by Pat Spears
Acid from the coffee Jodie had drunk backed into her throat, and she gagged, choking out any words she might have spoken.
“Dead? Just like that?” Crystal Ann’s voice was eerily calm. “No damn way.” She dropped onto a stool, her stark features awash in the intermittent flickering of the overhead row of dying lightbulbs.
“Chief and his bunch caught up to him on the Albany highway. The four bragged that they’d beaten him to death. Claimed it was a favor to me.” The dark circles under Sally’s puffy eyes were magnified against the pastiness of her skin. “They never even said what he’d done so wrong.”
“He got born black. That’s what he did. And you know that’s all he did. Why are you just now telling us?” Crystal Ann glared at Sally.
“Had no way,” Sally pleaded. “Got no number for you.”
At the sound of the front door, they each looked up. Bo stood in the doorway, his solemn face ghostly gray, and he glanced nervously behind him at the traffic moving along Water Street. He mumbled something about opening the kitchen door.
“God help us. I guess I will.” Sally started toward the kitchen, and Bo ducked back through the door, disappearing into the alley.
“Sally, wait. Bo knows something he isn’t telling.” Imbedded in Bo’s uneasiness, Jodie believed, were details about Arthur that Sally didn’t have.
“No, Jodie. You stay the hell out of this. You’re already way too deep as it is. Chief would be within his rights to demand I fire you for that fool stunt you pulled.”
“I mean to talk to Bo.”
“Do and you’re fired.” Sally’s eyes brimmed with tears, but there was no doubting her words. She’d chosen to side with Chief to protect her own interests.
“If that’s the way it’s got to be, I quit.”
“Then get out. And stay the hell away from Bo. Two women alone can’t run this place.” Sally hurried from the dining room toward the kitchen.
Jodie turned and started for the door. Her only thought was to get to Bo before Sally.
“Wait, Jodie. Take my car. I’ll get the last of your stuff from upstairs. Come for me at quitting time.” Crystal Ann handed Jodie her key ring. “Meet me in front of the dime store. Those bastards don’t need to see us together outside of work.” Her voice shook. Crystal Ann hugged her. “Now go.”
Jodie entered the alley and slumped behind a stack of delivery crates. She lit her last cigarette and thought about all the smokes she’d shared with Arthur. Tears fogged her vision, but she was counting on her grief fueling the anger she’d need to get through whatever lay ahead.
It was first light before Bo stepped into the alley. He took one look at her and headed back through the door. She followed him into the kitchen.
“I don’t know anything.” His fear was as palpable as hers.
“Yeah, you do, and you’re going to tell me.”
“She’ll set them men against me. They’ll kill me, Miss Jodie. I’m not strong like him.” Bo’s hands trembled.
“Strong? You saying—he’s not dead?” Her heart slammed into her throat so hard she felt she’d choke on her relief. “Jesus, Bo, I know you’re scared. I’m scared. But I’m not budging a step till you tell me what’s happened to him.” She stood so close to the trembling man, she smelled his terror. Or was it hers?
“Some say they took what was left of him to the Catholic hospital.”
“His brother’s family? Were they with him?”
“Ain’t heard about nobody but him.”
“Good. That’s real good.” Footsteps sounded in the hallway and Bo paled fair as an Easter lily. Jodie ducked through the door and took the alley to Crystal Ann’s car. She started the Rambler, pulled onto the street, and accelerated. She had no real plan. But she’d learn Arthur’s fate or die trying.
Twenty-Five
Jodie approached the hospital and turned onto a driveway with signage denoting the emergency entrance. If Arthur had survived the beating, and Bo was right, he would have entered the hospital through the set of double doors. She’d find him and do whatever he needed. She owed Arthur that much, and after the way in which she’d failed Mr. Samuel, she owed herself a second chance to be more.
The double doors swung open, and a young, slender woman with blonde hair exited. She descended the ramp at a quick pace, hurried into a late model green Chevy, and drove toward the exit. She glanced in Jodie’s direction for only a second, but long enough for Jodie to note her red, tear-stained face. She turned onto the street and drove east, away from downtown.
