The Darkest Child Page 16

  My mother was not at home wondering where I was. I did not have to wonder where she was, either. Martha Jean would not stop telling me that Mama had left the house with Velman Cooper.

  “Make her stop that!” Tarabelle demanded. “If you don’t, I’m gon’ hit her. I swear I will.”

  I tried to quiet Martha Jean, but she would not have it. She sailed from the front door to the front window, over and over, pounding her fists against her thighs and signing in choppy, sporadic phrases.

  “Mama.Velman. Car,” she signed.“Go away.Tell me.Tell me.”

  “I don’t know, Martha Jean,” I said aloud, trying to assure Tarabelle that I was doing something.“Sit down, Martha Jean! Please!”

  The expression on her scarred and healing face shifted from puzzlement to pain. It troubled me that I could not calm her, but it troubled me more that Mattie was sitting snugly in an armchair watching it all.

  “Hurt here,” Martha Jean signed, then slapped her chest with the palm of her hand.

  “I’m getting outta here, ”Tarabelle said in a huff.“C’mon, Mattie.”

  I stood in front of Martha Jean. “Velman bring Mama back.

  Short time,” I signed.

  She stopped pacing long enough to read what I was signing to her, then she rushed over to the window again. She studied the road, came back across the room, and slumped down in a chair. She leaned forward, clasped her arms beneath her knees, and began to rock. I explained to her that I would go to the post office tomorrow after school, and I would ask Velman where he had taken Mama, and why. She nodded and continued to rock.

  Martha Jean seemed to have forgotten all about Judy, who was awake and lying in her basket. She was such a good baby. She was never fussy and seldom cried. I lifted her from the basket and carried her outside.

  In the side yard, Laura and Edna were making awkward attempts at jumping rope. They had changed from their Sunday dresses to shorts, and their bony legs and bare feet kept getting tangled in the ropes.They never questioned the unusual amount of traffic passing our house.

  Tarabelle and Mattie came from the rear of the house, cut through the yard, and walked down the embankment to the road. I felt resentment that Mattie hadn’t bothered to speak to me. I swallowed my anger and played with Judy until Wallace and his friend, Shaky, came out of the grove of trees west of the field.

  “Tan, you shoulda seen it, ”Wallace exclaimed, coming up to the steps and bending over to catch his breath.“We went out to the pond to see the man that was hanging from that tree. He was still hanging there. I ain’t never seen nothing like it before.”

  “Wallace, you shouldn’t have gone out there,” I said.

  “I wanted to see,” he said. “Everybody went. They called the sheriff and Doctor Mathis, but wadn’t nothing they could do. Didn’t nobody wanna touch him. Doctor Mathis said it looked like somebody had took a baseball bat to him. Said he had a whole lotta broken bones. That’s when that ol’ mean Chadlow said a nigger musta done it. Sam and them got mad when he said that, and I thought there was gon’ be a fight, but the sheriff started making people leave. It’s Junior Fess, Tan.”

  “Junior? Oh, no. Oh, no.” Then I asked apprehensively, “Where’s Sam now?”

  “I don’t know. He left wit’ Hambone. Sam and Hambone was yelling ’bout Junior being lynched, but the sheriff said it wadn’t no lynching. He said it was murder, and he’d arrest anybody he heard talking ’bout a lynching in his town. Me and Shaky hid and stayed to see what they was gon’ do wit’ Junior. Harvey and Mr. Dobson touched him. They picked him up and put him in Mr. Dobson’s hearse.”

  “Yeah.They oughta be coming by here pretty soon,” Shaky said excitedly.

  I held Judy closer to my body, and stared down at the road. “If Doctor Mathis didn’t touch him, how does he know somebody used a bat on him?” I asked.

  “I guess ’cause of the way everything looked backwards on him. You know. Like his feet was turned so Junior could walk backwards,” Wallace answered.

  Shaky could not contain himself; he was moving about impatiently, but Wallace looked like he was going to be sick.They had rested long enough for Shaky, and he was ready to be on the move again.

  Wallace rushed towards the back of the house.“I’m going to get my bike. I’ll be back in a minute, Shaky.”

