The Dark-Thirty

by Patricia McKissack

  It didn’t take much to convince the rowdy gang at Simm’s that an innocent man was guilty. “Are we gon’ suffer a murdering black coon to walk among us unpunished?” Hoop asked in conclusion.

  A silent signal passed from man to man. In groups of two or three they left.

  * * *

  Hoop loved the white robe of a Klansman. Wearing it made him feel powerful and strong—even safe. He pulled the hood over his head and hurried out the door. A passing pickup slowed down just long enough for him to jump aboard.

  Seven cars and trucks roared down Russell Avenue at twelve thirty A.M. By two thirty in the morning the Ku Klux Klan had dragged Alvin from his house and taken him to a clearing down by the Tallahatchie River. There, under a Mississippi blood moon with a flaming cross of fire, they tried, convicted, and sentenced him for the murder of Riley Holt.

  “You ain’t so uppity now, are you? You not so important now that Holt ain’t here to protect you,” Hoop mocked Alvin. “If you looking for somebody to blame for what’s happening now, blame that nigger school that made you think you could get out of your place, boy.”

  Hoop darted around in the glowing firelight. “This is the guilty one, all right. Make no mistake about that.” Then, turning to the condemned man, he said, “Why don’t you admit you did it, boy? Say you’re guilty. Say it!” A Klansman put the rope around Alvin’s neck.

  Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Alvin mumbled psalms of comfort he’d learned as a child. His eyes had been beaten shut. He struggled to speak. “You can’t make me confess to a crime I didn’t commit … again,” he said, agony twisting his face. “I’m innocent. And I’m going to prove it!”

  Hoop stopped laughing. He moved in close to torment his victim. “You gonna be dead. And dead men can’t do nothing!”

  Alvin managed to whisper a last promise. “I’m coming back. Watch for me!”

  “You threatening me?” Hoop raised his voice in mock rage but felt very much in control. Then he kicked the stump from underneath Alvin, snapping the man’s neck instantly.

  The next day the mayor released a ludicrous report: Alvin Tinsley had hanged himself after confessing to Riley Holt’s murder. All the good citizens of Tyre publicly accepted the report—whether they believed it or not—satisfied that the untidy mess had been cleared up and life could go back to normal.

  Alvin’s widow and mother claimed his body at the morgue in the courthouse basement. The authorities had his coffin officially sealed so none of his family or friends ever got to see his body. The day after they buried Alvin, his widow left for Chicago. Those who stayed in Tyre knew that Alvin’s death hadn’t solved Riley Holt’s murder. But they felt helpless to do anything about it. They accepted his murder as “the way things are,” and for them, life went back to normal, too.

  But for Hoop Granger life would never be the same.

  At first Hoop reveled in knowing he’d finally presided over a Klan lynching, savoring the excitement and power he felt. He’d carried himself well in front of the others. Why, he might even run for Grand Imperial Wizard, or maybe for mayor next election. He had a good chance, knowing what he knew about certain prominent citizens.

  But at the height of his exhilaration Hoop began having nightmares. In his dreams he’d be getting ready for bed when Alvin’s raspy voice would whisper into the darkness, I’m coming back … back … back!

  Hoop would jerk himself awake with a scream caught in his throat, then lie staring into space, unable to fall asleep again, sometimes too frightened to try. During the day, he was restless and nervous, too tired to focus on the simplest chores. He was testy with his customers and impatient with his friends, who’d started to distance themselves from him. Still the dreams relentlessly returned each night.

  One morning about two weeks after Alvin had been buried, Hoop woke up panting for breath and soaked in sweat. He hadn’t been dreaming … or had he? Nothing was clear anymore. It didn’t matter, because it was daylight. He could get up, maybe open the station. Where were the keys? It was so hard to remember lately.

  That’s when he saw the curious hazy substance on every windowpane in his bedroom. Watch for me. Watch for me. The film covered every window in his house. Even though Hoop wasn’t much on housekeeping, he had to admit his windows needed washing. He cleaned them inside and out until they shined crystal clear.

