Miss Julia Hits the Road

by Ann B. Ross

  “Amen to that, Hazel Marie,” I said, heading the car toward the south end of town where Lillian’s church was located. “Even though Clarence Gibbs may have the law on his side, we ought to be able to do something.”

  I turned the car down several streets lined with increasingly smaller and less well-cared-for houses, trying to figure out where the AME Zion church was. Several blocks closer to town than Lillian’s street, I remembered, but off the beaten track since I never passed it when I drove her home. I knew it was in the same general area as her neighborhood, though.

  “You know,” I went on, “I’ve heard of landlords who collect cash rents every week, but I had no idea that Lillian lived under those conditions.”

  “I thought Miss Lillian probably owned her house,” Little Lloyd said.

  “I guess I did, too,” I said, as a feeling of shame swept over me. “No, to tell the pitiful truth, I just never really thought about it.”

  “Well,” Hazel Marie said firmly, her mind already taken up with Lillian’s problem. “We have to do something. What can we do, Miss Julia?”

  “I know,” Little Lloyd said. “She can move in with us.”

  “She certainly can,” I agreed. “And that’s what she’s going to do. But I’m afraid she’ll only accept it as a temporary measure. She wants her own place, and I don’t blame her. Hazel Marie, we’ll just have to research places to rent and help her get resettled. And in a much nicer place, too.”

  “I think she ought to buy a house,” Little Lloyd said. “Then she won’t ever have to move again.”

  “I expect she can’t afford to buy anything, honey,” Hazel Marie told him.

  I nodded grimly, doubting that Lillian had any savings, much less any collateral for a bank loan. Still, she seemed to’ve managed her affairs with care and prudence. Then again, what did I know about how she did it? I’d never asked, never thought it my business to look into hers.

  Maybe I should have.

  “I’ll give her the money,” Little Lloyd said, and I could’ve hugged him for his generous little heart. “Can’t I do that, mama, out of what my daddy left me?”

  Hazel Marie thought a minute, then said, “I don’t know, sugar, if you can or not. We’ll have to ask Mr. Sam.”

  Sam was the administrator of the child’s trust fund, and I had a sinking feeling at the thought that Sam might not be able to administer anything for much longer.

  “I’ll take care of Lillian,” I said. “Let’s not bother Sam with that right now.”

  I pulled to the curb a few doors from the small brick church, where we could see a group of people standing around in the bare, leaf-strewn yard before going in to the meeting. A few clumps of bushes huddled next to the foundation of the church, throwing shadows from the light fixture over the church door. A pole lamp near the street gave off a meager light in the early dark of the Fall evening.

  As we pulled our coats closer before facing the brisk wind, I said, “The only problem with whatever we do about Lillian is that she’s as concerned about the other residents as she is about herself. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if she refused any help if it didn’t include everybody.”

  “That sounds just like Lillian,” Hazel Marie said as she opened the car door. “She’s so good-hearted. But my goodness, Miss Julia, I don’t think even you could take care of all of them.”

  “No, and I don’t intend to,” I said, pulling up my seat so Little Lloyd could get out of the back. “Jump on out, Little Lloyd.” Then, looking at Hazel Marie across the roof of the car, I went on, “If all those people’re put out on the street, it’ll be a matter for the whole town to take on.”

  Little Lloyd ran up beside his mother and took her hand as we walked toward the soon-to-be-evicted crowd. I hoped to goodness that more people had turned out for the meeting than the dozen or so I saw standing around. Lillian caught sight of us, her face lighting up at seeing Little Lloyd.

  “Why, baby,” she called as she came toward us, “what you doin’ here? Lillian so glad to see you. Miss Hazel Marie, I didn’t ’spect to see you. Where you leave Mr. Pickens?”

  “I just plain left him, Lillian,” Hazel Marie said. Then, seeing Lillian’s frown, she went on. “But don’t worry about him. We’re worried about you.”

  “Lillian,” I said, holding down my hair as the breeze blew it first one way, then the other. “I thought your whole church would turn out for this. I hope most of them’re inside.”

  “No’m, look like it jus’ us and the reverend. And you all, an’ Mr. Sam, if he come,” she said, a look of worry sweeping across her face.

