“How you going to do that?” Hazel said sullenly, still smarting from her rough treatment at the jailhouse. “You said yourself nobody was going to listen to a colored woman.”
“Well,” Vida said carefully, “maybe you could help.”
“Me?” Hazel checked to see if she was joking. When she saw Vida was serious, Hazel dropped her eyes to her cup. “I guess you could tell today how much weight I carry around here.”
“So you giving up? Just ’cause you got treated like a nigger one day of your life, you going to quit?”
“You don’t need me,” Hazel said. “I’ll only get in the way. Can’t you see? I’m the town joke.”
Vida reached for Hazel’s hand. “Miss Hazel, what I sees is a woman who told the baddest man in this here county not to call her friend a nigger. Ain’t nobody else I know going to do that. What I sees is a woman who got so much dignity that she willing to share some with a friend.”
Hazel began to mist up, but before she could get too far Vida pulled her hand back. “And the fact of business is, I need your help.”
“To do what?” Hazel asked. “To get yourself killed?”
Vida gave Hazel a determined look. “It’s what I got to do.”
“It’s what you got to do, huh?”
They were both quiet for a while, avoiding each other’s eyes. A few moments later, as she studied her coffee cup, Hazel smiled to herself. “Vida,” she said, “you going to be like that turtle, ain’t you?”
Vida looked at her blankly. “What turtle?”
Grinning slyly, Hazel said, “I know somebody who’s going to cross that road somehow or the other, even if it means getting run over.”
That made Vida laugh. “How’s your little saying go again, Miss Hazel?”
With a stern look, Hazel said in her best Floyd voice, “Like I always say, Vida, you can only help a thing in the direction it’s headed.”
Vida laughed again. “I believe you right. That’s as good as anything Mr. Floyd ever come up with.”
All the maids were game for the idea except for Missouri, of course, whom they knew better than to ask. Her allegiances were no secret. But the next day, when they met in Hazel’s kitchen, they were stumped over how to go about getting the real story out.
“Can’t work with the preachers, like Rosa done,” Sweet Pea said, rubbing her chin. “Preachers around here carry it back to the sheriff like a dog toting a bone.”
“Can’t take out an ad in the Jackson Daily News,” Hazel said. “That’s for sure.”
“Maybe we copy what the white folks do,” Creola suggested. “The ones that trying to get elected. Take the word door-to-door and talks to the peoples.”
“Take a year,” Vida said, her tone harsh. “Daddy ain’t got a year.”
“It’s something,” Creola said. Then she grumbled to herself, “Ain’t heard nothing better coming from nobody else.”
“Now, if we had the vote—” Sweet Pea began.
“We ain’t,” Vida said, cutting her off.
Sweet Pea looked over at Creola and lifted her brows. Creola gave her a welcome-to-the-club look. Maggie shifted her weight and opened her mouth to speak, looked around the group, and closed it again.
After a spell of silence, Creola asked offhandedly, “What do it take to get the vote? When I was in school, somebody razor-bladed that part out of my gov’ment book.”
“Three things,” Vida growled, lifting her fingers for the count. “One, you got to pass they reading and writing test. Two, you got to pay they poll tax. Three, you got to be white. Any more questions?” she asked scornfully.
All four women were now staring at Vida with hard, sharp looks. Finally she dropped her head and shook it. “I’m sorry for it,” she said. “I’m as bad-tempered as a hornet. Guess it’s getting to me. It was my idea, and now it’s me who don’t see no hope in it.”
Creola waved it off. “I thought you was bound and determined to carry the load yourself.”
“We just wants to help,” Sweet Pea said. “This thing be everybody’s problem.”
“Well, maybe so,” Vida conceded. “But I can’t think of no idea ain’t going to end up getting us all killed. I don’t want that on my head.”
Creola spoke up. “I had an ol’ uncle used to say the way to get supper is to aim at one rabbit at a time. And the way to go hungry is to aim at all of them at once.”
“I like it,” Hazel said. “What’s it mean?”
