“Crazy goofball,” a voice rang out as someone raced past her on two wheels. Simpson had been a burr under Beatrice’s saddle for as long as she could remember. Two years older than her, he took every chance to give her trouble. He blew spitballs at her in the hallway at school. He made faces at her in church when no one was looking. One time last year he’d slipped a frog into her lunchbox. The joke was on him though, because Beatrice loved frogs. She loved the look of disappointment on his face when she lifted the frog gingerly off her peanut butter sandwich, tucked it in the pocket of her jumper, and named him Simpson, sighting the uncanny resemblance.
But today she wasn’t in the mood for him. She was bored and lonely, and the last thing she needed was some teasing. “Shut up, Simpson. Go on,” she yelled, kicking a rock at him. In her opinion he was a gangly goofy-looking boy with mud brown hair and hand-me-down clothes. But if you listened to the other cackling girls at school you’d think he was a rock star. They all giggled about his dimples and the sly half smile he flashed. They made up stories, fueling his bad boy imagine that Beatrice could see right through. He wasn’t cool and troubled; he was a troublemaker. “Go back to that little old shoe you and your seven brothers live in.”
Dragging his toes in the dirt, his bike skidded to a stop a few feet in front of her. “At least I’m not the loony bird out talking to herself. Nobody even likes you.”
“Then why are you standing here? Just get going. I’ve got to get eggs and get back to my mama. Get out of my way.” Propping her hands on her hips, she gave him her best dirty look. Something she hadn’t perfected yet.
Jumping from his bike and letting it topple over, he stomped toward Beatrice and grabbed a handful of her braid, yanking it hard. He dodged her hand before she could give him a slap. Even as she lunged toward him, Simpson managed to evade her and hop back on his bike.
“Loony bird,” he called out over his shoulder as he pedaled hard to speed away.
Kicking at some loose rocks on the dirt path, Beatrice clenched her teeth together and grumbled under her breath. She quickly whispered a prayer for forgiveness. She didn’t know if there was a patron saint of apologies, but she knew the words she just said, even if they were true, weren’t nice to say. She settled on making the sign of the cross as she hurried her pace, remembering the warning her mother had given about not dawdling.
She reached the fence at the edge of the Miller’s farm, which meant if she ran she could be in town in a matter of minutes.
Edenville was divided into sections. On the edge of town were houses like Beatrice’s, plopped between the farms. Her bloodline hadn’t had the money to own much land over the years, so a house on an acre of unfarmable land was the best her grandfather had been able to manage. When he died her father had taken over the deed and done his best to keep the house standing, but it was an uphill battle most days.
Then there were farms set on large plots of rolling hills with mostly rundown fences framing them in. The smell of manure, made worse by the high temperatures in the summer, bowled you over. The barns were all capped with corrugated metal roofs, covered hit-and-miss with paint sandblasted away by soaking rains and blazing heat. Beatrice had always imagined farm life as exciting, but the more farmers she spent time with over the years, the more she realized it was backbreaking work and not quite so glamorous.
Past the farms was Main Street, a bustling culmination of everything anyone could ever need. The street was narrow, barely wide enough for two cars to pass, but on either side of the road were gloriously decorated storefronts, calling patrons in. Bright blue mailboxes lined the corners and brighter signs pointed the way to whatever you needed. Men carrying briefcases made their way to the diner at lunchtime. Women held their babies on their hips and met with the seamstress or the butcher. Old men sat around the tables outside the meatmarket and played checkers. Beatrice loved to see the stakes grow so high that one man would shout and flip the board right off the table. They played with passion.
She didn’t know much about the other side of town. She lived on the east side and had never really ventured to the west side. Her father had warned her it wasn’t safe, and that was all it took to make her steer clear. She’d heard stories of the haunted shacks and the murderers who lived in those parts. It made her thank her lucky stars to be on this side of town.
