Brotherhood

by Anne Westrick

  “Come on,” whispered Jeremiah, and Shad jumped.

  “Ha! Look at Shadrach, boys. Scaredy-cat!”

  Shad swung at him and Jeremiah darted away, laughing.

  “C-c-come on,” said Bubba, pulling Shad by the arm, patting him, settling him.

  “Let’s sing real low,” said Jeremiah. “I’m coming, I’m coming, for my head is bending low . . . You know that one? ‘Old Black Joe.’ Real low now, like we’re dying while we’re walking. Like dragging ourselves to our graves.”

  Clifton laughed. “Yeah. That’s good.”

  Bubba shook his head. “I c-c-can’t sing.”

  “It’s okay, Bubba. You just come along,” said Jeremiah, slapping him on the back.

  “Look—” Shad began.

  “You don’t want to sing,” snapped Jeremiah. “Is that what you’re gonna tell me?”

  “No, I just—”

  “Okay, sure—I hear you. Hey, fellows, Shad don’t want to sing. You know what he wants to do instead?” Shad was shaking his head, but Jeremiah was already pulling off his own sheet. “Here, put this on.”

  “No, listen,” Shad said, and his voice cracked. It pained him to think how scared Gabriel had been—so scared he’d missed two days of school. “I ain’t gonna spook no more colored families, you hear me? Don’t you go sending me into one of them houses. I ain’t going.”

  “Sure, sure, sure,” said Jeremiah in a dismissive tone. “No, we ain’t going into no houses. You know what we got tonight?” Jeremiah shoved his face into Shad’s. Then Clifton’s. Then Bubba’s. Shad rolled his eyes. His brother could be awfully dramatic. “Bones!”

  Clifton bent over, laughing so hard he had to hold himself up, hands on knees.

  Shad let out a huff of air to signal how stupid he thought this was. But on the inside, he squirmed like the dickens.

  Jeremiah threw his sheet over Shad and twisted it around. “Eyeholes. Where are the eyeholes?”

  “Jeremiah,” said Shad, “why don’t you spook these people tonight? Why do I have to do it?”

  “You’re an embarrassment,” said Jeremiah. “You got to get tough. Get a little gumption in you, boy. Come on, now. We ain’t gonna do nothing hard tonight. This’ll give you a little gumption.”

  Jeremiah had gotten his sheet over Shad’s head, and now the fabric covered Shad head to toe.

  “Here’s what you gonna do,” said Jeremiah. “Pretty soon, them coloreds what work the Spotswood Hotel will be heading home for the night, and they’re gonna come down the hill and turn up Seventeenth here. And you’re gonna greet them, Shad. That’s all. Just a ‘Welcome home, gentlemen.’”

  “What the—?”

  “Now, don’t worry. Clifton and Bubba and me, we’re gonna hide right over yonder. You know, if there’s too many of us, them coloreds won’t get close. But if there’s four or five of them and only one of you, they won’t pay you no mind.”

  “Look, Jeremiah—”

  “No, no, no! Shh. They’re comin’ already. Now you just ask one of them to shake your hand, you got that? Just a handshake and a ‘good evening.’” Then Jeremiah thrust something hard and smooth into Shad’s hand. “And when one of them reaches out his hand to shake yours, you just put this out and let him shake this instead of your hand. You got that?”

  Then Jeremiah and the boys dashed off, leaving Shad alone in the dark on the northwest corner of Seventeenth and Broad.

  Shad strained to see through the cutout eyeholes. The intersection was wide, and he knew that on the southwest corner sat an enormous maple tree—the tree he’d leaned against the day he’d met Rachel. He knew it was there—knew this intersection well—but not in the dark. No, it wasn’t the same in the shadows, with him covered in a gray sheet with a—what was this thing in his hand?

  He felt the object. Smooth and hard. He moved his hand along it. One end was clearly broken off and rough—something fabric would snag on. At the other end, the stick branched out, thinning into bumps, into—

  Shad froze. Holy moly. It was a hand! The bones of a hand! Where did Jeremiah get these things? It was awful. A skeleton’s hand right there in his own. He wanted to drop it, but instead his grip tightened. All of him tightened. His breath got short. Dern you, Jeremiah.

