The Sacred Place

by Daniel Black

  “I said uncover it,” Jeremiah said again without moving his eyes. Possum now stood beside her father, waiting for the inevitable. “My baby, my baby,” she kept murmuring.

  Rosenthal placed his hand on the blanket but tried one last time. “Please, Jeremiah. Don’t do this. Ma’am,” he turned his attention to Possum, “you don’t want to see your boy in this condition. I promise you you don’t. Just let us carry it in the house—”

  “Uncover it!” Jeremiah screamed.

  So Rosenthal, against his heart’s desire, snatched the cloth away and revealed the Johnsons’ greatest fear.

  Possum fainted into her mother’s arms. Miss Mary rocked her awkwardly and recited, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.” She began to holler angrily, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. For thou art with me!” Tears sprang forth unannounced onto her rounded cheeks. “Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me! Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies! Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over. Surely!” She paused. “Surely!” she yelled, “goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever!”

  Miss Mary’s heavy breathing scared Patrick bleach white, and he leaned on the side of his truck, wishing he and Rosenthal had simply dumped the body and left.

  Miss Mary improvised the same scripture more boisterously: “The Lord is our Shepherd!” she declared boldly, eloquently. “We shall not want!” She jabbed her finger between her voluptuous breasts. “He maketh us to lie down in green pastures! He leadeth us beside the still waters! He restoreth our soul!” Miss Mary peered into Patrick’s pupils and spoke to his irascible heart. She released Possum to Ella Mae and walked slowly toward the young white boy. “He leadeth us in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.” Standing only inches from him, she proclaimed, “Yea though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we shall fear no evil! For thou God art with us! Thy rod and thy staff they comfort us!” She began to clap wildly. Patrick felt her spittle splatter on his pale cheeks, but he dared not move. “Thou preparest a table before us in the presence of our enemies!” Her eyes narrowed. “Thou anointest our head with oil! Our cup runneth over!” With hands lifted high, she shouted, “Surely! Surely! Surely! Goodness and Mercy shall follow me and mine all the days of our lives”—Miss Mary turned from Patrick and rejoined Possum—“And we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

  “Amen.” Patrick smirked offensively.

  Miss Mary swiveled, and exclaimed, “No! Awoman! And a colored one at that!”

  She ushered Possum and Ella Mae toward the house. The two white men looked at each other in stark confusion, yet apparently Miss Mary didn’t need their understanding in order to have her own. “It’s gon be all right now,” she repeated to her daughters. “God done declared it, and it’s gone be all right.” She was saying more than anyone understood.

  Jeremiah had not flinched the entire time. He stared at his grandson’s mangled body, contemplating how, when, and why someone had been so cruel. One solitary tear dropped from his left eye, and when Rosenthal reached to wipe it away, Jeremiah grabbed his wrist with strength Rosenthal assumed Jeremiah to have lost forty years earlier. Slowly Jeremiah loosened his grip, and Rosenthal returned his hand to his side, but Jeremiah never took his eyes off Clement’s emaciated form. A million thoughts flooded his mind, but only one prevailed—how to even the score. He had to do something, he told himself. For all the Negro fathers and grandfathers who had buried children with no means of recourse, he had to do something. Clarity overshadowed Jeremiah’s face as he realized God was waiting—again—on him to move.

  “You all right, Daddy?” Enoch whispered, with his hand supporting his father’s back.

  Jeremiah didn’t answer. He prayed for strength to do what he had decided. He wasn’t sure who would stand with him or against him, but he knew he had to do it. When his tears broke free, Jeremiah didn’t fight them, for he alone knew they would never come again. Not at the loss of one of his own. Rosenthal, Patrick, and even Enoch wrongly concluded that Clement’s murder had overwhelmed the old sharecropper, and he simply couldn’t hold his wailing any longer. Had they been telepathic, they would have known that Jeremiah cried that day for generations of Black lives unaccounted for. His eyes became the conduit for the weeping of thousands of mothers whose shackled lives never allowed them the room to grieve. All those Negro men who wanted to weep when their wives were raped and their children sold away and their bodies abused and their spirits demeaned … Jeremiah surrendered his eyes for the healing. When he doubled over in anguish and growled like a wounded bear, Enoch had no choice but to let him be. Falling to the earth heavily, Jeremiah submitted to the ancestors and bore the pain of people he never knew and abuses he never witnessed. He cried for children transitioned before their time—those who could have transformed the world had they lived on—and for love planted but unharvested. Balled in a fetal position with his mouth to the ground, Jeremiah moaned for the empty space in his heart where Jerry once dwelled, and called the names of others, like his friend Bull, whom no one had ever glorified. “Use me,” he mumbled feebly while his body tossed to and fro in the dusty front yard.

