Tomb of the Unknown Racist

by Blanche Mccrary Boyd

  She turned and smiled. A commercial break had started. “Dog whistles,” she said.

  “I know you understand me somewhere in there, Momma. What am I responsible for? What should I do about Royce if he’s still alive?”

  “They are loud, and people don’t even know they’re hearing them.”

  “I know you’re in there, Momma. Are you telling me what to do?”

  She blinked at me and smiled.

  There was a patch of mayonnaise on her cheek, so I leaned over and wiped it with my napkin. “Don’t you just hate it,” I said, “that they’ve changed the theme music for The Young and the Restless? I have never felt the same way about this show.”

  At night, I cooked the foods she liked, meatloaf and pork chops and grilled cheese sandwiches. She hated fish, but sometimes I cooked salmon separately for myself. Most of our groceries were delivered by Harris Teeter, and I asked the sitters to pick up anything I forgot.

  I helped Momma put on her makeup in the mornings and take it off at night, and I watched her brush the old teeth, and gradually these activities rubbed the edges off the frantic feeling that had been driving me since the night Ruby interrupted our viewing of Wheel of Fortune.

  Estelle checked up on me by phone once a day. I did not leave the condo except for AA meetings, even when Carolina Memorial Gardens called to say the plaques on the graves had been installed. Royce’s original nameplate could not be legally removed, they claimed, but they had mounted the TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN RACIST plaque right above it. Lucia Burns Godchild lay identified correctly beside him.

  After making numerous phone calls, I managed to get Nadine towed away for repairs. Her seats and rugs would be replaced, and a new white canvas top had been ordered. The urine in the gas tank proved problematic, so the mechanic ended up replacing the tank, which he claimed was worn out anyway.

  I felt sad about Nadine, not just because she’d been damaged, but because I realized I would get rid of her once she was repaired. But Nadine was a car, a notion, a goof, and anyway I’d always wanted a 1960 Cadillac in that nubbly pink color called Desert Sand, and maybe I could afford that now. Or maybe I wanted a 1960 Lincoln with those suicide doors that opened sideways.

  Estelle said she would not return to taking care of my mother yet, but “Maybe I’ll come back when you begin staying at the beach again,” and she claimed to be going to AA meetings out on Johns Island. She said she hated how slow the people talked.

  “Yeah, well, you don’t talk so fast yourself. I’m the only Southerner who talks as fast as Yankees do. And people down here talk slow whether they’re in meetings or not. Here’s what I think is the real issue. Are they all white people?”

  “Okay, they’re not, so maybe I don’t stand out as much as I was afraid I would, but I’ll bet I could go home and do my laundry while they’re reading ‘How It Works.’”

  Ed Blake and I called each other a couple of times, but it seemed we couldn’t think of much to say. I didn’t want him to know I’d had a small stroke, so we talked mostly about Lucia’s burial, which had made the New Mexico papers and television news. “Was that your friend Estelle?” he asked. “And that was Claudia too. She’s sure getting around.”

  Momma, alas, remained in her sweet oblivion.

  I tried not to think about Ruby during the week I stayed home for tests, and I tried not to think about my brother. But the more I tried not to think about him, the angrier I got. Then I began to get angry with Ruby too. When I called Estelle to say I was thinking about returning to New Mexico, she said, “Ellen, your anger is going to kill you. Why do you think you had a stroke at fifty-four years old? You’ve got to let go of your brother and of Ruby too. It’s basic AA, you know that.”

  I told her that a nun who worked at the prison, Sister Irene, had contacted me, and she thought it was important that I visit Ruby.

  “That’s an excuse,” Estelle said. “You’re not going back for Ruby. You’re still looking for your brother.”

  15

  Before I made a final decision about whether to return New Mexico, I wanted to speak again with Joe Magnus’s sister, Lily Biggers. She was listed in the phone book out in Goose Creek, where the Biggers clan was based, but I asked her to meet me out at my beach cottage because I wanted to check on the house and test the new alarm system.

  Again, she was sitting in my driveway when I got there. No raincoat this time, just ruthlessly feminine clothes, pink-flowered shorts and a pink tank top against which her large breasts strained. Girlish sandals and pink nail polish. “Thank you so much for coming,” I said as we climbed the steps. The decals that read PROTECTED BY ADT had prevented more direct action, but a piece of white paper at the base of the door said NIGGER LOVER in large red letters.

  Lily saw the paper before I could crumple it. “Sorry,” she said. Cold air blasted us when I opened the door. Pulling directions out of my pocket, I hurried to shut off the new alarm.

  “You really keep the air conditioning on like this all the time?”

  “Yes, I feel obligated to do my part to destroy the ozone layer. Why are you apologizing for your brother?”

  She looked confused as I pulled three Cokes (two for me) out of the refrigerator. “I don’t know,” she said. “Aren’t you?”

  “You think I’m apologizing too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe I am, but somebody has to try to confront these men.”

  “Why bother?” she said. “You won’t be able to change anything.”

