As an Old Memory

by Vic Kerry

  Without saying anything, Sim left the room. He walked down the hall and into the lobby. He ignored the colored receptionist yelling about his copay. The idea that he was crazy because of what happened forty years ago enraged him. The fact that the doctor wanted him to take some kind of brain medicine made him madder. Dr. Sharp might as well have blamed seeing the face on his drinking like Alan had. He reached into his shirt pocket as he got to his truck, ready to ball up the prescription, but stopped.

  Johnny House always ate lunch at the barbecue joint on the far end of town near the railroad. He had since his wife died of lady cancer eleven years ago. Sim would pay him a visit to talk about Marshall and forty years ago.

  He climbed into his truck, started her up, and backed out of the handicap parking space, avoiding using any of his mirrors. It was the only way to keep from seeing that ever clearing face.

  It took a little longer than Sim would have liked to get across town. It seemed that every traffic light turned red as he approached it. The few stop signs he came up on required him to wait for two other cars. All the time he avoided looking in any reflective surface. The glare of the sun caused a faint reflective outline of his face on the windshield, so he kept looking forward avoiding any glances over his shoulder where that face floated.

  When he pulled up at the pit barbecue place, the sight of Johnny’s old Chevette sitting in the parking space near the door relieved Sim. He parked beside it and headed inside. The smell from the pit made his mouth water. There was nothing compared to the smell of barbecue to get the saliva flowing. A sign inside the door told patrons to seat themselves. He looked around the small dining area until he spotted Johnny at a table near the back. His old friend paid no attention to his approach. There were too many ribs on the table for that.

  “Mind if I sit down?” Sim asked.

  Johnny finally acknowledged him. A smear of sauce covered his face from underneath his nose to his chin. “That’s fine. Been a while.”

  “Wipe your mouth,” Sim sat down. “You look like an infant that’s been face down in some Gerber. You’re sixty-seven years old. Have some respect for yourself.”

  The other man took his napkin and cleaned his face. A waitress came over carrying a laminated menu. Sim waved her off. He had no intention of eating in the place. She shrugged and walked away.

  “I can’t believe you won’t get something to eat. These are the best ribs you can get anywhere.” Johnny bent closer and whispered. “Can’t you put your prejudice aside long enough for lunch?”

  “I eat at plenty of places that have colored staff and customers, but ain’t nothing in the world going to make me eat in a place owned by one.”

  “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

  “What happened with Marshall?”

  Johnny shrugged his shoulder and gnawed on another rib. The sauce smeared his face again. Sim shook his head and pointed to the napkin again.

  “All I know is that he killed himself.”

  “Why?”

  “Why does anyone kill himself?” Johnny asked. “I reckon he was depressed or something.”

  “You talked to him every now and then, right?”

  “About twice a month.”

  “Did ever talk about being depressed?”

  Johnny shook his head. “No. But you know how us old men are. We don’t talk much about that kind of thing. We’re stuck in our ways. Except he’d eat here occasionally and not avoid people for decades.”

  “That’s all fine and dandy, he wasn’t me.” Sim cut to the chase. He’d been watching his friend smack and chew with his mouth open long enough. “Did he ever talk about that night?”

  Johnny pushed his plate away from him and wiped his mouth with a clean napkin. He did the same with his hands. Sim watched his playful eyes get hard. The heavy lines in his face got deeper as his brow furrowed and his jowls drooped into a serious frown. The bushy, caterpillar-like eyebrows nearly touched as he squinted and moved so close to Sim that he could smell his sweet, barbecue sauce-laden breath.

  “He talked about it all the time. It was an obsession for him. Marshall told me once not that long ago that not an hour went by that he didn’t see something that reminded him of that night.”

  Sim leaned away from Johnny. The proximity of their faces made him uncomfortable. He was a little afraid the coloreds in the joint would think the two of them were two old fairies on a rendezvous.

  “Do you think that’s why he killed himself?”

  Johnny leaned back as well and shrugged his shoulders again. “I’ve got no idea. I’m not even sure he did himself in.”

