“Where’s your daddy?” Miss Maybelle asks us desperately, nothing moving but her mouth.
“He can’t come, but Robert’s on his way,” I assure her, watching Ren size up the situation. Over his shoulder, something in the corner catches my eye.
“Can you use the push broom?” I ask and point.
“Yes!” he says. “Help me up, then hand it to me.”
“What are you two doing? Don’t come in here!” Miss Maybelle cries out of the side of her mouth, eyes glued to the snake.
I hoist Ren up on the counter and he squirms quickly across it and to the right, out of the snake’s line of sight. Quietly he says, “Don’t worry, Miss Maybelle, I’ve caught a million snakes. You stand real still now. I’ll get him.”
With great care, I pass him the long-handled push broom, then reach across to put my hand over Miss Maybelle’s ice-cold claw clinging to the counter’s edge. As Ren mountain-climbs across the wall of mailboxes and steps lightly, gingerly onto the worktable, the snake senses something and bobs his hood. Miss Maybelle’s bony fingers find mine and crush them so tightly I cry out, a sharp yelp of pain.
Ren raises a finger to his lips, then inches down to his knees. He twirls the broom into position, brushes up, rail-side down. Holding it like a pool cue, eyeing his mark, he rams it down onto the back base of the snake’s skull, pinning it, tail wildly flopping, to the floor.
He looks up, grinning ear to ear. “Can you toss me an empty mail sack, Miss Maybelle?” he asks her.
“Is it safe to move?” she wants to know, still clutching my hand.
“Perfectly,” he tells her.
Miss Maybelle lets go, grabs a soft canvas sack from under the counter and with a nervous jerk heaves it Ren’s way. Catching it with one hand, maintaining pressure on the flat, trapped head with the other, Ren slides off the table and scoops up the writhing body, tail first into the sack. With a practiced flick, he lifts the broom and yanks the drawstring, securing the rattler inside.
“Safe and sound, Miss Maybelle,” he says, holding the sack, like a prize, up in the air.
Relief wilts her. “Oh, my dear boy, thank you, thank you,” she says.
“No problem,” Ren tells her. “How’d he get in, in the first place?”
“Must have snuck in during the afternoon delivery. I turned around and it was just there.” She shudders. “Will you take it out and kill it?”
“Kill him? He was just looking for a safe place to sleep. Naw, I’ll let him go, out in the scrub where he belongs.”
Out front, we hear the sudden rumble and heave of Robert’s motorcycle. The big front door bangs open. “Miss Maybelle, Miz Mac says there’s trouble. What’s wrong?” Robert growls, ready for action.
“Not a thing,” she answers, her eyes lighting on Ren. “Not anymore.”
Ren, still holding the squirming sack, recounts his heroics for Robert. The sun streams through the window, bathing Miss Maybelle in light. As she thanks us again, I find myself blinking at her powerful resemblance to the pretty bride-to-be in the photo in our attic.
Vaylie’s postcard arrives the following week, her choice an unfortunate one for our postmistress. The picture on front shows a coiled diamondback rattler, tail and triangular head erect, pointy fangs like drapery hooks ready to strike. Red letters on the front say GREETINGS from the Natural History Museum, Washington, D.C.
On the back, she writes:
Guess who’s on tour again? Is Junior High great? I hate missing the first few weeks, takes forever to catch up. Did you know a rattlesnake is part of the Pit Viper family? I told Mamma that since she always calls Daddy’s mamma “the old viper” that must make me part rattler. Maybe I’m related to the bunch we saw in ol’ Dry Sink. If you see one, tell ’em “hi” from Cousin Viper! Will write more when I can.
Love, VAYLIE
You’ve got something there, Vaylie, I think. There’s a bit of the rattler in all of us. But as far as I’ve seen, human snakes are a whole lot meaner than the reptile kind.
Chapter 19
October third is a summer day with an autumn date. Ren and I spent the morning helping Sal and Sophia get ready for this afternoon’s crowd. In the scrawny shade under the scrub pines behind Tomasinis’ store, over a hundred people are assembling to cheer their beloved Jackie Robinson, and the Brooklyn Dodgers, to pennant glory over the nasty New York Giants.
After a season that, according to Ren, was pretty much a one-horse race, with the Dodgers in the lead April through September, the Giants came out of nowhere to force a pennant play-off, the three-game cockfight that, one way or the other, ends today.
