“Yes, sir . . . soon’s we get our tire on.”
The sheriff looked at the jacked up car, nodded, and turned back to the crowd.
As Little Willie and Oliver put on the still-soft spare tire, Sissy said, “Shoulda told ’em ’bout Jeremy.”
“Can’t,” Stacey said. “Can’t tell them about Jeremy.”
“But they think Harris—”
“Please, Sissy, they don’t get Harris, keep it to yourself.”
“Naw, naw, I ain’t! Not after what him and them others done to sweet Harris! Maybe y’all done forgot, but I ain’t forgot that night on the Rosa Lee! Ain’t ’bout to forget it!”
Clarence grabbed her by the shoulders. “Sissy, you listen to me, girl! This here ain’t got to do with Jeremy! It got to do with Moe! Ya hear me? Ya hear me, Sissy?”
“Ah, get away from me!” she said, pushing him back. Then she turned angrily and walked off and stood by the road. Clarence didn’t go after her.
“Look,” said Stacey to Christopher-John and Little Man, his voice low and urgent, “don’t tell anybody but Mama, Papa, and Big Ma about Jeremy and how Moe got away. Less folks know about that the better.”
“But what we s’pose to tell Mr. Turner?” asked Christopher-John.
“Papa’ll know what to tell him.”
Christopher-John nodded, then glanced to the road. “You . . . you think Jeremy gonna get Moe to Jackson?”
Oliver, stooped by the tire, straightened. “Ask me, he probably circle right on back to home and hand Moe over to some folks with a rope!”
Christopher-John frowned, uncertain. “I . . . I don’t think so.”
“Watch my words,” said Oliver. “He get hisself in a tight enough spot, he will.”
“Hey!” Sheriff Dobbs yelled from the Boudein car. “Ain’t y’all got that tire on yet? Thought y’all wanted to get on back to Jackson so fast. What y’all still standin’ there for?”
Little Willie slapped the cap on the tire. Stacey glanced over as he unhooked the jack. “We’re going now,” he said. The sheriff looked away. Stacey looked back at Christopher-John and Little Man. “Y’all go on over to Mr. John Rankin’s place, see if he can’t take y’all home. Now, you’ll be all right?”
“Yeah, we’ll be fine,” Little Man assured him.
“Yeah, don’t worry none ’bout us,” said Christopher-John.
“Remember what I said, now.”
Both boys nodded. “We will . . . .”
“Look,” said Clarence, glancing to the road and Sissy standing there, her arms folded across her chest staring up the road the way Harris had gone, “y’all see to Sissy getting home, will ya? Don’t let her give ya no trouble. Spite what she might wanna do, y’all just make sure ya take her on home when y’all go.”
“Sure we will,” said Little Man.
“We take care of her,” Christopher-John promised him. “All of us, we be fine. Don’t y’all worry none. Y’all better go.”
Stacey embraced each of them. “Y’all take care.”
“Y’all do the same,” they returned.
I hugged them as well. I hugged them tight and got into the car. Little Willie and Oliver got in too. Clarence took one last look at Sissy and followed. Stacey started the Ford, and we left Strawberry. Mr. Boudein and the other men trailed us. I looked back for a last glimpse of the town. Christopher-John, Little Man, and Sissy were still there, watching us. The street curved, and I looked straight ahead to the rusty, dirt road that we would travel to Jackson.
Oliver leaned forward. “You really trust him?”
Stacey turned slightly. “What?”
“That white boy, Jeremy Simms. You actually believe he’s going to take Moe to Jackson?”
Stacey met Oliver’s eyes in the rearview mirror and sighed. “Trusted him before. Figure I got no choice but to trust him now.”
Oliver settled back and said nothing else. Stacey said nothing else either. Yes, we had trusted Jeremy before all right, but now that seemed so long ago. All we could do was hope that we could trust him still.