  “I’m not so sure, Lily. I keep thinking about the Oklahoma City bombing. Did you know that the guy who blew up that big building and killed all those people had pages of a novel called The Turner Diaries in his car? And Royce was some kind of protégé of the author before they had a big fallout over the Jews. Did you know there was a leg in the wreckage at Oklahoma City that they’ve never been able to identify? These white supremacists, Lily, they’re our brothers. I don’t mean just them. There are right-wing militias developing all over the country. And we both know it doesn’t take many of these guys to make terrible things happen.”

  “Do you mind if I sit down?”

  “Sorry. Take the big seat.” I pointed to my art deco barber’s chair, chrome and black leather, reclinable, spinnable, and raised on a short pedestal like a throne. But Lily chose to sit as far away from me as she could, leaning against the far end of my unremarkable sofa. I considered her decision and sat on the other end. “I’m still so freaked out about all of this, Lily. About what happened to Royce’s daughter and her children. Because here I was believing Royce was dead, and then there’s his daughter right on the TV, and I go out there to try to help her and it turns out she killed her own kids, and I have to bring one of them back to Charleston and bury her.”

  When she didn’t say anything, I said, “So, what is it like for you having Joe Magnus as your brother?”

  “I’m a girl, so I’m not very important to him. He still tries to protect me, though. Like when he called here.” She seemed uneasy now, even alarmed.

  “Lily, do you know where your brother is?”

  She rose carefully and put her Coke on the end table. “I think maybe I ought to leave.”

  I stood up too, partly to block her way. “Listen, my mother has been shot, my car has been trashed, and I’ve had a goddamn stroke. Can’t you give me a little leeway here?”

  When she peered into my eyes, I realized she was wondering whether I was dangerous.

  “You swear too much,” she said. “You shouldn’t do that.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I keep swearing. Really.”

  She made her assessment, stepped forward and put her arms around me. I began to cry mechanically, the way a baby can sound like a cat.

  “You didn’t cause it,” Lily Biggers said, “and I didn’t either. So how can we be responsible?”

  “Excuse me. Excuse me, please.”

  I went into the bathroom, threw water on my face, blew my nose, and retu
rned to the living room, where Lily had retreated to the safety of her corner of the sofa. I sat back down too, and we talked while I drank both Cokes.

  “Joey has a bunch of fake IDs,” she said, “but he usually stays away from Charleston.”

  “You’re sure your brother was here?”

  “Well, he said he was, but then I realized we had only talked on the phone. That’s why I came to your press conference. Because I thought I might find him there.”

  “Lily, this is very important to me. Is my brother alive?”

  “Well, I know there’s bad blood between him and Joey. It’s some kind of fight that’s been going on all these years. I’m not sure what it’s all about, but Joey hates him.”

  “Is it about our fathers?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you seen my brother since he died?”

  She looked uncertain, even frightened. “They got him to Brazil because of the burns, but I’m not supposed to know even that much.”

  I moved over to my barber’s chair, tilted it back, and began to spin slowly. “Then he’s alive, and I don’t know what I’m responsible for.”

  16

  I didn’t want to be lying in Ed Blake’s bed again, but that’s where I was. We’d just had bad sex. He was on top, missionary position. He came, I didn’t, and as soon as his dick shrank, I pulled it tight against my clitoris. “Hey, that doesn’t feel good.”

  I rubbed his penis against me until I came too, sharp and hard. Afterward, I said, “See? We can always have sex that excludes each other. Then we won’t get so tangled up.”

  I sat up on my knees and squinted down at him. He was a ridiculous man, with his stubbly face and bulging gut. I leaned over and slapped his face.

  He hit me back pretty hard, and my cheek burned.

  “I’ll bet your government buddies have known all along where Joe Magnus is, haven’t they?”

  “I think I’m going to need a drink for this,” he said.

  “You’ll need more than a drink.” I tried to hit him again, but he grabbed my arm.

  “I don’t like this stuff,” he said.

  “You already knew my brother is alive, you fucking liar.”

  He turned me loose and raised up on his elbows. “Burns is alive? How do you know?”

  “Joe Magnus’s sister told me.”

  “How would she know?”

  “I trusted you, Blake. How could you do this?”

  “I haven’t lied to you, Ellen. I did not know your brother was alive, and I’m not sure I believe it yet. Who is this woman you’re talking about? What did she say? Nobody I’m in contact with at the FBI still has Royce Burns on their radar. They insist they killed him at Whidbey Island. I’ve told you the truth about that.”

  “Could the FBI’s DNA evidence be wrong? Could they have faked it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell has happened.”

  “And who is in his fucking grave?”

  He clutched my arm so hard it started to go numb. “Places like BATF, probably the FBI too, I’ve told you, they have pockets inside them. Who’s going to root them out? Some of those guys were contemporaries of Hoover, and he thought a race war was coming way back then.”

  I sat beside him and turned my back, clutching my knees as if we were in a soap opera.

  “I’m getting a beer,” he said. He pulled on his boxer shorts and left the room. “You want a Coke? You want a six-pack of Coke?”

  When he returned to the bedroom, I was fully dressed. “I can’t do this anymore, Blake. I’m sorry I let this happen again.”

  “You could have fooled me.”

  “It’s not the sex.”

