One Night in Georgia

by Celeste O. Norfleet

  “You look beautiful,” he said. I could swear I blushed for the first time in my life. “You all do,” he said to the other girls without taking his eyes off me.

  “Y’all girls be careful out dere tonight,” said Mr. Jackson. “Dere’s a lot of fast boys with heat in their britches and no good sense. Don’t let ’em talk you up on a hummer, ya here? Daniel, you keep a eye on ’em.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where’s Winston? I thought he was coming with us,” Daphne asked.

  “No. He’s gonna meet us there,” Mazie said. “He needs to rehearse and do microphone checks. That’s what all professional entertainers do before they perform.”

  “Have fun,” her mother called out, waving to us as we headed out.

  “Let’s put the roof down,” Mazie announced, approaching the car.

  The sun was low in the sky, and the last remnant of evening was about to tuck away for the night. Yet it was still sweltering hot.

  “It feels like it’s going to rain,” I said.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Mazie insisted. “Come on, please?”

  Her whining, childish pleading quickly got the best of Veronica. “Fine,” she gave in. She and Daniel pulled the top down and secured it.

  Mazie plopped her butt in the front passenger seat next to Veronica. Daphne, Daniel, and I sat in back. As soon as we drove off, another car pulled up and took our spot. I saw an older white man get out of the car, walk up the porch steps, and go into the house. “Hey, who’s that?” Veronica asked.

  Mazie turned around and looked. “Oh, that’s my mother’s boyfriend. He has lots of money,” she said, sounding overly impressed. “Does this radio work? Let’s hear some music.”

  Mazie clicked the radio on and turned the dial until she found a station she liked. The song, a Motown favorite, put us in the perfect mood for the night ahead. Even Daniel was singing along.

  Veronica followed Mazie’s directions, although she got us lost twice.

  “You have been to this place before, right?” I asked.

  “Of course I have,” Mazie said, sounding annoyed. “But somebody always drives me. I don’t pay attention to how to get there. Why would I?”

  I wanted to tell her why, but I didn’t.

  We drove around an old church, passed a row of billboards for Waller Car Sales and a small school with a green school bus. There was a short series of telephone poles along the road that we moved past quickly since it looked as if they’d fall at any moment.

  “It’s up dere on the other side of this covered bridge and then round the bend to the left.”

  What she called a bridge was a mass of rotten wood with a barely standing overhead covering. It creaked and moaned as we crossed over. I feared we’d drop into the stream and rocks below at any second.

  We arrived at our destination right before the sun set, giving us just enough light to be seen by those standing around outside. There were dozens and dozens of cars already parked and two more cars behind us. One with headlights so close I could hear the four passengers in the back seat laughing. Cars were everywhere, parked haphazardly beneath trees, in mud, and on what must have once been a field of grass. The remote farmhouse and barn were surrounded by woods and what probably had been an orchard at one time.

  “All this here used to be farmland, but the owner died and then his son died. And then this just sort of became the place to hang out.”

  “A nightclub?” I asked.

  “Yes.” Mazie turned and stared at me. “It may not be as fancy as the ones in Washington, DC, or New York, but dat doesn’t matter ’cause we still have fun here.”

  “Do we just park anywhere?” Veronica asked, pulling over.

  “No! No! Don’t stop here. Get closer,” Mazie instructed.

  “There’s no place to park closer,” Veronica said, “and I don’t want to get jammed in by other cars.”

  “Don’t worry. Your precious car is going to be just fine. Look. There’s Gunner,” she said, pointing happily. He was motioning for us to come forward.

  He waved us toward an open space alongside a barn. Veronica pulled up and turned the engine off. By this time Mazie was kneeling up on the seat, waving at people standing around outside, wanting them to notice her in the car.

  Mazie dashed off, leaving us, heading right to the big opening at the front of the barn. Daphne, Daniel, and I stayed to help Veronica put the top up. Mazie hurried back. “What are you doing?” she insisted. “No, leave it down. It looks better down.”

  Veronica was frowning. “This is my car, and I’m not going to have the inside rained on. I’m putting my car roof up.”

