“Get away from here, girl,” Shirley yells when Kath Ella walks to the table. “Do you want the smell to get on your clothes?”
After using her hips to push Kath Ella away from the table, Shirley reaches for the ball of twine. “You’re not going back to work today, are you?” she says.
“I wanted to. Why did you let me fall asleep again?”
“Because you should rest another day.”
“I’ve rested all weekend, and yesterday. That’s enough.”
“Do you remember what happened?”
Kath Ella shakes her head. “Why is my luggage in the living room?”
“George brought it home.”
“But I’m spending the summer with Luela.”
“Not anymore.” Shirley takes off her hat and fans her neck. “George wrote to the college, asking if they’ll let you come back early.”
“I need to earn money this summer,” Kath Ella says.
“Yes, but you have shown that you can’t manage to stay out of trouble long enough to make any.”
“I’m not going to quit my job.”
“Your father’s not asking you to quit your job, just end it early.”
“I wasn’t doing anything wrong in Simms Corner.”
“Nothing you can remember. But something wrong put Kiendra in the hospital. And now your father and I have to bring you downtown for a hearing with the peace officer. George wants you on a bus soon as the hearing is over.”
“This is madness.”
“Quite the contrary. Your father is trying to send you away from madness.”
Kath Ella picks up her father’s Beretta knife and begins cutting lengths of twine. What little energy she had after her nap has dissipated. But she cannot bring herself to lie around the house, afraid of remembering what happened at the apartment building. “Daddy doesn’t have to get me a ride to see Kiendra,” she says. “I can ask Omar to give me a lift to the hospital.”
As Kath Ella expects, the mention of Chevy Platt’s great-nephew, Omar, who also works at the business in Simms Corner, causes Shirley’s back to stiffen. She takes the knife from Kath Ella and shoves it into the pocket of her dress. “Did you know Omar Platt is behind in his studies?” she asks. “That’s what I learned when he was here yesterday.”
“Omar was here yesterday?”
“Barely a few minutes.”
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
Shirley shrugs and ties another bunch of onions. “That boy may be smart,” she says, inspecting her knot. “But he does not apply himself. What kind of young man is that for you? Wasn’t there a college boy in Montreal? Philip somebody?”
“Philippe,” Kath Ella says. “You wouldn’t like him either. He has too many lady friends.”
Kath Ella walks out of the shed quickly. She crosses the yard, surprised by the anger she feels at hearing mention of Philippe Mallachoy. There will be no going back to that boy.
Shirley may be right about her being too exhausted to go to work today, she tells herself in the bedroom, but Shirley is not right about Omar Platt. If her mind had been right in the shed earlier, Kath Ella would have mentioned that she had seen a brand-new Strengths of Materials textbook on the desk Omar shares with the assistant office manager. Shirley would be pleased to hear that Omar is back in school. But after the headaches Kath Ella has had with those men in Montreal, she is not ready to sing the praises of another man. And Shirley needn’t worry about her daughter having strong feelings for Omar Platt. Since arriving in Halifax from Mississippi at six years old to live with his great-uncle, Omar has been visiting the bluff for years. Yet Kath Ella barely knows him. Still, seeing him last night might have helped her feel better.
Trying to think what she might give Kiendra to replace the lost bracelet, Kath Ella reaches for the rosewood jewelry box. The imitation pearl brooch might be the thing. But if it’s true that the bullet barely missed Kiendra’s heart, is a chest brooch appropriate? Kath Ella reaches into another compartment, afraid of recalling too much how she felt when she learned the extent of Kiendra’s injury. She wants to feel better, so she lets herself recall the rush of heat to her face the day Philippe Mallachoy placed the earrings with tiny blue stones into her hand. If she gives them to Kiendra, each time she sees them on Kiendra’s ears she’ll regret lacking the strength to send back the earrings in the letter she mailed to Philippe before leaving Montreal.
