Lightning Men

by Thomas Mullen

  Thank you for downloading this Simon & Schuster ebook.

  * * *

  Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.

  CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

  Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

  For Susan Golomb and Rich Green

  It is like writing history with lightning.

  —President Woodrow Wilson, admiringly, after watching the Ku Klux Klan propaganda film The Birth of a Nation

  Any candid observer of American racial history must acknowledge that racism is highly adaptable.

  —Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow

  PROLOGUE

  THE TUNNEL IS long and dark, and though his feet are moving it feels like he is being pulled by some other force, and then the tunnel recedes and he is alone before the vastness of the Georgia sky. To his right in a lavender glow swirl wisps of indigo cloud that surely will dissolve once the sun rises. To his left is darkness. He feels poised there, on the edge of night and day, on the cusp of summer and fall, because the morning is so much cooler than he’d expected. The shirt he’s wearing is not sufficient, but at least it is his shirt, he remembers it from so long ago, and the reason it’s too thin is because it was summer back when he was arrested, his clothes exchanged for a prison uniform. So long ago now. He stands there, shivering, taking in how tall the sky feels, how tiny he is, and it is just so amazing to be standing here alone that tears well in his eyes.

  He walks slowly, because he does not want to limp on his first walk as a free man even though his right knee aches as it has for the last two years, since the fall at the bridge. He knows that his right shoulder carries higher than his left by a good inch or two, a result of the chain gang, swinging an ax until his very body was transformed.

  He’d forgotten how it feels to walk in the outside world without hearing his wrists and ankles jingle. It is as though sound has been removed from his body, like some prophet has cast out the demon.

  His old shirt fits loose around his slop-thinned waist but tight in the arms. He has crushed rocks and laid asphalt, he has built roads and repaired bridges, dug ditches and laid sewage pipes. He even assembled coops for poultry, not unaware of the irony that he was a prisoner building a prison for lesser creatures. He once killed a four-foot copperhead coiled beneath fallen leaves two autumns ago—or maybe it was three; time moves in a haze now—by bringing the head of his shovel upon the beast’s endless neck. He had later wondered at his own reflexes, thinking perhaps it would have been smarter to let the snake bite him, let it inject that poison into his veins so that in a few hours all this misery would pass. There had been days and nights he wished he’d done so. But now he feels differently, because those days and nights have fled and he has survived to see this breathtaking dawn.

  The pants he’s pretty sure aren’t his. They fit his torso well enough, but they’re three inches too short. They must have belonged to some other Negro prisoner, maybe someone who won’t be out for years, so Jeremiah walks with the fall air chilling his ankles.

  He hears birds calling even though the nearest tree is hundreds of yards away. He doesn’t see any birds in the sky yet, though it’s brighter now, the east a dark blue and the lavender shifting over to the cloudless west. The sun has peeked over the flat earth and Jeremiah has acquired a shadow, it is long indeed and with each step he takes, that giant shadow makes a mightier stride.

  There had been a time when he’d thought he was through with God. He learned not to ask the Lord for release, not to ask for concrete and specific things—a visit from his beloved, or at least a letter—and instead to ask for the intangible. Calmness. Patience. The ability to make it to the next tomorrow. Walking slowly now, he thanks the Lord he’d briefly given up on, the Lord who’d not given up on him, the Lord who had seemed to inflict far too much wrong upon Jeremiah, so much wrong that it seemed beyond any mistake, beyond any difficult and inscrutable lesson, beyond anything but outright malice. Was God evil? Jeremiah had wondered in those first weeks in prison. That questioning has passed. He cannot help himself from saying, “Thank you, Jesus,” saying it loud enough that someone would have heard him if he were not so alone.

  He’s walking faster now, the shock of the world’s vastness fading only a bit, the unsettling aloneness, the lack of other people attached to him at either side, and though he does not know what he’s walking toward, he knows he needs to get there, faster, his shadow keeping pace.

  He’s not even a quarter way down the wide dirt drive, the soles of his old shoes making faint impressions in the dawn-damp earth, when he turns around and gives the prison one last look. The limestone gleams white in the sharp-angled rays of the morning sun, American and Georgian flags hanging limp atop their poles. The prison is silent from out here, no buzzers or alarms or cries, no movement, indeed he’s the only thing that seems alive, until a sudden twitch draws his eyes to a formerly motionless silhouette above. One of the guards with a rifle, looking down on him.

  “Nigger, you’d best move a lot faster’n that!”

  Jeremiah cannot help but increase his pace despite the shame of it, despite knowing that he is free and that the guard no longer owns him. He feels like an escapee, though he does not know what he is escaping into.

  Georgia State Prison sits on the outskirts of Reidsville, or perhaps in the center of Reidsville, Jeremiah isn’t sure, or maybe the problem is that Reidsville is the sort of place with no center, only outskirts, and anyhow Jeremiah had never before been outside Atlanta so he has no clue where he is.

  The warden who’d handed him his old clothes and some notarized papers along with seventy-five cents had given Jeremiah directions to the train station, but Jeremiah has already forgotten them. It was so hard to listen to minor things like turn here, straight there, bear left, when the enormity of his release hung so close. He had told the warden that he was going to the train station because his family was going to pick him up from there, which was a lie, because his mother and sister fled Georgia sometime in ’46 and there is no one here for him.

