Howard slowly bent to pick up the cup of tea with both trembling hands and brought it to his lips.
“Uncle Walter was elected president of the NAACP in nineteen-sixty-three,” Serena added.
“It was time for the white folks to give us our rights,” Howard said. “St. Augustine still had a plantation mentality. I knew if we didn’t demand our rights, these people would never give them to us.” He paused and stared at me, possibly wondering if this white man had any idea what he was talking about.
“Back then, the Association was filled with scared old folks who didn’t want to rock the boat. The young people were ready, though. They knew what was happening across the south, and didn’t want to wait any longer. I pushed the others into taking action.”
Throughout 1964, he told me, they organized demonstrations outside McCrory’s and Woolworth’s stores. Then the sit-ins began, and fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen year olds were dragged from their seats and taken to jail. This led to marches in the heart of the old city, fiery speeches, and swim-ins at white-only beaches.
“We made the national news and got Dr. King’s attention. He came here to help us. Sat down with the mayor and the other white leaders and they did a lot of talking. But when Dr. King went home, nothing had changed.” Howard paused in his story and looked at his niece. “Nothing had changed,” he repeated.
Things got so bad, Howard told us, that he sent his family to live in Daytona Beach to protect them from the hate-mongers. His gaze drifted toward the triptych, tracing the flight of the exotic birds. I guessed he was thinking back to those days. Thinking back, as he would tell me, to how his life had changed abruptly one summer night in 1964.
In a quiet voice, Walter Howard recounted how he returned home from his meeting that night, locked the door on his 1959 Bel Air sedan, and glanced in both directions. He remembered Washington Street as a quiet residential area with modest one-story homes. Most of the homes were already dark, and he didn’t notice any strange cars parked along the street. He had promised his wife Aletia that he’d be careful, although he knew there wasn’t much he could do if the Klan decided to make him their next target.
As he stood in front of the boarded-up windows of his home and fumbled for the door key, he thought of how his little girl had been nearly killed the night his house was shotgunned. I listened as his memories took him back and he told me about the oppressive humidity on that July night, and a star-filled sky flickering with far-away heat lightning. He remembered the sweet scent of night blooming jasmine and then hearing footsteps pounding the walk behind him.
He said he turned to see four hooded men. The closest one, a man with huge forearms and a massive chest, held a club resembling a miniature baseball bat. The club flew toward his head, and he instinctively jerked away. While he avoided a solid blow, the bat bounced off the side of his head, stunning him, sending flashes of pain coursing through his skull.
Everything happened so fast after that, he said. “One of the men forced a coarse sack over my head. Someone clamped a hand on my mouth, and they dragged me to their car.”
“I can’t imagine what you went through,” I said.
“I did a lot of praying. I knew if they got me into that back seat it would be the last ride I ever took. I tried to fight back. I kicked out at them and managed to put one foot against the doorframe hoping to fight them off. But it was four against one. Next thing I knew, something hit my shin, probably the club, and I was inside the car.”
He said they drove for about thirty minutes before the car stopped, and he heard doors opening and felt hands clutching his arms and legs.
They threw him to the ground and pulled the sack from his head. “I expected to see a tree and a rope waiting for me. Instead, I was in a plowed-up field, rows and rows of black soil.” In the moonlight, he saw a stand of pines ringing the field. Nearby, he saw a pick-up truck and an old Ford sedan, its back doors hanging open.
“They’d tied my hands together and I couldn’t do anything to protect myself. When I started to scream one of the men grabbed me by the neck and forced a dirty rag into my mouth. It smelled of gasoline, so powerful it made me gag.” He stopped and held a hand to his mouth. I thought he would be sick.
“Uncle Walter, you don’t have to keep talking if it’s too painful for you.” She rose and put a protective arm around her uncle.
“That’s all right, child. I want to tell the story.”
Serena retreated to the couch as he continued.
His eyes watering from the gasoline fumes, he blinked away the tears and stared at the men in the white hoods. “I remember thinking that the glow of the moon made the men in their hoods look like the bellies of dead fish,” he said.
“And that’s when the big man with the bat stepped toward me. He might have had his Klan hood on, but I knew it was that racist deputy sheriff. The one they called Bat Marrano. He gave me a little push with the end of the bat and said, ‘You’ve been shooting your mouth off all summer, nigger. Don’t you have nothing to say now?’”
Howard licked his lips and held the mug in both hands, taking comfort, I hoped, from the warmth of the tea.
“I tried to answer him, but with the gag in my mouth I could only grunt. That made them all laugh. One of them called me a monkey and kicked me in the side. After that, they took turns kicking and punching me until I passed out.”
I heard quiet sobs coming from Serena. She sat with one hand over her mouth, shaking slightly. I wanted to comfort her. Wanted to say something to her uncle that would bring him relief, but I remained mute, muzzled by my own state of shock.
This time Howard offered solace to his niece. He reached out and patted her knee. “S’alright, girl. It was a long time ago. All them men are dead now, but I’m still here. The Lord does indeed move in mysterious ways.”
Serena nodded and offered him a brave smile.
“What happened then?” I asked.
