Southern Cross

by Stephen Greenleaf

  “You don’t need to.”

  He frowned and squirmed and squinted. “Then what is it you want from me?”

  It was time to end the dance. “I need to know what happened back in 1966 that would give someone a motive to destroy Seth Hartman.”

  “I see.” To gain time to review the bidding, the professor licked his lips and looked toward the bar but didn’t catch the eye of a waitress. If Blackwell didn’t show up soon, he’d be having the same problem an hour from now.

  “I’m not sure it’s in my best interest to discuss such matters with you,” Mickelson said when his campaign to order a drink had collapsed.

  “Why not?”

  “As you may know, I’m doing a book on that very subject. There’s been lots written about SNCC in Mississippi and Alabama during those years, but not much about the South Carolina project—I’m trying to fill that void. I’ve got a grant from a foundation and a promise of tenure at Duke if I finish by the end of the year.”

  “What does that have to do with talking to me?”

  His smile was precious. “I believe the book’s reception will be more … dramatic if my findings remain confidential until it appears. In all candor, it would be to my personal and professional advantage if it made something of a splash.”

  “Fine with me,” I said. “But I don’t have time to wait till it’s written.”

  “Why not?”

  “People have threatened and attempted murder because of what happened back then, Professor, and I’ve been hired to put a stop to it. What you’ve learned may help me do it.”

  “I … you’re not saying I have any legal reason to cooperate with you,” he said, with the smugness of the seasoned Socratic.

  I leaned toward him with a smile on my face and spoke without moving my lips. “I’m saying that if you don’t, I’m going to take you out to the parking lot and feed you your teeth. And then I’m going to take you to the cops and charge you with compounding a felony.”

  When he tried to swallow, he had trouble with the mechanics. “I believe you’re serious.”

  “You’re a good judge of character. I’ll keep what you tell me confidential if I can, but there are other people involved, and raw emotions, so no guarantees.”

  “I don’t know. I have to—”

  “I don’t have time for dilemmas, Professor. If you want to scurry back to Durham with a cast on your face, keep stalling.”

  He licked his lips once more and glanced toward the bar for an ally. When he didn’t see anything but glares and cold shoulders, he looked back at me. “What do you want to know?”

  “What happened between Seth Hartman and Aldee Blackwell that summer?”

  “Hartman got Blackwell fired.”

  “By Monroe Morrison.”

  “Right.”

  “For having sex with white women.”

  Mickelson scratched his nose. “You seem to know everything already.”

  “One thing I don’t know is why you’ve gone into the sex business in the first place. It doesn’t sound scholarly.”

  “On the contrary, it’s a key part of the history of those times. Lots of romances developed between the male leadership and the female volunteers in movement groups like SNCC; I’m merely the first to chart the sociology from an interracial perspective. Was the relationship secret or public? What did black women think about it? What did white men think about it? There must have been tension, so how did it manifest itself? What effect did it have on the underlying mission? I’m also interested in what happened to those relationships later on—were they only summer flings, or did they continue into later life? What were the repercussions? Are any of the parties still together? If not, does the current mate know about the former lover? That kind of thing fascinates me. My editor, too.”

  I withheld judgment on the weight of his academic pursuit. “You’ve outlined your syllabus, so what have you found out? What happened back then that’s still causing a ruckus in Charleston?”

  He rubbed the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. “I don’t know. Truly. Every interracial relationship I’m aware of ended when the project did. Several of the intraracial couples stayed together, but I’ve yet to unearth repercussions. I’m sorry if that’s not what you expected, but …”

  “Who did Aldee Blackwell have sex with that got him fired?”

  “That’s part of what I’m here to find out.”

  “Do you have any indication it was Jane Jean Hendersen?”

  My question didn’t surprise him. “At this point, I have only suspicions. She has refused to talk to me, as has Mr. Hartman, at least on that subject.”

  “Were Seth and Jane Jean lovers in 1966?”

  “I don’t know for certain, but I don’t believe so. Not that he wasn’t interested; every man who knew her was interested, apparently. But my guess is that Hartman was denied her favors.”

  “Then who was the lucky guy?”

  “You’re assuming there was one.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  As the professor basked in uneasy conceit, a hush fell over the bar and a breeze freshened the fetid atmosphere. I looked toward the door in time to see Aldee Blackwell, complete with eye patch and cane and the shiny black suit he had sported on Johns Island that morning, enter the saloon the way the Windsors enter Albert Hall. The denizens seemed surprised to see him, presumably because of the early hour. He fended them off with waves and nods as he moved toward the bar like a prizefighter advancing toward the ring. Behind him, an entourage of three was ready to make sure no one lodged any complaints against management.

  After a brief conversation with the bartender, Blackwell exchanged some earthy repartee with two women at a nearby table, then casually looked our way: We must have been as conspicuous as snowdrifts. When he saw that we saw him, he said something that made the bartender laugh, then strolled leisurely toward our table, bringing every eye in the place along with him.

  “Evening, gentlemen,” he said in a stentorian monotone that made his hauteur a halo. “Welcome to my drinking establishment. May I offer some refreshment?”

