And the People of a Town Go Round and Round
Sue simply wasn’t having a good morning. So far nothing was going right. Lester had told her he wanted roast chicken for supper and something special for dessert. Nothing in particular, just make it special. She’d already been to three different places, and one had a pretty good and two had OKs, but nobody seemed to have special. She could look in two more places and check with a few more folks, but special was looking like it was going to be hard to come by today.
It was the first day in a while that Main Street was good and crowded. It was nice to see all the usual folks milling around. It was also the first day since, well, you know, it. She’d been kind of reluctant to venture out so soon after and walk among the darkies, ’cause sometimes after one of these, you know, unfortunate situations, well, them folks just weren’t that pleasant to be around. Not that they would step out of line, or get too surly, Lester made sure of that, but still they could be, well, you know, different. But today, though they were quieter then usual, and certainly more huddled together, they didn’t seem to be so very different, and that was a blessing. Lord, if Nora was here, she would go pick up one of those wonderful sweet-potato pies. But Nora was gone, never to be nowhere again. Now what was she supposed to do, and where was she supposed to find special?
• • •
It sure was a pretty morning. The first clear day after a whole week of stormy ones. Lester looked on round at his town and everything seemed to be just fine — except for maybe one thing. He looked across Main Street again at the nigger sitting on the crate. Couldn’t rightly figure out what in the world he could be up to. Not that he was doing anything unusual, mind you — still, just seeing him sitting there was mighty disturbing. The only reason somebody would be setting there like that was if they was waiting on the Thunderbird to come a-huffing and puffing on ’cross the horizon. Well, hell, if he was watching for that one, he’d have him a long wait. The railway had sent word that the train would be two hours late today.
That sure did look to be Clara’s oldest boy sitting there. Jeez, he hadn’t seen that old auntie in many a moon. He’d make it a point to find out where she’d been hiding herself lately. Still, that looked like her boy, all right, and he sure as hell was waiting on something or the other. He didn’t have no bag or nothing. Didn’t appear to be taking no trip, but who could figure a nigger? Lester could feel the hairs on the back of his neck begin to stand on end. Something wasn’t right, and he was sure as hell determined to find out what it was.
• • •
Today Absalom Alexander Adams waited on salvation — Absalom ’cause his mama had read it in a Bible somewhere; Alexander so the white folks would think he had more proper in him than he really did; and Adams so the colored folks would know that he did indeed have him a daddy somewhere. But today didn’t none of that matter. Today the stench of sin clung to him like the stinking smell of leftover Sunday cabbage on a beautiful and bright Monday morning. Yesterday his heart had belonged to the Savior, but today it had been sold to the Devil. Yesterday he had not known the power of hatred and vengeance, but today he had seen the depths of hell.
He looked out into the vastness and fiercely hoped that deliverance would soon be coming up over those hills, but all that danced before him was the evil of the deeds, first theirs and now his. Nora and Richard, with their loving hearts, had been eliminated with no more thought than most people would give to putting out the trash. Shameful. Simply shameful. Everybody knew that there was no law here for the coloreds, so Absalom had used one that had been around for ages — an eye for an eye. Yesterday he had not known what he was capable of, but today he knew. An eye for an eye. The Good Book had sanctioned it, and he had done exactly that.
They would know what he had done soon enough. They would come looking for him, but by then he would be long gone. If they asked his mama, and he was certain they would, she wouldn’t tell them nothing ’cause she wouldn’t know nothing. They might even smack her up a bit, but not too much. She had been Mister Lester’s mammy, and she reminded him always that she was the mama that suckled him at her tit.
He hoped his mama would understand. She would know of his wrongdoings sure enough. She would have nowhere else to go and no one else to turn to, so she would do what she’d always done — she would pray for him. She would drop to her knees wherever she was and pray a prayer that could absolve Satan himself. Then she would weep for him. The tears would fill her eyes to the brim, but she would never allow them to fall. Mama allowed herself her moments of sorrow, but she never allowed them to overwhelm her. After the grieving was done, she would sing for him — sing one of those songs that could shake pain free from a hurting soul. Then she would rise and lift her hands up to the only Father she had ever known, and give her burden over to Him. She would know then that even if she never saw her boy again, things would be better by and by. The Father would make sure of it.
But Absalom had no father he could turn to — heavenly or otherwise. He had seen his daddy all of one day in his entire life. He tracked him to a prison camp about sixty miles north of here. He had peeked through the barbed-wire fences and watched the sweat roll off his daddy’s back as he worked off his transgressions under the hot and blazing sun. A guard had finally spotted Absalom — a puffed-up white man who gave new meaning to the term “redneck.” He had a toothpick in his mouth and a rifle by his side.
“What you want, boy?” the redneck asked.
“Just a chance to meet my daddy, sir,” Absalom had pleaded.
“Which one is he?” the talking tomato asked.
“Jefferson Adams,” the little boy had answered.
