Jubilee's Journey

by Bette Lee Crosby

  That did it. Hurt, who’d been trying to please his daddy since the day he was born, went from protecting himself to picking a fight with anything that moved. It didn’t matter that almost all of the kids were bigger than him; Hurt was meaner. When neighbors began to knock at the door complaining Hurt had beat up their boy, his daddy’s smile was wider than ever.

  In the early years it was mostly kids and neighborhood animals who felt the sting of Hurt’s aggression. Then when his third-grade teacher Missus Kelsey tried to discipline him for fighting in class, she too became a victim. While she had hold of his arm, Hurt kicked her shin so hard she had to let go. He hightailed it out of the classroom and didn’t come back. That afternoon when Missus Kelsey went to get her car for the drive home, she found it had four flat tires and a shattered windshield.

  For almost three years the teachers tried to ignore Hurt’s behavior. Although no one said so, they were silently grateful when he failed to show up for class and never questioned his absence. But things finally came to a head when Hurt threw a rock that missed the math teacher’s head by inches. Fearful of the boy, Mister Riffkin threatened to quit. That’s when the principal telephoned Brenda McAdams and told her Hurt was not allowed back in the school.

  Whatever meanness Hurt had got worse when he met Butch Muller. Butch was twenty-eight at the time. Now, you might wonder why a twenty-eight-year-old man would have an interest in being pals with a seventeen-year-old kid, but the truth is they were kindred spirits. By that time Hurt was almost as mean as his daddy, and whatever evil-doing he didn’t know about Butch taught him. First it was just snatch-and-grab robberies, but before long they’d gotten to a point where either of them could clobber an unsuspecting passerby on the head, take his wallet, and walk off without a look back to see if the man was dead or alive.

  After two years of doing what proved to be less profitable than they’d originally thought, they moved up to robbing stores with a fistful of dollars in the cash register. They went in with kerchiefs covering the lower part of their faces. At first they were armed with just a crowbar and the machete Hurt bought second-hand. But when they eyed the jewelry store, Butch said he thought they’d be better off with guns.

  “That way we’ll know they’re taking us seriously,” he said, and Hurt agreed.

  Butch knew a pawn shop owner on the far side of town who was short on questions but plentiful on what he sold in the back room. As far as Hurt was concerned it was a worthwhile trip, because he came away with a Smith & Wesson .38 special and more confidence than he’d ever known. Just holding the gun in his hand felt good. With the gun Hurt was bigger. He was stronger. He was unstoppable. With the gun, Hurt didn’t have to take any guff from anybody—including his daddy.

  The jewelry store was a pushover because Eloise Mercer, the woman behind the counter, was well into her sixties and nervous as a cat. “Please, please,” she cried. “Take whatever you want, but don’t shoot me.” They didn’t, but it was a decision Hurt later regretted.

  The Stop n’ Shop was also a breeze. They were in and out in less than a minute and with a whopping three-hundred-and-six dollars from the register. Having a little money made Hurt feel good. Having a lot of money made him feel better. He wanted more. They began to look for bigger stores, the kind of stores that kept a lot of cash on hand.

  The 24-hour drugstore promised to be an easy target. If they waited until after midnight, the store would be empty. With no one there but Old Man Hamilton, they could take their time. Rumors were he had a back room safe where he kept a wad of extra cash. Of course, neither Butch nor Hurt knew that more than a year ago Gus Hamilton had installed a silent alarm that was wired directly into the police station two blocks south of the store.

  Hurt was the one holding a gun to Gus’s head when the police walked in. Butch saw the patrol car pull up, and without shouting a warning to his partner he slipped out the storeroom back door.

  It was Hurt who was arrested. He was the one who sat in the holding room for nine hours straight without even a drink of water. He was the one bombarded with questions. And he was the one who refused to say where he’d gotten the gun or who was with him.

  “You’ll get off a lot easier if you give him up,” the arresting officer said. Still Hurt refused. Butch was his friend—so he thought.

