Lay that Trumpet in Our Hands

by Susan Carol McCarthy

  Miz Lucy was a nervous wreck waiting to hear from him, smoked a pack of cigarettes nonstop before Selma even had time to clear the breakfast dishes.

  After taking the oath and his seat, Mr. Reed answered the first question put to him by the Federal Prosecutor (“Are you a member of an organization known as the Ku Klux Klan?”) with a confident “No.”

  Then the prosecutor, open file folder in hand, asked his second question. “Are you not presently a member in good standing of the Opalakee Klavern of the Ku Klux Klan?”

  Again Mr. Reed said “No.”

  After that, the prosecutor turned to shuffle through the stack of file folders on his table. That’s when Mr. Reed saw it, the briefest flash of a familiar black-and-white pattern. At first, he told Miz Lucy, it reminded him of a schoolboy’s composition book. But as the prosecutor turned to ask his third question (“Are you not a former Exalted Cyklops of the Opalakee Klavern of the Ku Klux Klan?”), it reminded him of something else.

  An hour later, during the morning recess, Mr. Reed called home, fuming to beat the band. Miz Lucy took the call in the kitchen, a scant five feet from where Selma stood cleaning out the oven.

  “Lucy, listen to me carefully,” he said in a tone Selma said was way beyond upset. Mr. Reed was riled. “Call Emmett. Tell him to check the fishing camp. I think they’ve got our record books! How the hell could they have our record books?”

  “What record books?” Miz Lucy asked him.

  “Membership, attendance, the goddamn list of officers. We keep them at the camp, but I swear I saw them here in the prosecutor’s files!”

  “Oh, Reed, what does this mean?” Miz Lucy wailed, sinking like an empty sack into the kitchen chair.

  His answer was loud enough for Selma, scrubbing the oven, to hear every word. “It means I just fucking perjured myself in front of the goddamn Grand Jury! Hang up the phone and call Emmett now!”

  Miz Lucy did as she was told. Her call to Emmett Casselton included a strident retelling of every word Mr. Reed had said, followed by fifteen minutes of frantic pacing and chain-smoking, waiting for the return call.

  Emmett Casselton’s confirmation (“They’re gone”) sent Miz Lucy into orbit. Two more calls—one to her brother, an attorney in Macon, and a second to Miz LouAnn Marks, her best friend next door—pushed her spread-eagled, sobbing hysterically, onto the sofa.

  “If I’d been there, I’d have known what to do,” Armetta tells us sadly. “Poor Selma’d never seen her that way, hadn’t the slightest idee how to handle things.”

  Miz LouAnn arrived shortly, grabbed a bottle of bourbon and hauled her friend back into the bedroom. An hour later, Miz LouAnn emerged, told Selma, “Miz Lucy’s resting. Under no circumstances, is she to be disturbed.”

  Mid-afternoon, Miz Lucy stumbled into the kitchen in search of some ice. She found Selma serving May Carol an after-school snack and told May Carol that when she’s finished she’s to run next door and play with Joan Ellen. Then she asked Selma to leave early, she needed peace and quiet “to rest,” she said. Both Selma and May Carol did as they were told.

  That evening, Miz LouAnn brought her friend supper on a tray. When her knock on the door went unanswered, she let herself in and found, to her horror, that Miz Lucy, aided by the bourbon and her barbiturates, had rested herself into peace and quiet of the most permanent kind.

  The news of Miz Lucy’s suicide casts a pall over Opalakee, and puts thoughts in my head that I’d rather not think about.

  Armetta’s worried sick about May Carol. “That chil’s gonna need all our prayers to survive life as a Garnet without her mother,” she says, shaking her head.

  I remember last March, how fragile and upset May Carol looked when Armetta, her other mother, left. Now she’s lost her real mother, too. What’s to become of her if Mr. Reed goes to jail? Why is it, in this whole mess, ever since Marvin, innocent people are the only ones suffering?

  Mr. Reed Garnet, granted temporary leave by the Grand Jury, returns home to bury his wife. My parents, knowing the small Opalakee Presbyterian Church will be packed with wary Klansmen and their heartsick wives, send flowers but elect not to attend.

  After the funeral and the paying of respects at the Garnet home, Joan Ellen and May Carol sit quietly on the patio just off the living room while Miz LouAnn suggests to Mr. Reed that May Carol move in next door.