  No, not quite no one. There is his girl, and though she stopped sending him letters years ago, the memory of her touch and her laugh were about the only things that kept him going. He’s dreamed of her so many times he wonders if his imagination and longing have transfigured her in his mind, if she actually doesn’t look or sound at all like he remembers. Yet the thought of her powers him forward.

  The warden of course had not returned his watch, so he doesn’t know how long he’s been walking. Long enough to wish he’d been given a canteen.

  The newly paved road is shaded by two rows of mighty oaks. On either side lies farmland, peanuts and corn and even some cotton. He passes meager shacks, roofs leaning and windows nonexistent. He smells honeysuckle and ragweed and he’s wiped the dust from his nose with his shirtsleeve, as even a kerchief is beyond his means right now, nothing in his pocket but the seventy-five cents. He doesn’t rightly know if he’d had those seventy-five cents when he’d been arrested or if they’re some state-sanctioned allowance.

  October and the red wasps are out, hovering over flowers and darting across the road. He remembers how the wasps always seemed to get in the way this time of year, but now he doesn’t mind them, yet another aspect of life he’d almost forgotten about.

  Then he hears, faintly but distinctly, a siren.

  He walks faster, his heart announcing itself to every part of his body. Hands shaking, feet nearly tripping, fingers scratching at imaginary bugs on his chee
ks and chest and neck. The sirens grow louder. Why is he scared? Those sirens couldn’t possibly be for him. It sounds like at least three different vehicles echoing across the plains. He tells himself it’s a caravan to or from the prison, but the panic won’t abate.

  The sirens fade, to the point that he’s not sure if he hears them anymore or if perhaps he’d only imagined them. Perhaps he will be hearing them in his sleep, intermittently, forever.

  He knows the prison is on the Negro side of town, so when he sees a small clapboard structure in the distance and smells biscuits, he thanks Jesus again, trusting that this is an establishment he’s allowed to enter.

  Two cars are parked in front. A sign over the door informs him not of the name of the establishment but the fact that God watches over the premises, which is either a blessing or a warning to potential thieves. Inside it appears to be part café, part grocery. Four aisles on the right are lined with goods, and to the left sit three small tables and a counter. A thin old Negro woman, sixty if she’s a day, and the first female he’s seen in months, observes him warily through thick eyeglasses, her hair pulled back in a severe bun, stacks of cigarette boxes on either side of her shiny metal register.

  He smiles and for the first time in he can’t remember, he talks to a free stranger. Not sure if his “Good morning” sounds dated in some way, if his smile or his very manner is off. How do strangers in 1950 say hello? he wonders.

  Five minutes later he has sopped up every last bit of gravy with his biscuit and has ordered a second. It is beyond delicious. And the coffee, good Lord, it’s doing such things to his heart and mind that he’d not thought possible. He is a blank slate, and every taste is imprinting itself on him like a new language, a new sense entirely.

  I am not a fully formed thing, Lord. I am clay. I am not cast into the mold I have been consigned into. I can still be anything. He prayed this repeatedly over the years, so many times, both a promise and a plea.

  He is standing to leave now, tired of the woman’s long and suspicious looks his way, as if she is waiting for him to do some wrong. As if he’s just dying to break another law. In truth, he was disappointed to realize when he paid that he’d figured the math wrong and he has but a dime left. He’d like to buy some smokes but those are beyond his reach, and how is he going to afford a ticket to Atlanta?

  The door opens and a bell chimes and in walks a Negro man, his hair white and Brylcreemed back in waves from his shiny forehead.

  “Ay there, Marcie, how you doing?”

  “Fair to middlin’. Gonna be a beautiful day, Reverend.”

  Overhearing strangers is so odd, that and the glances the reverend has cast his way, unless Jeremiah’s imagining it, which maybe he is. His instincts tell him he needs to leave. He walks toward the door, trying to give the reverend plenty of space, afraid of any accidental contact, wary of tripping others’ alarms.

  Outside it seems three hours warmer. The sun is awake now and has amassed its power. He should have asked them how much farther it was to the station, but he’d been afraid. Afraid of what? He doesn’t know.

  Then the door opens behind him and he hears the reverend’s voice.

  “Good morning!”

  Jeremiah turns. The reverend is walking toward him, a bag in one hand. He is a tall fellow and his frame bears evidence of more than just reading the Good Book. To the preacher’s left is what must be his blue Ford pickup, as it hadn’t been there earlier.

  “Good morning, Reverend,” Jeremiah replies.

  The reverend takes in the too-short pant legs, notes the hair in need of a trim. Jeremiah wears a beard as well, not because he prefers it but because his weekly trip to the prison barber for a shave is normally scheduled for a few hours from now.

  “A good day to be alive, isn’t it?” the preacher asks.

  “Yes, it is, Reverend.”

  Crows call in the trees above, blaming each other for misdeeds.

  “How long has it been for you?”