  Since Hurt’s description matched the one Eloise Mercer gave when two men robbed her jewelry store, he was put in a lineup and identified as one of the perpetrators in that robbery also.

  With two counts of burglary and not a twinge of cooperation, the judge didn’t feel one bit lenient when he handed down the sentence. Hurt spent the next seven years in the Camp Hill Correctional Institution, and every day he was in there he grew meaner. He’d counted on having both his daddy and Butch Muller stand by him, but not once in the whole seven years did he hear from either of them.

  When Hurt was released they handed him a bus ticket back to Pittsburgh, thirty-five dollars, and a note with the address of his parole officer.

  Before he boarded the bus for Pittsburgh, Hurt wadded the paper in his fist and tossed it in the trash can.

  Once he was back in town, Hurt’s first stop was the pawn shop. He got what he came for, but it cost him twenty bucks. He then went in search of Butch. Nine stops later Hurt stood face to face with Butch in the alleyway behind the Bluebeard Barbershop.

  “I thought you was my friend,” Hurt said. Then without so much as a wince, he pulled the gun from his pocket and shot Butch in the head. “You just can’t trust nobody,” he mumbled as he turned and walked away.

  Twenty minutes later Hurt stood in front of the house he’d lived in as a boy. When he started up the walkway the next-door neighbor leaned over the porch rail and called out, “You ain’t looking for your pa, are you, boy?”

  Hurt looked over. Old Man Kubick had become white-haired and so hunched he was almost unrecognizable. “Yeah, I am,” Hurt answered.

  “He’s gone. He been gone for three, maybe four years.”

  “Gone where?”

  “South. Miami Beach maybe.” The old man scratched his head and hesitated a minute, trying to recall where George McAdams had said he was going. “Come to think of it,” the old man mused, “I believe it was Myrtle Beach,” but before he got the words out, Hurt was gone.

  It was late in the afternoon, and the Greyhound station bustled with people. Hurt got in line behind two men and a small woman wearing the same perfume his mother wore. It was the smell of gardenias. Without thinking he leaned forward and sucked in the smell. If Daddy hadn’t driven her away years earlier, Mama would have come to visit. “He’s the cause of everything,” Hurt grumbled.

  The woman turned. “Excuse me?”

  “Wasn’t nothing,” Hurt answered. Then with barely a breath in between, he asked, “You got a boy, ma’am?”

  When she smiled, she bore a strong resemblance to how Hurt imagined his mama would now look. “I sure do. Four of them. I’m off to spend some time with my boy in Kentucky right now.”

  “Ain’t that nice,” Hurt replied; then he looked down at his shoes and quit talking.

  When the woman left Hurt moved up to the ticket window. “How much for a one-way to Miami?”

  “Miami…let’s see…” The clerk ran his finger down the list of fares. “Ah, yes, here it is. Miami, twenty-eight seventy-five. That’s with a three-hour stopover in Wyattsville, Virginia.”

  “You got anything cheaper?”

  The clerk ran his finger down the list again. “Afraid not.”

  “Nothing?”

  The clerk shook his head.

  Hurt had fifteen dollars and no desire to remain in Pittsburgh. “What was that place in Virginia?”

  “Wyattsville?”

  “Yeah. How much to Wyattsville?”

  The clerk looked at the book again. “Thirteen seventy-five.”

  “Gimme that,” Hurt said. He pulled the three wrinkled five-dollar bills from his pocket and pushed them through the win
dow grill.

  Forty-five minutes later Hurt was on his way to Wyattsville. He had a score to settle in Miami, but in order to get there he’d have to stop and pick up some cash along the way. The three-hour layover was plenty of time.

  Paul

  Walking down that mountain was the scariest thing I ever done. I was remembering how Mama used to say people ought not burn the bridges behind them, but that’s just what it felt like we was doing. It ain’t right when a person’s gotta choose between keeping a promise and putting food on the table.

