Belle City

by Penny Mickelbury

  Pa and Beau cut their visit short and left with Henry Fordham the following day. In whispered conversations, both had expressed the opinion that Henry did not have long to live; however, they said they'd make him feel as at home as possible, would tell him all the First Freeman stories they could think of, would feed him good food and give him a comfortable place to sleep—in short, guarantee that he'd have everything he'd lacked during the previous twenty-six years.

  The rest of them, in groups large and small, talked about nothing but Henry for the rest of the week, until the New Year dawned and brought them another topic: The possible end of the war. German troops were trounced and routed on New Year's Day 1945, and almost every day brought news that American and British forces were gaining the upper hand against the Germans. Dare they hope the war would end soon? According to Si and Cat, people in Chicago thought so. According to Pa and Beau, people in the North Carolina mountains thought so. According to Jonas, people in Carrie's Crossing thought so. Ruthie and Mack allowed themselves to think and hope so, and by March, the hope turned to belief as the Army had the Japanese on the run in the Pacific. At the beginning of April, they did something the swore they'd never do: They went downtown to the Fox Theater, climbed the stairs on the outside of the building to the Crow's Nest, the top tier of seats in the massive auditorium where Colored were relegated, and watched the News Reels. They'd sworn, all of them, that they'd never in their lives pay a penny of their hard-earned money to crackers to sit in a filthy corner of any place for any reason. They had heard that the Crow's Nest was filthy because the theater management never cleaned it. The rumors were true. Ruthie held tightly to Mack's arm so she wouldn't have to touch the stair railings outside or inside, and she wished she hadn't had to sit on the hard seats, though for once she was grateful for the meanness of white people: How much worse would the seats in the Crow's Nest be if they were cushioned and upholstered? The awful surroundings receded when the lights dimmed. The News Reel footage was dramatic and impressive. The total defeat of Japan was imminent. Yes, it was too soon to start planning the Homecoming Celebration for the boys, but they certainly could begin thinking about it: Thanksgiving? Christmas?

  As often happened when there was good news, when all the attention was focused in that direction, bad news blew in the back door, blindsiding everybody. Ruthie knew this to be true from firsthand experience, but she wasn't the only person taken totally and completely off guard by the news on April 12th that FDR had died. The whole world, it seemed, reeled. Quickly, though, the shock was replaced by worry and concern: A new president taking over in the middle of a war? But the war wasn't at midpoint. The end of it was in sight, and Truman had Eisenhower. That's what people said. Ruthie didn't think that was true, but before she could give the matter really serious thought, they had to shift focus again. Henry Fordham died the day after Roosevelt. Beau called with the news that evening, and it almost was anti-climatic since they'd already buried him.

  "But Beau. You can't just bury people."

  He laughed. "Baby Sister. You are a treat." Then he explained that he and Pa had discussed their options at length, and concluded that since nobody had heard anything of Henry or anything about Henry in twenty-six years, since nobody knew where he'd been or that he'd returned, since nobody was looking for him and since nobody missed him, the logical thing to do was to bury him. He'd died in his sleep. "He just didn't wake up this morning," Beau said, and since they couldn't leave a dead body in the house, they had dug a deep pit, lined it with rocks and lime, said a prayer (Pa had said the prayer), wrapped Henry in a sheet, and laid him to rest. "It was the right thing to do, Ruthie," he said.

  She sat thinking. Was Beau right? Had he and Pa done the right thing? If so, then she was wrong. She'd been wrong a lot lately. "How's Pa taking it?"

  "He was kinda upset at first, but not broken-hearted 'bout it. After all, he didn't know the man, even if it was his brother. But he said the whole thing made him sad—that the man died and didn't but two people in the whole world know or care. Then he started talking about how when he died, how many people would care, and I had to move him off that subject," Beau paused. "He talks about dyin' a lot, Ruthie."

  "How is he, Beau? Really?"

  "Old. Weak. Tired."

  "Do we need to move him back down here?"

