Slow Way Home

by Michael Morris

The camera made a clicking sound. The sound of a snake that is tired of being tricked. Edging away to the side of the phone booth, Hoyt Franklin looked right at me. “Hello again. Say, why don’t you and the other boys get behind me with your bikes.”

  Beau almost tipped his bike over trying to line himself up with the camera. Hoyt propped his arm against the telephone booth, right next to the words “Police Station.”

  Clicking rang in my ear. It was as if a bomb had been tucked inside the lens and at any moment would explode without warning.

  Beau licked his hand and ran it down the front of his hair. Through the corner of my eye, I saw Hoyt Franklin looking down at me. The piercing stare was more polished than his words.

  Watching the moves of the small black lens, I edged to the far side of the group. Two boys pressed against Beau as if they were his girlfriends. But the clicking sound of the camera…tick, tick, tick…kept me playing hard to get.

  “What is a community? Flesh and blood who come together to share experiences for a lifetime. Blacks and whites who share hard times as well as the good. Towns tucked away in the hidden parts of this country. These boys know community. And what they witnessed in Abbeville, Florida, today will be that of stories passed down for generations. Of flesh and blood. One white and the other black coming together to make a community that refused to give in to hate.”

  When Hoyt stepped aside, the cameraman got down on one knee as if he might propose to the phone booth. He slowly slid the camera towards the group. My heart beat as fast as the tick of his machine. Leaning away, I tried to lift my bike and make a run for it.

  I heard the elastic rip in my shirt collar and then felt the material sag. A force was yanking me into the darkness of the lens. Beau was giggling as he looked into the camera and pulled my shirt all at the same time.

  I kicked at his bike, but the only thing I hit was a cracked Coke bottle. Tick, tick, tick. The man’s shoulder swung towards me and suddenly the darkness was peering right at me. My reflection in the glass was nothing but wide-eyed wonder. It did not show the dryness of my throat or the thumping in my chest. Tick, tick, tick. Little did I know how far that black hole would reach.

  Thirteen

  The day of the Fourth of July celebration I awoke to the sound of aluminum wrap being folded into submission. Nana was pinned in the camper kitchen carefully wrapping the cupcakes she had made to sell at the booth for God’s Hospital. A dim light the size of a pencil flashlight shone down on her, and even in the darkness I could make out her arm twitching.

  She never even saw me slide down from the bunk bed and step towards her. Her robe with tiny purple flowers moved around the cramped space as if a hurricane had swept up a batch of wildflowers from a distant field. Her brow was deep with wrinkles once again. Soon she’d tear open a packet of BC powder and reach for a cup of water. It was a ritual I had seen played out every day of the past month. Worry left scars of white powdery medicine clinging to her lips like milk rings.

  Before she could reach over and open the refrigerator door, I wrapped my arms around her waist. Her stomach molded into my touch as if it were stuffed with feathers.

  Her flinch did not tear me away from trying to settle the storm that boiled inside of her. “I didn’t hear you get up,” she whispered.

  For a second we just stood there against the music of Poppy’s steady snore from the back of the camper. Her familiar smell of fresh soap and summer rain filled my head until I no longer cared if I was too old to be holding on to her this way. She squeezed my hands in a type of coded language that only I could understand. It’s going to be fine. I’m just going to have to work through this concern about Cecil. There’s no use worrying over it anymore. And with a pat she let go.

  Later at the town celebration, the “Street Closed” sign stood directly in front of Main Street. A dunking booth built by 4-H members and card tables representing every good cause in town lined the sidewalks. The singing cowboys harmonized about Beulah Land down by the river, as citizens armed with candied apples meandered through the street like misguided ants. At the other end of the street grills were hitched to the backs of two trucks and chicken-flavored smoke cut into the air. A deputy stood guard over the police station. The afternoon sun cut flecks of gold through his hair as he took one last drag on a cigarette before pressing it out against the phone-booth door.

  Poppy stood nearby with his hands tucked inside pockets and watched as Harvey lifted the gigantic grill cover. Harvey twirled the skewer stick as if he were a majorette, and soon flames shot up until the chicken pieces sizzled. With his new crutches, Josh barreled up right next to Harvey.

