by Vic Kerry
“What was that?” Peanut said.
“I don’t know.” He yelled. The explosion had deafened him for the moment. “Has she ever done that before?”
“Hell, no,” Peanut shoved the pistol back behind him. “She ain’t never going to do that around me again either. I’m getting the hell up out of here. Tell your boy Harvey I’ll be moving to a new location.”
“Don’t blame you,” Josh tugged on his ears trying to get them to clear.
“You need a hit.” Peanut took a long drag off his blunt and handed it out toward Josh.
He shook his head and ran as hard as he could back to Harvey’s car.
Chapter Sixteen
1956
Six weeks after the Massacre
Sim sat on his parents’ couch, smoking a Camel and drinking lemonade that his momma had squeezed fresh that morning. His daddy sat in a rocking chair on the other end, puffing away on a Lucky Strike and drinking a cup of coffee. Sim couldn’t understand why old men drank coffee in the evenings and complained about not being able to sleep like they had when they were younger. The connection between the two should be obvious. Perhaps he gave those men too much credit.
“Explain to me one more time why you let Charlotte have that car,” Sim said.
“Because it seemed to snap her out of whatever it was that had her,” his daddy said. “Plus, you don’t say no to Mr. Archibald Harrington, especially when you work for him.”
“I would have flat-out told him no. The main thing that had Charlotte all balled up on the inside was nigger-loving in the first place.”
“Don’t you talk like that in my house,” his mother said as she came through the door of the kitchen. “You might be a grown man with children, but in my house, you’ll listen to your momma or else.”
“It’s the truth. I’ve got a right to tell the truth. All this nonsense happened because she was fooling around with a nigger.”
A sharp sting on the side of his face made Sim aware that he’d been slapped. Other women had slapped him, and he’d been punched more than few times by men. None of those blows were like this one. It had a sharp sting to it like an insect bite and a thin welt like a bullwhip produced. He put his hand over his injured cheek and looked up at his momma. She patted a rubber-mesh flyswatter in her hand. The look she gave him made Ma Barker look like Martha Washington.
“Say something like that again, smart mouth, and see what it gets you,” she said. “You ain’t so big that your momma still can’t whoop you.”
“There’s no need for that, Trudy,” his daddy said. “He ain’t going to talk like that anymore. Are you, son?”
“Both of you are turning on me because y’all can’t raise your own daughter. My sons will have no regard for those coloreds. You’ll see that.”
“If you want to raise your boys to be like that, fine,” Trudy said. “But I didn’t raise you to be like that, and I ain’t got no idea why you came out such a ways.”
“Life, Momma. It’s no rose garden. Uppity nig—Negroes don’t help anything either.” He looked at his watch. “How long has she been gone?”
“I sent her to the store about half an hour ago, but I told her not to hurry. I don’t need the stuff until tomorrow. None of it will ruin. I told her to take the change and head over to the Cardinal and get her a malted or something.”
“Get a malted. Drive to the store. You realize that she couldn’t walk last week, and before that, she couldn’t do anything without one of us propping her up. Now you let her drive around like there’s nothing wrong,” Sim said. “Don’t you care about her at all?”
“A sight more than you.” His daddy stood up to his full height. Sim had forgotten how large a man he was. His father meant to use the full intimidation of his presence right then and there.
“Her doctor said it would be good for her,” Trudy said. “The doctor approved it. Do you understand that?
His father stepped closer to him, rolling his shoulders. “The last time I checked, you wasn’t a doctor.”
“What if something happens? ” Sim asked. “What if she sees something that jars her memory and puts her back like she was?”
“We’ll deal with it. She’s our daughter, not yours.”
“What if she hits someone in that thing and kills them?” Sim asked.
“That won’t happen,” Trudy said.
“What if someone recognizes the car for who it belonged to and does something to her?”
His father put his hand on Sim’s shoulder and squeezed with enough pressure to crack a walnut. “I’ll handle it. And with that said, it’s time that you best be leaving, son. Do call us next time before coming over.”