  “Then what is it?”

  When I didn’t answer, he put his beer on the end table by the bed and began to dress without looking at me.

  “I wouldn’t mind some coffee,” I said.

  For a while he disappeared to his kitchen, where he made quesadillas with beans and cheese and salsa and leftover chicken from a carcass in the refrigerator. We sat out on his porch to eat it. Even in the shade it was too hot, but I didn’t want to go back inside his house. “You have a good view,” I said, as if I’d never seen it before. I’d left Charleston at 5:30 A.M., and I was so exhausted that the wood grain on the floor started moving.

  He said, “Can I ask you now about what Magnus’s sister told you?”

  “Not much more than I already said. She hasn’t seen Royce herself, but the way her brother stays so furious, I know Royce can’t be dead. Basically, she just confirmed what I already knew in my gut.”

  “But when he was declared dead, didn’t Joe Magnus hear about that?”

  “Lily said that Magnus—she calls him Joey—claims that was all bullshit the feds concocted to screw around with some men who belong to a local militia. They buried ‘Royce,’ and then the FBI or BATF or whoever it was gathered information just by paying attention to whatever idiots showed up at Royce’s grave. I don’t know if I told you this, but a few months after we buried whatever that was, people started coming to the grave and leaving miniature Confederate flags. Then a couple of Saturday nights about a dozen of them went out there to sing ‘Dixie’ and recite some doggerel poetry, and pray for the future of the white race.”

  “How do you know about this? Were they arrested?”

  “No, but my cousin Logan told me about it. Logan’s not a militia guy, he’s just a Confederate reenactor. I mean, he’s not out there in the woods training for combat, but he does own his own cannon. He’s a furious sentimentalist about the Civil War. I don’t know why he told me. I ran into him in a cafeteria. Maybe he was just trying to piss me off. I mean irritate me.”

  “Ellen, the militia thing is becoming an increasing problem. It’s hard to know where the breakdown in Oklahoma was. There’s a lot speculation that BATF could have prevented the bombing but somehow dropped the ball. In the eighties, all the terrorist organizations like the Silent Brotherhood and the Aryan Army and the Posse Comitatus supposedly got stopped, but now we’re getting these vigilante terrorists like McVeigh. He probably wasn’t operating alone. One of my more cynical friends thinks that the rise of the white militias is a response to what happened at Ruby Ridge and at Waco, because, in those cases, white people were the ones the government killed.”

  “Can you imagine if we had black or Hispanic militias? Black or brown people marching around in the woods training with machine guns?”

  There was a silence.

  “So,” I finally said, “are you ever going to tell me what’s really on your mind? What really brought you to Gallup, New Mexico?”

  He reached over, took my hand, and rubbed the back of it. The sensation was not pleasant.

  Everybody has a story, and Ed Blake was dragging his behind him too. Although he had described much of his professional history, he had said little about his marriage and daughters. I knew his time in New Mexico had been hastily constructed: the kit log house, the unimportant job, the solitude he’d chosen. “It’s beautiful out here,” he said. “Peaceful. I like the dry air.”

  He waited so long that I wondered if he would be able to tell me. Finally, I pulled my hand away because he was hurting me.

  “Nothing as original as the Burns family. I lost my son to leukemia when he was in the eleventh grade. I didn’t handle it well.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. “What was his name?”

  “His name was Edward, like mine.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Four years.”

  “So, when you showed me pictures of your daughters in your living room, you chose not to show me pictures of your son?”

  “I can’t keep pictures of him where I would have to walk by them.”

  “Are you on decent terms with your wife about all this now? What about your daughters?”

  “No, I lied about that too.”

  After he found out his son was terminally ill, Blake told me, he fell in love w
ith, got obsessed with, a rookie on his own force. Her name was Olivia, and she was not much older than his daughters. What attracted him, he thought now, was that nothing bad had ever happened to her. She had always wanted to be a cop, got her degree in law enforcement and forensics, intended to work her way up, and could run a five-minute mile. Nothing bad had ever happened to her, and when he was with her he felt as if nothing bad had ever happened to him either. At the hospital, she’d been out of uniform in the lobby, on her way to visit a friend who’d just had her breasts enlarged, and within ten minutes there he was, the chief of police, staring down into a bowl of soup in the cafeteria while this young woman patted his arm as if he were an old man. “I was completely undone. I did every slimy thing you can imagine. Even the night of our son’s funeral I spent with her.”

  “So you abandoned your daughters the way Royce did Ruby?”

  “No, no, I didn’t denounce them or tell them they were abominations or anything like that. But, yes, I abandoned my wife, who surely didn’t deserve it. I left her in her own hell the night our son died. The girls had come home from college, so I told myself they would be more comfort for their mother, she was better off with them. I doubt that was true. And, of course, they needed me there for them. But I think I was only able to stand any of it because of Olivia. I ruined her career. A situation like that follows a woman much more than it follows a man.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “She got married. She’s still a cop, but she’ll be writing tickets for the rest of her life.”

  “And you have a log cabin in the middle of nowhere.”

  “And an ex-wife who cleaned my clock financially. But I deserved that.”