by Carl Weber
“I got a few things I gotta tell Lou myself that he ain’t gonna like, so why should I give you grief?” I picked up my drink and finished it.
“Someone is waving at you,” she said, pointing across the room.
I saw Eric walking into the room, headed toward me. As he stopped and talked to a couple of guys sitting at a table playing cards, he waved again to make sure that I knew he was there.
“Oh, that’s just Eric,” I said, trying to conceal my happiness at seeing him there.
“Eric. How come I’ve never seen him before?” Li’l Momma was breaking her neck trying to get a better look.
“’Cause he’s an old friend. Me and him go back to when Sam first opened this place.”
“Well, your old friend is just my type: tall, dark, and handsome. When he comes over, you should introduce us so I can take his fine ass upstairs.”
I placed a stop sign up for that shit. “Oh, no you’re not. He’s not that type of customer. He’s already taken.”
Li’l Momma glanced over at Eric then looked back to me with a crazy-ass expression. “Oooh, Shirley. I didn’t know you started working again. Is he one of your special clients?
“He’s special all right, but he ain’t no client.”
Li’l Momma was now staring at me like I was a movie and all she needed was popcorn. “What?” I asked, as if that would be enough to get her to drop the subject.
She began nodding her head. “I can see it. You glowing, and it ain’t the baby. What that man do to you?”
“He talked to me, then he listened to me, and most of all . . .”
She finished my sentence for me. “He fucks the hell outta you.”
“Yes, he does that too, but most of all, he makes me feel safe.” I stared over at him, understanding exactly what she meant when she said I was glowing. Just knowing he was around added a pep to my step.
“But Shirley . . . what about Levi?”
“What about him?” I snapped. “Lou made it very clear if all the brothers move to Atlanta, Levi’s moving too, with or without me.”
“Shirley, you know Levi loves you and he would never leave you, whether his brothers say so or not. I know that for a fact.”
“I love Levi too, but there’s no future in him,” I told her, feeling the warmth from Eric’s body as he came and stood behind me. “You of all people should understand that a woman has to secure her future. I gotta do what’s best for me and mine. Ain’t that right, Eric?”
“That’s right, baby, and me and Shirley got big plans.” He winked at Li’l Momma and put his hand around my waist. I quickly scanned the room to make sure Levi wasn’t nearby. Lord knows I enjoyed the feel of Eric touching me, but if Levi saw it, he would’ve lost his mind, and that was the last thing I needed to happen.
Eric leaned down and whispered into my ear, “I gotta go holler at these cats over here about that house across town. I think it would be perfect for us. I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be right here when you return,” I told him. He had told me about the house, and the fact that he meant it to be for us made me so happy.
“You’ve got a fucking death wish, don’t you?” Li’l Momma said when he was gone.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Levi Duncan. You are carrying his baby, Shirley. And have you even told this guy you’re pregnant?”
“Mind your business, Li’l Momma. Let me worry about what Levi deserves and what Eric knows,” I scolded.
Calm down, Shirley. You’re starting to sound really bitter, I told myself when I saw how wounded Li’l Momma was by my words. Once upon a time I would have told her everything, and now here I was telling her to butt out of my private life like she was a stranger.
“We’ll see if you talking all that shit when Lou and Larry find out.” Li’l Momma jumped off the barstool to signal she was done with the conversation. “I bet you that.”
“I’m not worried, because Lou and Larry aren’t going to find out.” I grabbed her arm and squeezed so tight that she cried out. “Especially since you gonna keep that mouth of yours shut, or else David won’t be planning no fancy wedding at the end of the month. He’ll be planning your damn funeral. You got that?”
Tears began forming in Li’l Momma’s eyes, either from the pain of my grasp or the fear of my threat. I could, however, see that she understood I meant what I said.
“Yeah, I got it,” she sniffed. “But it’s still fucked up, and karma is a motherfucker.”
When I finally let her go, she hurried to the other side of the room. I turned back around and looked at Eric, who smiled at me and blew me a kiss. Li’l Momma was right; sooner or later I was going to have to tell Eric I was pregnant. Damn, maybe I did have a death wish.
Bettie
34
The sudden jerk of my head caused my eyes to snap open. I felt like I was waking up from a nightmare . . . and I was. Even though I was in some old, rickety shack in the middle of God-knows-where, it was like a dream come true. I was no longer being held prisoner.
“Lisa!” I frantically said her name out loud, my eyes darting around the room in search of my fellow escapee. She was nowhere to be found.
Shit! I pushed myself up from the floor. Before I was on my feet, the doorknob to the little shack began jiggling. Shit! Shit! Shit!
I’d looked around that little place enough to know that there was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, which meant I had to do what I’d done practically all of my life: fight. I gripped the knife in one hand and the wrench in the other. The second that door opened, I sprang into action, charging for the door with the knife out in front of me.
“Jesus! Bettie, no!”
I swear on my boys’ life, one more second and she would have been dead, or at least mortally wounded.
“Girl, what the hell are you doing?” I lowered my weapons.