  “What do you mean? You said so.”

  “I’m not supposed to tell you this because the police are still investigating, but his boy found him hanging from a big sweet gum in his backyard, right at the edge of the woods. Problem is, there was nothing around for him to stand on. The tree limb was too high for him to secure the rope without being on something like a ladder.”

  “Maybe he’d been planning it for a while and had already set everything up,” Sim had his own plans to do himself in when the time came. Hanging wouldn’t be his choice, however.

  “It still doesn’t explain how he hanged himself. From what I’ve heard, he’d’ve had to jump off something at least as high as a bar stool to be dangling that far off the ground.”

  Had Sim been Catholic, he’d have crossed himself. He almost did anyway. The two aging men looked at each other for a few silent moments. The sound of cutlery on the plates echoed through the restaurant, and the enticing smell of the pulled pork from the kitchen made Sim’s stomach rumble. One of those pork sandwiches with a tall, cold, bottle of beer would hit the spot, and it wasn’t even the summertime.

  “Do you ever think about it?” he asked Johnny.

  “What? That night? A lot. I wouldn’t say all the time like Marshall, but right frequently. Most of the time in here.”

  Sim looked around at the nearly exclusively black clientele. The town had definitely changed in forty years—he was certain, not for the better.

  “Do you ever think of it?” Johnny asked.

  “Never,” Sim lied. “No reason to. What was done had to be done.”

  Johnny narrowed his eyes. They looked closed. His face looked carved in stone. “You think it had to be done. You never have a moment of regret?”

  “I don’t. What do you think, Johnny? Maybe you’ve been too influenced by all these niggers these days, but yeah, I don’t regret it, not one iota. I’d do it again today.” Sim didn’t bother to whisper. He yelled it.

  Before he could continue his rant, a firm hand caught him on the shoulder. Sim looked up into the face of a very dark, very strong-looking man. Ordinarily a manager would smile at you when they came to ask for compliance. This one looked like he might grab Sim up by the collar and toss him out the door.

  “Sir, I’m going to ask you to leave. Right now,” the manager said. “I won’t tolerate such behavior in my restaurant.”

  In life, Sim had been forced to make a lot of changes to ensure survival. Many of them came about because of age. He couldn’t fight his way out of situations like he did in the old days. Now was one of the times to go with the flow. Without another word to Johnny or a look back at the manager, he stood and walked to the door. The manager followed close behind him. He held the door open for Sim.

  “You don’t think an apology is in order?” the manager asked.

  “If you want to be sorry for tossing me out of your establishment, it’s your choice. I didn’t eat nothing and didn’t plan to ever come back.”

  “I meant to me.”

  “Nothing to apologize for.”

  Sim dug his keys out of his pocket and walked to his truck. He backed out, not giving the manager or his establishment another look. If only he could do the same with the face that stared at him in the rearview mirror.

  Chapter Four

  1956

  Sometime around midnight on the night of
the massacre

  Sim held on as tightly as he could to the old board Marshall had bolted to the back of his cutdown. He hated riding in that stupid car because it bounced around like it had no suspension whatsoever, but it was the fastest car belonging to any of them. Marshall had souped it up to make sure of that. Johnny called shotgun fair and square. Tonight, for the first time he could ever remember, it meant the passenger actually had to carry a shotgun.

  The only good thing about bouncing on the makeshift rumble seat was that all the dust from the chase down the long dirt road didn’t blow in his face. Marshall and Johnny had the windshield, but most of the roof was gone, and the thing had no doors. Every now and then Johnny would spit mud out of his mouth. Occasionally some of that spittle would land on Sim.

  “That boy’s got a fast car,” Johnny yelled over the noise and the roar of the big V8 engine.

  “Ought to, that’s a brand new car he’s driving. I’m surprised Betsy here can keep this close,” Marshall yelled back in his high-pitched voice.