  “Daddy?” Enoch called repeatedly. He kept reaching for his father, but Jeremiah made it clear that he was not to be disturbed.

  Patrick and Rosenthal didn’t know what to do or think. Is the old man having a seizure? Patrick wondered. The unintelligible moans, accented by the snakelike body movements, convinced both men that Jeremiah was either crazy or spirit-possessed. Still, they didn’t move. As if attending a performance, the men observed in mock silence and hoped they could recognize the conclusion. In some ways, Enoch’s begging was more distressful to them than Jeremiah’s writhing form. He kept pleading with his father, “Git up, Daddy! Please!” probably more embarrassed, they assumed, than worried. Had they not been there, Rosenthal thought, this whole metaphysical experience would surely have been even more intense. He wanted to turn and tell Patrick that he had witnessed, years ago, a Negro church service where people collapsed and screamed and shook violently under the power of what they called the Holy Ghost. He had never heard of the Holy Ghost before. In their Southern refined white church service, they spoke of the Holy Spirit, and clearly one had nothing to do with the other. Yet, in the moment, he couldn’t explain this to Patrick for fear of interrupting what was obviously a private exchange between Jeremiah and something Invisible.

  Twenty minutes later, the ghost—as Rosenthal thought of it—abandoned Jeremiah, and he lay exhausted in the front yard. The only sign of life in him was his ever-expanding and deflating stomach. He reached for Enoch now, who gladly assisted him from the earth.

  “You all right, Daddy?”

  Jeremiah brushed dust from his overalls and walked to where Rosenthal and Patrick were shifting uneasily.

  “Jeremiah, I’m sorry,” Rosenthal spoke prematurely. “I wish there were something more I could do.” His hands motioned his perceived helplessness. “When Patrick arrived at the house this morning, I had no idea—”

  Jeremiah cleared his throat, and said, “Tell them to get ready.”

  “Tell who?” Patrick asked rudely.

  Dismissing him, Jeremiah told Enoch, “Git my boy outta this damn truck.”

  Enoch motioned for Ray Ray and, together, they carried Clement onto the back porch and laid him on a cooling board. Sarah Jane and Chop moved to stand next to their grandfather.

  “I know this is hard on you, Jeremiah, but try not to be too bitter,” Rosenthal said. “If there is anything I can do—”

  “Yes.” Jeremiah smiled broadly. “There’s somethin’ very impo’-tant you can do.” He had one arm around Sarah Jane and the other encircling Cho
p. “Tell yo’ people to git ready ’cause I’m comin’.”

  “What?” Rosenthal burbled in confusion. “Tell who what? What are you talking about, Jeremiah?”

  He turned and walked toward the house with a peace and solitude at once unsettling and remarkable. Chop and Sarah Jane were left to bring the salutation.

  “My granddaddy’s very angry, sir,” Sarah Jane announced.

  “He ain’t got no right to be angry at us!” Patrick declared. “Hell, we brought him de body!”

  Rosenthal raised his right hand quickly and forced Patrick, once again, into the background. “Listen, children,” he said paternalistically. “This is traumatic for all of us. For the whole town! I understand why Jeremiah is so upset—”

  Sarah Jane didn’t care, this time, that she was interrupting an elder. “No, you don’t, sir!” she said boldly. “You wasn’t here when my daddy killed hisself and my granddaddy had to bury him! You didn’t see the look in his eyes as he rubbed the casket and cried!” She was crying now against her wishes. “And you didn’t see my momma waste away after those white men raped her! And you don’t know what it’s like to bury one child after the other, Mr. Rosenthal, and you cain’t never do nothin’ ’bout it!” She paused and sobbed, but then proceeded a bit more controlled, “If I wuz rude, I apologize, Mr. Rosenthal, but I sho meant what I said.” Sarah Jane wiped her eyes. “The family thanks y’all fu bringin’ de body home and fu bein’ nice enough not to leave it in de river. God bless you.” With that, Sarah Jane and Chop turned and walked toward the house.

