Beau and I busied ourselves with picking up the contents. Even with our backs to her, I could feel the stare piercing through my shirt. If she thought Beau, the president of our class, was a no-count, I could only imagine what she thought of me.
“Is that really a ghost hat?” Josh asked.
“No such a thing, precious. You don’t pay any mind to these boys. This belonged to my second husband.” She picked up the white dress that was crumpled in a pile and straightened it out. “He was a great man. Made it up the ranks all the way to Wizard.”
Reaching to pick up the torn certificate, Beau met my eyes. I could tell from the way he twisted his lip that he thought Mama Rose was about to go off in a fit of crazy talk.
“Wizard? Like in King Arthur?”
“No, not that foolishness. I’m talking about the Klan. He was the big wheel. He ran things around this town.”
Mama Rose sat on the top of a rusted trunk. “You boys don’t know about the Klan?” Her eyes raced back and forth and settled on me. “Of course, you don’t. Coming from that Yankee place you’re from. Anyway, it’s a group of men in the community who keep the peace.” She opened a cigar box and began shuffling though a stack of black-and-white photographs.
“Are they like the police?” Josh asked.
“Oh no. They handle things that the police are too timid to take on.” She held up a picture of a group of men all dressed in white. The flaps of their hats were up so that you could make out their faces. Round, sunken, or scarred, the faces were the same in their lack of expression. Sitting on the tailgate of a truck were five boys mine and Beau’s age.
“There’s Canton himself. Boys, he was a real looker.” Mama Rose pointed to the man dressed in a shiny robe. Judging by his fat face, I wondered how even someone touched like Mama Rose could find that man handsome.
“What are they doing all dressed alike?” I asked before thinking.
She looked up from the pictures and squinted at me. “Well, can’t you see? They were having a meeting. They always dressed for meetings. It was when they planned what needed to be done to make it so that decent people would feel safe to walk down the street.”
“What sort of stuff would they do?”
“Beau Riley. You should know such. Johnny ought to be teaching you. But that mama of yours probably has him brainwashed by now.” Mama Rose sighed and mumbled something under her breath. “They would straighten out people who got outta line. Like wife beaters and such.”
“They kill ’em?” Josh asked.
“Nothing more than a good old-fashioned whipping most times. Now I want you boys to look.” Mama Rose pointed to the boy sitting on the end of the tailgate. Even with a crew cut, he looked like Josh.
“Hey, that’s Johnny,” Beau said.
Mama Rose clutched her blouse like she might cry. “And here’s Alvin right next to him. My two angels.”
Josh moved closer and grabbed the photo. “Is Daddy still in this thing?”
“It’s the Klan. The Klan.” Mama Rose shook her head and began folding the white hat with military precision. “And no, he is not. When he married that mama of yours, he dropped out. But now Alvin is still regular, thank the Lord.”
Before Mama Rose closed the cigar box, I stared at the photo one last time. Johnny’s young eyes looked back at me. They were the type of eyes that looked too soft to be on a man’s face. His hand was propped on the side of the truck. Hands that were once pure and free from of scars.
It was always a natural wonder to me how Johnny could come from Mama Rose’s belly and not be touched in the head like her. But I soon learned that what Johnny missed his brother Alvin had inherited in full glory.
There was no denying that the man with the orange-colored beard was Mama Rose’s son. He lived on the edge of Hagan’s Hell, a swamp-infested area outside of town. Other than Alvin, no other human being lived in the area. And he didn’t take well to company, human or otherwise. It was a known fact that he would shoot any living thing that laid foot, claw, or belly on his property. That’s why I did a double take when Beau suggested we ride our bikes out to see him.
“You scared of Alvin or something?” Beau shielded his eyes from the morning sun.
“Look. He’s fixing to pee in his pants, he’s so scared,” Josh added.
Two seagulls landed on the side of a shrimp boat docked at the marina. Anything to divert their attention would have been welcome at this point.
Josh began to sing and flap his wings like a chicken. “Bran-don’s scay-erd. Bran-don’s scay-erd.”
