Have No Shame

by Melissa Foster

  The door closed with a clank behind us as we made our way down the narrow, gray hallway. At the end of the hall, we turned right and the officer stopped in front of a solid door with a small glass window. He opened the door and stepped aside.

  Inside, Jimmy Lee sat at a metal table. He wasn’t wearing handcuffs, as I’d imagined. He didn’t look especially tired or even unhappy. He stood and opened his arms.

  “Alison,” he said, and pulled me close.

  “You’re okay?” Completely taken aback by his warmth, I gently pushed away.

  “Sheesh, yeah, I’m fine. Piece of cake.”

  The door closed, leaving us alone in the stark room.

  Jimmy Lee sat down and I lowered myself into the cold, metal chair across from him.

  “Your uncle told me not to come, otherwise, I woulda been by yesterday.”

  “That’s okay. It won’t matter. There won’t be a case by tonight,” he said smugly.

  “Whaddaya mean?”

  “We took care of things. I don’t think the Green’s will be botherin’ us anymore.”

  The room began to spin. Took care of things. I didn’t want to believe it. I grasped for some other explanation. “They’re droppin’ the charges?”

  “In a way.”

  I held my purse in both hands to keep them from shaking. “In what way? Either they’re droppin’ the charges or they’re not.” Tell me you didn’t have him killed. Please, lie to me if you have to, just please tell me.

  “Oh, they’ll drop the charges all right. Stupid niggers.”

  The word made my skin crawl. “Do you have to do that?”

  “What?” He held his palm up toward the ceiling, as if he had no idea what I was referring to.

  “That— callin’ ‘em stupid.” Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. I knew I was traveling down a dangerous path. My life was speeding out of control, like a train wreck waiting to happen. My pulse raced, my hands worked at fraying the edges of my purse, and I wanted to jump up and run from the room—heck, I wanted to run from Arkansas.

  “They are stupid,” his voice escalated as he rose from the chair. “Dumb niggers think they can keep me down? No way would Daddy or Uncle Billy let that happen.”

  Your father? Your uncle? How long can you rely on them to take care of you? Had I relied on Daddy takin’ care of me for too long? On some level, was I still relyin’ on the security of him too much? I forced my emotions inside, and asked when he’d be coming home.

  “I’ll be out by midnight.”

  “Midnight?”

  “They’re settin’ bail tomorrow, but I think somethin’ is gonna change that plan.”

  Mr. Green’s dead body.

  “I’m stayin’ at Mama’s tonight. I don’t really wanna be alone.”

  Jimmy Lee nodded. “Okay. I’ll get you when I’m out.”

  “Not at midnight.”

  “In the mornin’, then.”

  “Yeah, mornin’. Okay.” I let Jimmy Lee take my hand in his. My stomach twisted and turned. My husband was responsible for a man’s death, and I had to keep my mouth shut. My Daddy’s voice haunted me—Know your place—but the image of Mama sneaking up to the back door of the furniture store rivaled that thought.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Jimmy Lee didn’t come to collect me the next morning, and my phone calls home went unanswered.

  “Let the man be. He’ll come when he can,” Daddy said dismissively. “He’s in a mess of trouble. He might be meetin’ with lawyers or somethin’.”

  “I guess, but he coulda called,” I said.

  My father sat at the head of the kitchen table eating his eggs as quickly as he could. “Are you alright, Pix? You don’t look very well.”

  “I’m just tired. My husband is in jail, Daddy, and Mr. Green is dead.” I watched his eyes narrow. “Aren’t you affected at all by Mr. Green? I mean, he was hung from a tree, Daddy. I saw him. It was awful.” I pushed my plate away.

  He went to work on his biscuit. “It’s not my business,” he said between bites. “And it ain’t yours, either.”

  Mama walked behind my chair and set a glass of orange juice in front of me, patting my shoulder, reminding me to go easy. My entire life was spent going easy. No wonder Maggie blew up.

  “My husband beat that kid, of course it’s my business.” I set my eyes on Daddy, ignoring the heat from Mama’s stare.