  “Did you get everybody here?” I was anxious for all the evictees to show a united front.

  “Yessum, they all here. Come on over an’ meet ’em.”

  We followed her into the small yard in front of the church, as I thought that I’d just as soon go on in and get out of the wind.

  Lillian introduced us to several of her neighbors as they began walking up the concrete steps and into the church. They were friendly, but not overly so, which seemed appropriate to me considering their immediate concerns. In their place, I would’ve found it hard to welcome anybody, much less somebody who’d never darkened their door before. I was struck by the fact that not a one of them appeared to be under fifty. Many were white-haired and bent with age, one leaning on a cane and another trying to manage the steps with a walker. Some, though, seemed as strong and healthy as Lillian. They all looked worried.

  Walking into the small sanctuary, I followed the others down the center aisle, hearing the soft shuffle of their feet and the tap of a cane on the uncarpeted floor. I glanced around at the furnishings, trying not to appear too curious. It was not what you’d call elegant or luxurious; more like bare and serviceable. The walls were painted white with dark shellacked wood trim that matched the pews. Three black wrought-iron sconces lined each side of the sanctuary. There was a piano in the front with—Lord help us—a set of drums beside it.

  As I slipped into a pew beside Lillian, I looked up at a figure of Christ painted on the wall behind the metal chairs in the choir. It was not my practice to be critical of other people’s ways of worshipping, but I have to say that this picture had been rendered by a somewhat wobbly hand. Most surprising to me was the deep coloring of the skin tones. We Presbyterians don’t hold with painted images, yet I’d seen many pictures and paintings of the Christ in Sunday School pamphlets and in Little Lloyd’s Bible story book. All those pictures showed him as fair, some going as far as making him blond and blue-eyed, which everybody knows is far from accurate. But the more I looked at the figure on the AME Zion church wall, the more taken with it I was. It certainly didn’t depict a fair-skinned individual, but neither was it real dark, either. Sort of Mediterranean, I guess, which, come to think of it, was probably closer to the real thing than any picture I’d ever seen before.

  My thoughts of artistic license came to a sudden halt as the Reverend Abernathy stepped to the front of the church, standing below the podium where he was close to the pews. It pained me to see how frail he looked. He was thin and small in stature, with a lined face and a ruffle of white hair around his head. He had always seemed to me to be in need of a stout arm to lean on, but I remembered that he’d not looked any healthier at Binkie and Coleman’s wedding. And he’d handled that just fine.

  The Reverend Abernathy looked around at the meager showing, wondering, I should expect, why the rest of his congregation hadn’t turned out in support. I was certainly wondering that.

  Before speaking, the reverend lifted his hand to quiet the soft murmuring as the people talked among themselves. Worried faces quickly turned toward him, some with hopeful gazes, others looking as if they’d already lost everything they had. Which they just about had.

  “Before we begin, I’d like to extend a warm welcome to our visitors,” he said in his quiet, unassuming way. He smiled at Hazel Marie, Little Lloyd and me. “Now let us look to the Lord for the guidance we all
gonna need.”

  We bowed our heads as the reverend offered thanks for any number of blessings before finally asking that these precious lambs be led to make good and wise decisions. It was very close to a Presbyterian prayer in its length and coverage of every contingency anybody could think of.

  When he allowed us to look up and get on with the business at hand, I glanced around to see if Sam had slipped in.

  “Where you think he is?” Lillian whispered to me, for she was looking around for him, too.

  “I don’t have any idea,” I whispered back. “But I don’t like it, Lillian. I hate to think that it’s slipped his mind.”

  She sighed as her face drooped in disappointment. I patted her hand as an elderly man took his place beside the reverend and began recounting what everybody already knew, namely, that Clarence Gibbs was evicting everybody and they didn’t know what they were going to do.

  A woman’s voice interrupted him. “I think we need ourselves a good lawyer, is what I think.”

  “Now, sister,” Reverend Abernathy cautioned. “Lawyers cost money, and that’s the one thing we don’t have.”

