The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc

by Loraine Despres

  But was it cynicism, after all? Maybe Tibor had deluded himself into the belief that he was protecting the family, that he offered them the last bastion of the American way of life as they had known it as boys. It was a long time since the brothers had been able to talk.

  Hugh had heard rumors that Tibor’s first televised campaign foray was going to be like no other in the history of the parish, perhaps in the history of the country. But as he walked toward the bandstand, he was unprepared for the triumph of kitsch that awaited him.

  The Gentry High School Marching Band playing “It’s a Grand Ole Flag” moved through the audience up the center aisle, led by eight drum majorettes in blue-and-white star-spangled T-shirts and little red-and-white-striped skirts, performing a synchronized Twirl of Fire. The audience went wild, especially those seated on the aisle as fingers of flame dropped into their laps.

  As the drum majorettes mounted the steps, their flaming batons held in a final salute, Hugh whipped out his camera. He knew he was being manipulated, but he was a newspaperman. As soon as he got his shot the Gentry gymnasts cartwheeled onto the stage and formed a human pyramid between the blazing columns of batons.

  Hugh moved in for a better angle.

  Then an arc light switched on. He heard a roar in the sky. A twin-engined plane flew over and disgorged a female parachutist in a short cheerleading skirt with TIBOR THOMPSON emblazoned across her bottom.

  Newspapermen snapped their shutters as television cameras whirred. Hugh saw that even the photographer for the New Orleans Times-Picayune couldn’t resist the shot, and his paper was backing Tibor’s opponent. The photographer was standing on a chair.

  Caught in the arc lights, the plane ejected its passenger too soon, and instead of tracking her descent onto the top of the human pyramid in front of the American flag, the cameramen traced her descent right into the river.

  The entire audience leaped to their feet and rushed down to the water’s edge. At least half the men jumped in, pushing and shoving and pulling on the silk and cords until the parachutist, who was only in chest-deep water, started thrashing about, gasping for air.

  The photographers were having a field day when Ida May pulled victory out of the jaws of debacle. “Make sure you get pictures of all our brave young men,” she called, and cajoled until the heroes climbed out of the river to pose along with the parachutist, who had been lucky enough to survive each and every rescue attempt.

  Hugh put a fresh roll of film into his camera with a sigh. The “heroes” posing on the riverbank would be so pleased to see their pictures in the paper and so grateful to Tibor for making this happen, they’d vote for him now if he proclaimed himself a Communist and buggered Joe McCarthy on national television.

  Once everyone’s picture had been taken, Ida May had the Thompsonettes move through the crowd handing out leaflets proclaiming Tibor’s support of the embattled white Christian majority. The leaflets implied that only he could keep at bay the Negro Hordes who wanted to sully white schools and take away white rights.

  Then the band played a patriotic tune and the audience went back to their seats. Hugh slipped into a folding chair next to Belle and Marilee.

  “That was some spectacle,” he said, shaking his head. “Where’s Sissy?”

  “Up to no good, I expect,” Belle replied as Brother Junior’s choir could be heard marching toward the risers across the back of the stage singing “Onward Christian Soldiers.”

  They were marching without Sister Betty Ruth. She was out on the riverbank, dancing among the unlit pyres, silhouetted against the moon. She was singing, too. But tonight her songs had nothing to do with the Words of the Lord.

  Harlan Ratliff spotted her there. He’d played football with Parker and now owned a filling station out on Highway 51. Harlan didn’t think much of politics or preaching, but he’d always thought a lot of Betty Ruth, who’d been kind enough to save him from the ignominy of graduating from Gentry High a virgin. He lent his baritone to her lovely voice and pretty soon the two of them were dancing together along the river’s edge. Betty Ruth broke several vows that night, which cheered her up considerably and added whole subplots to the continuing drama of her life with Brother Junior.

  “MARCHING AS TO war…” sang the choir as their bowed heads appeared above the risers. Hugh jumped up, camera ready, and then slunk back down into his seat as Marilee screamed with delight. Billy Joe and Chip slid in next to her.