  In the girls’ locker room, Joan Ellen shares what happened next:

  “So Mamma says to May Carol’s Daddy, ‘Reed, that child’s been through so damn much. Why don’t you let her stay with us for a while, at least ’til this business in Miami’s cleared up?’

  “ ‘Might be longer than you think,’ Mr. Reed says with a smirk. ‘Besides, she’s goin’ to Mother’s,’ he says, meaning May Carol’s grandmother, Miz Hannah Garnet. Y’all know what Miz Lucy used to call Miz Hannah, don’t ya? H-R-H, which Miz Hannah always thought stood for Her Royal Highness, you know, like the Queen? But Miz Lucy told Mamma it really meant Hannah Right outta Hell! They did not get along!

  “Anyway, my mamma says, ‘Reed, you can’t let that old hellcat have that child!’

  “ ‘It’s a done deal, LouAnn,’ he says. ‘And Mother’s already arranged May Carol’s transfer to Mount Laura Academy.’

  “ ‘Dammit, Reed, no!’ Mamma tells him. ‘You know every time Miz Hannah brought up that prissy-ass boarding school, it made Lucy crazy. You know how set she was on keepin’ May Carol home!’

  “ ‘Well, Lou,’ Mr. Reed says, just as mean as could be, ‘if she was that set, she should’ve stuck around instead of climbin’ into the booze and her little pill bottles!’

  “Well,” Joan Ellen reports to us, rolling big eyes around our circle, “when he said that, I thought my mamma was gonna strangle him. And poor May Carol, sitting right next to me, heard every word!

  “ ‘Reed Garnet,’ my mamma says, ‘you knew Lucy was havin’ a hard time of it. If you’d spent one damn minute thinkin’ about her instead of yourself . . .’

  “ ‘Ain’t a problem anymore, is it, Lou?’ Mr. Reed says.

  “ ‘You are every bit the animal she always said you were!’ my mamma told him.

  “ ‘Well, then,’ he says, in a real ugly voice, ‘you’ll excuse me, but I have a plane to catch. The Miami zookeeper’s waiting for me to crawl back into my cage.’ And with that, he opened the door and told Mamma to ‘Go home!’

  “Last time we saw May Carol, he had her all packed up and on her way to Miz Hannah’s house. Damn jackass didn’t even give us a chance to say goodbye.”

  Chapter 34

  In the gray days after Miz Lucy’s suicide, there are no further updates out of Miami. Reporters camped outside the Federal Courthouse pester the Federal Proscecutor for news. “Patience,” he chides them. “This process will not be rushed.” The papers are guessing another two to three weeks before “justice is served.”

  The big question I have is “Who’s saying how much, about what?” Backed into the corner of perjury versus self-preservation, how long before these human snakes bare their fangs at each other? It has to happen, doesn’t it? They can shed their skin, but not their nature, right?

  Mother believes the longer the proceedings run, the better. “It takes time,” she tells me, “to draw everyone’s cards out on the table.”

  Hope has begun to glimmer at our house like the flame of a small candle. I see it first in Mother. Or, rather, when the woman who looks like my mother but hasn’t acted like her real self for months invites me to play a game of Gin Rummy. The first hand is awkward, but, after the third, she catches my eye when I say “gin,” and grins. My mother’s lopsided, dimpled grin.

  I don’t dare acknowledge it, for fear of somehow scaring her away again. But as I gather and sweep the cards in her direction, with a quiet “your deal,” I feel the pieces of myself fall back into place, and my heart welcomes her home.

  While the small towns surrounding Orlando wait for the results of the Grand Jury face-off in
South Miami, another confrontation draws our attention north to Tallahassee. Presidential candidate Estes Kefauver is on his way, back onto Governor Fuller Warren’s forbidden ground.

  Everyone’s anticipating the fray, including the ladies at Miz Lillian’s Beauty Parlor:

  “They say Governor Warren’s goin’ to meet him at the border with the state troopers,” claims Miz Ethel May Burch, cut and curling. “Goin’ t’ tell Kefauver to turn around and take his coonskin cap and his redheaded wife back to Tennessee.”

  “I hear he’s flyin’ into Miami,” Miz Lillian says. “Goin’ t’ cavalcade right up the Trail, all the way to Jacksonville.”

  “What color red is his wife’s hair?” Miss Iris asks.

  “ ’Bout the same as mine,” Miz Lillian tells her.

  “Outta the same bottle?” Miz Ethel May asks wickedly.