For years Kath Ella and her sister, Luela, have admired their grandmother’s jewelry box. Yet her sister had surrendered their grandmother’s treasure to her, as a present for graduating from Woods Bluff Elementary and Secondary. Each time Kath Ella returns home for the summer, Kiendra’s sister, Donnita, has acted like a generous older sister. Unable to choose a new present for Kiendra, Kath Ella closes the jewelry box. Why can’t she be generous, too?
From the bureau, she picks up the cookie tin with the horse on the front, wanting to throw it out the window. What on earth would compel one of the girls to say that Kath Ella is the reason Kiendra got shot? That is patently wrong. But, then, is it?
Later, bright sunlight bears down on Dempsey Road as Kath Ella enters a neighbor’s yard carrying the tin. Word has probably gotten around that she doesn’t remember what happened at the building. Still, some neighbors will ask anyway. She might well sit for a moment in a neighbor’s living room or on their porch and explain that she hopes to remember more after her visit to the hospital. She will say the best thing the neighbor can do for the Penncampbell family is to pray for Kiendra’s recovery. Even if you have already given a little money, she will say, a little more would be a great help.
Omar Platt and the American Nurse
Kath Ella gets off the crowded and noisy city bus in front of the building in Simms Corner, missing the two days she had walked to work from her sister’s apartment. Each day, refreshed from her leisurely four-block walk, she began work swollen with the mature pride of a young woman soon to be a college graduate. She left work late last Thursday afternoon a bit tired but eager for a summer at her new job. There were to be new experiences living in Simms Corner, plenty of them more fun than spending the summer at her parents’ house on the bluff. But what a horrible few days it has been since. And now that she has once again lowered herself in her parents’ eyes, they want her out of their sight. Especially her father. When has that man ever corresponded with anyone at the college? Clearly he’s got a rock in his claw to ship her off to college early.
Given all the stern warnings her father has been giving her these last few days about how she should comport herself when traversing the city, Kath Ella half expected him to suggest that she needed a chaperone again to ride the bus. But knowing how upset she was about having to move out of her sister’s apartment, perhaps he decided not to push his luck.
Platt’s Insurance and Surety does business in Simms Corner at 654 Gottingen Street, a two-story, beige brick building that also houses a dentist, a dry cleaner, and a beauty shop.
“Not today, sugar,” the office manager tells Kath Ella in the small lobby, where she is about to sit down at the reception desk. “Go on to the back. We’ll find something else for you to do today, rather than deal with the customers.”
But sorting papers and making files brings Kath Ella no relief. She is in no mood to sit in the back office. Omar’s older cousin, Kiryl Platt, who runs the office now that Chevy Platt is retired, always finds a reason to come back there. And invariably when he does, out of the prying eyes of the office manager, he asks her if she has a boyfriend in Montreal. He has already hinted that if she wants more money he can make that happen. It isn’t just that Kiryl Platt is older. She has heard that he can be very petty and mean.
As noon approaches, she wonders when Omar will get in. If he does not come into the office today, as he usually does, how will she get to the hospital this evening? Was it just talk when Omar told Shirley he would give her a ride? The day she started to work here at this office he told her that if she needed to go s
omeplace after work, she should say the word and he would borrow his great-uncle’s Lincoln. A long bus ride home from the hospital after seeing Kiendra would be very gloomy, so today she would be happy to accept the offer.
Omar finally arrives at half past noon, carrying a large bag of food from the deli up the street. He and Kath Ella take their sandwiches outside and walk up the stairs to the second-floor balcony. Kath Ella sits on the bench with her sandwich while Omar unwraps his standing at the railing. Tall and lanky, he wears an off-white shirt, with the usual hurried-looking knot in his necktie. This summer she has been trying to be nicer to him, after finding out he was the person who asked Chevy to give her a job here at the insurance business. Being nice to him is not easy, given how he confounds her. She dislikes how quiet he is during the first moments they are together. Last summer he badgered her for several days until she said yes to his invitation to accompany her to the San Gennaro festival. She was dressed and ready on Sunday afternoon, but he never showed. She later learned that on the Friday before the festival he had taken the several-hour drive to Preston to visit a distant aunt and uncle. Watching him peel back the wax paper from his pork chop sandwich now, she is dying to ask him what happened during his recent visit. Omar’s face looks hard, so something heavy must be on his mind. Why does time spent with those relatives always put him in a foul mood?
