Ma Pearl’s nostrils flared. “Heck, nah. I don’t let these gals leave this house ’cept to go to church. The only place Queen been is yo’ house. If she in trouble, it didn’t happen under my roof.”
Aunt Clara Jean smirked as she snatched a wedge of cornbread from the skillet. “You didn’t let me and Anna Mae leave the house either,” she said, chortling.
Ma Pearl shot Aunt Clara Jean an icy look. “Queen ain’t in trouble.”
When Aunt Clara Jean didn’t respond, Ma Pearl turned her attention toward me. “Wouldn’t surprise me none if this lil’ heffa here get herself in trouble soon.”
“Me?” I said, leaning back, my thumb pointed at my chest.
“Her?” Aunt Clara Jean said, her head cocked toward me. She laughed and said, “Don’t nobody want that ol’ black thang.”
“Humph,” said Ma Pearl. “You shoulda see’d what I caught her doing in my bedroom last week.”
Aunt Clara Jean’s head snapped toward me. “What?” she asked, wide-eyed, eager for gossip.
My blood felt like it drained as Ma Pearl proceeded not only to give a play-by-play of the fiasco of my dancing scene in her bedroom, but also to embellish the story with details that were way beyond my thirteen-year-old imagination. “All moanin’ and groanin’,” she said, frowning with disgust.
Aunt Clara Jean looked down her nose at me and said, “Umph, umph, umph. She fast, jest like her mama.”
I felt tears begin to bulge. “Ma Pearl, you know that ain’t true,” I said, my lips trembling.
Ma Pearl narrowed her eyes at me. “You wadn’t in front of my mirror dancing like a tramp off the street?”
Before I could stop them, tears fell in clumps into my food. I took my chance on a skillet flying to the back of my head and got up from the table and ran out the back door.
My whole body shook as I raced down the steps, across the backyard, and straight to the cotton field, the sound of Ma Pearl’s and Aunt Clara Jean’s cackling following me all the way.
I ran all the way to the far end of the field before I stopped and collapsed in the dust. The tall green leaves and white cotton bolls hid me as I lay there and sobbed—promising myself that I would one day kill Ma Pearl and Aunt Clara Jean.
Chapter Twenty-Three
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8
PAPA WAS WRONG WHEN HE SAID I NEVER FORGET. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember what my daddy’s face looked like. I had seen him only once, from a distance, when he came to see Fred Lee shortly after he was born. Every year when the cotton was full and ready for harvesting, I thought about that day.
Fred Lee and I were both nursing at Mama’s breast, but she still had to go to the field to pick cotton just the same. She would come back to the house every few hours to nurse Fred Lee, then allow me—at nearly two years old—to have the rest of whatever was left of her milk when he was done.
On one of those days, there was a knock at the door. It was our daddy, Johnny Lee Banks. Mama stood at the slightly open door, her back to me, and told him, “I can’t see you no mo’.”
“I didn’t come to see you,” he replied. “I jest wanna see the baby.”
I thought he was talking about me until Mama said, “You can’t see him neither.”
“They say he don’t look nothing like me,” my daddy replied. “I wanna see for myself.”
“You need to leave ’fo my mama catch you here,” Mama said, pushing on the door.
Instead, the door opened wider, and Johnny Lee tried to push past Mama. She pushed him back out the door, but not before I saw his face. I guess I didn’t see it long enough to hold it in my memory. But his voice is still there. It dragged, just like Fred Lee’s.
I couldn’t remember my daddy’s face, but poor Queen had never even seen her daddy’s face. Nor did she know his name. Fred Lee had seen our daddy once, when he had gone to town with Uncle Ollie. Neither said anything to the other, but Uncle Ollie had pointed him out from a distance and said, “There go yo’ pappy, boy.”
Queen was following in the same footsteps as our mamas. Maybe she’d get lucky like Aunt Clara Jean and find a kind man like Uncle Ollie who would marry her and start a new family. Or perhaps she’d end up like Mama and find a rich man who desired a pretty woman to raise his children.