Sim readied a retort but took the hint. He got up, dropped his cigarette butt in the half-drunk glass of lemonade, and left. It would be a little while before he ventured back to see them. He hoped they enjoyed not seeing their only grandchildren for Christmas. The idea of withholding his children from them made him smile. His father thought he was mean and tough, but Sim could teach him a few lessons from that book.
It took less time for Sim to drive home than usual. His foot grew heavy when he was angry, and his boot was made of solid iron that afternoon. When he pulled up into his driveway, Charlotte’s new car sat parked in front of his house. She sat on the trunk, twisting the hem of her sweater. He parked and got out.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked.
“Something bad’s happened,” she said, then pointed to the front of the car.
The front fender was dented in, and the headlight dangled down. Sim helped her off the trunk and listened to her story. His daddy might think he knew how to raise his daughter, but when trouble came, she came to him first.
“Don’t worry. Walk home, and tell the folks you hit something, a deer ran out in front of you. Tell them it was Blitzen for added holiday fun. I’ll get the car fixed, and I’ll talk with the sheriff. Okay?”
“Are you sure?” she asked, starting to sound panicked.
“Yes, and don’t get yourself bothered and back like you were. Your big brother will handle everything.”
She smiled and headed off down the street toward her house, carrying a sack of groceries. Sim smiled. He would indeed take care of everything. Her big brother handled all kinds of problems.
Sim drove out toward the graveyard on the outskirts of town. He could think of only one reason why Charlotte had gone there. The Abernathy boy was buried in that cemetery, over many a protest of the townspeople with loved ones interred there. She couldn’t have known that, however. His burial happened while she was still in a stupor.
Deep inside him he knew that she had driven out there to see the boy’s grave. Someone had told her he was there. Their parents encouraged such a relationship to bend to the growing norm that coloreds and whites were equal. The real question that burned inside him was why Johnny House was there. He had absolutely no reason to be at that cemetery. None of his family rested there, nor did any friends. Not a single person killed in the massacre was there. The only reason Johnny would have been there was to visit that Abernathy boy’s grave as well.
He pulled his pickup onto the gravel driveway that circled the cemetery. All the tombstones faced away from Sim as he drove around. He saw the mound of red dirt with no marker but some dead flowers atop it. Johnny’s Hudson sat on the side of gravel road, but Johnny wasn’t near it. Sim parked behind his car and got out.
The gravel crunched underfoot as he approached the vehicle. A few feet from it, he could see tracks where a car had skidded, piling up gravel into two small lumps. Sim followed the skids to the end. Johnny lay secluded in the high brown weeds. He held pressure on his leg. Sim could see the fracture was compound. Johnny bled from the wound.
“What have you gotten yourself into,” Sim asked.
“Your crazy sister ran me over,” Johnny yelled. “Broke my leg. The bone’s torn through the skin. I’m going to bleed out.”
“I’ll help you, but
you’re going to help me too.”
“Anything.”
“Good.”
Sim helped his friend up and got him to his truck. He put Johnny in the bed and made him as comfortable as he could. Without much fanfare and without much care for the agony his driving put his friend through, Sim drove as quick as he could to the hospital where he dumped Johnny off with a story he could tell the doctors. He headed over to the sheriff’s department.
A new deputy, who looked a little older than Charlotte, was on duty. The deputy sat behind the desk at the entry of the station. He looked very official in full kit, sitting board straight. His badge shone like a real star.
“Do you need some help, sir?” he asked Sim.
“Is Sheriff Johnson in?”
“Gone for the day. I am Deputy Gilreath, and I can be of assistance.”
Any port in a storm would do, Sim told himself. He walked to the counter and propped his arms on it to lean toward the deputy.
“My name is Sim McAdams,” he said. “I need to report an accident.”
“I can handle that. Go in there.” The deputy pointed to an open area to the right with several desks. “I’ll get the form and join you.”