  He turned, thinking to throw the skeleton hand across the intersection, but he sensed people coming. The coloreds who worked the Spotswood—just as Jeremiah had said—there they were, walking toward him. A group. It was hard to tell how many in the dark, especially with lights twinkling up the Richmond hill behind them.

  The closer the men got to Shad, the slower their footsteps. He heard caution in their feet, heard the pitch of their voices drop from easy to hushed. They’d seen him, and they were working out what to do, whether to approach, how wide of a berth to give him.

  Shad swallowed. Blood pulsed in his ears. He strained to see through the eyeholes.

  One of the men stood apart from the rest, looming large. He was even taller than Shad. Muscular. Strong.

  Shad bent his knees, found his balance, lowered his chest, made his voice deep as he could. “Ah, sir. Good evening, good sir. Won’t you shake my hand?”

  He sensed the group of men easing past him, past the one of their own who had stopped—the big fellow who could take Shad down with a pinkie finger if he dared try. Shad braced for a wallop. He held out his sleeve for the handshake.

  Shad hoped Jeremiah and Clifton and Bubba hadn’t gone any farther than the maple tree. Here it comes, he thought, expecting the freedman to knock him over, expecting Jeremiah to rush to his rescue, expecting—he wasn’t at all sure what would happen.

  The big man reached forward to shake his hand.

  Shad extended the bones.

  The colored man wrapped his fingers around the skeleton hand. “Lord!” he cried. He let go and took two steps backward.

  The group of freedmen took off—gone in less than a second, running north up Seventeenth Street.

  Then Jeremiah and Clifton and Bubba were beside Shad, hooting and laughing like there was no tomorrow. Shad found his breath again. Under the sheet, he wiped sweat from his forehead.

  He thrust the skeleton hand at Jeremiah. “Take that stupid thing!” He glanced up Seventeenth Street, straining to see the colored men, but it was too dark to see much of anything at all.

  “Now are you boys ready to sing?” Jeremiah baited them. “Let’s go.”

  He grabbed Shad’s arm and the four of them headed up Seventeenth—Shad and Clifton in sheets, Jeremiah and Bubba with muslin cloths over their faces. On a normal day, Shad’s route home from that intersection would have been Broad Street east to Twentieth, then around to Venable and out Nine Mile, but nothing was normal about that day—that night. They didn’t belong on the north side of Seventeenth Street, but no one who lived there dared tell them so.

  Jeremiah started singing, and Shad’s throat was so tight, at first he couldn’t join in. Shad tripped and jerked as Jeremiah pulled him along. The street curved slightly to the left, following the creek bed, and as they passed shadow after shadow of little houses, Jeremiah’s voice began to crack and he let go of Shad’s arm. His saunter shifted from swagger to shuffle, his posture from bully to . . . What? Shad squinted. Jeremiah’s arms had gone limp. They swayed willy-nilly.

  His brother was trying to look like a dead body risen from a grave. The very sight made a smile come up on Shad’s face. His good-for-nothing brother had a skill, after all. Acting. Why, he ought to go to the theater.

  He ain’t scary, thought Shad. He’s silly! Shad chuckled and rounded his shoulders, leaning forward, swaying, and his voice came back to him. “I’m coming, I’m coming, for my head is bending low . . .” He tried to look like a dead body, too, but the effect was so comical—so ridiculous—he felt plumb stupid making this spectacle of himself. He was glad for the sheet that
covered him head to toe. Lord, the Klan was one crazy group!

  All the way to Venable Street, they sang low and strong.Jeremiah rattled that skeleton hand to beat all, and under his sheet, Shad couldn’t wipe the smile from his face.

  21

  Chickens

  IN THE WEEKS after the skeleton hand incident, Shad’s life settled into a routine. Tailoring lessons one day, reading the next, deliveries late mornings, and his own tailoring tasks most afternoons—setting sleeves and pockets, basting linings, pinning drapery hooks. Occasionally, the Klan called a meeting, and Shad came to like it best when he’d get in a song or two and a pat on the back, then head home early. No mischief. Just brotherhood and plenty of shut-eye so he could keep up with lessons and chores.

  At the Perkinsons’ shed, Rachel was now instructing him, and they focused on four-letter words. He was starting to recognize the traps—the letters that flipped—and he slowed when he hit a word with a b or p or d. He would think through the options each word presented and narrow his eyes until his brain figured out which letter was which. Sometimes the context of a sentence helped him find the meaning. Sometimes he even got through a few sentences before making a mistake.

