No one spoke. For everyone except Hazel, this was the first anyone had heard of a boy wandering the land without his mother.
“Daddy say I can leave Nate my story. And my story is how I live my life. I can live it afraid or I can live it strong. I don’t understand it all my ownself. But Daddy say if we live our story, we get to pass it on. If I try to live strong and free, somehow that make Nate more strong and free, wherever he be at.”
Nodding to herself, she said, “That’s what I done decided to leave my son. A free life.”
Hazel was nodding, too. “What you want me to do, Vida?”
Without hesitating, Vida answered, “Walk with me to the courthouse and say, ‘This here is a first-class citizen who wants to vote.’”
“Amen!” Sweet Pea seconded, before Maggie could open her mouth.
But Vida wasn’t through. “Let’s you and me go to Mickey’s Diner and tell the waitress you want a table for the two of us.”
“Uh-hunh!” Creola called out from the back. “I wants to go in there with y’all. Where it’s air-cooled and they set your food down on a table in a china plate and not shove a greasy bag at you through a window in the alley. Ask for us all a table, Miss Hazel. Say it’s for the Rosie Parks League of First-Class Citizens.”
“And,” Vida said, “when we pass somebody you know on the street, I want you to say, real proud like, ‘This is my friend Miss Vida Snow.’”
Everybody in the car was quiet now, imagining such a thing. Finally, Sweet Pea announced, “I gots to pish bad as a racehorse.”
They decided it was a good time to drop by One Wing Hannah’s and see her brand-new indoor toilet. They’d heard she had put a sign above the tank that read FLUSH GOD DAMMIT!
As they sat around the table at the juke with a new bottle, Johnny in his mother’s lap, the women told their secrets. For the first time, Vida told about how she came to have a boy named Nate. And Hazel told about how she came to lose a boy named Davie. Creola cried about knowing every lullaby there was yet never having a child of her own to sing them to. Trembling like a virgin, Sweet Pea told about her first and only true love. Hannah came over scratching her wig to see what all the crying was about and plopped herself down and told right out about how she had once loved a woman like a man, and damned if she had found anything since to beat it. Maggie sang a hymn so fractured nobody could recognize it to sing along. Still, everybody knew it was from her heart.
It was going on ten o’clock by the time Hazel had dropped off the maids and returned to the house. She hoped she might be able to sneak Johnny up to his room before Floyd discovered them home, but he was waiting for them in the kitchen and fit to be tied. Word had already got back to him that his wife had been seen as far as fifty miles away riding around with a carload of colored maids. Somebody from the filling station called and said most of the bunch looked pie-eyed drunk. And with tornadoes touching down all over the county!
First thing, he threatened to take Hazel’s car away. She drew herself up and said fiercely, “You do and I’ll leave you for sure.”
“Where would you go?” Floyd scoffed. “How would you live?”
Without missing a beat, Hazel shot back, “I’d move in with Vida. I’d help her clean houses. I’d wait tables at One Wing Hannah’s. See what that does to your year-end closeout.”
That stopped Floyd, but only for a moment. “Do you want me to send you back to Whitfield? You know I could have you committed again. There ain’t a judge in four counties that ain’t already heard about you riding those niggers around and having a high ol’ time.” Floyd looked down at Johnny as if noticing him there beside his mother for the first time. “And with innocent children!”
“Don’t say ‘nigger’ no more,” Hazel said. “It ain’t dignified, and we don’t care for it.”
“Don’t tell me what dignified is, not after what you been up to. And who the hell is ‘we’?” Floyd asked. “You’re a white woman, for God’s sake. You got it all. Any other woman’d be proud to be the wife of a Lincoln dealer. Any other woman would take advantage of that situation and make a place for herself in the community. Get in the Trois Arts League. Join the Baptist Ladies Auxiliary. Raise money for the Lottie Moon Offering so the missionaries can save the niggers in deepest Africa.”
Hazel opened her mouth to object.
“Excuse me,” Floyd said bitterly. “Colored people. But not you. You want to throw it all away. And take me down with you. Well, no deal, Lucille! I won’t let you do it.”