  Beau sighed deeply, sounding as if he had something caught in his throat. "Maybe when it gets a little warmer. June, July."

  She hung up the phone thinking that this summer, her pa would be coming home to die, just as his brother had done. She was still sitting there when the phone rang again. It was Jonas. They had kept their promise to keep in touch, and he was calling to share thoughts with her about FDR's death. When she ruefully admitted that at the moment the dead president was the furthest thing from her mind, he asked why, and she told him. All of it. He was very quiet for a long time. Only the ubiquitous hum on the telephone line let her know he was still there. When he finally spoke, it was almost in a whisper, as if he didn't want to be heard. And when she heard what he said, she imagined that he did not want Ernestine or Sam or Ruby to overhear.

  "I think I've heard about those places, Ruthie. I don't recall the names of them, but I've been asked to invest in plants and factories in Georgia and Alabama that make unheard of profits. At first, I didn't believe it; nobody makes that kind of profit. But if it's from slave labor, if workers aren't being paid—well, then, yeah, they'd be makin' a huge profit. And all I can think right now is how glad I am I didn't invest. I know that sounds self-serving, but to think I could have been a part of something like that."

  "You couldn't be blamed if you didn't know."

  "How often do people hide behind ignorance as an excuse? Besides, somebody, a lot of somebodies, do know what's going on and are doing nothing."

  "Can you find out about them? Where they are, what they're called? We know two women whose husbands just disappeared one day, and it's possible that they're in one of these places."

  "I'll try to learn more. But Ruthie—?"

  "What is it, Jonas? What's wrong?"

  "If men are being stolen off the street, driven to a different state and not paid for their work, then it's possible that those places don't know their names, that there are no records of who they are or where they're from."

  She hung up the phone thinking that what happened to Henry Fordham and, in all likelihood, to Willie Hill and Ed Johnson, was worse than slavery. At least the slaves had names and people who worked them without pay knew their names. Even if, at some point, they changed them. Silas Fordham became First Freeman, but everyone who knew him, knew that. Then she had a horrible thought: Suppose, when Pa moved away to be with Beau, they had rented or sold the house to a stranger. When Henry appeared, nobody would have known about First Freeman. Henry would have been sent away. He'd have been penniless and alone and about to die. Beau was right: They had done the right thing.

  ***

  – Carrie's Crossing –

  Jonas

  They had slowed from a canter to a walk, and JJ slowed his horse first. Jonas was glad because the boy had turned a deaf ear to any attempt by his father to discuss selling the horses. JJ wasn't going to sell his horse, and no argument his father could offer could change his mind, and the argument was a good one: Carrie's Crossing was becoming so urban and developed that there almost was no place to ride a horse anymore. What had been open fields and meadows now were parts of estates, fenced-off private property, no horses allowed. They couldn't even ride on their own land anymore because the road and the traffic came so close it frightened the horses. "It's not fair to them, Son," Jonas had argued, "to have them spooked and scared all the time."

  "What's the point of having a horse if you have to walk him?" JJ complained to his father. "Horses were made to run."

  "I guess we just have to face the truth: We don't live in a little country town anymore; we live in a big city."

  "Belle City is a big city, Papa, not us."


  "That used to be true, Son, but not anymore. It's called progress. One day we'll have just as many people living here as live over there."

  "I don't like progress," JJ growled.

  Jonas wasn't terribly fond of it either, but what he said to his son was that, like everything else, progress had its place; like everything else, there was some good with it and some not-so-good. The key, he always told his son, was to find the good and enjoy it, and not to let the bad destroy you—that's if you couldn't change it. And a way for them to keep progress from destroying them was to sell the horses to a farmer in South Georgia who had a lot of land—open land where the horses could run. That way, he told his son, the horses would be happy, and they would, too, knowing the horses wouldn't be scared and spooked all the time.