  We was all the way down to where the creek bed ends when I come within a whisker of turning back. I’d stopped so Jubie could rest and was thinking how she’d be sleeping in her own bed if I’d do what maybe I should do. Then there was this loud crack of thunder, and I heard a voice say, “Keep going!” It sounded the exact same as Daddy. I ain’t saying it was Daddy, and I ain’t saying it was the Almighty. But I am saying you don’t argue with something like that. “Yes, sir,” I answered, then picked Jubie up and carried her the rest of the way.

  When Jubie said she was scared of going to a place she didn’t know, I told her not to worry. I said it was a good thing, ‘cause we was going to see an aunt we never knew we had. Then she started smiling. The whole time I was telling her how good everything was gonna be, I was wishing I had someone to tell me the same thing.

  Looking for Anita

  Paul and Jubilee boarded the Greyhound bus at the Campbell’s Creek Depot. He had a ticket; she didn’t. When he’d asked the clerk at the window how much for two tickets to Wyattsville, Virginia, she answered, “Eight dollars and fifty cents.” While Paul stood there counting out the quarters and dimes, the woman peered over the counter at Jubilee. “Make that four-twenty-five,” she said. “There’s no charge for kids under five.”

  “Oh, Jubie just looks small,” Paul started to say, “but—”

  “Maybe you don’t hear so good.” The ticket clerk cocked an eyebrow and looked Paul square in the face. “I said we don’t charge for kids under five,” she repeated, then cranked out a single ticket and handed it to him.

  Once they were settled on the bus Jubilee leaned over and whispered in Paul’s ear, “I’m hungry.” He reached beneath the seat and pulled a jelly sandwich from the bag he’d been carrying. After the sandwich was gone she settled back into her seat, and for a while was content to watch the scenery fly by. When darkness dropped a blanket over the countryside, she scooted closer to Paul and began a barrage of questions.

  “Is Aunt Anita nice?”

  Paul shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose, like everybody else, she’s got some good qualities and some not-so-good ones.”

  “Oh.” Jubilee hesitated a moment then asked, “Did Mama think she was nice?”

  Paul shrugged again. “Hard to say. Mama never talked about her, leastwise not to me.”

  “How come?”

  “Judging by the letters I read, Mama and Aunt Anita didn’t get along real well.”

  “What if we get to Virginia and Aunt Anita don’t get along with us either?”

  “You ask too many questions. Stop worrying. Try to sleep.” He wrapped a long arm around her shoulders and nudged her closer. “Tomorrow’s gonna be a big day.”

  Jubilee closed her eyes and before long drifted off to sleep. For Paul, sleep was impossible. He kept asking himself the same questions Jubilee asked. Unfortunately, he knew something she didn’t. He knew what Anita had written in those letters. Paul thought back on the last letter, the letter dated just two months after Jubilee was born. The angry words were written in a heavy-handed script, and even after seven years the smell of bitterness still permeated the ink. If you refuse to listen to reason, Anita had written, then I wash my hands of you.

  Since there were only a handful of letters, five to be exact, Paul had no way of knowing what Anita wanted his mama to do. He could only pray that by now her anger had subsided.

  The bus pulled into Wyattsville shortly after daybreak. Paul gave Jubilee a gentle shake to wake her. “We’re here,” he whispered.

  The bus station was something Paul could have never before imagined. Four buses stood side by side, each one coming from someplace far away and heading to someplace else. A loudspeaker crackled the last-minute warning for folks headed to Chicago. Men and women moved through the terminal without slowing, each one confident of where they were headed.

  Wyattsville apparently was a lot larger than Paul had anticipated. Finding Anita might not be that easy. Holding tight to Jubilee’s hand, he made his way toward the front door of the station.

  Their first stop was a luncheonette where they sat at the counter. Jubilee whirled herself around on the stool three times; then Paul told her to stop. He looked down the menu prices, then ordered a glass of milk and biscuit for Jubilee and coffee for himself. He was on his second refill when the waitress, a woman with a badge indicating her name was Connie, asked, “Can I get y’all something else?”

