The Last Suppers

by Mandy Mikulencak

  “So you shot him?” Ginny’s hysteria was mounting. She’d not be able to rein it in much longer.

  “I was just pointing the gun at him. I wanted to scare him,” Miriam said. “He told me to put it down. Then he tried to wrestle it away. I swear it just went off.”

  Ginny stumbled into the living room. Roscoe had killed her father. Her mother had likely killed Roscoe. She longed for her brain to come unhinged as it had the night of Samuel’s execution. Oh, the bliss of retreating to a place of unknowing. She wanted her mind wiped clean of every memory, good and bad: the faces of all the inmates she cooked for; the way Roscoe’s eyelids would grow heavy after they’d made love; Dot’s good-natured ribbing and unsolicited mothering; Willy Barnes’s lazy eye and birthmark. All wiped clean.

  “Roscoe deserved it.” Miriam’s voice was high and unnatural now.

  “Shut up, Mama. Just shut up!”

  Ginny had to pull herself together. Think.

  “What if he went to the police?” Miriam eyed the front door frantically as if she’d be hauled away in handcuffs any minute.

  “He wouldn’t have gone to the police,” Ginny said. “You said it was an accident.” She doubted he would choose the hospital either.

  Her brain tugged at a long-ago conversation. Roscoe had just come back from a weeklong fishing trip. She’d never seen him as relaxed or happy. In recounting his vacation, a smile never left his lips. He’d said, “I would consider myself a lucky man if the Lord decided to take me when I was on the bank of that river with a pole in one hand and a beer in the other. That’d be the way to go.”

  Her stomach dropped just as her mind caught up. He’d gone back to the Little River, or he had died trying.

  Ginny grabbed the pistol from the kitchen floor. “I have to leave now, Mama. Pull yourself together and clean up all that blood. Don’t tell anyone what happened.”

  * * *

  The drive to the lake was infuriatingly long. Ginny babbled to herself the whole way, one second hoping Roscoe was still alive, then in the next instant, certain he couldn’t have survived that much blood loss. She shook uncontrollably to think the next time she saw him, he’d be dead.

  Once at the lake, she parked her car closer to the road fearing her wheels would sink in the marshy ground nearer the water. She leapt from the car and ran toward the bank, her shoes making sucking sounds in the mud. Roscoe’s truck was nowhere in sight.

  “Goddamn you, Ginny!” she screamed. How could she believe an injured man would drive all that way? She’d ruined any chance of finding him back in Boucherville and would have to live with that decision the rest of her sorry life.

  She kicked off her shoes and walked down to the water’s edge, feeling the grass and mud between her toes. A breeze lifted the damp hair from her neck. The pistol felt heavy in her hand. Why had she even brought it with her? She turned it over and imagined it in her mother’s grasp. Miriam originally pulled the gun out because she feared an intruder. The gun could have become an unfortunately handy way to amplify her anger in that moment. Had her mama intended to kill Roscoe?

  Ginny shook off the image and hurled the gun into the water. She’d make sure Miriam didn’t pay for her crime. It’d serve no purpose and there’d been more than enough loss. Still, Ginny couldn’t imagine ever forgiving her. Her mama’s rashness eliminated any chance for Ginny to get the explanation from Roscoe she swore she couldn’t live without.

  The squawk of a jay turned her attention upriver. The sun glinted off something shiny. The windshield of Roscoe’s truck. He’d made it after all.

  She ran as fast as she could, the sticky mud hampering her speed and throwing her off balance. The trees almost completely obscured the truck. Why hadn’t she looked more closely when she first got there?

  He’d left the door open. The steering wheel, front seat, and door handle were smeared with blood; enough blood to tell Ginny he was likely already dead. She swung around, frantically searching the thick copse of trees for any sign of him.

  She choked back her horror when she saw Roscoe’s legs sticking out behind a large tree. He’d propped his back against the trunk. His arms lay slack at his sides, his blood-soaked hands resembling red mittens.

  “Oh God, Roscoe. Oh God.”