Well, I didn’t want to end up like any of them, not Mama, not Aunt Clara Jean, and certainly not Aunt Ruthie, who, to escape Ma Pearl’s house, married Slow John. From what I’d heard, she had been offered the same opportunity as Aunt Belle. Papa’s sister Isabelle had come from Saint Louis and offered to take her back when she was sixteen, said she could attend a cooking school and become a chef. But Ma Pearl refused to let her go. Two years later Aunt Ruthie slipped off in the night and married Slow John.
Angry with her or not, I knew I’d pattern my life after Aunt Belle. Like Aunt Belle, I knew I’d have to escape through someone taking me up north. And I knew I had to learn a trade. I would’ve preferred finishing high school and going to college, but at the time, anything would have been better than chopping and picking cotton. Or squeezing milk from an ornery heifer before the sun came up in the morning.
That Thursday afternoon, after having baked in the sun for four days straight, I’d made up my mind not to kill Ma Pearl and Aunt Clara Jean after all. They weren’t worth me frying in the electric chair. Besides, I had devised a plan.
After Emmett Till’s funeral, Aunt Belle and Monty had decided to return to Mississippi to see what assistance they could offer the NAACP. They would arrive on Sunday and stay for two weeks. By the end of those two weeks I hoped to convince Aunt Belle to take me back with her. In my heart I knew Chicago was not an option. If Mama didn’t want me and Fred Lee when we were Li’ Man and Sugar’s age, then she certainly didn’t want us when we were just about grown. She renounced us as her children the day she began referring to us as Sister and Brother and had Li’ Man and Sugar call us Aunt Rose and Uncle Fred.
In the meantime, while I waited for my chance to be a part of the great colored migration, I had to drag that sack through the field and collect Mr. Robinson’s cotton while Queen and Fred Lee went to school. Queen had thrown up every morning. And every evening after school she fell asleep before her head hit the pillow. Ma Pearl was still asking her if she had the summer flu. She refused to believe her precious Queen was capable of doing any wrong.
That Thursday was also the fourth night of revival. Ma Pearl made us all go to the mourners’ bench. But I wasn’t trying to get religion. Why would I want to go to heaven if she and Aunt Clara Jean would be there? I’d take my chances in hell before spending an eternity with them.
So every night, Monday through Wednesday, I had sat on that front pew—the mourners’ bench. I sang when everyone else sang, shouted when everyone else shouted, and got down on my knees and bowed when everyone else prayed. But I didn’t pray for religion. I asked God to put a curse on Ma Pearl and Aunt Clara Jean instead. I knew it was selfish and evil, but after exhausting myself with tears in that cotton field, evil was all I could feel toward them.
I knew I needed religion or, more specifically, a faith, something to believe in. But I didn’t have to kneel and pray before a bench in the front row of the church, with a bunch of people moaning and praying over me, to get it.
Reverend Jenkins said that all we had to do was confess that we were sinners and ask for forgiveness. But the old folks said that was nonsense. You couldn’t get religion without a sign.
“You gotta be still and ask the Lawd for a sign,” Deacon Edwards had cried out every night of revival. “Pray, ‘Lawd Jesus, I is a wretch undone. Please, Suh, look and have mercy. If I got religion, please show me some sign.’”
And I did. I prayed that Deacon Edwards would lose his voice so he would stop screaming all over the place. I also prayed that Aunt Belle would change her mind and take me to Saint Louis.
I would find my faith eventually, when I was ready. And not when Ma Pearl said I should.
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Chapter Twenty-Four
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 9
“‘I LOVE THE LAWD; HE HEARD MY CRY,’” Deacon Edwards sang out. The rest of the church joined in as he dragged out the words:
“‘I-I-I-I l-o-o-o-ve d-e-e-e Law-awd. He-e-e-e hear-r-r-r-d my-y-y-y cry.’”
Deacon Edwards: “‘And pitied every groan.’”
The church: “‘A-a-and pi-i-i-tie-e-ed e-e-e-ver-e-e-ey gro-o-oan.’”
Friday had finally come, and the mourners’ bench wasn’t as packed as it had been on Monday. There were only a few of us, six to be exact, still waiting for a sign. On Monday the front pews had been so packed, there was barely room for our arms, which were smashed to our sides as our hands lay folded in our laps. But on Friday the choir stand was packed and the mourners’ bench sparse, as the newly saved saints glared piously down at those of us still waiting to receive a message from heaven.
