by Gin Phillips
So the Sunday school teacher, a mousy man with a woman’s hands, told us that’s how colored people got made—God put the mark of the cursed on them. The mark of the criminal. Sentenced to never find peace and be no good. I had the Bible to back up Paul Kelly’s fondness for “nigger,” and it gave the word a kind of righteousness. There was ugliness to it, too, I didn’t miss that, but church was full of ugly things—blood and crucifixion and thorns and swords and ears lopped off—that were part of God’s perfect plan.
Tess THE COLORED MAN BANGED ON THE DOOR WHEN WE were all asleep. Our bed was in the front room, and Virgie and I both sat up from the shock of the noise. Then she threw a blanket around her shoulders and went to the door, even though she wasn’t allowed. I hopped up, too, and peeked around the door way. I heard Papa getting out of bed as Virgie called out, “Who’s there?”
“Virgil, ma’am. I work for your daddy.” He did—I remembered him coming by before. Sometimes the colored men came by for Papa to get them out of jail, because the police were always arresting them for gambling or vagrancy if they were walking around wrong. Police would get money out of their supervisors if they wanted those Negroes to show up for work the next day.
Virgie opened the door, and Papa showed up with his shirt just half buttoned over his undershirt. “Somethin’ happen, Virgil?”
“Yessir, Mr. Moore. Jonah’s done got hisself put in jail.” He seemed careful not to look at Virgie or me, even though we were right in line with the door.
“Jonah?” Papa seemed surprised, and it took me a second to realize Jonah was Mr. Benton. “What for?”
“Said he was drunk and disorderly.”
“Jonah?” Papa said again, quiet-like. He went back to Mama and said something to her, then came back carrying his boots. “I’m comin’, Virgil. Just wait right there.”
Virgil stood on the porch, turning away from the house, while Papa leaned against the wall and started to pull on his boots. He stopped when he saw Jack come shuffling out, wiping his eyes. The moonlight from the doorway fell on him and made his nightshirt shine. Jack frowned at Virgil and said, “Why’s a nigger at the door, Pop? I hate niggers.”
Before I could blink, Papa hauled off and whacked Jack so hard on the backside that I could hear the breath gush out of Jack’s mouth. Then he snatched him up by the arms and pulled him off the floor, to eye level. Jack was so stunned he didn’t move—didn’t even cry.
“Where’d you learn to talk like that?” Papa asked, hard, like a stranger.
Jack didn’t say nothing.
“Don’t you be talking about hatin’ people,” Papa said with a shake that snapped Jack’s chin. “God don’t allow for hatin’ people.”
Jack was closemouthed, still, and watery-eyed, and his bare feet hung in the air without even a twitch. Mama’d come to stand next to me at the bedroom door; her forehead was crinkled up, but she wasn’t saying nothing. Papa looked at her, then set Jack down real gentle on the floor, lifting his fingers and looking where he’d left red marks on Jack’s arms. He looked like he might be sorry, but he didn’t say so. Instead he nodded toward Virgil.
“Tell Mr. Virgil you’re sorry,” he said.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Virgil,” said Jack, dark in Papa’s shadow.
“Thank you, sir,” said Virgil to Jack, sounding solemn and uncomfortable and confused all at once.
Papa patted Jack’s head, met Mama’s eyes for one second, then shoved his feet in his boots and went out to Virgil. “Be back before long,” he said over his shoulder.
When the door closed, Mama came and knelt by Jack, who’d started sniffling and wiping at his eyes. She smoothed his hair and hugged him. “Now, don’t cry, son. You’re a good boy and your papa ain’t mad at you. But you know better than to talk hateful like that. That ain’t the kind of boy we raised you to be.”
Sometimes Mama did that—soothed over the hurt then made it sting even more. I’d never seen her mad at any of us, but disappointing her was worse than a dozen slaps from Papa, even with a belt. And sure enough, Jack had a steady stream of tears running down his face by the time she stopped talking. Mama picked him up, groaning a little at his weight, and carried him back to his pallet. She’d tuck him in, kiss his forehead, make sure he didn’t cry himself to sleep. To me and Virgie she said, “Go on back to bed, girls. Only a few hours ’til daylight.”