  Shaky had settled down and was watching the road by the time Wallace returned, pushing his bike. My brother glanced up at me briefly, just long enough for me to see that his eyes were red-rimmed and watery. He had gone to the backyard, out of his friend’s view, to be sick.

  “Wallace, did Junior have his satchel with him?” I asked.

  Wallace shook his head.“I didn’t see it,” he said, then he rode off toward Fife Street with Shaky sitting on the handlebars of the bike. Tarabelle passed them coming in the opposite direction.They did not acknowledge each other.

  I cried, wetting Judy’s tiny body with my tears. I prayed, and waited for my mother to come home.Through my tears, I saw Sam get out of Hambone’s car. He stumbled up the bank, and I thought he was drunk, but he wasn’t. I saw my mother climb from Velman Cooper’s car. Her face was ashen and her eyes were dull. She looked like death struggling up a mountainside.

  Never in my life had I heard such rage under one roof as I heard that night. Sam wailed like a strong, full-grown man—the worst sound in the world. Grief and anger wrapped around his chest and sputtered and hissed with his every wail. It seemed to suck the air from his lungs and the blood from his heart. My mother enfolded him in her arms, and together they slumped to the kitchen floor. Sam clutched her shoulders and clung to her as though something inside of her could give him relief.

  “My baby, my baby,” Mama cried, and that went on for what seemed like hours until Sam’s arms fell weakly to his sides.

  “They didn’t have to kill him, Mama,” Sam cried.“They didn’t have to kill him. I went and seen how they left him hanging from that tree, and they didn’t have to do that. Junior ain’t never hurt nobody.”

  “I know, baby. I know, ”Mama soothed.

  Sam crawled across the floor and curled his body up with his face to the wall. Mama poured herself a teacup of corn whiskey, then she sipped and kept watch over her son. I sat on a milk crate and watched my mother cry real tears. I heard my brother moan.

  twenty - two

  Although Junior hadn’t really been a teacher, everybody at the Plymouth School acted as though he had been. On Monday, after a morning assembly for prayer, it was a quiet day and we weren’t required to do much of anything. I wrote a letter to Mushy, and I tried to study, but my mind kept drifting back to the last time I had seen Junior. For me, a busy day would have been better than all of that quiet time to think.

  When school let out in the afternoon, I went to the post office to mail my letter. I hadn’t thought about Martha Jean, or how upset she had been the day before, until I saw Velman Cooper coming across the post office lawn to meet me.

  “I don’t think you wanna go inside,” he said. “There’s a bunch of ’em in there laughing about Junior Fess. Ain’t none of ’em claiming they did it, but they ain’t sorry he dead.”

  “You’re right then. I don’t want to go in there,” I said. “I’ve never seen my brothers take anything this hard before.”

  “How’s Martha Jean taking it?”

  “She’s okay. She didn’t really know Junior. She’s more concerned about you. She wants to know what you’re doing with our mother.”

  Velman sighed and stared down at his feet.“Your mother is a sad woman. Even before Mr. Brogus came up to the car and told us about Junior, yo’ mama was crying. Kept saying how she don’t wanna rear her children here. She wants to get outta Georgia.”

  “That sounds like a lie.” I just didn’t believe him.

  “Well, lie or not, what I do wit’ yo’ mama is my business,” he said dryly.

  “You’re right.You and Mama are both full-grown. Martha Jean is the one I’m worried about.”
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  “Why don’t you tell yo’ sister to trust me, and let’s just leave it at that.”

  “Trust you?” I asked.“Why should she trust you? Look at what just knowing you has gotten her. Martha Jean didn’t come looking for you.You chased her, and after I told you she was too young.”

  “Tell her to trust me, little sister,” he pleaded.

  “Do you intend to see my mother again?”

  He nodded. I walked away from him.

  All the way home and on into the evening, I thought about what I should tell Martha Jean. I sat on the front porch listening to my mother, who was trying to talk the misery out of Sam. I imagined she had spent the day talking, until Sam decided he would do anything to shut her up. At least he’d gotten off the kitchen floor and was standing outside in fresh air.

  Mama sent Wallace to Logan’s store over on Canyon Street to buy Sam a pack of Pall Malls. She talked the whole time Wallace was gone, saying mostly the wrong things.

  “Sam, everybody sorry Junior dead, but you been running ’round wit’ the wrong people.You don’t need to be ’round nobody that people wanna kill.”