“Send me away then, Floyd,” Hazel yelled back. “Tell them to snip the wires in my brain this time, why don’t you? Matter a fact, why don’t you cut out a magazine picture of the kind of woman who would make you happy, tack it on my forehead, and tell them doctors to have at it. Don’t accept delivery till I meet your factory specifications.”
Turning on her heel, Hazel stormed away, and Floyd, stunned, listened to her stomps recede up the stairs. Her bedroom door slammed shut.
Johnny and Floyd now stood alone in the kitchen. As Johnny watched his father, waiting for him to say something, he noticed a color in his face he had never seen before, a kind of cherry red heading toward grape. His eyes were anxiously searching the kitchen, as if he was looking for something to turn off or on. Up or down. Anything he could make do what he wanted it to. Finally his gaze settled on Johnny, who stood there wearing his Sunday pants on a Friday. “Why can’t you dress like a real boy?” Floyd snapped. “For God’s sake, buy you some blue jeans.”
“But—” Johnny said.
Floyd didn’t hear him. He was busy storming out the back door.
Chapter Forty
THE ROSA PARKS LEAGUE
Hazel angle-parked in front of the two-story redbrick building that sat across the square from the courthouse. Not wanting to draw any unnecessary attention, Vida occupied her customary spot in the backseat. Today they were making a visit to the Hopalachie County Jail.
Vida got out of the car hesitantly, dreading the encounter with the sheriff. When she looked up, she froze. Through the bars of a second-story window she saw her father, his face bruised and his lip cut. One eye was swollen shut. His body swayed from side to side, the way he used to do in the heat of his sermons. He seemed to be gazing down upon her with one eye, his expression vacant but his mouth moving to form words she could not make out. Vida felt Hazel’s hand touch her shoulder.
“You all right?” she heard Hazel ask.
Vida nodded, still looking up at her father.
“Still want to do this?”
Vida nodded again, yet Hazel could feel a tremble under her hand. “Well, then, let’s go on ahead, OK?”
Hazel carefully led Vida toward the jail and guided her through the ever-present knot of glowering white men occupying the steps.
One grizzled, whiskey-soaked man leaned in too close and muttered into Vida’s ear, “Your daddy ain’t going to live long enough to get to Jackson, girl.” She saw he was holding up a necktie with hand-painted butterflies like a trophy. “Nearly got him last night,” he cackled.
Vida picked up her pace.
It had been Vida’s idea for Hazel to go along with her to see Levi. That morning after breakfast, Vida had explained, “Daddy been there for three days, and the sheriff ain’t let me in. And even if I do get in, probably won’t let me out again. I need me a white woman there.”
“Vida, maybe you’re exaggerating,” Hazel said. “After all, he’s the law now. Maybe he’s changed since before.” Hazel had always been partial to the sheriff and had never forgotten how he’d pulled her out of many a tight spot, not once laughing at her or scolding her or making her feel stupid.
“Miss Hazel, I’m telling you. You seen the letter.”
“I did and she didn’t say Billy Dean was going to kill her.”
“He got to be the one who killed Miss Delia.” Vida was annoyed at having to explain this again. “She was blackmailing him, Miss Hazel.”
Hazel looked doubtful.
“Well, what would you call telling him to leave Miss Hertha and run away with her and be the daddy to her baby, and if he didn’t she would tell the Senator on him? Now, the sheriff I remembers ain’t going to stand for that. No ma’am, he ain’t changed.” Though they’d been alone in the kitchen, Vida had lowered her voice. “He told me personal he would kill before losing what he got. He be the kind that takes matters in his own hand. Believe me, I knows.”
“Well, Vida,” Hazel said sadly, “you know I got my own opinions about this Delia.”
“Yes’m. I know.”
“And if you ask me, she can’t be trusted to be dead. I don’t believe a word she wrote.”
Though she still wasn’t convinced, Hazel had agreed to go. Maybe she could show Vida how Billy Dean Brister was nobody to be afraid of.
When they walked through the door of the jailhouse, Hazel in the lead and Vida close behind hugging a bag with a change of clothes for her father, they entered a large open area with several wooden desks scattered about. A couple of deputies were standing in the center of the room talking. Behind them were barred gun racks filled with fierce-looking weapons. Over in the corner was a closed door with a frosted glass pane that read SHERIFF in big black letters.