“Well, I always suspicioned the reason the sheriff never have no trouble with the colored is he keeps us split apart. Picks us off easy that way. Now supposing we gets together like they did in Montgomery. Crowd the courthouse with rabbits. Get a bunch of colored people to take that test and show him we can vote him out of office next time if we set our minds to it. Let him know we all is watching him. Sheriff won’t know where to aim first, less he hits some white man’s favorite nigger in broad daylight. What he going do then?” Creola hooted at the thought. “He be staggering ’round like a blind dog in a meat house.”
“You think it would really work?” Hazel asked.
“Well, all I know, it sure be Mr. Hayes’s worst nightmare come true. Coloreds lining up to vote. Must be something to it if they working so hard to keep us from doing it.”
“You right there!” Sweet Pea cried out. “If the white man is so afraid of us getting the vote, then I imagine we closer to it than we know. Anyways, it’d sure make the sheriff think hard about hurting Reverend Snow. Just can’t go pushing our people ’round no more.”
Creola slammed her mighty foot on the floor, making everybody jump. “Sure it’ll work! I bet you a fat man that it do. Specially if we get some upstanding colored folks to show up with us.”
For a while the group was silent, each testing the weight of the idea. Vida began mulling it over aloud. “It’d sure nuff need to be a mob of us. Even then, it ain’t going to be safe.”
“He’d probably go for the ringleaders after dark,” Creola said.
“And the timing’s real bad,” Sweet Pea added. “Picking season about over, and they don’t have no use for coloreds till spring. What’s a few dead ones now?”
Creola frowned. “Kill a mule, buy a new one. Kill a nigger, hire a new one. That sure what they say.”
Vida began nodding to herself. “How be ever, might be a way to start getting the truth out about who killed Miss Delia for real.” Vida nodded faster. She seemed to be pumping up her conviction from a deep well.
Creola had already caught fire, so excited she was shaking. “We oughta get everything writ down on some handbills like them politicians do, ’splaining about the vote and the test and the poll tax and about what kind of sheriff we got and how we can throw his sorry butt out next time if we all stick together. We tell them about Rosie and them buses and about being ‘Too tired to move!’” Creola said it again, louder: “Too tired to move!”
“Tell it to Jesus!” Maggie sang out.
“Her name ain’t Rosie,” Sweet Pea said. “It’s. . .never mind.” She decided to let it go.
“We need us a mimeograph machine,” Hazel suggested, sounding so smart she felt the need to explain herself. “I used to get the circulars done for the Tupelo Rexall. Now, who in Delphi got one we can borry?”
“Oh, won’t Reverend Snow be proud!” Sweet Pea squealed. “I think he started something after all. He some kind of special man.” She had stars in her eyes.
Vida scanned the joyous faces in the kitchen and then shook her head. “Y’all know this is crazy, don’t y’all? Crazy as anything Daddy ever did. Chances are we going to end up dead.” Yet her comments didn’t dampen the growing enthusiasm in the room.
“I feel funny about it myself,” Creola said. “I know it be dangerous. I know we liable to get blowed up. And I sure is scared. But it’s a good kind of scared. Like my belly trying to tickle up against my backbone. So scared make me want to rise up and dance it out. What is that, you reckon?”
�
��I know exactly what it is,” Hazel said, smiling big, again feeling the expert. “It’s hope, Creola. Pure-dee, one hundred proof hope.”
Chapter Forty-One
DELIA’S LAST REQUEST
The sheriff opened the door of his cruiser and stepped out onto the pavement. The migraine was about to split his skull clean open. He scanned the courthouse square. It was empty except for the old men sitting on the benches under the pecan trees, as stone-still as the Confederate soldier. Like old cats they were soaking up the weak November sun. He closed his eyes for a moment against the afternoon glare. Then he zipped his leather jacket, lit up a cigarette, and stepped across the street to the jailhouse.
As he walked up to her desk to collect his messages, Rose said, “Hayes Alcorn is in your office.”
“Where’s he been?” he asked, shuffling through the papers in the wire basket. “I ain’t seen him but six times today already.”