  Sissy, in Betty Ruth’s hooded robe of virginal white, was leading the choir.

  “What the hell’s she up to?” Hugh asked Belle.

  Belle shrugged. “Damned if I know, but I doubt she suddenly up and caught religion.”

  Sissy stood in the front of the others, singing just slightly off key. It was her first time in front of a crowd since her cheerleading days, and when she saw all those people looking up at her, she felt she’d finally come home. Unfortunately as she raised “the Cross of Jesus” above her head, she also raised her arms. Her robe, which was too small for her, exposed one long, freckled leg, bare, to the top of her shorts. Photographers sprang into action. The audience poked one another and clicked their tongues. Sissy was at it again. Hugh put his head in his hands. Chip got up to leave, but this time Billy Joe pulled him back. “Wait. You can’t leave now.” So Chip sat back down to see what would happen next.

  As the singing died out, the audience turned to the sound of hoof-beats. The candidate had arrived on a white horse.

  He was flanked by Bourrée, Peewee, and a bunch of the boys. They galloped around the crowd yelling and whooping, until Tibor left them and rode his milk-white steed up onto the bandstand to the cheers of the enthusiastic voters, who’d never seen anything like this campaign in their lives and weren’t likely to see anything like it again.

  The television crews, expecting the usual boring speeches from the usual boring candidates, were ecstatic as the candidate dismounted to the cheers of the multitude. A colorful congressman like Tibor would light up the evening news.

  Brother Junior stepped up to the mike and gave a rousing invocation. He managed to link Tibor Thompson and the white race to Jesus Christ, while pointedly ignoring His association with the Jews.

  Sissy moved down from the risers and stood in back of the candidate’s chair, where she slipped him the essay for the Times-Picayune contest, “The Finest Man I’ve Ever Known.”

  Tibor, flushed with a day of speeches, applause, and fund-raising, whispered that it was mighty nice of her. He knew all about the contest and wished her luck.

  “I didn’t write it.” Sissy surveyed the audience, nodding to a colored girl in a copy of Sissy’s PTA dress. “Your daughter did.”

  At first Tibor looked confused. “I don’t have a daughter, sugar.” And then he saw the name on the cover. “It’s a damned lie!” he whispered, his jaw clenched.

  “Could be,” agreed Sissy, smiling out at the crowd, “but she did a real good job of research.”

  By now Brother Bodine was prayed out and had ceded the mike to Hyram Goode, the president of an organization that presented the Vigilant Patriot Award to right-minded politicians. He was presenting one to Tibor. He began by working up the crowd with the news that the only thing that stood between them and the mongrelization of the races was Tibor Thompson.

  As they cheered and applauded, Sissy pointed to the second page, where Clara had found that Tibor’s great-grandfather was not the son of a poor but honest French girl, as he’d always claimed, but of his great-great-grandfather’s quadroon mistress, who’d died in childbirth, giving the candidate quite a few drops of Negro blood. “Clara found out all about it right in the genealogy section of the Gentry public library. Isn’t she amazing?” Sissy whispered. “She’s gonna do real well at the University of Chicago, don’t you think?”

  Tibor accepted the applause of the crowd, but his smile was stuck across his capped teeth and his eyes had become slits. “What do you want?”

  “Only that you take care of yo
ur daughter’s education. She needs money for college,” Sissy whispered.

  Hyram was working the crowd with pleas to bring back “old-fashioned family values, which are so sadly missing in our fast-paced society.”

  Tibor looked out over the audience and waved. “How the hell can I do that without your aunt Ida May finding out?”

  “Announce you’re endowing a scholarship fund. She only needs four thousand dollars.”

  “Have you lost your mind, girl?”

  “You endowed a white scholarship.”

  “Coloreds don’t vote.” His voice was gruff and coarse.

  “But they write. In fact your daughter seems to have your gift for words.”

  Tibor was silent for a moment. He turned the essay over in his hands. “I’ll see to it.”

