The Dry Grass of August

by Anna Jean Mayhew

  “Help yourself.”

  I filled my glass again. “We were on our way home and some men attacked us.”

  “Oh!” She sat up straight in the rocker. “Are you all right?”

  “My sister and I are, but our girl’s gone.The men took her.”

  “I take it she is Negro.”

  “Yes.” I had an urge to say, “Yes, ma’am,” although I’d never said “ma’am” to a colored woman in my life.

  “Is she from Claxton?”

  “Mary works for us in Charlotte, North Carolina. Mama brought her on our vacation to help out.”

  “Do your folks know where you are now?”

  I shook my head, feeling guilty. “I was at the motel pool, talking to a lady about what happened. She didn’t understand about Mary. So I was trying to find somebody. Somebody who—” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “Somebody who would understand?”

  “Uh-huh.” I clenched my hands to keep from crying. We sat there, me staring at my fists and her rocking. At first the silence was awkward, but then it got easier just to sit, tears spotting my shirt. There was only the sound of my hiccupping breaths, the creak of her rocker on the wood floor, the whir of the ceiling fan. I was still crying when the screen door opened. I looked up to see a man standing just inside the door, his eyes like lights in his ebony face. He was carrying a briefcase and wearing a suit and tie, as if he were dressed for church.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  Mrs. Travis stood. “Ezra, this is Miss June Watts.”

  She handed me a Kleenex. “June, this is my husband. Mr. Travis is an attorney.”

  The man sat on the other end of the sofa and laid his briefcase between us.

  Mrs. Travis poured him a glass of lemonade. “You look worn out.”

  Mr. Travis loosened his tie. He asked me, “What brings you out this way?”

  I talked and he listened, running his thumb up and down the side of his glass.When he finally spoke, his voice was full of pain. “I have some sad news.”

  “About Mary?”

  “I believe so.”

  Mrs.Travis sat with her head bowed, her chin resting in her hand.

  “I heard about what happened last evening, Mrs. Luther’s disappearance.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his forehead. “They found a Negro woman a while ago. She’d been—she was—” He folded the handkerchief and put it away.

  I stood.

  “In the field near the pond, just down the road a bit. Sam Bradford was fishing with his children. . . .” His voice drifted off.

  “I just passed the pond,” I said.

  “Sheriff ’s car was there when I rode by on my way home.” Mr.Travis looked out the window.

  “It’s some other girl. All coloreds look alike. The sheriff said so.” I was shaking so hard I thought my teeth would crack.

  Mrs. Travis rose and put her hand on my shoulder, gently pushing me back onto the sofa. “Ezra, would you fetch the quilt from the linen chest?”

  Mr.Travis covered me with a quilt, tucking it around me. I wanted to leave my body and never return to the cold knowing.

  Mrs. Travis asked, “How can we reach your folks, June?”

  “Sally’s Motel Park.”

  Mr. Travis dialed, standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, the phone to his ear. He asked for Daddy and waited. “Hello?” Mr. Travis said who he was and why he was calling. He listened. “Yes, I believe so,” he said. “No, I don’t know if—” He looked at Mrs. Travis and shook his head. “Apparently she just walked out to where we live.”

  He nodded to the phone. “My wife and I told her. She’s quite upset. It might be best if you would—no, I’m not telling you what to do.”

  He held the receiver away from his ear, then said, “Mrs. Travis and I can bring June to the motel, or you can come get her, whichever suits.”

  He gave Daddy directions, then hung up. “Your father is naturally upset.”

  I turned my face to the sofa cushions and closed my eyes. Mr. Travis’ voice faded.

  Daddy said something I couldn’t understand. I opened my eyes. I was alone in the Travises’ living room. Daddy and Mr. Travis were on the front porch, silhouettes in the fading daylight. Mr. Travis shorter, thicker in the middle. Daddy broader in the shoulders. A match flared as Daddy lit a cigarette.

  I heard the click of a phone hanging up, Mama’s quick high-heeled steps in the kitchen. I closed my eyes again, keeping my face buried in the sofa.

  Mr. Travis said something, his voice calm.

  Daddy answered, loud and sharp, “You’ve got no right to question me.”

