Dreamland Burning

by Jennifer Latham

  I stumbled off, numbed clear through to my soul, until the fact of Clete dying hit me full-on, along with what he’d said about Vernon Fish being out to kill Joseph and Ruby.

  Then I ceased my walking altogether.

  And ran.

  Rowan

  I don’t believe in psychics or premonitions or fate. Still, something stopped my hand just as I was about to knock on the door.

  I’d pleaded with James to call in sick again, but he said a third day in a row would get him busted back to clearing tables. I told him he was my Watson and I needed him. He said bullshit, he was my Sherlock, but that I’d be fine.

  I wasn’t so sure.

  Still, I’d gone ahead and called Tru to tell him I’d be at work on Monday. Then I asked him how to get in touch with Tilda, because I wanted to see if she’d introduce me to her friend Opal. The one with the peach pie recipe. The one Joe Tillman had said was Ruby Goodhope’s daughter.

  An hour later I was standing on Opal Johnson’s front porch.

  Now or never, I told myself. Knock.

  Just knock.

  Opal Johnson was the jelly bean woman I’d seen using a walker at Arvin’s funeral. Inside her house, she left the walker in a corner and steadied herself against furniture.

  “Tilda says you’re after my gramma’s pie recipe,” she said, with a dare-me-and-I’ll-do-it gleam in her eye that reminded me of the picture of Ruby Goodhope on Joe’s windowsill. “She doesn’t think I’ll give it to you, but wouldn’t it just chap her hide if I did!”

  I’d spent most of the night before thinking about whether or not I could convince the DA that Jerry Randall hadn’t pushed Arvin in self-defense. And about how doing it would mean putting myself out there for every TV reporter, blogger, and racist comment troll to tear down.

  When I wasn’t obsessing about that, my overactive brain had bounced over to the skeleton and what James and I knew about it. I needed to patch everything together into a story that made sense. The problem was, every time I thought I had, I’d remember some random little detail that didn’t fit and my whole theory would fall apart. By the time I actually made it to Opal Johnson’s kitchen table, I was too tired and frustrated to worry about being delicate. Besides, Opal wasn’t the delicate type.

  “It is delicious pie,” I told her. “But actually, I came here more about your mother than your grandmother’s recipe. See, my friend and I visited a man named Joe Tillman in Pawhuska yesterday…”

  I paused, hoping to catch some glimmer of recognition in Opal’s smart brown eyes.

  No such luck.

  “Anyway,” I went on, “Joe’s grandparents built the house my family lives in, and my friend and I went up there to talk with him about what some workmen found underneath the floor of our servants’ quarters a few weeks ago.”

  Opal’s face was a mask of calm, but her foot jiggled underneath the table.

  “Do you know what I’m talking about?” I asked.

  The tapping stopped.

  “You know who it is, don’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “We found a receipt from the Victory Victrola Shop in the body’s pocket,” I said. “And the police anthropologist believes the man who died was young. And black.”

  Opal blinked slowly.

  “Ruby was your mother, wasn’t she? And Joseph was your uncle?”

  “That’s right,” she said.

  “Is it him?” I asked. “Is the skeleton Joseph?”

  Opal laced her fingers together and put her hands in her lap.

  “I’m sorry, dear,” she said. “But I’m afraid my answer is the same one Joe must have given you yesterday: I can’t say.”

  My pulse throbbed in the achy knot at the back of my head.

  “Let me guess—you promised your mom on her deathbed,” I said.

  Opal laughed. “Gracious no, dear. Nothing so dramatic as that. But Mother asked me not to discuss the matter, so I don’t.”

  I stood up quickly, nearly knocking over my chair. The old familiar pinch at the top of my nose was back, and I didn’t want to cry in front of a woman I barely knew.

  “Thank you for your time.” I turned fast enough toward the door that it must have come across as rude. Mom’s Mercedes keys were already in my hand.

  “Rowan!”

  I stopped.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Do you always give up so easy?”

  “I just thought…”

  “I know you did. But hasn’t anyone ever told you it takes old women like me a while to warm up our engines?”