  Sissy reached into her shorts and handed him a counter check from the Gentry Guaranty Bank.

  “Don’t push me, girl, I said I’d take care of it.”

  “When?”

  “When I’m damned good and ready,” he said, stuffing the essay into his pocket. They locked eyes. Combat was declared.

  Hyram called for the candidate to come forward and accept the Vigilant Patriot Award. The applause was deafening. Sissy knew if she let the Vigilant Patriot get away, it was all over. So she walked right up behind him and whispered, “I have a carbon.”

  When the applause died down, Sissy stepped between the two men and reached for the mike. Hyram naturally gave it to her, attired as she was in a choir robe. The candidate smiled to the audience as he tried to wrest it from her, but Sissy held the mike in a death grip. He glared at her, teeth clenched, and jerked the mike. She let him pull her toward him and kissed him on the cheek. She heard a sprinkling of confused applause. She knew he could have her dragged away, but he wasn’t likely to do that in front of all these reporters, who were bound to follow her for her story.

  “Isn’t my uncle Tibor something! Let’s hear it for the Vigilant Patriot!” the ex-cheerleader yelled. The audience cheered in response, and the candidate let go of the mike.

  She introduced herself as Tibor’s niece and said she wanted to tell them about her uncle’s newest charity—a scholarship fund for a deserving Negro student.

  She glanced out at the audience. Her father had a frozen expression on his face, but next to him Belle was chuckling.

  Sissy continued, “It’s true my uncle, Tibor Thompson, wants to keep the races separate, but he’s not a bigot.”

  She saw Tibor’s eyes flick toward the sheriff, who responded by shifting his hand to his holster and stepping forward. So she quickly added, “My uncle’s a good man.” She paused for the dutiful applause. “He believes in separate education.” More applause, this time with enthusiasm. “But equal education.” She looked at him. He nodded stiffly. “And he believes in equality of opportunity. That’s why he has personally endowed a four-thousand-dollar scholarship fund…” A gasp went up from the audience. “…for deserving colored students to help them get a college education.”

  Sissy paused again for the applause. It was scattered at first and then built and built. She was surprised she wasn’t scared. Her cheeks were hot and she felt a wild rush of energy. She was elated. She wondered if she could run for office.

  Then she saw her uncle’s look and her knuckles turned white as she gripped the mike. “It’s my pleasure to announce the winner of the first scholarship, Clara Conners.”

  The applause this time was perfunctory, hot in spots but most of the audience sat on their hands. It was one thing for the candidate to do a good deed. It was quite another for the colored recipient of his largesse to get up on the stage next to him.

  Sissy spotted her family. Billy Joe and Marilee were applauding wildly for their mama. Hugh was applauding his daughter’s courage, and Belle Cantrell was applauding a vision of herself as she wished she could have been.

  “We did a pretty good job with our Sissy, didn’t we?” she said to Hugh.

  Chip slid down in his chair, deeply embarrassed. “She’s making a damn fool of herself,” he muttered, but nobody paid him any attention.

  Hugh turned to his mother-in-law with an expression of courage she hadn’t seen since he was a young man courting Cady. “What would you say if the Avenger ran a series on the genealogy of our leading citizens?”

  “Including yours?”

  “Starting with mine.”

  Belle peered at Hugh with new respect and patted him on the arm. “I’d say it’s about time.”

  They turned back to the stage and watched Clara climb the steps. Billy Joe jumped up, clapping and whistling. Marilee jumped up next to him, cheering like mad.

  Sissy handed the blank check to Tibor once again. He hesitated. The TV cameras whirled. He scribbled fast and handed it back to her. A television reporter yelled for her to let them get a picture.

  Sissy held it high for the cameras. “Uppity women unite!” But of course she didn’t say that out loud. And then saw the check was only for a thousand dollars. She’d hoped for four thousand, so she wouldn’t have to keep coming back, but this would get Clara started.

  Clara took the check and shook hands with the candidate.

  “I hear you want to go to school with Yankees,” said Tibor at his most avuncular.

