Bokay wrinkled his brow then favored him with a gentle laugh no one else could hear.
You always were the strangest child, he said.
Mama lumbered by just then. Jackson, leave the help alone. We’ve got hungry people around here. Go on, L’il Bokay, get on with yourself.
Over that summer, they became friends of a sort again. When Bokay arrived to pick up Katherine Marie and had to wait ‘til she finished this or that, Jackson kept him company out on the back porch. He offered fond reminiscence of Big Bokay and also of Eleanor, who, it turned out, was an auntie of Katherine Marie’s—startling news to Jackson when first he heard of it. He asked Bokay about his work at the church, about Katherine Marie’s twin sisters, about life at the lumber mill, about the habitués of the Tick Tock Diner just outside of town. He asked his opinion of Charlie Jones’s people’s boycott that Easter of the white shops on Capital Street in the city, even though his heart raced while he did, since never before had he dared to voice a sympathetic word about the civil rights of Negroes from a chair on his own daddy’s back porch. Bokay, for his part, responded politely and with as much candor as he felt wise. Every once in a while one of them said something that struck the other as pretty funny, and Katherine Marie would find them listing back and forth on the porch swing holding their sides and letting raucous guffaws spill out into the night as if the Sassaports were the only family on the street and could make as much noise as they cared to. She’d light into them, telling them to pipe down or Miss Missy was going to sack her for bringing a bad influence into the house. Then she’d plunk down between them, Bokay would whisper in her ear what was tickling them, and she too would start in to giggle and titter until she had to cover her mouth and drag Bokay into the truck to keep the peace.
Jackson worked that summer before Yale at the post office, selling stamps and weighing packages. It was a good job, paid well. He had one of Daddy’s Council brothers to thank for it. He worked from eight a.m. to three p.m., pretty much the same hours he’d kept at school. During the month of August, it got stifling hot. Mama felt poorly and took to her bed again. To help out, Jackson did the food shopping on his way home from work, but one day, one very hot day, a day when the air was so thick the packages at the post office sealed themselves, he couldn’t tolerate the idea of stopping anywhere on the way home. He decided he’d wait until after he’d had a chance to cool off some over a nice tall glass of Katherine Marie’s sweet tea before he did. He walked home feeling he walked through a wall of water. The scent of jasmine and honeysuckle hung in the air heavy as a shroud, which made him yearn for all he was leaving at the start of the fall term before he even left it. The intimation of future loneliness surprised him, and he pondered whether Daddy had been right for once. He arrived home early, when no one was expecting him, which was why he figured no one greeted him when he strolled through the back door. He was about to call out to Katherine Marie to see where she was when he realized, why the cellar, of course, the cellar, where it’s cool. And quietly, to surprise her, he opened the cellar door and crept down the steps. He heard something odd, something—he wasn’t sure what it was—a tiny scratching sound like mice or rats or squirrels, only there was a grunting sound too, and the sound of feet shuffling against a floor. It was all odd enough that he stopped short and held his breath the better to listen, the better to judge. His eyes got used to the light, and then he saw them.
Bubba Ray and Katherine Marie. Bubba Ray and Katherine Marie locked in a mortal struggle. Bubba Ray had Katherine Marie up against the wall so hard the right side of her face and half her nose was squished against it. He had one raised knee and all of his great belly jammed against her kidneys. Her mouth was open, but his left hand choked her, and she could not scream. His other hand traveled from up high underneath her dress down her thigh heading toward the inside of his pants. He was getting ready to further violate the girl. Katherine Marie saw Jackson, and her eyes widened pleading with him to save her, as if he needed a plea, a cue, a signal with hot blood pounding through his ears. He bolted forward and knocked his brother down. At the time, he felt he’d not had to use much force, that Bubba Ray was imbalanced and the might of his own weight toppled him over himself. Years later Katherine told him he’d called out and charged at Bubba Ray like a goddamn champion bull.