“I saw a few letters in your back pocket,” Kath Ella says, when Omar sits beside her. “You are sitting on them now, you know? They must be getting wrinkled.”
“Don’t much care if they do.”
“Every letter’s important. Don’t you think?”
Omar takes a big bite out of the sandwich. He chews, watching a delivery truck speed past on Gottingen Street. There is a cool wind, but his brown hair sticks to his sweaty forehead. “There was a disturbance,” he says, after a while.
“In Preston?”
“No, at the prison in Mississippi. My father was killed.”
“My goodness.”
When Omar turns toward her, Kath Ella drops a fried potato wedge onto the waxed paper. Now the sun seems to hit every hard angle on his narrow face. “When did it happen?” she asks.
“Three months ago.”
“Is that what’s in the letters?”
“The news came from my aunt. My mother never wrote to me with any news about my father,” he says. “All she ever tells me in her letters is ‘Be good, find some work, keep your senses about you.’ I wonder why she writes at all.”
While they continue eating, Kath Ella tries to recall the few grainy pictures she has seen of Omar’s father. She knows his name, Matthew. In every picture she has seen of Matthew Platt, he is smiling. No resemblance to Omar there. Omar rarely smiles.
Across Gottingen Street, an elderly woman in a red rain slicker strolls up the sidewalk, followed by a boy pushing a girl on a tricycle. The group is heading for the archway over the entrance to the parking lot of the Battleship Inn. Mounted atop the archway is an anchor as tall as Omar. Folks say that, years ago, you could see the corona from the lit-up anchor at night from way over on Woods Bluff.
“I suppose you missed the funeral. I’m sorry.”
Omar nods. “Chevy’s going to pay my way down to Mississippi. And when I get there, I will ask my mother why she didn’t write to tell me Daddy had died.”
Kath Ella wants to ask more questions, but she sees Kiryl Platt coming out of the family house next door. If he sees her with Omar, he will have something smart to say as he tells them to get back to work. “Maybe we can talk in the car,” Kath Ella says, standing. “Can you still give me a ride to the hospital?”
Heading down the stairs, Kath Ella feels sorry about the news that Omar’s father has died. Still, she has asked him for a ride to the hospital anyway. The request seems to make Omar smile a little. Going to see Kiendra this evening might be a needed diversion for him. His difficulties are not as bad as what Kiendra is facing. And more important, Omar knows it will be a treat for Kiendra to see him.
When Omar first began coming out to Woods Bluff to play softball, Kiendra was the only girl who chased down and tossed back the balls he fouled over the fence behind home plate. When Omar talked about the mischief he got into at the school run by the Evangelical Adventists, Kiendra laughed louder than anyone else. When Omar got older and began ignoring Kiendra and chasing after the girls over in Dartmouth, Kiendra still returned his errant fouls. Omar is my buddy, Kiendra said. Kiendra was also the person who informed Omar that Bullyboy Griffin was telling lies about why Omar had left Mississippi.
On October 12, 1916, Matthew Platt married seventeen-year-old Zera Bradenburg in a large ceremony in Jackson, Mississippi. Several weeks after their wedding, Matthew became assistant principal at the colored high school in Jackson, a job that required him to attend community events with the county superintendent. One evening at a dinner, Matthew and Zera were seated at a large table in the back of the auditorium with a coterie of retired colored soldiers in well-worn Confederate uniforms.
“May I ask why you served, sir?” Matthew asked the colored man seated next to him.
