Midnight Without a Moon

by Linda Williams Jackson

  My stomach churned, but I took the paper hesitantly. I glanced at the headline again. PREACHER’S MOUTH SHOT OFF, TONGUE SHOT INTO, ALLEGEDLY, BY WHITE MEN. Across the top of the page read Southern Mediator Journal. I had never heard of the paper.

  “A Negro paper?” I asked.

  Hallelujah nodded. “Yes. Arkansas. Little Rock.”

  He pointed at the top of the paper, where it read, “The South’s Progressive Negro Weekly. Little Rock, Arkansas.” Hallelujah took a deep breath, then exhaled. “His face was ripped in two. The undertaker had to suture it back together.”

  A chill crept over my body.

  “Hundreds of shotgun pellets in his face,” Hallelujah continued, anger burning in his eyes, “and the sheriff dismissed them as dental fillings. He didn’t say a thing about the bullet holes in his shot-out tires.”

  As I studied the paper, Hallelujah said, “Dr. T.R.M. Howard in Mound Bayou said some Negroes would sell their grandmas for half a dollar, but Reverend Lee was not one of them.”

  “Negroes like Ma Pearl,” I said, glancing up at him.

  “Judas niggers.”

  “What?”

  “Judas niggers,” Hallelujah repeated. “Negroes who’d sell their grandmas for half a dollar just to stay in the white man’s favor.”

  I told him what Ma Pearl said about Levi having “a whole lotta stupid” in his head and how she’d kill her own if they registered to vote.

  Hallelujah leaped from the stump. “That’s bull crap!” he said, banging his fist in his palm. “We have rights too. And that includes the right to vote. A man shouldn’t have to die for wanting to vote.”

  I tugged his shirttail. “Calm down before folks get suspicious.”

  He slumped down on the stump with a huff.

  “Reverend Jenkins know you talk like that?” I asked.

  A quick shrug of his right shoulder was Hallelujah’s only reply.

  “You shouldn’t use such strong language. You might start cussing like Queen.”

  “These white folks around here will make even a preacher cuss,” Hallelujah answered.

  “Well, don’t you start,” I said. “Be a shame for a good boy like you to end up in hell.”

  “I live in Mississippi,” he replied tersely. “I’m already in hell.”

  “Hell is hot, and it’s full of demons,” I said.

  Hallelujah glared at me and said, “And so is Mississippi.”

  August

  Chapter Nine

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 19

  JULY HAD COMPLETELY MELTED AWAY, AND WE WERE more than halfway into August before we heard from Mama up in Chicago. The cotton-chopping season had ended, and I had nothing to do except work like a donkey around the house while Queen sat around acting like, well, like a queen.

  God had sent ol’ Gabriel down with more buckets of blazing heat. And being as faithful as the Bible describes him to be, ol’ Gabe poured that heat on us good. Everything around us was as parched as a winter peanut. Except the cotton. It was growing strong.

  Papa prayed every day that it wouldn’t rain. Rain would ruin his crop. Sun would help it prosper. And every day, it seemed, a wide, dark cloud hovered right over the cotton field, then suddenly poofed away without leaving a trace of water. Every night, Papa fell on his knees and thanked God for holding the rain in the clouds for one more day.

  It was too hot to do anything besides work in the house anyway. So there I was, down on my knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor, my hands chafing from lye soap, while Queen relaxed on her lazy behind in the parlor, lost in the wonderful world of radio soaps.

  School wouldn’t start for another two weeks. And I couldn’t wait. Folks said the colored school was haunted, said it was built over a cemetery. And since the white folks who built it didn’t bother to relocate the sixty-nine Negro corpses that rested beneath it, angry ghosts appeared randomly throughout the day to scare away the intruders. Papa said it just wasn’t right to disturb a sacred space that way, said he didn’t blame the haints if they showed up. “Wouldn’t want folks stepping on my grave either,” he said.

  Personally, I never saw any haints, unless you count the little round white man with the doughy face who visited on occasion to make sure “you folks have all you need ovah heah.”