  Ginny froze. She knew what death looked like. The faces of eighteen dead men would never leave her. Yet, she didn’t want to see the life drained from Roscoe’s face. She’d give anything for a different last memory of him, but there was no way she could leave him there.

  When she rounded the tree, the rise and fall of his chest startled her. “Roscoe? You’re alive?”

  She knelt beside him and pressed both hands against the dark, wet spot on his belly. It’s warm stickiness made her want to pull away, but she feared she was now the only thing keeping the last bits of his life from slipping out.

  Surprise registered in his unfocused eyes. “Ginny? How in the hell—”

  “Shhh. No need for words,” she said. But that was a lie. She’d give anything to have one last conversation. It didn’t have to be about him killing her daddy, or letting an innocent man die. It didn’t have to be about making the wrong choices and then trying to atone for them. She wanted him to tell her why he always came back to the same fishing spot, and whether or not he was popular with the girls in high school. She wanted to know why he hated Alabama so much, and preferred ham to turkey on Thanksgiving.

  “Joe tried to teach your mama to shoot once,” he said. “She was terrible.”

  “Don’t talk, Roscoe.”

  “She didn’t do too bad today.” He smiled and then winced with the effort. “Don’t blame her for this. Promise me. I swear it was an accident.”

  She nodded. Tears blurred her vision, but she wouldn’t remove her hands from the wound. He placed a bloodied hand over hers. The warmth was leaving his body. The color of his skin was all wrong. She longed for the comforting scent of Old Spice to overpower the coppery smell of his blood.

  It struck her that she’d never again feel the warmth of his skin after a hot bath, or hear him read Scripture after making love. The stubble of a missed shave would never rub a raw spot on her chin. The perfect spot at the crook of his neck would never welcome her when her heart was heavy.

  “About Joe. I had to do it.” His breath became a labored wheeze.

  “It’s done with. You did what you thought was right,” Ginny said. She couldn’t judge whether Olivia Barnes’s life meant more than her daddy’s. But he’d have gone on hurting people and Roscoe knew it, too. Ginny remembered what Roscoe had said earlier: “My being there saved more than were lost.” She knew this to be true.

  “I feel like I’ve been running a race my whole life.” His words were barely audible, so Ginny leaned forward. “I could never get away from it. From the things I did. From the things I didn’t do.”

  Ginny understood. She’d been running a race, too, always afraid to look back at the monster on her heels. Dot had been right. The monster had always been the memory of Silas Barnes’s death. No matter how many suppers she cooked, she’d never undo the pain his family endured. She’d never had the power to undo it in the first place.

  Whenever anyone asked why she stayed in that hellhole, Ginny always said it was because she loved her job. And she did. But it wasn’t the job that bound her to that prison. It was Roscoe all along, even before he’d grown to love her. Even before she admitted she loved him.

  He patted her hand lightly. The blood from his wound seeped slower now.

  His blue eyes stared past her and past the river that brought him the only peace he’d ever known.

  “God knows I do love you, Ginny Polk.”

  She grabbed his face with both hands and kissed him. The still-warm lips wouldn’t respond no matter how hard she pressed. She leaned her forehead against his and closed her eyes.

  “Then He also knows I love you, Roscoe Simms.”

  Chapter 20

  The class bell rang and mercifully put
an end to lunch service at Carver Elementary. Ginny motioned to the two other women in the kitchen that she was going out for a smoke break. Once outside in the alley, she leaned back against the brick steps. The quiet was heavenly, although her ears still hummed from the cacophony of the lunchroom. Metal trays clanging against metal tables only added to the din of the children’s excited voices.

  Ginny lit up a Pall Mall. It was the brand Roscoe preferred, although he used to say he’d smoke whatever was cheapest or whatever he could bum from a friend. It had been more than a year since she left him at the lakeside. She’d made an anonymous phone call to alert the police about his body. There’d been an investigation, which closed rather quickly considering the woeful lack of evidence and that Miriam had indeed managed to keep her mouth shut. Ginny was grateful when the newspaper coverage dwindled to nothing.