Jodie got out of the Rambler and walked up the ramp, stopping at the double doors. She rang the doorbell marked for emergencies only and listened for movement on the opposite side of the door.
A short, middle-aged man with a round, boyish face and a woman’s wide hips appeared in the doorway. He wore a priest’s collar and a wrinkled black gabardine suit.
“Good morning. I’m Father Francis Dean. May I be of service?” He looked past her, his face expectant.
“I’m alone. Here to see … a friend.”
“I see.” When she wasn’t more forthcoming, he said, “Then you’ll want to enter through the front. This is the emergency entrance.” Once again he looked over the parking lot and then back at her.
She studied his kind face and risked that if he knew Arthur, he’d take her to him.
“I’m here to see Arthur Washington.” When he hesitated she added, “Please don’t try stopping me. I intend to see him, come hell or high water.”
His face muscles relaxed. “Do come in.” He stepped aside, making room for her to pass.
They entered a dimly lit hallway. The strong odor of disinfectant rose to meet her. She followed him down two narrow flights of stairs to what she believed was the hospital basement. He stopped before a double door.
“No damn way. I’m not going in there.” Bo had said Arthur was alive, but the priest had led her to the hospital morgue. Her pulse raced and the back of her throat was parched. She backed away from the door, prepared to run back the way she’d come, but her leg muscles failed her, and she leaned against the wall to steady herself.
“Good heavens, young woman.” Father Francis reached an arm around her shoulders. “I sincerely apologize. It’s much safer if he’s kept separated from other patients.” His round face was earnest.
“He’s not dead? He’s alive?”
“Oh yes, my dear. He’s alive. A lesser man would not have survived the brutal beating he took, but it seems God has a bigger plan for our friend Arthur.” Father Francis gently squeezed her elbow.
Sickened by the thought of Arthur’s horrific suffering at the hands of Chief and his goons, Jodie was unsure how God’s hand could have been in both. Her relief was so complete, she wanted to share Father Francis’s vision of Arthur’s future, but she understood that God could not be counted upon to blunt the hatred she’d witnessed at the Wing—and that Arthur was a dead man if he stayed in Selma.
Father Francis eased the door open, sending a narrow path of light streaming across the floor. At her hesitation, he gently nudged her forward.
Inhaling sharply, she stepped deeper into the cavernous room, reeking of formaldehyde that stung her eyes. In the room’s dimness, she bumped into a gurney. She gasped at the sight of ten stiff, chalk-white toes, tipped with claw-like, black fungal nails, pointing skyward.
She glanced back toward the open door, and Father Francis was barely containing his amusement. He pointed in the direction of a curtained-off area in a far corner. Jodie soothed her embarrassment with the notion of Arthur’s big laugh, enjoying the irony of sharing the morgue with a white corpse.
At the sound of the hooked curtain sliding across the metal bar, Arthur turned his head ever so slightly, and Jodie flushed with new anger. His face was bruised and lacerated. He wore a patch over his left eye, and his right had been reduced to a narrow slit. His ribs were heavily strapped and his right arm, wrist to shoulder, was in a hard cast. His pulpy, swollen lip
s parted and he spoke her name, his raspy voice barely audible. The deep bruise on his neck matched the shape of a boot heel. Her grief, caught up in a maddening whirl of rage, took her breath.
Still she managed to whisper, “Your redneck roommate could use a longer sheet. He’s got some damn ugly feet.”
“You’re not safe here.” His speech was labored.
“Tell me where it’s safe, and we’ll both go there.”
“You’re a fool.” His chest rose and fell with his effort.
“Maybe, but at least I got a friend out of it.” Her instinct was to touch him. Instead, she shoved her hand deep inside a pocket. Shaken with shame, she prayed he hadn’t felt the moment. But he had.
“No meanness in it,” he said. “More of what we all got to unlearn.”
She sat with him late into the afternoon, leaving his bedside only to join Father Francis for a bowl of soup. Arthur slept and woke, only to look over at her and then drift back into what she hoped was the power of sleep to restore.