  But I didn’t care that the school was haunted. I only cared that it was new, even if everything in it was raggedy junk from the white school. At least we had a school. Most colored children weren’t lucky enough to even go to school, especially the ones who lived on somebody else’s land. With cotton-picking season right around the corner, they were expected to work. Luckily for me and Queen and Fred Lee, Papa allowed us to attend school even during the harvest season. Ma Pearl, on the other hand, couldn’t have cared less.

  Grade school was considered a decent education by most folks in the Delta anyhow. But not for me. I wanted more. I needed more. I couldn’t be like Papa and spend the rest of my life working in a cotton field. Nor like Ma Pearl, cleaning up after and serving white women like Mrs. Robinson. I would turn into a madwoman if I had to be surrounded by all the fanciness of a white woman’s house all day, then return home and try to find contentment with the drabness of my own.

  If only for this reason alone, I wanted—​no—​I had to do like Levi Jackson and some of the others. I had to finish up high school and head off somewhere to a college. Except Levi would never again set foot in a college, thanks to the fool who put a bullet in his head. But at least his younger brothers would have a better chance than he did.

  Right after Levi’s funeral and before the cotton chopping was all done, Mr. Albert and his wife, Miss Flo-Etta, took their younger sons and joined their older sons in Detroit. He said he was done with Mississippi and would never set foot on that demon soil again. Perhaps Fish, Adam, and Mr. Albert’s other young sons would get to go to one of those fancy schools up north, where they claimed white children and colored children sat in the same classrooms—​something I figured I would have to see for myself to believe.

  My seventh-grade teacher, Miss Johnson, had said that would eventually happen in Mississippi. But she also said it was the actions of people like the NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers who got us that new colored school built. She said that Mr. Evers had first gone to Alcorn, the colored college where Levi had gone, and studied business. After that, he tried to go study law at that fancy white college they call Ole Miss. Miss Johnson said that as long as colored folks tried to force their way into white schools, white folks would spend money to build colored schools. That way they could claim colored children had the same privileges as white children, and they wouldn’t be forced to integrate like they had done in Topeka, Kansas.

  But she and Reverend Jenkins both said that they could build all they wanted, but a change was still coming to Mississippi, and soon. Reverend Jenkins himself had attended a funny-sounding colored college named Tougaloo, where he studied literature. So besides preaching, he was also a teacher at the colored high school, and he sold life insurance policies on the side. Hallelujah was planning to study medicine when he went to college. I wanted to learn important things like that too—​medicine, or maybe even business or law like Mr. Evers.

  I was almost finished with the kitchen floor and was about to get started on sweeping the back porch when Ma Pearl yelled from the parlor. “Rose Lee! Come read this.”

  I scrambled up from the floor and dried my hands on a dishrag. I welcomed the break from my work, even if it was only to read the mail. Ma Pearl was one of the reasons I knew I had to get as much schooling as possible. She’d been born in 1899, her mama and papa were former slaves, and she couldn’t read or write a lick. She couldn’t even read the mail when it came in. Papa, however, had taught himself to read when he was a boy. He told me that while his mama cleaned the white woman’s house, he read the white children’s books, figuring out the words by studying the pictures. He couldn’t read all that good, but at least he could read some. Good thing too, since he studi
ed that Farmer’s Almanac like it was the Bible. His favorite reading, however, was the three-day-old Memphis Commercial Appeal, a white-owned newspaper that the Robinsons passed on to Ma Pearl. Papa read the paper in the late evening, after what he called a hard day of cotton-field meditation. He said that after spending a whole day looking inside his own head, it was nice to take a break and look inside someone else’s.

  I knew before seeing it that the letter in Ma Pearl’s hand was from Mama. And I also knew, from the sour look on Ma Pearl’s face, that the letter didn’t contain that lil’ something Mama had promised to send as soon as she got settled.

  When Ma Pearl thrust the letter in my face, she cussed under her breath and said, “See what that heffa got to say.”

  Mama shouldn’t have promised money she couldn’t deliver. Now Ma Pearl would be in a dark mood all weekend. And with her not having to go to Mrs. Robinson’s again until Monday, I dreaded the three-day wrath we all had coming.