Giving a quick pat on the noses of two horses that grazed by the edge of the fence, Beatrice scurried along on her way to Main Street. She was sure the Millers had named the horses, but she’d taken it upon herself to rename them April and Ted.
Taking in a few deep breaths, she imagined herself as an Olympic runner. Pretending to grab the baton from her teammate, she charged forward. With her braided pigtails bouncing wildly and her heart thumping, she made her way down the long hill that led to the edge of Edenville’s Main Street.
Edenville was a quiet town where not much of anything seemed to happen. Most people walked to where they had to go; cars were a luxury most of folks couldn’t afford. That kept the streets quiet. Beatrice had her favorite places on Main Street, even though she rarely went there without getting in trouble.
The bakery was one of those places. Baker Sam always saved the broken or old cookies and sneaked them into a small brown bag for her. They weren’t perfect, but they were something sweet and homemade, which she hardly ever got at home. She decided if she were quick enough getting the eggs, she could sneak in for the cookies and eat them on the way home. As she dreamed of the crumbly, slightly stale, but still good gingersnaps her mouth started to water.
The sidewalks were quieter today than normal, and people seemed to be scattering and heading away from the decorative fountain in the center of the grassy divide. Beatrice felt a nervous cramp in her side. Something seemed very wrong. Slowing her pace to a walk, she curiously inched closer to the place people seemed to be quickly leaving. A bit of excitement would be welcomed, but in an instant she was proved wrong. There were certain types of excitement better left unexplored.
A man was slumped over the side of the fountain. He was a colored man, which was unusual to see on Main Street in the middle of the week. It was an unspoken rule the colored folks only came into town on Mondays and Thursdays. Beatrice didn’t know when they had decided that, but she just knew that’s how it had been for as long as she could remember. Her daddy had always avoided town on those days, saying it was too full of disease to be walking around. Since Edenville had pretty clear lines dividing where coloreds went and where whites went, Beatrice had spent most of her life around people who looked just like her.
She crept toward the man and could see he was bleeding badly from a cut on his head, which was also quite unusual. The biggest shock of all was the realization that his blood was the same color as her own. She’d always assumed they’d have darker stuff inside them since their skin was so dark.
Her mother had told her time and again to steer clear of the colored folk. They stayed over there, and her people stayed over here. Every now and then, though, one or two would come into the east side of town while Beatrice was there, and she couldn’t help but stare hard at them. They looked so different than she and her kin did. She watched them closely and decided they acted pretty much the same as anyone else she knew.
Taking a few steps closer to the injured man, she figured he must have slipped and fallen, knocking his head on the fountain. Looking over her shoulder, she searched for a familiar face to help him, but everyone had moved on. The door to the diner that was always propped open this time of day was shut. The shades in the office building across the way had all been drawn. She thought for a moment that maybe none of this was real. Beatrice spent many afternoons dreaming up all sorts of wild stories to fall into. Could this just be another fantasy?
She pinched the fat of her arm to make sure she was awake. Then it hit her. This must be a message from God. Her mother had often told her to listen closely and she’d hear what God wanted from her. This all made perfect sense. Just th
is last Sunday Beatrice had learned the story of the Good Samaritan.
This was exactly the same. The Samaritans and the Jews did not spend any time together, and didn’t seem to be friends, Beatrice remembered. But when the Samaritan saw a Jewish man who’d been hurt he ignored the fact that the man was different and stopped to help him.
Her mother was always telling her to walk in the light of God and find more ways to be one of his children. Always wanting to please her mother, yet never succeeding, Beatrice took this as a sign to be compassionate and help the man. Jingling the change in her pocket meant for the eggs, she ran into the general store and bought an ice-cold bottle of soda pop and asked Eli, who ran the store, if she could borrow the rag he had over his shoulder. With her supplies in hand she rushed over to the man, who was still propped up and groaning against the fountain. Upon further inspection she realized he couldn’t have just fallen here. His injuries were too severe.