“They woke me up by throwing whiskey in my face. Deputy Marrano was slapping that bat into his hand. He said, ‘You know you’ve got this coming, don’t you, boy?’
“I couldn’t answer him, only stare at the club. He tapped it against his shoe like a baseball player knocking dirt from his cleats. I could see he was getting ready to hurt me.”
“Oh, God,” I murmured. “I’m so sorry.”
Howard looked up at me for the first time since he began telling his story. “Even though I knew good men like Medgar Evers had been killed fighting for their rights, I didn’t believe it would ever happen to me. I wanted to hold my wife and daughter again, tell them I loved them. I didn’t want to die.”
He told me he looked at the four men clustered around him, searching for a shred of humanity. But there was no humanity or help to be found. “As I looked at these men, I saw movement behind them. My heart jumped thinking maybe someone had come to save me, but what I saw was two boys back in the shadows near the truck.”
“Boys?” I couldn’t believe they’d bring children to a lynching.
Howard nodded. “One of the boys was only about six years old. The other one, he might have been twelve or thirteen. The older boy was tall and skinny with long wavy hair growing over his ears. He was bouncing from one foot to the other like he’d been touched by the spirit.”
Howard gazed at his niece. “You know what I mean, Serena. Like some of those church ladies carried away by the preacher’s sermon?”
She told him she did.
“What happened then?” I asked.
“Bat Marrano saw me looking at the boys, and he waved his club at them. I thought he was chasing them away. But instead he said, ‘Which of you boys want to take the first swing?’”
Howard cleared his throat and let his gaze settle between Serena and me. “As soon as Marrano said that, the older boy ran toward us. He stuck his hand out. Marrano gave him the bat and pointed at my left knee.
“I tried to scream, but nothing came out. I watched the boy raise the bat while I shook my
head, thinking this child couldn’t do such a thing, not even to a black man. I closed my eyes before it hit, but …”
Howard’s voice trailed off, and he placed a hand on his knee as if the pain of that night still haunted him. I suspected that it did.
“When I opened my eyes,” Howard continued, “I saw the younger boy, who’d been right behind his older brother, if that’s who he was, staring at me like he’d been the one hit in the knee. His eyes were wide, and I almost felt sorry for him. He squawked something I couldn’t make out and climbed into the pick-up truck.
“The pain was almost too much to bear,” Howard said. “I screamed and cried for Jesus to help me. Of course, my misery made them laugh even harder. I was twisting and rolling when Marrano kicked me in the back. He bent down close to me and said, ‘Can you still hear me, Mr. NAACP President? Consider yourself lucky.’ He told me they thought about burning me alive or hanging me from a tree, ‘But we wanted you to remember this night for the rest of your life.’”
“I knew that was the one true thing he’d said all night. I’d never forget it. Then he said, ‘I promise you’ll remember us every time you even think about making trouble for your betters.’ He lifted the club and swung it down against my other knee.”
Howard looked directly at me, his watery stare gnawing at my gut. “I passed out.” Then he began sobbing quietly. Serena moved to the arm of the chair and tenderly embraced the frail old man. She held him like a mother holds her child, his head against her breast, a warm reassuring word in his ear.
TWENTY-TWO
A few minutes later, I thanked Walter Howard for sharing his story with me and said goodbye. Serena walked me to the front door. Her apartment was on the second floor, and I stepped outside onto the long walkway overlooking the parking lot and a circle of palm trees. She sagged against the doorframe, her right hand gripping the knob.
“Thanks for coming.”
“Will he be all right?”
She nodded. “It’s taken a lot out of him, but he’s stronger than he looks.”
I wanted to hold her in my arms and tell her how important she was to me. Tell her I understood what she’d gone through and how her family’s experiences had impacted her. Warm words of compassion darted erratically in and out of my brain, eluding my tongue and leaving me grasping for the right words.
“Serena, I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “Listen, I have to drive him home and then get to work.”
“Sure. I’ll give you a call later.”
She hesitated for a moment and it seemed her face stiffened before she answered. “This is going to be a crazy week for me. Lots of meetings. I won’t have any time to talk until next week.”
I nodded dumbly, searching for confirmation I’d be given another chance to set things straight between us, but she had already closed the door.
Later, I sat in my car and watched Serena and her uncle drive away. The clear skies had clouded over since I arrived and a brisk northeast breeze riffled through the palm fronds overhead. I had the feeling this morning somehow marked the end of a chapter. With the telling of her uncle’s violent experience, a page had been turned in whatever story Serena and I were writing together. As she drove away, it felt like we’d written our last page and closed the book.
Until Serena’s eruption at the restaurant, I thought that despite our different backgrounds and races, our relationship was growing into something very special. Even as Howard recited his agonizing tale, I let myself believe she’d arranged this meeting because she really cared about me, and perhaps with this new knowledge we might form a stronger bond between us.
Now, as I turned the key in the ignition, I realized I’d been deceiving myself. Our relationship, like so many I’d had in recent years, was over. I’ve become quite good at reading body language, how to decipher the true meaning hiding beneath a person’s carefully parsed words. A look or an unconscious gesture gives them away, and my instincts told me her hidden message was simply, goodbye, loser. Howard’s story, I saw now, had been shared not to help me understand her better, but because it provided an excuse to end this reckless relationship with her white boyfriend.
