The Darkest Child Read online

  Fire illuminated the northern sky. It was far off, but so bright it seemed that all of Plymouth was burning.Walter Vanna, Glenn Henderson, and a few of the other men piled into cars and drove off toward Plymouth. Mama joined some of the women who stood on the wet pavement of Canyon Street to speculate about the distant fire.

  Tarabelle grumbled angrily, and I understood why. We were tired, wet, and reeking of smoke, and it didn’t matter what was burning because we didn’t have the strength to fight it, anyway.We left Mama and Wallace on Canyon Street, but took the girls with us as we headed for home.

  The following morning I left early for work, and because I could not go through town, it took me nearly thirty minutes longer to get to North Ridge. I arrived at the Whitmans’ house to find Miss Veatrice blocking my entrance.

  “Hey, honey,” she said in a pleasant greeting. “I didn’t expect to see you today. I’m glad you came, but I can’t let you in. Bakker says you can’t work here anymore. He says he won’t stand for having niggers in his house, not with the way they’re acting around here. He says they burned down half the town.”

  “I had nothing to do with that, Miss Veatrice,” I said.

  “That’s what I told Bakker, but he said it didn’t matter. You’re one of them, honey, and I can’t let you in here. Bakker says if I see you coming, I’m to lock the door, but I didn’t think you’d want to do anything to me.”

  “What could I do to you?”

  She giggled.“Why, you could burn my house down.That’s what you could do. Only it ain’t my house. Did I tell you I’m getting married?”

  “That’s nice, Miss Veatrice,” I said, backing down from the porch.

  “Where’re you going?” she asked.

  “I’m going to school. If I’m not going to work today, then I should be in school.”

  “They burned it down, you know. Last night they went and burned it down. It’s gone, honey. Bakker says they hit all the nig-ger towns last night.You may as well stay and visit with me because your school is gone.”

  “I don’t believe you, Miss Veatrice. My school is still standing,” I said, as my feet touched the ground.“How could anybody burn the school down?”

  “Well, they didn’t bother your church. Bakker says . . .”

  I began to run. I ran away from Miss Veatrice and her little white house with green shutters, then taking a detour around town, I ran along the shoulder of the four-lane highway and kept running until I reached Motten Street and Skeeter’s house. I was breathless and bending over when Velman opened the door.

  “Hey.Who’s chasing you?” he asked.

  “Nobody. I came to see my niece.”

  Holding a finger to his lips to keep me quiet, he led me through the house toward his bedroom. “They’re sleeping,” he whispered. “Catch yo’ breath, and I’ll let you peek in on ’em.”

  Martha Jean’s body formed a half circle around the baby, and they both slept peacefully, undisturbed by the world outside. I leaned over the bed, raised the blanket covering the baby, then touched her tiny hand just for the warmth of it.

  “I’m an aunt,” I whispered.

  Velman nodded.“And I’m a daddy,” he said proudly.“Her name is Mary Ann.”

  We tipped from the room, and I took a seat on the couch. “Where’s Skeeter?” I asked.

  “Up the street with Miss Shirley. They’ll be back shortly,” Velman said, as he sat beside me. “Miss Shirley’s helping out with the baby. Kinda hard when you can’t get into town to get things, but we got just about everything we need. Still, I’ll be glad when they take them barricades down. The way I hear it, didn’t that much burn in town no way—just the furniture store and the Western Auto that’s next to it, and that’s about all.”

  “I heard it was more than that,” I said.“I don’t know what we’re gonna do. Half the people can’t get to work, and now there’s no school.”

  “You can go to school,” he said. “It was the new one they burned down, the one they were building.”

  “Miss Veatrice told me they burned the school down, and I just assumed she meant the old one. She let me go this morning, said her brother didn’t want Negroes in his house.”

  “Yeah, well, when it rains it pours, ”Velman said, taking my hand and squeezing it.

  “I can’t understand why anybody would want to destroy something they’ve worked so hard at building,” I said.

  “If Hambone was telling the truth, they didn’t put much work into it. Remember? He said they were just throwing it together.”

  I nodded.