  “Yes, sir,” said Clara, her voice trembling.

  “Well, you have a real good time. And don’t get too cold up there, you hear?” he said, playing to the audience.

  Clara had planned to walk up to him, a tough, brilliant student, accepting no more than her due. While she was writing the essay, she’d run the scene over and over in her head. She’d get back at her father for all those years of abuse and neglect. She’d make him pay. And not just money. She had an acceptance speech written and memorized. It was filled with cutting innuendos, designed to make him squirm, but now that she was actually in his presence, all sorts of old feelings she hadn’t felt since she was a little girl came back. And she choked up. All she could think of were three words. These she whispered in his ear.

  “Louder,” yelled the television soundmen. And, “Give her a mike.” But instead the evening news would show a pretty colored girl standing on tiptoes, whispering something into the candidate’s ear and then running off the stage.

  “What did she say?” asked the Times-Picayune reporter. But Tibor just shook his head. The paper would report that whatever it was moved him. The candidate needed several minutes to recover for his speech.

  The three words Clara had managed to whisper in Tibor’s ear were “Thank you, Daddy.”

  Chapter 20

  When making a life decision, you can’t trust your head.

  Rule Number One Hundred and Two

  THE SOUTHERN BELLE'S HANDBOOK

  TIBOR ASSESSED THE applause as his daughter left the stage. Not so loud as for his Vigilant Patriot Award, but applause strong and clear. He was beginning to see how he could use this. Hell, a thousand dollars to keep the bigot bashers quiet, he could raise that in an afternoon. And it wouldn’t hurt that he could tell his cronies that he was sending this smart-ass nigger up North so she could pester the Yankees.

  But what he couldn’t stand was having Hugh’s daughter get the better of him. He scrutinized his niece. If she had the nerve to do this, what would she do next time? He couldn’t let her get away with it. He’d spent months planning every detail of his campaign kickoff and the little slut waltzed in and ruined it. He’d get her. The opportunity would present itself. It always did. Nobody got the better of Tibor Thompson. But he couldn’t think about that tonight.

  Tonight he was off and running. He leaped out of the starting gate protecting the embattled rights of Americans of European descent and rounded the first turn calling on them to relight the Fires of Freedom.

  On cue the bonfires all along the riverbank burst into flame. His audience went wild—they stood and cheered.

  Bourrée’s Cajuns had covered the wooden pyres with the dried detritus of the cane fields
, so the flames crackled and sparks shot from the conflagrations like rockets into the hot night air. Just like Christmas when bonfires were lit all along the levee. The audience loved it. And more important, the TV cameras loved it. Tibor knew he was running on a crowded track and he wanted to be sure he got plenty of TV coverage. That’s where the voters were nowadays. And nothing looked better on TV than a fire. Might even get national coverage.

  Tibor’s ambitions were not limited to the U.S. Congress. He had plans to take over the state. Become another Huey Long. And then? He’d confided to his closest advisers, if the niggers keep on agitating, who knows how far a country boy can go.

  PARKER, STANDING IN the shadow of the trees in back of the platform, watched Sissy melt into the crowd and then slip down the rickety back stairs, lifting the hem of her choir robe to her knees. Her hair was wild and blowing in the hot wind.

  He went to her and brushed it back from her face. “That was a damn fool thing to do.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah, and brave as hell.” In back of her, sparks were shooting off a crackling bonfire into the night sky. They glittered around her head like a halo. He’d never seen her so beautiful. “I have good news.” She was completely still, waiting. “The job in Boston came through.”

  “You’re not going to take it, are you?” He heard a note of desperation in her voice.

  “I don’t have a choice, honey. I was fired.”

  “Calvin Merkin fired you!”

  “Rowena Weaver and a delegation of church ladies stormed into his office and carried on about moral turpitude. I guess you and I just can’t get together without getting into trouble.” He saw her face drain of color. She shook her head as if trying to deny what he said. “It doesn’t make any difference. I’ll be making big money now. I can take care of you.”