“Lord!” Billy Dean had told him just last night. “I ain’t saying that she’s dead, Senator, but Lord! Do you know what it would look like if she was to wash up after all this time?”
Didn’t make any difference. “You keep dragging, boy. Throw a net over the Port of New Orleans if you have to.”
Staring at the letter he grumbled, “Right, Delia. Simple as Simon shit.” Billy Dean took a headache powder dry.
Chapter Forty-Two
A GAME OF CATCH
Floyd was in his office going over the books, preparing for his meeting with Hayes on his loan extension. Though he’d lost a few customers for not firing Vida, the year hadn’t been all that bad. But he definitely needed to expand his inventory to compete with those dealers from Memphis and Jackson. It was only a matter of time before they would advertise him right out of business. Maybe he should pick up the whole Ford line, he thought. He had it on good word that next fall they were going to announce a sure fire winner. They were so confident, they were naming it after Henry Ford’s poor dead boy, Edsel.
That sure wouldn’t hurt. The Mercurys were turning out to be slow movers. He looked out his back window and saw the red Montclair parked on the side lot. It still hadn’t sold. Just sitting there looking at him, serving up a daily reminder of Delia.
Floyd slammed the ledger shut and grabbed another from the stack. Get a hold, he told himself. No need to go all sentimental. Get your mind on business. Remember, success is a frame of mind.
“Nineteen fifty-four,” he sighed, opening the ledger. Now, that was a good year. Everything under control. Back when he took his own advice. Floyd had always told himself to stay focused on his own business and don’t get caught up in other people’s craziness. “Play the game you’re in, not the one you ain’t,” he liked to say. That was exactly it: lately he was not playing his game. There was all this Citizens’ Council stuff. He was up to his neck in something that he didn’t understand. Gave him a queasy feeling. The same feeling he got seeing Billy Dean with that chain the day before he was supposed to have found one identical. Now Hayes was lathering at the mouth about a hanging. If it wouldn’t kill his business deader than a doornail, he’d drop out of that council business. No, this was not his calling at all. Need to stick to your fastball, that’s what Floyd always said.
It wasn’t only the council. It was his family, too. Hazel driving and drinking like the old days. It was a guaranteed time bomb ready to go off in his face. People were starting to talk again. Why couldn’t she drink and sew? Or drink and can vegetables? Why did she have to be going ninety to do it? Then there was Johnny. Hell, they got him playing with dolls now! The boy didn’t even have a pair of jeans to get dirty in. Insists on wearing his dress pants to school.
Yep. It was time Floyd stepped in and took that bull by the horns. Let the rest of the world go to hell in a handbag, but maybe he could at least get back at the head of his own family again, before it turned and drove him over. Floyd figured he was due for a success on at least one front. “Little successes breed big successes.” On his way home, he stopped by the Western Auto.
Floyd walked into Johnny’s room and found his son down on the floor. He had about ten homemade dolls with their backs against the wall and another ten facing those. Floyd’s spirits lifted a little. “You playing war?”
“It’s a square dance,” Johnny answered.
Floyd shook his head. He didn’t want to know any more.
Looking up at his dad and seeing the bag in his hand, Johnny jumped to his feet and ran to Floyd, grabbing hold of his leg. “What you bring me in the bag? You get me a present?”
Floyd pulled out his purchases. “Look at this!”
Johnny looked curiously at the fielder’s glove and then back at his father. “It’s a football mitten.”
“Close. Want to play a little catch? It ain’t the season, but maybe if you take to it, one day you can try out for Little League. You never know until you give it a shot. Everything takes practice. Like I always say, a goal without action ain’t nothing more than a wish. Hey! I could even coach your team. How about that?”
Johnny had no idea what Floyd was talking about, yet the prospect of playing a game with his daddy delighted him.
“Let’s go outside and toss a few,” Floyd chirped. Johnny grabbed the glove and ran to the backyard.