  “Josh, is your mama and them coming?” Poppy asked.

  Josh simply pointed a crutch at the truck behind us. Beau and Bonita had gathered lawn chairs out of the back and were trying to maneuver through the automobiles that lined the side streets.

  “Hey, lady. Let us help you out,” Poppy said.

  Bonita tried to laugh and grab an ice cooler that was slipping away from her. “Lord, please!”

  Beau nervously looked at me and then back towards the crowd. I reached for one of the chairs, only to see him jerk it away.

  “Is Parker coming?” Poppy asked.

  “No. He had to work.” Bonita’s red hair shook with the complicated details. “Lord, I can’t keep his schedule straight.”

  Bonita stopped in front of the drugstore and talked to two ladies selling leather bracelets with stamped names. But Beau trudged ahead with the chairs, making his way to the worst cause in town. Even though I couldn’t make out the words from the distance, I could see Mama Rose’s beaklike mouth moving as fast as a bird warning a hawk to keep away. She chose a red wig for the celebration and even had a sparkly American flag pinned to her rabbit coat. Just looking at the clump of brown fur that was wilted flat by the hammering sun caused a trickle of sweat to tickle my ear. I was just about to turn in the other direction when I was jolted by the touch of ice against my neck.

  Alvin was holding three bottles with slivers of ice melting down the sides. “You want a cold one? I got a mess in the back of my truck.”

  The baggy sockets his eyes rested in were as ugly as pure sin. Instead, I looked down at the threads of torn jeans that tried to hide his military boots.

  A woman with legs mapped with blue veins blocked me from being able to warn Sister Delores to move her stand down the street. She had enough problems without having to sell baked goods that Alvin might slip over and pepper with poison.

  “Hey, baby. You looking for your grandma? She went down there for a drink.”

  I followed Sister Delores’s point, and saw Nana standing at the soft-drink trailer. The concern that had trapped me when I first saw Alvin faded into relief. She was smiling and shaking her head to something Mrs. Rockingham, the head clerk at the Piggly Wiggly, was saying. Nana laughed right out loud and patted the back of her hair. Through the smoke that was drifting from the cooker I could not recall how long the virtuous braid had been. The nestlike clump of hair that had rested on the dining-room floor from days past was now nothing more than a skin she had shed in North Carolina.

  A piece of paper broke my stare. “Here, Sister Delores.” Josh was waving a piece of Mama Rose’s construction paper in the air.

  “What’s this here?” Sister Delores held the paper as if it was laced with poison ink, and I tried to confirm the suspicion with a wink.

  “It’s my autograph. Mama Rose is selling them for a dime apiece, but you can have one free. Seeing as how you got me on the news and everything.”

  Sister Delores rolled her eyes and laughed that deep-gutted howl. “Now, here you go acting all grown like that brother of yours.”

  While Sister Delores clutched the paper to her chest and smiled as if Josh had delivered a million dollars, Alvin glared from across the street. Mama Rose was holding up a flag paperweight and shaking it right in front of his face, but he never looked away. The longer he watched us, the smaller his eyes
seemed to become. He hadn’t made it past the stage before Beau caught up with him and together they headed towards the parking lot.

  By the time the high school band began to play “America the Beautiful,” I had already made it down the street twice. Standing on the edge of the gazebo down by the river, I surveyed the people below. A sea of heads connected the river and the town. It was only when I looked out over the parking lot that I began to sense something was not right within the family.

  Parker’s brown hat stood high above the others. The gold letters FHP reflected in the sun, and two other policemen walked alongside of him. They glided through the crowd and stood in front of Sister Delores’s stand. The policeman who had been leaning against the telephone booth was now talking into a walkie-talkie. A patrol car and a white sedan pulled up at the edge of the street closest to me. Two men dressed in uniform and a white-haired woman got out. They forked their way through into the crowd just as a policeman got up on stage.

