The narrow stairwell led up to a spacious well-lighted hallway with a window through which he could see his car. He didn't like parking overnight on this street. Out of habit, he wiped his shoes on the welcome mat. The climb had taken Shuck's breath, paused him outside her door to regroup before putting the key in the lock. She'd awaken as soon as she heard the lock turn, meet him somewhere between the living room and the kitchen. He waited in the dim light for his heart to slow, his breathing to ease. She'd chastise him for smoking too much, staying up too late. He used to ice skate on the Detroit River, ran track in high school, but now a walk up one flight of stairs jumbled his heartbeat. Mississippi.
He tipped into the living room. A small tabletop spotlight was aimed at a huge dark-leaved plant standing in the corner near the front windows. The primeval plant took on eerie qualities in the uneven light, a dark green centurion guarding Alma's jungle. She had plants everywhere, and polished their leaves with minute dabs of mayonnaise and a cotton cloth until they reflected like glass. She also had plastic covers on all of her living room furniture. The covers made him feel the furniture fabric was more important than anyone's comfort, crunching and whooshing when he sat down, sweating under his seat in summer, sticking to his skin. He hated those covers. On the walls, she'd hung colorful paintings by local artists, giving the living room a tropical look but for those plastic covers.
She jokingly told him if he moved in with her and stopped smoking, she'd take the plastic off the furniture. He said it would be like going backward to move to that neighborhood. But he couldn't tell in all the laughing if she was waiting for an invitation to move to Outer Drive.
Alma came out of the bedroom hallway tying her robe at the waist, looking good, he thought, even in the middle of the night. Smooth light brown skin, dark hair brushed back and looped behind her ears. A frown across her face. He knew she was comfortable with his late arrivals, but this was a work night.
"You hungry?" It was what women always asked when they sensed something was wrong. The solace of food. Shuck wasn't sure if they intended it to ease the disharmony of life, or if they had become skittish about so many things that they just wanted the food to fill their mouths rather than the words.
"If you cooked." Shuck followed her into the kitchen, passing through the dining room. More plants. The dining table lived under a covering of homework assignments, textbooks, newspapers, bills, her purse and keys. She insisted on teaching summer school.
He washed his hands before sitting at the small kitchen table, ducking so he wouldn't hit his head on the big fern hanging from a ceiling hook. She even had plants on tall stands in the bathroom. Every time he went in there, he was afraid he'd knock them over. Shuck peeked back into the front of the apartment. It was a jungle all right. Maybe she needed the quiet of the plants after teaching those wild teenagers all day. He wondered if she talked to the plants, and how much time it must take to water them all, polish all those leaves. There was a mayonnaisy smell in the apartment sometimes when the windows hadn't been opened. It made his stomach turn. He bought her an air conditioner for the bedroom, more for himself than for her. It was powerful enough to cool the whole back of the apartment including her second bedroom, which she used as a television den. She needed a bigger place.
Alma foraged around in the refrigerator, the light showing the silhouette of her curvy body under her summer robe. Shuck figured Alma to be about forty-two or -three though they'd never discussed it. She'd graduated from Lakeview High School three years after he and Posey took to the streets. She knew about Wilamena, but Shuck led her to believe it was all in the past. Alma pulled out a waxed-paper-wrapped loaf on a plate and a bottle of milk.
Shuck eyed her behind as she brought a glass out of the cupboard.
"Meatloaf okay?" She unwrapped the loaf and put a sandwich together, going back to the refrigerator for lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise. Shuck loved watching her standing in the refrigerator light. He didn't have to answer. She knew it was better than okay. He watched her working quietly, feeling guilty that he'd gotten her out of bed in the middle of the night when he knew she had to teach in the morning. Alma was committed to teaching kids who acted like getting an education was an imposition. Celeste could work out her need to help Negro people right there, too. He understood that part of it. Mississippi was what he didn't get. Of all places on the earth, why Mississippi? She'd have been better off going to Africa in the Peace Corps. Contracting malaria was better than going to Mississippi.