Sim sauntered into the other room and sat at the desk nearest the door. The deputy disappeared into a small room that looked like a closet. He came out carrying a form and sat across from Sim.
“Is this an automobile accident?” he asked.
“Kind of,” Sim answered.
“How do you mean?”
“My sister, Charlotte McAdams, hit Johnny House at the Round Hill Cemetery,” Sim said.
“Did she do it purposefully or by accident?”
Sim smiled. Despite Sheriff Johnson not being there, putting a slight kink in his plan, an even better solution came with the gift of this naïve deputy.
“You aren’t from Pinehurst, are you?”
“No, I’m from Birmingham. I came here to get some experience so I can get on with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.”
“Come out to the sticks, huh? Good experience here. Apparently you aren’t paying very good attention, son. You’ve heard of the massacre?”
Deputy Gilreath looked a little astonished. “Yes, who hasn’t?”
“My sister is the one who found them. It made her go crazy for a little while. Maybe you’ve heard of that, too?”
“I didn’t know her name,” Gilreath said. “So, was it purposeful or accidental?”
“Accidental,” Sim said. “The Harringtons thought it appropriate to give her the car that belonged to the boy who killed those people. She was driving it around to see his grave. It was a little too much for her, and she had another bout of her problem.”
“He was a colored boy,” Gilreath said. “Why would she be going to his grave?”
“Exactly. She’s still not in her right mind. My dear sister’s only been walking on her own for about a week, and she goes driving. I need you to keep this in mind on your report. She wasn’t in her right mind. Now, Sheriff Johnson would understand and make exceptions.”
“I understand, but that would make a good alibi for attempted murder. I do recognize the name Johnny House, Mr. McAdams, just like I recognize yours. You both helped apprehend that Abernathy boy. She might have had reason for revenge and faked having a relapse.”
“Are you a psychiatrist, Deputy Gilreath?” Sim leaned in on him.
“No.”
“Well, a psychiatrist diagnosed her with catatonia. Did you learn about that in school?”
“No.”
“It means she sometimes gets trapped in her own mind, unable to do things. He said it might make her do things that she normally wouldn’t because she loses control over herself.”
“I see. What happened with Mr. House?”
“I took him the hospital. They’re going to call you with a hit and run, but we know different, right?”
The deputy nodded. “I’ve got it. There’s no need for your poor sister to have more troubles than she already has.”
“Glad to hear it.” Sim got up, shook the deputy’s hand, and left.
On the way back to his house, he pondered over a brain full of information. That stupid smashed-up Monterey sat in his driveway. Charlotte meant to run Johnny over. She was trying to get revenge because Johnny helped to kill that nigger. Sim didn’t like it, but lucky for her, he didn’t need any more attention. Now, he had something to lord over his holier-than-thou folks. Alan and Mikey would get to visit their grandparents for Christmas after all. Ho, ho, ho.
Chapter Seventeen
The front door closed while Alan sat at the kitchen table. Josh wouldn’t know that he had come home early. Despite his son breaking his grounding, Alan wasn’t mad. His classmate had died. Thomas would take it hard because Corey was on the team with him. Josh might eventually take it harder than he seemed to because he’d been in class with Corey since the third grade.
Footsteps came through the living room toward the kitchen. Somehow Josh had missed seeing his father’s car in the driveway or didn’t care. “Dad, there you are,” he said from behind him.
Alan turned to look at his son. Josh looked very pale, as if he had been vomiting. He shook, and his eyes stared wide and glassy.
“What is it?” Alan asked, getting up.
“Don’t be mad at me, but Harvey drove me to the old Cardinal Drive-in.”
“Are you stoned?” Alan asked. The old drive-in was a hot spot to score some dope, but Josh had never shown interest in marijuana.
“No, I’m scared.”
He believed his son. Now that he paid closer attention to Josh’s appearance, it was definitely white-knuckle fear.
“What happened? Harvey didn’t get into anything bad, did he?”