  “I… I’m sorry,” I stammered.

  She shook her head and sighed.

  “Don’t apologize, young lady. Just help me to the parlor. And listen.”

  “There it is,” Opal said. “My grandmother’s Model 14. But what you’re really after is the smaller machine sitting on top.”

  She pointed to a Victrola cabinet that was as tall as Uncle Chotch’s, but not quite as fancy. The thing on top of it was a strange-looking box with a hose and a small horn attached to it.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “A Dictaphone.”

  She let go of my arm, took a cigar box down from the bookshelf beside her, and handed me a key from inside it. “Here you go,” she said. “The Dictaphone cylinders are in that locked cupboard over there.”

  I unlocked the door. The shelves inside were filled with rows of antique cardboard cylinders marked EDISON GOLD MOULDED RECORDS ECHO ALL OVER THE WORLD. Each was numbered in black, starting at one, ending at forty.

  My fingertips slid along their curved fronts as I asked Opal what was on them.

  “Answers,” she said. “To some of your questions, at least. Mother carried the rest of them to her grave. But I never did have children of my own, and it would be nice to pass on what I do know before I’m gone. Besides, Tilda said you’re the girl Arvin was trying to help when that evil man killed him. I expect the confession on those cylinders won’t be your first clue that the world can be a hard place.”

  I took out the cylinder marked #1.

  “You’re sure you want to know?” she asked.

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  Opal smiled sadly. “Then you’d best settle in and make yourself comfortable, young lady. It’s going to be a long afternoon.”

  WILLIAM

  Maple Ridge was still as a grave. No children playing, no gardeners snipping hedges, no workmen hammering.

  But Clete’s father’s Cadillac was there, parked in front of a three-story mansion just north of Mama and Pop’s new place. The sight of it froze up every gear inside me and near stopped my heart.

  Vernon had found Ruby and Joseph.

  I got out of the Model T, cursing myself for leaving my Springfield in the truck the night before, and slipped along the northern wall of our new house. Church bells tolled ten times in the distance. I peeked around the corner. Saw that the door to the servants’ quarters was open. Caught the wretched stink of a Maduro Robusto mingling with the smoke from Greenwood.

  Then a gunshot shattered the air into a million jagged pieces, each one sharpened on the high, thin scream that followed. I catapulted across the yard, lurching to a stop in front of the door.

  Vernon Fish stood not five feet inside, Maybelle at the end of one arm, Ruby’s neck hooked in the crook of the other. Joseph slumped against the wall at the far end of the room, blood seeping from a hole in his left shoulder. And Vernon must not have heard me, for he rubbed his cheek slow across Ruby’s, saying: “That’s just for starters, boy. I don’t aim to let Maybelle have her way with you till I’ve had mine with your sister.”

  Joseph said nothing, only heaved forward onto his belly and commenced to dragging himself across the floor towards Vernon. Vernon pressed the gun to Ruby’s temple. Joseph stopped.

  I raised my hand, hoping Joseph would notice the motion and see me standing there. And though his eyes never shifted and his expression never changed, I knew from the w
ay he held his blink half a second too long that he’d seen me.

  Vernon lowered Maybelle and ran the back of his hand down Ruby’s blouse. My heart sped up. I bent my knees, dropping down until my fingers wrapped around a brick sitting atop the pile next to the door. I took a careful step forward, making ready to pounce. That’s when my foot hit the twig.

  Vernon swung around quick as a cat, Ruby hanging from his arm like a broken rag doll. His eyes burned behind the curl of smoke from his cigar. And at the sight of me, he laughed out loud.

  “Well, shit twice and fall back in,” he spit. “Old Half-breed decided to show up after all!”

  I drew myself tall as I could and stepped inside.

  Vernon pushed Maybelle’s barrel against Ruby’s head. Said, “Now, you just put down that brick and don’t go getting any wild ideas, boy, or I’ll shoot all three of you dead.”

  I set the brick on the ground and forced myself to smile, saying, “There’s no need for that, Mr. Fish. I’ve come to apologize.”

