Mississippi Noir

by Tom Franklin

  “I doubt that,” Elnora said. “He ain’t in on this with Graham Lee.”

  “He put in a toilet and you don’t think straight—”

  “Cissy, don’t say shit to me about that damn toilet! That white man ain’t about to help his nephew steal a little black baby even if that baby is kin!”

  Cissy hugged the doll to her. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t make it without my little girl.” She sniffed the doll’s dress and yarn braids. “It smells just like her. She calls it Molly. Says Molly’s her baby. She wouldn’t just leave Molly. She’s throwing the worst fit right now, I bet.”

  “I bet she is.” Elnora brushed a few stray strands from Cissy’s forehead. “Supper’s getting cold.”

  VI

  Thunder shook the wooden-frame house and rattled the windows, pulling Elnora awake. She had rested her eyes for a moment to ponder her findings—the ransacked cottage, the baby doll, and the ripped photograph—when she’d drifted off to sleep. Now she discovered that Cissy had left but the little rag doll rested on the pillow in her place. The photo was on the chifforobe. Accustomed to having a plan, Elnora didn’t cotton to the troubling sensations that filled her gut. The sudden rat-a-tat-tat of rainfall hitting the tin roof made her jump. When the knocking started at her back door, she rubbed her arms and cursed her fears.

  Glimmers of red shone through the back door window. That was enough to set her at ease. She knew what waited on the other side. A handsome young man in uniform with a red cap on top completed the picture. She opened the door and Ed swung her up into his arms. Romantic spectacles had never been their thing, but he had been away longer than usual. From the way he squeezed her close, he had missed her as much as she had him.

  A little while later, they sat at the kitchen table. Elnora confided her concerns about baby Hattie while Ed finished his plate of greens, ham, and corn bread. All the while he chewed, a frown creased his forehead and he shook his head.

  “You don’t need to be riding ’round with Rayford Drew Donner,” he muttered after he swallowed a sip of coffee. “Bad enough folks talking shit about that convenience he put in . . . What it look like, you riding in that coupe with him?”

  “I told you we were looking for the baby!” She pushed away from the table. Her chair screeched along the linoleum floor, warring with the sounds of nature that were exploding outside. “What the hell I care what folks think about anyway? You should hear what they say about you creeping over here every time you come home.”

  “I ain’t creeping. I ain’t hiding shit.” Ed stood. Tall and self-assured in his blue-and-white-striped boxer shorts and white T-shirt, he took his empty plate to the sink and washed it. “Everybody know you mine.”

  She held up her hand. “Ed—”

  “Elnora May.” He folded his arms across his chest.

  “I don’t belong to anybody. Not you or anybody else.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” he said quietly.

  “I know what you meant.”

  Emptiness captured the moment, waiting for one of them to speak or make a move. Elnora sensed the spark of opportunity, but she wanted no part of it. She and Ed had danced around this cakewalk before. He was young. Maybe if she was sure that he understood about her past and some of what she had sacrificed, maybe then she’d be willing to accept more than the good times he offered whenever Illinois Central dropped him off at the Grenada depot. But for now, all she knew for fact was that she felt better in his arms than she had in any other man’s in quite some time. If that was all the Lord was willing to give for the troubles she’d laid at His gates, she’d take it and be glad for it. Later she might have regrets.

  She found herself putting her clothes back on and securing her hair before she had time to consider a different option. Ed lingered in the door frame of the bedroom. His dark eyes watched her movements; he seemed more curious than upset. There was some relief in that.

  “Where you going?”

  “Out.”

  “It’s storming. When we rolled in, they warned us to stay put,” he said. “You don’t want to go out there.”

  “This ain’t about want. I need to.”

  “The baby’s probably with her daddy,” he said.

  Elnora slid on a pair of black rain boots and grabbed her coat from a nail off the back of the door. “What about Cissy?”

  “She’s at work or at her folks’ place.”

  She shook her head.

