Ring Shout

by P. Djèlí Clark

  Sadie got it in her head the Warren G. Harding government knows about Ku Kluxes. Say she pieced it together from the tabloids. That Woodrow Wilson was in on Griffith’s plan, but it got out of hand. And now there’s secret departments come about since the war, who go around studying Ku Kluxes. Girl got some imagination.

  “Wherever these things from,” Chef grumbles, “they mighty active of late.”

  She turns to a map pinned to a barn wall. Red dots mark it, indicating Klan activity. Two years back was only a few dots, most here in Georgia. Now there’s red everywhere—through the South, swallowing the Midwest, going far up as Oregon.

  “Mrs. Wells-Barnett’s intel say Klan chapters on the rise,” Chef notes.

  “And how many are Ku Kluxes?” Emma asks, eyeing the sea of red.

  Molly shakes her head. “We haven’t been able to gauge that. Once infected, morphological transformation seems dependent on the individual.”

  That’s science talk for how Klan folk turn Ku Klux. Molly says it’s like an infection, or a parasite. And it feed on hate. She says chemicals in the body change up when you hate strong. When the infection meets that hate, it starts growing until it’s powerful enough to turn the person Ku Klux. Ask me, it’s plain evil them Klans let in, eating them up until they hollow inside. Leave behind bone-white demons who don’t remember they was men.

  “Not to mention,” Molly continues, “they’re rereleasing that movie.”

  We all go sour at that. Seven years since The Birth of a Nation first come out—raising up hate enough to make these Ku Kluxes. Now that wicked D. W. Griffith set to release it again. Suddenly, I remember the poster.

  “They’re showing it Sunday, at Stone Mountain.”

  Everybody looks at me and I explain.

  “Stone Mountain,” Emma murmurs. “Where Simmons did his conjuring.”

  “That movie, what you call a spell, I believe, works to induce hate on a mass scale,” Molly says. “Like how a lynching riles individuals into a mob.”

  Sadie scoffs. “Then why come it only riles white folk?”

  “Whatever the case,” Molly continues, “these Ku Kluxes are born from that hate. If the rerelease of Griffith’s film has the same effect as before, we could be looking at an epidemic. Possibly worse than 1919.”

  Chef whispers a curse before I can get one out; 1919 was a hard year for all of us.

  “You think them Klans dress up to look like Ku Kluxes?” Sadie asks. She’s bent down now, eyeballing the head stuffed into glass. “It white like they hoods, and got a pointy end. Anyway, I say we just blow up some theater houses where the movie’s showing. Like Trotter did in Boston back in ’15.”

  “Mr. Trotter did not blow up a movie house,” Emma corrects. “He only set off a smoke bomb to clear the theater. The riot started after.”

  “Well, let’s blow one up for real,” Sadie insists. “For white folks’ own good, and ours, since they can’t see what’s right under they noses. Monsters all up between them and not a one got the sight!”

  “I can see,” Emma reminds.

  Sadie stands up, frowning. “Jews is white folk?”

  Emma fumbles for words, but Nana Jean cuts in. “Buckrah dem done been waak ’longside de debbil long nuf fuh know’um. Dey jes ain wahn fuh see.”

  Molly clears her throat. “Why some can see the creatures and others can’t is a question for science. More important, we should consider my other theory.”

  “Your notion there is an intelligence guiding these dämonen?” Emma asks.

  Molly nods. “The Ku Kluxes behave like worker ants—spreading the colony. So who’s directing them? There must be some hierarchy we don’t yet understand.”

  “We only ever seen Ku Kluxes,” Chef says. “And they ain’t got much sense.”

  “Sense enough to spread all over,” Sadie mutters.

  My eyes are pulled back to the map. I ain’t put much into Molly’s talk of some brain controlling Ku Kluxes. But all that red reminds me of a chessboard, and the other pieces closing in.

  “If as we believe East St. Louis in 1917 was a prelude to 1919,” Molly presses, “then what do we make of Tulsa? A massive coordinated attack. Our defenses overrun in days—”

  “We remember,” Chef interrupts. The whole barn feel colder at the mention. We ain’t the only ones fighting this war. There’s pockets of resistance all over—Eatonsville, Charleston, Houston. But losing Tulsa last year was a hard blow. I can still see Ku Kluxes marching, clawing through all the fire and smoke.