  “Please tell Jeremiah I’m sorry!” Rosenthal called after them, but knew his words fell on deaf ears.

  “Let’s go, Mr. Rosenthal,” Patrick said nonchalantly. “These niggers—”

  “They’re people, Patrick!” Rosenthal yelled. “They’re people who feel and hurt just like you and me!”

  “Okay! Whatever!” Patrick yielded.

  “No, it’s not okay!” Rosenthal screamed louder. “That’s why these people are mad as hell right now. We keep treating them like they’re nothing, and we expect them simply to go along with it. Well, I have news for you, young man! They’re not going to do this forever. No, sir! One day, they’re going to give us a taste of our own medicine!” Rosenthal entered the cab of the truck and slammed the door shut. He patted the eye lovingly through his pants pocket.

  “Whatever,” Patrick repeated carelessly, and drove away.

  Possum didn’t care to wipe the yellowy snot from her nose. Her facial expression had transformed from grief to uncontrollable fury. Ella Mae sat next to her on the old sofa and rubbed her back soothingly. “Bring me the body,” she whispered.

  “Oh no,” Miss Mary muddled. “Don’t do this to yourself, baby. Take thangs one step at a time.”

  “I need to know if that”—she shivered—“that … monster was once my boy, Momma. I need to know.”

  “Sweetie, just relax and take it easy—”

  “I need to know, Momma! I need to know right now!”

  Before Miss Mary could deny her further, Enoch and Ray Ray had retrieved the body and laid it on the floor in front of the sofa.

  “Uncover it,” Possum demanded, like God saying, “Let there be light!”

  Enoch unveiled the body and, again, everybody gasped in horror. Clement’s head, the size of a prizewinning pumpkin, carried bruises of every color: black, green, burnt orange, lavender, and piss yellow. The crater where his left eye once dwelled was deep and hollow as though a wood carver had been paid handsomely to burrow out a permanent reminder to Negro boys that white women, even in casual conversation, were not to be approached. With minstrel-size, purply blue lips, the face could have been a Halloween mask although no one—Black or white—would have offered sweets to such a horrendous sight. Actually, other children would have fled in terror, and parents would have asked what mother had approved of something so … so terrifying. Ridges of lumps and valleys, like a man-made cycle trail, evidenced the bat or crowbar or steel beam that had been used to flatten an otherwise beautifully round structure. The right eye, bucking and bulging in compensation for its missing other, stared at no one in particular yet all its viewers sensed its absolute attention. Possum knelt next to the unrecognizable form and, with her eyes closed, moved her right hand slowly and lovingly across the body, from head to foot. Everyone else awaited the verdict.

  When she reached the corpse’s bloated right hand, she stopped abruptly.

  “Oh my God,” she hummed sadly. “It’s him, Momma. It’s him!”

  “How you know fu sho, baby? They done beat him so bad—” Miss Mary was praying against the odds that this monstrosity was not her grandson.

  “It’s him,” Possum said confidently. “Look.” She held up his hand and showed the family a ring. “It’s his daddy’s. Louis gave it to him on his twelfth birthday.”

  Jeremiah wasn’t ready for absolute confirmation. “Look like any old ring to me,” he said.

  Possum struggled until she removed the ring from Clement’s finger. She passed it to Ella Mae, who took it reluctantly. “Look on the inside,” Possum murmured.

  Ella Mae did so and covered her mouth to keep from screaming out loud.

  “What is it?” Jeremiah asked.

  “The initials L. T.,” Ella Mae said.

  “That stands for Louis Thompson,” Possum explained. Then she wept bitterly. “Why did they do my baby like this? What kinda human bein’ could beat a child’s eye right out o’ his head?”

  “No kind,” Jeremiah said. “Don’t no human bein’ do this to nobody.”

