Searching Levi’s eyes, Johnny wanted to believe.
“I know it for a fact. Everthing going to be all right. He promised it to me.”
Levi paused, smiling down on the boy. “I been wrong. As wrong as a man can be. The darkness ain’t been hiding God at all. He revealed the truth to me, and I’m going to tell it to you.”
His eyes were pools of light, he whispered the secret to Johnny. “Child, the darkness is God. And you and me and your momma and Vida—we all been moving through His very heart.” Levi motioned out into the night. “See? He ain’t forgot about us.”
Johnny looked to where he pointed. The yard was now studded with fireflies, their twinklings multiplied through the prism of his tears. It was as if all the stars in heaven had settled in around them.
Chapter Thirty-Four
THE MAMMY
Vida had never before spent the entire day in bed. But yesterday she had. A good thing, too, because her father had kept her up most of the night. He had come home late, scaring her half to death with wild talk of visions and lightning bugs blinking in the night, going on about God giving him a new story to live. It was worse than she had ever seen him down at the bayou.
“God done set me out a path to walk,” he had said, “a path through the wilderness. It was Him who set my church afire. A burning bush to get my attention. The Lord was trying to speak to me, same as He spoke to Moses. But I didn’t hear Him then. God wasn’t taking, He was giving. I know now. It was a sign. A sign that God has a greater story in mind for me.”
Vida wasn’t sure she could handle any more stories. It was through a story that her father first told her to let go of her son. It was his stories that kept him wandering in the past, blind to the present. Now she feared his stories had set him adrift downstream in his mind for good.
Though she tried her best to draw it out of him again this morning, what it was that God was telling him to do, all he would say was that he was called to preach, and preach he would. And how at that very moment God was preparing him a church like none other—one that could never be set afire. One of iron and stone. “From there I will deliver a sermon that will touch the hearts of our people, Vida. God said, ‘Don’t fear the darkness.’ He said to be ready to step into the darkness with Him.”
She tried to dismiss his talk as nothing to worry about, the wishful thinking of a man on the short end of his life. So far she had not yet convinced herself. All she knew was that she would need to watch him closer than ever.
The first thing Vida noticed as she climbed the hill up to the Grahams’ house was the boy sitting hunched on the back porch steps, his shoulders drawn close, shadows veiling his face. Then the boy’s father stepped outside, his eyes on her approach. Oh, Lord, she thought, something about this don’t look right already. Levi probably scared the boy so bad last night that Mr. Floyd was going to have her daddy run out of Delphi on a rail.
The closer she got, the more her mind kept churning out dire possibilities. The boy surely had told Mr. Floyd about her being so rough on him yesterday. That was it! She was about to get fired. Or maybe even arrested for laying hands on a white boy. No telling what the boy had piled on top of that story, bad as he hated her. Vida glanced over at the sheriff’s house, to make sure he wasn’t at that moment storming across the lawn with his pistol drawn.
As she came up to the porch, Vida avoided looking at the boy’s face.
“Morning, Vida,” Floyd called, his tone businesslike. “The boy said you were feeling poorly. Left early.” He took a sip of coffee and then peered at her over the rim of the cup. “Let’s see, what did he say was the matter?”
Vida opened her mouth to answer, but before she could utter a sound Johnny said, “She had a headache.”
“That’s right,” Floyd said, remembering. “Well, I’m glad you made it back today.” Still watching Vida, he asked, “You gave Hazel her pills yesterday before you left, didn’t you?”
Again before she had a chance to answer, Johnny said confidently, “Yes sir. I saw her do it.”
Satisfied, Floyd set his cup on the railing and headed across the porch. As he took the steps, he reached down and tousled Johnny’s hair. “Bye, Little Monkey.”
“Bye, Big Monkey,” Johnny said, surprisingly cheerful.
First thing Vida thought was, that little devil can lie like a convict. But why?
Floyd turned back to Vida. “By the way, where’d you find my cufflinks and tie clip and all the other stuff that’s been gone missing? I’ve looked high and low for them things.”