  “What are you saying?” Emma asks, brown eyes full of worry.

  Molly draws a breath. “The growth of Klan chapters, the creatures’ adaptations, the organized attacks, now the rerelease of that film. If there’s an intelligence behind this—and I believe there is—we’re on the verge of something big. Be ready.”

  I glance to Nana Jean, who standing with her arms folded, face hard as stone as she stares at the Ku Klux arm on the table. In my head, seems I can hear the hot July wind whistling through those bottle trees outside, singing her words.

  Bad wedduh, bad wedduh, bad wedduh, gwine come …

  Notation 32:

  There’s a Shout we call Rock Daniel. Now Daniel was a slave always stealing from massa’s storehouse. Nobody tell. They like getting that meat too. And Daniel’s stealing not no real sin—not when the first set of stealing was they who stole us from Africy. One time, he stealing just as massa coming to the storehouse. The slaves start singing loud to warn him! When we do that Shout, we tell Daniel to “move” and “rock”—to slip past massa’s whip [laughter]! Even in the wickedest times, you got to find some enjoyment. Or you not gon’ survive.

  —Interview with Jupiter “Sticker” Woodberry, age seventy, transliterated from the Gullah by EK

  THREE

  The music at Frenchy’s so loud I feel it on my insides. The piano man up out his seat, one leg hanging off the grainy wood and pounding the keys hard enough to break them. He sweating so I’m wondering how that shiny conk holding up. Whole while he wailing on about some big-boned woman he left in New Orleans, just about jumping out his maroon suit to croon, “And when she roll that jelly!” The crowd roars, men whooping and women fanning hands like to cool him off.

  Frenchy’s Inn not the only colored spot in Macon. But tonight it’s the one to be at. Most here is sharecroppers and laborers. Every table packed. Where there ain’t tables people on their feet, roosted on the stairs—fitting in however. Hardly room to dance or a patch of quiet to think. Whole place is a hot, sweltering, haze-of-July-in-Georgia mess. But long as the liquor pouring and the music going, everybody right as rain.

  Sadie called it. No bootlegging tonight. Nana Jean bid us step out, even if she ain’t one for “de jook jaint nonsense.” Frenchy’s not no regular juke joint, though—no shotgun shack what got leaks in the roof. It’s a full two stories and an inn for colored travelers, nice enough so folk wear their best—which ain’t much for laborers and sharecroppers. But me and my set, we step out in style.

  I traded in my knickers for a marigold dress beaded with embroidery that glitters in the light of kerosene lamps. Chef dressed down in a dark plaid, rust-colored suit with an orange bow tie, looking like she walked right off Harlem’s streets. Even got Sadie out of them overalls and into a red lace chemise gown. Don’t look half-bad on her skinny self, even while she up on our table whistling at the piano man. When he finishes to cheers she climbs down to fall into her seat.

  “Hard to believe your grandpappy was a preacher,” Chef calls over.

  Sadie snorts, flicking back her long braid. “It ain’t Sunday. Grandpappy, rest his soul, won’t mind none.” She picks up a bottle of Mama’s Water before opting for the pilfered whiskey, pouring it heavy in our glasses.

  “Oh, that’s enough for me, Miss Sadie!” a thickset man says. That there’s Lester, a Macon local who always finds his way to us, or more properly to Sadie. She like her men husky, and the two fooled around some months back.
But she got this rule of not spending the night with the same man twice. Say otherwise they get to thinking stupid. Whatever she put on Lester, though, left him nose open, and he been trying to court her since. Some men just like trouble.

  “Lester Henry,” she says in a tone hot enough to lay down your baby hairs. “You betta move that hand from on top your glass ’fore I move it for you. This a juke joint, not no temperance revival!”

  Lester’s smile slides away, drooping his meaty jowls. But he moves his hand.

  Chef barks a laugh. She got an arm around Bessie, another local who remind me of the big-boned woman from the song. Her ruby-painted fingernails trace lazy lines through the part in Chef’s short-trimmed hair and the two lean into each other in the way of lovers rediscovering their familiarity. The sight send my own eyes wandering, until they land on the finest thing in the room.

