I kept picturing George sitting behind a table in an empty room, with a bunch of angry white men yelling at him, him telling them the same story over and over again only to have them ask him the same questions again and again. George asking when he could go home. If he could see his parents. Crying. I’d never seen George cry, but I knew he’d have been crying. I would’ve been crying.
“You know what else Pete told me?” Poppy was frowning at Granny and shaking his head. “He said that he saw the deputy leave the station and come back with an ice cream cone.”
“Ice cream?” Granny looked puzzled.
“Yeah. He went on in to see George with an ice cream cone. Came out with a confession.”
“You don’t think he got George to say he did it by promising him ice cream?” Granny asked.
“I don’t know what to think,” Poppy said. “It wasn’t no time later they arrested George for murder. Said he confessed to the killings,” he said.
“There’s no way George killed them girls!” Myrna shouted.
“I know it, Myrna. I know it.” Poppy went to her and put his arms around her to calm her.
“They made him say that! Forced him!” said Myrna. She sobbed into his chest and he shushed her and patted her back.
It was a terrible thing for Ella to come home to. The entire town had its fur on end. White folks was mad and colored folks was scared.
We kids were all instructed to be inside by six PM every night. If we had to go out, we were to go directly, and return promptly. No dillydallying. And we were to absolutely not be outside after dark. It wasn’t just a rule for our household, but for every colored family in the town.
Every day, Poppy went into town to get more news on George.
One day, after I helped Poppy load the truck up with feed at Parker’s, Poppy decided to take me with him for his daily visit to see Pete at the courthouse. I waited for him in the truck, and when he came back, he was fired up. Brow furrowed. Eyes and nostrils wide.
“We got one more stop to make,” he said, and drove us to the sawmill a couple miles down. He didn’t say nothing the whole ride there and I knew better than to ask him nothing. But when we got to the mill, I hopped out and followed him. He nodded hello to the workers there, but didn’t stop. Most of ’em knew Poppy and he sure knew his way around the place. He wound through the large tables covered in lumber and quickly passed under the large machinery until we arrived near the back of the mill where George Stinney Sr. was loading a small canvas bag with tools. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, and I was pretty sure he hadn’t. The lines bore deep into his cheeks. He looked up at Poppy, eyes weary.
“Cyrus?” He only looked up a moment then went right back to what he was doing.
“George, Pete done told me you folks is leaving.” Poppy stared into his face even though Mr. Stinney didn’t seem to have the time, the patience, or the energy to look up.
“They just fired me. Told me we has to get out of our cabin. Ain’t got no choice.”
Most of the colored folks in Alcolu worked the sawmill, and the sawmill provided the families with housing. “Besides…” Mr. Stinney hesitated before he spoke again. He motioned Poppy to move on off to the side, out of earshot of the white workers. “It’s bad, Cyrus. The Klan’s been making threats. I gotta get the rest of my family outta here ’fore something bad happens. They’s talking ’bout moving George to a cell in Columbia. They’re fearing if they keep him here, there’ll be a lynching.”
My mind was racing. What would happen to George when they finally let him out of jail and his family wasn’t in town no more? Where would he go? Would he find them? If they were afraid for their safety maybe they wouldn’t tell nobody where they were. And if they kept it a secret, George would never know how to find them.
We’d take him in. Yes, of course we would. He’d come live with us until his family finally told someone where they were. Until then, George could stay in my room with me. He’d be like a big brother. We could tend the cow and the pigs together. He could teach me how to win at marbles and I could show him all the knots I know how to tie. All of us could play kick the can. Myrna and Granny would make him peas and collards, corn and bread pudding. We’d fish in the day and find the constellations at night. When we were old enough, he’d teach me how to drive a truck.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Stinney,” I said. “When George gets out, he can come stay with us.”
For a moment, I thought maybe I saw the beginnings of a smile in Mr. Stinney’s eyes. Then from behind us—
“Boy, you’ll just be giving us cause to bring more rope.” The white workers had heard everything. They stood in a pack, glaring at us.