Already, we’ve raked the dirt free of pinecones and rearranged the rough-sawn benches into semicircles facing the back of the store. Against the wall, Sal’s perched his small black-and-white TV set on a plywood shelf, suspended by ropes out of the window of their upstairs apartment. We’ve stood on the ground below while Sal fiddled with the twenty-five-foot antenna, yelling our opinions on the screen’s reception from the faraway Atlanta station. We’ve stocked the Coke-Cola cooler and arranged the charcoal in the side-split fifty-gallon barrels where Sal will barbecue, and we will serve, his secret-recipe, all-beef frankfurters, “like da Stahl-Meyers at Ebbets Field, only betta.”
Luther and Armetta are among the first to arrive just after noon, with Reverend Stone from St. John’s A.M.E. I see Jerry Tee, Jimmy Lee and Natty and others who work on our picking crew are here, and old ladies and young mothers and children who, lacking real Dodger baseball caps, wear blue cotton kerchiefs tied to their heads. They race around like a band of miniature pirates.
The hot dog work before the game is fast and furious. The talk around me is all baseball. Marvin would have loved this, I think with an ache around my heart, as old Sal, the only person present who’s actually been to Ebbets Field, holds court: One boy asks, “Mistuh Sal, Big Nate says they usta be the Trolley Dodgers? What’s a trolley, anyway?” Some young men challenge Sal to “tell Willie ’bout Babe Ruth’s fastball in the ’sixteen Series ’gainst the Red Sox.” A man in an old brown Grays cap wants to argue: “Babe Ruth? Smokey Joe Williams could outplay Ruth any day of th’ week!”
At five minutes before game time, in a move that’s an important part of this behind-the-store ritual, Reverend Stone rises for the opening prayer. Reverend Stone is a wiry man with a big, booming voice. He holds a blanched palm high above the crowd and we all, even the youngest children, respectfully bow our heads.
“Lawd, Lawd, we thank You for Your son Jesus,”
the Reverend says, and a chorus of scattered voices say, “Amen.”
“And, on this day especially, we thank You
for our people’s son, Jackie. ”
At this, the “Amens” become noticeably more enthusiastic.
“Now, Lawd, we know better than to ask
Your involvement in petty sports.
But in Your Son’s glorious Sermon on the Mount, He told us
‘Enter ye in at the straight gate.
Straight is the gate, and narrow is the way,
and few there be that find it.’
We ask, Lawd, Your blessing on young Don Newcombe,
our starting pitcher.
We ask that his gate be straight and narrow,
and that there be few today that find it.”
Amens and muffled laughter ripple through the crowd.
“Lawd, we thank You for the four apostles who
spread Your good word—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John .
And we praise You for the good wood of four
others—Jackie, Campy, Duke and Gil.
May their bats ring loudly the gospel of hope, faith, fairness
and the equality of all men at the plate!”
“AMEN!”
“We know it’s best, Lawd, not to hope too high.”
Reverend Stone pauses to eyeball the zealots in the crowd.
“And we promise You, Lawd, that, whatever today’s outco
me,
we will—now and forever—praise Your holy name!”
“AMEN and PLAY BALL!” the crowd yells enthusiastically.
Jerry Tee clambers up the stepladder to turn up the TV’s volume, loud, and the game begins. It’s a shock to hear a voice other than the honey-toned Red Barber’s, but Ren explains to me, since they’re playing at the Giants’ Polo Grounds, their man Russ Hodges is announcing the game.
Because I don’t follow baseball as fanatically as the people around me, I find myself watching them for clues as to what’s going on. Throughout the early innings, the fans are nervous, wringing their hands, shaking their heads over every pitch, hit and play. By the end of the seventh inning, the teams are tied at only one run apiece. People cast worried eyes at the TV screen and each other.
In “the top” of the eighth inning, when Maglie—the Giants’ pitcher who nobody likes—makes a mistake, a bad throw, and a Dodger named PeeWee runs home, 2–1, the fans cheer loudly. Then Maglie walks Jackie Robinson, and the crowd erupts. “Steal second, Jackie!” they holler. “Steal ’em all!” Miz Coralie Brown—the tiny old lady with a face as round and crinkled as a walnut, sitting next to Armetta— crows. But before Jackie can steal anything, batter Billy Cox hits a two-run homer and stretches the lead to 4–1. The fans are thrilled by that, and by the fact that in “the bottom” of the inning, the Giants don’t score a thing.
