by Cynthia Bond
Ephram softened, like corn bread dipped in warm milk, as Gubber, Charlie and Celia’s former beau, K.O., stumbled onto the lawn. K.O.’s younger brother Jeb was heaving up his first ten drinks.
“That’s the way, boy,” K.O. called out. Firm and dark as stone. The only sign of age a crisping of white along his temples. “Got to lay it out before you can play it out.” Then to the other two men, “He’s seventeen tonight, going to have his first taste when Mabel gets through with Chauncy.”
“Best get sick here than in her lap,” Charlie scolded, in his thin nasal voice. “Say she ain’t comin’ back next man do that.” He wiped the bald of his scalp, then slapped his narrow thigh to emphasize the point.
Gubber Samuels, a butter cream lump of a man, wall-eyed since birth, turned up his whiskey and smacked when it came down. “Best she don’t bring her black ass back nohow. One mo’ drop a’ ugly in Liberty and we gone have us a flood.”
“Mabel’s all right. She know her business.” K.O. lit a Lucky.
Rooster Rankin, nearly dead drunk beside the well, slurred out, “Sh-she sho d-d-do!”
“But the woman too fat!” Gubber countered. “Lord, ain’t seen that many rolls since the Michelin tire man won a pie eatin’ contest.”
“Aw no,” K.O. crossed, “if that’s not the pot callin’ the kettle. Gubber so fat when he die they’ll take him to the River Jordan and jes’ set him down.”
Charlie answered the call, “And why is that?”
“Hell, ain’t nothin’ mighty ’nuff to tote his big ass over.”
A few good sized chuckles skitted across the yard.
“Well, I ain’t got no ‘for sale’ sign tacked on my behind,” Gubber countered.
“Already got a ‘all you can eat’ one takin’ up space.”
The men broke into laughter. Rooster hollered so something gave way in his throat and he took to coughing.
K.O. threw Gubber a rope, “But you right ’bout one thing, Gub. Town full a’ spinster virgins and old married women. Ain’t no bona-fine-in-they-prime women like we usta have.”
Mabel appeared in the doorway. She was a chocolate Easter bunny filling out a blue ribbon dress. “Y’all ain’t much to look at neither.”
K.O. pointed at his brother. “Hey Mabel. He’s next.”
“Not ’til I have my Lucky. Girl need a break. Gimme one K.O.”
He handed it over while Gubber muttered, “You sure ain’t a girl no more.”
“Wish I could say the same ’bout you Gubber Samuels.” And the men roared. Gubber sipped his bottle in silence.
Ole Pete, a white haired man with burnt almond skin, spoke from the shadow, “Too bad y’all ain’t ole enough to remember them Bell girls. Lord, they was some pretty women.”
Charlie jibed, “Aw Pete, you too ole to ’member what your own mama look like.”
Pete cut back, walking towards the pit fire and settling before it, “But not too old to ’member what your mama like.”
Charlie mocked anger, “Man, you so old if I told you to act your age you’d be in the grave.”
“You know boy, I coulda been your daddy, but the fella in line behind me had correct change.”
Charlie feigned rising in protest. K.O. sat him back down. “Hush.” Then to Pete, “Naw, I remember them Bell girls. There was three of ’em. I wasn’t but a young boy, but I was old enough to know they was some fine women. What was they names?”
Pete looked into the fire. “Girdie was the youngest with them long Indian braids, the redhead was Charlotte, then the eldest Neva.”
K.O.’s brother Jeb, a spindly boy all teeth and legs, came to life against the stairs. He wiped his mouth and slurred, “K.O., ain’t that crazy gal livin’ out at the Bell place they kin?”
Pete replied, “That’s Charlotte Bell’s daughter Ruby out there.”
“She ain’t nothing to look at.” Jeb shrugged.
K.O. said quiet, “Usta be.”
“Well,” Jeb tried to focus, “she look like the scarecrow now.”
Mabel asked between a slow drag, “Wasn’t that them three sisters had that trouble with the law?”
Pete shifted before the fire and shook his head. “Yes, but Neva make out the worst.”
Jeb leaned forward. “Who?”
“Neva Bell, Ruby’s Auntie.”