“Shut up, Josh,” I yelled. “I just don’t know how far it is out there. It might get dark before we can get back.”
“It ain’t far,” Beau said. “We got all day. Besides, if Josh can make it, I think you can.”
Josh grinned and revealed another missing tooth. He jumped on his bike and followed Beau. The red flags on their bikes flapped in the wind and, looking back one last time at the marina, I eventually followed.
By the time we reached the sand driveway marked “Private” by a spray-painted sign, I was hoping Alvin would allow me to have one drink of water before he shot me dead. Our tailbones ached so bad by the time we reached the area covered in cypress tress and shrub brush that we rode into Alvin’s place standing up on our bike pedals. All the better, so he might recognize Josh and Beau and not shoot them.
“Alvin. It’s just me and Josh,” Beau yelled as he rode past a second sign that said “No Trespassing.”
“And what about me?” I added.
“And Brandon too,” Josh yelled. His voice made its way through the wetland filled with stumps and hanging moss and bounced back at us.
Every other pine tree was marked with a hubcap. Closer to the house we passed the skin of a rattlesnake nailed to a tree.
His house sat on stilts and looked like the house version of Joseph’s coat from the Bible. Part of the house was made of bricks, and other portions were formed by various pieces of colored wood. His door was made from slick cypress wood and looked like it might have belonged to a fancy house in a rich neighborhood. A rack of deer antlers hung above the door.
Alvin stood below sawing a piece of plywood. A small transistor radio with a bent antenna was propped on the sawhorse. He scratched his beard and watched as we rode up in a cloud of white dust.
“Hey, Uncle Alvin,” Josh said.
He looked at the red flags and scanned down to our faces. “Your daddy know you boys come all the way out here?”
“We just been riding and decided to come on out and see you since we missed you Christmas,” Beau said.
“And Mama Rose said you made us a coon hat. One like Davy Crockett’s,” Josh said.
Alvin laughed, and with his missing front tooth the resemblance to Josh was stronger than ever. “That boy don’t miss a thing. I expect if you come on in the house, you might find a hat or two.”
Climbing up the stairs, Beau introduced me. Alvin never looked at me, but pointed at a hole in the wooden step. “Watch that’n or it’ll tear your foot off.”
Inside the house, framed pictures of Alvin dressed in white robes decorated the walls. One showed him shaking hands with a man dressed in a bright red robe. Red as the devil costume I wanted to buy for Halloween but Nana wouldn’t let me. Certificates like the ones kept in Mama Rose’s personal box lined one side of the cypress wall.
When Alvin stuck his fingers in the groove where a door handle should have been, the closet door came off of its hinge. The muscles in his forearm flinched when he cussed real loud. A tall wooden cross filled one corner of the closet. Its wood was pristine and smooth enough for any church steeple. A gold medallion was nailed to the center of the cross. Rows of sawed-off shotguns filled the other corner, and the smell of old grease suddenly made me want to throw up.
“Why you got a cross in your closet?” Josh asked.
Alvin snatched two caps from the top shelf and tossed them at Josh and Beau. “You don’t belong to snoop.”
&nb
sp; “I wasn’t. The door fell off,” Josh said.
Beau used the tail of the raccoon hat to hit Josh on the arm.
“Alvin, can we get a drink of water?”
It wasn’t until we had started to leave that I began to feel uneasy again. Alvin pointed the saw towards me. “You bring that boy here and I let him in this time. Y’all ’re family. But, boy, I’m tellin’ you right now, if you flap your tongue about my business, I’ll cut it out.”
Beau nervously laughed and waved as we left. But Alvin never laughed. He just stared until I looked away towards the swamp that protected him.
Never hearing Beau and Josh ride off, I turned to find myself alone and facing the point of Alvin’s saw. I pressed the pedals as hard as I could until my foot slipped. The bike tilted to the side and I struggled not to hit my chin on the handlebars. I pictured myself falling and being nailed to one of the vacant pine trees.