  Someone gasped. Mama.

  Mr. Travis said, “Anything we say now is irrelevant to Mrs. Luther’s death.”

  Death. Mary was dead.

  “Jubie?” Mama said. I felt her hand on my back. “Wake up, Jubie.”

  I opened my eyes. Mama was bending over me, her face splotched, the fan turning above her. Her hair had come loose on one side and hung down her neck.

  She wiped my face with the damp cloth, smoothing my hair off my forehead.

  “Hey, Mama.”

  “We were sick with worry about you.”

  “I’m all right.”

  “I’m not,” said Mama. “I’m undone about Mary.” Her eyes were tired. She kneeled on the rug beside the sofa, patting my shoulder, my head.

  She stood. “Bill, I think we can leave now.”

  “You okay, June?” Daddy towered over me, his hand trailing smoke.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  On the porch, I turned back to Mrs. Travis, who stood in the doorway. “Thank you for your—for the lemonade.”

  On the front walk, Daddy dropped his cigarette and smashed it under his shoe, leaving the butt and a black smear.

  An article in the Sunday paper identified Mary as a colored housemaid from Charlotte, North Carolina, who’d been assaulted and beaten to death. Her body would be sent home. There were no suspects.

  I sat on the stoop of our cabin and watched Davie pull his toy train through the dirt. I wanted to dive to the bottom of the pool to let the pressure push my headache away. I held out my hands. “Let’s go to the pool.”

  “Choo-choo.” Davie put pebbles on a flatcar. “Choo-choo.”

  I knocked over his train with the toe of my sandal. Stones tumbled from the flatcar and Davie began to scream.

  I bent to pick him up. “C’mon.”

  “No-o-o-o.” His body went limp and he slid through my hands, pushing at me. “Mary!”

  “Stop it.” I stamped my foot. He turned over on the ground. The Band-Aid on his hand was filthy. I kneeled. “Please, Davie, let’s go to the pool.”

  Tears made tracks on his dirty face. “Mary?”

  “Mary’s gone.” Mama had said not to tell him Mary was dead because he wouldn’t know what that meant. I pulled him into my arms, putting my lips to his hair. “Mary’s gone, Davie-do.”

  He let his head rest on my chest, sobbing, “Mary! Mary!”

  The words slipped out. “Mary’s dead, Davie.”

  He stopped crying, arched his back so he could look at my face. He put his thumb in his mouth and dropped his head back down.

  Daddy told us they’d bought a coffin. “It’s the least we can do.”

  “I wish we’d gotten the one with satin padding.” Mama stood by the Chrysler, smoking. She had on a sundress, her hat, her slingback sandals. She held her straw clutch in one hand.

  Daddy jingled the car keys. “Hey, kiddo, wanna go get the Packard? They’re meeting us at the garage on a Sunday afternoon. Can’t beat that for service!” He was trying hard to cheer me up.

  “Okay, Daddy.”

  “And your mama needs to tend to business while we see about the Packard.You can drive.”

  That got through to me. “Drive? Me?”

  “You. Stell’s staying with the kids.”
/>   “What if the police—”

  He smiled the smile that always melted Mama. “You have a South Carolina license,” he winked, “but you can’t find it, remember?”

  I opened the driver’s door. Daddy said, “Sit in the back, Pauly, me girl. Miss June Watts is your chauffeur.”

  “Bill, this is not a good idea.”

  “Oh, c’mon. She knows how.” Daddy got in front with me, Mama in back. I adjusted the seat and mirrors, switched on the ignition, and drove out of Sally’s Motel Park, remembering to put on the turn signals as Daddy had taught me. I hit the brakes too hard, making him brace himself against the dashboard, but he didn’t say anything. We let Mama out downtown. I was pretty sure she was heading for the colored funeral parlor. She didn’t want me to see her go in there because it would upset me.