Now, in the ninth inning, the Dodger batters don’t score either. But the fans are hopeful as the teams change places. “Three more outs and we get our Series!” Ren yells in my ear, then, turning back to the screen hunched over and intent, wipes wet palms on his pants. Reverend Stone dabs his upper lip with a huge white handkerchief. Old Sal nervously taps his false teeth. And Miz Coralie holds up crooked arthritic fingers, double-crossed for luck.
The crowd is hushed and unhappy when first one, then another Giant batter gets on base. A third batter hits the first one home, bumping the score to 4–2, with two men still on base. Suddenly, there’s a great roar of disapproval as the Dodger manager walks out to remove Don Newcombe from the pitcher’s mound. “Leave ’im in!” Jimmy Lee and many others holler. “Let ’im be!” Miz Coralie wails.
The announcer Hodges identifies Newcombe’s replacement, a young pitcher named Ralph Branca.
Beside me, Ren is stunned. “Branca? Nooooo!” he howls as, beside him, old Sal mutters, “Is no good, Dressen, no good.”
The crowd is still grumbling as the Giants’ next batter, Bobby Thomson, comes to the plate. “Shhhhhhh, hush, now,” the old people hiss, some watching the screen, some merely listening, seeing the game inside their heads. Branca’s first pitch is a good one. “Strike one off the knees,” Hodges says. Ren and Sal eye each other in guarded relief. At the second pitch, the voice from the Polo grounds says, “Here’s a long fly . . . it’s gonna be . . . I believe . . .” And, then, a pause and the unbelievable, heart-stopping news, “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!”
Ren jumps up, slams his fist against the wall. “No,” he cries, “no, NO!” Old Sal buries his head in his hands, hiding his tears but not the moan in his throat.
Several people, including Miz Coralie, openly weep. Armetta turns to her with shiny wet cheeks. Luther and Reverend Stone stand to comfort them; Luther with a soft squeeze on his wife’s shoulder, the Reverend with a sorrowful “The Lawd giveth, and He taketh away.”
As the dejected young men, the disappointed parents and their silent children, the pairs of old people rise and turn to tread sadly home, I want to protest.
It would have been divinely right for these Dodgers, seven All-Stars among them, to have won this pennant. But apparently, Marvin has no damn pull in heaven. It would have been morally just, for Jackie Robinson especially, to have played the Series, and shown the world that Negroes are the equal of anybody. But, instead of the Dodgers’ brilliant Don Newcombe standing victorious, today black-hearted Sal Maglie— who viciously bean-balled Robinson all season—is the pennant-winning pitcher.
To my mind, because of Marvin, God owed us this win, owed the Dodgers their stay in Heaven on Earth. But, for reasons beyond me, God came down on the wrong side of right. And made baseball, as Red Barber says, “just like life.”
The late-afternoon sun pierces the pines with sharp orange swords of light. The departing fans trail long, lonesome shadows. Dusk comes fast and is wintry red.
Chapter 20
On Monday afternoon, November fifth, Mr. Thurgood Marshall wheels his rental car into the packinghouse lot. Leaving his suit coat in the car, he strides into our showroom, tie loosened, starched white shirtsleeves rolled back against the heat.
“Did you hear about the cold snap in New York?” he asks, patting his forehead with a folded white handkerchief. “There were icicles hanging off our front stoop when I left,” he tells us with a throaty chuckle.
“Welcome to paradise,” Daddy says, turning the small electric fan on the counter in his direction. “Time for another tango with Sheriff McCall?”
“Ackerman, the defense counsel, has filed for a change of venue; Judge Futch is going to rule on it day after tomorrow,” the big man tells us. News of the Supreme Court-ordered retrial—of the two young Negroes accused of raping a white woman up in Groveland— has been all over the papers for months.
While I pour Mr. Marshall some fresh-squeezed juice, I listen to him tell Daddy they’re hoping to get Prosecutor Jess Hunter removed for calling the N.A.A.C.P. “a subversive and Communist organization.” He wants to transfer the proceedings to Marion County, where Lake County’s notorious Sheriff McCall “has fewer friends.”
“Better there than Miami,” Daddy says, and the two men shake their heads over the most recent string of bombings— three more since Labor Day.
“What the hell’s taking the F.B.I. so long?” Daddy rails.