She glanced down at Johnny again, who was looking back at her with pie-pan eyes. That was it! The rascal was striking a bargain with her.
“Just ’round, Mr. Floyd,” she said casually. “You know how things likes to wedge up in and betwixt.”
“I’m sure glad.” He laughed awkwardly. “I was ready to think you been taking them. If I didn’t know any better.” Johnny beamed at Vida.
After Floyd left, Vida went into the kitchen with Johnny following close behind. When she got to her spot at the sink, she turned to watch him as he climbed into his regular chair. They looked at each other uneasily for a few moments.
“You know,” Vida said finally, “I’m sure sorry about yelling at you. And for treating you so rough. I want you to know I don’t hold no madness against you.”
He studied her for a moment. “I’m sorry I called you a nigger.” Then he dropped his eyes and said softly, “And for hiding your letter.”
“Well,” she said with a long exhale, “I guess we both right now done a big thing, ain’t we? Ought to proud of ourselfs.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Ma’am?” Vida laughed to herself. “Well, I be.”
Vida had turned back toward the sink to begin the coffee when Johnny asked straight out, “Who is Nate?”
She was caught off guard. “What?”
“The one y’all always calling me. I was just wondering. Levi said Nate don’t smile at him no more. Is Nate dead, too?”
“Daddy said that?”
“Levi said Nate don’t smile at him and his light went out and that makes him sad, and I figured he might be dead same as everybody else.”
“No,” she said thoughtfully, touched that her father would say he missed Nate. “Nate ain’t dead.”
“I know a lot of dead people,” Johnny said, sighing heavily. “Papa Graham is dead. Davie is dead. Old Miss Floy down the street is dead. You know, Vida,” he said gravely, “the dead stay gone forever and ever.”
“Nate ain’t dead,” Vida said again, firmly.
The boy was now looking at her with wanting eyes. Her father had tried to get her to feel sorry for the boy last night. Said that boy’s mind was too much on death. Well, this white boy was looking to the wrong person. Her own loss was too fresh. Anyway, Vida Snow was not one of those old-time mammies the white folks were so fond of—treated like slaves when they were alive and mourned like family when they died. No ma’am, she told herself, I ain’t no Lillie Dee.
She turned back to the sink again. There was work to get done. No telling what state that white woman was going to be in this morning, after being without her medicine for a day.
Sensing something at her back, Vida turned and saw the boy still staring. “You want something?”
“Un-uh,” he said.
“Then why you drilling holes in me?” she asked. Whatever he was up to, she told herself, it wasn’t going to work. Not the way it had on her father. Finagling. That’s what he was doing. Trying to boll weevil his way into her feelings. He wanted something from her that wasn’t his to have.
“If all you got to do is stare at me, you might as well give me a hand with breakfast. Get me four eggs out of the icebox. And the orange juice. Then count out three pieces of bread for toast.”
Johnny hopped down and did exactly as he was told.
He’d be off to school in a couple of days, she thought, out of the house and out of her kitchen. She c
racked an egg into the skillet, shaking her head and thinking, that white momma of his been so busy feeling sorry for herself, she probably don’t even know school is about to commence. Mr. Floyd is sure too busy to worry about such things.
Looking down at the boy whose gaze was locked onto the toaster, she asked, “You ready for school?”
His eyes shot up at her. “What do I have to do to get ready?” The bread blasted out of the toaster, making them both jump.
Just as she thought. Nobody had even talked to him about it.
“Not much,” she said, buttering a piece of toast, sounding as casual as she could. “I imagine you need you a lettering pencil and a doodling pad.”
“I ain’t got none. What they gonna do to me?”
“Don’t fret. I’m sure your daddy going to find you some. Plenty of time before school commences.”
“But what they gonna make me do with a pencil and a doodling pad?” His eyes were beginning to jump about again.
“Nothing you can’t already do,” Vida said. “I expect they going to show you things to copy down. Like them ABCs you been practicing all summer. And your name. I seen you writing that down on everything in the house.”