“Papa didn’t get much sleep,” said Virgie, still looking at the door, her forehead wrinkling up.
My sister, even when she’s in heaven with her own puffy cloud, will find something to worry over.
Mama looked back at the door, too, rolling her shoulders a little after plopping Jack down. I watched her and Virgie watch the door for a little while, and when I yawned, I tried to make it quiet. It seemed like if anybody ever spoke, it might be something worth hearing.
Mama’s face was in the shadows, so I couldn’t see her expression.
“Your papa’ll be alright,” she said. “Takes more than missing a few hours of sleep to hurt him. But,” and then she got quiet like she was talking to herself, which meant we shouldn’t really hear it but she couldn’t help saying it, “I’d think he’d get tired of running over and bailing those people out all the time.”
Me and Virgie didn’t say anything. We climbed into bed, tussling over who had more covers, and finally settled down.
“She doesn’t want him helpin’ Mr. Benton,” I whispered to Virgie. She swatted at my face because I’d said it too close to her ear, which tickled her a little and annoyed her a lot.
“She just doesn’t want him tired out,” she said. She never could stand the thought of Mama and Papa disagreeing.
“You think she minded him whippin’ Jack?” I asked, staying a little farther from her ear.
She turned over fast enough that her elbow caught me in the side. “He said ‘hate,’” she said, like that was that. And I guess it was.
“Do you think the woman was a colored woman?” I whispered next. She knew who I was talking about.
“Why do you think that?” she whispered back.
“More likely, ain’t it? Mama says they’re different from us, don’t have the same morals.” She said the Negro men lived with more than one wife, sometimes with whole families in different camps. Sometimes when Virgie and Jack and I passed near Nigger Town, kids would holler at us, and I’d holler back and call ’em chocolate drops, and then we’d all run. Nobody hollered if there were adults with us. Somehow it would make it easier to think it wasn’t so much a woman that did it as a colored woman. Then nothing much would have changed after all. It’d be meanness already set off to the side and held apart like the Negroes in their little piece of town.
Virgie was quiet for a bit. “Papa says everybody’s the same covered in coal—can’t tell black from white. And he likes Mr. Benton.”
I thought for a minute, and Virgie started sniggering. “And in all the commotion over getting him out of the well, don’t you think somebody would’ve mentioned if the baby was colored?”
She thought she was so smart. And I wasn’t exactly sure how that worked, to tell the truth. I knew pigs had pigs and hens had chickens, but then again, sometimes the mama might be speckled when the baby wasn’t…or just the opposite. The cat we kept in the barn had a beautiful smoke-colored kitten in her litter one year, making all the everyday brown ones look lots less cute. The Hudsons had a pretty gray tomcat.
“Well, the daddy could be white, couldn’t he?” I finally whispered.
She didn’t answer that.
“And that’d be a good reason to kill a baby.”
“Time for sleepin’, not talkin’,” said Mama from her bed. And we shut up.
Virgie TO PAPA, GOOD WAS SOMETHING YOU COULD HOLD IN your hand. Hard and solid like coal rock. You could weigh it, measure it, see its beginning and end. You were never to hate anyone. You were to call all grown-ups “ma’am” and “sir” when you answered them. You were to help Mama without her asking. You were n
ever to disobey Papa or Mama. If you went by those rules, you were good. If not, well, I didn’t know about that. None of us did really, even though Jack and Tess might get whipped for sassing Papa every now and then. I’d hear him talk about men who left their families—just picked up and took off without a word. Or there were women who wouldn’t take in their husband’s mama when she got too old and feeble to look after herself. These were unforgivable things.
There was something comforting to that, knowing what he wanted, what he expected, and knowing what would disappoint him. But it meant lots of times there was no point in talking to him, because he knew his own mind so well that he didn’t need to know yours.
