Sofie didn’t have time to process the madness of the man’s words. The door began to shake behind her. She could hear the taunts and leers of the men who had been waiting to greet the riders with violence, but she didn’t hear the singing of her friends any longer. A shove from the door pushed her to her knees, and the burning scrape of jagged concrete surprised her into the truth. The other students had been wrong; these men were going to hurt her, Bobby Kennedy be damned.
Sofie looked up at the officer, at the hatred in his eyes that she would never comprehend. “I’m not your nigger or anyone else’s,” she said. “And if you think I’m causing trouble now, I’ll have you know I’m just getting started.”
The officer lifted his baton, but Sofie didn’t look away. Her heart was pounding so hard that she could barely hear the men egging the officer on.
“Bill, what the hell are you doing? Get that girl in the goddamned wagon before a reporter shows up!” The officer lowered his baton at the command and grabbed Sofie roughly by the arm.
“Have fun at Parchman, Sweetie,” he growled as he pushed her into the wagon. “Ain’t no cameras there to keep you safe.”
“Sofie!” Michael pulled her inside, and she felt like a lost lamb returning to the fold. “You’re shaking. We turned around and you were gone. What happened?”
A woman next to her held her hand for a moment, and Sofie took a deep breath.
“I’m fine.”
The wagon was hot, and they sat baking for what seemed like an eternity compared to the long bus ride. They sang We Shall Overcome again, and that song changed to a church hymn, and then the national anthem, and then someone quickly taught them a call-and-respond song made especially for the protests. The singing fortified something in Sofie and her newfound compatriots. Their voices together became something more than just sound, but a physical force beating back the negativity around them. Sofie stank, and she needed a shower and coffee and for her First Amendment rights to be respected, but she closed her eyes and sang like it was the only thing that mattered.
“Can we take ‘em over, Bill?” Sofie heard one of the officers ask.
“Get these assholes out of here,” the officer who had attacked her replied. “I’m gonna have that shit music stuck in my head all night.”
The door to the wagon closed and Sofie felt an inkling of real panic wiggling her belly. That officer had been right—they would have no protections at Parchman. It was where they sent people to rot. What if she never got out? What if this had all been a terrible mistake?
Her breath came in a shallow, ragged gasp, and she wanted to push the door to allow fresh air to enter. The realization that she couldn’t sent her further into a panic. She jumped to her feet.
“It’s okay, sister,” Michael, the theological student, said. “We’re here with you. God is here with us and cloaking us in His mercy. But it would also help if you sat down and took a deep breath.”
Sofie tried to fight the animal instinct to kick and claw at the door, but then, as if God had, indeed, had mercy on her, it swung open. Sofie’s panic fled, chased away by pure shock that gave her gooseflesh even in the sweltering wagon.
“Ivan!”
He stood there looking quite unconcerned with the police officer who was pulling him by the collar of his suit. That he was dressed so finely, in a crisp three-piece suit complete with a vest, was almost as surprising as his presence.
“Were you avoiding my calls? I tried to tell you I was coming. I just missed that Greyhound last night,” he said. “Probably better that I had to take the Trailways, though. Staying true to the cause might have been a little difficult sitting next to you on a dark bus.”
“Oh dear Lord,” Sofie said, covering her eyes with her hands and dropping back into her seat. She peeped through her fingers to see Ivan crawl inside and sit on the floor at her feet, and then the door slammed shut.
“Hello, everyone,” he said, grinning that grin of his, and the apprehension in the bus melted away.
“Welcome to the Parchman express,” Michael said, reaching over to clap him on the shoulder. “You ready for the chain gang, brother?”
“Breaking rocks is a great way for a boxer to stay in shape,” Ivan said. “I’ll look at it as a state-funded bodybuilding club.”
Sofie stared at him as they bumped along, not quite knowing what to say.
“What happened to your knee?” he asked, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and pressing at the bleeding abrasion.
“Officer Bill,” she replied.
His expression clouded at that. “Definitely good that I was on the Trailways then.”
Sofie wanted to reach out and touch him, but she was worried he would vanish if she did. He couldn’t really be there with her, could he?
“What about your match? I hope you didn’t come out of guilt.” She’d never been happier to see someone, but she didn’t want to be the impetus for his decision. A thought struck her, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Or because you thought I couldn’t do this by myself.”
Ivan sighed and draped his hands over his legs. “I came because you were right. I wanted to help, and waiting until after I’d knocked some guy’s lights out wasn’t the way to do it. So I called Calvin and told him why I had to forfeit. Of course, he didn’t want to win like that, so we agreed to reschedule. We talked for a long time, actually—I wouldn’t be surprised if he was making the ride too.”
He took a deep breath. “And because I knew I would miss you too much,” he said in a low voice. He took her hand and kissed the back of it, a chaste motion, like something she read in her Arthurian legends. Now she knew why Guinevere had fallen.
He was looking at her with that intense gaze, the one that made Sofie feel both vulnerable and protected at once. She didn’t look away even as the wagon bumped along on the rutted country road. She’d made the journey down by herself, and she knew she could do it alone. But Ivan sitting beside her felt as right as the decision to come itself.