The only desk occupied at the moment was the shabby one closest to the entrance. Sitting there was a plain young blonde who eyed the two women curiously.
“Yes ma’am?” she said to Hazel, talking over the crackling of a dispatch radio that took up most of the desk.
“I’m Hazel Graham and I—”
Just then the corner office door swung open and Billy Dean Brister stuck his head out, his mouth already fixed to yell something at the blonde. When he saw the two women, he smiled instead and sauntered up to greet them. “Miss Hazel,” he said, looking happy to see her. “How can I help you today?”
Vida glowered at Hazel. The woman was blushing like a schoolgirl.
“Well, Sheriff, we—me and Vida—are here to visit with Levi Snow. If you don’t mind.”
The request seemed to amuse Billy Dean. He glanced back at the blonde, who was also smiling. “Any reason I should mind, Rose?” he asked the blonde.
Rose shrugged at the sheriff’s question. Billy Dean looked back at Hazel. “No, I don’t mind. It ain’t as if he’s under arrest or anything.”
“What!” Vida and Hazel gasped at the same time.
“I ain’t charged him with nothing. Not yet, anyway. He’s in what we call protective custody. I hear there might be those who want to do him bodily harm.”
Billy Dean shook his head at the thought of such a thing, and then sat down on the edge of Rose’s desk. “I don’t even keep the door locked. No call to, really. That old man don’t want to be nowhere in the world ’cept in that cell. Don’t that beat all?”
“See, Vida?” Hazel said. “Things aren’t as bad as you think. He ain’t even arrested. Ain’t we been stupid!” Hazel then gushed to Billy Dean, “I sure am glad you looking out for him.”
Vida tried her best to scald Hazel with her look. Didn’t she realize she was flirting with the man who’d probably torn up her father’s face?
“Well, Miss Hazel, since we swapping compliments,” the sheriff said, “I think it’s real generous for you to take an interest in a man everybody else is out to hang.” At the mention of hanging, he smiled big at Vida, acknowledging her presence for the first time. She looked down, horrified. To Hazel he said, “But I guess you’ve heard all the talk.”
“It’s terrible, ain’t it?” Hazel exclaimed. “That’s why I was so pleased to hear them say you were going to get him to Jackson. That’s real gracious of you to go to so much trouble.”
Vida clenched her teeth. The woman was talking as if she were on a date with the man!
“We trying our best. But it ain’t done yet. Our illustrious head of the city council, Hayes Alcorn, don’t agree with me on it. Wants to keep him close by. Might be out of my hands. Either way, there’s only so much I can do.”
He smirked at Vida, taunting her. “I’m afraid a couple of dissatisfied citizens already snuck into your father’s cell and roughed him up a bit while no one was looking. Got clean away. But like I say, I’m doing my best with what I got.” He shrugged and smiled at Hazel. “That’s enough shop talk. We do what we can, don’t we, Miss Hazel?”
When Vida saw Hazel blushing again, her eyes all starry, she blurted, “How bad my daddy hurt? Let me see him!”
Even Vida seemed surprised at her own abruptness. She dropped her eyes again and mumbled, “Please, sir.”
“Right to the point, ain’t she?” he said to Hazel. “I see your generosity also extends to his family. That’s mighty brave of you.”
Hazel smiled stupidly and started to say, “We do what we can,” as he had. Then she came to her senses and asked, “What do you mean, Sheriff? Brave?”
Billy Dean grinned. “Oh, nothing really. Except maybe to keep that girl on as your maid and all. The daughter of the nigger suspected by most people of murdering a white woman. I’d call that brave. Or something.”
Hazel was red again, but it wasn’t from puppy love. She looked down at Vida, uncertain, and again at the sheriff. In a trembling voice she said, “Now, I don’t much like you calling Vida a nigger, Sheriff Brister. That ain’t good manners.”