  Michael George—who folk call Frenchy. On account of his creole talk.

  He come from St. Lucia. Left home when he was sixteen, looking to find work on Roosevelt’s Panama Canal. Only when he get there it was done already. So he started traveling. Been through the West Indies, South America, and whereabouts. Come up to Florida and kept moving, settling in Macon and opening up this spot. Claim it’s a mix of a Mississippi juke joint, rum shops they got in St. Lucia, and spots he seen in Cuba. Say poor folk deserve some fanciness too.

  He standing near the bar—tall and good looking. I can make out the trace of his shoulders under the high-collared striped shirt and ivory suit jacket that fit just right on his dark skin. I’m remembering what he look like with it off too. There’s this spot, where his leg meet his waist, that’s a perfect V, and I imagine my fingers strumming it …

  “Maryse, what you over there smiling about?”

  I turn to find Sadie eyeing me, and sip my whiskey. Was I smiling?

  “You best go get that man ’fore one of them gals try to hitch him.” She nods to a cluster of women around him. “Know good and well that your man. Probably bad-mouthing us too.”

  Maybe so. Folk in Macon have peculiar ideas about us. Say we witches, like they whisper Nana Jean is. You’d think lady bootleggers was scandalous enough.

  Sadie leans close. “You want me to bust up one of them heffas?” Her nostrils flare and the air prickles. She mean it too. Don’t mind our fussing and carrying on. Sadie will tear up this whole joint if she catch whiff somebody out to hurt me or Chef. It’s sweet, in a crazy way.

  “Sadie Watkins, I ain’t never fought over no man and not starting today.”

  “Gal, don’t go starting trouble,” Bessie warns. “Wasn’t for Maryse, Frenchy might not have let you back up in here after last time.”

  Sadie rolls her eyes. But she settles back and I breathe easy. Chef glances my way, mouthing, Stop playing with dynamite!

  We’re saved when Lester starts up on his favorite topic—Marcus Garvey. He traveled up north once and come back with a head full of Garvey. Even sells UNIA newspapers here in Macon. Why he thinks that might impress Sadie I got no idea.

  I look back to Michael George to find his eyes lingering on me above the heads of the women about him. He smiles pretty, like I’m the only other person here, like he’s seeing me again for the first time when we met a year back. Same smile he had on when we walked through the door tonight, catching me in a hug. The solid feel of him still in my head, drinking in his familiar scent mingled with shaving cream. We ain’t get to talk long, just some assurances of later before he set us up at a table. But the heat of his look right now makes my belly flutter, and I’m wondering how long later might be? Somebody calls to him, taking his eyes away, and I’m plunged back into the conversation going on about me.

  “And that’s why Mr. Garvey says the Negro has to go back to Africa, to claim what’s ours.” Leave it up to Lester to talk politics in a juke joint.

  Sadie seems like she only half listening, but then declares, “I say we go to Europe. See how they like getting carved up—beat up as they is after the war.”

  Lester blinks, but picks up quick. He’s used to how Sadie’s mind works.

  “Well, Miss Sadie, Mr. Garvey say let Europe be for the Europeans and Africa for the Africans. That way we make a home for ourselves.”

  “I got a home right here,” Chef says, lighting a Chesterfield. “Bled and fought for it. Still fighting. I ain’t going nowhere.”

  “Won’t argue that,” Lester says. “But we could do great things in Africa. Restore the colored race to our greatness, like in times past.”

  “What you mean, greatness in times past?” Sadie asks, pouring more whiskey.

  “I’m meaning the time colored people ruled the world.”

  Sadie squints. “Colored folk ruled the world? When that happen?”

  “You ain’t read that in your tabloids?” Chef snarks.

  “Oh yes, Miss Sadie! The old Negro empires in ancient times. There’s this colored woman in Oklahoma, Drusilla Houston? She writing a book on how the Ethiopians and Cushites was the first people on Earth. She say at one time the whole world was colored and—”

  “If the whole world was colored,” Sadie interjects, “how white folk come about?”