And there were more unforgivable things for Papa himself. There was an old colored man, Old Romy, who’d come to the door every so often and say he was hungry. He used to work with Papa in the mines when Papa was young. Every time Old Romy came by, Papa would go get him a chicken and wring its neck, even if we hadn’t eaten chicken for weeks. Nobody could come to the door asking for food but that Papa would see that they got some. Nobody could ask for anything, really, that Papa wouldn’t give it to them. Right after everybody’d lost their jobs and businesses, our cousin came to the door asking for a gold pocket watch that belonged to Papa’s father. That cousin said he was going to take a mess of jewelry to Birmingham to sell it, and he’d take that watch for Papa and bring us back the money he got. Papa gave it to him, thinking we could use a refrigerator or new shoes and clothes more than we needed a watch. The cousin never came back—he moved to Tennessee with all the money he got from the kinfolks’ jewelry. Papa wasn’t even mad about it. “You’re here to be givin’, not takin’,” he’d say.
He never would take anything. All in all, he held himself to a different measuring stick than he did everybody else.
Mama never seemed to concern herself with good and bad unless it happened under our roof. She didn’t care for whining, but still and all, if we were determined to claim being tired or sickly, she’d do the work herself with no more than a “Well, sit yourself down then.” I’d never heard Mama say she was tired or sore or frustrated, even though she kept on working after Papa was rocking and smoking. One time I saw a bright red blister across the top of her hand, pulled tight like the skin would burst any minute. I asked her about it and she said she had bumped her hand against a skillet the day before. I thought back over all those hours that I hadn’t noticed it, that she hadn’t favored her hand or flinched from the fire or even said “ouch.”
Sometimes it seemed like instead of the coal Papa and Mama had been put in the furnace, only instead of burning, they’d hardened and toughened to something that wouldn’t budge.
Albert WE TOOK THE CAR. VIRGIL SAID HE HADN’T BEEN IN one before and since it was dark I let him set up front. Dropped him off a few blocks from his house on my way to the jail.
It wasn’t the first time I’d come at this time of night, and it always seemed strange to me that such a nothing kind of building could turn somebody’s life upside down. It was just a stone box, with a couple of steps leading up to the door, three windows down one side, none in the front or back. Flat roof. I pulled up right by the door—wasn’t no other car around. The police chief walked to work.
“Should’ve brought you some coffee, Ted,” I said, stepping in after he answered my knock. “Ain’t your deputy usually pullin’ nights?”
He sat at the desk, an over-big contraption that made him look like a boy in short pants behind it. Ted Taylor wasn’t a bad man, but not a particularly good one, neither. He knew I’d pay to get Jonah out, just like he knew Jonah hadn’t done nothing wrong. Likely he hadn’t said “sir” enough when Ted asked him where he was headed.
“My sorry deputy’s sick with the flu,” he said. “I been here the past few nights.”
I could see Jonah sitting straight-backed in his cell, looking more ready for a church service than jail time. He didn’t speak to me, didn’t smile even. Barely nodded. I did the same, giving my attention to the sheriff. “Wife and kids makin’ it alright?”
“Well as can be expected. My oldest went to look for work in Tupelo. Your’n?”
“Doin’ right well.”
“Glad to hear it. So I expect you’re here for him,” he said, jerking his head toward Jonah but not even looking at him. Ted was several inches shorter than me, but with a chest so wide you’d think his elbows would have to bow out. His stomach was a little smaller than his chest, but his buttons always looked near to popping. I thought he was one of those men who was so mad he couldn’t grow higher that he’d decided he’d just grow wider.
“Yep,” I said. “One of my boys came and told me you’d brought him in on some sort of charges.”
“Could smell the whiskey on him all the way down the street.”
I walked over to Jonah, who was still sitting and staring toward the door. “Can’t smell nothin’ now, Ted. Seems alright to me.”
“Must be wearin’ off.”
“He give you any trouble?”