  He set down his fork and looked up at Mama, but spoke directly to me. “Your husband did whatever he felt he had to do. Know your place, Alison. Don’t cause undue trouble. There’s enough of that goin’ ‘round right now.”

  I stood and paced, then threw my napkin on the table. “Right now, Daddy, I’m so sick of knowin’ my place that I could puke.” I stormed out of the house and sat on the front porch.

  Five minutes later, Mama joined me.

  “Mr. Kane called. The Blue Bonnet meetin’ is scheduled for tonight instead of Wednesday.”

  A silent message passed between us; Mr. Green’s death had sent up alarms.

  Twice as many people showed up that night as had the previous week. Mr. Kane explained that supporters from other towns were already arriving, with others on their way. Many had already arrived in neighboring towns. The boycott had been rescheduled. We had three days to prepare.

  Mr. Kane leaned on his shotgun and announced with a low, serious tone, “Now, we’re suggestin’ that women and children stay inside their homes durin’ this protest. We don’t know what we’ll come up against, but if Mr. Green is any indication, it may be very dangerous.”

  “How many is comin’ from other towns?” A short colored man asked. The crowd murmured in agreement with his question.

  “We don’t know, but it looks like hundreds of protesters, includin’ the Black Panthers.”

  The Black Panthers? Maggie? I hadn’t heard from her since she’d left for South Carolina. How would they make it here in three days? I wondered how the South Carolina protest went.

  “What can we expect, in town, I mean?” my voice quaked.

  “We’re gonna march down Main Street with signs and picket the businesses. None of the supporters are fixin’ to show up at work, at least none that are takin’ part in the protest.”

  “They’ll shoot y’all. You know that. They hung Mr. Green; the police, they’re all part of it. I saw it. I heard it with my own ears.” Mike Taylor, who worked in the lumber mill, pulled at the straps of his overalls.

  “Shot? We can’t be part of that!” The voice came from the back of the crowd.

  Mr. Kane nodded. “Now, now, settle down. Mr. Taylor, you’re right, but there are a few police who aren’t tainted. And Mr. Nash is bringin’ the press, so everything will be documented. People will know.”

  “But people know about everything that’s goin’ on. That doesn’t stop it from happenin’,” someone else called out.

  Albert came bursting through the woods and into the center of the group. He bent over, out of breath. “South Carolina, the march. It—” he panted, catching his breath.

  “What?” I urged him.

  He turned to face me. “It went real bad. Six people died. More injured.”

  “Maggie? What about Maggie and Jackson?” I asked, fear snagging hold of my emotions and my voice.

  “Don’t know. I don’t think it’s good, though. Several men are missin’. A ton got arrested.”

  A collective gasp came from the crowd, followed by a shouting of questions and worried comments.

  I grabbed his arm, then let it go quickly. “How’d you find this out? We have to find them.”

  “Pastor Peters got a call. They’re tryin’ to track down everyone. The Panthers showed up with guns. Everything went haywire. That’s all I know.”

  I grabbed hold of Mr. Kane’s arm. Guns! “What should we do? We can’t do this.”

  Mama stood before Albert and set her hands on his shoulders. “Albert, listen to me. You tell me any information you get, do ya’ hear me?”

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sp; “Yes, ma’am.” His forehead glistened with sweat, fear shadowed his eyes.

  “How, Mama? How can he do that?”

  “Calm down, Alison.” She turned back toward Albert. “He knows how.”

  Albert nodded.

  I understood that there was much I was not privy to.

  “Listen, Alison, we’re goin’ home. You are not to leave the farmhouse—understood?” She turned to Mr. Kane. “Are the others ready for this?”

  “Chicago, Mississippi, DC, yes, they’re all ready.”

  Mama nodded, then faced the angry group. “Then so are we. Change isn’t easy, and it’s not a game. But if we’re gonna make this happen, now’s the time.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Her daughter was missing and she was telling everyone to risk their own lives? Why? I couldn’t see the value in the protest if death would be the outcome.

  On the way back to the farmhouse I argued with Mama. “How can you tell them to do this?”

  “Maggie and Jackson will be fine. Maggie promised that she wasn’t gonna get involved if things got violent. She and Jackson probably took off when things got ugly.”