Alma put the food in front of him, smiling, and poured the milk then sat down. Shuck drank in one long chugalug, leaving milk residue lining his upper lip.
"I got to get up in a minute and face those kids." Alma just said it, straight out and blunt. Just like when she'd asked him if he was still running numbers, back when they bumped into each other at the Lakeview High School Class of 1939 twentieth reunion. Shuck and Posey had stopped by dressed like Wall Street bankers, smelling of ease. Shuck had his chest out when he told Alma he owned his own bar, but that he still played the numbers on occasion and probably always would. He'd noticed that she kept glancing over to him even though she was the date of one of his classmates that night. When he and Posey left the reunion, Posey said Alma Weaver had a reputation for being an upright, straight arrow, knees-locked kind of woman. Shuck didn't have any problem with that.
Shuck wiped his mouth on a paper napkin he took from the plastic holder on the table. "Celeste's in Mississippi."
Alma stopped drumming her fingers on the tabletop. Her mouth dropped open a bit and she sat back in her chair. "Well, I never thought she'd do anything like that."
Shuck wrapped his hand around the empty milk-coated glass. He'd known for weeks that Celeste was in Mississippi but hadn't told Alma. He didn't know why not. Alma refilled his glass. "Is she all right?"
All summer long, people had been asking Shuck the same question. She all right? "Her all right and my all right are two different things." There was an unintended edge in his voice.
Alma rubbed the front of her head like she was trying to remove a layer of skin. "You have to be proud of her courage." Her hands dropped to her lap and she tilted her head a little to the side. She seemed to be straining, crinkling her forehead, squinting her eyes. "Shuck Tyree, I know you're not thinking about going down there."
"If she gets arrested, I'm going. They still haven't found those three boys. You know they're dead by now." Shuck hunched over the table, his hands loosely clasped. If he tightened them the least bit, they'd be in prayer.
Alma folded her arms so that the fabric of her nightgown and robe pulled tight around her breasts, making her nipples show through. "Anybody in their right mind knew someone was going to die down there this summer. There's so much attention on the place now with the television, they're not going to hurt anybody else. I don't think."
"Nobody knows what those crazy people will do." Alma might know the history, but she'd never had a child. That changed everything.
"Well, I'd sure like to be a fly on the wall when those white folks look up and see you pulling in front of the courthouse in that Cadillac with that diamond ring sparkling in the sunshine." Alma put her hands over his hands and spoke to him in a coaxing voice. "I know you'll keep worrying, but she's going to be all right."
Shuck nodded, barely. "They had a lynching in that town where she's working. In Pineyville. You remember Leroy Boyd James? Not that long ago."
"I guess that says it all about Pineyville. But, truth be told, they've had lynchings some of everywhere. Thank God I'm here." Alma sighed.
"You sound like Rodney at the bar." Shuck smiled at her.
"The truth is the truth, Shuck." She had sleepiness in her eyes.
"You're right." He looked down at the sandwich knowing he couldn't eat a bite and felt bad that she'd gone to all the trouble.
"Don't worry about it." She put the glass in the sink and slid a piece of wax paper over the sandwich.
"Go on to bed." His e
yes felt wet and tired. "I'ma sit here for a while."
She kissed his forehead and went back to her bedroom.
He raised the kitchen window. On the counter Alma had a bread box and ceramic canisters with the words Flour, Sugar, Rice, Coffee. Momma Bessie had the same things only they were in the pantry. When you sat at the table, you couldn't see them. This apartment-sized kitchen was tight.
Shuck walked to the living room, the plants hovering like dreams in the low light. She needed room for her jungle of plants to spread. The emptiness of his house had begun to give him hollow answers. Some nights, he didn't even like going home to Outer Drive. But he didn't like staying here either. Things he'd been doing like clockwork over more years than he could re member now seemed caught and blown around in gusty winds. He knew for sure he'd never allow those plastic furniture covers.