Meanwhile, the adolescent would-be rapist was knocked unconscious and bled from his forehead on the concrete floor. Jackson nudged him with his foot, but the boy lay still. Jackson wondered if he’d killed him. He croaked to Katherine: Get out of here! Quick! Get outta here! And she ran. Ran up the stairs and out the house. He waited ‘til he heard the screen door slam and he knew she was safe. Then, still croaking but loudly this time, croaking in fresh shock at the sight of the widening puddle of blood at his feet, he yelled for Mama.
Mama! Mama! Something’s gone wrong with Bubba Ray! he yelled.
Hearing emergency in his tone, Missy Fine Sassaport hauled herself out of her nap and rushed to the cellar as fast as her gouty foot allowed. Seeing Bubba Ray sprawled there, spouting blood, frenzied her. She screamed, and Jackson ran upstairs to telephone his father, who told him to wrap up his brother’s head and put pressure on the wound. He’d be there directly. What happened? O Lordy, what happened? Mama demanded, never taking her red and weeping eyes off her youngest son, while Jackson blotted his wounds with a dishrag, and Bubba Ray moaned and moaned. He fell, Mama, Jackson said, as it was all he could command his throat to commit to. Daddy got home before fifteen minutes passed, stitched up Bubba Ray’s scalp, brought him to full consciousness with smelling salts, and together he and Jackson got him up two flights of stairs and into bed.
Daddy then sent Jackson to the pharmacy, as he’d fled his office so abruptly he’d not taken a full black bag. They needed more bandages, more antiseptics. Jackson hadn’t run four blocks down the street when Katherine Marie popped out of some hedges and grabbed his sleeve. Her hair was wild, her eyes were wild, one of them scraped underneath. Her dress was torn at the shoulder, there was dirt and a raw, red mark on her cheek, another broad mark coming out on her neck, and her nose ran.
Do they know? Do they know what happened?
He pulled her back through the hedgerow and put his hands on her shoulders to calm her down. She flinched and shivered at his touch. He released her, put his palms a foot and a half away from her face, patting the air to make what he thought a soothing gesture, up and down, up and down. She batted at them with furious motions and asked again.
Do they know? Do they know what happened?
No. I told them he fell. But I have to tell the truth as soon as everything simmers down, Katherine Marie. It’s the right thing to do. He needs correction, and you need justice.
She took his two hands in hers and held them tight: No, no, no. Listen to me. You can’t tell. You can’t. You don’t understand what would happen to me if this came to light.
I’m not so sure, he murmured while his mind spun with about a dozen scenarios she might be referring to. He started to turn his back on her when Katherine Marie grabbed his shoulder and forced him to face her square. Her proud eyes filled up with tears.
Please, you can’t. Swear to me, please swear to me. I’ll be done in this town if anyone finds out. And Bokay, oh Jackson, I don’t know if I could keep Bokay from killing him.
Jackson relented.
Alright, he said. I swear I won’t tell. I won’t tell a living soul. But I’m going to have to do something. I don’t know what it is, but something.
He didn’t have the chance right away. The day after Jackson split his brother’s head open, Bubba Ray had a seizure. In the middle of the afternoon, he rolled off the television couch where he sprawled milking his convalescence and went klunk on the hardwood floor. His eyes rolled back in his head, his whole body shook, he nearly choked on his own tongue. Not two minutes later it was all over. He was just fine. He never had another seizure in his long, miserable life, but once was enough for Mama, who witnessed t
he whole episode and never got over the idea that, big as he was, Bubba Ray was fragile and couldn’t quite do for himself. Katherine Marie was no help. She never got back to work. Mama decided the girl must have spilled something slick down there in the basement and didn’t clean it up, which made Bubba Ray’s accident all her fault. The reason she never came back to work was the guilt hung hard over her head. That left Mama to do for her young son.