  Mazie turned on her heels and stomped away. We continued as Gunner came over and helped Daniel finish. “So you and Mazie are friends?” I asked him.

  “Yep, known her all my life. I was her boyfriend once.”

  “That was before she met Winston, right?” I said, half joking.

  “I introduced ’em. Didn’t know he’d steal my girl away, but dat’s water under the bridge. We’re all friends now.”

  “It’s Tuesday night. Why are there so many people here?” I asked him.

  “Oh, it’s always crowded on Tuesday night. Dey have dinners for sale in the back on Tuesdays and Fridays, so dere’s always people here to get something to eat. Plus, Winston is performing and everybody wanna see him.”

  “What’s this nightclub called?” Veronica asked.

  “Nightclub? Oh, you mean the barn,” he said. “To tell you the truth, it ain’t got no name, never did. We all call it the barn, and everyone knows what we’re talking ’bout. It’s been yere forever. It caught fire twice, but it’s still standing.”

  “Who owns it?” I asked, wondering about the property.

  He chuckled. “Nobody and everybody. The town’s been fighting over this land for decades. It started about sixty years ago. Some Northern white folks wanted to buy this property to build a golf course and start moving all the blacks out. Old Mr. Jenkins wouldn’t sell his land. He was killed a few months later. Dey say it was the night riders dat did it. They didn’t know he had a will. The land went to his son.

  “Then his boy was killed ’fore he could sell or take hold, so the town claimed it ’cause a back taxes. But the people made a fuss, and dat started the legal battle dat some say is still going on. Now every year the taxes get paid somehow. So the town has no claim to the land. And since none of them fine folk on the other side of town wants to come over yere, we claim it as ours.”

  “Can the people build something on the land, like a school or something like that?”

  “Nah, the town ain’t give us no permits.”

  “So this land just sits.”

  He nodded. “Pretty much.”

  “Hey, what’s taking so long? Come on,” Mazie insisted as she came back to get us. “Let’s go inside.”

  As we walked up to the front opening, a group of young women turned and stared at us—well, they mostly stared at Mazie. She was making a spectacle of herself, laughing and talking loudly about college life and how much fun we had. The girls glared at her as if she were the devil incarnate.

  As we got closer, I half expected they’d come over and start pounding on her. When we walked past I heard malicious grumbles as their nasty glares turned vocal.

  “Look who’s yere, Miss Beauty Queen.”

  “She’s got some nerve showing her face yere again after she flirted with my boyfriend last week.”

  “Mine too.”

  “Bitch.”

  “She thinks she’s hot shit.”

  Mazie held her head high and kept walking, ignoring their words. We followed her inside with Daniel and Gunner close behind.

  18

  THE HEAT IMMEDIATELY DESCENDED LIKE A PLASTIC BAG over my face when we entered the barn. I felt like I was suffocating. But it was the stench that hit me hard. It was a nasty menagerie of barnyard excrement, putrid muck, fried food, and body odor. Seconds later my eyes started bu
rning, from our smoke-filled surroundings.

  Barely through the entrance, we stopped and waited for Daniel and Gunner.

  There was a cover charge, and before we could reach into our purses, Daniel paid for all of us. Mazie took his arm, batted her eyelashes, and kissed his cheek in gratitude. Gunner walked away.

  “What’s up with Gunner?” Daphne questioned. “He seems a bit miffed.”

  Mazie replied, “He’s jealous. He says he’s over me and that we’re all just friends, but he’s really not. He’s cute and all, but he doesn’t have no future. I want a boyfriend who’s going someplace.” She looked up at Daniel and smiled sweetly. “Like Daniel here, right?”

  “You mean like Winston, your fiancé,” I corrected.

  “Or maybe Daniel,” Mazie said again as if she were joking, but we all knew she really wasn’t.

  She beamed her beauty-queen smile, and I cut my eyes at her.

  Daniel untwined her arm from his and wiped her bright red lipstick from his cheek. “But not this Daniel,” he said. “I make it a rule never to date another man’s fiancée.”