  His eyes met mine and he sighed.“Little sister, are things getting any better for you? I wrote a letter to Mushy and asked her to come.”

  I eased my hand from his and stood up from the couch. “She won’t come. And if she does, what can she do?”

  “I don’t know, but we’ll think of something.” He stood, too, and wrapped his arms around me.“We’ll think of something, little sister.”

  I pulled away from him.“I have to go.”

  “Trust me,” he said.

  “I do,” I answered.“That’s what’s keeping me alive.” I winked to let him know that I was teasing when I wasn’t teasing at all.

  forty - four

  The furniture store was a total loss, the two adjacent structures had sustained considerable damage. There was a wide open space where the Market Street Café had once stood, and only a cement slab as a reminder of the Pioneer Taxicab Company. For days we had been locked out of town, not knowing what to expect, and even after the barricades came down, I was leery of Market Street. But my mother needed stockings from the five-and-dime, and she had sent me to get them since, to her way of thinking, it was my fault she had to dress up for a meeting with “them goddamn snooty school people.”

  “Do I look awright, Tangy Mae?” she asked for the third time as she parked the car on the school lot.“Wonder what this is all about? I bet they gon’ ask me if you can come back next year. I already got in my mind what I’m gon’ say.You ain’t going, and that’s final.”

  I would have asked her why we had come, but looking at my mother, I knew the answer. She had come to flaunt her beauty. It had taken her nearly two hours to dress for this meeting, and she looked absolutely stunning. She wore a brown tunic suit with tiny pink dots and pink cuffed sleeves, leather pumps, and a faille hat with a single pink feather.

  We got out of the car, and she held my arm, preventing me from moving forward, as we watched an assemblage of parents and teachers enter the school. It was the presence of four white men entering the schoolyard from the street that caused my mother to reach up and snatch a bug from her lovely face.

  “Tangy Mae, what you done went and done?” she asked.

  “Nothing, Mama,” I answered, but I could tell she did not believe me.

  I lingered outside with Edith Dobson and Coleman Hewitt, our principal’s son.We spoke to Reverend Nelson as he went in, then we looked at each other questioningly.

  “What’s this meeting all about, Coleman?” Edith asked.

  Coleman was a short, pimply-faced boy, the firstborn of the four Hewitt children. He shoved his hands into his pants pockets and avoided making eye contact with Edith. “They’ll tell us when they’re ready,” he said.“I’m not suppose to say anything until then.”

  There were three other students in the yard with us: Larry Weston, Philip Ames, and Harold Brandon. They were staring at the charred, skeletal remains of what would have been our new school. Edith nudged me and I followed her across the yard.

  “It’s a mess, isn’t it?” she said.“Daddy says it’s not Sam’s fault. He doesn’t blame your brother at all. He says they kept Sam in jail for no reason, and they can do that to any colored man and get away with it. He says it’s time somebody showed them that we’re not going to stand for it.”

  “But somebody could have been killed in one of those fires,” I said.“We’re lucky no one was.”

  “Do you think it’s over?”<
br />
  “No.They’ve let us back into town, but I don’t think it’s over. I do think people are beginning to see what Hambone was talking about.”

  “Daddy doesn’t think it’s over, either,” Edith said. “He’s afraid somebody’s gonna get hurt. He’s an undertaker, but he doesn’t want people to die unless it’s from old age. Mama says with ideas like that he’ll die old and poor himself.”

  “Edith, do you know what this meeting is about?”

  “A little.”

  I heard my name called and I turned to see my mother storming across the school’s short wooden porch and nearly tripping over her own feet in her haste to reach her car.

  “Come on, Tangy Mae!” she snapped. “Get in the car!”

  “What happened, Mama?” I asked, as I raced along beside her.

  “What happened? I’ll tell you what happened,” she said. “You done outsmarted yo’self this time.They sitting in there planning to send you to that white school next year.They say you intelligent, you carry yo’self like a proper young lady, and you the somebody gon’ integrate that school.” She laughed bitterly. “I ain’t buying none of it.They wanna take you away from me.That Mr.Pace of yours always wanted to take you away. I told ’em to kiss my ass ’cause you ain’t going to that school. They can find another guinea pig. Them Dobsons feel the same way ’bout they daughter, but they foolish. They gon’ sit there and let them people talk ’em into it. Not me.”