“Sir,” she whispered, “are you okay?” Her heart was thumping in her chest, but she pushed past her fear and reminded herself how pleased her mother would be when the news got back to her.
His eyes turned toward Beatrice, and she could see they were nearly swollen shut. With all the energy he had left, he waved her off and grunted something that sounded like, “Go on.”
“I brought you a soda. It’s ice cold. And here’s a towel. I can wipe some of the blood away for you,” Beatrice offered, trying to sound comforting and unafraid.
He shook his head, but Beatrice heard the words of Jesus at the end of the Good Samaritan story flowing through her: “Go and do likewise.”
She knelt beside the man and began using the towel to put pressure on the cut on his head. The blood was coming fast but the towel seemed to help. She imagined herself as the Samaritan, stopping to help. Concern for another human, even a stranger or an enemy, was the message that had touched her heart. She had sat there in church and realized that people never noticed her. Perhaps if she were known for something like this act of genuine compassion, people would start to pay attention. “Drink this,” she insisted, shoving the glass soda bottle she’d opened into his hand. “If you can walk I’ll help you get to Dr. Sherry’s office. He’ll mend you up.”
“No, he won’t,” the man muttered. “Are you blind or something?”
“I ain’t blind. You might be if you don’t get your eyes fixed up,” she shot back. “They look like they’re about to swell shut. You need some tending to.”
“Can’t you see the color of my skin? Your doctor won’t do a thing for me. I need to get back to my people.” The more he spoke the more blood seemed to pour from the cut on his head.
“I don’t see why you colored folk don’t want to be around us white folk. You won’t go in our restaurants, and you won’t see our doctors,” Beatrice huffed, exasperated by his stubbornness. She thought being selfless would be easier, but this man was making it impossible. Didn’t he know this was a nice thing she was doing?
Though it seemed completely out of place, the man laughed. Or at least he tried to. It was a low chuckle punctuated by pain, which stopped his laughter abruptly. “Child, oh what it must be like to be so innocent. You need to go on and get out of here.” Blood bubbled out of his mouth as he spoke, and Beatrice felt the urgency of the situation growing. If people knew she was this close, this involved, and then the man died right here, she’d be in big trouble.
“I can’t just leave you here. I don’t know if colored folks know about the Bible or anything, but it tells us to help people. I could tell you the story of the Good Samaritan, and then you’d understand better.”
“We know the Bible,” he barked back, and Beatrice swallowed hard, scared by the roughness of his voice.
“So then you know I should help you. You know what compassion is, right? My daddy says you people don’t have the same kinds of brains as we do, so it’s okay if you don’t know the Word.” Beatrice tried to keep her voice slow and gentle so he could understand the best he could.
“Child, go. It ain’t your fault you don’t know any better, but people are coming over here. You need to go on.”
“I’m gonna hold this towel on your head until someone fetches the doctor. I don’t care if you don’t wanna see a white doctor.” Whatever the man’s holdup was about white people, he’d have to put it aside she decided.
“Beatrice,” a familiar and angry voice rang out from behind her. “What the hell are you doing?” Though she couldn’t see his face behind his white hood, she knew it was her daddy.
“Daddy, this man fell down. We need to fetch the doctor.” She’d forgotten something important her daddy had always told her about when he was in his Klan robe. Even if she knew it was him, she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. The group was very important and for some reason they couldn’t let anyone knowing who they were. She remembered instantly, as he cut the space between them with ferocity, she’d broken that rule and was in trouble.
Eli stepped outside just as her father reached her. “Is that my damn towel covered in this animal’s blood? You got his filthy blood everywhere,” Eli raged.
Her father grabbed her neck and yanked her away from the injured man. “You fool,” he fumed. “You don’t touch him. You don’t help him. He is an animal. A criminal. That’s why we beat him. He’s like a dog that bit someone.”
