“Looks like fun,” Rake lied.
“Big branch landed on the shed the other night,” Buddy explained. “Then it rained.”
“What’s new with you, Knox?”
“Enjoying my last days of freedom. I’m back at camp tomorrow, then we ship off next week.”
Knox had kicked around at odd jobs the last two years. Even when his father had been alive, Knox had been the sort to get into plenty of trouble—brawls, underage drinking, once even taking a stolen car for a joyride—and had avoided jail time only because of his father’s pull at headquarters. He’d still been given a couple passes after bar fights, but that wouldn’t last forever.
“Good luck over there.”
“Thanks. What’s up?”
Both their faces echoed their father’s so much it was hard to look at them.
“I was wondering if you boys could tell me where you were last night.”
“Why?” Knox asked, not without aggression. He cleaned his greasy hands on a rag.
“I was here,” Buddy said, “Knox was out.”
Knox slugged his younger brother in the meat of the shoulder. “Shut up, Buddy.”
Back when Rake had been visiting the family semiregularly, during the first weeks of Dunlow’s disappearance, this had more or less been the dynamic: Knox truculent, ready to fight over anything, and deeply suspicious of Rake; and Buddy disarmingly honest and up-front, not at all his father’s son.
“What were you out doing?” Rake asked Knox as Buddy winced and shook his arm.
“What is this about?” Knox demanded.
“Last night one of the new Negro neighbors was roughed up.”
“Who cares?”
“I do. It’s my job to care.”
“Your job to do a lot of other things, too, not that you have.”
“We didn’t do anything like that,” Buddy said, seeming hurt, and not just in the shoulder.
“Okay.” Rake nodded, taking this slow. He’d already made note of the lack of cuts or bruises on the young men’s knuckles; then again, the damage to Malcolm Greer may have been administered with a baseball bat or two-by-four, or the assailants might have worn gloves. Buddy’s face was acne-scarred but otherwise unblemished, but Knox had what appeared to be mild bruising to the right of his lips. “The three of us know you boys firebombed a Negro’s house two years ago. Because he’d moved into Hanford Park. Now some more Negroes move in, and one of ’em gets beat nearly to death. So it’s only natural I should drop by.”
“I don’t even remember what he’s talking about,” Knox said to his brother, smirking.
Rake had let the boys go that night in ’48, and he still didn’t fully understand why. Perhaps he had taken pity on them, because their father had just gone missing and he sensed something terrible had happened. It made him wonder what it would be like to be raised by an arrogant and violent man like Dunlow. Perhaps Rake had let them go because he feared what would have happened, if they’d been prosecuted, to their already imploding family. And perhaps he’d done so simply because they were white and so was he.
“Just because I did you a favor once does not mean I’m inclined to do so again. Especially over something as rough as this. Would you like to see some photos of the man?”
Knox laughed. “If I want to see a beat-up nigger, I won’t ask you to show me.”
So much for expecting Knox to take this seriously. “It will make things go easier if you tell me what you were doing last night and who you were with.”
“Knox, just tell him,” Buddy said.
“Can it! Why should I say anything to this son of a bitch?” He turned his ire back to Rake. “Acting like you’re all helpful, like all those times you stopped by before. You think we don’t know? Plenty of Dad’s friends say it was you who did him wrong. They say you got plenty to answer for.” He looked about ready to spit in Rake’s face, or throw a punch. And though he was but twenty, he would be a lot to handle.
“Who says that about me?”
“Plenty of folks. Like Uncle Brian, for one.”
“Uncle Brian, you mean Officer Helton?” They weren’t actually related as far as Rake knew, just “uncle” as in “one of Dad’s best friends.” “Don’t believe everything you hear. That’s my first piece of advice for a fellow about to head off to war.”
Knox thought for a moment. “You were in France, right?”
“I was. Then Germany.”