  “I’d like a beer,” I said. The professor said likewise, but only after due consideration. Blackwell snapped two fingers, and a waitress who had been studiously ignoring us headed for the bar as though it were on fire and she were the one with the hose.

  The professor introduced himself and held out his hand. Blackwell ignored it and turned toward me instead. “You were on Johns Island this morning.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Seth’s man.”

  “Seth’s friend.”

  He nodded once and pointed toward the professor. “This one called for an appointment. You march in without any by-your-leave at all. The lack of respect is distressing the brothers and sisters.”

  “I was under the impression that this was a public accommodation.”

  His patch hopped and his eye flashed. “As public as the accommodations on East Bay Street.”

  A murmur in the vicinity confirmed his estimation of dram-shop parity. “I need you to answer some questions,” I said easily. “Then I’ll get out of your way.”

  “Ain’t no white man been in my way for thirty years.” Some people near us laughed; others muttered oaths; the waitress brought the beer. “What kind of questions you got?” Blackwell continued casually.

  “About the SNCC days.”

  He pointed to the professor. “Same as him.”

  I drank half the beer before I answered. “Not quite. He’s going to go into a lot of detail about who did what and when and why. Then he’s going to put it in a book. The best I can do is keep you out of jail.”

  Blackwell’s wrought-iron scowl suggested the advent of mayhem. “What call you got talking about jail?”

  “Someone’s threatened to kill Seth Hartman. If you tell me what I think you know, I can prove it wasn’t you.”

  “Why would they think it was?”

  “Because Seth had you fi
red from the SNCC staff thirty years ago. The man who did the firing has become Seth’s client and friend and your political enemy. Lots of motive lying around—enough for the cops to make a case.”

  “Fuck your motive. Seth Hartman don’t have anything to do with me.”

  “He got you fired for messing with white women.”

  “Messing with his white woman, you mean.”

  “Was it true?”

  “Didn’t matter.”

  “Why not?”

  “Reason Monroe cut me was I was pushing to put the program with the Panther party. Get rid of the nonviolent shit, and cocktail Negroes like Monroe; white women and college boys, too. Plus anyone else who thought Martin Luther candy-ass going to get something done. Only way to get something is to take it. True then; true now.”

  “You’re saying the problem between you and Morrison was political.”

  “Right on, it was. Monroe part of the old way—days when we say please and thank you and shuffle in the dirt like chickens. But times change. Stokely take over SNCC; brothers from the Revolutionary Action Committee come down from Philadelphia preaching power and pride. Panthers say buy a piece and use it; get weapons like the crackers got, then shove the movement up they ass. But Monroe wouldn’t go ’long with the program.”

  “So your dispute had to do with tactics.”

  “Damn straight. In summer, Monroe the boss, so he makes the rules. No confrontation, he says. No weapons; no sexuosity, either. Come fall, Stokely toss Monroe out on his gravediggin’ ass and send the college kiddies back where they come from.”

  “And SNCC?”

  “SNCC’s time passed. Black Panthers where it at.”

  “How was Jane Jean Hendersen involved in all this?”

  Blackwell scowled thunderously. “Who says she was?”

  “The people who think you were having sex with her.”

  “Shit.” Blackwell glanced around to see who was listening. “White bitches all the time trying to show how unprejudiced they was, rub they sugar against the black man’s ass. Got no time for it, myself.”

  A woman at the next table said, “Amen.”

  “All I know is this,” I said. “If you’re getting back at Seth for something he did back then, I’m going to find out about it. And if you’re using the Alliance for Southern Pride to do your dirty work, I’m going to find that out, too.” I waved toward the room. “The brothers and sisters aren’t going to like it if they find out you’re financing a hate-monger like Forrest Bedford just to serve some private vendetta.”

  Blackwell checked to see how widely my speech had been overheard, then grasped my arm with fingers that were powered by melodrama and despotism. “You go ’round claiming I’m behind some kind of supremacist bullshit, that’s the last tale you ever tell. Got it, white man?”

  As I smiled with as much unconcern as I could muster, the professor piped up. “You don’t have to deal with this man, Mr. Blackwell; cooperation is not in your best interest. I’m the one who can put those days in historical context. I’m the one who can tell the world of the evolution of the new black militancy in which you played such an important part. I’m the one who can put you in the perspective you so richly deserve.”

  Blackwell made a fist and raised it. “Right on, motherfucker. Context. Got to know my context.” Blackwell looked at me and grinned, then poked me in the chest with his cane. “Get on back to Broad Street, spook. Here on Upper King, context for you ain’t worth shit.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  I left the bar and drove back to the center of town. The city that had seemed so pristine and delightful when I arrived had tarnished in the interim, become a tired old whore made up to look her best while disease and degeneracy festered beneath the latex sheen of commerce. But that wasn’t the truth of her, either. Like everyone and everything I’d come across in Charleston, from Seth Hartman to Scar Raveneau to the social and political climate I’d encountered only vicariously, full definition lay beyond me.