The boy hung on every word. “What else they gonna make me do?”
“I expect they going to show you things and tell you to count them up on your fingers. You can do that. And probably copy ciphers out of a book. Know you got that licked.” Why did she bring this up? They had been doing so good. “Now, settle down,” she said in her most even voice. “You going to get the fidgets. I expect the teacher will be real sweet and think you mighty smart.”
It didn’t work. He let loose with a torrent of questions. “Can I come home if I don’t like it? What do I do if somebody pushes me down? What if I get sick? What if my momma needs me and I ain’t here?”
Vida became more annoyed by the second. I can’t be this boy’s mother, she told herself. Anyway, he has a perfectly good one. Well, maybe not. Still that ain’t no reason for him to go around acting an orphan. Vida had lost her own boy, but it had been out there in the big, wide world. How, she wondered, could a boy get lost in his own house?
Yet there he was. With his own momma in a bedroom not ten feet from his. And him as lost as a babe in the woods. What kind of mother would let that happen? A white one, she answered herself. With nothing better to do than feel sorry for herself, that’s what. Vida took a spatula and flung the eggs at the plate.
The tears surprised Vida. She quickly wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and thought angrily, why couldn’t nobody see it except her? ’Cause everybody around here had their damned heads up their butts, that’s how come! Mr. Floyd seeing whatever he wants to see. And not seeing what needs to be seen, right under his own nose. And that woman upstairs? She done lost one boy to death and afraid to touch the other, lest she kills him, too. Don’t need no doctor to tell Vida that.
The whole thing landed squarely in Vida’s lap. Just like a white woman to cause this much trouble and get off scot-free. Laying up in bed. Acting helpless and piteous, trying to win queen for the day. But not so helpless she couldn’t blackmail her maid into letting her go out and get drunk. Vida might buy the whiskey herself if Hazel would put in a little time being a mother. It made Vida’s blood boil. That white woman was aiming to turn Vida into a mammy, sure as rain.
Well, she thought, dropping the plate on the tray, that Hazel woman had another thing coming if she thought she was going to win this easy. Staring hard up at the ceiling as if she could see right into Hazel’s room, Vida said under her breath, “Lord, give me the strength to help this child without killing his momma first.”
BOOK THREE
RELUCTANT HEROES
Chapter Thirty-Five
HELP ARRIVES
One day off those pills and Hazel felt like a new woman. She was in no mood for that foul-tempered maid with her hard looks. The idea of treating a white woman in such a way. It was. . .it was. . .undignified, that’s what it was! Why, Miss Pearl would never stand for such a thing. Neither would the new Hazel.
This morning, Hazel Ishee Graham was itching for a fight.
Down below she heard the sound of Vida clattering the china louder than usual and taking the stair steps in heavy tromps. Without the two courtesy knocks, the bedroom door flung open and in fumed Vida, jostling the breakfast dishes. She practically dropped the tray on the bedside table, sloshing the coffee, then stood over Hazel’s bed with her fists planted on her hips. She narrowed her eyes at Hazel.
Hazel narrowed hers back. “What?” she said. “I ain’t done nothing to you.” This morning Hazel believed she could take this woman if she had to, wrestle her to the ground if there was need.
“No ma’am!” Vida said expansively. “You ain’t done nothing.” Bending over the breakfast tray, Vida mumbled under her breath, “That be the nub of it, awright. Ain’t done one damned thing.” Vida turned toward Hazel with the most unreal smile plastered to her face. Handing Hazel her coffee, Vida oozed venom. “I expect you want cream in that, don’t you, Miss Hazel?”
“What was it you said?” Hazel asked, doubting her own ears.
“I ’spect you want cream with that coffee,” Vida cooed ever so sweetly. “I membered the little cow jug this time.”
“No. Before the cream part. About the nub of it. What did you say to me?”
“Oh, that,” Vida said, with the coat-hanger smile still on her face. “I was just meaning this house sure has gone to hell in a bucket. If you don’t mind me saying it, Miss Hazel.”