  “What if Cissy took off with Graham Lee?” Ed said, reaching for his pants. He spoke as he dressed. “We’re going out in hell and high water, and she’s back with him and the baby.”

  “We don’t know that,” Elnora said, “and you don’t have to go.”

  He buttoned his coat and said, “Yes, I do.”

  VII

  Elnora thought once again about trouble. She wouldn’t fault Cissy for seeking her help in getting the baby back, but damn this storm. The heavy rain and relentless wind proved to be formidable foes. Pushing back as she and Ed pressed forward. The weather was nothing but trouble, and Elnora had a strong suspicion that Grenada was only getting a small taste of what the storm had to offer. Again, she hoped that wherever the little one was, she was safe from this ruckus.

  They reached the Baldwin Hotel soaked. In normal conditions, the walk was half an hour. It took them close to two. Clyde, one of the dishwashers, saw them at the back entrance. He gave them dishtowels and let them dry off in the pantry.

  “Thanks, man,” Ed said.

  “Is Cissy back on shift?” Elnora asked.

  Clyde shook his head. “She doesn’t work overnight.”

  “You sure you haven’t seen her?” Ed asked.

  “She would’ve come back a little before the storm hit,” she added.

  “Yeah, she’d have to come through here and I haven’t seen her since she clocked out,” Clyde said. “Ain’t nobody come this way but y’all. She ain’t here.”

  Ed gave Elnora a look that she ignored. She thanked Clyde for the towels and moved back to the door.

  “You don’t have to go back out in that,” the man said. “As long as you’re quiet, won’t nobody know you’re here. It’s bad out there.”

  “I have to find Cissy.”

  “She’s a smart girl. She’s fine.”

  Elnora only nodded while Ed and Clyde shook hands. Out under the awning, she paused on the back steps. Ed took her arm. The walk to the hotel took them out of the colored section. Heading back to that side of town would mean another hour or more in the rain. Their options were limited. Unless they went back uptown to the little office above Romano’s. Rayford Drew kept late hours, and his stash of liquor made him more inclined to stay there than go home to his wife.

  “It ain’t letting up,” Ed said.

  He was referring to the storm, but those words meant more to Elnora. Finding Hattie and probably Cissy too had become like a nagging shrew that refused to give her peace. The weather could continue to wreak havoc on her search, but going home was not a choice she even considered. Hell, she wouldn’t let up either.

  “It ain’t good when you’re quiet,” he said. “Where to next?”

  “I wish you had a car.”

  “You ain’t the only one,” he muttered. He drew in a deep breath. She sensed the moment he understood her meaning. He stiffened tight like a whipcord. The hand that was holding her squeezed then let go.

  “I can’t do that. I can’t ride in that man’s car, knowing he—”

  “He what?” she said softly. “Careful with it, Ed.”

  “With what?”

  “You know what I told you,” she said. “That’s all there is to it.”

  “But the folks say—”

  “You stand here and worry about what the folks say,” she said, stepping out into the rain. “I don’t have time for it.”

  VIII

  Before Elnora reached the intersection of South and Main, a car braked beside her. The door skimmed her knees as it was
flung open. “Get in,” Rayford Drew barked from the driver’s side.

  The coupe seemed more confining than it had earlier that day. Or maybe the conversations with Ed and the driving storm made Elnora conscious of the space. The aroma of liquor and Listerine billowed with every agitated sigh or dissatisfied grunt that came from the driver. Streaks of lightning interrupted the darkness of the night and the interior of the Pontiac. She chanced a long look at him and was taken aback at the hard line of his mouth. In over twenty years, she couldn’t recall that expression of resolute apprehension darkening his features. He was not always the most pleasant person, but there was a certain air about him. At that moment, she didn’t know what to make of him.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Out a ways,” he said. “Sit tight. I don’t like driving in this shit.”