  “Now, now, Ethel May, only my hairdresser knows for sure,” Miz Lillian shoots back, patting her copper-red French twist.

  “I personally think it’s foolish of Governor Warren to make such a big deal outta this,” Miz Agnes Langford, my old Sunday school teacher, says. “Any of y’all see Senator Kefauver on television during the hearings in New York? That man tore that thug Costello to pieces. If Governor Warren thinks Kefauver’ll be a pushover, he’s likely to be surprised.”

  “You for Kefauver, Aggie?” Miss Iris asks.

  “Well, I’m just not sure I’d be comfortable with a Cracker like Russell in the White House, or if the rest of the country would be, either. Personally, I think Kefauver’s got a better chance of beatin’ that warmonger Eisenhower in the fall.”

  Everyone at Miz Lillian’s knows Miz Agnes has a son in Korea and is anxious to get him home.

  The following week, both Democratic candidates, Senator Kefauver of Tennessee and Senator Russell of Georgia, come calling on the voters of Florida. Not long after Kefauver’s arrival, Governor Warren openly challenges him to a twenty-one-question debate.

  “I’d be happy to talk to the Governor,” Kefauver replies, “but a debate’s sort of a candidate thing. Last time I looked, I didn’t see the Governor’s name on the ballot. Is it there? Did I miss it?” Kefauver asks the press.

  Both Senators tour the state, shaking hands, making speeches up and down the Orange Blossom Trail. I’m at the packinghouse when Senator Russell’s parade passes through Mayflower. A dozen state trooper cars, lights flashing, sirens blaring, announce their arrival and departure at both ends of town. In the middle, the Georgia Senator and the Governor wave like kings from the air-conditioned comfort of their shiny gold Mercury.

  Kefauver’s pass-through was much smaller, Daddy tells us, riding in an open convertible with him and his pretty wife smiling and waving at the people beside the Trail. Mother confirms that Nancy Kefauver’s hair is very much the same color as Miz Lillian’s. Whether or not Miz Kefauver’s a natural redhead, she couldn’t say.

  On May fifth, the day before the Presidential primary, Luther stops by with questions about the voting process. This will be his very first time at the polls. He wants to make sure he knows exactly what to do.

  Daddy says he’s not surprised that Luther and most of the folks in The Quarters are backing Kefauver.

  “Ah like the way he talks about cleanin’ up the gov’ment,” Luther says. “Wish he’d start right here with Gov’nor Warren. That man has deviled poor Mistuh Kefauver up and down this state with his ‘Twenty-one Questions,’ like it was Mistuh Kefauver caught buyin’ concrete from Al Capone! Ah hope he gets his chance to clean house in Washin’ton. God knows Ah’d be willin’ to lend him a hand with a broom!”

  The next night, I stay up late with the adults to watch the results roll in on the television. As expected, the larger cities and the eight counties around them go for Kefauver. The country counties, especially those in the panhandle, tip heavily toward Russell.

  In the end, Russell wins, nearly 360,000 votes to Kefauver’s 285,000. Despite the fact that their man lost, Daddy and Luther are jubilant. “Governor Warren promised Kefauver a humiliating defeat,” Daddy explains. “But thanks to th’ Negro vote, he didn’t get it!” Luther boasts. “We kep’ things fair an’ square.” Like a democracy should be, I decide. Wouldn’t Mr. Harry’ve been proud to see that?

  As both candidates head north with less success than either had hoped for, attention turns south, back to Miami.

  The headline on the front page of The Miami Herald says it all:

  TRAIL OF VIOLENCE LAID TO KLANSMEN

  Daddy reads the lead story aloud:

  A federal grand jury Wednesday submitted “a catalog of terror that seems incredible” in a report of Ku Klux Klan activities that ran the gamut from murder and arson to beatings and bombings.

  Two White girls were severely beaten for bathing in the nude; a Negro man was shot in the back; the home of a Negro woman in Miami was burned; a Negro man and his wife were killed when their home was bombed;

  “Mr. Harry and his wife!” I cry.

  “Yes,” Daddy nods. “Let me finish . . .”

  a White man was beaten for neglecting his family; a Negro worker was thrashed for union activities.

  “Nothing about Marvin?” I’m fuming. Daddy gives me the eye and continues.

  These are only some of the acts attributed to the KKK by the jury in its roundup of terrorism dating from 1943.