“The South is colored country, not the North,” the veteran said. “The South’s where we live, where we raise our children.” He was a small, dark man missing several teeth but with all his hair. He took a draw on his cigar, glancing at the two white men rounding the table and shaking hands with the other colored veterans. “Things were bad in the South, but they were getting better. The invasion by the North threatened that.”
Doubting the veteran’s logic, Zera resumed the conversation she had started with the veteran’s daughter. “My father’s done his duty for the Old South,” the daughter said, pressing a folded notice into Zera’s hand. “Will you come see about doing something to help the New South?”
Matthew was offended that the woman assumed he and his wife had not already done something to help the South. As a college student, he had spent summers traveling the state of Mississippi with his father to raise funds to build schools for colored children.
“But where are the new colored schools we’ve been promised?” the veteran’s daughter asked Matthew when the dinner was ending. “Not a single school has been built in Mississippi during the last five years. Several have been built in neighboring states. Two in Alabama, for heaven’s sake. Radical action is what is needed here.”
On the drive home, Matthew admitted to Zera that he was frustrated with how few new schools had been built in Mississippi. Several weeks later the two sat in the auditorium of the Mechanics’ Building, listening to the veteran’s daughter tell those assembled that the group of people she represented had a surefire plan to get more schools built. On the wall behind the woman was a large banner proclaiming THE NEW CONFEDERATES—WE GET IT DONE WHEN OTHERS CAN’T OR WON’T.
The daughter turned the podium over to a young white man. He asked for volunteers willing to travel the state with the group, raising funds and recruiting new members. One man stood up. But it was to remind the audience about the reports of the gang of colored teenagers on the loose, robbing and destroying property all over Mississippi. Four boys in one gang had already been lynched.
“Good riddance for those troublemakers,” someone responded.
“All right,” the man said. “They have God to answer to. But what about the other twenty colored boys who have been lynched this year with no due process? And the ten adults? With all this trouble about, is it wise for a colored man to travel outside a county where he’s known by white and colored alike?”
The speaker replied that members of his group were irate over the lack of government commitment to educating the colored representatives of America’s future, and over the lack of government attention to a whole host of societal ills.
“The youth of the New Confederates have passion and commitment,” the young man said. “We will not fail you.”
Matthew Platt’s parents had warned him to be wary of the New Confederates. Interrupting poli
tical speeches and handing out sleeve patches on college campuses was one thing. But throwing blood on government officials and damaging private property was a serious matter.
Matthew and Zera joined the group anyway. During the first years they were members of the group, Matthew did little more than give talks at churches in Jackson and surrounding counties. When their son Omar started walking, Matthew and Zera were promoted to the education and orientation committee. Using a handbook titled Tactics for Recovery, they gave seminars as far south as Gulfport and as far north as Tupelo. Both were still uneasy about joining in the group’s more radical activities, but one day they agreed to go along on a protest. That evening, several members of the group were painting a message on the side of the governor’s houseboat when a white dockworker attempting to chase them away slipped off the pier and drowned.
The trials for Zera and Matthew were held on the same day, August 18, 1923. And both lasted less than a quarter hour. The judge pronounced the same sentence to Zera and Matthew: death by hanging.
Several weeks later, while an appellate court was considering the appeals, six-year-old Omar visited his mother at the county jail. The waves had fallen out of Zera Platt’s tea-colored hair, and her tense face was unpowdered. Though she and Matthew were light enough to pass for white, both were quick to tell strangers they were colored. She offered no reassuring words to her son. All she wanted to discuss were the items Omar should take with him to Canada.
“That herringbone bracelet I’m sending with you was the first present I ever got from your father,” Zera told Omar. They faced each other across the foot-high wall on the long table of the visitors’ room. “One day you should give it to the woman you plan to marry.”
“I ain’t going up to Canada,” Omar said.
“Ain’t?” Zera said, looking cross. “You mean you are not. And yes, sir, you are going.”
“I want to see Daddy.”
Zera opened the heavy Bible on the table. She flipped several flimsy pages to reach the end, where she read from the Concordia: “It was said that you should love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who spite and persecute you.”
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