  It should have crossed her mind to worry. Their families were linked in ways that some folks in Grenada weren’t ready to accept or admit. Ed’s beef about riding in this car with this man had nothing to do with that. He was jealous. Any other time, Elnora might have enjoyed his discomfort. Maybe she would have played with it a little and had some fun. But not when she didn’t know where her girls were.

  After a couple of glances at Rayford Drew’s drawn face and his tight grip on the steering wheel, she grew concerned. While he had flirted with her many times, he had never come close to making any demands. Something was different. She had seen many sides to him, but not this one.

  Her hand closed around the door handle and she sat up straight. “Where did you say?”

  “Settle down, Nora.” He rubbed his left hand over his face. “I’m not taking you to meet your maker. Hell, He’d get us both, I ’spect.”

  “So I’m supposed to just sit here and not ask any questions.”

  “Most would,” he mumbled.

  She clenched her hands together in her lap. Keeping her mouth shut was not easy.

  The landscape, what she could see of it, held her attention. They had left Grenada city limits and were headed south toward Tie Plant. Her uncle Joe had been a sharecropper out there before he died back in ’25. His wife and kids left for Memphis soon after that. She heard one of the boys got a job at the Ford plant in Michigan. They had invited her to come along, but she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Cissy or the idea of telling her the truth. Looking back, Elnora wondered how different their lives would have been if she had accepted their offer, taken her daughter, and left Grenada for good.

  “Do you know who lives out here?”

  His sudden question broke the silence and startled her. Elnora needed a moment to give meaning to his words and to form a response. The deeper the coupe took them into the country, the more the water sloshed against the car’s wheels. She used the noise to ease her tension.

  “Some of your people.”

  “You don’t come out here much, do you?” he asked.

  “My feet only carry me so far.”

  “You need a car,” he said. “Can you drive?”

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “Yeah, you were driving that old Buick that Will Tennant had before he got the Ford,” he said. “Did Will teach you how to drive that or was it Billy?”

  “I knew how to drive before I started working for them.”

  He turned off the road onto gravel. The heavy rainfall forced him to work hard to keep the car from sputtering into a ditch and Elnora was glad for the distraction. She didn’t like where his questions were headed. For the most part, she had few complaints about her time with the Tennant family. Like her time at the country club, working for them had been a job. The elder Tennant and his mother were nice but she received no special favors, nor did she offer any.

  “This is it,” Rayford Drew said, his tone solemn.

  A two-story framed house loomed before them. Even in the midst of the downpour, Elnora noticed that the home’s better days were behind it. The place was livable, but just that. Her three-room shotgun house in Boone Alley was better kept. Shutters hung from the windows and clattered against the building. A forgotten swing dangled lopsided from a chain at the far end of the porch. Gloom haunted the air. Light glimmered from inside, casting an eerie glow through the pouring rain and the swaying branches of the nearby weeping willow. If not for her mission, Elnora would have been content to just sit in the car.

  IX

  “What’s waiting for me in there?”

  “My brother called,” Rayford Drew said. “Graham Lee brought the baby to them—”

  “She’s in there?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “What are we doing here? Are we going in that house or not?”

  He pulled the key from the ignition and twirled the key ring around his index finger. Elnora recognized hesitation, and she wondered why he hadn’t moved.

  “What’s going on, Rayford Drew?” she asked.

  “Graham Lee brought the baby to them, but his mama wouldn’t take her. He begged and she told him to take the baby back where he got her from. It got ugly.”

  The more he talked, the less she wanted to hear. Elnora wished this had been spoken during the drive instead of questions about the Tennant menfolk and their Buick. Her heart weighed heavy in her chest. She feared the worst; his explanations didn’t help.

  “I’m going in.”

  Elnora was out of the car and onto the porch as fast as the wind and rain would allow. Her coat, now soaked, was nothing more than a heavy second skin. She clutched the dripping fabric like it was a lifeline. Rayford Drew came up on her left side. Tall and lean, his shoulder and arm brushed against her and she knew it was no accident. This was the best support he could offer. Still, the dread boiling in her gut made her want to push him hard and force him to feel half the agony that was coursing through her.