Floyd lobbed the first few balls slow and easy, and Johnny tried catching them in his ungloved hand. He used the glove as a kind of lid to keep the ball from bouncing out again. Johnny thought he was doing pretty good until his father said, “Catch the ball in the glove, son. That’s what it’s for.”
On that advice, Johnny took off the glove and held it out in front of him with both hands like a net, but the ball kept dropping between his arms.
“Put it on your left hand.” His father held up his own. “This one. And then let the ball drop into the pocket. Where those stitches are.”
That didn’t seem to help much either. Johnny thought it worked a lot better his way. And he could tell that it wasn’t going very well for his daddy by how he would sigh heavily and draw a little closer after each missed throw. Finally they were only inches apart, and his father was merely dropping the ball into Johnny’s outstretched glove. They were close enough to talk without breaking out of a whisper.
“How you doing in school?” Floyd asked.
“I like it.”
“That’s good. That’s real good. Your ABCs coming along OK?”
“That’s for babies! I can make words. And I can add up apples. And I told the class a story about a turtle that crawled all the way Uptomemphis without getting runned over.”
“Where to?”
“Uptomemphis.”
“Now, that’s fine. Just don’t get the big head. Remember, you don’t own success, you only rent it out one day at a time.”
“Yes sir,” Johnny said, wondering if his daddy had just said something complimentary to him.
Floyd held the ball for a moment. Without looking at Johnny, he asked, “How’s your momma doing, son?”
“Huh? I mean, sir?”
His father studied the ball in his hand as if he had found a message stitched in the horsehide. “I mean, you’re with her all afternoon. At least I reckon you are. Like when you go on them little drives of hers.”
Johnny froze, the glove still in place to catch the ball that didn’t seem to be coming. Finally he looked up guiltily at his father.
“Don’t worry. I ain’t mad about that no more. It’s just that I need some help. We got to watch her, you know, and it would be a great comfort if I knew I could count on you. Are you Daddy’s boy?”
Johnny nodded his head tentatively, waiting to learn what the job entailed.
“You remember what whiskey smells like, don’t you?”
“Medicine,” he said without thinking.
Floyd raised his brows. “That what she got you calling it?”
Johnny’s face colored.
“What I want is if you would pay attention to how your momma acts. Anytime she starts talking funny or walking like she’s got the blind staggers—you remember how she used to get—I want you to go up and hug her. If you ever catch that medicine smell again, call me. That way I can come home and help her. You understand?”
“Yes sir.”
“You never can tell about your momma. We got to keep close watch, so she don’t get herself in trouble again. She’s walking close to the edge.” Floyd tossed the ball from hand to hand for a minute, mulling something in his mind. Then he said, “I need you to tell me something else.” Reaching into his pants pocket, he pulled out one of Hazel’s blue bottles. “I found this in her hat box. It’s got whiskey in it. Do you know where it come from?”
Johnny dropped his eyes. “I don’t know.”
“Son, this stuff is illegal in Mississippi. Now, we can’t have her breaking the law and going to jail, can we? You going to help me?”
Johnny didn’t look up. The
re was a scuff on his dress shoe that he became obsessed with.
“Well?” his father said. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
Johnny did look at his father but remained mute, and the longer he went without speaking, the bigger the cords became in his father’s neck. After a while, Floyd cleared his throat, then kicked at something invisible on the ground, embarrassed. Without a word he turned away and headed back toward the house, taking the ball with him. Halfway there, he turned back around. His face was wooden.
“I thought I told you to get you some jeans.”
“But I—”
“No buts. Saturday I want you to go to Gooseberry’s and tell Sid to fit you in a pair.” Floyd tossed the ball in the air once and then snatched it hard. “Some sneakers, too.”
“I don’t want no jeans,” Johnny said firmly, bringing his glove down to his side.
“You need you something to get dirty in.”
“I don’t want to get dirty.”
“All boys like to get dirty,” Floyd said flatly. “Don’t argue. Just do what I say.” Floyd headed back to the house, having to settle for a smaller success than he had planned.