  Ella Mae and Miss Mary encouraged Possum not to waste energy on those “worthless crackers,” but, somewhere deep within, she couldn’t exonerate them as they had. Living next to human beings who ain’t really human beings did not explain to Possum why white folks had annihilated her son. In fact, she took the explanation as Negroes’ excuse simply not to confront the bastards. On Judgment Day, she thought, God won’t exempt white folk from hell because of insufficient humanity. Rather, he’ll send Negroes with them—for not holding their neighbors accountable and for convincing themselves that Negroes are more humane by nature.

  Possum wailed, and hollered, “I can’t handle this, Daddy!” Her expostulation frightened the children, who then excused themselves to the front porch. Enoch wrapped the body and returned it to the cooling board.

  “Y’all th-th-think d-d-d-d-dat’s Clement?” Chop asked.

  “Of course it is,” Ray Ray mumbled in agitation. “Didn’t you see the ring? What other Negro boy you know ’round hyeah wit a daddy wit dem initials?”

  Chop had no argument, so he asked, “Whwhwhwat ch’all th-th-think gone happen nnnnow?”

  “I don’t know,” Sarah Jane whimpered. “But Granddaddy’s actin’ mighty funny.”

  “He sho is,” Ray Ray agreed. “He keep bustin’ out laughin’ when ain’t nothin’ funny.”

  Sarah Jane studied the beautiful white clouds dancing against the blue backdrop. “Yeah, he up to somethin’,” she said definitively. “I hope don’t nobody git hurt.”

  Ray Ray frowned. “Somebody done already got hurt. In a way, I wish Negro people would take their guns and blow the peckerwoods’ heads plumb off!”

  “Thththat wwwwouldn’t b-b-b-be t-t-too good, Ray Ray, ’cccccause ththththen ththey would git rrrrreal mad.”

  “So!” Ray Ray thundered. “Let ’em git mad! Why we always de ones gotta be mad? I wanna make them mad! I’m tired o’ dem knowin’ dey can make us mad and jes go on ’bout dey business. I hope Granddaddy do do somethin’. I really do.”

  Sarah Jane was a bit more cautious. “I got a bad feelin’ ’bout all this,” she said more to the wind than to her cousins. “Poor Clement!” she said melodiously, and shook her head.

  “Naw, poor crackers!” Ray Ray said. “That’s who you oughta be feelin’ sorry for ’cause when they git theirs, it ain’t gon be no joke. God ain’t been lettin’ this happen for no reason. Watc
h what I’m tellin’ you. They gon git theirs, and they gon be sorry they ever messed with Negro people.”

  Sarah Jane scrutinized Ray Ray. She never knew he carried such enmity in his heart, and now she feared he might do something foolish. “Calm down, Ray Ray,” she admonished, motherly. “Ain’t no need in makin’ things worse than they already is.”

  Ray Ray flung his hands into the air. “Thangs cain’t git no worse, Sarah Jane! They done killed yo daddy, yo momma, and now Clement! We gon just keep watchin’ ’til they kill de whole family? Huh?”

  “No, we ain’t gon jes keep watchin’”—Sarah Jane felt like she was being tried for racial disloyalty—“but we ain’t gon be no fools neither.”

  “Then what we gon do? Huh? You tell me dat!”

  Sarah Jane regretted her perfunctory response. “We gon keep prayin’! Dat’s what we gon do ’til God tells us somethin’ different.”

  Ray Ray smirked. “God ain’t gon come down from heaven and tell us nothin’ at all. We gon jes have to do somethin’ and ask God to help us.”

  “How you know God ain’t comin’ down from heaven?” Sarah Jane posed desperately. “Grandma say He’s comin’ back.”

  “He ain’t here yet!” Ray Ray challenged. “And it don’t make no sense for us to keep waitin’ on Him and buryin’ Negroes, hopin’ He comin’.”

  “God llllllloves everybody,” Chop offered tangentially.

  “Shut up, boy!” the other two yelled.

  Chop pursed his lips and decided, as usual, to dwell in silence and yield the conversation to the articulate ones.

  “We gotta be smart,” Sarah Jane sighed, reigniting the exchange.

  “Sarah Jane,” Ray Ray huffed, “we done tried everything. We done talked to ’em, we done prayed for ’em, we done asked ’em to leave us be, we done worked for ’em like mules, and we done grinned in they face even after they killed our people. How much smarter can we be?”