  He reached the door first. He beat hard once against it and then stormed inside. Shuddering both from cold and fear, Elnora followed.

  “Oh my God,” he said as he stopped short in the middle of the room.

  Tired and angry, Elnora tried to sidestep him—but if he hadn’t reached out and grabbed her, she would have stepped right on the sleeping toddler.

  Curled on her side with a thumb in her mouth, little Hattie lay on a blanket fast asleep. Elnora scooped the child into her arms. Other than a murmur, the little girl remained oblivious to the storm, her surroundings, and the trembling woman who held her close.

  X

  The storm’s fury kept them inside. Raw emotion pulsed within Elnora. The loud thunderclaps and the increasing downpour could not compare to the confounding mix of elation and frustration that made her unable to sit still. To her surprise, little Hattie slept through the worst of it. She only whimpered once and Elnora hummed until the baby went back to sleep. Rayford Drew paused to stare at them during his task of building a fire in the hearth. Once he managed to create a brilliant spectacle of blue and orange flames, he lit a small branch as a torch and left the main room. His heavy steps thudded on the hardwood floor. Elnora edged close to the fire. She hummed every lullaby she knew, thought about Cissy, and wondered what else Rayford Drew was hiding.

  He returned with two wooden straight-back chairs that appeared to be in better shape than the ripped furniture littering the front room. Unlike their discovery in Holcomb, this home had lost its peace years ago. No one person or event had stripped it bare. The assault had occurred over time. As Elnora pulled her chair close enough to dry off but not catch fire, she was aware of Rayford Drew’s studied silence and how he kept looking from her to the child in her arms.

  “You won’t dry if you keep the coat on,” he said.

  Elnora’s first thought was to lie and say she was fine. Help often came with a price. She’d accepted more from him today than she wanted to admit to herself. Acknowledging that he had good advice was her limit.

  “You’ll catch cold.” He extended his arms. “I’ll hold her. It won’t take but a minute.”

  “No need to troubl
e you more than I have.”

  She positioned Hattie across her lap. The wet coat clung to her, but she managed to tug free of it. She hooked it on the back of her chair and had Hattie back in the curve of her arms before the next streak of lightning.

  “I had nothing to do with any of this.”

  Elnora shrugged. Who was she to expect a man like Rayford Drew Donner to owe her an explanation? Hattie was back safe and unharmed. Once the storm cleared, they’d head back to Grenada and everything would be set right again.

  “I can’t say that my brother wouldn’t leave her out here alone,” he said, “but I didn’t know. Not that she was alone. He just told me to come to Tie Plant—”

  “Please,” she interrupted, unable to hear more. The words created unbearable images—a little two-year-old girl left alone in an abandoned house during the worst storm of the year. Discarded by family like she was yesterday’s trash. The knowing hurt. Elnora didn’t want him to speak another word.

  “I told Graham Lee a thousand times that he and that gal wouldn’t ever work.”

  Hattie began to stir. Elnora kissed her forehead and smoothed her hair from her cheek.

  “Fool kid thought a baby would change things,” Rayford Drew said. “His folks aren’t ready for that kind of change. I told him to keep the baby away from them.”

  “Who left her here?”

  The question demanded an answer, but silence was all he offered. When he finally parted his mouth to speak, Elnora recognized the tilt of his head wavering between a lie and the truth. She wondered how far he planned to go with either. Then a noise came from a distant room. Footsteps advanced toward them. Elnora clutched the baby to her chest. Rayford Drew moved toward the sound, his hands balled into fists at his sides.

  “Who’s there?” he called out.

  “Us.”

  Graham Lee entered first, with Cissy close behind him. She still wore her maid uniform and he was a younger version of his uncle in a button-down shirt and slacks. Both looked worn, beaten to the brink of exhaustion. Elnora hugged Hattie close on instinct. Cissy stepped toward them, reaching for the baby, but Graham Lee pulled her back.