Escape From Jackson
When we got to Jackson, we went straight to Lynch Street and the cafe. We hoped to find Moe waiting there, but he wasn’t. With Cousin Hugh and Cousin Sylvie still at Great Faith and not expected back until late Sunday, Oliver’s older sister, Jessie, and her husband, Jasper, were running the cafe; they said they hadn’t seen Moe. No one else had either. We went to the house, checked there and down the street at Mrs. Stalnaker’s, where Little Willie and Moe roomed. We called a few places we thought Moe might have gone, then returned to the cafe and waited.
“Now, that scound left from Strawberry ’fore we did,” said Little Willie, sipping at a cup of coffee. “Should’ve done been here by now. Where is that boy?”
Oliver shook his head. “Maybe they got him. Maybe they caught up with him.” He looked around at Stacey. “Or maybe that white boy Jeremy Simms changed his mind and let his daddy have him.”
“You think that?” I asked Stacey.
Stacey, who had for some time been staring into his cup, raised his head and looked at me. “Don’t think anything yet, Cassie.”
“Well, what we going to do?” asked Willie.
Stacey was thoughtful, then he looked at Willie. “Going to sit here and wait for Moe. He doesn’t come in soon, though, I figure to go out looking for him.”
“Where?” I questioned. “I know he got fired from the box factory.”
He looked at me as if he hadn’t expected me to know. I shrugged. “Moe told me.”
Little Willie checked his watch. “You know, Stace, we got less than an hour to get to work ourselves, we don’t wanna be late.”
“Well, I’m not going to work. Least not till I know about Moe. We can’t find him here in Jackson, we’ll have to call down to Strawberry, or go home, see what happened to him.”
Little Willie nodded sober agreement. “Course, now, we might just hafta kiss that ole job good-bye then, we don’t show up. Know they got rid of that Allen boy just last week for not showing up.”
“Well, I’m about ready to be finished with it anyway,” said Stacey.
“Yeah, me too,” agreed Willie, “especially if we can finally get on with the trucking company.”
“Anybody got any more B.C.?” asked Clarence, who had been sitting quietly in the booth, his head leaned against the back of the wooden seat. “My head is killing me.”
I turned. “Boy, you took a whole pack of those things already.”
“Yeah, I know. But seem like I just can’t get rid of this here headache. That Sissy and all that mess in Strawberry done got me so worked up, can’t make it go away.”
Oliver motioned toward the back of the cafe. “There’s a sofa in that back room there. Maybe you better stretch out.”
“Don’t need to stretch out. Just need something for my head, then I be ready to take on the world.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, and got up. “I’ll see if maybe Jessie has some in the kitchen.”
“Thanks, Cassie.”
“Least I can do, seeing you about to become a daddy.”
Little Willie laughed. “Yeah, that’s right, Cassie! Take care of this man!”
I got two packs of BCs from Jessie and a glass of water, then returned to the table. As I sat down a man and a woman came in and I took note of them. The woman was striking, fashionably dressed in a bold Irish-green suit, and wore a dart of a green hat on her upswept hairdo. She looked out of place in the neighborhood cafe. I only got a glimpse of the man, whose back was to me, his eyes on the woman in green. I hadn’t seen either one of them in the cafe before. Oliver, who was at the cash register, hurried over and shook the man’s hand, then personally found them a table.
“Cassie, you gonna let me have my medicine?”
“What?” I said, turning back to Clarence. “Oh, yeah.” I gave the medicine to him, and he quickly ripped open one of the packages and took out a sliver of wrapped powder. Puttin
g the wrapping to his mouth, he threw back his head and downed the white dust. I grimaced. “Boy, how can you sit there and take that stuff without water?”
He made a face at the taste. “Ain’t so bad. Done tasted worse.”
Stacey slapped the table and got up. “I’m going looking for Moe.”
“Well, I’ll be going with you, then,” said Willie, standing too.
Oliver came over. “Y’all leaving now?”
“Figure it’s time,” said Stacey.
Clarence and Oliver decided to go as well. So did I. Stacey, however, wouldn’t hear of it. He said I needed to stay and study with the students I was supposed to be meeting for my upcoming debate. “But they’re not even here yet,” I pointed out.