  “Can we talk about something else, Mama?” Sam asked, as he stared out in the direction where Junior’s body had been found.

  “Sometime you need to talk about what you thinking ’bout, Sam. And I know you keep thinking ’bout that boy, but you can’t bring him back. I’m gon’ cook up some collard greens, and we gon’ take ’em up to Mary Lou and Tannus, say we sorry ’bout they boy, then we gon’ put this whole thing behind us.”

  “Junior ain’t even buried yet, Mama, and you want me to put it behind me?” Sam asked. “I done put crying behind me, but somebody gon’ pay for what they did to Junior. I’m gon’ hurt somebody, soon as I know who the right somebody is.”

  “Nah, you ain’t, Sam.”

  “What you want me to do, Mama? Just let somebody kill Junior like that, and get away wit’ it?”

  “I want you to act like you got some sense. I don’t want you leaving outta here trying to even no score wit’ nobody ’cause you don’t even know who killed that boy.”

  “I got my suspicions,” Sam mumbled.

  “Me, too,” Harvey said, and glanced over at Sam.

  “Be quiet, Harvey!” Mama ordered.

  “Junior was my friend, too, Mama,” Harvey said solemnly.

  Mama nodded her head and massaged her temples.“I know, but I want y’all to think about me for a minute. Do y’all know how hard it would be on me if somebody beat y’all wit’ a crowbar and strung you from a tree?”

  They both looked at her, then Sam said, “I heard it was a baseball bat.”

  “Maybe it was, ”Mama agreed. “It was something heavy, something that could break the bones in somebody’s body. Now, let’s talk about something else.”

  Nobody spoke.We listened to Laura and Edna playing in the yard until Wallace returned from the store. Mama took the cigarettes from him, ripped open the pack, and persuaded Sam to teach her how to smoke. She coughed, choked, and sucked in breath. After her fifth attempt at inhaling, it became apparent that she would eventually get the hang of it, and I lost interest.

  I tugged at Martha Jean’s arm, trying to get her to follow me down into the yard, thinking it was a good time to teach Laura and Edna to jump rope. Martha Jean hesitated, pointed toward the house, and cradled her arms.

  “Judy sleep,” I signed.

  Martha Jean finally, reluctantly, followed me down to the yard. I guided Laura to the spot where I wanted her to stand, then Martha Jean and I twirled the rope over her head. Laura did not move her feet until after the rope had hit against her heels. Surprisingly, Edna was better at it, and managed to get two jumps in before getting herself tangled in the rope.

  Sitting on the top step with one shoulder pressed against the house, Tarabelle stared down at us. A truck rattled along the road below, and she turned her head as if expecting something or someone. I wondered if I should tell her about the bus ticket Mushy had sent.

  “Jump!” I shouted, and twirled my end of the rope. It swept beneath Edna’s feet, over her head, and beneath her feet again—six times before a miss.

  Up on the porch, Wallace was jumping about excitedly beside Mama’s chair. “Let me show you how to do it, Mama,” he said. “I know how to do it so you don’t cough.”

  “Boy, who taught you to smoke?” Mama asked between coughs. “Give him one, Sam. Let him show me.”

  “Can I have one?” Tarabelle asked, then called down to the yard, “Tangy, tell Martha Jean that Judy is crying.”

  Martha Jean and I made our way up the steps, and the minute we were inside, I signed to her that I thought it best if she forgot about Velman Cooper because he was going to keep seeing our mother. Martha Jean shook her head as though I did not know what I was talking about, then she went over and took Judy from the basket.

  Harvey was withdrawn, and refused supper. Mama told him twice, just as she had told Sam, that he needed to put Junior behind him.

  “Junior never got a chance to live, Mama,” he said.“I don’t want that to happen to me.”

  When we were down on our pallets for the night, Harvey tipped into the front room carrying the kitchen lamp. He hesitated for a second at the doorway, drew in a deep breath, then crossed the short distance of the hall to Mama’s room. His voice was a whisper, as he spoke to our mother.There was a moment of complete silence, then Mama screamed.

  Tarabelle and I sat up. Sam and Wallace came in from the kitchen. Harvey backed out of Mama’s room, and she followed him in slow, menacing steps.