  Lillian gathered herself, took a few deep breaths, and, taking hold of the pew in front, pulled herself to her feet. I saw her coat trembling in her nervousness at speaking in public. “Reverend,” she said, “Mr. Sam Murdoch say he gonna be here to help us, an’ I don’t know why he not here. I already talked to him, an’ he say he won’t charge us. An’ he’ll help us, I know he will, ’cause he always a friend to the downtrodden.”

  Having had her say, she sat, and I put my hand on hers. Such loyalty, I thought. Then thought that I could wring Sam’s neck for getting her hopes up, only to disappoint her by forgetting where he was supposed to be.

  “Thank you, Sister Lillian,” the reverend said. “We appreciate your remarks, and we look for Brother Sam to come walkin’ in any minute and give us the help he’s known far and wide for.”

  As I was mourning Sam’s decline, the door at the back of the pews flew open, and a gust of wind blew through the church. I turned with a gasp and saw Sam closing the door behind him. Everybody turned to stare at him, and I thought to myself that I’d never seen him look so frazzled. His white hair was windblown, his lined face drawn, and his shoulders slumped with weariness. I started to rise as my heart went out to him in his confused state.

  “Reverend,” Sam said, as several others rose from their seats. “Sorry I’m late, but I’ve just come from meeting with Mr. Gibbs and, as hard as I tried, I couldn’t get anywhere with him. He’s bringing in the bulldozers and backhoes tomorrow, and they’ll start work the day after. He’s dead-set on bringing those houses down.”

  Chapter 7

  Lillian gave out a low moan and leaned against me, as a chorus of anguished cries and calls to Jesus rose from the congregation. Sam walked down the aisle toward the reverend, touching Lillian’s shoulder as he passed our pew.

  “Reverend,” Sam said, nodding to him. Then he turned to face us, holding up his hands for quiet. “Folks, let me talk to you a minute. I’ve tried everything I know to get Mr. Gibbs to delay clearing that property, but he says he’s waited long enough. He wants you all out by tomorrow. Now, wait,” he cautioned, as several people began to cry out again, and some moved toward the aisles to leave. “There’s nothing you can do tonight, but we do need to talk about what you’re going to do tomorrow.”

  The Reverend Abernathy started shaking his head. “This just bad doin’s, Mr. Sam. Where these poor souls gonna go? All us here at the church been tryin’ to find places for ’em to move to, but they few and far between.”

  “First of all,” Sam said, as I marvelled that he was able to speak in such sensible terms. In fact, I was beginning to feel quite proud of his grasp of the situation. “I might’ve been able to get an injunction against that eviction order, if there’d been enough time. But even if we’d started earlier, it would’ve been a long shot. As you know, sentiment in this county is pretty strong on property owners’ rights. I’ve tried appealing to Gibbs’s sense of community responsibility, but I’ll be honest with you; I didn’t get very far.”

  “Oh, Lawd,” one old man quavered. “Can’t somebody do something?”

  Sam shook his head. “If I’d had more time . . . maybe we could’ve done something. As it is now, Gibbs is making plans to put up a water-bottling plant on the site.”

  “A water plant!” a voice called out, echoing my thought. What in the world would Clarence Gibbs do with a water plant?

  “Water-bottling plant,” Sam clarified. “Seems he’s found a spring up on the ridge that he thinks has commercial possibilities.”

  One man—it might have been Mr. Wills—started laughing, and he kept on at it so long that it began to infect the rest of us, a welcome relief from the rampant sadness. “Mr. Sam,” he finally managed to get out as he struggled to his feet, “They been stories ’bout that ole spring ever since I was a boy, an’ long before that. My granddaddy used to go get him a sip ever’ now an’ again, but too much of it’ll fly back on you. I could tell some stories, uh-huh, I could. It strong stuff, so just a taste be all a man need to keep on a-goin’ strong, don’t matter how old he is. It keep on buildin’ up his strength. ’Scuse me, ladies, I jus’ tellin’ what I heard. Never tried it myself. Never had no need to.”

  He sat down, still chuckling to himself. But another man chimed in. “I heard them tales, too, an’ lots of people b’lieve ’em. You reckon he make a go of it, Mr. Sam?”