“They’ll come. That grade’s important so you just wait for them. Besides, maybe Moe’ll come here, so you’ll be here if he comes. We won’t be long.”
I decided not to protest further. They left, and I went off to the kitchen to let Jessie know I was going to be studying in the back room. “Anybody comes in looking for me, tell them I’m back there, will you?” Jessie, who was busy frying a batch of hamburgers, grunted that she would. I pushed the kitchen door open, then turned back to Jessie. “It’s getting pretty crowded out there. You need me to help out? I can, you know.”
“No, you go on study, sugar. Jasper and me, we can handle things.”
“All right, but you need me, you call me, now.”
“Don’t worry, I will,” she assured me as she turned her burgers.
I went back through the cafe and down a short hallway to the storage room. Officially the storage room was supposed to be Cousin Hugh’s office, but he didn’t spend much time in it. Neither did Cousin Sylvie. They were always too busy in the cafe or the barber or beauty shop. The room was cluttered with boxes and crates, but it also had an old sofa, and I found it a comfortable place to study. In fact, I was here more than just about anybody else.
I pulled three of my books from a shelf and sat down. Two of the books were library books I had gotten to prepare for the upcoming debate. The third book was my own and had nothing to do with FDR and the New Deal. It was titled The Law: Case Histories of a Free Society, and it was what I called my lawyer book because Mr. Wade Jamison had given it to me. Though it was my favorite book, I put it aside for the time being and opened up one of the other books, and tried to concentrate on the debate. My mind, though, wasn’t on the debate at the moment. It kept slipping back to Moe and what had happened in Strawberry. Finally I decided I couldn’t be worrying about the New Deal right now, and I put the book aside, picked up The Law: Case Histories of a Free Society, turned to where I had last left off, and began to read. Soon I was engrossed in the reading. The book was filled with court cases, and it gave me great satisfaction to read a case, then try to figure out what the decision would be before the decision was disclosed. To me reading a case was like reading through a puzzle. Though I knew there was nothing in these cases that could help Moe out of his mess, they were much more satisfying to me than reading about FDR and the New Deal.
As I read I kicked off my pumps, curled my legs onto the couch, and got comfortable. No sooner than I did, someone knocked on the door, and I looked up, scowling at the interruption, wondering who could be knocking, for most folks just came right on in since the room wasn’t considered a private place. “Door’s not locked!” I called irritably, my mind on my case.
The door then swung open, and a man stood in the shadowed doorway. He wore a finely cut gray suit and held a gray hat in his hand. He was smiling. “You’re obviously not Jasper,” he said. “I was told he was back here.”
“Well, he’s not.”
“I can see that.” He looked around the room at all the clutter. “Not unless he’s stuffed himself into one of these many boxes in here. If you should see him, would you please tell him Solomon Bradley was looking for him?” He turned to leave; then he stepped out of the shadows into the room and came toward me. Now I knew who he was. He was the man who had come into the cafe with the woman in green. “Excuse me, but what’s that you’re reading?” He extended his hand before I could tell him. “May I?”
I gave him the book.
He read the title: “The Law: Case Histories of a Free Society. What college do you go to?”
“Hope to be in college next year, but right now I’m in high school.”
“So this is what they’re reading in high school these days?” There was a twist of a tease in his voice.
“That’s not a high school book.”
“You don’t say.” He glanced from the book to me, as if he expected me to explain what I was doing with it. But I gave no explanation, and he asked for none. “I’ve got to say, this is pretty difficult reading for a high school student.”
I looked at the book, having never thought that myself. “You think so?”
“Believe me, it is. It’s pretty difficult reading for a college student. I’ve read it.”
I stirred with new interest. “No kidding, you have?”
“Constitutional law.”
“What?”
“That’s the law school course I had to read it in.” He sat on a wooden crate near me, leaned forward, an elbow on each knee, and began to thumb through the book.
“You’re a lawyer?”
He kept his eyes on the book. “I didn’t say that.”
“But you were studying the law?”