“He bit someone?” Beatrice asked, looking the man over as her father dragged her farther and farther away.
“No, dummy,” her father hissed. “He drank out of the whites only fountain as if he’s the same as us. He knew better. It’s bad enough we have to let them walk down Main Street and breathe the same air as us. I’ll be damned if they’re going to dirty up our things.”
“You beat him for getting a drink?” Beatrice cried, hunching under the pain of her father’s tight grip on her neck.
“You’re not a baby anymore, girl. Your mama can say all she wants that you’re too slow in the head to be told about the world, but obviously if I don’t you’ll run our family’s name through the mud. I don’t ever want to see you helping, talking to, or being anywhere near one of them ever again. I have worked my whole damn life to keep them in their place so the world can be worth living in for you. Don’t go undermining all my work and the work of the Klan by treating them like people.”
“Aren’t they people?” Beatrice asked as they made their way past the fence at the Miller’s farm. She wanted to see if the horses were still standing by the fence for a pat on the nose again. Before she could be grateful for the release of her neck, she was whacked hard across the face by her father’s hand.
“How can you be this old and not know this? They ain’t people. If I ever hear you talking like this again, you’ll get the beating of your life,” he snarled. The anger raging in his grey-blue eyes was unnerving.
Nothing about this afternoon made sense to Beatrice. All she knew was she didn’t want to be beaten, but something was about to make that inevitable. “I forgot Mama’s eggs,” she cried in a sudden panic.
“Then you better go out to the field and bring in a switch. When she hears what you did, and you come back empty-handed, you’ll be in for it,” her father grumbled.
“But I was trying to be like the Good Samaritan. I don’t understand.” The fear of the inevitable whooping filled Beatrice’s eyes with tears.
“You better start understanding right quick. If they know their place and follow the rules, we put up with them. But one toe out of line and we give them what they deserve. And nowadays it’s not just about them but anyone who tries to help them, too, the way you just did. Like a fool. That’s what this is all about,” he said, gesturing to his white robe. “I do this for you.”
For the rest of the walk home they were both silent. Beatrice hung her head and cried, knowing she was about to face the wrath of her mother when all she’d wanted to do was show her how she could walk with God. Being eleven was proving impossible. Nothing made sense anymore, and all she ever got l
ately was a good walloping.
“I’m sorry, Daddy, I didn’t know,” she apologized, feeling like she must be the stupidest child in the world.
“You got his blood on your clothes. We’ll have to burn them tonight,” he retorted coldly.
“Yes, Daddy,” she agreed as she looked down at the bright red blood that rimmed the edge of her jumper. She didn’t understand any of this, but she could tell she better figure it out soon.
Chapter Four
Beatrice had thought there would be nothing worse than the whooping she received that night, but she was wrong. The way she was treated at school the weeks after was far harder to deal with then the wallops on her rear end from her mother. After word of what she’d done had traveled around town, Beatrice had been called names, had gum was stuck in her hair, and had been ignored by anyone who wasn’t harassing her. The teachers wouldn’t call on her even when her hand was the first one to go up to answer a question. The only two things she experienced now were teasing and feeling invisible; she couldn’t sort out which one hurt more.
With her head down and her heart aching, she muddled through the school days then dragged herself through her front door every evening, knowing it wouldn’t be much better. Her parents weren’t calling her names and they weren’t completely ignoring her, but disappointment was constantly painted on their faces.
Her stomach ached most of the time and food tasted like sawdust in her mouth. She’d always been lanky, but now she was getting bony. Most days she did everything she could to find a place to be alone after school. Today she decided to take the long way home. The very long way.
Cutting through the woods behind the Dorit’s farm, she weaved her way to the brook and followed it north toward her house. She turned left after she saw the old cemetery she used to avoid at all costs. Suddenly the dead didn’t seem quite as scary as the living. A bunch of old headstones couldn’t call her names or spit in her food.
Flowers in the Snow Page 3