Chapter Forty-Three
THE INFORMER
“Rose! Get me a Coke,” Billy Dean yelled from his office. When she didn’t answer, he stuck his head out the door. “You hear me?”
Rose was talking to a colored man dressed up in a preacher’s suit.
“Rose,” he shouted, dry-mouthed, “I’m waiting on my Coke!”
She cocked her head toward the man. “Been waiting to see you. Said it was important.” She got up and headed for the soft-drink box.
As he worked his mouth to make the headache powder go down, Billy Dean studied the man. He stood there with his hat in his hand, eyes on the floor, waiting to be acknowledged. Billy Dean didn’t have time for this. He had only a few days left to plan his getaway, and he was way behind in amassing his traveling money.
“What you want, preacher? I’m up to my ass in gators today.”
The man looked up, unblinking, through steel-rimmed spectacles.
“Well, what is it?” Billy Dean took the Coke from Rose.
The man mumbled, “Can I have a word with you, Sheriff? It’s oh-ficial.”
Billy Dean almost spit out his Coke, laughing. “Oh-ficial, huh? What you know from official?” Billy Dean shook his head. “Hear that, Rose? It’s oh-ficial.”
“Yessuh,” the man said. “It’s about Miss Delia.”
The smile dropped from Billy Dean’s face, and he quickly looked away from Rose. “Yeah? Well, get on in here, I reckon.”
Despite the air conditioner pumping a steady breeze into the sheriff’s office, big drops of sweat were running down the preacher’s face. Holding his hat in his lap, he shifted in his seat, waiting for the sheriff to tell him it was OK to start talking. But Billy Dean knew he couldn’t act as if he were in any big hurry. These preachers were slippery as eels. You had to handle them just so, like a June bug on a string, or they would take off in the opposite direction of what you needed to know. He told the man he could have a cigarette if he wanted one.
“Now, I don’t as a habit, Sheriff Brister, but since you so generous to be offering. . .”
The sheriff nudged the pack a couple of inches toward the preacher, indicating that it was OK for him to cover the rest of the distance himself.
The preacher rose up and leaned over the desk. Then he fumbled with the red-and-white package, finally wrestling one out. The man sat back down and placed the cigarette ridiculously in the exact center of his mouth, so that it stuck out like a peashooter. He sat there, paralyzed, his look as fixed as a mounted deer’s. Billy Dean sneered at him. Too scared to ask for a light.
The sheriff pulled out the nickel-plated lighter from his khakis and sent it sliding across the desk. Trembling, the man held the lighter with both hands and flicked it three times before he struck fire. He squeezed his eyes shut as if he expected an explosion and blindly brought the flame to the cigarette. He pulled weakly and coughed once.
“Real diehard smoker, ain’t you?” the sheriff said.
The man rose up out from his chair and, bowing over the desk again, held the lighter out to the sheriff. Billy Dean nodded toward the desktop, telling him with his eyes where to lay it.
“You the preacher over on the Senator’s place, ain’t you? Used to be Levi Snow’s church?”
“Yessuh, that’s right,” the man admitted, and then added quickly, “Now, I never knew the man. Nosuh. Not personal like.”
“That’s right healthy of you, I reckon.” Billy Dean lit a cigarette for himself. “You mentioned you got something for me.”
“Yessuh.” He carefully pulled a folded paper from his inside coat pocket. “I been hearing some things. We got folks trying to stir up trouble twix the races.” He held the flyer out to the sheriff.
As the paper shivered in the man’s outstretched hand, Billy Dean leaned forward and read the headline out loud: “We Must Vote Now.” He snatched the paper. “Where’d you get this?”
“Somebody. . . one of my congregation give it to me,” the preacher stammered. “She told me they been showing up all over her settlement.”
“It says down here it’s put out by the Rosa Parks League. What’s that?”
“I don’t know much of nothing about it,” the preacher said. “Now, of course they got an uppity colored gal over in Alabama named like that. But ain’t no Rosa Parks here. If she was, I’d sure tell.” Pinching his cigarette between his thumb and index finger, the preacher squinched up his face and pulled, straining with all his might. He coughed again.