Knox sighed. “Look, I was with my friends Jimmy Sanders and Mel Haines and we were drinking at Mel’s place, all right? We got good and drunk, which is our right.”
“And what’d you do after that?”
“Fell asleep.”
Three knuckleheads getting drunk was hardly an alibi that would cover them from assaulting a Negro. “How’d you get that bruise on your face?”
“I was teasing Mel about his girl not putting out and we wound up wrestling a bit.”
“And you were here, Buddy, and your mother can vouch for that?”
“Yessir.”
“We done?” Knox asked, flashing his greasy fingers. “I gotta wash up.”
“One last thing.” Rake didn’t like Knox’s story one bit, but he would let it go for now. He’d have to find the friends and see how their stories differed. “You know anything about those signs around the neighborhood, say White Community with a lightning bolt?”
Knox shrugged and Buddy claimed to have seen them but not know anything more.
“Any of your friends part of that group, the Columbians?”
Buddy said “No,” and Knox, scoffing, said, “Hell no.”
“Good. Stay away from them, and if you hear anything about ’em, let me know.”
After Knox left to wash up, Rake asked Buddy, “You out of school yet?”
“I finish this year. Then I was thinking of joining the force.”
“That’s good.” Thinking it was or it wasn’t. “Third generation of Dunlows to wear the badge.”
“Seems like the thing to do.” And that was it, so simple. The same reason most men gave for joining up. After a pause, Buddy added, “You know, I used to think it was my fault, him running off. Thought maybe if I’d tried harder, done the things he asked more. Not been so mule-headed . . .”
“I don’t know what happened to your old man, Buddy. But I am dead certain it had nothing to do with anything you did or didn’t do.” He pointed at the ground. “Now do your mother a favor and mow the lawn before she has to remind you again, all right?”
15
IT WAS GROWING dark and Julie knew she still smelled of roast chicken, knew the scent was in her hair and on her clothes, and she’d need to hang the dress on the line in back and let the autumn air clean it for her, as she only had so many outfits and not enough time. She hated to come home smelling of richer food than that which she could provide for her own son, who’d probably supped on more of Grandma’s runny soup. Her feet were tired and she was looking forward to nothing so much as sitting down when she was stopped short by the ghost at her door.
“Julie.”
Her mouth hung open but she couldn’t breathe.
“Julie. My Lord.”
The ghost walked up to her, put its arms around her before she could stop it. Her arms hung at her sides while he embraced her, squeezed her to show that he was real, he wasn’t a ghost at all, and she could feel his heart beating with what appeared to be joy and it was when he moved to put his lips on hers that her arms regained life and pushed him away.
“Stop,” she said, backing up and taking the full measure of Jeremiah for the first time in five years. Thinner than before, leaner in his face, whole new angles to his cheekbones. His hair freshly cut. Smelling of shaving cream, mint, and menthol. The shirt she didn’t recognize, but it was old, some hand-me-down or something he’d scavenged, or maybe five years was enough to forget about little things like clothes, and big things, too.
He had smiled when he’d approached her, but now he looked
hurt. He also looked like he’d been crying earlier, his eyes red, cheeks tacky.
“It’s me. I’m out. I’m free.” He held up his shackleless hands, palms out, as if he were the risen Christ and she an unbelieving disciple. “I guess it’s a surprise to see me. I would have written to let you know, but you stopped writing me back.”
“You stopped writing me.” Her voice small.
“I wrote you and wrote you.”
Maybe he was lying or maybe her parents had intercepted his letters from prison. All she knew was that within the first few months of his incarceration, his letters had ceased, and then her family had moved after their old landlord kicked them out on account of her being in a family way, and they’d moved three times in two years before winding up here.
“Took me a while to track you down. Didn’t know you’d moved. Didn’t know a few other things, either. Like the boy. My son. Pretty surprised when I knocked on that door and your mama answered and I see that little fella walk up and look at me,” he was smiling again, “my own little eyes staring at me from two feet up. I about passed out. Got dizzy and everything. I tried to pick him up but your mama kicked me out.”