K.O. started, “Yes, yes I remember. I remember hearing what they done to that child.”
Charlie nodded. “It were a sin before God.”
Jeb’s face squeezed tight with interest. “Well—what happened to her?”
Pete shifted in the firelight. And the whole of the front yard seemed to lean into him. As he spoke, the ash on Mabel’s cigarette grew.
“TROUBLE COME the year of Mister Bell’s bumper cotton harvest. Nineteen and thirty-two. When the crop grew so tall and white, folks said it dusted the heaven. That year Mister Bell bought brass bells up in Jasper and tied them to his chinaberry tree. So that on a windy day at picking time the air was full of ringing and bits of cotton all the way to P & K.
“Now most of them Bells passed for White. Left the South on buses, boats and trains … flew up north just like them bits of cotton, but not Mister Bell, who was whiter than milk from a white cow in winter. Folks always speculating if Neva would take that train up north, but they knew just as well that she wouldn’t, she loved her daddy so.
“Now, Neva was the kind of pretty make the sun jealous. Not just because she was strawberry blond with her daddy’s blue eyes. And it wasn’t just her figure, though it looked like God must have been tickled with hisself with that handiwork. It were her smile. Lord help the men in Liberty when that child took a notion to smile. It were a miracle of nature, the apple that come into her cheeks. So we didn’t get mad one at the other for loving her cuz there wasn’t no escaping it. Still, we keep a distance from her, all Colored folk did, cuz she was different. We watch Neva Bell like we do a star just a-twinkling. Which made it all the harder when Mr. Peter Leech yank her down to earth.
“She’d kept house for them Leeches in Newton two years before when the rains had drowned most of her papa’s crop. Mr. Leech were Viceroy of the First National Bank. Folks say he look like Lincoln ’thout the whiskers. His wife, Missus Julie Leech, were a mean scrawny thing with a Adam’s apple. One day after Neva had put they three horse-faced children to bed, Mr. Leech tried to jump her. Neva up and quit the next day.
“Know how some men won’t work hard at nothin’ ’cept doing wrong? Well that man, who could barely lift his head to say hello to folks, who wouldn’t raise a hand to catch it if his soul was driftin’ off—somehow got the wherewith to chase Neva Bell up and down that red road in that black Fairlane of his. She say no ever’ way she could think of, but yet he chase and chase for months on end. Chase all the Black fellas away. Chase ’way what few friends she had. Chase so she didn’t feel safe walkin’ with her own sisters. She make them follow a mile behind. He chase her ’til she didn’t know where to turn. Chase her ’til that apple left her cheeks. Chase away her hope, and any dreams she might have been kindling ’bout that yella English teacher from Louisville. Mr. Leech chase her ’til she was tired enough to let him catch her, one Sunday after church in a ditch out by Marion Lake.
“Some folk say after time she come to love him. Others say she jes’ give in to shame. Me, I don’t know much, ’cept that he chased her all the way to lonely. And once you make it there, ain’t too many choices left.
“Things was easier for her after that, ’cept folks wouldn’t look her straight in the eye. They’d look at her new hat, or her paten’ leather shoes. She and her sisters was still invited to the same church socials, husking bees and melon splittings—only when the fiddle come out, didn’t nobody ask her to dance ’cept her daddy. He don’t never reproach her. Treated her like a princess, like he always done.
“All went long smooth ’til that man up and build her a house in them piney woods. Mr. Leech spent three months raising that place, hired my
daddy, who was a sawyer and carpenter, to build it. I helped haul lumber from the mill and seen Mr. Leech there. Hands on his hips, his left foot jest a tappin’ ’til the last plank was painted. He fixed that house up with real glass windows, running water, and a icebox to keep his root beers cold, but not one single door lock. Not even a screen hook. Now he ain’t got to share her with nobody. Call her Bluebell cuz of her eyes.
“Now, she don’t go nowhere. Weddings, barn raisings come and go without Neva Bell. He only let her out once a week for church and her daddy’s Sunday supper after, but the rest of the time Mr. Leech have her stay in that little white house.