At that precise moment, while my head crackled with self-destructive images and echoes of what might have been, my cell phone rang. I turned off the ignition and snatched the phone from the pocket between the seats where I’d dropped it.
“This is Quint,” I snapped, without looking at the Caller ID.
A deep rasping breath greeted me. He was back again.
“Listen—” I started to say.
“You listen. Is that too much to ask of the man who … No, you’re not a man. If you were a man you would have done the right thing long ago and blown your goddamn head off.” His voice sounded like a rusted nut being wrenched from its bolt. “You’re not a man, you’re just a thing. A murdering thing that killed my daughter.”
Filled with guilt and remorse, I had listened patiently to this sad man’s tortured rantings over the past year. His name was Samuel Parks, and before his daughter died he was a vice president with an insurance company in Jacksonville. Now, he only had her memory and his hatred to keep him alive. The phone calls, the bitterness and bile he spewed at me, hadn’t brought his daughter back nor brought healing to either of us.
“Listen to me, Mr. Parks, because this is the last time we’ll have one of these conversations. I’m sorry your daughter is dead. And I’m sorry I was the one driving the car that night. But get it through your sick head that it was an accident. The police said it was an accident.” I felt beads of sweat popping out on my forehead, and realized I was shouting into the phone.
“Calling me every day isn’t going to bring your daughter back. Wishing me dead might make you feel better, but it doesn’t solve your problems.”
“But, why—” He tried to cut in.
“Why?” I growled at him. “Don’t you think I ask myself that every day? Why was the light not working? Why couldn’t I have left five minutes later or earlier? Why did she have to be on the phone instead of paying attention to the traffic?”
“You have all kinds of excuses, don’t you?”
“I don’t have any excuses. Can’t you see it doesn’t help to beat on me? We can’t change what happened that night. I’ve listened to your demented ravings for the last time. It’s coming to a stop. Right now! Do you hear me?”
I paused waiting to see what he’d say, but he remained silent, probably stunned by my outburst. But I had more to say.
“Find yourself another therapist because I won’t listen to your miserable whining anymore. I’ve got my own fucking life to lead. Get your own.” I slammed the phone closed and threw it on the seat beside me.
I gasped as though I’d sprinted the final lap of a 400-meter race, my chest heaving, sweat pouring from my face. Before pulling away from Serena’s, I glanced into the rearview mirror, hardly recognizing the pair of haunted eyes staring back at me.
TWENTY-THREE
After leaving Tallabois searching for his car keys, I drove across town to Magnolia Avenue hoping to find Erin Marrano at home. The radio was tuned to a Jacksonville classic hits station, and Jimmy Buffet had just realized it was his damn fault he was wasting away in Margaritaville. I pulled into Erin’s driveway as her silver Lexus came to a stop. Her car door opened and she emerged, turning quickly as she heard my car behind her.
“Mr. Mitchell, I was hoping to hear from you today.” There was that smile again, adding heat to the 90-degree day.
Inside her home, we sat in the same pair of Queen Anne chairs. Only this time I faced the bookcases. Three slim volumes were stacked at one end of a middle shelf, and I immediately recognized the distinctive teal book jacket of Henderson’s A Flash of Silence. A number of framed photographs occupied the shelves. Erin and Bill Marrano in various poses and locales, holding hands, smiling at the camera. Obviously in happier times.
We were nearly knee-to-knee in th
e two arm chairs, and I caught the musky scent of her perfume. Erin’s makeup had been carefully applied, and although the red outline of the hand had faded, there were still traces of the purple bruise on her other cheekbone.
“How’s your shoulder?” I asked.
She rotated it slowly, making a tiny pout with her lips. “Still hurts a little, but you didn’t come here to talk about my ailments, I’m sure.”
“No, I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
Her eyes grew wide. “What?”
“Dr. Poe attempted suicide this morning. He tried to hang himself.”
“Oh, sweet Jesus.”
“Your brother-in-law said the doctors checked him out and he’s going to be fine,” I said, trying to offset the bad news.
“Have you seen him yet?”
“No visitors until seven, but I plan on going by tonight.”
The tip of her tongue slipped hesitantly from between her lips, circling them and leaving a trail of shimmering dampness. I stared, caught in the moment like a rabbit in the glare of an automobile’s headlights. She extended a hand, grabbing my fingers tightly and I felt an electric shock course along my arm.
“Tell him something for me, please.”
“Of course. Anything.”
“Tell him I believe in him. Don’t let him give up because I know he’ll be found innocent.” She said it with such conviction I was almost convinced she could see the future.
“I’m sure it will mean a lot to him, but the evidence is stacking up.”
She pulled her hand away. “He’s being framed.” Again, she seemed so sure.
“We agree on that. But so far all the evidence points to Jeffrey.”
“And you haven’t found any other possible suspects?”
“There’s a man named Denny Grimes who got fired from his job with the city. Some say he blamed your husband.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“Not yet, but I’m going to swing by his place today or tomorrow.”
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