’s feet hung closer to the earth than his own and that one of the boy’s big toes had barged its way through the front of his left shoe.

  “You done growed up, boy,” Enoch said proudly, shaking his head in disbelief.

  Ray Ray didn’t know what to say, so he smiled slightly and nodded. As much as he loved his father, their communication had always been a bit awkward.

  “I ’member bein’ fourteen,” Enoch chortled. “I was at least five inches shorter than you, and I neva could get enough to eat.”

  Ray Ray laughed gratefully. He knew nothing would be funny in the coming days and, in fact, he had a feeling that Mr. Moore’s return home would be the beginning of a very difficult time for his family. But if joy came only for a moment, he told himself, he’d take it.

  “I had a crush on this girl named Trish. She was fourteen, too. She was de prettiest thang I ever seen. She had long, black hair and curves windin’ like de Mississippi River.”

  “At fourteen?” Ray Ray roared.

  “Hell yeah!” Enoch proclaimed. “She had titties like cantaloupes”—Enoch cupped his hands in front of his chest—“and a ass round as a black diamond watermelon!”

  Ray Ray fell over in mirth.

  “Her daddy told me he’d kill me if he ever caught me at his house, but I snuck over there every chance I got, tryin’ to get me a glance at dat rose. Dat’s what I called her—my Pretty Rose.”

  “Did she like you?” Ray Ray panted.

  “Hell naw!” Enoch admitted freely and Ray Ray crumbled again. “I wuz jes a po’, nappy-headed, country boy who didn’t have nothin’ but one good pair o’ overalls. But I sho liked her.” Enoch frowned playfully at Ray Ray. “What’s so funny?”

  Resuming his upright position, Ray Ray sighed heavily and screamed, “I was jes imaginin’ you tryin’ to kiss her!”

  Enoch laughed along. “Shiiiiiiit, her daddy woulda killed me. I knowed better’n dat!”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “I tried to, but she always told me to leave her alone.” Enoch snickered as he remembered. “Everywhere she went, I’d follow her like flies follow shit, but she neva did want anythang to do wit me. She wanted yo’ uncle Jerry.”

  “What? I thought people said Uncle Jerry never said much to nobody?”

  “He didn’t, but she thought he was de cutest Black thang she had eva seen. She told me to stop botherin’ her and to tell my brother to come over.”

  Ray Ray slipped off the front porch hollering. Then he realized his father’s feelings might have been bruised, so he reclaimed his seat, and said, “Sorry, Dad.”

  “Oh, no. I’m fine now. But then? I was so mad at my brother I didn’t know what to do. He didn’t even want her! All he ever wanted to do was read and walk in de woods. He told me he didn’t even think she was all that pretty. Boy, was I mad! She was my girlfriend, I told him, and he wunnit gon talk bad about her. Jerry ignored me and went about his business. But the more she liked him, the madder I got. That’s the only time we ever fought.”

  “What? Who won?” Ray Ray cackled.

  Enoch guffawed unashamed. “I ain’t neva got no ass whippin’ like de one I got dat day, son.”

  Ray Ray was enjoying his father’s memory. For a moment, he wondered why Enoch was telling him this now, but then he decided he didn’t care.

  “Jerry was comin’ back from de Sacred Place one day,” Enoch explained. “I told him, shamefaced, that Trish said hello, and he said, ‘Tell dat girl to stop botherin’ me.’ I don’t know why, but his words made me so mad I couldn’t see nothin’ but fire in front o’ me.”

  Ray Ray was trying to suppress his laughter, but his shoulders jerked involuntarily.

  “So I jumped on his back and wrestled him to de ground. I started punchin’ his head wit my fist and kickin’ him like he was some ole stray dog. At first, Jerry just laid there doin’ nothin’. Then he said, ‘Don’t hit me no more, boy’, but I wunnit payin’ him no mind. In fact, I went to beatin’ him even more after he opened his mouth. That’s when Jerry threw me off o’ him like a ole wild boar and knocked de shit outta me.”