  If not contradicting everything he said meant that JJ finally was ready to accept the sale of the horses, then he'd shout like Ruby, thank you Jesus! The last thing he'd wanted was to have to force him to accept getting rid of the horse he loved.

  When they heard the clanging of the bell, the horses turned and headed for home without having to be told. Jonas had found an old ship's bell and hung it from the side of the barn to be rung any time he was too far away from the house to hear himself being called. A couple of clangs was all it took, and he'd head back. Continuous clanging meant hurry back. A brisk canter was the best they could do, and when they trotted into the yard the urgency was obvious: Horace's car was parked in the driveway and he was on the front steps, and Jonas could see from a distance that he was hopping mad. Indeed, he was hopping from foot to foot, and Jonas could guess the reason: He wanted in and Ernestine wouldn't open the door.

  Sam met them at the barn door and took the reins of Jonas's horse as he dismounted. Sam didn't say a word as he helped JJ down and solicited the boy's help grooming the animals, a request he only needed to make once.

  As Jonas made his way to the front of the house, he could hear Horace yelling to Ernestine to open the damn door. "You know she's not going to do that, Horace, so why are you making all that noise?"

  "Why can't I go in the house?"

  "You know very well why you can't go in my house. Now, what do you want?"

  Horace stood looking down at him. He looked worn and tired. "Can we go in and sit down and talk like grownups?"

  "We have nothing to talk about."

  "Jonas, please." The desperation in his voice could mean only one thing.

  "You broke again?"

  "I'm about to lose everything. Even my house. I can't do that to Alice. You got to help me."

  "No, I don't. Whatever mess you're in this time, it's your own fault, just like all the other times—spend, spend, spend. You never met a dollar you didn't want to spend."

  "It's not like that this time. Three businesses I got money invested in, they all been shut down by the government. Feds just waltzed in, seized the merchandise, and shut 'em down."

  "These the places you told me about? The ones returning the huge profits?"

  Horace's head was bobbing up and down like apples in a barrel. "And I wasn't spending. I plowed back everything I made, and I'd made a ton. I put it all back in these places. They were the best investments I'd ever made. Then here come the Feds."

  "Roosevelt warned against profiteering over a year ago," Jonas said.

  "Damn Roosevelt!" Horace shouted. "I wish he hadda died years ago. He had no right interfering in business like that. This is a free-market society. We're capitalists in this country, not socialists or communists."

  Jonas laughed out loud. "Who've you been listening to? You got yourself an economics professor on the payroll?"

  "This ain't funny. Every dime I had was invested in those three plants, and now I can't get it back. None of it, and that ain't right. It ain't fair."

  "That's probably what the people who worked there thought: That it wasn't right or fair that they worked twelve-hour shifts, seven days a week, for absolutely no pay, so you could make huge profits on your investments."

  He came down off the top step now and stood face to face with Jonas. "What do you know 'bout how them places was run?" All the country cracker in him surfaced when he was mad. "Who you been talkin' to? You been talkin' to the Feds, boy? I'll kill you I find out you been talkin' to the Feds."

  "You don't have the courage or the strength to kill me. Now, get off my property and don't come back, Horace. I mean that. Tell me who holds your mortgage, and I'll pay the note only because of Audrey. Because of her memory. That's why I didn't knock you down just then when you threatened to kill me. But if you step foot back on my property again, I will kill you, and believe me, it'll be easier the second time."

  Horace was about to ask what he meant when the front door swung open at the same time that Sam came running around the side of the house.

  "Hitler's dead!" Ernestine shouted from the doorway. "Hitler's dead!"

  "He killed hisself!" Sam yelled. "Before we could get to him, he killed hisself. All along, nothin' but a big ol' coward."

  "The War got to be over soon, now, ain't that right, Mr. Jonas?" Ruby demanded to know. "Ain't it? And our boys can come home where they belong."