  She touched the St. Christopher’s medal at her throat. She’d taken it off Roscoe’s body. It was her only remembrance of him, except for his worn Bible. Before she left the prison for good, she checked the dresser back in his old room in the admin building. Someone had cleared out all his belongings except for that damn dog-eared King James version. Perhaps he’d smile to know she’d chosen both as mementos.

  When she’d applied for a cook’s position at the all-black elementary school, the principal noted the medal and asked if Ginny was a woman of God. Ginny figured she wouldn’t get the job anyway and saw no point in lying. She’d said she was still figuring things out and the medal served as a reminder to keep her options open. The principal had laughed. Several months later, the woman had admitted it was Ginny’s candor and not the glowing recommendation from Warden Levy that got her the job.

  “Principal Marberry doesn’t like teachers to smoke.” Carol, the head cook, sat down beside her and pulled a cigarette from the pack that lay between them.

  “Good thing we’re not going to get caught.” Ginny wrapped her sweater around her shoulders. It was usually warmer in November, but the air was clammy as a result of an early-morning rain shower that left behind dull gray skies.

  She’d adapted quite easily to the rhythm of the school’s kitchen. She no longer had to worry about spoiled milk or rotten vegetables. There was plenty of fresh meat and produce. It became apparent that Ginny was the strongest baker, so she took over making bread, rolls, and dessert. There were a few bumps in the beginning. Carol had taken Ginny to task after she’d chided another cook for failing to season a dish properly. Once the hierarchy was made perfectly clear, Ginny and Carol had become friends. It reminded Ginny of how her relationship with Dot had grown over time, to the point that Dot was now the closest thing she had to family.

  “What are you reading so intently?” Ginny pointed to the newspaper in Carol’s hands.

  “I just can’t believe marshals are needed to get a child safely to school.” She shook her head and folded the paper.

  That fall, people weren’t taking the forced desegregation of New Orleans public schools very well. Hundreds still gathered every day to protest the admittance of a six-year-old black girl to an all-white elementary school. Flanked by three federal marshals, the girl showed up to school every day, her head held high, despite the jeers and slurs being slung her way.

  “I’m proud of her,” Ginny said, snuffing out her cigarette. “Things have got to change.”

  “This is Louisiana,” Carol reminded her. “Things won’t change overnight.”

  Warden Levy had warned Ginny of the same thing when she’d brought up the idea of clearing Silas Barnes’s name for her daddy’s murder. Later, when she asked for a letter of reference, he’d rebuked her for wanting to work at an all-black school. He maintained some things were best left separate.

  She sometimes judged Roscoe for not being braver in 1938. He allowed an innocent man to die rather than admit he’d killed Joe Polk; rather than turn in his coworkers for raping Barnes’s wife. A six-year-old girl was courageous enough to show people their ignorance, yet a grown man refused to stand up against the Klan.

  If she and Miriam were still talking, her mama would probably chastise her for such thinking. After all, it would have cost Roscoe his life to say anything. Even though Ginny looked back on that time with the benefit of hindsight, it didn’t stop her from wishing things had been different.

  Two white students had been scheduled to enroll at Carver, but their families were harassed so thoroughly that they backed out before the start of the school year. Carol joked that instead of integrating white students at the school, they’d hired a white cook instead.

  “Time to clean up the kitchen.” Carol slapped Ginny on her thigh and stood up. “And I need your help planning next week’s meals.”

  “I’ll be there in just a bit,” Ginny said, lighting another cigarette. It was a rare and wonderful thing to feel chilled in Louisiana weather and she was going to savor it a few minutes longer.

  * * *

  After the pots and pans had been scrubbed, Carol suggested that they play a few hands of gin rummy. It took a bit of prodding to convince Mabel, the other cook, but she finally acquiesced. Carol was good at managing people that way. Mabel could be pathologically shy, hence the reason she’d been so hurt when Ginny told her not to be so stingy with black pepper when making gravy. The impromptu game brought Mabel out of her shell. She even attempted to tell a dirty joke. It fell flat, which made it all the more funny.

  Emboldened by the camaraderie, Mabel must have decided it was safe to ask Ginny about her insistence on wearing slacks to work.