“Now they up there together most weekends. Smoke just a-churning out that chimney. Him leavin’ his wife and chirren ever Friday and not coming back ’til Sunday mornin’ in time for service. Sneakin’ off middle-week too. His black Fairlane kickin’ up clouds a red dust at noon while folk workin’ they fields and then kickin’ it back up in the opposing direction less than an hour later.
“ ’Til the day come when he pack up two steamer trunks and land them on Neva’s front porch. She’d been out working her little vegetable garden, her sister say, and pushed her spade down in the soil by her radish tops. She look at him and just knew trouble on its way. Say she could taste it in the back of her throat. Seem like a White man can do anythang on earth to a Black woman—rape her, beat her, shame her. But he show her a ounce of respect and all hell break a loose. And that day, he give her just a drop and tell her he leavin’ his old life on the side of the road to Liberty. So Neva, in spite of something holdin’ its breath in them woods, accepted that little drop. She left that spade planted in the earth and opened her unlocked door.
“Now Missus Julie Leech, who didn’t much mind having her husband out her hair and her bed on weekends, thought another thing altogether when her neighbors seen him putting his trunks in his Fairlane. Then that little Adam’s apple took to jumpin’ and she call on her family. First she call her mama, Lucy Levy, who tole her husband, Mr. Jeffrey Levy, president of First National Bank, who tole his son, Sheriff George Levy, who called on his sister where she cried into his collar ’bout shame, niggah whores and Black witches, and not bein’ able to show her face nowheres.
“I ’member that were late September and all them acres of Bell cotton been picked, baled and levied. Fetched a fair price so that Mister Bell’s purse was chock-full for a change. That Saturday—naw, it were a Sunday. I remember ’cause I’d seen Neva in church that morning, with her two sisters. Preacher’d been in fine form, and the sun shine soft on the fields, the road and the faces of folk after church. Especially on Neva Bell. She was wearin’ something with little purple flowers. The wind danced with that dress like a beau. She was talking to her sisters, they heads leaning one to the other like does.
“I wasn’t but seventeen but I swore God if he let her look my way I wouldn’t sin a day in this life. God pitied a liar and she did just that. Turn and smile all big and pretty right into my eyes. Then her sister Charlotte, ’bout seventeen her own self, with them evergreen eyes and pretty red hair, look over too, and the two of them start giggling like young girls do. Then they walk on off. And that’s the last I seen of Neva Bell ever on this earth.
“Neva stayed late at her papa’s for Sunday supper since Mr. Leech been called to Austin for bank business. She sat round the hearth with her sisters and watched her daddy play ‘Clementine’ on his fiddle. Afterwards, Papa Bell he say he gone treat his three girls to a soda pop, so he give each a nickel and they take off walkin’ to the store. Many a day I wonder how he live without them nickels. The hollow they yet make in his pockets.
“It happened a mile from P & K. When Sheriff Levy on his black quarter horse, come upon them three girls. Him and eleven of his deputies. One, two, six won’t do. He need all eleven for the job. That night they hauled the two youngest girls, Charlotte and Girdie, off to the Newton County jail sayin’ they got to question them about Claud Jackson’s missing cattle. Girdie wasn’t but ten.
“That leave Neva alone with the rest. If she thought to run, she musta chose against it. They wasn’t no place on earth to go, so she laid her hope on mercy instead.
“Them lawmen drag her out to that hill past Marion Lake. It musta been then they slide on they white hoods. The moon, it was nearly full and bright. From up there Neva musta been able to see her daddy’s land. All them fresh-harvested acres. Maybe that’s where she fix her eyes while them Klux keep her out there for hours—doin’ what God ain’t got the muscle to look at.
“Then when they was done, out there on that hilltop, time stretch itself out like molasses. Crickets slow they crik. Owl drag her ‘hoo’s.’ That’s when Sheriff Levy click the safety off that Remington Sport rifle of his—the one he brag on so, its barrel catching a piece of moon. Then each every man take his firearm to his shoulder and aim at that child. What they see through them deluxe ta’get sights they think need shootin’? Only Neva Annetta Bell. Eighteen and a half year old. Knees on the dirt. Her hope broke like water round the edges of her skirt. But them the kind use to firing into gentle things.