  Alvin. They finally figured out it was him who burned the church. I leaped from the railing and didn’t even feel the shock of hitting the ground. Running through the crowd, I only slowed down when my arm was caught by a wayward purse strap. By the time I got to the edge of Sister Delores’s table, her mouth was gaped open.

  “I wanted to tell you, Sister Delores, but he’d cut my tongue out. See, we saw the crosses in his shed that day.”

  She leaned against the table and never even noticed when a stack of wrapped brownies fell to the sidewalk. “Baby, you just stay here with me till this mess gets through with.” Folds of her sticky underarm were like quicksand, keeping me from pulling away.

  Parker’s gun never was drawn. It was still locked on his hip as always. The crowd began to stare as Parker walked towards Mama Rose’s stand. She saluted and said, “God bless America and the road patrol that keeps this place decent.” But Parker and the two men had a mission greater than a town simpleton. Drifting through the groups and past the parking lot where Alvin had slipped away, Parker kept his head held high. I pulled away wanting to tell Parker that Alvin had probably made it back to his home in the place called hell.

  “Shh, now. Just stay right here with me,” Sister Delores whispered.

  Bonita jogged up to Parker, but his face never broke from the stone mask. As the crowd moved to follow Parker, Bonita ran back across the street to us.

  “What in the world is going on around here?”

  By the time Parker and the men reached the trailer that sold drinks, Nana was already chewing the ice from her cup. The two men that followed him stopped a distance away. When he touched her shoulder, pieces of ice scattered across the sidewalk.

  Parker led her by the elbow as if she might be twenty years older and in need help crossing the street. By the time they had made it to the stand for God’s Hospital, she was biting her lip. “See after my boy.”

  It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Not yet. Don’t cry, I screamed inside my head. You cry, and they’ll all see you. The tiny lens of the camera that Hoyt Franklin had brought to town could not have captured the details any better than my mind.

  The woman with white streaks in her hair touched my arm and squatted down in front of me. “Hey, buddy. We’re going to take you back to North Carolina now. This is all over, and your mom is waiting for you.” Her words were slow and loud, the way a person might talk to the deaf.

  The taste of waste filled my throat. Resisting the urge to punch the woman right on her crooked nose, I yelled as loud as I could. “I want to see them.”

  “I don’t think we can do that, big guy.”

  “You better let me see them!” Even Sister Delores could not hold me at that point, and a fleck of spat hit the woman’s arm.

  “I’ll walk with him over there if you need for me to.” Sister Delores was nodding her head.

  “We can’t allow…”

  “Listen, I know the head man down at Florida Highway Patrol. Honey, I think you just might want to make an exception.” Bonita’s hip was flung out to the side, and a red streak ran down her neck.

  She walked in front of us directing the crowd, who stared like it was me, not Josh, who had an autograph to give away. “Go on, move over,” Bonita yelled.

  The smell of the cooker made me want to throw up all over the shoes of the people who lined the street. A salty taste tickled my tongue, and I knew that it was not the air but the taste of blood. Moving to clamp down on the other side of my lip, I once again ordered myself not to cry and prayed all the way to the car that Nana and Poppy would be dry-eyed as well.

  Poppy was the first one we came to. The patrolman opened the car door, and he was sitting in the backseat with his hands tucked behind his back. The marina hat was twisted to the side, and his pointy chin trembled. “Son, don’t you worry none. This will get cleared up when we get back home.”

  This is my home, I wanted to scream. But fearing any more attention, I looked down at the gravel parking lot and kicked a half-eaten chicken drumstick.

  Sister Delores guided me like a blind person to the police car Nana sat in. The light inside the car made her seem even paler. She smiled as if I had just gotten home from a bike ride. “Hey, there. Now Sister Delores and Bonita are going to see after you while I’m away.”

  Sister Delores and Bonita harmonized behind me. “We sure are. Oh, yeah.”

  Nana sat with her hands tucked between her knees. The top of the handcuffs would have seemed less obvious if she had been a woman who wore bracelets. “Now you be a good boy. I don’t want you studying about all this. No need to worry. You got a pile of people who love you and don’t forget I’m at the top of that list.” When her voice broke, she turned to look out the window.