  Her words were confident, but in her eyes, worry swam.

  “What if they didn’t? What then, Mama? What if they find Maggie and Jackson hangin’ from trees?” A cramp strangled my belly like a vice. I called out in pain.

  “What is it?” Mama pulled the truck over and slammed it into park.

  “Nothin’, just a cramp. I’m okay.” I breathed deeply and leaned far back in the seat, giving my baby as much space as I could in my tight ball of a stomach.

  “Alison, this is too stressful for you. I don’t want you comin’ to these meetin’s anymore.”

  “I’m fine. Let’s just get home.” Another cramp called my attention, this one not quite as strong. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths until it subsided.

  By the time we reached my parents’ house a dull pain the size of Mississippi had formed in my lower back. Mama helped me inside and reminded me not to mention Maggie to Daddy. She assured me that she would let me know as soon as Albert was in contact with her.

  My father was sitting in his chair beside the front door when we arrived. “Did Jimmy Lee call?” I asked him.

  “Nope. How was Blue Bonnets?” he asked.

  Mama leaned down and kissed his cheek. “Oh, just fine. You know how we women like to gab.”

  “Pix, you look green around the gills, you okay?”

  “Yeah, too much pastry,” I lied. “I’m gonna go upstairs and lie down.” I started up the stairs then turned and asked, “Daddy, can you please call the jail and ask if Jimmy Lee was released?” I didn’t care so much about talking to him, but I did wonder if he was out of jail yet.

  “Oh, he was released alright. He’s just takin’ care of things, I’d imagine.”

  “How do you know?” And why the hell didn’t you tell me?

  My father called over his shoulder to me. “I don’t rightly know. I just assume his uncle got him out, and frankly, it’s none of my business.”

  “Urgh!” I stomped upstairs, frustration consuming my ability to think clearly. I went into my bedroom and shut the door.

  Jake opened it behind me and slipped in. “I know where Jimmy Lee is,” he said, and closed the door behind him.

  “Where?” I was too worried about Maggie and Jackson to really care where Jimmy Lee was, but I had to look like I cared, just as Mama had said.

  “There’s gonna be a boycott or somethin’, and Jimmy Lee and his uncle are pullin’ together their men to snipe them as they come into town.”

  Chapter Forty

  Two days had passed without a word from Jimmy Lee. Mama had alerted Mr. Kane about Mr. Carlisle’s plan to shoot the protesters before they even made it into town, and he alerted the supporters, both local and out of town. I was so nervous that I could barely see straight. I jumped at every noise, and worried that Jimmy Lee had found out what I’d been up to, and I’d be the next body they found hanging from a tree. Without a word from Jimmy Lee, it was like waiting for the shoe to drop. I called Jean and asked for a bit of time off work.

  “You take all the time you need, sugar,” she answered.

  No sooner had I hung up the phone than it rang again.

  “Alison?”

  “Mr. Kane?”

  “Yes, can you come over to my house with your mother? Now?”

  I looked outside. Daddy was in the lower end of the fields picking cotton. Mama was in her garden. “Yes, I think so. What’s happened?”

  “Not on the phone. Come quick.”

  I hung up the phone and went outside. My stomach began to cramp as I waddled down the hill toward Mama’s garden. I stopped to catch my breath and called out to her. Thankfully, she heard me and came running to my side. She dropped her basket when she saw me grasp my stomach.

  “What is it? The baby?” She put her arm around me and held me up.

  “Yes, no. Mr. Kane called. We have to go to his house right now.”

  “What on earth for?” She scanned the fields.

  “Daddy’s down there.” I pointed to where the men were working.

  “Okay, I’ll leave him a note. Let’s get you inside. You can wait here.”

  “No, I’m goin’.”

  “Alison, you really need to get off your feet.”

  “I’m goin’.”

  Mrs. Kane hurried us to a small guestroom off the kitchen.

  “Mama?”

  Maggie! I spun around and saw Maggie’s swollen, black and blue face. Her right eye ballooned so big she could barely open it.

  “Oh, my God, Maggie!” Mama and I ran to her. She fell into our arms and cried.

  “What happened? Who did this to you?” Mama asked.