  The following morning he slept until ten o’clock, something he hadn’t been able to do in weeks. It was his first sound night of sleep since the lynching. He felt better.

  Stumbling groggily into the kitchen, Hoop fixed himself a cup of coffee. That’s when he noticed the windows were cloudy again. Looking closer, he saw images taking shape on the panes, slowly developing like photo negatives. Coming back … coming back …

  Quickly Hoop made a strong mixture of ammonia water and scrubbed the windows feverishly. He worked until after noon, completely forgetting to open the station again.

  Bo, one of Hoop’s drinking buddies and fellow Klansmen, stopped by. “You sick or something? You ain’t been down to Simm’s in over a week. Hey, I came by yesterday and the place looked deserted. You open for business today?”

  “Pump your own gas. Leave me alone—can’t you see I’m busy?” Hoop pushed Bo away.

  “Those windows are sparkling like new money. Why you keep wiping?”

  “Can’t you see that—that gunk on ’em?”

  Bo looked. “Where? I don’t see nothing.”

  “Get out of here!” Hoop shouted angrily. “Go on, get out!”

  “It’s right what everybody’s been saying,” Bo said, backing toward his pickup. “You have gone loony”

  Hoop flashed Bo an angry glance. “What do folks know?” he said suspiciously. “What have you been telling them about me, Bo? I can have you punished for running your mouth too much.”

  “I ain’t said a thing to nobody,” Bo said, and turned to leave.

  Hoop dismissed him with a wave of his hand and went back to his work. But as hard as he tried, he couldn’t stop the images from forming. He groaned when he saw the outline of a dead cat hanging from a tree and the outline of a boy standing beside it. “No, no!” he shouted, recognizing the scene from his past.

  “It’s Alvin! It’s Alvin!” Hoop pleaded with the chief. “He ain’t dead. He’s come back and is deviling me … doing stuff.”

  “Now, why would Alvin choose to devil you?” Baker chuckled sarcastically.

  “Because.” Silence. Hoop looked at his feet.

  Chief Baker grabbed Hoop by the collar. “I know that you and them Kluxer maniacs lynched Alvin Tinsley, who had nothing to do with Holt’s murder. But what’s worse is that I ended up being forced to cover for the lot of you just to save the mayor’s boy, who was out there with y’all. But it’s not over. Alvin didn’t kill Holt. The whole thing sticks in my throat like a fish bone, and I’ve got to hawk it up or choke to death on it. You get my meaning?” Chief Baker released his hold on Hoop.

  “Alvin ain’t dead. He’s back.”

  “Oh, I assure you Alvin is very dead. I saw what you did to that poor man. But if the grave has delivered him up to torment you, he’s got my eternal blessing. Now get out of here. You sicken me!”

  Hoop staggered out of the police station, dreading what awaited him at home.

  Even though he could ill afford to lose the income, he closed the station and spent the rest of the day trying to stop the pictures. But they just kept getting clearer and clearer. Although the facial details were not filled in, Hoop knew what each scene would show.

  Starting in the living room, Hoop saw a car sitting on the side of a road. There were two men arguing. He closed his eyes, remembering. The back bedroom window showed a man holding out a piece of paper. Then he saw a man hitting another one with a rock. On the kitchen window was a man running down the road. And etched on the back-door window was the frightful dead face of a hanged man with accusing dark eyes.

  Frantically
Hoop picked up a hammer and tried to shatter the glass in the windows. It cracked but somehow held in place. He tried boarding up the windows, but the nails popped out. He drenched the house with gasoline and threw a match to it, but the fire fizzled, then died. In fact, no matter what Hoop tried, the truth about what he’d done remained etched in the glass. On the seventh day after the images first appeared, the pictures were completely developed and framed like a bizarre photo gallery. Then came the sounds. As he stood in front of the window showing the two men arguing, Hoop heard the sound of his own voice.

  “I’ll pay back every penny I owe as soon as business picks up. You know how hard times are.”