  Ray Ray’s mouth fell open, and his eyelashes batted repeatedly. “Are you serious, Dad?”

  “Dat’s right!” Enoch affirmed. “Yo’ uncle Jerry laid my ass out with one punch. I think I was more shocked than hurt. He was so skinny and quiet that I assumed he didn’t have no strength, but when he hit my ass, I fell over like a sawed-down tree. He stood over me, and said, ‘Don’t neva hit me again. Ever.’ And he walked away slowly, like nothin’ happened. I was sweatin’ and huffin’, layin’ on de ground in de front yard, but Jerry was cool and calm like always. I hated him even more after that. I probably went three weeks without sayin’ anything to him. Sometimes at the dinner table he would look at me, but I refused to open my mouth. I guess I was shamed.”

  “He didn’t speak to you either?”

  “Naw. Jerry didn’t say too much to nobody. He was always off by hisself readin’ somethin’.” Enoch smiled. “You talkin’ ’bout smart? Boy, yo’ uncle could outspell and outread anybody in Money—colored or white. Sometimes they would ask him to read the scripture in Sunday School and, soon as he began, people would freeze perfectly still until he finished. His voice was deep and soothin’ like God’s. Some o’ de old folks would close they eyes, throw they heads back, and sway as he read, mumblin’, ‘Yeah, uh-huh,’ as though Jerry’s voice was massagin’ their souls. Wow. Dat boy was special.”

  Ray Ray glanced at his father, and asked, “You loved Uncle Jerry, huh Daddy?”

  Enoch smashed the tear with his right index finger before it could leave his eye. “I worshipped my brother. He was really like God to me. He could answer any question I asked him and I never heard him say a foul word about anybody. Even when he shot those white men for rapin’ Billie Faye, Momma said he never cursed them. He jes got Daddy’s gun and did what he thought was right. I didn’t understand him then, but as I got older I started to understand exactly why he did what he did.”

  Ray Ray saw Mr. Moore coming but he didn’t want to interrupt his father’s nostalgia.

  Enoch picked up a pebble and threw it far as he could. “Jerry was tellin’ me dat a man’s gotta make de righteousness he wants. It ain’t gon fall out de sky. He gotta be willin’ to suffer somethin’ and sacrifice somethin’ if he gon make de world a betta place for hisself and his
kids. Somebody might even have to die, but it’ll be worth it to comin’ generations. It’ll even be worth it to him.”

  A blue jay landed near Ray Ray’s feet.

  “Jerry told me one night in de bed dat people live forever. They jes change forms. Sometimes you can see ’em, sometimes you cain’t. Sometimes dey in the trees, sometimes dey in de animals. But once you get life, he said, you don’t neva lose it.”

  “What about dyin’?” Ray Ray asked.

  “Jerry said dyin’ was jes God’s way o’ movin’ you from one kinda life to another to see which one you like de best. I told him he wuz crazy, but I knowed he wunnit. He jes started talkin’ one night. I still wasn’t speakin’ to him, on account o’ Trish, but he acted like everything was fine. He rolled over and put his arm around me, and I pushed it off in anger. He said, ‘Stop, boy. I love you,’ and put his arm around me again. I jes laid there this time. The way he said he loved me almost made me cry. He rubbed my head, and said ‘You de only brother I got, and I wouldn’t trade you for the world.’ That’s what got me, Ray Ray. Hearing my brother tell me how much I meant to him tore me up inside. I always admired him, but I always thought he didn’t like me. After he said that, I melted into Jerry’s skinny arms and went to sleep with him rubbing my temples. I’ll never forget it long as I live. He was miraculous, son. I wish you and Chop coulda knowed him longer. He wuz crazy ’bout you boys.”

  Ray Ray beamed broadly. He was thankful for his father’s vulnerability and for Enoch’s assumption that Ray Ray would appreciate it.

  Mr. Moore approached, and Enoch rose, preparing to greet him. “Let me do de talkin’,” Enoch said, and Ray Ray gladly acquiesced.