Josh shook his head. “I think I did.”
“Is it drugs?” Alan asked. “Please don’t tell me you did something to a drug dealer. They’re all in this gang called the Folk. The Birmingham PD put on a workshop about them.”
“It has nothing to do with that. I might be dumb enough to blow off my grounding, but I’m not stupid enough to tick off a drug dealer.”
“What’s got you so scared, son?”
“A ghost.”
“Are you serious?”
“You and Thomas claim to have seen one. Can’t I?”
“You can, but you look like when you were a kid watching reruns of Scooby-Doo. Sit down and explain it to me.”
Josh sat across from him and explained everything. Alan listened as his son talked about running all the way to the old gym the night, he had seen the lights there. Josh talked about the tremendous explosion that no one else noticed. He talked about the burned picture on the tombstone. Staring at that thing in the cemetery was one of Alan’s strongest memories from childhood. His father would often take him and his brother to the cemetery and look at the graves of the kids killed in the massacre.
Then, Josh told him about the ghost of Sue Browning. “It blew up a boom box?” Alan repeated.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, Dad. I think something evil is after us. Is that even possible?”
“Go get your brother from upstairs,” Alan said, “and call your friend Jessica. Tell her we’ll be by her house in a little while to pick her up.”
“What’s going on?” Josh asked.
“You’ll find out when we get there.”
Alan sat at the table staring at the wall. He listened to Josh’s footsteps above and could even hear the conversation with Thomas. His boys were anything but quiet. It made it easy to know when they were conspiring, which wasn’t that often. The great thunderous noise Thomas made running down the stairs made Alan think of a herd of elephants. He couldn’t imagine how one kid could produce so much noise.
Thomas loped into the kitchen. “What’s up, Dad? When did you get home?”
“A little bit ago.”
Thomas looked guilty. “Like before Josh got home?”
“I was waiting f
or him,” Alan said. “Don’t worry, he’s not in trouble. He won’t come after you for not covering for him.”
Thomas let out a relieved sigh. “That’s good. What did the teachers have to say about Corey? I got the call about the canceled game.”
“They’re concerned that this might be related to something bad Corey was involved with. We had a workshop back in the summer about gangs. Apparently, the Folk are active in our town.”
Thomas crossed his ring and middle fingers on both hands and spread the remaining fingers out to form two Ws. “Westside!”
“It’s not funny. For some reason, they think he might have been involved with them, double-crossed them perhaps.”
“It wasn’t a drive-by.”
“That’s what I told them, but apparently Coach Turnbuckle and Principle Chapman are convinced that Corey was a drug dealer.”
“His brother was the dealer. Corey just smoked a lot of it.”
“It doesn’t matter because that’s not what happened.”
Josh walked back into the room. “I couldn’t get a hold of Jessica, but if you need an unbiased opinion, I can give Harvey a call.”
“No, I want Jessica,” Alan said.
“So does Josh,” Thomas said.
Josh punched his brother in the shoulder. Alan stood up and pulled them apart.
“This is serious. We’ll go by her house and pick her up anyway,” Alan said.
“What’s so important?” Josh asked.
“She moved to town and is familiar enough with your Aunt Charlotte but not completely biased against her.”
Without saying anything else, Alan walked out of the kitchen toward the front door. His sons followed. All of them got into his car. Josh and Thomas got into the back seat without the usual argument for shotgun. His boys weren’t mysteries to him. More than likely, Josh sat in the back, thinking Thomas would naturally take shotgun and thus shoving Jessica into the back with him. Thomas knew that’s what his brother would do and foiled his plan. He drove away from their house. Josh gave him turn-by-turn directions to Jessica’s house. Within a few minutes, they pulled into the driveway of an older house in an aging part of town that hadn’t quite gone to the other side of the tracks yet. As they drove into the neighborhood, Alan spied a spray-painted symbol on a telephone pole, one of those that the Birmingham PD had said were associated with the Folk.