  “You got a telephone book?”

  “Sure do, honey.” She waggled a finger toward the rear of the shop. “Right past the restroom.”

  Jubilee’s eyes widened. “You got a special room for resting?”

  Connie laughed then leaned across the counter and whispered, “It’s a toilet. We just call it a restroom for the sake of politeness.”

  After warning Jubilee not to budge from the stool, Paul headed toward the back. The phone book, nearly three times the size of Charleston’s, had way more names than he was hoping for. He turned the pages to W. He knew two things: Anita was supposedly their aunt, and her last name might be Walker like his mama’s once was. None of Anita’s letters mentioned a husband, so Paul was hoping she was still a Walker. There was a full page of Walkers. Not one of them was an Anita.

  As he made his way back to his seat Paul began rubbing his hand across the back of his neck, the way his daddy did when he was worrying. Sitting at the counter he pulled the remainder of the money from his pocket and counted it again. Twelve dollars and eighty-seven cents.

  When Connie poured a third refill, Paul pushed two dimes and a nickel across the counter and said, “Thank you, ma’am.” When she came back with another biscuit for Jubilee, he asked if she knew of any rooming houses in the area. “Not too expensive,” he added.

  “I sure do,” Connie answered. “Missus Willoughby has a real nice place, and I think she only charges two dollars a night.”

  “Two dollars just for sleeping!” Jubilee exclaimed.

  Connie leaned closer. “’Course, if you was to mention you were short on cash, I think she’d be willing to let you stay in that upstairs room for a dollar.”

  Connie then explained how they were to get to Missus Willoughby’s boarding house. “You can’t miss it,” she said. “It’s a big three-story house with a yellow sign out front.”

  Fifteen minutes later Paul and Jubilee started walking north on Rosemont, and when they reached Main Street they turned right. “I think it’s less than a mile from here,” Paul said, but before they’d gone four blocks a sign in the grocery store window caught his eye.

  “Help Wanted” it read. Underneath in smaller print was “Stock Boy—$30 a week.”

  A few doors down, on the opposite side of the street, Paul spied a park bench. “Come on,” he said and took Jubilee by the hand as they crossed.

  The Greyhound bus from Pittsburgh pulled in ten minutes after Paul and Jubilee left the station. They were nine blocks from the luncheonette when Hurt McAdams walked in. He looked down the long row of stools, and on the far end he saw the back of what he believed to be a uniformed policeman. “No sense asking for trouble,” he mumbled. He turned, walked out the door, and started toward what looked to be the center of town. He strode with long deliberate movements, his eyes fixed straight ahead and his features locked in a look of determination.

  In three hours he had to be back on that bus. He had to get back to the station, buy a ticket, and be sitting on the bus when it pulled o
ut for Miami. Hurt glanced down at his wristwatch. Two hours and twenty minutes left. Forty minutes already gone. He had to hurry.

  Hurt turned off Rosemont and walked along Washington Street. There were plenty of stores but none of them open. He reached into his pocket and wrapped his hand around the gun. He could feel the energy coming from it. It had power, and with it he had power. The butt of the gun could smash a window to smithereens. He considered the thought, then pushed it away. If the store had alarms they’d be all over him before he could get back to the bus. No good. He turned east, walked three blocks, and took a left onto Main Street.

  Hurt glanced at his watch again. Two hours. He had to find something soon. He looked down the long street. At the far end he saw a Wonder Bread delivery truck pulling away from the front of what looked to be a small grocery store.

  Perfect. No people. He’d grab what he came for and leave no witnesses. Before anyone knew what happened, he’d be back on the bus headed for Miami.

  Hurt began walking toward the store.

  Paul took the small bag he’d been carrying and sat it on the bench alongside Jubilee. “I want you to stay here. I’m probably gonna be gone a while, but don’t worry. I’ll be back soon as I can.”