  J and J’s Garage had a rubber hose running across the parking lot, and bells rang as I drove over it. I didn’t see the Packard. Daddy told me to park in front. “I’ll find out what’s going on.” A plate-glass window was painted in bold black letters : J AND J’S GARAGE, ESTABLISHED 1946. Through the window I saw Daddy talking to Jake Stirewalt. When Daddy sat down, I knew it would be a while. I walked over to one of the empty bays and looked at the grease pit. Small steps led into it. In the bottom was a pink rag, a broken fan belt, a wrench. Wouldn’t anybody who worked in a grease pit want to be someplace else? And what sort of person built coffins? I turned away from the smell of gasoline and creosote, and walked into the sunlight to see Mr. Stirewalt driving our Packard around the building.

  Daddy stood outside. “Hey, Jubie, look there.”

  Mr. Stirewalt handed Daddy the keys.“She’s running good. The motor warn’t messed up much. You might need a new rade-yater sooner later.” He looked at the mashed fender. “Wisht we’d of had time for that.”

  “We’ll take care of it in Charlotte. The motor sounds great, don’t you think so, Jubie?”

  He was showing off, being a good father. “Yes, sir.” I wished he could really care instead of just pretending. I felt tears rising, blinked my eyes, looked away from him. If he saw how sad I was, he ignored it.

  “Now all I’ve got to do is pay for it, right?” Daddy pulled out his checkbook.

  “That’s right, Mr. Watts.” They walked back inside.

  I sat on a bench, turning my face to the sun. One sentence jumped out sharply from the rumble of voices in the garage office. “Then again, the only good nigger is a dead nigger, right, Mr. Watts?”

  Daddy said, “So I make this out to J and J’s Garage?” He should have told Mr. Stirewalt how wrong it was to say such a thing.

  “No, to Jake Stirewalt.”

  We got in the Chrysler. Daddy drove.

  Mama was waiting on the same corner where we’d left her. She looked like she’d been crying, but when she got in the car, she just said, “Is the Packard ready? Please tell me it’s ready.”

  “It’s ready,” Daddy said. He patted her shoulder but didn’t say anything about her swollen eyes.

  “The train is at nine fifteen in the morning. I can have us packed to go right after that.”

  “What train?” I asked.

  They looked at each other, then Mama said, “We have to send Mary back to Charlotte. There are regulations about embalming and shipping bodies. I was seeing to it.”

  I thought about Link and Young Mary, how sad they must be. “Have you talked with her kids?” I asked Mama.

  “Last night, yes.” Mama stared out the window. “They’re distraught.”

  “Do you know when the service is? We could go.”

  Daddy said, “No.”

  We rode in silence back to J and J’s. Daddy handed Mama the keys to the Packard. “We’ll see you at the motel.” I opened the car door and stepped out onto the hot pavement.

  “You riding with your mother?” Daddy asked.

  “I’m walking.”

  “Get back in this car, young lady.” Daddy’s voice was dangerous.

  “No.” I didn’t look back.

  CHAPTER 24

  Just after nine on Monday morning, Mama, Daddy, and I watched as three men wheeled a flat hand truck through the train station, loaded with a long box that looked more like a shipping crate than a coffin. M. LUTHER was stenciled in black on the raw pine boards. We followed the hand truck past benches where half a dozen people sat dozing or reading papers, and past a closed door with a sign: NEGRO WAITING ROOM.

  The men tilted the coffin to get it into the boxcar and I imagined Mary sliding inside; I hoped her head was at the top so she’d slide feetfirst. Mama walked to the end of the platform and stared down the tracks.

  They pushed the coffin across the floor to the back of the car, where light didn’t reach. Daddy put his hand on my shoulder and I caught a whiff of cigarettes and aftershave. The boxcar door slammed shut with a thunderclap. Mama’s heels clicked on the concrete as she came back to us. Her gray dress and hat made her look sad and plain.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  “It’s horrible in that boxcar. Dark and horrible.”

  “Mary’s not suffering anymore, Jubie.” Mama reached toward me with her gloved hand.

  I turned away. “When is her funeral?”

  Daddy said, “A day or so. No more than two, not in this heat.”

  “Then we have time to get there.”

  Mama and Daddy looked at each other.

  I walked over to the train. I wanted to climb in and ride with Mary. The rusty door of the boxcar was rough to my touch. “I want to go to the funeral. I—”

  Mama said, “Bill, we could go back to Charlotte for Mary’s service, then to Pawleys for a few more days of vacation.”