“Me? What the hell are you doing? You could have . . .” She couldn’t even find the words as her eyes went from the knife to me. “You could have killed me.”
“I’m sorry.” I exhaled, relieved that I’d been able to snap out of the killer daze I’d been in as I charged for the door. “I thought you were in here with me. I mean—” I didn’t know what I meant. I was just as freaked out as Lisa at this point. All of a sudden, my confusion turned to anger. “What the hell were you doing out there anyway? You could have been caught.”
“It was cold in here, and I found some matches by the fireplace,” Lisa said. “Which is why I went out there to get this.” She bent down and began picking up the wood she’d dropped upon seeing a crazy old woman charging after her with a rusty knife. Hell, the thing may not have been sharp enough to kill her, but she damn sure would have caught tetanus. “Mind helping me out here?” Lisa looked up at me.
I placed the knife on the window sill and helped her gather the wood, which we then deposited into the fireplace. I headed back over to the window to keep a lookout again.
Lisa got the fire going. I turned my attention to her momentarily as she headed toward a large wooden door with a broken latch. She pulled the door open and stood there staring at whatever was behind the door.
“Looks like we got us a pantry.” Lisa disappeared for a few seconds then reappeared with two cans in her hands. “Not much, but it will have to do. Thank God.” Her face spread into a grateful smile, but it faded quickly.
“What?” I asked.
“We ain’t got no can opener.”
“Yes, we do.” I waved the rusty knife and laughed. “But we’re gonna have to sanitize this in that fire.”
Lisa and I worked together to get those cans opened, and then we set them close to the flame to heat.
“So, what’s next?” Lisa asked.
I thought for a moment before replying. “I figure we need to stay here at least until night. They’ll be tired of looking for us by then and hopefully they’ll figure we’re long on our way somewhere.”
�
��Where are we anyway?” She looked out the window.
“I have no idea,” I replied. “But I know where we’re not, and that’s all that matters in this moment.”
“How do we know which way is east if we don’t even know where we’re at or which direction we came?”
“We’ll follow the moon. It rises in the east just like the sun,” I said. “We’ll find a house and call my boys.”
Lisa nodded. “So, what do we do until then?”
I looked over at the cans. The content appeared to be boiling. “We’re going to eat this here soup and get some rest. No telling how long of a journey we have ahead of us come morning.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Lisa smiled. Behind her smile were unspoken words of thanks.
* * *
“Miss Bettie? Miss Bettie, are you asleep?”
My eyes fluttered open, and I glanced around the room. For a second, I had forgotten where I was, until I saw Lisa lying on the cot across the room.
“Well, if I was, I ain’t now.” I leaned back against the wall and stared out the small window. My fingers remained wrapped around the knife, just in case I needed it. I had told myself I would just rest my eyes for a second, but I was pretty sure I’d been asleep a good half hour or more. “What’s wrong? You hear something?”
“No, but I’m scared. You think he’s gonna find us?” Her voice quivered.
“I hope not,” I told her, “but we gotta get up outta here as soon as it gets dark, just to be safe. Now, you need to get some rest.”
“I’m trying,” she said. “Can I ask you a question, Bettie?”
“Yeah, what is it?”
“What makes you so sure they won’t kill you? How do you know?”
I inhaled deeply. I hadn’t realized that she had picked up on that statement. I was beginning to see that she was a little wiser than I had given her credit for. She had shared her story about her daddy and why she was being held, so I decided it was time that I shed some light on why I was in this predicament.
“Because I know too much about who they are and what they’ve done,” I stated. “I know their secret.”
“Isn’t that even more of a reason for them to kill you?”
“Maybe, but I’m holding proof of the Council’s deepest, darkest secret, along with something they’d probably kill each other to get their hands on if I’d let them,” I said.
“The Council? Is that like a lawyer or a judge?”
“No, child. The Council, as they call themselves, are way more powerful than any lawyer or judge. These people manipulate governors and senators. They are the group of black men and women who control any and everything that happens in the South.”
Lisa let out a small laugh. “Miss Bettie, ain’t no way no black folks got control of anything in the South.”
I laughed right back at her. “That’s what they want you to think. Did you ever think about how a man as powerful as your father got himself in the mess he did?” She sat there in silence. “Had to be some mighty powerful folks to persuade him to let his little princess be held captive, don’t you think?”
Poor girl looked like she wanted to cry as she nodded her head. “How do you know all this?”
I was embarrassed to say why, but in the spirit of fairness, I opened up. “I used to be part of the Council—or at least my husband was, until he quit and stole five years of their records.”
“Is that why you were in the basement, because you have the records your husband stole?”
“Now you’re catching on. But it wasn’t just the records that they were upset about. Most of that could have been explained away as business deals. It was the evidence that they were involved with something that was so . . .” I paused.
“That was so what? What were they involved with?”
“You have to understand things were much different back then. It was the Sixties, and the country was changing. The Council felt like those changes were going to rob them of their power.”