“Nah. Meek as a lamb. Tried to tell me he was out trying to find wood to burn in the fire. Not unless he thought he’d find it at the bottom of a bottle.”
Jonah didn’t say a word, which was the best thing.
“Reckon he might have been out lookin’ for wood,” I said, casual-like. “Cool night tonight.”
Ted ignored me. “You let one of ’em get away with the least little thing, you end up with a whole pack of ’em roamin’ the streets, makin’ it where it ain’t even safe for women and kids to be out on the back porch at night.”
I’d had enough going in circles. It was too late at night for the normal hemming and hawing. “What’s this gone cost me?” I asked.
“No tellin’ what he coulda got up to if I’d left him alone.”
“How much, Ted?”
“Four dollars.”
I sighed. “He’s one of my best men. Ain’t never had any problems with him. Now you know he’s never caused a lick of trouble in the ten years he’s been here. I ain’t one of the big bosses. This is money comin’ out of my pocket.”
“S’pose you could get him for two dollars.” He finally looked at Jonah. “But you consider this a warning, boy.”
For the first time, Jonah looked over at us. His jaw worked and his tongue slid over his front teeth. But his mouth was soon still, and his face turned blank and calm.
“Yessir,” he said in a voice as empty as his face. “I’ll do that.”
I could tell Ted wanted to find fault, wanted to hear some crawling and cowering in Jonah’s voice. I could see Jonah’s jaw muscles still tensed up, though, and I didn’t care to think what he might say next. I didn’t care to pay four dollars, neither.
“Mighty decent of you,” I told Ted. “I best be headin’ on with him, then, so I can go on and get back. Might even work out good for Leta—I sure got plenty of time to do the milkin’ before I leave for the mines.”
Ted shifted over my way then, leaning against the bars of the cell. “That reminds me—I got some more news you might be interested in. ’Bout that baby.”
I waited for him to go on. Ted would always keep talking if you just kept quiet. “Doctor said he didn’t drown after all,” he said. “They cut him open and he didn’t have no water in his lungs. So looks like there wasn’t no murder.”
I couldn’t wrap my head around that quite so fast. “You sayin’ she threw a dead baby in there?”
“Yep.” He looked pleased with himself. I’d have sworn his face was even rounder and redder than usual.
“And he’s only findin’ this out a month after we found the baby?”
“Shoot, he knew the day after. I just ain’t seen you since then.”
“So what did kill him?”
“Don’t know.” He looked less puffed up. “Could’ve been anything. But no bruises on him, no blood. It don’t look like he was shook or beat or cut.”
“So what’re you doin’ next?”
&nb
sp; “Not much to do. I’ll ask around, but I got my money on it bein’ some delicate-minded woman who lost her head when her baby died. Nervous condition, maybe. But ain’t nothin’ to charge her with, really, even if we did find her, ’specially with your water bein’ alright. We could prob’bly fine her if you felt that strong about it.”
“No,” I said. “No, I don’t care ’bout that. It just don’t make no sense. If she wasn’t meanin’ to kill the baby, why throw it in our well at all?”
I could tell Ted wasn’t losing sleep over it. He’d got to tell me something I didn’t know, and that was all the pleasure he had to get out of the thing. He went on and took my money and let Jonah out.
When we closed the door behind us, Jonah rolled his neck around and cracked his back like all of us had a habit of doing. Years of bending over left you with a fist always closed around your backbone, and that fist grabbed on like the devil when you’d been sitting for a while. Other than that cracking, we didn’t make much noise, scuffling along through the dirt to the car. He never talked much and didn’t expect me to chatter, neither. We could work for hours loading cars and digging into seams without a word. When one of us had a notion to say something, there was a reason to it.
Once we were pulling onto the road, I felt his eyes on me.
“Sorry for draggin’ you out, wakin’ your family,” he said, clearing his throat. “I do thank you. Wouldn’t have called on you if there’d been money to spare. You got my word I’ll pay you back next week.”