“Twenty-seven blasts we count by the fallen shells next morning. They shoot her so many times couldn’t nobody recognize her. Then they strung her up. Her little body swinging from that choctaw jes over yonder. The front of her flower dress stiff with blood. We find a hood crumple behind them snakewood bushes. Papa Bell cut Neva down before the sun had the nerve to show itself. He carry her all the way to his porch rocker and held her like a five-year-old with a scraped knee.
“All of us knew who done it. Ain’t no secrets in Liberty. Not with Colored sweeping every White floor in the county, including the Mason Clubhouse, where Mr. Peter Leech hide himself away that whole night drinking his Wild Turkey. Seem he didn’t have no business trip after all, only a long talk in President Levy’s office instead, ’bout a White man’s responsibility, and how Viceroy jobs be mighty hard to come by. Then how, if he know what’s good for him, he best choose to stay put somewheres ’til sunrise. And that’s just what he done. Then come morning, he’s crying and slipping on his piss, saying how he sorry, how it ain’t his fault. Saying, ‘My little Bluebell,’ ’til he pass out cold on the floor.
“They let the other two girls out the Newton jail that next morning, Girdie’s eyes like beets, Charlotte, brassiere in her fist, red clay streaked down her back. Ten miles of shame them girls walk, past White folks’ Monday morning and they yellow school bus. When they make it home and see they sister, Girdie hiccup and faint dead-limp. Charlotte scream like ax cutting pine.
“For all of that, all that Devil harvest—that still weren’t the worst of it.
“It wasn’t ’til Neva made it to the Shephard’s Mortuary ’til anyone noticed the empty pool in her chest. Edwin Shephard seen what was missing, but since only White corpses went to county, he packed his secret in sawdust and wax between the girl’s cracked ribs. Then he clean and dress her. Since he couldn’t do nothing with her face, he closed that coffin up nice and sealed it with them silver nails. Took him five years to tell his mama what he seen, took his mama five minutes to spread the news like bacon grease all round the town.
“Say Klux do that evil to kill Neva’s spell over Leech. Me, I don’t know what they do in the black of them woods. What they put in they red neck pouches, and why we find all manner of beast with they entrails cut out.
“In God’s tightfisted mercy Papa Bell spent eight more years on this earth. He lived long enough to see Leech drink ’til he drown face deep in a mud puddle and for Sheriff Levy to fall off his quarter horse, and break his neck in a dry well.
“Mister Bell stared up at that choctaw ’til he was a five point star withering on his bed. When they close his eyes they last, folks say he yet looking at that tree.”
THE YARD seemed to hold its breath. Ephram’s head had grown clear leaning against the flat of the tire, turned towards the story and the teller. Mabel held her burned out filter between curled
fingers. She hadn’t taken a single puff.
K.O. paused and turned to Pete. “Mr. Jeffrey, I got to thank you for tending to that telling.” Pete nodded back and gently kicked a bit of dust into the fire. He hadn’t been called by his proper name in nearly fifteen years.
Jeb broke the spell with, “So that crazy gal up there got Charlotte Bell for a mama?”
“And a jailhouse for a daddy.” Old Pete let out a weary breath, “Charlotte had her baby girl Ruby in June that next year. They say she willed that baby brown. Eatin’ coffee grounds, chocolate cake, even brown eggs from a black hen. Wouldn’t eat nothing white while she was with child. Sure enough, out come that gold-brown baby girl, Ruby. Prettiest child in Liberty. Even jealous mamas had to admit that. Still Charlotte up and run off to New York City when Ruby wasn’t yet a year, like she chased by the Devil—ain’t been seen alive nor dead since.”
Gubber scowled. “Always say that Ruby better off locked up at Dearing.”
K.O. cut Gubber with, “They all kinds of crazy. Some folk drink theyselves to stupid. Others so empty, gluttony take they belly hostage. And some get so full up with hate, it like to crack they soul. Hell, ain’t nothing strange when Colored go crazy. Strange is when we don’t.”
Then K.O. ushered Jeb up with his words. “Go on boy. Mabel ain’t got all night to waste.” Mabel stooped just a bit, then straightened her shoulders, spit and said, “Come on little big man.” Jeb wobbled up to the porch and followed Mabel into the house. The door swung open, letting sound and smoke into the night air.