Mr. Stinney quickly packed the last of the tools.
“I gotta go,” he said, head bent low as he hurried out of the mill.
henry
Ella hadn’t been the same since she returned from Boston. Mind you, with George’s arrest and all, it was hard to notice at first. All of our worlds had been knocked off balance. But there was something churning inside Ella. Something she wasn’t sharing. And while I’d cried for George plenty, and Myrna wasn’t doing nothing but crying, I hadn’t seen Ella cry once.
She’d come back from Boston after less than four months, and there didn’t seem to be any more talk of her going back. I guess Aunt Lucille had too much work to do and just couldn’t manage her jobs and Ella. I knew Ella had to be plenty upset about having to come back. Especially with how sudden it was. But whenever I tried to talk to her about it, she just shrugged it off and said she didn’t like Boston anyway. But I could tell she was sad inside. She could try all she wanted to make like it didn’t bother her, but I knew Ella. I think I knew Ella better than Ella knew Ella sometimes. She’d get to denying her feelings about things, trying to sweep them under the rug, but I could always see that big lumpy pile of stuff she was trying to hide clear as day.
It wasn’t long before Ella went and showed all that anger she’d been holding on to.
We was at recess and she was playing jackstones with some other kids, and, as usual, Ella was winning. Ella was the queen of jackstones. Anybody who knew anything knew that. But Pookie Rogers didn’t know nothing, so when she came upon Ella dominating yet another jackstones game, Pookie walked straight through the middle of the game, stepping on and kicking away jacks. Everyone watching began shouting at Pookie.
“What’s wrong with you!”
“Look where you’re going!”
“You did that on purpose!”
The only person who didn’t make a sound was Ella. That was the first sign of bad. I knew she didn’t like Pookie to begin with. So while everybody else was busy yelling and fussing at Pookie, I had my eyes on Ella. Still, I couldn’t stop her in time. She pounced on Pookie hard and fast. Took her down to the pavement and whaled on her with all the anger and frustration she’d been keeping a lid on.
Everybody huddled around, most of ’em laughing and pointing at Pookie’s exposed underwear.
“Get offa meeeeee!” Pookie hollered as she did her best to block Ella’s fierce assault.
“Ella! Ella, stop it!” I shouted, but she couldn’t hear a thing. She was lost in her fire.
I jumped in and pulled her off of Pookie. I swear, my cousin was darn near foaming at the mouth. Sure enough, she got suspended for the rest of that week, and she was given two book report assignments that she was to complete before she returned to school. Before she was let go for the day, she had to write on the board, in cursive, I will not strike another one hundred times.
But the worst of it was earlier, watching her have to apologize to Pookie Rogers. She does not like to apologize to anybody ever, but to have to do it to that girl? That girl who had started it all? Who stood across from Ella, arms folded, gloating?
Ella was shaking with rage.
I saw the tears well up in her eyes as she looked at Pookie and said the words. After she had, she turned to Principal Lacey.
“May I go n
ow?”
“Yes, Ella,” Principal Lacey said, then she turned to me. “Henry, you make sure your cousin goes straight to Mrs. Fowler’s room.”
Ella and I walked out. Her nose was still flared. Her eyes still glassy and thick with tears that she refused to let fall.
Later, on the way home, Ella finally started talking about Boston. I think the fight had uncorked all the feelings she’d been keeping bottled up. At first, it was the same ol’ talk about how it was all crowded with buildings and cars and people. A place I didn’t think I’d like too much. But then she said she thought she may have made a discovery about her daddy.
We found a wide tree with a nice dry patch of grassy weeds in front of it. I had a seat, leaned back, and enjoyed the apple I had left over from lunch while Ella told me everything.
“You can’t tell nobody! I wasn’t supposed to be snooping,” she started, then proceeded to tell me about a letter she’d found, and a record. “The letter was postmarked 1936, from right here in Alcolu. I was four in 1936! You would’ve been five. Do you remember him?” She tapped me on the forehead with a floppy stick of wet licorice. “NO!” she answered for me. “Me neither. Story goes that Mama got pregnant and he left for California before I was even born. But the same fella that wrote the letter in 1936 was the one in the studio with her. And I was in her belly when she made that recording in the studio. She told me so! J.P. He signed her record and the letter J.P.”