He was reading now and took several moments before answering. “Uh-huh,” he finally said and pursed his lips, seemingly absorbed in the book. Then he looked at me and flashed a smile. I found myself staring. He was a very attractive man, this Solomon Bradley. He looked to be in his mid-twenties and had an intriguing face. What struck me particularly were his eyes. They were dark, flecked with hazel, and perhaps it was that oddity in them, the sense of light emanating from them, that gave his face such appeal and made me keep my eyes on him longer than I should have. “Plessy versus Ferguson.”
I was so struck by his eyes that he startled me when he spoke. “What?”
“That’s a case. Have you read it?”
“That’s the one where the Supreme Court said that separate but equal was all right. It said segregation was constitutional.”
He smiled as if he hadn’t expected me to know. “I’m impressed. Very impressed. Thing is, though, we might be separate, but we’re certainly not equal, at least not under the law.” He looked off to nowhere in particular, as if his mind was fixed on something else, and nodded. Then he looked again at the book.
As he studied it I studied him. The man was beginning to fascinate me. “Did you finish law school?”
“Yes.”
“Well, if you finished law school,” I said, “then why aren’t you a lawyer?”
“You’re making an assumption. I didn’t say I wasn’t.” “But you said—”
“What I said was, I didn’t say I was. Never make assumptions. That can be a dangerous thing.”
“Well, are you or aren’t you?”
He turned another page and read it before he replied. “I figure you have to practice the law to be a lawyer.”
“And you don’t? Why not?”
He closed the book, looked directly at me, and held my eyes. “I spent time in jail once and that had somewhat of a disturbing effect on me. After that, I didn’t have much respect for the law.”
I was silent.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why? Why I was in jail?”
“No.”
“Why not? You haven’t been bashful about asking anything else so far.”
“Well, I figure jail time is kind of personal, you know. Maybe you wouldn’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh. I see.”
I looked straight into those hazel-flecked eyes. “Would you? Would you want to talk about it?”
He laughed good-naturedly but didn’t answer. “Where did you get a book like this, anyway?”
“A lawyer gave it to me.”
“You planning on becoming a lawyer?”
I hesitated. “No . . . I just like reading up on the law.”
“That sounds to me almost as if the idea has crossed your mind.” I didn’t say anything. “You should think about it. Especially since you don’t seem to mind asking direct questions.”
“You didn’t answer my last one.”
“And you’re persistent too. No, I wouldn’t want to talk about it, not today, thank you.” He cupped his chin in his left hand and studied me. “You know, law’s a tough business. You’d have to be determined.”
“I know. Thing is, even if I studied law, I couldn’t do it here. There’s no law school in Mississippi for colored. I checked.”
“The Gaines case. Are you familiar with it?”
“No.”
“Well, back in ’36 a Negro by the name of Lloyd Gaines applied for admission to the law school at the University of Missouri and was rejected. He went to court about it, and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said that it was the duty of the state of Missouri to provide education to all its citizens and to provide it within the state, not ship them off and pay tuition for them in another state. There’s hope in that, I’d say. Perhaps the same thing could be done if you want to study law.”
I stared at him, wondering if this knowledgeable man knew anything about Mississippi. He half smiled. “What is it?”
“You expect me to go applying to the University of Mississippi?”
He laughed, a deeply resonant kind of laugh. “You say that as if you think I’m a bit crazed.”
“Not for me to say. But Missouri’s one thing, Mississippi’s another, and Mississippi is definitely not Missouri. A body’d have to be crazy to try something like that here.”
“An outspoken woman. I like that.” He was still smiling. “Well, if you’re not up to taking on the state of Mississippi quite yet, you can always apply to the state to fund your law school education somewhere else. As I said, the state’s supposed to do that, at least, for those fields of study that aren’t open to you here, and that’s still in effect despite the Supreme Court ruling.” He paused and grinned. “Course, the hitch is that they seldom do. They decide what Negroes should be studying, and what they usually decide Negroes should be studying are those fields Negroes can already study here in the state.”
The Road to Memphis Page 13