Mr. Marshall’s face falls. “Your guess is as good as mine. We’ve called everyone we can think of, twice. And that includes the President and the former First Lady!”
“And, unfortunately, old give-em-hell Harry’s up to his eyeballs in Communists?” Daddy asks, raising an eyebrow.
“We’re standing in a line that’s gets longer every day,” Mr. Marshall tells him sadly, finishing his juice. “If you have the time,” he adds, “you’re welcome to attend Wednesday’s hearing in Tavares.”
“Really?” I say, avoiding Daddy’s eye. “Me, too?” I ask, hoping to confirm my seat from Mr. Civil Rights himself.
Far too smart to be caught between a teenager and her parents, Mr. Marshall shakes his head. “That’s for your parents to decide, Reesa.”
After he’s gone, my begging begins. The trick is to press hard enough to get a yes, but not so hard I get a no. “Please, Daddy, please. After all I’ve read, all the things the paper’s said, you have to let me go! It’s history!”
My father, no slouch at smartness either, gives me the sly eye. “We’ll discuss it with your mother, later.”
It should have been, it would have been, something to see Mr. Marshall at work, defending Walter Lee Irvin and Samuel Shepherd, two of the four young Negroes who stopped their car to help a white couple and were later accused of raping the woman. But, on November sixth, on their way to the courthouse, both Walter Irvin and Samuel Shepherd were shot. Shepherd was killed. What happened that night, on a lonely road in Lake County, depends on who you choose to believe.
In the local paper, Sheriff Willis McCall tells his side of things:
In the late afternoon of November sixth, the sheriff and his deputy James Yates drove up to Raiford State Prison in Union County to pick up defendants Irvin and Shepherd. The lawmen’s court-ordered task was to deliver the two Negroes back to Lake County’s court in Tavares. When they left the prison, the defendants were handcuffed together in the front seat next to the sheriff. Deputy Yates sat in the back.
“Fearing interference from a lynch mob,” Sheriff McCall explained, he drove Deputy
Yates to Weirsdale to pick up a second car. “By that time, it was dark, so I sent Yates ahead to watch for roadblocks. On the way,” McCall said, “a tire went flat and needed fixing. When I opened the car door to get the prisoners out, Shepherd grabbed my flashlight, smashed me on the head with it, and yelled to Irvin to get my gun.” Sheriff McCall pulled his revolver and shot each prisoner three times. Then he radioed for Deputy Yates to come back and to call a doctor. When the doctor got there, Samuel Shepherd was dead. Walter Lee Irvin looked dead, but was not.
Instead, Irvin’s in the hospital with tubes draining blood from his chest cavity, and a bullet lodged forever in his kidney. Miraculously, he’s able to talk. In an interview, headlined “Who Lied?,” twenty-three-year-old Irvin tells his story:
“The sheriff and the deputy began talkin’ on the radio a little bit. The sheriff told him to ‘go ahead and check’ and so the deputy sheriff went on a short ways in front of us and he says, ‘Okay’ . . . The sheriff shimmied his steering wheel and said, ‘Something is wrong with my left front tire.’ ”
Irvin said McCall reached under the seat for his flashlight, got out and kicked the front wheel. “Then he opened our door and said, ‘You sons of bitches get out and get this tire fixed.’ . . . So Sammy—he was by the door—he takes his foot and put it out of the car and was gettin’ out, I can’t say just how quick it was, but he shot him. It was quick enough, and he turned, the sheriff did, and he had a pistol and he shot Sammy right quick. Then he shot me. He reached and grabbed me, and snatched me, and Sammy, too. He snatched both of us and then threw us on the ground.
“Then I didn’t say anything. I didn’t say nothin’. So later he snatched us, he shot me again in the shoulder, and still I didn’t say anything at all, all that time. And I knew I was not dead.
“In about ten minutes, the deputy sheriff was there. And the deputy he shined the light in my face and he said to the sheriff, ‘That son of a bitch is not dead.’ And then he said, ‘Let’s kill him.’ The deputy sheriff pointed his pistol on me and pulled the trigger, snapped the trigger, and the gun did not shoot. The deputy took it around to the car lights and looked in it and shined the light in it. He turned it on me again and pulled it and that time the gun fired. It went through me here,” indicating his throat, “and then I began to bleed out of my mouth and nose. I didn’t say nothin’ and didn’t let them know I was not dead. And some people came . . .”
Lay that Trumpet in Our Hands Page 11