Billy Dean eyed him suspiciously. “You ain’t got no idea at all?”
“Well, now,” the man said, shuffling his shoes on the floor, “I can’t name no names, but I can say for sure they are not from my congregation. I suspect they town coloreds.”
“How many of them?”
“Only two showed up to Sister Raynelle Johnson’s door. They both women.”
The man timidly looked around and, finding no ashtray within reach, balanced his hat on his knee and flicked the cigarette ash into the palm of his hand.
“And they were colored, you say?”
“Yessuh. That’s what I was told. Mostly.” The man dropped his eyes to the floor.
“Mostly. What the hell does ‘mostly’ mean?”
“Well, now. I been told all this, remember. I ain’t seen nothing my own self.”
The sheriff took a slow breath, trying to keep from grabbing the man by the throat. It was as bad as pulling teeth. Why couldn’t these preachers come out and say a thing without beating all around the stump? “Yeah. I know,” the sheriff said wearily. “You ain’t seen shit. Go on. Were they all colored or not?”
“I heard there was another one waiting in the car. Now they say that one coulda been white. Or maybe just light.”
“What kind of car?”
“Big car. Big new car. Blue or green or gray or something like that.”
“Out-of-state tag?” he asked.
“Said the tag light was burned out.”
“On a new car?”
The preacher shrugged.
“Man driving?”
“Don’t know that neither.”
Billy Dean looked down at the flyer again. It told all about everybody’s right to vote, about electing a sheriff to serve all the people, how and where to register, what a poll tax was, and when the next sheriff’s primary was going to be held. Sheriff was the only office it mentioned. No, this wasn’t the work of no town niggers, Billy Dean thought. Too slick. Hayes was probably right. It had to be some Jew-Communist outfit from up North messing around in his county. But why were they singling out the sheriff’s office? Did they know he might be a tad vulnerable? Billy Dean said, “I don’t see anything here about Miss Delia. That is what you said you came about, weren’t it?”
The man swallowed hard. “That’s right. Yessuh.�
�
“Well?”
“Now you got to understand, I don’t believe a word—”
“Damn it, preacher! Just say it. I ain’t going to hold it against you.”
“Well,” the man said, talking to the tiles, “these two women was saying as how. . .Well, what they telling everybody is, you was the one killed Miss Delia.” The man looked up and then quickly averted his eyes.
“And?” Billy Dean said, somehow knowing this wasn’t the worst of it.
The smoke from the man’s cigarette was curling into his eyes. Though he was starting to tear up, he didn’t shift either his hand or his head. “And they say you killed her because she was. . .you got her in the family way.”
At that the sheriff’s head almost exploded. “Jesus H. Christ,” he said through his clenched teeth.
Wisely, the man wasn’t looking up to catch Billy Dean’s expression. “Not that I tell on folkses as a custom,” he said, “but you the sheriff, and needs to know about these things or chaos is going to reign.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, Billy Dean deep in thought, staring blankly toward the preacher, and the preacher studying his own shoes, the cigarette now burning dangerously close to his fingers. Still not looking up, the man said barely loud enough to be heard, “Well, suh. That’s about the big of it, I reckon.”
The sheriff’s attention snapped back into the room. “Who else you told?”
The preacher looked up and for the first time blinked. “Who-all I told?”
“White people, I mean.”
“I brung it straight to you, Sheriff.”
“Well, keep it quiet for now. Till we can find who’s been spreading them lies.”
Billy Dean stood up, letting the preacher know his time had run out. He watched the man with contempt as he struggled with the doorknob, holding his hat and his cigarette in one hand, and the ashes in the palm of the other.
When he had finally managed the door and before he walked into the outer office, the sheriff called after him, “I need to know names. You hear?” Then Billy Dean pressed his thumbs to his temples again, the sound of his words were like the firing of cannons.
Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League Page 34