  I was not frightened by the speed or recklessness with which my mother drove. Disappointment had rendered me numb, and I blamed myself for not preparing her.Over the weeks, I could have given her some subtle hints. But I realized that the outcome probably would have been the same.

  Mama turned into the Garrisons’ driveway and parked behind Mr. Frank’s car.“Pearl, you ain’t gon’ believe this,” she said, as soon as Mr. Frank opened the door. “Give me a drink and let me tell you ’bout it.You ain’t never gon’ guess what them school people wanted wit’ me.”

  Miss Pearl eyed me, then said, “Well, I know Tangy Mae wadn’t in no kind of trouble ’cause she ain’t the kind to be. I figure they want you to leave her in school another year.”

  “In the white school, Pearl!” Mama shouted.“They want her to go to the white school. Now you know they must think I’m some kinda fool. They gon’ close town down ’cause they say one of my babies tried to burn it down, then they gon’ come back and say they want one of my babies to go to school wit’ theirs.”

  “Slow down, Rozelle, ”Mr. Frank said.“I think them people paying you a compliment.We all know you got a smart girl there. What you think about it, Tangy?”

  “She ain’t gotta think about it. She ain’t going and that’s that. They wanna send five mo’ children wit’ her. ‘Well-behaved children, so she don’t have to go by herself, ’” Mama said, mimicking someone from the meeting.“Tangy Mae gon’ get a job—or starve. She ain’t going back to school.”

  She meant every word she said, but my mother was a liar. I remembered her telling me that people in Georgia did not get hungry, so how could I starve? She had said that I was not going back to school, but I was. I had to.

  forty - five

  It amazed me that Wallace could come and go as he pleased, and although Mama knew where he spent most of his nights, she didn’t make a second attempt to bring him home. Frequently, I caught her watching the road below our house, mumbling Sam’s name over and over again, but mostly she just sat on the porch and sucked up the sun.

  I spent lazy summer days convincing myself that I no longer loved her, and it occurred to me that I could kill her and my seat in Hell would get no wider or warmer. Remorse sometimes got the best of me; then I prayed for forgiveness for having those evil thoughts.

  On the occasions when Mama ordered me to the farmhouse, I went without protest, as did Tarabelle. At first I had objected, reasoning that Sam’s freedom should have also freed me, but my mother was an irrational woman who did not have to explain anything to me.

  She sat on the porch now, smoking one cigarette after the other, watching Laura and Edna play in the yard.They played chase games and ball games. Laura had not touched a rope since the day Judy died, but at least her smile had returned.

  “Della’s having a fish fry this evening,” Mama said. “That’s something we oughta do.We got enough space out there in the yard to hold a lot of people, and we could make some pretty good money.”

  “We don’t have electricity, Mama,” I said. “Every fish fry I’ve ever been to had music playing.”

  She laughed. “Well, we can get some batteries for the radio. Maybe I’ll move outta this house so I can have myself a fish fry.” She was talking crazy, but it was lighthearted crazy so I laughed along with her.

  “Do you ever think about moving?” I asked.

  “Once or twice I thought about it. But then I thought my children was gon’ turn out different. I thought by now half of y’all would be working and bringing in money. It’s hard on a mother to be disappointed like I been. Just look at what I got outta feeding and raising all y’all. Soon as Harvey could work, he took off. Mushy ain’t no good and never was. Sam running ’round trying to burn folks out, half the time I can’t find Wallace, and Tarabelle’s a fucking bull dyke.” She winked at me through her cigarette smoke. “You didn’t think I knew that, did you? Hope I’m in my grave befo’ folks ’round here figure out what she is. That’s one of them curses they ain’t got no spell to break.”

  “What’s a bull dyke, Mama?”

  “It’s a full-grown woman running ’round trying to grow a cock like a full-grown man. Trying to like other women. Don’t you know nothing, Tangy Mae? Least ways Tarabelle bring in money. I can say that much for her. I don’t know what to say ’bout you, but I know you ain’t gon’ keep sitting ’round here idle.”