  “You stupid son-of-a-bitch!” she screamed.“Is this what I spent my life working for? I raised you, Harvey. I done went without for you, and this how you pay me back?” She was gripping a bamboo cane. “You still my child. I’m gon’ beat some sense into you. I’m gon’ teach you not to go behind my back doing yo’ foolishness.”

  “Mama, it was time.” Harvey pleaded for understanding. “You knew I was gon’ do it sooner or later.”

  “No!” she yelled. “I never thought you’d turn yo’ back on me. If you’d thought you was doing the right thing, you wouldna married her behind my back.You woulda tol’ me, Harvey.”

  She spotted the poker propped against the wall behind the stove. She dropped the cane and rushed toward the stove.That was when I cried, “Mama, please don’t hit Harvey with that poker!”

  Harvey placed the lamp on the table and moved to block her path to the stove but she already had the poker in her hand, and she threw it toward me. It struck the back of a chair and bounced off, hit the top of the cedar chest, and broke the front window pane.

  Mama ripped Harvey’s shirt and, as he tried to get away, clawed at his back, and damned him to Hell for all eternity. Harvey took his beating like a man until Mama was too exhausted to move anything other than her angry gray eyes.

  “I’m leaving now, Mama,” Harvey said.

  “No,” she whimpered.

  “Yeah,” he said calmly, almost tenderly. “Mama, I don’t feel no shame ’bout what I did. I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I’m grown.”

  “I won’t let you go.You my baby, Harvey. Don’t turn yo’ back on me.”

  “I ain’t turning my back on you. If you ever need me, I’ll come, but I done took my last beating and it’s just time to go. I’m sorry, Mama.” He stepped into the hallway, then turned and looked at each of us.When his gaze met mine, he smiled sadly.“Tangy, girl,” he said, “this world a awful big place.You can’t save everybody in it. Stop trying, okay?”

  I nodded, and Harvey turned away.Through his tattered shirt, I saw the marks on his back. My emotions were in turmoil. Already I missed Harvey, but he had just shown me that one day I, too, might walk out of my mother’s house—alive.

  twenty - three

  On the day of Junior’s funeral, Wallace stepped on the jagged bottom half of a broken Upper Ten bottle, and left blood all over the schoolyard. Shaky Brown said that Wallace had cut tw
o of his toes off. Tina Long said he was going to lose his foot. Mr. Preston, however, told me that Wallace was going to be just fine, and that someone had come to the school and picked him up.

  I wondered aloud as to who had come for Wallace as Mattie and I sat in the bleachers during lunch. Mattie acted as though I had not spoken, talking on and on about Tarabelle. Out of habit, I listened, while looking at Jeff.

  “You oughta be shame of yo’self, always watching that boy like that,” Mattie commented.

  I ignored her.

  “I heard yo’ brother married the witch’s sister,” she said.

  “I like Carol Sue,” I said.

  “I ain’t said nothing ’bout Carol Sue. I’m talking ’bout Edith, her sister.”

  “Well, Mattie, he didn’t marry Edith.”

  “Don’t get smart wit’ me, Tangy,” she said.“I don’t know what’s wrong wit’ you lately.”

  “Me?” I asked, surprised. “There’s nothing wrong with me. You’re the one who’s acting silly.You come out to our house and you never spend time with me anymore. You’re always with Tarabelle.”

  “Tarabelle is more fun. And anyway, I spend time wit’ you at school.”

  “Do you still want to be my best friend?” I asked.

  “Not really,” she answered. “Best friends tell each other things. You never told me you was sneaking ’round wit’ Jeff Stallings.”

  “That’s because I haven’t been sneaking around with him,” I shot back.

  We were glaring at each other when a silence fell over the schoolyard. Students began to line themselves up in the yard and along the sidewalk in front of the school. Mattie and I rose to join them, and Jeff came up to stand behind me.We stood there, silent and humble, paying our last respects to Junior Fess, as the funeral procession snaked along from the church and passed the school.

  I glanced between the rows of bowed heads in front of me and saw my brother, Harvey, driving the car that carried Junior’s mother, father, and an older sister. Sadness brought tears to my eyes, not because of Junior, but because I hadn’t even known Harvey could drive.