  A white sedan pulled around in front of the cooker, and Harvey rested his wide hand on my shoulder. “You come from good people. Don’t let nobody tell you no different.”

  Josh hobbled up as the woman with white hair was telling me how wonderful it would be to be back home again. “Mama, what’s that lady doing with Brandon?” Bonita’s words mingled together with the hushed whispers of the others who lined the car.

  A crease on Sister Delores’s forehead marked the spot where the Uncle Sam hat had been earlier during the celebration. “Baby, I found out where they taking you. Back up to Raleigh. Don’t you worry none. Sister Delores sees after her flock, and you one of mine.”

  Her words were empty. I looked through the crowd to see if Jesus was among them. He could take me out of all this and unlock those chains on Nana and Poppy all at the same time. But the only faces I saw were those of tired, fakey smiles that had pretended to connect with me. Me, a poor boy stolen from a good and decent mama.

  It was a movie, I told myself. A rehearsal for the role I would play on Hoyt Franklin’s TV show. Everybody in town had jumped at the chance to be an extra. Repeating the assurance helped my hands not to shake as bad.

  “Brandon, you be good, hear.” Bonita’s scrunched-up eyes filled with tears, and she backed away with the others.

  A man with hair the color of tomatoes got in the driver’s seat. Said his name was Tony and called me “buddy” just like the woman did. “Hey, buddy, we’ll stop off and get us supper. Anywhere you like.”

  Tony had just pulled the gearshift when a hand with dirty fingernails and a fresh blister snaked through the small space in the window. Beau tried to smile real big, but it ended up lopsided like all the others. I shook his hand and glanced over at the woman who sat next to me. She patted my arm. A pull between the old way of living and what was yet to come. Finally, Beau’s fingers slipped through my hand and disappeared for good. The woman reached over and rolled up the window just as Mama Rose moved closer. “I knew that boy was trouble the first time I laid…” The window sealed off her last comment, but she still pointed the clawlike finger as the car moved forward.

  Tony drove slowly as the faces I had come to know through God’s Hospital and Main Street drifted together as easy as the changing
tide. Beau ran along the side of the car waving and waving. But I did not wave back. It was a matter of survival more than shame. I kept my hands tightly latched between the slick seat and the flesh of my bare legs. They twitched with fever force, and I knew if the woman next to me saw how scared I really was, she would baby me the whole way back to my past.

  Climbing to the top of the bridge, the car shifted into overdrive. The special kingdom filled with my own subjects of crabs, saw grass, and pine trees was far below us. Trying to gather it into a postcard memory, my eyes scanned it all. Before I could make out the roof of Nap’s Corner, we had glided down the bridge and were on our way back to the place the woman called home.

  Fourteen

  By the time we got back to North Carolina, the lights from the homes just beyond the interstate flickered like a dying fire. Pressing my head against the car window, the glass was cool to my skin, but it didn’t bother me. As soon as we had crossed over the Georgia line, my body felt like it had already shut down. I saw my blood being pumped by the heart, a memory branded in my mind from all of the old black-and-white science films that Miss Travick had shown us. But now I saw my blood as cold slush, like the Icees I used to buy at the gas station back in Abbeville.

  I watched the soft lights of Raleigh pass by us with one eye closed. The eye closest to the woman with white hair had remained shut as soon as we crossed over into Georgia. When we passed through Jacksonville, she came clean and told me she was a mind doctor sent to help me deal with everything that was happening. But before we had made it to Tallahassee, I had already figured that out. They all had that smile and carried a bag full of questions: “How do you feel about leaving Abbeville? How do you feel about your mother finding you?” By the time we had passed the fifth Stuckey’s restaurant, I stretched out my arms wide, yawned right in her face, and leaned against the car window.

  The car blinker ticked, and I measured it against the beat of my heart. We turned off onto a side street in Raleigh. The houses were still and dark as a ghost town. A yellow porch light cast an eerie glow over the driveway we turned into. The car headlights hit the windows of the brick house, and a motion inside made the sheer drapes dance against the glass.