She felt her own eyes tearing up.
“You told me you lost the baby. Why’d you lie like that?”
“I was telling you what you wanted to hear.” Her voice nearly a whisper.
He shook his head and she hated him for it. Did he not believe her, was he trying to rewrite their history? Perhaps he’d forgotten the time she’d told him she was pregnant, and he’d looked at her like she’d confessed to some horrible crime. She still could not forgive him for that reaction.
“I can’t believe . . . ,” he started. “I can’t believe you would lie about that.”
“I guess we both did things the other couldn’t believe. Like you running with your brother’s boys and getting into all that trouble. Bringing that into my life.”
“Julie . . . That was a long while ago, and I made a mistake and I—”
“Look, I’m glad you’re a free man, but I’m not going back to that. And I’m not going back to you. Now, I’ve had a long day at work—real work, honest work—and I need to rest, so you can be on your way.”
She waited for him to move, but all he did was issue an empty laugh. “That’s all you got for me? Five years in there and that’s all you got?”
“That’s all I got. You and me, we’re done and gone, a long time ago.”
“He’s my boy.”
“Not anymore. He never really was—you saw to that. Running with that crowd, which I told you not to do. Getting yourself mixed up in that, which I knew would be trouble. You had a choice between me and your brother, and you chose him.”
“I chose you.” He seemed shocked, desperate. “How can you say that?”
“You chose him first, and that’s what caused all the trouble.”
“I . . . I made a mistake, I know, but then I helped you, girl.”
“You did, and I thanked you, but by then you’d done enough harm.”
“I been in there five years and—”
“And five years I been out here working and raising a boy on my own. Five years I been on my knees cleaning and cooking and washing for white folks and coming here to collapse and maybe hold him awhile before I fall asleep.” Five years I’ve been dealing with the looks and the comments. Five years my own mama’s been doing me the favor of keeping Sage all day so I can try to make enough money to feed us. “Don’t you tell me about your five years.”
Light behind him as the front door opened, her mother’s slight silhouette etched there. Julie realized she herself was shaking when she saw how still her mother was, realized she was crying when her vision began to fuzz.
“You go on now, Jeremiah,” her mother said. “Parnell be home soon and he won’t be any happier to see you.”
Mentioning Julie’s father was the wrong thing to do, for Jeremiah’s chest seemed to rise at the suggestion that he might back down from another man.
“I have a right to see my boy.”
“He’s not yours no more! He’s mine, and soon he’ll be another man’s, because I’m engaged. You never wanted to be a father, and you never will be.”
“And he’s a policeman,” Julie’s mother said. Julie didn’t know where Sage was. Her mother needed to close that door, because if Sage walked out and Jeremiah approached him, Julie didn’t know what she might do, scream or throw herself upon Jeremiah, and she feared she would wind up hurting Sage in the midst of such rage.
“You ain’t marrying no policeman.” Thinking she meant a white man.
“I am. There are colored policemen now, and Lucius is one of them. He’s a good man and a strong man, and he’ll be here for us in a way you never were.”
“Lucius.” Speaking the name into reality. Then standing there stunned a few seconds. “I’m in prison, and you’re running around with a policeman. Lord God.” He stepped back like he’d been struck dizzy again, the free world spinning too fast for him.
“Why’d you even come back here? Your people moved up to Chicago, on account of what you and your brother did.”
“Maybe I’ll get to Chicago eventually. Or maybe I’ll stay here instead. Maybe I want to have something to do with that little man in there.”
“That won’t happen. Now leave.”
“I want to see my boy.”
“Don’t cause no scene, Jeremiah,” her mother warned. “Don’t make us call the police.”
“The police? Yeah, call Julie’s new man. That’d be perfect. Call him out here.”
“Go on,” Julie all but hissed, frightened by Jeremiah’s lack of concern.