  Soon he hoped to read like Nathaniel could. Why, that boy had his own copy of a magazine called All the Year Round by Charles Dickens. His own copy! Mr. Nelson had given it to him. And every day while Shad fretted over the position of letters in the smallest of words, that boy would help Matthew or Gabriel with his letters. Then, in the last bit of lesson time, he’d sit by the window, engrossed in his magazine. Oh, how Shad envied him. Then he’d kick himself for getting caught up in his envy. There was no easy way to settle into lessons in that shed.

  On tailoring days, the children progressed from simple seams to simple sacks. Shad taught them to clip corners before turning their pieces right side out. He showed them how to create a casing for a drawstring. Then it was practice, practice, practice so that the topstitching along the casing was straight as could be. They spent one full day on the drawstring itself, braiding it from strips cut on the bias.

  At home one afternoon, Shad took a break from his own work to steal away with the brown wrapping from a bolt of fabric. He sat on his bed and ran his fingers across the letters until he understood each word: pink dogwood floral, one hundred percent cotton, Frederick & Sons, Atlanta, Georgia. He beamed. His progress was slow, but it was progress nonetheless.

  On Monday morning, June 10, when Shad had finished another lesson on four-letter words—beep, deep, heed, heap—he went to Granddaddy’s shop to pick up the lace trim Mama needed to finish Miss Abigail’s dress. The farmer’s market was closed Mondays, so Main Street was quiet. Shad pushed open the door to Weaver’s Fine Tailoring, and it squeaked. The little bell tinkled.

  Granddaddy came clip-thunk down the wooden stairs. Halfway down, he saw Shad and stopped. “You’ve taken to that silk shirt, eh, son?”

  Shad smiled. “Yes, sir.”

  He turned and clip-thunked back up, and Shad followed. Granddaddy wore his same old black vest and white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He had lodged a piece of gray chalk over one ear.

  “Shadrach, when are you and your mama and Jeremiah gonna move into town?”

  “Yes, sir,” Shad said. “I mean, no, sir, you know Mama don’t like town.” Did they have to go over this yet again? There was a new odor in the shop today. It smelled tight like vinegar. A dye-setting smell. A new fabric smell the dust and moths hadn’t dulled yet.

  “Jeremiah ready to apprentice?” Granddaddy nodded at the black devil machine.

  “No, sir.” Shad breathed out long and slow and shook his head because this chitchat was a favorite of Granddaddy’s. Shad would always answer no, and Granddaddy would say, S’pose I need to discuss the matter with your mama.

  “S’pose I need to discuss the matter with your mama.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Not a hint that anything had happened over the past month. Not a hint that Shad had joined the Klan—that he and Granddaddy were now brothers in a sense. Not a hint that the Klan had sent Bubba and Shad to spook a family, or that they’d pulled the prank with the skeleton bones. Shad knew the boys talked—knew Klan members kept abreast of all the shenanigans going on—but if Granddaddy was on top of these things, he didn’t show it. His questions were routine, and so were Shad’s answers.

  No, Jeremiah didn’t want to apprentice. Not now, not ever. Shad could run gathers and set pleats and hem-stitch without anybody seeing the thread line. But he wasn’t the firstborn. It was one thing to be an assistant and another to own a shop. All the big expectations swirled around Jeremiah, and the scraps fell to Shad.

  Scraps. Granddaddy’s wooden floor was littered with scraps. Thread, cuttings, trim. Shad scurried around and picked up the bits.

  Granddaddy chuckled. “Didn’t you notice?” He pointed to the sign that said FIFTY CENTS, but the space on the plaster wall beside it was empty. “Sold one of your foot mats this morning.”

  Shad looked at the cracked white wall beside the FIFTY CENTS sign. Something had changed, after all. And something about that sale struck him as odd. He’d braided that mat from thread and cloth bits, and it had been hanging for months without anyone caring two cents about it. “Who bought it?”

  “Bertram Dabney. Said he could use him a mat at the door. Not only that, he left you all two chickens. Got ’em in a crate out back.”

  Granddaddy dropped a few coins in Shad’s hand.