Hazel eyed Vida warily. At the moment she was holding out the little cream pitcher in the shape of a heifer with a painted-on grin, much like Vida’s. Hazel took the cream and poured a cloud of it into her cup. “Well,” she said, stirring her coffee, “I wouldn’t count on seeing me up anytime soon, if that’s what you getting at.”
“You seem feisty enough this morning.”
“What? You think I been putting on? You think I enjoy being kept up here like a two-headed uncle?”
“Who been keeping you up here?”
“Who?” Hazel looked incredulously at Vida. “You the biggest one. And Floyd. And them doctors. And them pills. And—”
Vida cut in on her list. “Like I say, you seem mighty fit this morning. Fit enough to get outside and walk. Take that boy with you, maybe.”
“Not after you give me them pills, I won’t. In less than an hour I’m going to be fogbound, and you know it.” She looked at Vida out of the corner of her eye. “Reckon you got them pills right there in your pocket, itching to put me out so you and your friends can go back to having the house to y’allselves.” She smiled tightly and then took a sip of coffee. Vida didn’t bite.
“Of course,” Hazel continued, almost wistfully, “they told me one day I’d get used to feeling like I’ve got a sack of seed on my back and cotton lint between my ears. They said I’ll come ’round to it.”
Hazel looked up, sad-eyed, but Vida didn’t appear very sympathetic, standing there like a wooden Indian. There was no getting to that woman.
Hazel fussed with the napkin on her chest. “Anyway, I don’t know why you need to fret about it. You still get your little bounty for every pill you can cram down my throat.” She looked up and grinned. “Ain’t that right?”
A moment of frozen silence passed as the two women stared at each other, both smiling mightily and neither meaning an inch of it.
Vida threw her hands in the air. “Calf rope!” she cried out. “I give up. It ain’t worth putting up with your mess no more. What’s your price, white woman?”
Hazel lurched backward, sloshing coffee on her bed jacket. “What the hell are you babbling about? My price for what?”
“To make you do right! What it is you want out of me?”
“What I’m wanting is a little dignity!” Hazel answered.
“Dignity? Dignity! What you talking about dignity?”
“I didn’t think you’d understand
. What would somebody like you know about dignity?”
“Enough to know you ain’t done nothing to rate none of it,” Vida said.
“Well, then, if you can’t give me none, then what I want is for you to leave me alone.”
“Lord, that be what I want too. I’d love to leave you alone. That be my fondest dream. ’Cept it ain’t just you and me. They’s that boy downstairs. What we going to do about him?”
“We? Ain’t no we to it. He’s my boy. Do you hear?”
“I hear it, but I don’t see it.”
“Listen to me,” Hazel said, her teeth clenched. “What I don’t need is you coming in here and making me feel guilty about what a bad momma I am. The whole county knows it already. Why, I been sermonized in the Baptist church and writ up in the Hopalachie Courier. Ain’t you read it yet?”
“Lord, girl! You got enough pity in you to float a boat upriver.”
Hazel gave Vida a look of pure viciousness. “I don’t think you ought to be talking to a white person that way. I hear it ain’t healthy.”
Vida’s eyes blazed. “All I’m asking is what’s it going to take to get you up!”
“That’s between you and Floyd, ain’t it? He the one paying you to keep me down.”
“Well, it ain’t nowheres near enough,” Vida shot back. “I got a boy downstairs worrying me like a bone. Asking me questions his momma ought to be answering.” Hazel opened her mouth to protest, but Vida kept it up. “All summer he been lettering his name on everthing in the house. Like he leaving a trail for somebody to follow. Like he lost. Why he doing that?”
“I—”
“Well, I don’t know neither. And that ain’t all. Did you know he got him a graveyard up under the porch? Spends all day in his hidey hole burying Lord know whatall. Making funerals and saying prayers over graves. It ain’t natural. What’s all that supposed to mean?”
Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League Page 26