  Although Sim had been in the Coast Guard to keep from getting drafted to Korea, Marshall and Johnny had lucked up and failed the draft board. It gave them a few years to get jobs and work around Pinehurst. Unlike Sim, who earned a fair amount serving the country, they hadn’t saved any money and had to ride around in cars that were little more than frames. The only good thing about it was they became great shots while hunting squirrel and rabbits to help keep food on their tables. Marshall had even gotten married and divorced during that time. Sim wasn’t surprised. He was a little bit of a dimwit, evident in the fact that he couldn’t overtake that boy trying to outrun them.

  “Can’t you take a side road and head him off?” Sim asked. “We’ve passed two perfect opportunities.”

  “Betsy can’t take sharp or sudden turns going this fast. She’d roll over.”

  Sim agreed that rolling over in this mess of a car would be bad. He’d certainly bite the dust. As the car went around a big bend in the road, he had to lean into it to keep from flying off the back. Things started to get a little dizzying. In the darkness, it was hard to make heads or tails of anything. The moon was full, but the trees obscured it.

  “Get us a little bit closer,” Johnny yelled.

  “I’ve got my pedal to the floor.”

  “Try and I’ll get a shot at his tires,” Johnny said.

  Marshall made a quick move that sent the car into a faster gear. The motor revved. The velocity pulsed through Sim sinking his stomach to his feet.

  “Hold on tight,” Marshall said. “If Johnny blows that coon’s tires out, we’ll stop fast. I don’t want you to be slung off.”

  Sim looked over his shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’m hanging on for dear life.”

  The shotgun blast roared louder than the motor. Johnny let out a war whoop like some injun in a John Wayne movie. Marshall let out a string of profanity no one this side of the military would use. The old cutdown slid in the dirt and flint gravel as it came to a stop. Sim held on with all his strength. His legs lifted up, and he started to flip backwards off the plank. The car halted. He slammed back to the seat.

  The three of them bailed out of the car. Its headlights illuminated the fancy sedan stopped in the middle of the road. The dust settled as they passed near it. Sim could see the shredded tire. Johnny had done a good job.

  “Hold it right there, boy,” Johnny leveled his shotgun toward a black boy climbing out of the car. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  The boy raised his arms into the air. “I’m trying to get home.”

  “Ain’t nothing out this road except the Harrington Plantation. You don’t live there, boy,” Marshall said.

  “My parents work for Mr. Harrington. I recognize you, Simeon McAdams. Why are you doing this? I’ve not done anything.”

  “You’ve done plenty, boy,” Sim walked around to him. “Best to keep your mouth shut now and come along.”

  “I’ll make sure Mr. Harrington knows about this. He’ll have the sheriff on you men,” Tobias Abernathy said.

  “Too late for that,” Marshall said. “Sheriff’s after you. They know what you did.”

  “I’ve not done anything. I tried to warn Charlotte.”

  Sim didn’t wait for another word. He punched Tobias in the stomach. The boy bent over, and Sim pummeled him with blows until Tobias curled up on the ground and begged him for mercy. He stopped. The three angry men picked up the bleeding teenager. They opened the trunk of his car, pulled out his jack, and tossed him in.

  Marshall changed the tire while Sim drummed a jungle beat on the lid of the trunk as Tobias screamed and begged to be let go.

  “Don’t you recognize the music of your people, boy?” Johnny yelled in the crack between the fender and the trunk lid. “Or are you too uppity to recognize it?”

  The three laughed, and Tobias began to wail for his parents, the sheriff, and finally Jesus Christ, himself, to intervene. Sim switched the beat over to “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”. Something deep inside him liked hearing that coon beg. It made him feel powerful. He started singing the hymn that he beat out on the truck lid.

  Chapter Five

  Alan skipped football practice despite the lecture he would get from Coach Turnbuckle. In his opinion, he’d spent enough time yesterday reviewing film with the team to make up for his absence tonight. Seeing Aunt Charlotte took precedence over everything else. Josh had seemed a little concerned about her after dropping off her medications, and his dad had been curious about her welfare too. That told him that his old man hadn’t checked on her in a while.