“Well, if I have to be thrown in the worst prison in the US, I’m glad it’s with you,” she said. The bus stopped and idled at the gates. Sofie knew that she and the other riders had a hard few weeks ahead of them, but her hand was in Ivan’s, and together they could do anything.
Chapter 13
Three weeks later
Sofie was too thin. Ivan ran his hand over her ribcage and the dip of her belly as she slept deeply beside him in the lumpy motel bed. They’d have to leave soon to continue the second leg of their journey home from Mississippi, but she needed her rest after the ordeal they’d been through. Being placed in separate cells with the other Freedom Riders had given them some level of safety, but many of the guards had tried to break them. Food had been scant and, when it arrived, nearly inedible. Mattresses and toothbrushes and privacy had been taken away as punishment for the songs they sang constantly to keep themselves motivated. As more and more young people from across the country joined the ride, the cells were filled to many times over their capacities, which was the only reason Ivan and Sofie had been released.
They’d been able to send each other notes through prison workers sympathetic to the Freedom Riders’ plight, but he’d still missed her something terrible. Their reunion on the wagon, after he thought he’d lost her for good, had been too short. Having her warm and smooth beside him as he’d imagined for so long—it was more powerful than any rush of endorphins after a boxing match.
He loved her, even if it was too early to tell her that. She’d already skittered away when he’d jokingly dropped to one knee when they met outside the gates of Parchman, reminding him marriage was illegal where they were from, so he tucked that idea away for a time when she was ready, if she ever was. Ivan wasn’t in any rush, despite the fact that he’d nearly spilled before he touched her the night before.
His member stiffened at the thought of their first time making love. They’d both known what awaited them as they wandered from the bus depot; even the disappr
oving look the man at the motel’s front desk gave them had done nothing to dampen how much they wanted each other.
Nothing could stop that, it seemed.
The room they were in wasn’t anywhere near good enough for Sofie, but it beat the amenities at Parchman. After weeks of crawling in his skin, the shower at the motel had seemed like a spa. When Sofie had emerged from the bathroom and laid her towel down on the bed, fear and determination and lust in her gaze, it’d seemed like whatever Christians must imagine heaven to be like.
Sofie stirred beneath his hand and turned sleepy brown eyes on him, disturbing his recollection of the way she’d been so pliant beneath him just hours before. Ivan felt pinned by her gaze, like he’d been hit by a surprise blow.
“Did you know you laugh in your sleep?” he asked because he couldn’t think of anything else to say. “It’s kind of creepy. What were you dreaming about?”
Her eyes shimmered with mirth as she shook her head. “I don’t remember. All I know is you were there, and that made everything all right.”
Warmth rushed through Ivan, converging at a particular point in his chest
“Something’s poking me,” she said suddenly. Her voice was husky with sleep, but she was alert enough to reach down and embrace the hardening length of him in her fist. Pleasure marched up Ivan’s spine as she smiled at him innocently while caressing him beneath the sheets. “There’s a strange object in the bed with us. Maybe I should investigate.”
“Ever intrepid Sofronia,” he said, the S in her name coming out as a hiss because her touch felt so good.
He closed his fist around her hand as she stroked him, preventing her from making him blow too fast. When she released him, uncertain, he rolled over so that she was beneath him. He slid his arms beneath her back so that he cradled her, and settled between her legs, teasingly close to her warm entrance. “My, my, my. Little miss church girl sure has developed an appetite.”
Sofie ran her hands over his back and up through his hair. “I’ll have you know the most erotic thing I’ve ever read was at church. Song of Solomon,” she said. The word erotic on her lips was enough to make his hips shift forward, seeking the pleasure of her warmth, but then she kept going. “First line: ‘Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.’”
She stared at him expectantly, and he did as she commanded. His lips grazed hers, but she kissed him deeply, using her hands to pull his mouth down onto hers. He groaned into that kiss, and she licked at his lips, sliding her tongue in and taking what she wanted. That Sofie felt no need to be timid with him sent a shiver of pleasure through his body, one he felt in his toes.
He pulled his head back for a moment and caught her eye. “That’s Old Testament, baby. Ketuvim. If you think I wasn’t flipping to that section and having impure thoughts at the back of the synagogue, then you don’t know me very well.” She pressed her head back into the pillow and laughed, and Ivan had never seen anything more beautiful. He kissed her chin. “I have my own favorite line from the Songs.”
Sofie put a hand over his mouth. “Wait! Let me guess.” She stared at him and then graced him with a wicked smile. “‘Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat its choicest fruits.’”
Ivan licked at her palm, and she shivered as she pulled it away. “I guess you do know me,” he said.
“Not as well as I’d like to.” She reached between them and guided him inside of her. They both gasped, and Ivan took another harsh breath as her tightness squeezed along the length of his shaft. He bit his lip, hoping that the pain would distract from the pleasure that was threatening to send him over the edge much too soon.
“Oh!” He looked down into her face and was met with a look of surprised satisfaction.
“This feels better than last night, I imagine?” he asked as he thrust into her. He was glad his voice didn’t come out a strained squeak—just because he felt like a teenager with no control didn’t mean he had to sound like one.