  Daddy shook his head. “We’re not driving five hundred miles—from here to Charlotte to Pawleys—for an hour-long funeral. As soon as we’re packed, we’ll go on to the beach.”

  The engine chugged to life. The train began to move, clanking slowly out of the station, gathering speed. I watched until the caboose was a red smudge far down the tracks.

  Mama pulled me away from the edge of the platform.

  We walked back through the train station. A colored man was sweeping the floor in the waiting room, singing, “Tum-te-dee diddle-de-dee tum-teedy-ay.” He stopped sweeping to let us pass, standing with his broom at his side like a soldier at attention. As we left the station, the swish of his broom started back up, and his singing, “Tum-te-dee, diddle-de-dee . . .”

  Before we left our cabin, I checked beneath the beds to make sure we hadn’t left anything and found Mary’s terry cloth slippers. I stuffed them into the bottom of my suitcase.

  Stell, Puddin, and I rode in the Packard. Mama, Daddy, and Davie led the way in the Chrysler.As soon as we got out of Claxton, Daddy pulled way ahead. He put his hand out and waved, urging Stell to speed up, but she drove as if the speedometer were stuck on fifty-five.

  I stretched out across the backseat with my bare feet on the ledge of the open window, wiggling my toes in the rushing air. All I could see were the tops of pine trees and the clouds. It was too early to fall asleep, even with the tires humming and the wind lifting my skirt, but I closed my eyes anyway, trying to hum in the same pitch as the tires. Leesum would be settled in Charlotte by now, living at the preacher’s house, wearing the new clothes Uncle Taylor had bought him. I kept thinking about writing to him, wanting to tell him how much I missed Mary. He would understand.

  I sank into the seat where she’d sat for all those miles, tall and straight in her cotton dresses. I pressed my face into the upholstery and thought about her until I felt her bosom against my cheek, smelled her. My throat hurt with a knot that got bigger and bigger until I let the tears come, sliding from the corners of my eyes into my hair and ears.The car hit a pothole. Mary was gone.

  “What in the world?” Stell asked.

  I sat up, wiping my eyes. Daddy had pulled onto the shoulder and was waving us around. Stell slowed to a crawl. Daddy hollered, “Go on ahead. We’ll b
e along in a minute.”

  “Huh.” Stell accelerated back up to fifty-five.

  I looked out the rear window. The Chrysler pulled onto the road, got large fast. When it was a few feet behind us, Daddy honked.

  “What is he doing?” Stell screamed.

  Daddy blew the horn in short blasts, his arm out the window waving in a forward motion.

  “He wants you to speed up.”

  I stared at the Chrysler. Mama’s face was set, turned to the passenger window.

  Stell hit the brake, and Daddy swerved to miss us. Mama slid against Daddy and he steered with one hand, pushing her away, his mouth moving, his face angry. I thought of Davie bouncing around on the backseat.

  Puddin whimpered. “Shush.” I reached up front to pat her shoulder. She’d been so brave about Mary.

  Daddy laid on his horn. I wished Stell would speed up, anything to get him off our tail. She slowed down even more. I looked at the speedometer. Forty.

  The Chrysler whooshed around us, spraying grit, as Daddy hollered through Mama’s open window, “Get a move on!”

  Stell got back to fifty-five and stayed there. The Chrysler disappeared around a curve.

  “They’re leaving us,” Puddin cried.

  “Don’t worry,” Stell said. “I can get to Pawleys Island. And he knows it.”

  “I want Mama,” Puddin whined.

  Stell said, “Cut it out. Find us the map for North and South Carolina.”

  Puddin sniffled and opened the glove compartment. Maps spilled onto the floor. She sorted through them, sounding out words under her breath. “I got it!” She held up the map.

  “Let Jubie help you find the road we’re on.”

  Puddin tossed the map onto the backseat and followed it, sliding over on top of me. Her elbow jabbed me in the stomach. I gasped.

  “Damn it, Puddin.”

  “Bad word. I’ll tell Daddy.”

  “You won’t, you brat.”

  She put her arms around my neck. “I won’t, Jubes, not for anything.” She felt bony and sweet.

  Stell said, “Jubie, we’re on Highway 17. We just crossed the Savannah River into South Carolina.”