  “Five years. And one month. And six days.”

  “Ah yes, no one knows arithmetic quite like a man in prison.” The reverend pauses, perhaps trying to determine what crime Jeremiah must have committed to receive such a term.

  “Where are you headed?”

  “Atlanta. Somehow. Train, I suppose.”

  “Nearest station is in Statesboro.”

  Another town he’s never heard of. “Okay.” He points down the road. “That way?”

  “More or less. But it’s about thirty miles from the ground you’re standing on. What’s your name?”

  “Jeremiah.”

  “You know the Good Book?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Jeremiah was a prophet. He foretold God’s covenant with Israel. That they were the chosen people and would be saved.”

  “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil.”

  The reverend smiles, reassessing him. “You do know it.”

  “Wouldn’t lie to a preacher, sir.”

  “It’s one of my favorite chapters.” Silence for a beat. “But there was an if. Just like there is in modern times, there’s always an if. The if was, God would save them if they worshipped Him and only Him, not any false gods. We sin, but there’s always forgiveness. Like a parent’s unconditional love. But with God, there is that one condition: that we worship him.”

  Jeremiah is surprised to find himself being taught a lesson after five years and one month and six days of ostensibly being taught a lesson, but this happens to be one with which he agrees.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There was a fire this morning,” the reverend says. “White folks’ house burned down, don’t ask me how. You’re a lucky man.”

  “How’s that?” Lucky is something that Jeremiah surely hasn’t felt in a good while.

  “One of three things occurs when they release a Negro from that jail, son. One is that the prisoner has family or friends arrive to pick him up. Two is that, if his people don’t have a vehicle, the prison takes him by bus to the train station, where his people meet him. And three, if he doesn’t have any people to meet him at all, they let the prisoner walk. They give him seventy-five cents, am I right? And about an hour or two after he’s done walked away and maybe spent that money on a pack of cigarettes or some food, the local Reidsville police arrest him for vagrancy.”

  “I got out legit. I didn’t bust out.”

  “That don’t matter.”

  “I’ve got these here papers,” and Jeremiah reaches into his pocket, only to stop pulling when he sees the way the preacher is shaking his head and laughing.

  “Don’t matter, son. That’s how they do. I seen it happen too many times. That house caught fire this morning, all the police headed over to help the volunteer firemen. Which means that whoever was supposed to arrest you had greater things to deal with.”

  The preacher pauses to let this sink in.

  “I was you? I’d get down and pray to God tonight and thank Him for setting that fire, and ask that He didn’t kill anyone to do it, because if He did then you’ve got those deaths on your soul as thanks for your freedom today.”

  Jeremiah thinks about this. It seems exactly the sort of randomly violent act God would commit, to confuse and test us. He had heard that the local cops did such things, of course, and he had met many prisoners who claimed to have been released and then re-jailed in shockingly quick time, but he’d not considered that such a fate could befall him.

  “I didn’t ask Him to kill no one for me.”

  “I’m not saying He did, son. I’m just saying the dice were cast in an unusual way this morning, and you’re the beneficiary of a strange roll indeed. And it’s gonna cost me half a tank of gas to drive sixty miles round trip and two dollars to buy you a ticket to Atlanta, but that’s what I’m gonna do, because if the Lord sees fit to set a fire to keep you out of jail, the least I can do is make a small sacrifice on your behalf. Get on in.”
r />   “Thank you, sir.”

  “Thank Him, like I said.”

  A siren interrupts their exchange. Jeremiah turns his head and the land here is so flat that he can see, far behind them, a squad car racing their way. He looks at his Good Samaritan and sees that the preacher’s air of casual wisdom has been replaced by something less secure.

  “I’ll . . . I’ll go my separate way,” and Jeremiah starts to leave.

  “No. You stay here.” Still, the reverend sounds nervous as he watches the road. The squad car will be upon them in seconds.

  “I don’t want to cause you no harm.”

  “Just hold tight.”

  Jeremiah’s hands are shaking. Why would they be after him again? Why do they act this way? I don’t understand this world. Not this world meaning the outside as opposed to prison, but this world meaning everything. Given all that has befallen him, he knows that some basic ability to make sense of events and rules and cause and effect is essentially broken in him. The world operates according to a perverse logic he is doomed not to fathom.

  The squad car slows down and pulls into the lot. Gravel crunches as it parks beside the pickup.

  Please, Lord, not now please not this I have tried to be faithful and good and I must find my girl and we will grow old and worship You together please please I will be Your servant I ask only for this please.

  The preacher gives Jeremiah the briefest of looks, not even turning to face him, and he says, “I’m sorry, son.”

  “Hey there, Odell,” the officer says as he exits the car and walks up to the preacher. Whitish-yellow face, like freshly whipped butter, and the butter’s starting to melt because his skin is shiny, Jeremiah can see the glisten even though the officer’s wide-brimmed hat blocks out the morning light. His tan uniform shirt is damp in the armpits and he sounds tired.

  “Good morning, Officer,” the reverend says.

  “Who that you got with you?”

  Jeremiah looks away, avoiding eye contact. “Jeremiah Tanner, Officer, sir.”