  It was a lot to take in. Hitler dead, by his own hand. Yes, certainly this part of the War was over—the European part. At least the part waged by Hitler. What about Japan, and, according to Charlie Pace, Russia? Even though they're supposed to be our allies, Charlie said they couldn't be trusted as far you could throw Adolph Hitler. "I don't know how soon we should start looking for troops to come home," he said, thinking of Ruthie and Mack's boys, knowing they were wondering the exact same thing. "Just because ol' Adolph is dead doesn't mean his Army is dead. We'll have to wait and see."

  "What did you mean by what you said, Jonas?"

  "You're still here? I thought you'd left."

  "I was talkin' to you before we got interrupted," he spat out, looking pointedly at Ruby, Sam and Ernestine. "What did you mean about killin' me bein' easier the second time? Who've you killed? You killed somebody, didn't you? Ha! I knew it. You ain't nothin' but trash. I tried to tell Audrey, but she wouldn't listen."

  ***

  – Belle City –

  Ruthie

  Four days after Ruthie's fortieth birthday, Germany surrendered. They'd had a big party that weekend—music, dancing, barbecue, and three of Aaron's cakes. Beau and Pa came but nobody but Ruthie and Beau knew that Pa wouldn't be returning, though a close look at him told his truth: He was not well. He would not live for very much longer.

  Ruthie's party started Friday night and ended when it was time to go to church on Sunday morning. It resumed on Tuesday evening when they got news of the German army's unconditional surrender. It won't be long now, they told themselves. It has to be over soon. And, as if to punctuate that sentiment, five letters arrived from Mackie, Wil and Thatch over the next six weeks.

  Every time a letter came was cause for celebration, and so they continued their merrymaking, especially as, in the letters, the boys reported themselves to be well and healthy, if dirty, tired and hungry most of the time. They could not, of course, say where they were or what they were doing, but the fact that they were still alive and still healthy was sufficient. Mackie and Wil were still together and they had not seen Thatch, though they did get one letter from him and he was not close. Thatcher's letters, though, sounded like Mackie and Wil's letters—and none indicated any reason for worry. The one letter that was different was from Mackie and Wil and it arrived the first week of June. As always, they first described themselves as well and healthy so nobody would worry. Then they wrote, "sit down, everybody, and catch your breath. Are you ready for this? We found Eubanks Thatcher!"

  Mack was reading the letter out loud and had to stop when Ruthie screamed. She grabbed the letter from him and read it to herself, all the way to the end. Then she held it, looked at it, shaking her head back and forth. Beau got up, took the letter from her, and gave it back to Mack and asked him to please continue r
eading. He was breathing hard, and he was shaking, and he stood beside Mack as he read, as if by being so near he could hear the words as they left Mack's mouth an instant before everyone else.

  "Uncle Eubanks lives in a small village near Sainte-Menehould. He has a wife and four children. His two sons are in the army. When we knocked on his door and he opened it, he stared at us, then he started to cry. He reached out and grabbed us and held us. We hadn't said anything, hadn't told him who we were, but I guess we look enough like the family that he knew. His wife and daughters embraced us too, all of them crying, and pretty soon we were crying too. It was a very, very emotional moment. When we finally told him who we were—that we were his sister's sons—he started dancing all around the room and singing, Ruthie, Ruthie Ruthie! Then he asked our names and how old we were then he just started asking questions one after the other, fast, like machine gun fire. His wife—her name is Berthe—had to tell him to stop, to let us sit down. She made coffee and gave us cake and we told him everything we could think of IN FRENCH. He was amazed, especially when we told him why we were fluent French speakers. We couldn't stay too long and he understood why. We told him we would try to come back to see him but we couldn't promise anything. He understood. Of course he did. He'd been in a war, too. He cried again when he talked about his mother, and he wanted us to tell him again and again about Grandpa and Uncle Beau. Here is his address. Write to him soon in case we are not able to get back to see him."

  "When did they write that?" Beau asked. "Before Hitler died, before Germany surrendered?" Mack looked at the date and nodded. "So, they could be on their way back home by now. Ruthie! We got to write Eubie a letter—"