Queen had crossed over on Tuesday night. Finally. I guess the death of Emmett Till was enough to scare even the worst of sinners toward salvation. When I asked her what sign she had asked God for, she told me it was none of my business and to worry about getting my own sign. So much for being saved. She perched on the front row of the choir stand, her legs crossed, her lips pursed, her nose pointing, fanning her proud face with a paper funeral-home fan that displayed a picture of Jesus knocking at a door.
Well, I had asked for only one sign, and I knew I wasn’t about to get it. Deacon Edwards was in full swing, leading the opening prayer, praying for the last of the mourners on the bench. If all of us didn’t cross over that night, revival would not be considered a complete success. So he prayed fervently, sweating and spitting while folks moaned and shouted as if a funeral were in progress.
The prayer portion of the night seemed to drag on forever. After Deacon Edwards, Miss Doll prayed. Ma Pearl, of course, couldn’t let either of them outshine her. She prayed, it seemed, for nearly a half-hour. While she prayed, I—rather than asking for my soul’s salvation—asked that she’d choke on her spit, which was flying all over the front of the church.
After all prayers had been delivered on behalf of us sinners, Reverend Mims, a small man from a nearby farming community, approached the podium to deliver the message. We always had a guest preacher for revival, as it was a well-known fact that an educated preacher like Reverend Jenkins couldn’t save souls with his rhetoric. It took fire and brimstone for that. Reverend Mims, though small, was an imposing figure. His voice was loud and intimidating, making me feel as though it were the devil knocking at my heart, wishing to come in instead of Jesus. And he was as black as a witch’s hat, as Ma Pearl liked to say, with almond-shaped eyes as yellow as gold.
Since he never used a Bible, Reverend Mims simply began speaking. “Jesus said, ‘Behold, I stand at the do’ and knock. If any man open it, I’ll come in and have supper with him.’ How many y’all want the Lawd to come to yo’ table this evening and have supper with ya?” he asked, pointing at the six of us left on the mourners’ bench. He waved his hand toward the choir stand. “Look at all these folks who said yes when the Lawd knocked. Don’t you want to join them at the table?”
The room erupted in “amens.”
Now that he’d gotten the crowd stirred, Reverend Mims leaned back, cupped his right hand to the side of his mouth as if to shout his message to heaven, and said, “Praise ya, Lawd, for these souls that’s go’n one day join you at yo’ grand table in heaven. We all go’n feast on milk and honey. Come on taste and see that the Lawd is good.” He dropped his hand and danced a little jig around the pulpit as if he had said something remarkable.
The congregation, it appeared, agreed. Folks started dancing and shouting about milk and honey, wearing a long white robe, and sitting at the Lawd’s table, as if it would happen that night. When Fred Lee and I made eye contact, it took every ounce of resolve to keep myself from laughing. I knew I shouldn’t have been playing around during such a serious and sacred time, but I wanted to come to religion on my own terms, not Ma Pearl’s.
“Y’all young folks better be ready to meet the Lawd at any time,” Reverend Mims shouted over the shouting. “When death come to look for souls, he ain’t looking at nobody’s age. He’ll take ya at eighty-four, sixty-four, forty-four, twenty-four, fourteen, or even four. Yes, he take babies, too. He’ll take you whether you a man or a woman, boy or girl, white or black. He’ll take you whether you live in Mississippi or just visiting.”
Folks started shouting and falling all over the floor.
“Is you ready?” Reverend Mims shouted over the chaos. “Is you ready?” He stared straight at Fred Lee when he said those words. Throughout the week Fred Lee had only been playing around, like me. He said he wasn’t “stud’n no mourners’ bench.” Now he sat as still as stone as Reverend Mims pierced his soul with his words and his ugly yellow eyes.
“A fo’teen-year-old boy. Just a boy,” he said, his voice rising. “Visiting. Taking a vacation ’fore going back to school. Wanted to see Miss’sippi. Wanted to see how things is down here, like so many others who been up there in the North all they life.” He paused, closed his eyes, and moaned.
A few shouts of “amen” rose from the church.
Reverend Mims opened his eyes and set them on the mourners on the bench. “‘Time is filled with swift transition,’ the old song says. ‘Naught of earth unmoved can stand, Build yo’ hopes on things eternal. Hold to God’s unchanging hand.’”