When it was time for her to leave, she whispered, “Arthur, it’s me, Jodie. I’ve got to go. But I’ll be back.”
He turned toward the sound of her voice, but he didn’t speak.
Evening had descended, blanketing Selma in a cold, wintery darkness. Jodie turned the Rambler onto Seventh and spotted Crystal Ann pacing, her hands jammed deep inside her coat pockets. Jodie pulled to a quick stop, and Crystal Ann hurried into the car.
“Where the hell have you been?” She shivered, her shoulders lifted into her coat. “It’s not exactly a night for strolling.”
“I’ve been with Arthur. He’s alive, but hurt real bad.”
Crystal Ann buried her face in her hands and moaned. “Thank God. But why didn’t you call me?”
“Afraid to. Sally’s not to be trusted.”
“Tell me he’s safe.”
“For now .…”
“Teddy heard Chief and his bunch showed up at both colored funeral homes asking questions. And after you left, Sally went back to the kitchen, found a pot of grits boiling, but no Bo.”
“Figures if he’s got somewhere to go, he’ll haul ass out of town.”
Crystal Ann blew her nose. “I’m a damn mess. Pass me that bottle there under the seat.”
Jodie retrieved the bottle.
“We’d just closed when Chief came banging on the door, calling Sally out. They talked, and after he left, she ran back inside, grabbed her coat and purse, and lit out.”
“Did she say anything about me?”
“No. Said nothing more than I was to lock up.”
Jodie reduced speed, testing the driver of the pickup truck who’d been following them for some distance. She’d need to keep her movements secret until Arthur was safely out of Selma.
Twenty-Six
Dawn had come as a bloody stain on the distant horizon when Jodie dropped Crystal Ann three blocks from the Wing, then drove to the nearest filling station. She purchased a full tank of gas, mindful that she and Crystal Ann might need to leave town in a hurry. She placed eighty dollars in the carton of Lucky Strikes she bought, leaving it under the car seat. It was most of her savings, which meant she’d likely miss basketball trials in the spring, but wherever Arthur was headed he’d need cash.
Father Francis met her at the emergency entrance, wearing the same wrinkled suit that looked as though he’d slept in it. He didn’t offer to follow her downstairs, explaining that he was busy making arrangements to move Arthur.
“Where?” she asked.
“New Orleans. A convent there has agreed to take him under their care until he’s well again.” Father Francis grimaced and rushed back along the hallway.
Jodie entered the morgue, the scent of formaldehyde still strong, and drew back the curtain that barely separated Arthur from the dead. He attempted to raise his broad shoulders, but groaned, clutching his bandaged ribs, and eased back down onto the bed.
“It’s early, but I brought along Crystal Ann’s chicken soup.”
Jewel had never made her soup, not even the time a case of German measles drove her fever to what the doctor had called brain-boiling. She had no faith in the heralded powers of soup to heal, but hoped Arthur had better memories of his mama’s chicken soup.
Adjusting the pillows beneath his head and shoulders, she spooned the broth between the pulpy rawness of his swollen lips, his body quivering with his effort. With less than a fourth eaten, he waved the spoon away, his breathing labored from exertion.
“Preacher’s moving me.” She thought he may have been searching for an answer as to her involvement in the decision. “Don’t cotton to running.” He turned his face away.
She set the thermos cup on the bedside table.
“I hear New Orleans’s got some real fine jazz. And plenty of fancy cafés where a good cook can find work.”
“I got work here.” He watched her from behind the bandages.
New Orleans wasn’t Harlem, any more than Selma was Dallas. Then, lives lived at the bottom got remade by circumstances they were more often than not powerless to change. There were times when running was all they had.
Late afternoon, Jodie joined Father Francis on the bench outside the morgue, the weight of securing Arthur’s safety bearing down hard on each of them.
“What does his family know?”
“They’ll be told that he survived the beating. But oddly enough, Arthur insisted that, with the exception of his nephew Ben, his family not be told where we’re taking him.”
Jodie nodded, knowing Arthur’s demand was not odd. Family couldn’t let slip what they didn’t know.