She pressed her nails into his back and arched beneath him. “Yes, Ivan. Yes.”
“Good,” he growled. “Let’s get reacquainted, then.”
After that, there was no banter, no chitchat, just the overwhelmingly sweet pleasure of teaching a good girl some very naughty things.
~~~
Ivan watched Sofie step out of Jack’s Brick House and hand a cookie to a little girl with round cheeks and two puffy pigtails, and something in him shifted yet again.
They’d returned home two days before, and had each been busy catching up with the life they’d left behind for a Mississippi jail. Now they were at Jack’s, not for training, but to celebrate history—a history he was now a part of. People were as convivial as they had been in prison, but instead of being crammed into a cell as they laughed and sang to pass the time, they were outside surrounded by blue sky, green grass, and the smell of meat on the grill. It was a shock to the system to go from mealy bread to tender sides of beef and juicy burgers. Ivan could barely eat, but he was happy to sit and observe.
He felt an overwhelming tenderness as Sofie interacted with Jack and his wife, the people who had been a secondary family to him. They weren’t so different, despite the way people on the stared as they walked hand in hand. And they’d be all right, in the long run. Their road wouldn’t be easy, but they weren’t the first to travel it. Besides, easy was for chumps.
Jack stood up from where he was talking to some of the younger boxers, the only people who hadn’t heard the story of how he beat Rocky Marciano in an exhausting sparring match but would never be credited. As the boys chatted excitedly after the climax of the tale, Jack dug around in an icebox for a soda and then chimed one of the ringside bells he’d brought outside for the occasion.
“Everyone, I just want to thank you for coming to this first annual Juneteenth Celebration at Jack’s Brick House. I don’t know why it took me so long to honor my grandfather in this way, but this year seems like a good year to start.” He paused and took a sip of soda, and his mouth pulled into a grimace. Anyone who knew Jack understood that meant he was fighting deep emotion. Better to look mean than to look weak, he always said. “Sometimes it seems like the battle for freedom for our people is never-ending. It can make you bitter, when you think about the unfairness of it all. But right now, we’re seeing a new generation taking up the mantle. I wish these youngins didn’t have to, but I can’t help but celebrate their determination, their focus, and their bravery.”
He glanced at Sofie, who had walked over to stand beside Ivan.
“On this Juneteenth, I want to remember our people’s liberation from slavery, but also to remind everyone of the continuing journey. I might not live to see it happen, but one day we will truly be free.”
He scowled and took a sip of his soda as the guests began to clap. Ivan felt a lump in his throat as he looked at Jack’s puff-tailed granddaughter skip up to console her Pop-Pop. If he and Sofie had a child, would he experience the same gut-wrenching fear that Jack must feel for all the young ones in his family?
“Sofie, the boy next to you says you can sing. Can you hum a little something for us?” Jack asked, trying to draw the attention away from himself. Ivan felt Sofie tense. He’d heard her voice across the yard at Parchman every now and again, but this was different. That night in the motel she’d told him how she hadn’t sung since Miss Delia’s death, and she still hadn’t here in their hometown. But she looked up at him and asked, “Will you be my backup singer?”
He smiled at her and saw how her eyes brightened with emotion when he did. “Only if you’ll be my ring-girl at the fight next month.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh please. I still have some sense of propriety, Ivan. Just not in the bedroom. Now follow my lead.”
She turned to face the crowd and took a deep breath, and when she opened her mouth and belted out the first line, everyone else’s mouths dropped open too. The dormouse had gone into hibernation, and Sofie let her voice unfurl full-bellied and proud, as if she wanted Miss Delia to
hear, wherever she was.
“This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.” She glanced at him with a smile that made him want to kiss her, but she’d stomp his toes if he tried it. “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.”
Ivan joined her on the next line, knowing no one would be paying attention to his voice anyway. It didn’t matter.
This was Sofronia, and he’d follow her anywhere.
Epilogue
1964, Virginia
Sofie placed the to-do list on the freshly scrubbed laminate of the kitchen counter. Like everything else in the small room, it was a bright, buttery yellow; something straight from the 1955 edition of House Beautiful magazine. She’d hated it when she and Ivan first moved in, but it was actually nice to come home to something cheery when the neighbors all gave you the cold shoulder. She wondered if it was the afro she was growing out; when she’d viewed the apartment, her hair had been straightened with a hot comb—so that it was limp and lifeless, nonthreatening. People had only been mildly rude then, not openly hostile. Ivan joked that it was because he refused to do their taxes. They both knew the real reason.
She scanned the list, or rather the complex groupings of items, complete with headings, sublists, and footnotes. The orderly rows of fastidious handwriting made her feel in control, even when she was so nervous that she was sure she’d sweat through the pretty pink A-line dress she’d sewn specially for today. Under the heading HANNUKKAH, she’d written little notes that she could reference if she got too nervous: Maccabee story; oil is important; mitzvah (find out from Ivan); berakot (blessings) – l’hadlik, she-asah nisim, shehekianu; do not blow out the shamash; ask Mr. Friedman to touch his horns.
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