  While the others grinned, I smiled and looked around.

  The barn was crowded—mostly blacks dressed in their “Apollo Theater on Friday night” finest, with a smattering of white faces here and there. The inside of the barn was just as decrepit as the outside. With peeling paint, termite-infested wood, and a rusting tin roof dripping bright orange water. The noise level was deafening. Everybody was shouting over everybody else, making it difficult to hear anything. Plus loud music was playing.

  There was a crooked hayloft above us. The rickety overhang was the remains of partitioned stalls and overhead framed crossbeams, which looked as if they might give way at any moment. Underneath, the people laughed and joked and ribbed each other in the dim room. I saw a woman with her back against the wall. Her skirt was hiked up, and a man in front of her had his pants dropped to his ankles and was pushing into her. Her legs were wrapped around his waist. Her red lips were parted and her head was thrown back as she held tight to his white shirt. They were in plain sight and no one seemed to care. I looked away quickly, right into Daniel’s dark brown eyes.

  Daphne broke our connection. “Are you hungry?” she asked jokingly, pointing.

  I turned and saw a board hoisted up behind a makeshift bar, which was made of stacks of cinder blocks and a plywood top. A selection of drinks and food platters containing fried chicken, fried porgies and trout, cornbread, barbecued pork, chitterlings, turnip greens, dirty rice, and potato salad. On the bar were jars of pickled pigs’ feet and hard-boiled eggs, as well as small whiskey glasses and wax-coated cups.

  People with bloodshot eyes staggered around bumping into each other, yelling, screaming, pushing, and shoving. There was a scuffle going on in the corner by the bar.

  “Hey, over here,” Gunner called out to us. We went over to a long rectangular table with six chairs near the crudely improvised stage. “What do you want to drink?” Gunner asked.

  “Nothing. I’m fine,” I said.

  “I pass,” Veronica said.

  “Me too,” Daphne added.

  “Oh, come on. It’s my birthday. Y’all have to drink,” Mazie said, overly pouty. “Get something. Dey have gin, whiskey, beer, corn liquor, all kinds of stuff.”

  “Dey also have homemade peach wine,” Gunner suggested.

  Daphne grimaced and looked at me. I shrugged. “Okay, I’ll have a beer,” I said. Both Daphne and Veronica asked for beers as well.

  “Not me. I want whiskey,” Mazie said.

  “Whiskey? Mazie, are you sure about that?” I asked.

  “Sure I’m sure. I’ve had it before. Besides, it’s my birthday and I’m celebrating,” she insisted, slapping her hand on the table for emphasis.

  Gunner and Daniel went to get our drinks. They came back a short time later and set the beverages down in front of us. Gunner pulled a pint of whiskey and two small glasses from his shirt pocket. He poured whiskey for himself and Mazie and then held his glass up. “Okay, here’s to Tuesday nights at the barn.”

  “No,” Mazie contended quickly. “To my birthday.” Mazie drank the whiskey down in one straight gulp, then shivered and shook and made a horrendous face. She started coughing and gasping as she slammed the glass down. “More,” she said, laughing.

  “Are you sure?” Daniel asked.

  “You’re not my boyfriend. I want more,” she repeated.

  Gunner filled her glass again. She drank it down just like the first and did the shuddering, coughing thing again.

  “More.”

  “Maybe you should slow down,” Gunner warned.

  “No way. It’s my birthday and I’m gonna have me some fun. More.”

  He looked at us, shrugged, and poured her another one. This one she didn’t drink straight down. She took a small sip with the same reaction.

  “How ’bout I get us all some water,” Daniel said.

  “I’ll show you where the water hose is,” Gunner said.

  As soon as they walked away, Mazie picked up her glass and downed the drink. “That’s so nasty,” she said, pouring herself another from the bottle Gunner had left on the table.

  “Then stop drinking it,” Veronica said soundly.

  “Maybe I’ll date Gunner again,” Mazie said.

  All our jaws dropped.

  “Winston’s cheating on me. He’s always cheating on me,” Mazie said matter-of-factly. “He told me that it was over with those other girls, but he lied. He’s still sleeping with dem.”