  He heard Holt’s answer exactly as he had said it. “Sorry, Hoop, but times are hard for everybody, even me. I’ve been fair, given you countless extensions. But you haven’t even tried to make regular payments. Alvin Tinsley borrowed money from me, and he paid me back every penny and on time. If he can do it, then you can certainly do better.”

  “Don’t compare me to no nigger,” Hoop heard himself say angrily. Even now he could feel the fury that had raged inside him.

  “I didn’t,” Holt retorted. “There couldn’t possibly be a comparison between the two of you. Now will you sign this quitclaim deed or not?” It was clear that Holt had run out of patience.

  “No. I can’t lose my station. It was my daddy’s, and it’s all I’ve got.”

  “You may work and live there same as now. You may keep what you earn, less my share, which will be ten percent. I can’t be any fairer.”

  Hoop moved to the next window, where Riley Holt was walking back to his car. “You helped that nigger get on his feet, but you won’t give me a chance!” he shouted. Holt shook his head in disgust. Then Hoop saw himself hit the man from behind with a rock, take the paper, and run away. “I didn’t mean to kill you, Mr. Holt,” Hoop pleaded with the image.

  “But you meant to kill me!” Hoop whirled around. He fell against the back wall, his mouth open in horror, his eyes frozen in fear. On the back-door window Alvin’s hideously bloated face grimaced as it spoke. “I’m back!”

  That same evening, Hoop bolted into the police station and melted into a hysterical heap of sobbing misery. Confession poured out of him. “Make him stop! Make him stop! I admit it, I killed Mr. Holt. I killed Alvin. Now make the pictures on the windows go away.”

  “Only you can make the pictures go away,” Chief Baker said. Then he silently gave Peterson a signal to have a patrol car go by Hoop’s place.

  “Alvin said he was coming back,” Hoop groaned. “And he did.”

  “What did Alvin come back for?”

  “Revenge?”

  “Try justice.”

  Seconds after Hoop signed a full confession, an officer radioed from his patrol car that Hoop’s station and adjoining house had exploded in fire, shattering every window in the place.

  The 11:59

  From 1880 to 1960—a time known as the golden age of train travel—George Pullman’s luxury sleeping cars provided passengers with comfortable accommodations during an overnight trip. The men who changed the riding seats into well-made-up beds and attended to the individual needs of each passenger were called Pullman car porters. For decades all the porters were African Americans, so when they organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1926, theirs was the first all-black union in the United States. Like most groups, the porters had their own language and a network of stories. The phantom Death Train, known in railroad language as the 11:59, is an example of the kind of story the porters often shared.

  Lester Simmons was a thirty-year retired Pullman car porter—had his gold watch to prove it. “Keeps perfect train time,” he often bragged. “Good to the second.”

  Daily he went down to the St. Louis Union Station and shined shoes to help supplement his meager twenty-four-dollar-a-month Pullman retirement check. He ate his evening meal at the porter house on Compton Avenue and hung around until late at night talking union, playing bid whist, and spinning yarns with those who were still “travelin’ men.” In this way Lester stayed in touch with the only family he’d known since 1920.

  There was nothing the young porters liked more than listening to Lester tell true stories about the old days, during the founding of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first black union in the United States. He knew the president, A. Philip Randolph, personally, and proudly boasted that it was Randolph who’d signed him up as a union man back in 1926. He passed his original card around for inspection. “I knew all the founding brothers. Take Brother E. J. Bradley. We hunted many a day together, not for the sport of it but for something to eat. Those were hard times, starting up the union. But we hung in there so you youngsters might have the benefits you enjoy now.”

  The rookie porters always liked hearing about the thirteen-year struggle between the Brotherhood and the powerful Pullman Company, and how, against all odds, the fledgling union had won recognition and better working conditions.

  Everybody enjoyed it too when Lester told tall tales about Daddy Joe, the porters’ larger-than-life hero. “Now y’all know the first thing a good Pullman man is expected to do is make up the top and lower berths for the passengers each night.”

  “Come on, Lester,” one of his listeners chided. “You don’t need to describe our jobs for us.”