  Pet Moore’s family was the oldest colored family in Money. Legend had it that his great-grandfather, Tiger Moore, came when slavery first started and worked until he bought his own freedom. Pet always bragged that his great-granddaddy’s real name was Ato Lebechi, which meant “the brilliant one who watches God.” He was taken from Africa when he was eight, but he never forgot the name the griot gave him. He told his children the story of his capture and made them promise to tell their children forever. And that’s exactly what his seven boys and one daughter did. Every chance Pet got, he would retell the story of his family’s journey to America and boast about how they were free when most other Black folks were enslaved.

  “It couldn’t have been dat much difference,” Jeremiah told Pet one day defensively, “’cause they raped and killed his daughter, too.” Pet fell silent and never mentioned the story to Jeremiah again.

  His grandfather, Isadore Moore, the oldest of the seven boys, worked in the fields to make extra money. People said he could pick three hundred pounds of cotton a day and still tend to his own personal crops in the evenings. In fact, old man Johnson needed him so badly that he begged Isadore to pick for him. Folks say that’s the only time they ever heard of a white man begging a Black man for anything. According to Jeremiah, old man Johnson agreed to pay Isadore ten dollars a week, which was twice what everybody else got. Plus, Isadore sold the biggest tomatoes, squash, and crowder peas in the county, so he lived a little better than most other colored folk. He and his wife had only two children, a boy and girl, before his wife died, but women around Money testified that Isadore Moore could take care of a house better than any woman they knew. He made curtains, mended socks, knitted gloves, and braided his daughter’s hair in cornrows. His daddy taught him that, they said. Actually, he was a little too feminine for most people’s taste, but no one could beat his work ethic or argue that Isadore didn’t manage his affairs well.

  That he never remarried was the source of much gossip in Money, coupled with the fact that his best friend, Authur Thompson, had never been. They often fished together and, after his wife passed, they sat next to each other in church. Seemingly oblivious to others’ wonderings, Isadore and Authur never saw the need to defend their virtue. They visited one another daily and sat on each other’s porch in bold dismissal of what others thought. Isadore’s son, Jonathan—pronounced Joe Nathan—and his daughter Octavia would fight anybody who dared question the integrity of Isadore and Authur’s relationship, so most people were careful not to gossip around the children. When the men died on the same day in 1900, colored folks in Money smiled sympathetically to Joe Nathan and Octavia and, behind closed doors, said “old couples do dat sometimes.”

  The day after his father’s death, Joe Nathan started working in the General Store. “He wasn’t broke,” Jeremiah told Enoch, “he just needed to get his mind off his daddy. The white folks was glad to get him,” Jeremiah remembered, “’cause the Moores was ’bout de hardest-workin’ people around. But Joe Nathan didn’t like workin’ fu white folks ’cause he said they didn’t have no spirit, so he told his son Pet that he didn’t want him working there, but he could if he wanted to. Pet wasn’t bothered by white folks’ nasty attitudes, so he took de job and been workin’ there every sense.”

  Pet had always been friendly with children, Enoch recalled. In fact, although Pet was a big man—six-seven or more and at least 350 pounds—he was easily the nicest person Enoch had ever met. Anytime he, Jerry, or Possum entered the store, they would leave with at least one piece of peppermint each and a hug that made them tingle all over. He had a stomach that looked like he had swallowed a pumpkin, children used to say, and Mr. Pet could make it move like there was a baby in it. Children would scream and laugh as he entertained them, until one of the Cuthberts admonished, “Pet, I pay you to work—not to play with colored children.” The children would leave and return days later to repeat the ritual. Why the Cuthberts didn’t fire him no one knew, but Miss Mary conjectured that Miss Cuthbert, like every other woman, “enjoyed the company of a handsome Black man.”

  “Howdy, Enoch … Ray Ray,” Pet Moore greeted, breathing heavily. “I done got too old fu this walkin!” Everyone shook hands and Mr. Moore invited Enoch and Ray Ray inside.