  “Thank you, sir.” Shad went to slip the coins in his pocket when he remembered the silk shirt didn’t have a pocket. Humph. He wondered about Mr. Dabney—about the fact that he probably didn’t need a foot mat today any more than he’d needed it last week or last year. And chickens? What had brought on such generosity?

  Then he knew. Or thought he knew. Mr. Dabney had to be KKK, and the Klan was committed to taking care of its own. Whooee. It made Shad think of Daddy—how proud Daddy would be. How happy he’d be that his family was getting along okay without him. A brotherhood. Chickens. The Weaver family was going to be fine, thanks to the Klan.

  Granddaddy slipped some lace trim into a little cloth sack for Mama, and Shad slipped the coins and the scraps of cloth bits into the sack. “Thank you, Granddaddy.” He headed downstairs where a brown mouse skittered across the floor planks and disappeared into a hole smack-dab in the middle of the front room.

  Downstairs Granddaddy had a woodstove for cooking, a pine table and cupboards for foodstuffs, and a set of cane chairs. But he didn’t keep much downstairs because of the river flooding sometimes. If he could, he’d move his shop up Church Hill, away from the river. But it would be a long time before he’d be able to pay back that fellow who’d loaned him money for the devil machine. No, Shad didn’t think he’d manage to move uphill anytime soon. Anything worth keeping, Granddaddy kept upstairs.

  Shad went around back and peeked through the slats of the little wooden crate. Two scruffy red-brown chickens tilted their little heads to look at him. Then one of them squawked and Shad jumped. Ha! It scared him. Funny chicken. That bird had personality. He’d have to come up with good names for them. He squatted beside the crate.

  “You gonna give us some eggs?” he asked the chickens nicely.

  One of them said, “Peep.”

  “Peep to you,” said Shad. The other one stuck a beak through the slats. Shad lifted the crate and the chicken poked his hand. “Okay, that’s it. Poke and Peep. How’s that for names?”

  Poke kept on poking at him through the slats, and he had to shift the crate around to keep his hands from getting pecked at. He set the crate on his shoulder and headed out past the empty market stalls. He felt like a rich man—silk shirt, coins in his pocket, a crate of chickens, membership in a fine brotherhood. Look at me now, Daddy, he thought. Just open up them eyes from heaven, and look at me now.

  The wind bro
ught the sweet smell of searing butter and fried fish, and Shad knew someone in the Bottom was cooking a fine midmorning breakfast. At O’Malley’s hitching post at Seventeenth and Grace, two horses were tethered together—a copper mare and a black gelding with a bushy brown mane. Shad looked at the wooden sign over O’Malley’s saloon door. It had been a long time since Shad had enjoyed a nice root beer, and today his mouth watered up just thinking on it. He had money on him today—first time in months. High time he treated himself to a root beer.

  He pushed open the door and looked for a spot that wasn’t sticky so he could set down the crate. The floor was always sticky in O’Malley’s. The tables were sticky and the air was smoky. Today the place was almost empty. Two old men sat on tall wooden stools at the bar. They wore coarse woolen vests, and one man’s vest was coming apart at the side seam. It wouldn’t take but a few quick stitches to fix, but Shad knew it wasn’t his place to tell a man his clothes needed mending.

  Mr. O’Malley smiled from behind the bar. “Well, fancy that,” he said, and it came out “fanthy that.” “All in the family! How you been, Thadrach? What can I do for you?”

  “Hello, Mr. O’Malley.” Shad set down the crate and the sack of lace trim under the front window. The chickens squawked. Stuck on the floor was a black shoelace, and he peeled it up and shoved it in the sack. Then he pulled a penny from the sack and went to the bar. He sat on a stool at the end, away from the men, and set the penny on the counter. “Root beer, sir.”

  “Glad you’re keeping it clean,” said Mr. O’Malley, raising his arm high over the thick glass mug so the root beer splashed and a big white froth came up on top. He slid the wet mug toward Shad and shoved the penny at him, too. “It’th on me today, boy.”

  “Oh. Uh, thank you, sir.” They shared a look, and something in O’Malley’s eyes told Shad that he was probably Klan, too. Shad wondered how long this special treatment would last.

  Shad put his mouth to the mug and the white froth foamed and tickled his nose, making a mustache on his lip. The sassafras root stung his throat, and he liked it. He’d have his own mustache someday soon—a real one.