  “Where’s Jackson?” I asked.

  Maggie looked up as a tear fell from her good eye. Her lips trembled as she tried to find the words to tell me what her look already had.

  “No, oh, God. No,” I sobbed, crumpling onto the sofa like my bones’d gone soft.

  “I’m sorry, Pixie!” Maggie reached for me.

  “No!” I shoved her away. “I don’t believe it. It can’t be true,” I cried. I wrapped my arms around my belly and rocked forward and back, forward and back. “No. No,” I repeated.

  Mama sat beside me on the small, brown sofa and wrapped her arms around me so tight I couldn’t escape her grasp. “Shh,” she soothed. “Shh, baby, shh.”

  If hearts could shatter, I’d have shards of mine littering every inch of my insides. I collapsed against Mama’s chest, the beat of her heart against my tear-soaked cheek.

  “Maggie,” Mama said. “What happened? Tell me everything.”

  Maggie sat down on Mama’s other side. “We were marchin’, and it was all very civilized, ya’ know? Blacks and whites, we had our signs, children even marched. Then, suddenly, from nowhere, the police came at us with these…these shields, tellin’ us to get back.” She looked up at Mama. “I swear, Mama, I stopped. Jackson did, too, but one of the Panthers, he drew a pistol. God, I had no idea they even had one; then, suddenly, there were several of ‘em with guns, and the police were beatin’ people, and I got trampled.”

  “Oh, Maggie.” Mama let me go and pulled Maggie to her chest. “My poor girl.”

  “What about Jackson?” I asked again.

  “I don’t know. They dragged me into the woods and tied me up, said I was a nigger lover, and they…they beat me, and—” She collapsed into sobs.

  “Shh, Mag, no more. You don’t have to say it.”

  She pushed out of Mama’s arms. “Someone came and untied me, a woman. Then she ran off. I don’t know how long I was in the woods. I finally made my way to a shack, and this couple took me to my friend’s car. I asked if they’d seen anyone else in the woods, but they hadn’t. I went into town and asked around, but no one knew where Jackson was. There were so many people who disappeared. Some even killed. It was horrible.”
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br />   “What if he’s there, tied up, and hurt?”

  Maggie shook her head. “Remember Marlo? He had a group of people search everywhere. He checked the jail, they checked the woods, the river. He said anyone who was missin’ was probably—” she choked on the last word, “dead.”

  I collapsed beside her. Dead. Jackson’s dead. My body trembled. “But he’s still there? Marlo? Just in case? Right? In case they show up?”

  Maggie nodded.

  “Why didn’t you come home?” I asked.

  “Daddy,” she said sadly.

  Of course.

  “What if Jackson is tryin’ to get home and can’t find Marlo?” I asked through my tears.

  Maggie gave me a pity-filled look.

  “We need to get you to a doctor,” Mama said.

  “No, no way. They’ll figure out where I was. We can’t chance it. The boycott is tomorrow!” Beneath the battered face of my sister, determination shone.

  “Oh, no, young lady. You are goin’ nowhere near that boycott.” Mama looked from her to me. “You, too. There is no way in hell any of us are goin’ anywhere near it.”

  “Doc Warden is on his way over.” Mrs. Kane stood in the doorway, a mug of hot tea in her hands and concern in her eyes.

  “Doc Warden?” I asked.

  She nodded. “He’s one of us.”

  “You said the Panthers were safe,” Mama said to Maggie. “You promised.”

  “I had no idea. Really, Mama. I didn’t know they had guns.” Maggie’s bravado had been stolen from her, and it scared me.

  Mama shook her head. “I never shoulda allowed this. Maggie, I’m so sorry, and now poor Patricia has to deal with losin’ Jackson.”

  I felt like I was underwater. All I could hear was the slamming of my own heart against my ribcage. Every breath took effort. A cramp seized my belly and a crushing blow hit hard to my lower back.

  “Mama?” I cried and bent over in pain. “Oh, God, Mama!”

  “Lay back, Alison. It’s too early for the baby. This is your body reactin’ to the stress.” She turned toward Mrs. Kane. “How long ‘til Doc Warden gets here?”