“What changes? And who was robbing them of their power?”
I hesitated to say the words. “The Civil Rights Movement.”
She looked like she wanted to curse me out for stupidity, “What are you talking about? How could the Civil Rights Movement hurt black people? It freed us from all that Jim Crow bullshit.”
“Yeah, maybe. That’s one way to look at it.”
“What other way is there to look at it?”
“The Council believed that the success of the Civil Rights Movement would jeopardize everything they had worked years to build. That once black folks were given the opportunity to spend their money in white businesses, they’d abandon black businesses and neighborhoods in search of white acceptance. Hell, there was talk about black folks going to white churches, and you know how much black folks love the Lord. All that money that they was giving in the offering plates was gonna be going to the white pastors eventually. They called it black flight.”
“That is so short-sighted.”
“I used to think so. But I’m not so sure anymore.”
“You were in jail for the last ten years, Miss Bettie, but trust me, the world is a better place without Jim Crow, for me, you, and them.”
“Let me ask you a question,” I said. “When you were home with your family, when was the last time you purchased something from a black business other than your hairdresser?” She stayed silent. “They weren’t wrong. They just went about shit wrong because they were scared and greedy.”
“What do you mean? What did they do?”
“The Council was led by a man named Paul Wilson, who decided to take action and put a stop to the Movement.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “How?”
“They met with the leaders of other powerful groups who wanted to keep the Southern way of life.”
“You mean like the KKK?” She sounded appalled, and she should have been.
“Among others,” I answered.
“You mean to tell me a group of rich black people met with the KKK and decided to sabotage the Civil Rights Movement?”
I said, “Sabotage doesn’t even come close to the chaos and destruction they tried to orchestrate. They called for the killing of some good folks, some real good folks.”
Lisa was now sitting up on the cot, her eyes were so wide that I could see the whites, even in the dimly lit room. “Folks like who?”
“Think about it,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll come up with something. I told you, these are some very powerful people.”
“How do you know all of this?” she asked, sounding almost like she didn’t believe me—or at least like she didn’t want to believe me.
“I told you my husband was one of the founding members,” I explained.
“Oh my God. Your husband helped them?”
“No, my husband was the only Council member who voted against it, and it cost him his life.”
“Who killed him?” she asked, sounding horrified.
“Paul Wilson owned a string of pharmacies and soda shops and was expected to lose the most because of the Movement. He came to my husband and made what he thought was an offer he couldn’t refuse to return the records and rejoin the Council. My husband took him up on the offer but then refused to return the records or rejoin the Council. Paul’s response to my husband’s rejection was to shoot. I’m the only person who knows what my husband did with the records and the bounty of his offer, and that’s why they can’t kill me,” I explained.
“The bounty must be worth a lot if they’re still trying to find it after all this time.”
“Back then, it was worth ten million dollars,” I told her. “Who knows what it’s worth now.”
Chippy
35
I don’t know what pissed me off more: the fact that Donna had the audacity to show up at my fucking house, or the fact that Lou had brought her there. I had never felt so betrayed in my life, nor had I ever felt so afraid. My entire world was in jeopardy of spiraling out of control,
but I wasn’t about to lose my family or our way of life because of a woman who just couldn’t get the message.
As soon as NeeNee got home from her and Larry’s brief two-day honeymoon in Myrtle Beach, I dropped the kids off at her place, convincing her to watch them while I headed down to Waycross. I didn’t know where I could find Donna, but I was pretty sure I knew who did.
I was happily greeted by several of the girls who rushed over and hugged me as I walked into Big Shirley’s. Some were old friends who’d been around ever since the days I had worked for Big Sam, and some just knew me as the wife of one of the bosses.
“Hey, ladies. Looking good.” I tried to smile and sound polite, but this wasn’t a friendly visit, and I wasn’t interested in small talk. I was on a mission.
I scanned the crowded room, hoping to find Lou, confront him, and get the hell out of there as soon as possible. I had to be back in Atlanta before LC got home, so I was pressed for time. I had already been to the farm and the service station in search of Lou, and he wasn’t at either of those places, so I figured he was indulging in his favorite pastime.
I was surprised when I didn’t see him or Shirley, so I walked over to the bar where Li’l Momma, one of Shirley’s tenured girls and a good friend, was sitting.
“Hey, girl, it’s good to see you.” Li’l Momma smiled at me softly as she stood to give me a hug. She was a pretty girl who had a good head on her shoulders. She had started working for Big Sam about a year before I had, and although we had bumped heads a time or two, eventually we had grown to be friends.
“It’s good to see you too.” I returned her smile then asked, “Where’s Shirley?”
“I don’t know. She’s probably gone for the night.” Li’l Momma made a face that I couldn’t interpret and then took a sip of her drink.
“Gone where?” I asked.
“Look, I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I’m not trying to get into Shirley’s drama. I’m just trying to sit here and finish up my last day.”
“Your last day? Where you going?”
“I’m getting married.” She flashed her hand at me, beaming at the diamond ring on her finger.