  The drive from school to her house was hardly worth the effort to crank the car, but he intended on heading home after his visit and didn’t want to have to walk back to the school, risking getting cornered by Coach Turnbuckle.

  Charlotte’s car sat in the driveway instead of the garage, so Alan parked on the street. His aunt sat in the metal glider swing on her screened-in porch.

  “Come on up,” she called out with a wave as he got out of his car. “I’m having a glass of tea. Do you want one?”

  Alan hurried up the sidewalk and through the screen door. It slammed hard when he let it go. He’d been meaning to come by and torque down the spring a little. Charlotte held her sweating glass of tea toward him. The ice cubes clinked in the glass as she did so.

  “I’ll get a glass in a little while,” he said as he sat down in a metal rocking chair that matched the glider swing.

  “What brings you by?” Charlotte rocked her seat. It creaked and squeaked.

  “I came to see how you’ve been. Since school started and football practice picked up, I haven’t had the chance to come by as often.”

  Alan looked his aunt over. Josh had probably been right to worry about her. She was wearing one of her outfits from the ’50s. She even had a scarf around her neck and horn-rimmed glasses on her nose. He could never quite figure out where she’d found such perfect frames, since she’d only started wearing glasses a few years ago.

  “Where have you been today?” he asked.

  “I decided to go for a drive. A body gets kind of bored sitting here all day long.”

  “I’ve tried to get you to go to those groups at the mental health center,” Alan said.

  “I’m not like those people, sweetie. You and your daddy would have me put in Bryce Hospital permanently if you had your way.”

  “We would not. I love you very much and want you to be as happy as possible. That’s why I suggested those groups.”

  “Honey, sitting for five hours a day with a bunch of people drooling and talking to imaginary friends isn’t my idea of a fun time.” Charlotte took a swig from her tea. “I passed your daddy today while I was driving around. That scoundrel hasn’t been by to see me in a while.”

  “Where was he coming from?”

  “That barbecue place at the far end of town. You know the one that’s owned by the black folks. I’m surprised the town lets them keep that place
open. This place is full of hateful people.”

  “Aunt Charlotte, it’s 1996. There have been black businesses in town since the late 1970s. It’s not the old Jim Crow times anymore.”

  His aunt looked at him very confused. He could tell that the reality orientation that was recommended by her psychiatrist was not sinking in completely.

  “Did you want some tea?” she asked again. “I might even have a cold drink in there, probably RC though.”

  “Don’t get up. I can get it myself.”

  Alan stood and walked into the house. The entryway looked like it had for as long as he could remember. Charlotte had changed nothing since she took over as the sole resident after his grandmother’s death ten years ago. Even the black rotary dial telephone still sat on the small table with a lace doily under it. He wandered down the hall, lined with faded portraits of family members, including his high school graduation picture. When he reached the kitchen, the pitcher of tea sat on the counter in a puddle of condensation. He got a glass from the cabinet, where they had always been and would always be, and poured himself some tea. A couple of half melted ice cubes tumbled in as well.

  He started back to the porch when he spied his aunt’s medications sitting on the small breakfast table. They were in the brown plastic bottles instead of a pill planner like his dad was supposed to keep arranged for her. His old man hadn’t been checking on her like he should have. Guilt sank Alan’s gut. It probably hadn’t been a good idea for him to leave his father with that responsibility after his diagnosis of Parkinson’s, but the old man insisted on it, along with keeping her grass mowed. His father loved Charlotte and blamed himself for her state of her mind. He was sure that his aunt might be the only person his dad actually cared anything about at all.

  She wasn’t doing well, and the usual reason for a decompensation, as the doctor called it, was noncompliance with medication. Alan sat his tea glass on the table and picked up the first bottle. Haldol was in all capital letters. The pill count was thirty. The date told him that it was one of the bottles Josh had delivered yesterday. He started to fumble with the child safety lid so that he could count the pills inside. The particular safety device the local pharmacy used was almost like a Chinese finger trap to open.