“Well, Miss Hazel, you could be right about my manners,” Billy Dean said loud enough for the deputies in the back to overhear. “But if you are, I suspect in your case it would be a lucky guess. Where I come from, it ain’t mannered for a white woman to drive around juking it up with a carload of coloreds.”
Hazel stood there with her mouth agape. She heard snickering coming from somewhere in the office, but she was too ashamed to look.
“Well, if that’s all,” the sheriff said, rising from his perch, “I’ll get my deputy to take you and your friend here upstairs to see our guest. Enjoy your visit.”
The sheriff turned, and as he headed back toward his office shouted, “Lampkin! See if you can’t help the girls here. And check the paper sack. Make sure Miss Hazel ain’t planning on serving no illegal beverages while she’s up there.”
There was outright laughing this time.
“Daddy!” Vida cried when they opened his cell door.
He looked worse up close. His white shirt was stained with blood and the left sleeve of his suit had been ripped away. “They done hurt you so bad, Daddy!”
As damaged as his face was, Levi beamed when he saw his daughter. Vida rushed into his arms.
Over Vida’s shoulder he smiled at Hazel and nodded, but she didn’t notice. Numb with shame, Hazel walked into the cell and edged over into the corner, between the bars and the cot. She stood there silent, her eyes on the cement floor.
Levi returned his attention to Vida. “I’m fine, daughter. I took that first step and the next move is His. Like the Good Book says, it ain’t meant for man to direct his own footsteps. Rosa Parks took her step into the dark, and look what all God’s doing with her. Them buses still ain’t running—”
“Oh, Daddy. Can’t you leave that alone? It ain’t getting you nowhere ’cept in trouble. Look at you. Have you seen your face?”
The truth was, even with a closed eye and cut lip, Levi’s face appeared to glow. “It ain’t trouble. They finally listening to me, Vida. That’s because the Lord give me a story to live. The people always need a story to look to. When the people don’t have no vision, the Lord say they shall perish.”
“Daddy, you got to stop it! Don’t you know what story they telling about you? It ain’t the one about you standing up to the white man asking for the vote. They saying you went crazy and killed a white girl.” Grasping him by the arms, she cried, “Daddy, they saying you drowned Miss Delia.”
He looked down at Vida. There was a glint of remembering in his face. “Miss Delia. I knew her since the day she was born. The Senator named her after his momma. Pretty little baby. Willful, too.”
“The
y say they can prove it. They found your watch chain down by that whirlpool, Daddy.”
“My chain?” Levi touched his vest. “I ain’t got my chain, Vida. Couldn’t find it nowhere. Remember how Nate used to love that chain? How he wouldn’t nod off till he could take aholt of it in that little hand of his? He’d grip it till daylight, wouldn’t he?”
Vida shook her father and shouted, “Daddy! Don’t go off on me now. Listen! What you think it mean, the sheriff puts you in here with the door unlocked? Don’t you understand? Anybody can get at you again. They mobbed up out on the steps right now. I’m scared for you.”
Yet Levi’s face was serene. He whispered to his daughter, “I told you, Vida, don’t be scared of the darkness.”
“Daddy, the sheriff say you ain’t under arrest. Let’s go home. Maybe Willie can find a way to get you out of Delphi.”
“Vida, God done set everything in motion. I got to stay and keep my promises. He’s sure keeping His.” He beamed at his daughter. “Look here!” He walked over to touch the back wall of his cell. “See. A church of rock.” And then he reached for the barred window through which she’d spied him speaking earlier. “A pulpit of iron.”
Vida slumped to the cot, her eyes staring with disbelief at her father. “Oh, my lord, Miss Hazel. What we going to do?”
There was no answer. Vida looked over to see Hazel still standing there in the corner, wooden. “Miss Hazel, don’t you go mindless on me, too. Somebody need to get ahold of this thing. It’s liable to throw us all off in the creek.”
Hazel looked down at Vida. “Let’s go home, Vida. Please?”
In Hazel’s kitchen, Vida fixed a pot of coffee and the two sat down at the table, neither speaking. They were well into their second cup when Vida broke the silence. “If my daddy bound and determined to die,” she announced, “at least I want them telling the right story at his grave. I got to let people know.”
Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League Page 32