“Wait a minute and I’ll get him,” the talking tomato promised. And then he spit some snuff juice in a stream so long it would have made Miss Ruth proud, and folks said she was the champ!
“You got five minutes, you hear?”
“Yes, sir, I hear.”
And so Absalom Alexander Adams had five minutes to learn and love his daddy, and the experience would have to last a lifetime. Not much had been said, but maybe there just hadn’t been anything much to say. His daddy had looked at him and called him “Son.” Then he’d smiled and told him to stay out of trouble, take care of his mama, and always, always stand up for himself like a man. “It won’t be easy, boy, being a man in a place that don’t seem to have much use for a strong colored man, but you be a man anyhow. You hear me, Son? You be a man.” And then Absalom had watched his father walk out of his life forever. Well, he had taken good care of his mama, and yesterday he had proved himself a man. He hadn’t been able to stay out of trouble, though, so two out of three would just have to be good enough. Sometimes a man had to raise a little hell and take a few prisoners.
The train was still nowhere to be seen. If it didn’t get here soon, it would be too late. Too late for a second chance. Too late for saving grace. Absalom wondered if they caught him what he would feel as they slipped the noose around his neck. Would he feel fear, or would that be his final chance to be a man? He wondered if death would come all at once, or creep through his body slowly like a good drunken high? He wondered what hell would be like, and how many devils he would already know when he got there.
Absalom could still see Richard and Nora lying there bloodied and brutalized. He hadn’t actually seen them, but Bo had painted him a pretty detailed and gruesome picture. Well, he had not been able to save them, but he had sure as the dickens avenged them. Justice had been served on their behalf, and they could rest easy now.
• • •
The Thunderbird shimalackied to a complete halt without fuss or circumstance. It was a matter of course — a course that had been set and had remained for a hundred years or more. The locomotive always pulled in, waited exactly twenty minutes so the passengers could get on board or off, and then pulled off once again. Walter Johnson had been the conductor for almost forty years, and rarely did he have to utter one sound. Everyone knew what to do and wher
e to go. It was an amazing thing, this thing we called life, he thought. His daddy had called it right when he said that the more things change, the more things stay the same, especially in this here town.
Eighteen minutes, almost time to go. Walter looked outside to make sure that all was clear. The nigger on the crate was nowhere to be seen; must’ve already made his way down to the freight car. Lester was across the way leaning on his favorite post, watching the makings of his town and tapping nervously to his own inner beat. Walter noticed the colored couple that were making their way slowly ’cross Main Street. They had been with him since Jackson, Mississippi, and now it looked like they had finally reached their destination.
For coloreds they seemed like a handsome pair. The man was tall, jet-black, with fine features and even white teeth. He spoke in a cultured voice and sang in an amazing baritone. Walter had had a chance to hear him sing just hours ago when he was checking up on the passengers in the back. The wife was an absolute beauty. With her head held high and her graceful swinging hips, she looked like one of them African queens.
Walter looked at the colored couple, then at Lester, and then back again at the couple. Seemed to him like he had dropped off another set just like ’em only a few months ago. He wondered what had happened to them. The wife made the best sweet-potato pie he ever had. She gave him a piece when she and her husband rode on his train. He hadn’t had none so good before or since. They’d seemed anxious to get started here, and they had stepped off the train with vigor and gusto. Seemed like real nice people for coloreds. He wondered how they were doing.
Twenty minutes — time to go. He looked around once more to make sure all was clear. One thing about this town, didn’t much seem to change here. Each trip was exactly alike. The coloreds huddled together near the number-running joint, and Lester stood on his corner. The couple were now making their way past Lester. Lester was looking the woman over carefully. He had a dangerous gleam in his eye. Walter had seen that look before. He pulled in the stepstool and signaled the engineer that it was time to go. Ain’t it amazing, Walter thought, how the people of a town can just go round and round?
AFTERTHOUGHTS
I knew as soon as I decided to write Just Plain Folks that in order to show a full range of African American experiences, I had to do some stories about the bitterness and the brutality of racism as it existed in the South, from the Reconstruction era right up to the Civil Rights movement. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to deal with, but it turned out to be even more difficult to write than I had originally thought. I was doing fine until I began to write the story called “Hagar’s Children.” It was then that all hell broke loose. Because this entire story was completely created from my own imagination (it is not a rewritten version of an actual incident), I had to dredge up these characters from the depths of my heart and soul. In order to tell the tale the way it needed to be told, I had to feel my characters’ pain as if it were my own.
I had to live through the entire experience. There were times during the writing when tears just streamed down my cheeks, and I realized then that I was crying not only for my characters but for real African Americans who had experienced these same kinds of tragedies, so prevalent in the South.