  Which I reckon wasn’t what he’d expected to hear.

  “What do you mean?” he growled.

  “I mean I’ve been to Greenwood and seen what’s transpired. I talked to Pop, too, and he explained how he finally saw the light and joined the Klan, and why I need to be a man and do the same. I understand now, Mr. Fish. White folks have let things get out of control and need to set them right again. I may only be half white, but I aim to be part of that, sir. I truly do.”

  “How?” he asked warily.

  I took a step forward. Vernon’s arm tightened, lifting Ruby’s toes off the ground. “I’ll show you,” I said, raising both my empty hands. “If you’ll just allow me to get something from that boy’s pocket.”

  Vernon shifted sideways, watching close as he let me pass. I went to Joseph and pulled out his wallet. His eyes were downcast.

  “Here,” I said, showing Vernon the Victrola receipt. “This is what I came for.”

  I stood up slow, putting the paper and the wallet on the floor in front of him. Then I stepped back, and he dropped Ruby and told her to pick them up. “Do it!” he shouted when she didn’t respond. And she did.

  “Hold it so I can read it,” Vernon barked. Ruby grasped the receipt on either side and raised it high. And then I saw it: a quick little blink my way that told me she was with me.

  Vernon scanned the paper. Said, “What are all these figures about?”

  “Pop sold this boy a Victrola in a moment of weakness,” I told him. “A while later, he came back while Pop was out, claiming he’d forgot his receipt. I believed him, and made one up for him myself. At the time I thought I was doing right, only last night I realized what a fool I’ve been. Why, all this boy has to do is show that paper around. Then Pop’s name could get drug through the mud, and our business right along with it. I couldn’t let it stand, Mr. Fish. That’s why I brought the boy and his sister here—so I could get the receipt back and make sure neither one of them ever got a chance to ruin my pop.”

  Vernon’s cheek twitched. “And just how did you plan on doing that?” he asked.

  I told him I’d aimed to sweet-talk Joseph into giving me the receipt, and once that was done, I’d meant to get my shotgun from the Model T parked out on the street and finish things for good. “There’s plenty of places to hide bodies around a construction site,” I said. “Places no one would ever look.”

  Vernon’s mouth pulled up in a nasty leer. And he folded the receipt into his wallet and put it in his back pocket, then turned and slapped Ruby so hard that she half stumbled, half flew across the room and onto the floor. Her hand went to her mouth.

  “Come here, boy,” he said, which I did. And he yanked me closer and laughed as Ruby spit out the tooth he’d knocked free.

  “You first,” he whispered into my ear.

  I stammered that I didn’t know what he meant.

  “Hell if you don’t,” he said.

  I told him maybe I did, but I wasn’t sure how to go about it. He rolled his eyes and pulled at the buttons on his trousers with one hand while the other kept Maybelle trained on Ruby. A feral look came into his eyes as his gaze locked onto her like a wolf’s does its prey. He went closer and toed her with his boot.

  I looked quick over my shoulder. Saw blood streaked across the boards from where Joseph had quietly dragged himself. Then I felt a tug at my pant leg, and when I looked down, it was him, holding the brick to his chest.

  Vernon knelt over Ruby.

  Joseph reached for my hand.

  Vernon pushed Ruby’s knees apart, cursing her for fighting him.

  I pulled Joseph up. For just an instant, we looked at the brick together. Then we looked at each other, and we knew.

  It happened all at once: the brick caving in Vernon’s skull, him collapsing onto Ruby. Then Ruby was kicking and screaming underneath Vernon’s twitching body, and Joseph was sinking to his knees. I heaved Vernon’s bulk aside and lifted Ruby into my arms and cradled her close, whispering she should look away. Vernon’s body jerked and twitched, and blood slicked out across the wood. Forever, it seemed. Only, in the end, it wasn’t.

  Rowan

  I’m running again. Six miles this morning, seven next week. Which means I’ll have to wake up even earlier to get to work on time. I don’t mind, though. Running makes me feel normal and strong. So does being at the clinic. And those are two things I really, really need right now: to feel normal. And strong.