  Lester looks stumped, but recovers quick. “Well, some say white folk was the first albinos. But I don’t think it so. I read that book by that fella on evolution—”

  “Darwin!” Sadie exclaims. “I know him!”

  “Yes! Well, Darwin say animals change over time. So I’m thinking, why not people? Maybe white folk was colored, and they got paler like they do when they get scared. Or cold. You ain’t never seen white folk pale like they got up north. Either they scared all the time or it’s the cold.”

  For a while Sadie says nothing, glass held to her lips but not drinking. That means she turning something big over in her head. When she talks, it’s almost a whisper.

  “You telling me, white folk is niggers?”

  That leaves Lester speechless.

  Chef shakes her head. “Lord, you done started something now.”

  “Well, Miss Sadie … I suppose … Not how I would put it…”

  “White folk is niggers!” Sadie repeats, slamming her glass hard enough to make Lester jump. “This whole time, they putting on and acting high and mighty! But they just niggers who stayed in the cold too long! Bet that’s why they so mean. Know deep down they come out that same jungle—that the nigger they made up in their heads right under they own skin! Oh, fix your face, Maryse, I’m using the small n.” She fills up Lester’s glass and thrusts it at him. “Tell me more about these Cushees—”

  “Cushites,” he corrects.

  “Yeah, them. I want to know all about this long-ago time when the world was colored.” She sips her whiskey slow. “Talk right and I just might break my rule.”

  Lester sits straight up like his number just hit.

  I’m wondering how I’m going to endure the coming conversation when the twang of a guitar sounds, chased by a harmonica’s whine. The piano man back on his keys, and a lady in a white dress next to him starts clapping and singing. Her voice rides the air strong as a current, lifting folk off their feet. Seem the whole joint is up at once, pairing off and pulling partners into a space opened up for dancing. Chef and Bessie are gone before I can blink. Sadie and Lester follow, though she come back to snatch the whiskey bottle, leaving me alone. Well, that won’t do.

  Downing my whiskey, I get to my feet, maneuvering through hugged-up bodies and swaying hips, all shedding the pain, labors, and trials of their days. A few men—long past drunk—try to stop me, but I slip away easy. The one fool that grabs my arm, I set a look on him so fierce he don’t know if I’m God or the devil, and he lets go quick.

  I find Michael George still near the bar, two women trying to entice him to dance. When he sees me, he excuses himself, leaving them to pout.

  “You just gon’ have me sitting at that table like some old maid?”

  He smiles. “You with your friends dem. I doh want to bot
her you.”

  “I’ll let you know when you bothering me,” I answer, stepping closer. His arms slip around my waist and without another word that music snatches us up, willing us to lose ourselves to it, like it got its own magic. For a brief moment all thoughts of Ku Kluxes and bad premonitions fade away. So that there’s nothing but the music and all of us being baptized in its healing. It’s more than I can take.

  I reach up to whisper, “You need somebody else to lock up.” He looks at me one time before signaling to the bartender. Love I ain’t got to tell him twice, and I’m already pulling him up the stairs.

  By the time we reach his room, we done stopped to trade breathy kisses half a dozen times, hands slipping into and out of each other’s clothes, undoing things and treading across skin. Whole time he begging like a man starving.

  “Maryse girl. I miss you too bad. You mustn’t leave so again. Promise me nah?”

  I don’t make promises. But I plan to let him know just how much I missed him. He barely gets the door closed before I’m pulling off his vest, his shirt, trying not to break a button. Don’t recall how I end up on top the tiger oak tallboy, pressed against the mirror, marigold dress pushed to my waist. He unbuttoning his pants when I stop him.

  “Been a long two weeks and a hell of a day. I need you to do that thing.”

  He runs a precious tongue on his teeth. “You doh even have to ask.”

  When he makes to bend down, I stop him again. “And talk that creole talk.”

  That pretty smile again. “Wi. Chansè pou mwen, mwen enmen manjè èpi mwen enmen palè. Kitè mwen di’w on sigwè…”

  I got no idea what he saying, but it make every bit of me tingle. I will my mind to go easy, listening to the music downstairs, whispering his name and telling him how bad I need this. When his lips start up that creole talk between my thighs, I arch my back and do my own set of singing.