At first, it looked like Bubba Ray was going to get away with his crime. He certainly thought so, anyway, and took to strolling around the house in his bathrobe casting smug, cynical looks at his brother as if he had something on him instead of the other way around. This was pure torture for Jackson. He spent his daylight hours avoiding home. He spent as many nights as he could sleeping over at Mickey Moe’s or the house of whatever school friend’s mama would have him. When he had to be home, he avoided his parents’ conversation. His behavior did not go unnoticed. To explain it, his parents decided Jackson must be anxious about leaving Guilford for school in another week. For all the boy’s bravado, Daddy suggested, Yankeetown prob’ly scares him as well it should, Mama, as well it should. He’s never been far away before. He prob’ly doesn’t want us to know how scared he is.
The nights he spent at home he spent tossing, turning, clenching his fists and resisting the urge to get out of bed and finish the job he’d started by crossing the hall to Bubba Ray’s room and pummeling the pig to absolute death. When that idea got too tempting, he switched over to obsessing about the welfare of Katherine Marie. How was she holding up? he wondered. When would it be reasonable to stop by the village to find out? Five everlasting nights post-incident, he went over there and tracked her down working at a sewing machine at Annie Althea’s place, which he knew well because Annie Althea did all Mama’s dress alterations. Katherine Marie’d told her family swarms of lies in explanation for her injuries and reasons why she couldn’t return to work. She told Jackson that the incident with Bubba Ray was just one of those things that happens to Negro girls. She was strong, she’d get over it as long as he kept his mouth shut, that was the only thing to worry about, anyone finding out. She was very grateful to him for saving her from worse harm, but if he didn’t keep quiet everything would have to change. Her whole life depended on things staying the same, as much the same as they could since his brother lay hands on her. While he disagreed, and despite the torment it caused him to dissemble in front of Mama and Daddy and, worst of all, Bubba Ray, Jackson felt he had to respect her wishes. He kept his mouth shut.
Once he was in residence in New Haven, he avoided coming home. He took extra-credit courses and jobs on campus during vacation periods to make his absence look reasonable. Mama and Daddy applauded his industry and ventured up north to visit him during the winter holiday. He did not go home until he had to that summer of 1961, a scant stretch between the summer session and the fall. The night he could hold up to Katherine Marie as proof that she’d been wrong, that there were worse things than anyone finding out, that life was going to change no matter what any of them kept quiet about or exposed under the noonday sun, occurred during that fortnight, the one when all hell broke loose and nothing was the same for Jackson or Katherine Marie or Bokay or Bubba Ray or Daddy, especially poor Daddy, ever again.
EIGHT
Spring, 1964
AT SPRING BREAK, JACKSON AND Stella drove south for her premiere encounter with the Sassaport family. It was uncertain whether Jackson’s car could make the trip. Stella itched to take the most favorable seat in a Southern bus or railroad car then give it to the first old black woman she saw and plant her own ass in the back. This was a desire her fiancé determined to thwart at any cost. We’ll take the Renault, he told her. There’s federal law and then there’s custom, and I’d like to see us arrive in Guilford without unanticipated detours. Besides, he continued in what he considered a cajoling tone, freedom rides are old hat. Mama tells me people are startin’ in to set wherever they feel they should, and you know all the white Freedom Riders anyway were released from custody before you and I ever met. The very second they were let go, they mostly scurried back north to hold forth in coffee shops and lecture halls. Freedom schools are the thing this year. If you want, we can stop by some of the churches around Guilford where you can sign up to spend time this summer improving the reading skills of those who need it to register to vote. Why, I’ll bet you could become a canvasser and register folks door to door. When her eyes developed a kind of misty shine at the thought, he added: Of course, I’ll be staying up north to finish school during the summer session. We’d have to be separated. That dulled her gaze right quick, an event that pleased Jackson enormously. He chuckled inside for days and days over it.