  Mom and Dad got here a few minutes ago. This isn’t the courthouse where Sheriff McCullough kept Dick Rowland safe while Greenwood burned—they tore that down a long time ago. This new one is tall and ugly, and at eleven thirty, the three of us will go inside so I can tell the district attorney what really happened the morning Arvin died.

  I don’t want to testify in court. But since the DA agreed to reconsider bringing charges against Jerry Randall, and since I’m the only eyewitness who can provide evidence that it wasn’t just a crime, but a hate crime, too, there’s a pretty good chance I’ll end up on the stand.

  As for Will’s story, I’ve kept that to myself. I know I’ll have to tell James eventually, because that’s what best friends do.

  Opal promised that someday, when she’s gone, the wax cylinders, the Victrola, and the Dictaphone will come to me. I told her I didn’t deserve them, and that if they were mine, I couldn’t keep the stories behind them quiet like she and Joe Tillman had. She said that was exactly why I should have them.

  Beside me on the bench, Mom shields her eyes from the sun and looks up at the courthouse. She’s ready for battle, but I can tell she’s nervous. And for once, Dad doesn’t look so sure that everything’s going to turn out the way he wants.

  “You ready?” Mom asks.

  I focus on the Tulsa skyline behind us and think about the stories I’ve learned this summer—the ones with happy endings, the ones without, and the ones that still need to be told.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “I’m ready.”

  WILLIAM

  It’s 1926 now, five years since the Dreamland Theatre and all the rest of Greenwood burned. Some days it feels like a lifetime. Others, no more than a heartbeat.

  I’ve tried to put the worst of it behind me. Problem is, history has a way of sneaking back around. Like last month, when Joseph wrote to say he’d gotten his degree from the University at Buffalo and planned to attend medical school there. And like when Ruby’s letter arrived just four days ago, telling me Joseph had drowned trying to save a child who slipped into the river above Niagara Falls.

  It’s that false sense of distance between the present and the past that set me to thinking how our tale deserves telling. Which is why I’ve endeavored to record what transpired in my own voice on these wax cylinders. And besides, facts have emerged since that night that no true account of Vernon’s death can omit. Facts I learned from Mama when she visited last summer, and which she herself learned from a Georgia lawman who’d come around, making inquiries about V
ernon Fish. Only it wasn’t me or Joseph he was after. It was Vernon himself.

  As the lawman explained things to Mama, Vernon was actually Virgil Fisher out of Decatur, Georgia. A man raised in a sharecropper’s shack by a white father who’d taught him to pick cotton and hate Negroes equally well. What that sharecropper failed to tell his son, though, was that Vernon’s own mama had been a Negress with skin so fair she passed for white, and that he’d sent her and their newborn second son packing after the babe was born dark-skinned. He’d kept Vernon, though, for he needed help with the crops, and company, too. And Vernon passed for white with ease till he was a grown man, never knowing the truth about his mama. Leastways, not until she died and his brother tracked him down to tell him.

  Needless to say, the brother’s skin hadn’t lightened any since he was born. And, faced with a truth he couldn’t bear, Vernon flew into a rage and beat his own brother dead with a shovel.

  He’d fled to Oklahoma after that, leaving his brother’s body in a dried-up well on his father’s plot. But when his father got kicked in the chest by a horse and killed a few years later, the sharecropper who worked the land after him found the body and reported it to the police. Vernon hadn’t bothered getting rid of his brother’s wallet, so it took the authorities no time to figure out who the dead man was. And at the request of the landowner who’d leased the Fishers their parcel in the first place, Georgia officials were making inquiries as to Vernon’s whereabouts.

  Now, I can’t say as I’m worried overmuch that Vernon’s bones will be found. No one knows how many black men were killed during the riot, no one much seems to care. And it’s poetic justice of the grimmest sort, I suppose, that for all his hatred and bile, Vernon Fish ended up just another murdered Negro whose death never merited looking into—or even remembering.