  “When I worked at the prison kitchen, Dot would give me holy hell for not wearing stockings. She said I looked like a teenager in my socks and loafers,” Ginny said. “She’d have a conniption if she knew I was wearing pants most every day. I can almost see the consternation in her eyes.”

  Carol and Mabel had heard dozens of Dot stories, so they weren’t surprised to hear Ginny’s reason for bucking tradition once again. They tolerated her eccentricities. It hadn’t taken long for Ginny to grow fond of her coworkers. Each day it was easier and easier to believe she could leave behind those years at the Greenmount Penitentiary.

  “Hey, look at the time,” Carol said, interrupting the laughter. “You best get moving, Ginny.”

  She was right. Ginny hated getting caught in the after-school stampede of students and parents. The decibel level of the cafeteria was nothing compared to a group of 200 children getting their freedom after seven hours of schooling.

  Grabbing her sweater and umbrella, Ginny ducked out of the kitchen into the alleyway to avoid the main halls of the school. It was a short walk to her apartment, and she looked forward to stopping at the corner market to chat with the grocer. He’d often set aside overly ripe bananas for her so she could bake banana bread, or bruised peaches for jam.

  She was checking her pocketbook to be sure she had a few dollars when she walked straight into a street sign.

  A man walking in the opposite direction stopped to see if she was okay.

  “Are you all right, miss?” he asked.

  “Yes, yes. Just lost in thought,” Ginny said. “I can be clumsy when . . . Willy? Is that you?”

  Silas Barnes’s son seemed just as surprised to see her. “Miss Polk! It’s nice to see you. What are you doing in this area of town?”

  “I work at Carver Elementary. In the kitchen.” She pointed to the redbrick building behind her.

  “Ah,” he said. “My little girl just started first grade this fall. On my days off, I try to walk home with her.”

  That explained why she hadn’t run into Willy before now. He probably came around only rarely, and she made it a point to leave the school well before last bell. Their chance meeting caused the hair on her arms to prickle. The encounter was awkward, but not unbearable. Ginny was genuinely pleased to see him.

  “I hope you and your mother are both well,” she said.

  “Yes, we’re both fine. Thank you,” Willy said. “So you’ve left the prison, then?” />
  Ginny nodded. “It was time.”

  Willy looked past her, down the street. His little girl would be pouring out of the front doors with her classmates any second. “I should probably be going,” he said. “But I wanted to thank you for what you did to clear Daddy’s name. I know nothing came of it, but it was brave of you to try.”

  Lucky maybe, but not brave, Ginny thought. After Roscoe passed away, she had taken a last look inside his truck, although she couldn’t remember why. She’d found a note he’d scribbled on a paper sack and then signed. Roscoe had detailed the events of the night of her father’s death, including the names of the warden and all guards involved. Ginny knew it was useless to bring it to the attention of anyone in the Louisiana penal system. Just as useless to bring it to the attention of the state’s press. So, she’d mailed it off to a reporter from the New York Times who’d written a series of articles on Klan lynchings in Louisiana and Mississippi.

  He’d been interested enough to dig around. The one person who could corroborate Roscoe’s story was Mrs. Barnes, and she’d refused to talk.

  “I expect your mother is still quite angry with me,” Ginny said. “I had the best intentions.”

  “I know you did. But she’s still afraid. For herself. For all of us. She’ll take that secret to her grave.”

  “I understand.”

  Ginny knew something about keeping secrets. She’d never tell anyone that the man she loved—the man who asked her to marry him—had killed her daddy. She’d never tell anyone that Miriam had killed Roscoe. The truth could be so outlandish that to speak of it would make them all appear quite insane.

  Roscoe had always wondered if she had a touch of her daddy’s madness. Despite her fragile hold on reality at times, she knew her madness wasn’t hereditary. It was her own doing. She’d made choices that other women wouldn’t have—including working for her father’s best friend at a prison.

  “Going to that reporter must have caused you a great deal of pain,” Willy said. “I’m sorry for that.”

  “Don’t be,” she said. “I owed your family that much.”