  “We got any lemonade, honey?” he hollered toward the kitchen. Getting no response, he whispered, “Me and dat woman ’bout to fall out.” Enoch and Ray Ray chuckled, knowing that Pet Moore was only joking since he and Miss Gladys had been married at least forty years.

  Moments later, she emerged from the kitchen with three glasses of ice-cold, freshly squeezed lemonade.

  “Thanks, Miss Gladys,” Ray Ray said respectfully.

  She winked. “You welcome, baby. You welcome, too, Enoch, but, Pet, next time you come in dat do’ you betta speak to somebody befo’ you start givin’ out orders.”

  Again, Ray Ray and Enoch snickered.

  Pet looked at Ray Ray, and said, “You jes do what I tell you, woman.” He reached to slap her on the behind, but Miss Gladys blew him off with her left hand as she disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Boy, a woman make a man a straight fool if he ain’t mighty careful!” Mr. Pet bantered. “If I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t be bothered with dat woman.” He smirked. Then he leaned back in his rocker, and said, “What can I do fu you gentlemen?”

  Pet Moore searched Enoch and Ray Ray’s faces for clues as to the nature of their unannounced visit, but Enoch spoke before Pet guessed anything. “We jes come by to see if … um … you mighta heard anything … strange in de sto’ today.”

  Pet’s fake cough gave Enoch hope. The man started rocking faster and reached for his pipe, shoving it into his mouth clumsily. “Anythang like what?” he murmured.

  Enoch realized this encounter was going to be harder than he thought. “Like … um—” He didn’t want to say anything about Clement unless Pet mentioned it first.

  “Like what happened to dat boy?” Pet Moore said.

  “Yes!” Enoch almost screamed.

  “Well, I don’t know nothin’,” Mr. Moore said rather tight-lipped while lighting his pipe.

  “Then how you know they took somebody?” Enoch asked. Mr. Moore couldn’t devise a lie before Enoch said, “Please, sir. Tell me what you know. It was Possum’s son, Clement, w
ho they took.”

  Pet Moore’s eyes closed painfully. He used to call Possum his daughter because she took care of him and Miss Gladys after their daughter Laura Jean drowned. Every evening she would comb Miss Gladys’s hair or cook or read out loud until their depression subsided. Pet got so attached to Possum that he began to sit by the window and wait for her arrival every evening. When Possum moved to Chicago, Miss Gladys told Miss Mary that Pet didn’t eat for three days. Miss Gladys had come by the Johnson house, she said, to see if somebody might have an address where Pet could get in touch with Possum. Miss Mary provided as much and, in church a few weeks later, Miss Gladys told her that Pet had “bounced back” after getting a letter from Possum. It purged his soul so completely, she testified, that he ate a whole chicken the day the letter arrived.

  “I makes it my business to keep my mouth closed, Enoch. You knows dat ’bout me,” Mr. Moore began. “Whatever I hear in de sto’, I leaves in de sto’.” His face lost all signs of emotion.

  “Okay, Mr. Pet. I cain’t make you say nothin’ you don’t want to. Let’s go, boy.” Enoch and Ray Ray stood as though having rehearsed the motion and moved toward the door. Mr. Pet sat motionless.

  Before leaving, Enoch honored his manners above his frustration, saying, “Thank you for your time, Mr. Pet. If you hear anythang, you can tell me—”

  “Sheriff and Cecil hidin’ him somewhere. They ain’t killed him. Not yet. That’s all I know. Don’t ask me nothin’ else. Please.” Pet Moore stared into space without looking at his company.

  “Please, Mr. Moore,” Enoch begged. “Tell me everything. You remember how they did Jerry. Don’t let me lose nobody else in my family. We done worked too hard to keep losin’ folks, and if it was one o’ yo kin, you’d want me—”

  “Fine!” Mr. Moore hollered. “I’ll tell you what I heard. But if you mention my name, boy—”

  “I won’t say nothin’ to nobody ’bout you, Mr. Pet. I promise.” Enoch was antsy with anticipation.

  “Sit down.” Pet Moore pointed to the same chairs Enoch and Ray Ray had previously occupied. They obeyed quickly.