Gaining speed, I turned, hoping my imagination was getting the best of me. Even in the distance he still looked like a giant holding that saw. And no matter how fast I pedaled, I could not outrace the feeling that Alvin was not touched like Mama Rose. He was just hammered with meanness like Mama’s old boyfriend Darrell.
That New Year’s Eve I didn’t think of Mama or Uncle Cecil’s family the first time. For me it was not a celebration of what the year had offered, but an assurance that it would come to a close. The realization of what Nana had said finally began to settle around me. Things really would get better.
Nana and Poppy had agreed to stay with Beau and Josh while Bonita and Johnny went out celebrating. It was the first time we were all together under the same roof like a real family.
“Now, Pauline, you make yourself right at home,” Bonita said.
“Y’all fix some Jiffy Pop and have a big time.” Bonita looked like she was ready for a big time herself. She wore a red dress with sparkles all over it. Nana looked at her as if she was a stranger. I don’t think it was so much the flashy dress as it was the specks of gold glitter in Bonita’s hair.
Even Johnny was dressed up, with his hair slicked down like a kid waiting for a formal portrait. Bonita even insisted that we all take pictures.
“All right, y’all bunch together,” Poppy said.
“Now wait a minute. Pauline and Brandon need to get in the picture too,” Bonita said.
“Gracious, no. Me dressed like this? No, y’all take one of just your family,” Nana said.
Bonita turned her head in such a way that caused the glitter in her hair to turn into a mini fireworks display. “Crazy, you are family.”
“Get on over here,” Johnny added.
As I stood in front of Johnny, he put his hand on my shoulder, and Poppy counted to three. It felt good being all squeezed together, feeling the air that Johnny exhaled on my neck and smelling the sweetness of Bonita’s perfume. As the flash went off, I hoped that Nana would add the picture to the cluster of photos on the small nightstand in the camper. Right next to the picture of Uncle Cecil’s family.
After they had left, Nana made pallets out of blankets for us. We stretched out close to the TV, and I waited for Poppy to warn us about the dangers of going blind from such reckless behavior.
Josh was the first out. His arm dangled as Poppy carried him into the bedroom. Fighting the heaviness of sleep, I was determined to win the bet I had made with Beau. The first one to give in to sleep had to buy the other the item of his choice from Mama Rose’s next shipment. But after the evening news my head slipped out of my propped-up hand, and Nana declared the battle over.
“You two keep this up and we’ll be up to sunrise. You’ll end up getting sick from lack of rest.” She shepherded us into Beau’s room, where I fell asleep before he could finish telling another one of his ghost stories.
A blue light cut through the thin curtain and hit the side of Beau’s bedroom wall. I jumped up and stared at Beau, still sleeping with his mouth open. Fear gripped my ribs until air itself became thick and heavy. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. We were starting the year out fresh. A new life in a new town. The image of Nana and Poppy handcuffed and sitting in the backseat of a patrol car made me run.
The front door was wide open. Crackle from the patrol-car radio rolled into the house. The blue light swirled around the room until the safe haven began to look like the haunted house at a carnival. Nana and Poppy stood at the door. Dressed in a robe, Nana shook her head while Poppy massaged his chin. The officer frowned and flipped through a small notepad. If he was going to take them, he would have to take me too. The popping sound from the radio was louder this time, and the woman’s voice on the other end was shrill and rattled off some type of foreign language. “Signal four down at Dead Man’s Curve. Signal seven being transported by Morley’s Funeral Home.”
Poppy turned and saw me running towards them. “Get on back to bed,” he said.
The officer never looked up from his pad. “They’re taking her on to Tallahassee Memorial.”
“What happened?” I asked
“Are you next of kin?” the officer asked.
“No, just good friends.” The blue light continued to slap Poppy’s face as he stared at Johnny’s boat in the corner of the yard.
The officer took a pen from his shirt pocket. “Who’s the closest kin?”
“His mama lives just past the curve,” Nana whispered. “Runs that junk stand.”
I tapped Nana on the arm, but she just watched as the officer wrote down the information.