  “Some of you, maybe not. But some of you, well—” he said, looking over the top of his glasses and raising an eyebrow at a few of the younger porters. “I was just setting the stage.” He smiled good-naturedly and went on with his story. “They tell me Daddy Joe could walk flat-footed down the center of the coach and let down berths on both sides of the aisle.”

  Hearty laughter filled the room, because everyone knew that to accomplish such a feat, Daddy Joe would have to have been superhuman. But that was it: To the men who worked the sleeping cars, Daddy Joe was no less a hero than Paul Bunyan was to the lumberjacks of the Northwestern forests.

  “And when the 11:59 pulled up to his door, as big and strong as Daddy Joe was …” Lester continued solemnly. “Well, in the end even he couldn’t escape the 11:59.” The old storyteller eyed one of the rookie porters he knew had never heard the frightening tale about the porters’ Death Train. Lester took joy in mesmerizing his young listeners with all the details.

  “Any porter who hears the whistle of the 11:59 has got exactly twenty-four hours to clear up earthly matters. He better be ready when the train comes the next night …” In his creakiest voice, Lester drove home the point. “All us porters got to board that train one day. Ain’t no way to escape the final ride on the 11:59.”

  Silence.

  “Lester,” a young porter asked, “you know anybody who ever heard the whistle of the 11:59 and lived to tell—”

  “Not a living soul!”

  Laughter.

  “Well,” began one of the men, “wonder will we have to make up berths on that train?”

  “If it’s an overnight trip to heaven, you can best be believing there’s bound to be a few of us making up the berths,” another answered.

  “Shucks,” a card player stopped to put in. “They say even up in heaven we the ones gon’ be keeping all that gold and silver polished.”

  “Speaking of gold and silver,” Lester said, remembering. “That reminds me of how I gave Tip Sampson his nickname. Y’all know Tip?”

  There were plenty of nods and smiles.

  The memory made Lester chuckle. He shifted in his seat to find a more comfortable spot. Then he began. “A woman got on board the Silver Arrow in Chicago going to Los Angeles. She was dripping in finery—had on all kinds of gold and diamond jewelry, carried twelve bags. Sampson knocked me down getting to wait on her, figuring she was sure for a big tip. That lady was worrisome! Ooo-wee! ‘Come do this. Go do that. Bring me this.’ Sampson was running over himself trying to keep that lady happy When we reached L.A., my passengers all tipped me two or three dollars, as was customary back then.

  “W
hen Sampson’s Big Money lady got off, she reached into her purse and placed a dime in his outstretched hand. A dime! Can you imagine? Ow! You should have seen his face. And I didn’t make it no better. Never did let him forget it. I teased him so—went to calling him Tip, and the nickname stuck.”

  Laughter.

  “I haven’t heard from ol’ Tip in a while. Anybody know anything?”

  “You haven’t got word, Lester? Tip boarded the 11:59 over in Kansas City about a month ago.”

  “Sorry to hear that. That just leaves me and Willie Beavers, the last of the old old-timers here in St. Louis.”

  Lester looked at his watch—it was a little before midnight. The talkfest had lasted later than usual. He said his good-byes and left, taking his usual route across the Eighteenth Street bridge behind the station.

  In the darkness, Lester looked over the yard, picking out familiar shapes—the Hummingbird, the Zephyr. He’d worked on them both. Train travel wasn’t anything like it used to be in the old days—not since people had begun to ride airplanes. “Progress,” he scoffed. “Those contraptions will never take the place of the train. No sir!”

  Suddenly he felt a sharp pain in his chest. At exactly the same moment he heard the mournful sound of a train whistle, which the wind seemed to carry from some faraway place. Ignoring his pain, Lester looked at the old station. He knew nothing was scheduled to come in or out till early morning. Nervously he lit a match to check the time. 11:59!

  “No,” he said into the darkness. “I’m not ready. I’ve got plenty of living yet.”

  Fear quickened his step. Reaching his small apartment, he hurried up the steps. His heart pounded in his ear, and his left arm tingled. He had an idea, and there wasn’t a moment to waste. But his own words haunted him. Ain’t no way to escape the final ride on the 11:59.