“When will you leave?”
“Tomorrow evening. I trust God grants us that much time. Ben heard from a woman who cleans for the wife of one of those godless men that they had learned their shameful deed failed.”
“How long ago?”
“Earlier today, I believe Ben said.” His eyes narrowed with sudden recognition.
“Don’t mean to discount God’s hand in Arthur’s future, but we’ve got to get him out of Selma today.”
“You may be right. But what if he isn’t strong enough to travel?”
“He’ll have to be.”
The priest took a silver flask from his inside coat pocket. “Are you a drinking woman, Miss Jodie?”
She took the flask from his hand.
Ben had worked into early evening removing the back seat and trunk panel from Father Francis’s Oldsmobile and cutting and fitting a sheet of half-inch plywood into the space, fashioning a makeshift bed. Jodie, Father Francis, Ben, and two stout nuns used a bed sheet to draw Arthur onto a gurney. The bigger job was passing him through the trunk opening onto the plywood bed. It took several brutal attempts before they maneuvered his bulk into the space, and the five stood back, gasping.
Had Sister Mary Alice not administered a double dose of pain medicine, Jodie was sure Arthur would have passed out. The sister placed extra bandages, iodine, and pain medication on the front seat with instructions for what Father Francis was to do should any of Arthur’s stitched wounds start to bleed.
To Arthur she said, “Dear man, I’m so sorry, but there’s nothing more I can do to protect your fractured ribs against the jarring.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “God willing, in time your bruised kidney will mend.”
Arthur called to Ben. “You’re the man now. It’s up to you to get your grandma, mama, and those little ones to your Uncle Willis down in Florida. Them crackers stole my car, so you need to borrow from some of the family.”
“You can count on me.” Ben looked as if he’d choke on his held back tears.
Jodie stepped to the car and handed Arthur the carton of cigarettes.
“Don’t owe me. You’re all caught up.”
“Naw, go on. Take ’em. I’ve quit.”
Sister Mary Alice handed Father Francis a urinal, a bed pan, and a roll of toilet paper. He looked at Arthur’s bulk and grimaced; his round cheeks blushed rosy.
<
br /> Arthur clutched his ribs, his muffled laughter racking his tortured upper body, and the laughter of those gathered built, rolling back their shared fears, momentarily lifting their spirits.
The car eased onto the street, and Jodie watched until its flickering taillights disappeared. She had never heard of a friendship between a white woman and a black man, but if there was such a thing it was what she felt just now.
Twenty-Seven
After several failed attempts at finding work, including a job gutting chickens on an assembly line, Jodie gave in to her despair, complaining to Crystal Ann.
“That sonofabitch, Chief, dropped a dime on me. Nobody within the sound of his nasty lies is going to hire me. What am I going to do?” If she didn’t find work soon, she’d need to leave Selma to look elsewhere.
Crystal Ann shrugged. “Can’t say he did. Can’t say he didn’t. But either way, you’re going about this thing all wrong.” She walked out of the kitchen, clutching her second double shot of bourbon.
“Don’t just lay down something and walk the hell off.”
“Girl, when’s the last time you knew a hiring man you’d trust with the truth?” Crystal Ann turned on her Sunday night show, The Defenders, and flopped down on the couch.
Jodie poured her first drink of the evening and slammed out the door. She sat on the steps, swatting mosquitoes and grappling with what to do next. What had been Crystal Ann’s point? Lying was no problem. Everyone she trusted was a liar. Which lies was the question that stumped her.
In spite of Teddy’s warning that the blue jean factory was a hellhole of female slave labor, Jodie was desperate enough that she’d try anything. She shucked her pride and walked back inside, accepting Crystal Ann’s earlier offer of help.
“First off, you’ll need to invent a man in your life. One who’ll vouch for your female respectability.” Crystal Ann chuckled.
“Respectability, my ass.” Teddy had claimed that the factory hires were a gaggle of all-around female misfits: aging singles, girls with bastard babies, divorcées, and abandoned wives with broods of hungry kids. What kind of respectability went with that crowd?