“Not C.C.?” I smiled.
“Huh?”
“Cab Calloway?” I couldn’t resist teasing her, but she was in no mood. I quickly shifted gears. “Maybe he left for California and came back,” I offered.
“Okay, okay, say he did. I thought about that. How come no one ever said anything about that? What’s the big secret? If he’s still in contact with Mama, then why ain’t he in contact with me?” she asked. “Heck, maybe Granny and Poppy don’t even know who he is. Maybe Mama never told them.” She plopped back down on the ground next to me, chewing on her candy and talking at the same time.
“Well, I don’t know about that, Ella. Your ma is Granny’s daughter! You don’t think she saw them together before?” But Ella wasn’t paying me no mind at all. She seemed to like the idea of her daddy as a mystery man. “I think you should just ask Granny. She’ll tell you, Ella.”
“I asked Granny, dummy! I know I told you that.”
“You did not.”
“Sure I did. You can’t remember nothing.”
Ella wasn’t crazy, though. There was something kind of mysterious about her daddy. No one had a photo of him. No one ever talked about him.
“Too bad we can’t get to some jazz joints in Charleston. Places your mama may have gone,” I said.
“What good would that do?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe somebody saw them together. If we could get into some clubs we could show them a picture of your mama and see if—”
She jumped up on her elbows again. “Your mama could do it! She could ask around.”
“But she won’t. I’ve asked her about your daddy and she just shrugs at me. Says she really doesn’t know. And she ain’t all that keen on jazz. She don’t go to those clubs.” I tried to think. “Only person I know who likes that music around here is Mr. Parker.”
“He does? How you know?”
“My mama told me. He used to go to them clubs. Only white boy in there. Ain’t that funny? Plus, I’ve heard him playing the records. Just before he opens up, if I get there early, I can hear him in there with the phonograph cranked up.”
“Don’t nobody pass through Alcolu without visiting his store. Maybe he knows something,” she said.
“What? Why? He’s white. ’Sides, I think his daddy was running the shop back then.”
“Folks say his daddy was mean!” She lay back down and seemed to be silently asking the sky for advice.
Word was old Mr. Parker was ornery as the devil and used to beat on his whole family for sport. Drove his sweet wife to an early grave, they said. Apparently, young Mr. Parker had tried to leave once. He moved away from our small town with sights on making a new life for hisself up north, but when his daddy died, seeing as he didn’t yet have anything else, he came back to run his pop’s business.
I shrugged. “My guess is your daddy is in California. Probably came back through here at some point—”
“No, now wait, Henry! Mr. Parker just might know something. I’ll betcha he knows somebody. If he’s into that music, went to all them clubs in Charleston, he’s got to. And maybe that somebody knows somebody else.… Heck, it’s worth a shot.”
“What’s worth a shot?” Just the thought of Ella scheming got me nervous.
“Checking his office for clues!” She’d flipped over onto her belly again and propped herself up on her elbows. “See if there’s any mention of a J.P.”
“How you gonna do that?” I asked.
“I think it’s better if you do it. I’m better at distracting folks,” she said.
“What? I ain’t going into his office!” I chucked my apple core into the woods. “Nuh-uh!”
“Henry, if my daddy did come through here, he didn’t come to see me! He doesn’t even know about me! That ain’t right!” She’d finished her candy and her face was still as she stared off into the distance. “I’m gonna find out who he is, where he is, and he’s gonna know me.”