Vigilantism has historically taken on several different forms, depending on the purposes of the perpetrators. Ku Klux Klansmen flogged or made threatening visits to their victims with the intent of intimidating or terrorizing them; sometimes they burned crosses or serenaded them with ominous music. Lynch mobs, in contrast, came solely to kill. They killed their victims with cowardice, without conscience, and usually without consequence. Not until 1982 were efforts made to gather data on lynchings across the United States. During the sixty-year period from 1892 to 1950, over six thousand blacks were executed. Very few participants in lynch mobs were prosecuted, and prior to World War I almost no one served time in prison for such crimes. Even to this day, virtually no whites have ever been punished for terrorizing blacks.
Lynch law was supposed to be, in the blunt words of one advocate of the practice, “the white woman’s guarantee against rape by niggers.” Ridding society of black brutes who violated Caucasian females was indeed the most frequently mentioned justification for lynching. But in fact, only about one third of all lynching victims were suspected of rape or attempted rape. Other possible transgressions ranged from something as serious as murder to something as foolish as “being uppity” or stealing chickens. Whatever the supposed crime, lynching was widely assumed to be a deterrent to black criminality. Lynching was a brutal business set out to protect the lives and rights of white Southerners, usually woman.
As I wrote the “White Folks’” stories, two questions continued to plague me. The first was, Who protected the black woman? Certainly not the black man, for as much as he wanted to protect his lady love, he was often powerless against the system. If he did make a stand, his own life would be in jeopardy, and his wife and children would be even more vulnerable. Nor could the black woman protect herself; she had neither the position nor the power. Instead she had to take whatever life dealt her and just learn to survive.
The second question that I grappled with was, Who protected the white woman from the white man? Her life was surely no picnic. I have heard many black women criticize the white woman of that time. She should have been stronger. She should have had sympathy for her black sisters. She should have done something, anything — anything at all. I thought much the same way until I began writing “Sara’s Precious Babies.” There is blame to be assigned, to be sure, but I’ve done some thinking and maybe grown up a little. Now I wonder if the white woman wasn’t almost as much a victim of her environment as my women kin were of theirs, albeit her environment was filled with a little more finery and a few more trinkets. There are lots of pretty prisons, and I wouldn’t want to live in any of them. Maybe these stories are just supposed to show that when it comes to brutality of any kind, there are often more victims than are apparent at first glance.
I know these stories aren’t easy to read, but they are important because they provide a different perspective than is typically brought to the subject of lynching; they suggest that humanity can exist in the midst of brutality and that love can shine forth in the most difficult of circumstances. The husband and wife who comfort each other through the grief they share represent, for me, one of the finest examples of a loving relationship. The husband who holds his wife’s hand, wipes away his own tears, and rocks a woman in his arms until she draws her last breath is the true strength of a black man. I would like to see more compassionate portrayals of black men as people tell their own stories — this aspect isn’t explored nearly enough to suit me.
In these stories, folks suffer and move on. But like everything else in life, nothing that is deeply wounded — even after healing — remains as it was before.
Church Folks
Sister Mabel
Sister Mabel made her way slowly down the road to the church, trying ever so carefully not to mess up her new Sunday shoes. God, but it was hot today — over one hundred degrees. “It’s just not supposed to get this hot in North Carolina, ’least not this early in the year, ’less the Devil gets to putting his hands in it. I just know this is some of his doing,” she muttered resentfully. Lord, but this was an evil kind of heat, the kind that sneaks up on you and tries to kill you slowly. The kind that keeps you out of church when that’s exactly where you need to be. The kind that’s always looking to ruin a perfectly good Founder’s Day.
But Satan was no match for Sister Mabel. She wasn’t going to allow nothing or nobody to steal her joy. Even the church had been repainted, and it looked mighty fine, though it had been done piecemeal ’cause it was planting time. Bibleway Church certainly deserved no less, seeing how it was the oldest and most respected colored church in town.
Well, she had made it. She looked down quite proudly at her beautiful white shoes. Two miles, and not a single smudge. She still owed three dollars on
these shoes, and she wanted them to last at least until they were paid for. Her mother always said that debt-ridden shoes would burn up your feet, and these almost had, she thought bitterly as she looked up at the blazing sun. She usually didn’t get anything so frivolous on the book ’cause you never knew when you might need that credit for something that really mattered, like that fertilizer she’d ordered for her tomatoes last week. She was having it shipped all the way from up North, and if it came from up there then it had to be good.
She smiled an obligatory smile at two ladies standing by the great oak. She didn’t recognize them right off, so she moved a bit closer to get a better look. Well, for goodness’ sake — the hussies were both wearing work-stained day dresses, one of ’em was barefoot, and the other one had on turnover shoes. Both of them could have used a real good girdle, too, ’cause every time they moved, their hips shook up and down and then did a mean roll from side to side. It was simply shameful to see two grown women a-wiggling and a-jiggling all around the place like that. Didn’t they know that there were some places that the Lord made fit to be tied or at the very least strapped down? Neither of ’em must’ve had a decent mama. Sister Mabel didn’t know who was responsible for women like these being here, but she was certainly going to find out. How in the world were you supposed to trust a woman who didn’t think enough to wear decent drawers or have sense enough to own respectable shoes?
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