  “Sounds pretty risky to me,” Sam said, smiling. “I wouldn’t want to invest in it.”

  Lillian leaned over and whispered to me. “I heard ’bout that spring, an’ ever’ man here an’ a lot more’s tried it out, I don’t care what they say.”

  Hazel Marie leaned across me to ask, “Does it work?”

  “Nobody say it do, an’ nobody say it don’t,” Lillian said, covering her mouth to hide a smile. “They jus’ so tired from trompin’ ’round up on that ridge, they have to lay down an’ rest when they get back.”

  A heavy-set woman stood up, ignoring the laughter around her. “Well,” she said, her flower-laden hat quivering on her head. “All this talk ’bout springwater’s not helpin’ us right now. Don’t look like nobody care but us.”

  “I wouldn’t care myself, if I didn’t live there,” the woman with the walker said. “Them houses oughtta come down long time ago. They awful to live in, but they’s nowhere else to go.”

  “Now, Sister Pearl,” the reverend said. “You know the whole church been prayin’ ’bout this matter. So don’t you worry, the Lord gonna provide.”

  “He better get busy with it, then,” a bent-over man said as he leaned on his walker. “If Mr. Sam right, we be beddin’ down on the street tomorrow night.”

  Sam stepped up again and said, “That’s exactly what we need to concentrate on, Mr. Washington. We need to find places, even if they’re temporary, for each one of you and get you out of the way of those ’dozers. Now, how many of you have someone you can move in with for a while?”

  The Reverend Abernathy said, “Pay attention now. Le’s get ourselves organized an’ see who needs what. I’m gonna start with one end of Willow Lane and go ’round to the end house on the other side. Sister Flora, you live in the first house on the left, don’t you? You have some place you can move to?”

  “I can go stay with my auntie,” Sister Flora said. “But neither one of us too happy about it.”

  “We’ll try to do better for you,” the reverend said. “All right, who’s next to you?”

  “That’s me,” a man with a fuzz of white hair around his head said. “I live there, but look like not for long.”

  “You have somewhere to go, Brother Thomas?” the reverend said. “No? Mr. Sam, would you be so kind as to keep a record of who’s going to need a place?”

  Sam nodded and pulled a notepad and pen from his pocket and began writing.

  People leaned toward each other and began t
alking among themselves, trying to decide where they could go. From the frowns and head shakes, it looked as if a goodly number of empty beds would have to be found before the sun set again.

  The Reverend Abernathy said, “I can take four people, if two don’t mind sleepin’ double. An’ I know we can call on Deacon Robert and Deacon Henry, they both got extra rooms. I need to get on the telephone an’ see who else can take in somebody. I’ll do that right now, Mr. Sam, if you’ll keep on managin’ the meetin’.”

  I could feel the anxiety level in the church rise as voices increased in volume. Some of the women dabbed at their eyes with lace handkerchiefs, and one man blew his nose long and loud.

  As the reverend left to begin telephoning, Sam looked out at those upturned faces and said, “We don’t want anybody to be left without a place to stay, so we need to know where you’ll be. I can take some of you at my house.”

  “I got chil’ren in town,” one man said in a mournful voice. “But I hope I don’t have to stay long, they crowded enough as it is.”

  “I’ll pass this notepad around,” Sam said. “All of you who have a place to go, write your name and a phone number where we can reach you. Everybody else can be assigned to the extra beds that’ve been offered.”

  Sam looked over at me, raising his eyebrows. I nodded, knowing he was asking about Lillian. He jotted something on his pad, then began passing it around.

  “Mr. Sam?” Sister Pearl said, as she stood up to get his attention. “You reckon they’s insurance on our houses?”

  Sam considered the question, but from the look on his face I could see the answer coming. “Mr. Gibbs may well have insurance on every one of them, but I’m afraid that will only benefit him. If you have individual homeowners’ policies, though, that might cover the loss of any personal possessions that you can’t get out. I’ll have to look into it.”

  “I got burial insurance,” she said. “Do that cover anything?”

  “Sister,” a hefty man in the front pew said loudly, “the only thing that’ll cover is you when you pass over.”