Rose pulled out an envelope from her drawer and purred, “Another letter came today, Billy Dean, you old dog.” She winked and held the lavender envelope with swirls of cream up to her nose. “Smells nice, too. Expensive.”
“Shut up, Rose, will you do that for me?” Billy Dean snatched the letter from her hand and quickly tucked it away in his jacket pocket. Then grinning at her as if he didn’t mean it, he said, “Go buy me another pack of BC Powder, would you, honey? I’m almost out again, and my brain’s committing suicide against my skull.”
He walked into his office to find Hayes pacing back and forth. His stride was barely long enough to take two tiles at a time.
“Hello, Hayes. Long time no see. What’s it been, ten minutes?”
“It ain’t funny, Billy Dean. I called Jackson. I told them we don’t need any help tending to our problems. We can handle things nicely here.”
“You shouldn’t ought to have done that, Hayes. Now I might have to go over your head.” The sheriff had to smile at that.
When Hayes planted his hands on his hips, Billy Dean thought he resembled a little loving cup, and couldn’t help smiling again. “Billy Dean, you obviously see some humor in the situation, but you listen. I’m going to have your job for this. You hear me?”
“I been hearing you all week, Hayes. I just think it’s best if we get him out of town.”
Billy Dean dropped his cigarette to the floor and crushed it under the toe of his boot. “We ain’t got the manpower to protect him night and day. No telling what could happen if he stayed here. I don’t want to be the one’s responsible.”
“I told you, you won’t be. If anything happens, it’s the people of Mississippi who’ll take credit. Hell, I’ll take credit.”
“That sounds good and all, but—”
“What’s got into you, Billy Dean? You the last one I would expect holding back popular justice. And you not even charging the man yet. That’s not sitting well with folks, I got to tell you.”
“Well, sometimes this is not a popular job.”
“Not a popular job! Don’t give me that crap!” Hayes let out a derisive laugh. “If it meant keeping the job, you’d be out there throwing up the rope yourself. What’s your angle?”
“Well, Hayes. We don’t have a body. We don’t have a witness to the killing. We don’t know for sure she’s even dead. And you know what I heard? That’s the same place the old man used to go to and shout to Jesus! Could of lost his chain then. Too much circumstance and not enough meat. I ain’t going to kill the Senator’s boyhood playmate and have it come up that somebody else did the deed.”
Hayes wasn’t buying it. “Bullshit, Billy Dean! You are bullshitting me and I know it. I can smell it from here. You got something else going on the side.”
“Yeah, right, Hayes. You found me out. I love getting calls from sawed-off little fuckers like you twenty times a day telling me my business so they can go out and get elected governor. It tickles me, seeing my name in the paper calling me soft on the colored. It does my heart good to tell Delia’s daddy that he’s just going to have to hold off on his revenge a little longer. You onto me, Hayes. It’s a laugh a minute.”
“Goddammit, Billy Dean, I’m telling you. If you send that nigruh to Jackson, I’m gonna—”
“I know, Hayes, you gonna have my job. Well, stand in line. Ever damned body wants my job this week.” Billy Dean patted Hayes on the head and smiled. “And I got to tell you, Hayes, they’s bigger boys in line ahead of you.”
At that Hayes sputtered something incoherent and spun on his heel.
“Governor, my ass,” Billy Dean growled as he kicked the door shut, rattling the glass. He stood dead still, waiting for the vibrations from the banging door to finish ricocheting against his skull. Now the pain was like a hot poker behind his eyes. He reached up and switched on the air conditioner that stuck out of a hole in the wall above his desk. It shuddered for a moment like an animal before it settled into a dull, deadening roar. Billy Dean tore open the envelope and read the letter.
“Shit,” he said. He wadded it up and threw it against the wall. Shutting his eyes tight, he dropped back into his chair and held his head. His migraine was exploding thanks to the sudden burst of rage. After a few moments he sighed and said out loud, “You ain’t leaving me much wiggle room, are you, girl?”