  Only those acts to which one or more Klansmen admitted participation were attributed to the KKK by the jury as it recited a long list of unbridled acts of violence in Greater Miami and central Florida . . .

  The jury said the list it submitted to Federal Judge John W. Holland in its partial report is far from complete. “Details grow monotonous through sheer repetition,” it explained.

  The story Daddy reads says that, after a brief recess, the Grand Jury will hear more witnesses and “consider criminal aspects over which there may be federal jurisdiction.” Their statement indicated that the jury expects to return indictments when it reconvenes.

  After seventeen paragraphs outlining the gruesome list of confirmed Klan activities, the Grand Jury has this to say about the KKK:

  It is founded on the worst instincts of mankind. At its best, it is intolerant and bigoted. At its worst, it is sadistic and brutal. Between these two poles it has its existence.

  Out of the wells of prejudice, it draws its inspiration. It is a foul pollution in the body politic. It is a cancerous growth that will not be cured until the hand of every decent man is raised against it and the whole power of the law is marshaled to stamp it out.

  At the tail end of the story, buried at the bottom of page 10, are the three sentences that quickly become the talk of Mayflower:

  The jury revealed for the first time that two years before the Moore murders, a floor plan of the Moore house was exhibited at a meeting of a Central Florida klavern. The report stated, too, that newspaper clippings of Moore’s activities were read at klavern meetings and that mention of him was made on other occasions and in other places. The jury said the Central Florida klaverns were “known to have a malevolent interest in Moore.”

  Chapter 35

  Doto stands on the back porch, inhaling the warm May air.

  “What a beautiful day!” she calls into the kitchen. “Why not have Sunday dinner out here?”

  “Why not?” Mother calls back. “Reesa, will you set the picnic table, please?”

  Doto and I wipe down the backyard table and chairs. She helps me spread the cloth and place the plates, glasses, napkins and flatware. While Mother calls Daddy and the boys to dinner, Doto and I carry the platters and bowls outside to the shaded backyard: pork chops fragrant with rosemary, mashed potatoes and brown gravy, fresh green beans and applesauce.

  “It’s dinner-on-the-grounds just for us!” Mitchell crows, his blond buzzed head aglow in the sunlight.

  We gobble up our food, gab about the Sunday service. Ren reports that the Dodgers’ best pitcher, big Don Newcombe, has been drafted into the arm
y and is on his way to Korea. Doto praises Mitchell for his much-improved table manners. As we sit sipping the last of our tea, we hear, then see, Luther’s old Dodge at the head of the driveway.

  He and Armetta get out of the car, still in their church clothes.

  “Well, ain’t y’all a picture?” he calls, smiling. “Enjoyin’ this pretty Sunday?”

  “Sure are,” Daddy calls back. “Ren, pull those lawn chairs over here for Luther and Armetta. You two eaten?”

  “Jus’ finished.” Luther patts his belt buckle.

  “Had a potluck with the choir,” Armetta says, sitting down in the shade. “Lord, was it good!”

  “The choir?” Daddy asks, looking curious. “Any gossip from the good ladies of the C.I.A.?”

  “Actually, that’s why we’ve come.” Luther accepts the glass of tea that Mother’s poured for him. “Somethin’ pretty important,” he says, leaning forward. “Y’all know the Gran’ Jury’s out on recess, which means the Klanners have come home for a few days. There’s been a bunch of little parties and barbecues for ’em which, of course, the ladies have prepared.”

  Armetta looks around and tugs her chair closer to the table. “Mist’Warren, the question everyone’s been chewin’ on is ‘Who stole the record books with the clippin’s and the floor plan and gave ’em to the F.B.I.?’ They’ve been ’round and ’round, tryin’ to figure it out. Middle of last week, one of the men remembered somethin’. Somethin’ about the men shootin’ at some chil’ren and the fathers bein’ fit to be tied about it. The talk’s been all over Mistuh Emmett about who that was and could they be the one?”

  Daddy leans forward, elbows on the table, resting his chin on his upright, folded hands. His jaw’s gone concrete.

  “The Klan’s been chewin’ on it all weekend, talkin’ amongst theyselves. They’ve ruled out the other boy’s father; Mistuh Emmett says Mistuh Smitty’d never have the nerve. They’ve decided, well, what they’re sayin’ is, since you’re a Yankee, and mad and smart enough to pull it off, they thinkin’ it was you. . . .”