  When I got to his office, the door was unlocked and the receptionist’s chair was empty—Elmira had gone off to an evening of fun and frolic, or maybe just to do her laundry. Seth was sitting behind his desk, face propped heavily on his hands, eyes sightless and boggled, essence isolated and bemused.

  When my features found a match in his memory, his smile was reminiscent of the corpse being bombarded in the mortuary. “Are you bringing me bad news?”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Because everything in my life is turning inside out all of a sudden.” His voice was timorous and contrite. “Nothing seems to stop it. Not even you.” He lowered his hands from his chin and picked up a pen from the desk and started scribbling on the yellow pad in front of him. “It’s only fair, I suppose. Things went my way for a long time. It had to even out sooner or later.”

  When he was free of his ontological musings, he looked up from his doodling. “Want some dinner? Jane Jean is coming in; you’re welcome to join us.”

  I shook my head. “I’m having dinner with Scar Raveneau later. I just stopped by to tell you I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  Delayed by the state of his nerves, his reaction was argumentative, then apologetic. “But you just got here. You haven’t met my daughter yet. You haven’t gotten to know Jane Jean. Hell, you haven’t even been out to the house.” He shook his head miserably. “Jesus, what a total shit I am.”

  “Maybe next time, Seth.”

  “You won’t be back and you know it. You wouldn’t have come this time if I hadn’t …” The pen fell from his fingers. “You’re upset with me, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know. Am I?”

  He nodded. “You’re mad because I didn’t turn out the way you thought I should.”

  “Maybe a little. If I were you, I wouldn’t let it bother me.”

  “But it does. It always has. I spent four years trying to earn your respect.”

  “Well, you got good at it.”

  “Then why are you so peeved at me? Because of Colin?”

  I shifted uneasily, uncomfortable with attitudes I didn’t fully understand. “I’m not sure. Maybe it’s because you had so much going for you, you don’t have an excuse for screwing up as much as you have.” I reheard my words, then diluted them. “I’m not being fair, I suppose—life isn’t perfectible; at best it’s a fragile accommodation. All we can do is all we can do, and I have no reason to think you haven’t done that.”

  “I’m not sure I have, actually.”

  I smiled. “Me, either.”

  We shared the blemish for a moment. “I’d like to give it another try, Marsh,” Seth continued quietly. “Get together again, maybe in San Francisco, after the ASP business is over, and Monroe’s trial and all. Make it more like the old days.”

  “That would be nice.”

  His look turned downcast. “You don’t sound optimistic.”

  “It’s just that I’m not sure the old days are what we need. I think what we need are some new days.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We should go forward, not backward. Make a new friendship based on what we are now.”

  Seth nodded. “We can do that. Can’t we?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We should find out, at least. Shouldn’t we? I mean, friends are a rare commodity. And new friends aren’t quite the same as old friends. Do you know what I mean?”

  “That’s why I’m here.”

  Seth regarded me with quiet appraisal, looking for a blanket acquittal that I couldn’t bring myself to give him. “Is this it, then?” he said finally. “You’re off to the airport in the morning?”

  I nodded.

  “You’ll let me take you, won’t you?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll grab a cab.”

  He nodded miserably, as though my refusal were symbolic. “I’m sorry about this, Marsh. I really am.”

  “About what?”

  “Begging you to come down here. Not really …
being with you since you arrived. It was unfair to burden you with my problems; to think you could do anything about ASP and the rest of it.”

  “As a matter of fact, I am doing something about ASP. If things go the way I hope they will, they’ll be out of your hair by the end of the evening.”

  Seth started to stand, then sank back so heavily his chair tipped against the wall. “What’s happened? What are you going to do? How can you be certain it will end it?”

  “I’m not certain, but I’m hopeful.”

  “But what have you learned? Who’s behind it? How are you going to make them stop?”

  “I haven’t learned that much, really. Just some things about the SNCC days.”

  Uncertainty scrambled his features and made his confusion comic. “I don’t … What about them?”

  “You know more about it than I do, Seth. You were there.”

  “I know, but I don’t understand what those times have to do with anything.” He sagged back in his chair, burdened by a murky past and the sudden need to translate it. “I don’t understand,” he repeated dismally.

  “It’s better that you don’t. I just need to confirm some things, then I’ll be on my way.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Here and there.”

  He blinked back a tear. “Don’t tease me, Marsh. Please. Does it have to do with Jane Jean? Just tell me that.”

  “No, Seth. You tell me.”

  “What?”

  “About Jane Jean and the black man.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Yes, you do,” I interrupted rudely. “And I need to know about it.”

  Dazed by a potent brew of past and present, Seth looked longingly at the law books, but none provided refuge. When he finally spoke, his words amounted to a requiem.

  “We’d been in McClellanville for a week. Walking down dusty roads, climbing onto sagging porches, begging people to go to town and register. Asking them not to be afraid, urging them to be brave, hoping we weren’t adding to their misery or sending them to an early grave. People who worked dawn to dusk for next to nothing. People who couldn’t read. People who’d been told we were infidels and Communists and people who thought we were the Second Coming of the Apostles, there to deliver them from evil.”