He tried to sweep an ache from his mind, a whisper that perhaps the good days had passed. They'd begun to mark the corners of his mind like some nearly forgotten expensive shoes in a mildewed corner of the attic. You never took the time to check, though you had a suspicion that the roof leaked. You just didn't want to come to the conclusion. Shuck wondered if his mother, Momma Bessie, was about the same age as that Mrs. Geneva Owens down in Pineyville, and what on earth could a woman that age be counted on to do to protect anybody. He stood at the window looking down on his car, everything quiet on the street. Alma was probably asleep by now. If he smoked, she'd smell it in the morning. If he crawled into bed beside her, he'd disturb her rest. If he tipped out and went on home to Outer Drive, and she awakened on her own, she'd worry that something was wrong. Something was.
Shuck turned out the kitchen light and eased out the front door, turning the key in the double lock quiet as a thief.
12
Gunfire cracked, high-pitched and fast, through the quiet country night. A crash of broken glass. Celeste sat upright in her bed out of a deep dreamforgotten sleep. No dogs barking. Bits of gravel-rock flew from under the wheels of a moving car or truck. Silence. The skinny mutts knew when to hide. She rolled off the bed onto the floor as Margo had taught her to do, tried to get herself under the bed, pushing her suitcase out of the way with her feet, her heart leaping in her chest like a ball being batted furiously against a concrete wall. Everything quiet. "Please, God, don't let Mrs. Owens be dead. Don't let them kill us." She reached around for a viable bargain to make with God. "Dear Lord, I promise I'll go to New Mexico to see my mother. I'll stay as long as you think I should. I'll do better, Lord. Please, Lord."
The second round of bullets flew right through the house as if God had said, "Not good enough." She heard the ripping sound of lead shattering wood. Bullets exploding through this fragile place not even built strong enough for winter weather. The abrasive smell of burning metal trailed into the open windows. Gun powder. An engine revving. The sliding scream of rubber tires on solid road. Someone's turned onto the two-lane. She wanted to scoot from under the bed to see. Stay put. Engine gunning harder. Burning rubber smells perfuming the night. No need to run from us. We don't even have a gun. It wouldn't take much to end this terror. Shoot back. Defend yourself. You may die, but you die with dignity, with muscle in your jaw, no staring down at the ground. No more turn the other cheek. Matt had run out of cheeks to turn. That beating on the side of the road sealed it. That's why he went to Bogalusa to meet with the Deacons for Defense and Justice. Defend yourself. Celeste could hear her own heart pounding.
"You all right in there, child?" Mrs. Owens called out coming down the short hall.
Celeste scooted from under the bed, giddy with relief that the woman walked and talked, wasn't splayed out on the kitchen floor with blood oozing from her body and not a doctor anywhere who'd touch her. They met at the splintered front door, Celeste's mouth dry and eyes so wide open they hurt. "I guess so."
Mrs. Owens held a low-burning kerosene lamp, her tremoring hand making their shadows move on the wall. Celeste took the lamp from her, held it to the splintered cypress wood door. Her own hands shook. The older woman stepped forward onto the screened porch.
Celeste hung back. "We should stay inside." She racked her brain for the lesson from orientation. Stay in the house? Go outside? Stay under the bed? What to do now, Margo? In Jackson, she and Ramona were ordered to always stay low in the apartment at night, to keep the front lights out or very dim. Don't make yourself a target. But, this was the country, and Mrs. Owens seemed to know that the coast was clear.
"They gone." She walked around the screened porch checking for damages like she already knew the map of terror. "Bring that lamp on."
Celeste, hunched over and listening toward the two-lane, stepped out onto the porch to bring the small lamp close to Mrs. Owens, who'd now found the ragged holes in the thin screen. She unlatched the screened door and started down the porch steps, Celeste behind her with the lamp but otherwise useless. Mrs. Owens took the lamp and blew it out, walking on the path toward the gravel road, seeing just fine in the darkness with only the moon to light her way. Celeste followed her slowly, stopping where the path flowed into the gravel road, her ears still ringing with the sound of guns firing. After that sharp noise, the stillness hurt when it was supposed to soothe. More noise would've deadened the echoing sound that cracked the air, not this interminable country quiet. The violent noise had nothing to slink away into, nothing to be camouflaged by, nothing but crickets and pitiful dog barks that sounded more like moans now.