It didn’t take long before the pianist struck up a note, and the church joined in with, “‘Everybody ought hold to his hand, to God’s unchanging hand. Hold to his hand, to God’s unchanging hand. Build yo’ hopes on things eter-r-r-r-nal. Hold to God’s unchanging hand.’”
“Behold, I stand at the do’ and knock,” Reverend Mims said over the singing, his hand cupped around his mouth, his golden eyes shining toward heaven. “If any man will just open up, I’ll come in.”
After a moment he directed his gaze back at Fred Lee and pointed. “Boy, is you ready?” he asked. “Is you ready to die?” He feigned a puzzled look. “No?” he said, as if Fred Lee had answered him. His next question seemed to be aimed at all of us left on the mourners’ bench. “Y’all think that boy from Chicago was ready to die? Y’all think he would’ve followed them white mens outta his uncle’s house if he knowed they was go’n kill him? That boy didn’t come to Miss’sippi to die. That boy come to Miss’sippi to live. To eat some good ol’‑fashion’ home cooking. To smell the scent of fresh air. To see green fields and white cotton bolls. Instead he saw the bottom of the Tallahatchie River. Death don’t ’scriminate, and it don’t give you no warning. Be ready!”
I gasped when Fred Lee stood. All week long, like me, he had not taken the mourners’ bench seriously. As he took the seat of the right hand of fellowship, I couldn’t believe that with one sermon, a little country preacher had convinced him otherwise.
Shouts erupted from the crowd, with Ma Pearl shouting the loudest.
I didn’t shout, but I smiled. I was happy that my little brother got religion, even if I wasn’t ready to make that commitment myself. It took the church several minutes to finish shouting and dancing over Fred Lee’s conversion.
But even after another ten minutes of spewing fire and brimstone, Reverend Mims couldn’t move the last five of us mourners from that bench.
Chapter Twenty-Five
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13
I DIDN’T BOTHER WIPING THE SWEAT THAT POOLED beneath my eyes. I simply trudged toward the edge of the field, homebound, lugging the stuffed-to-the-brim cotton sack behind me. That evening, it seemed my sack was heavier than I ever remembered. I hadn’t worked any harder than usual, but the sack seemed a bigger burden regardless. Perhaps it was because for the past week and a half I had watched Queen and Fred Lee hop into Uncle Ollie’s car and head into town for school while I headed out to the field with Papa.
It made no sense. I was the smartest of the three, but I was the one stuck in t
he field. I could understand that Fred Lee was only in seventh grade, and perhaps Ma Pearl and Papa wanted him to at least finish that much. But Queen was headed off to the tenth grade. She was the one who had more schooling than she needed, not me. And she was pretty enough that any man would want to marry her, like Mr. Pete married Mama. But that ungrateful girl was wasting her time with the likes of Ricky Turner and wouldn’t even give a smart colored boy like Hallelujah the time of day. I’d be happy if someone as smart as Hallelujah was bent on marrying me. Not that I was looking at marriage as my way out. But like almost any other girl, I looked forward to a family of my own someday too.
My clothes clung to my sweaty body, and all I wanted was a cool bath in the tin tub. But since it was only Tuesday, I knew I wouldn’t get one. I’d have to wait for Wednesday, then again on Saturday. In the meantime, I had to make do with a wash-up, a bird bath, as Ma Pearl called it. Besides, there on the front steps sat Hallelujah, waiting for me.
Friend or not, I resented him sitting there in his freshly pressed clothes, that fedora atop his head, his penny loafers shining—not even a drop of sweat on his nose. But then I remembered that he had promised to bring me something to read, and my heart skipped a few beats. He had promised to bring me a book Reverend Jenkins had ordered for him from a teachers’ catalog. The book was called Native Son, and it was written by a colored man named Richard Wright, who was supposedly born and raised right here in Mississippi. Like that phenomenon of colored and white children sitting side by side in classrooms up north, a colored man from Mississippi with his name on the outside of a book is something I’d have to see to believe.
By the time I reached the edge of the porch, Hallelujah was grinning.
I dropped my sack on the ground and asked, “What you so cheerful for?”
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