He’d figured out something about Stella. He’d figured out that he could manipulate her iron will if he tried hard enough, which he did without guilt if the occasion at hand was truly important. Not that there were many of those. He loved his Stella just the way she was. He had no plan to tame or subvert her in any substantial manner. He honored her remarkable spirit, her intelligence, her goodness. When it came to introducing her to his family and getting her in and out of Guilford unharmed, expediency ruled supreme over adoration or respect. The part that tickled him was that her Achilles’ heel appeared to be her devotion to him, which struck him as a most felicitous miracle. If he’d been wiser, he’d have realized that this heel would begin to grow calloused directly after the wedding, at which time the process would advance with such alarming speed that Stella could jig over cut glass without injury before their fifth anniversary. But that spring, Jackson Sassaport was nowhere near as wise as he should have been, neither about Stella nor his family nor the township of Guilford, Mississippi.
He did not, for example, imagine that once they got beyond Washington, DC. Stella would spend the trip plastered to the passenger window, hands up against the glass, marking it with round puffs of breath. When the climate changed from cool to sultry, she opened the window and dangled her head out the car. Despite the guard of large black sunglasses, her eyes squinted against the wind, and her red hair blew in all directions where it was not confined by her Italian silk scarf. Undeterred, she studied the passing countryside as if she’d never been beyond the confines of New England, when he knew for a fact that she’d been to Europe—Paris and London, to be exact—and several times to Chicago, where her mother had family. Everything she witnessed she pronounced unexpected or beautiful or charming or mysterious. She laughed when a pickup full of good old boys and several dogs, too, nearly ran themselves off the road trying to pass Jackson’s Renault on the right-hand side in order to get a good look at her. When the car indeed broke down just outside of Knoxville, Tennessee, she expressed awe at the kindness and superlative manners of the grease monkeys who happened by, gave them a tow and, amidst a great deal of head-scratching and hoo-ee’s, straightened the engine out despite the fact that it was “furrin.” Lordy, Jackson thought, pleased no end as the men doffed their various hats to bid a grateful Stella good-bye, you’d think I’d planned this trip after animal sacrifice to the gods of good fortune and amity.
Whenever she drifted off to sleep while he drove, a sense of foreboding rose up from his gut to threaten him with closure of the throat and suffocation. He had no confidence at all that Stella would keep the promises he’d extracted from her that she not confront Bubba Ray, especially in front of Mama and Daddy, and that she try her hardest this first trip to stand back and observe the way things were back home before she did something rash and made a damn Yankee fool of herself. Things are different there, he’d say. Things aren’t always what they might appear. At the same time, first impressions mean everything. Oh, she shook her head and made her vows alright, telling him she just wanted his family to like her, that her love for him was stronger than her politics, stronger than her lust for social justice, it was the strongest entity in the world to her. The way he’d stoically borne the insults of her family inspired her, she would perform no
less honorably with his. When she listened to him wax sentimental about Guilford, it was with such concentrated attention that he felt the sharpened tendrils of her critical capacities curl through his brain cells like tiny beasts of the night trolling for sustenance. That unnerved him, no matter what her oaths.
After they crossed the state line into Mississippi, Jackson’s disquiet grew. It was not only his anxiety about Stella but also his own attitudes that unsettled him. He hadn’t been home in three years. Twice Mama and Daddy had visited him up north, but since that disastrous trip home the summer after his first year at Yale, he’d not returned. Instead, he took such a heavy load of courses each term, including the summer one, he was already halfway through law school. He’d graduate and study for the bar in a year. Mama was too proud of her son the genius to question his motivations. Since Daddy’s business had understandably fallen off since that terrible night during Jackson’s one and only previous trip home, there were economic rationales for his ambition as well. The real reason he’d driven himself to achieve what few in the entire history of the Ivy League had managed was that he couldn’t bear the idea of coming home and living under the same roof as Bubba Ray. He couldn’t tolerate sharing a meal, a holiday—damn, a sidewalk—with him. He hated him. It was as plain and simple as that. He hated his brother. He hated him for everything he’d done, and then he further hated him for keeping him from home, which to tell the truth, he dearly missed up there in the frozen, rude, careless North. He wished his brother would die.
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