  Please, God, don’t let her start on me, I silently prayed.Aloud I said, “Mama, do you want me to get you some bathwater?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I’m gon’ get on up there befo’ all the best fish gone. Hope Della got something besides whiting. Got me a taste for some perch.”

  I readied a bath for my mother, then I joined Tarabelle and Mattie on the back porch. Tarabelle glanced at me, then turned to Mattie.“Mattie, go see if them clothes dry yet,” she said.

  Mattie rose from her step and walked over to the lines.We watched as she ran her hands along the row of sheets. She didn’t say anything, just took the basket that had once belonged to Judy and began removing sheets, folding them, and placing them in the basket.

  “Tan, can you remember the first time Mushy tried to leave?” Tarabelle asked.

  I nodded.

  “Mama had the sheriff go find her, then she beat Mushy and tied her to this rail for a whole week.” Tarabelle trailed a finger along the porch rail as she spoke.“Remember? That’s why Mushy waited so long befo’ she left. She waited all the way ’til she was eighteen so nobody couldn’t do nothing about it.”

  “Is that what you’re planning to do?”

  “Yeah. I figure ain’t nothing nobody can do after that. Mama can’t send the sheriff after me, and she can’t drag me home like she did po’ Martha Jean.Wonder why she ain’t sent the sheriff after Wallace?”

  “There’s no reason to,” I answered.“Wallace is still bringing his pay home. When he stops doing that, she’ll probably send somebody to get him.”

  “I hope he stops, ”Tarabelle said.“I’m leaving here next month. I’m taking me a room at Miss Shirley’s. She don’t need them rooms now that Max and Becky gone. She said I can have one, and I got me some money saved.You can have some, Tan, if you wanna run off.”

  “I can’t run, Tara. I’ve thought about it, but I can’t leave Laura and Edna. Do you think Mama would make them go to the farmhouse if we weren’t here?”

  “Yeah. She would, ”Tarabelle answered bitterly. “And some dog out there would be wit’ ’em, too.They wouldn’t even care that they just babies.”

  “Th
at’s why I can’t leave.”

  “Well, I can, and I’m going to.”

  “Does Miss Shirley know about you?” I asked.

  “What about me?”

  “Mama says you’re a bull dyke, that you’re running around trying to grow a thing like a man.”

  Tarabelle made a sound like a sneeze.“To hell wit’ Mama!” she said.“She don’t know nothing ’bout me, and I ain’t gon’ spend the rest of my life taking care of her.”

  “When do you intend to tell her that you’re leaving?”

  “Never. She’ll just wake up one morning and I’ll be gone. I ain’t gotta tell her nothing after I turn eighteen. I used to hate you, Tan, ’cause you was so smart and I couldn’t be. And I used to hate you for staying here even when I knew you couldn’t leave.What good is being smart if all you can do is stay here?”

  I glanced over at Mattie who had cleared one line and was working her way along another one. I could hear my mother calling me and knew she wanted me to empty her bathwater, but I ignored her. She finally gave up on me and began to call for Tara.

  Tarabelle ignored her, too, and said, “Tan, you don’t read them books all the time no mo’. How come?”

  “They made me dream.”

  “Bad dreams?”

  I shrugged.“Just dreams.”

  Mattie started toward us with the basket on her hip. I watched her come and wondered if she was ever going to do anything about her hair. It looked awful.

  “You wanna go to that white school, don’t you?” Tarabelle asked.When I did not answer her, she said, “I want you to go, too. But that’s a awful lotta people to have to fight, and you ain’t never been no good at fighting.”

  forty - six

  Motten Street drew me outside the range of my mother’s voice on those hot summer days—not every day—but just as often as it dared, and sometimes I would take Laura and Edna with me to play hula hoop, hopscotch, or hide and seek. There were days when Mama forbade me to leave the house, but Motten Street would call and I could not resist. I would depart Penyon Road under the pretense of searching for work, and I would spend those days in Skeeter’s kitchen watching Mary Ann grow.