Mr. Tucker appeared in the middle of the road. "Look like they shot the back window in my car." He came closer, clothes thrown on carelessly, his sanctimonious face becoming visible as the darkness stepped aside to allow the moon and stars more play. "Geneva, you okay?"
Mrs. Owens continued toward him. "Been better."
"Sure you right." He walked with her toward Celeste, never looking at her. He probably blamed Celeste for this, since she was the rabble-rouser, the person coming around to stir everybody up to action. Now he'd been attacked, too, even though he didn't side with the movement. He'd given her a ride to church in his big Hudson. Now he was a marked man, too.
"You all okay?" Mrs. Owens placed herself between them, Celeste's protector. Celeste stayed still, shielded by the older woman.
"Just tense is all. I'ma drive down and check on Sister Mobley and them kids." He walked heavily back toward his house and car. That spark of kindness confused Celeste. He was acting like the protective man of Freshwater Road, the only man around, checking on all the women and children after the raid. How did that instinct live inside that man? How could he be that and the dream killer, too?
Mrs. Owens and Celeste turned to go inside. "Ain't nothing new. At least this time they think they got themselves a reason." Celeste knew that she was the reason. Her presence was already bringing the wrath of those who wanted things to remain the same in Pineyville. She wanted to ask when it had happened before but stayed quiet as they went through the house checking for bullet holes. The only gunshots she'd ever heard before this sojourn in Mississippi were fired on New Year's Eve and smoked through the snow drifts in the backyard of Momma Bessie's house.
Mrs. Owens brought the light to every corner of the kitchen looking for bullet exit holes. The refrigerator and stove were fine. Celeste figured the bullets probably went right through the thin-walled house to the line of long-needled pines beyond the clearing. The holes would become visible when sunlight shined through them in the morning. Mrs. Owens checked the locks on the back screen door, closed the inside kitchen door, and put a chair in front of it.
"Celeste, take one of those kitchen chairs and brace that front door. Best to sleep on the floor now. Just pull that mattress off. Stay down low and don't turn on the lights. Night, now." She went into her room and closed the curtain, sounding more like Margo in her soldier way than the Mrs. Owens she'd come to know. Mrs. Owens had been down this road before and though she might be concerned, she wasn't going to alarm her guest.
In the torpid heat of midnig
ht, Celeste's teeth chattered uncontrollably and her hands and feet shook. She lay on the mattress in the close dark room, the white lace curtains reflecting the only light, and that was from the moon. No bullets to duck in her bed in Ann Arbor. Cozy in the corner behind the door, the French windows open. Momma Bessie's quilt. She couldn't stop shaking.
Her night jar sat across the room near the side window, but she couldn't get up, felt the warm run of urine on her upper thigh, running between her legs onto the mattress beneath her. The shaking stopped.
She crawled to her washstand, still listening hard through the pour of water from the pitcher, the squeezing of cloth and droplets splashing into the basin. She cleaned herself, changed her nightgown, and pulled the sheet off the bed, put the wet area in the wash basin and did her best to rinse it, then spread it to dry by the window. She listened with her innermost ear for tires crunching over gravel, feet tipping over soft, sandy soil and then thudding off in a run. Next time, maybe they'd throw a bomb. She put her towel over the mattress's wet spot, covered it with her top sheet, and closed her eyes trying to fool herself into going to sleep.
13
Shuck sat in his car parked outside the Western Union office on Bagley at Grand Circus Park, the air conditioner blasting and the radio tuned to the news station. Celeste hadn't been arrested yet, but it might happen soon. He'd send the the five hundred dollars she'd asked for and hold the other five hundred as his hedge against disaster.
Freshwater Road Page 17