  As I studied the letter before I read it out loud, it broke my heart. The penmanship was so poor I couldn’t tell whether it had been written by my twenty-eight-year-old mama or my six-year-old stepbrother. Mama had had to quit school at fifteen because she was “in the family way.” Despite her age, she had still gotten only as far as sixth grade. Ma Pearl said she was too busy studying Johnny Lee Banks instead of studying her books.

  But even with a sixth-grade education, I would think Mama could do better than the mishmash of so-called words I was staring at. Mama’s spelling was so bad it read like some kind of secret code.

  Dear Mama and Papa,

  How ya doin. Fin I hop. We fin to. Pete got lost wen we got her. He went to the rong bildin. A white girl told us we was on the rong side a the free way. She tol us go a cupa mo blocs soth. She was nic. We fond our bildin. It so tall. It bout the talless thing I eva seed. Our partmint aint nar bout big as the hose in Grenwood. But at lees it got a bafrum. We aint got to go otsid. And we got swichs on the wall for the lites. We aint got to pull no strng to trun them on. And we got closit to put our cloths in.

  Pete lik his job. I aint fond one yet. They say thar pline hear. But they bout as hard to com by as they is in Missippi. They say pline white wimens hirin mads. But I aint come all way to Chicgo to be no mad.

  Baby Susta com frum st luis last wek to see us. She said she goin to Missippi on the 21 to see ya. She gon be ther for a cupa weks. Pete say it be a whil four we com back. We got to git our mony back rit.

  Ma Pearl grunted. “You go’n read the dirn letter or burn a hole in it with yo’ eyes?” She stood so close to me that I could feel her breath on my ear. At that moment, I was glad she couldn’t read.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to figure out a way to read the letter out loud and not make my mama sound stupid, especially with Queen sitting right there in the room. Her mama, Aunt Clara Jean, had finished eighth grade. But I don’t know what Queen was so proud for; her mama dropped out for the same reason mine did. And at least I knew who my daddy was. Besides, everybody knew Mama wasn’t the brightest flower in Ma Pearl’s bouquet, even if she was the prettiest.

  I quickly finished scanning the letter to get the gist of it so I could say out loud what my mama wasn’t competent enough to write in a letter.

  “Dear Mama and Papa,” I read.

  “How y’all doing? Fine I hope. We’re fine too. Pete got lost when we got here. He went to the wrong building. A white girl told us we were on the wrong side of the freeway. She told us to go a couple more blocks south. She was nice. We found our building. It’s so tall. It’s about the tallest thing I’ve ever seen. Our apartment ain’t near as big as the house in Greenwood, but at least it’s got a bathroom. And light switches and closets to put our clothes in.

  “Pete likes his job. I ain’t found one yet. They say there are plenty here. But they’re about as hard to come by as they are in Mississippi. They say plenty of white women are hiring maids. But I didn’t come all the way to Chicago to be no maid.

  “Baby Sister came from Saint Louis last week to see us. She said she’s going to Mississippi on the twenty-first to see y’all. She will be there for a couple of weeks. Pete says it’ll be a while before we come back. We got to get our money back right.”

  I stopped reading and folded the letter. The rest was about how she missed me and Fred Lee. I would’ve felt stupid reading it out loud.

  “Folks want you to raise they chi’ren,” Ma Pearl said, “but they don’t want to send you nothing to help raise ’em with. She better hurr’up and get her money right.”

  That last sentence seemed to be the only thing Ma Pearl heard in the whole letter. Funny how she never said a word to Aunt Clara Jean when she and Uncle Ollie always seemed to have plenty. Even though they, too, lived on Mr. Robinson’s place, their house was bigger than ours, and it even had a bathroom, of sorts. Plus Uncle Ollie owned a car. Not many coloreds living on somebody else’s land could make that claim.

  Queen took her ear from the radio long enough to ask, “So Baby Susta coming on Sunday?”

  “That’s what Mama says.”

  Queen held out her hand. “Lemme see that.”

  “No,” I said sharply, pressing the letter to my chest.