I had to hand it to my cousin: she was never one for letting anything stop her from getting where she wanted to go. If there was a tree in her road, she’d go ’round it. If she couldn’t go ’round it, she’d climb over it. If she couldn’t climb over it, she’d burrow a hole through it, and if she couldn’t do that, she’d chop the whole thing down.
myrna
I’d written George a letter every day since I first heard they’d taken him in for questioning. I wrote and wrote though I wasn’t sure how I’d get the letters to him. At first, I wrote encouraging him to stay strong. Reminding him that he’d be home soon. That he shouldn’t worry. But as the weeks passed, and he was still locked away, the letters changed. I tried to keep my spirits high for him, to be positive. I wanted to be a pillar, unwavering. But inside I was crumbling. I felt so helpless and frightened. I did my best to keep the letters hopeful for him, but deep down I knew they’d never reach him. I guess I’d really been writing the letters for me. I needed to stay strong.
The whole town was tense. If ever I did pass a white person, I kept my head bent and walked on. You could feel the anger bubbling in the air. As far as they were concerned, a colored boy had gone and murdered those two little white girls. Most white folks had accepted that as truth even though there hadn’t been no trial yet. I heard them say awful, ugly things about George, none of it true. I wanted to shout in their horrible faces when they sucked their teeth and scowled as I passed. I wanted to tell them who George was, how he didn’t do it and had only been trying to help, that they were being unfair not giving him a chance, but I kept a tight lid on top of all of it. Head bent, and eyes down.
Pastor Nichols had been keeping the church open to folks all day since George’s arrest. More than ever, we needed a place to come together and hold each other and to pray. But every day he closed the doors at six. He had imposed a curfew on our whole community. We couldn’t be sure that some dark and angry soul wouldn’t get it in them to seek revenge. Pastor said we all needed to be safely in our homes before dark. There wasn’t necessarily anything to be fearful of, he said. It was simply a precaution.
Saturday morning, Granny sent me, Ella, and Henry to Parker’s to get raisins so she could make cookies for Sunday service. Ever since George had been arrested, she’d been sending us out in twos and threes. It also seemed like, more and more, Granny was coming up with new errands to send me out on or chores ’round the house to give me. Surely she was tired of seeing me curled up in a ball on my bed, soaking my pillowcase from sobbing.
It wasn’t just George and how they’d locked him up
and accused him of something terrible that had me all knotted up—it was the injustice of it all. I knew that things weren’t always fair, especially for colored folks, but I had never experienced such fierce disregard for the truth up close like this. Nobody wanted to hear that George was innocent. No white folks, anyhow. Sure, there was that darn “confession,” but any sensible person knew that it just didn’t sound right. The whole thing had me frightened to the core. How were you supposed to move about in the world if every step you took, and the safety of those steps, was determined by strangers who decided who you were just by looking at you? Without you speaking a word? Uttering a sound? Without knowing anything else about you? If they looked at you and didn’t like what they saw, well, that was just too bad for you. Nothing you could do about it. Nothing you could say to them could change it ’cause those folks could not hear your sounds. To them, your voice was the faint scrape of shoes on the floorboards, the hinge on the closing door. Barely there. Unheard. Your figure moved through shops and along streets, peripherally. Eyes never landed on you. You were there, maybe, maybe not. You were unseen. Invisible. A ghost on this earth.
As we approached Parker’s, I took a good look at the shop I’d been coming to my whole life. Most of the folks that shopped at Parker’s were colored folks. We kept that shop running by feeding it money for our laundry soap, our rice and peas, our kerosene, our canned goods. With the measly coins we had, we went to Parker’s for everything, and kept Mr. Parker’s roof over his head and food in his little Millie’s tummy.
Still, white folks shopped at Parker’s, too. And when they did, we stepped aside. We let them go first. We bowed our heads and said “Yessir,” “Good day, ma’am,” and “Thank you, ma’am.” We waited to be served last. Always last.
Mr. Parker came outside and added several baskets to his display on the porch. He propped the front door of the shop open with his iron bullfrog doorstop, and nodded good morning.
“How’s anyone gonna get a paper with ’em all tied up?” He lifted the large stack of the day’s newspaper, still bundled in twine on the steps of the store’s porch, heaved it onto the bench, and snapped the string open with a pocketknife.
How High the Moon Page 13