“Let me say good night to him. I barely got to say hello before.”
She did not want to waste another syllable on him. They stood there a long, silent moment.
Finally she walked toward the door. She had to pass him, and he reached out for her forearm and clutched it, not even tightly, but that slight contact was enough.
She could not contain the rage any longer. It tore itself out of her chest, balled her fingers into fists, animated her arms, and sent surges through her legs. He was trying to block her blows and was stumbling backward but she felt parts of him, she knew she made contact, his body would give way to hers this time, she would punish him for everything and do so right now, and she heard her mother screaming and then she could hear Sage crying and it was that alone that would have made her stop if not for the fact that, at the same moment, other arms were pulling her back.
Many different people yelling Stop and Quit that now and Hey and she couldn’t move her arms. Her hair had come unpinned and been thrown wild in her face and she couldn’t see well but eventually she recognized the voice of Mr. Cummings, her neighbor, and the old fellow they called Pitchfork who didn’t really have a home but always seemed to be about. The two elders were holding her back while a third man she didn’t even recognize had a hand at Jeremiah’s chest.
“Enough, enough,” Mr. Cummings said, and they released her. She gathered herself and she felt her mother’s hand at her shoulder, ushering her to the house.
Sage stood in the threshold, wailing now, not stamping his feet the way he did when in the throes of a tantrum but simply planted there, terror contorting his face, his voice ringing out. Julie shook and she scooped him up, hoping he could anchor her somehow, when she knew that wasn’t how it worked at all, it was she who should be doing that for him, and she’d failed at that, too, and her mother closed the door behind them.
“Go on, now,” the men said to Jeremiah, whoever these men were.
This wasn’t what he wanted. He’d barely held her, and hadn’t even gotten a chance to tell her about the miracle, the white cop collapsing, his train north. He licked his lips and tasted blood, reached into his back pocket for a handkerchief but found none. Such were his possessions. His nose bled—girl was strong—and he wiped away what he could and tried to spit out the rest and he must have l
ooked like hell.
“Go on home.”
Home. Where was that? What had become of this place? Five years and now the war was over, his mother and sister were in Chicago where a winter of medieval proportions would soon set in, he suddenly had a four-year-old son, and the girl he’d been dreaming about all those nights didn’t want him. He gazed at the small, subdivided house, blinds drawn. Night had slowly seeped around him while he’d been standing there, like there was a night spigot and someone had turned it on an hour ago and it had pooled at his feet and now he was submerged in it, and so was this barely recognizable city. He was drowning in night and there was nowhere for him to go.
Yet Jeremiah walked, pride stiffening his shoulders and holding him up taller than he felt. He willed his bad knee not to bother him as he walked on and the men watched him. First prison, now this: he was always walking away from things.
This would be his fourth night in Atlanta. He’d arrived three days ago and had walked from Terminal Station back to where he had once lived. The city alive around him, everywhere motion, trains unloading passengers, streams of people walking to this bus stop or that, striding through the city, Atlanta itself a vast spiderweb of different routes superimposed upon each other, and for a while Jeremiah had been the only one motionless, caught in the spiderweb, until the very spider himself, a big cop with a hand on his billy club, wandered over and told him to get a move on, boy, so get a move on Jeremiah did.
Emerging from the station, hearing the sounds of the trains and in the distance the freight cars and the legions of men loading and unloading the freight, he’d wondered how many of them down there he knew. That had been his job once. The Negroes had stuck to their workstations and the whites to theirs, though their jobs were mostly the same, because so many men were off at war that the managers could not afford to be choosy. Jeremiah had started when he was sixteen. The first thing he did was wonder why the white man who hired him, who was tall and broad and appeared capable of lifting an entire train car should the mood strike him, was not at war, but he didn’t ask. This was essential war work, he would later learn, a legal term that meant they wouldn’t be drafted as a result of such employment.
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