  Queen sneered. “Girl, I already know yo’ mama can’t write no better than Ellie out in the barn.” She jumped up, snatched the letter from my grasp, and rolled her eyes. “And I know she don’t talk near ’bout as proper as you just made her sound in this letter,” she said, scoffing as she glanced at the letter. “I don’t even know how you can read this chicken scratch anyway.”

  She tossed the letter back at me. It hit the floor.

  Then she quickly switched from putting down Mama to criticizing Aunt Belle, who was referred to by everybody, except me, as Baby Susta, or Baby Sister, if you chose to say it right. “Hope she bring me something good,” she said as she flopped back down in her chair. “I couldn’t even wear half that junk she brought the last time.”

  I picked up the letter from the floor and placed it in the front pocket of my dress. It wasn’t worth the fight to insist that Queen pick it up. “Maybe if you quit eating and sleeping all the time and tried a little work, that behind of yours wouldn’t spread so fast,” I told her.

  With her nose in the air, Queen said to me, “Don’t worry ’bout my behind. Worry ’bout them sticks you call legs. Besides, don’t nobody wanna be po’ as a pole like you.”

  “I’d rather be po’ as a pole than have a behind that sits up like a couple of muskmelons,” I said.

  Queen sucked her teeth and said, “Git on out there in the field and scare some crows, lil’ ugly girl.”

  “Crows eat corn, not cotton, stupid.”

  Queen nodded toward my dress pocket, which held Mama’s letter. “I wouldn’t be so quick to call people stupid if I was you.”

  Before I could set my mouth to respond, Ma Pearl butted in. “You done cleaning that kitchen, gal?”

  “Almost,” I muttered.

  “Almost ain’t never got nothing done. Get on in there and quit running yo’ mouth. Today Friday. Baby Susta be here Sunday. And you know how she like to bring folks down here with her, like Mississippi some kinda zoo that the whole world jest gots to see.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I mumbled.

  Queen, snickering, relaxed in her chair and turned up the volume on the radio.

  “Aren’t you glad you use Dial?” the radio announcer said. “Don’t you wish everybody did?”

  As I ambled toward the kitchen, my heart stinging from the letter, my hands stinging from the lye soap, I hated Mama even more for marrying Mr. Pete.

  Chapter Ten

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 19

  THE ONLY BRIGHT SPOT IN MAMA’S LETTER WAS THE announcement that Aunt Belle, the youngest of Ma Pearl’s children, was coming from Saint Louis that Sunday, the twenty-first. Only two days away. Of course that meant extra work for me. But I didn’t care. Having relatives visit from up north was worth the extra labor
of scrubbing down everything in the house. Everything had to be bone clean, including the front yard, which would be swept until it was nearly as clean as the kitchen floor.

  Special care had to be taken with Grandma Mandy’s old mothball-scented room, between the front room and the kitchen. Ma Pearl kept it as a guest room and worshiped it as a shrine, seeing as it had been the room where Papa’s mama slept for the ten years she’d lived with them. From what I’d heard, Grandma Mandy could barely stand the sight of Ma Pearl, yet Ma Pearl did all she could to win her favor. So even with Grandma Mandy seven years dead, her ancient bones cold in the ground, Ma Pearl kept her room unoccupied and as pristine as Mrs. Robinson’s parlor, while I had to share a room with wanna-be-swanky Queen.

  Unlike Queen, I didn’t care nearly as much about the clothes Aunt Belle would bring as I did about seeing how rich colored folks were after they had been living up north for a while. I thought about some of the other things Mama said in that letter, things about light switches and closets. Things Mrs. Robinson had in her house. I thought it was almost magical that whenever I walked into a room in her house, all I had to do was hit a switch on a wall and the light would come on. I couldn’t wait to grow up and get me a real house, with a toilet that flushed my doo-doo down to God knows where, instead of an outdoor toilet where everybody’s mess sat stagnant and maggot-covered in a hole until a new toilet was built.

  And closets? What a dream it would be to put my clothes in their own special little room instead of folded in a cardboard box in a corner. Of course, if I had a closet, I reckon I’d need some decent clothes to hang in it too. But one day—​one day it would happen, because I was determined to get myself a good education and make it happen.