He thought Hertha had been conniving. What’d the Senator do, raise them both on rattlesnake milk? Delia had it thought through and through, down to putting the tail on the z. She knew when she staged her drowning, with the horse and scarf and the whole show, that her daddy would assume the worst like he always did, and then, just like he always did, put the screws to Billy Dean. She had it figured perfect. There would have to be a body and a killer, or he’d find a sheriff who could produce them. But the kicker was, Billy Dean couldn’t take the killer to court. Not even a nigger. Couldn’t even charge him. Because as soon as Billy Dean brought the poor slob to trial, Delia would jump out of the bushes yelling “Perjury! False arrest!” Her and her daddy would see to it he was picking cotton, chained ankle to ankle with the same niggers Billy Dean himself had sent off to prison.
She hadn’t left him one single hole to crawl out of. Had him right by the short ones. Any false move on his part, and she shows up a wronged woman, pointing a finger. Delia was bound and determined not to have this baby without his name stamped on its forehead.
“I’m being generous,” she had told him before she went missing. “I could force your hand now, Billy Dean. Instead I’m giving you some time to put your affairs in order. This way you can ask for a divorce like a man. I’d hate for people to think you were marrying me because I was holding a gun to your head.”
Yeah, right, he thought.
That’s when he’d threatened to kill her. Probably wasn’t the wisest thing to do. Knowing Delia, it only made her want him more. He wondered sometimes if that was the only reason she wanted him, because she couldn’t have him.
His only stroke of luck so far in this whole deal was when that crazy nigger came along, begging to go to jail. It was as if he had been sent by God. Didn’t even have to arrest him. Loves it there. Acts like he wants Hayes Alcorn to take him out and lynch him.
Of course, that was the solution Billy Dean was counting on. Sooner or later Hayes or one of those yahoos on the steps would get tired of waiting and haul old Levi out of his cell and string him up. People were getting impatient. Only last night, somebody driving through town had shot up into Levi’s cell window. God knows Billy Dean would give folks every opportunity to take justice into their own hands, as long as it didn’t look like he had a part in it. If he had to, he could get some of the Klan from over in Rankin County to do the job. But why should he take that risk? Billy Dean figured he had just about pushed Hayes to the breaking point. Senator or no Senator, Levi Snow would be history within the week. Threatening to send him to Jackson had lit a fire under Hayes.
The sheriff smiled. Talk about sweet justice! When Delia showed up alive and Levi dead, it would be Hayes’s ass the Senator would
be after. His own brother-in-law. Make Billy Dean Brister come off as the only voice of reason in the whole family!
The sheriff picked up the letter and smoothed it out on his desk. You cocky little bitch. Sending it right through the United States Mail. Directly to the Hopalachie County Sheriff’s Office. With his thumbs he rubbed his throbbing temples. The screws they are a-tightening.
He read the letter again. The final screw in the lid.
Dear Billy Dean,
I hear an old friend of mine is lodging with you. Tell Levi I send my love. You know how I feel about that dear old man, don’t you, Billy Dean?
Anyway, I’m sure you’re anxious to know the latest. I just got back from the doctor. All is well. December 1 is your drop-dead date. Think of it: A new year. A new life and a new wife. Have you asked H. for the D. yet?
It’s an easy decision, darling, even for you. Come to me or we’ll come to you. See how simple?
Love and devotion,
Delia
She would do it, too, crying about how ashamed she was and how she’d had to run away because ol’ Billy Dean had done her wrong. Woman loved to shock her daddy. And boy, did she hate her sister. Delia would get all three of them with that one shot. The woman could have fought the whole Civil War and never reloaded twice.
By God, that’s what he liked about Delia. Jesus, she was a sight.
December 1. That gave him less than three weeks. Maybe in that time he could put some added pressure on the jukes and bootleggers and slot machine operators. Put a little heat under folks owing back taxes. Get some money stashed. Never again would Billy Dean Brister find himself beholden to one of the Senator’s girls for his upkeep. Maybe he could do a few of those one-shot deals he had his eye on. Siphon off the tax receipts. Pocket a few pieces of his wife’s jewelry. Clear out her bank account. Get into her safe deposit box.
He wondered if he could keep the Senator in line for a little longer, especially with him getting crazier every day, yelling to high heaven for a body.
Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League Page 33