  I shook my head. “What makes you think he’s cheating?”

  “’Cause she told me and she’s here tonight.”

  “So what? I’m sure there are a lot of girls who like him. He’s got a good singing voice. Maybe she just came to hear him sing.”

  “No, she came for Winston. I heard her say so,” she said, taking a sip of the whiskey. “But that’s okay. She can have him. I’ll make him jealous and sleep with someone else.”

  “Mazie, you can’t—” Daphne said.

  “You should talk to him,” I said.

  “No. I don’t care anymore,” she continued. “If he can cheat, den so can I. I’m a find me somebody better than him, like Daniel.” She picked up the glass and swallowed the rest of the drink straight down.

  “Mazie, let’s go back home. We can celebrate there,” I said, hoping she’d listen to sense.

  Before anyone could seriously consider my suggestion, two men came up and asked for a dance. Mazie got up and pulled Veronica with her onto the dance floor.

  “Oh dear Lord, look at her out there.” Mazie was flirting with both men. She was shaking her breasts and wiggling her butt, rubbing up against them. Then she kissed one and then the other. The men smiled from ear to ear as she danced between them.

  “There was a long line outside at the water hose,” Daniel said, placing three cups of brownish water on the table.

  “Where’d Mazie go?” Gunner asked, smiling. But before we could answer, he located her on the dance floor. His smile disappeared and he walked away.

  Daniel sat down next to me. “What’s wrong with Gunner?”

  “Mazie,” I said.

  Just then two white guys came over and stood at our table. “Well, well, now, who do we have here?” one of them said. “These two lovely young things belong to you, boy?”

  “We’re not things and we don’t belong to anyone,” I said. He was tall and muscular with a flat face, a once-broken nose, and barely focusing eyes that were bloodshot and too close together.

  He looked down at me with a menacing grin. “I see we have a smart-mouth here. Do you know what I like to do with smart-mouths?” He leaned in close and I could smell the stink of whiskey on his breath.

  “Back off, boys,” Daniel warned with a mean scowl.

  “Ohh, the black boy ain’t sharing his booty,” he said and chuckled loudly. “I’m just joking around. Can’t you take a joke?”

  “No,
we can’t.”

  “You know, I don’t like your attitude, boy.”

  “And I don’t like yours, boy,” Daniel said.

  “Cool it,” the other man said quickly to Daniel. “He’s okay. We’re celebrating, that’s all. Ladies, my name’s Rob and this here’s my best friend Billy.”

  We nodded silently but didn’t give our names.

  “We just quit the war. We’re headed to Canada,” Rob said proudly.

  “Shut up, Rob, you dumbass. Keep your mouth shut. Y’all gals want to dance with us?” Billy said. We both declined.

  Just then Veronica came back and sat beside Daphne. She was giddy, until she took a sip of her beer and made a repulsed face. “That’s disgusting,” she said.

  “Whoa, now I like these odds,” Billy responded. “I’ll take all three of them with me. Come on, dance with me, gal.”

  “No thanks,” Veronica said, fanning herself with a napkin. “It’s way too hot out there on that dance floor.”

  “Don’t worry about the heat. It’s good for you. Come on, stand up and dance with me,” Billy seemed to order her. He reached for her hand, and she quickly moved it away. He glared at her fiercely. “What? You think you too damn good to dance with me? I said, get up and dance with me, now.”

  Daniel jumped up. “She doesn’t want to dance. So move on,” he warned firmly.

  “Is that an order, boy?” Billy said, redirecting his attention to Daniel. His words slurred and dripped with malice. He started laughing. “You shut the fuck up,” he said, pointing his finger at Daniel, then staggering into the table, nearly knocking it over.

  “Come on, man. Cool it. Let’s go,” Rob insisted. “Sorry. He’s drunk. I’ll take him out to cool off.”

  Daniel glared at them.

  Rob grabbed Billy’s arm. “Come on, man, let’s beat it,” he said, pulling him away from our table. “You need some fresh air. Come on.”