“What’s the matter?” The cool night air was brisk, and dew began to tickle the inside of my toes. I looked down and realized I only had on my underwear.
“Well in that case, maybe y’all should be the ones to tell the boys.” The officer looked down at me in that same pitiful way that the guidance counselor used to.
Running from the news that would doom the house with gold tinsel taped around the windows, I saw Beau standing there with his arms spread across the doorway. The brown eyes that once danced to please were now as hollow as two broken pecan shells. The blue light hit him over and over until it covered him thicker than the early morning dew.
Nine
That first day of 1973, Beau convinced Nana that a bike ride would clear his mind. We hadn’t slept at all the night before, and even though I kept waiting for him to break down like Josh had, he remained empty of emotion. His nervous eyes cast around the house, never landing on one place for very long.
“Are you really sure you want to go out there?” I yelled from my bike. We were at the pharmacy about to turn on the side street that would make the events from the night before cement in our minds.
Beau never looked back as he pedaled faster. As the bicycle flag flapped in the breeze, the sound of vinyl cutting into the wind echoed from a corner building.
Thick silver locks secured the garage doors at Rayford’s Body Shop. A closed sign with faded black letters hung from the office window on string that looked like knotted shoelaces. Two pit bulls with studded collars started barking before we put our kickstands down. A chain-link fence was all that separated us from their long teeth and the stacks of automobiles they protected.
The crumpled silver car that Johnny had waxed every Saturday was balled up next to the gate, waiting to join the torn vehicles on the other side of the fence. Beau walked over to the part that used to be the driver’s side. The steering wheel was dented inward like a melted penny. The driver’s door was missing, and in its place jagged pieces of metal pointed outward.
Beau’s steps were slow as he circled the front of the bashed-in hood. The engine stuck out and curled like a crooked tooth. A circle of cracked glass spread out across the windshield. My stomach tightened, and I tried to fight the image of Bonita’s head slamming into it.
Beau moved past the passenger door that had been sawed in half, past the missing tire, and ended up at the back bumper. The part that still looked like the same old car that his mama had driven all those times before. He stood at t
he trunk and rubbed his hand along the surface. Stood there like it was any other day. Like they might have been at the store and he was ready to put a bag of groceries inside the trunk.
The dogs snarled and barked louder when I turned towards them. Foam from their anger clung to the chain-link fence. And no matter how mad my stare made them, their barks never did drown out Beau’s crying.
Hidden behind the broken car that had taken the life of the only father he had known, Beau cried and yelled until I heard him struggle to breathe. The sound of torment caused me to tuck my head in sympathy. Embarrassment made me move farther away. But before I got pass the chain-link fence, it stopped. As if nothing had happened, Beau got on his bike, brushed his nose with his forearm, and rode away. It was the last time I ever saw him cry.
Any crying that Beau lacked Mama Rose made up for. She walked into the funeral home leaning on Alvin’s arm and dressed in a black trenchcoat. A long black wig made her look more like a witch than a grieving mother. Mama Rose howled when they approached the pink-colored light that shone down upon Johnny’s coffin. I couldn’t fault her for carrying on so. Tucked inside the fancy lining, Johnny resembled the store mannequin that Mama Rose used to advertise the “I Love Florida” T-shirts. His hair was so perfect from all the hair spray that it looked like a wig from Mama Rose’s personal collection.
The veil that hung down over the coffin tried to convince us that he was the same old Johnny who just got in from fishing. Poppy patted Alvin on the back. “Don’t he look good? I mean to tell you, I hope they make me look that good when it comes my time.” But when Mama Rose lifted the edge of the coffin veil and saw Johnny’s sunken forehead, Poppy’s words were nothing more than wasted air. She threw her head back until the top of the wig revealed natural gray and hollered louder.
Bonita sat on a folding chair draped in black velvet. Nana stood guard behind her holding a cup of water and a cardboard fan with a print of a sun-tanned Jesus on one side and an advertisement for First Citizens Bank on the other. Josh and Beau stared at the gray carpet as people passed by and patted their heads.
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