Belle City

by Penny Mickelbury

  "We'll tell them what's happened and that we're here to stay."

  "Good," Big Si said, turning to his sons. "Beau, I 'spect you 'bout ready to get to work."

  "Yessir, Pa. And Si can go with me if he wants to. He can live with me, too."

  Little Si, who first felt gratitude, followed by an overwhelming sadness, couldn't speak. Beau grabbed him and hugged him close.

  "And you can live here, Silas," First Freeman said. "If you want to," he added.

  "Thank you…Pa. I 'preciate it."

  The old man's face went from stunned amazement to a grin so wide it seemed to split his face. "Will'am told y'all. He told you!" He clapped his hands together, then rubbed them back and forth, the calloused palms making a sound like rustling leaves. Then he scrutinized the faces arrayed before him to see if his joy was shared. It was, though there was a shyness attached to it, as if they, the Thatchers, were greeting a stranger instead a man they'd known all their lives.

  "Uncle Will said to tell you thank you," Big Si said, remembering. "And he said to tell Miss Maisy he was sorry."

  "Oh, Lord. Maisy. I'll have to go tell her."

  "We can do it, Mr. Fir…Grandpa," Ruthie said, amazed at the emotion on the man's face at the sound of that one word.

  He shook his head. "She needs to hear it from me, but I'll tell it just like you told me."

  "What is Uncle Will sorry for?" Ruthie said.

  For the second time in less than twelve hours, they heard a story about lives that had played out long before they were born. This one involved another pair of young lovers—Maisy and William. They loved each other fiercely and deeply, but William also was connected to his baby sister just as fiercely and deeply, and she, too, loved a man who wanted to take her away to make a life in a big city. William didn't want to lose his sister so he had to make a choice. Maisy married Ezekiel Cooper and for the rest of his life, William loved her from a distance, though he didn't regret his choice until his sister was swept away by flood waters. William had many years to ponder his decisions and his choices—until that very morning when what he decided to do for himself would finally free those he loved from his love.

  "He was the best man I ever knew, was Will'am," First Freeman said. Then, as if some internal switch were thrown, he seemed to realize how early in the morning it was, seemed to realize that these former residents of Carrie's Crossing would have have had no sleep and nothing to eat. So he turned all of his attention to feeding these people he'd known all their lives—people he now could claim publicly as his family. And when they'd eaten and cleaned the kitchen, when those who were leaving had taken their leave, father and son were left with each other.

  "Do you want to get some sleep, Silas?"

  "Yessir, Pa, I do, 'cause I truly am tired."

  "You know where your room is," and Silas did—it was the same room he'd slept in when last he was here, for Ruthie's wedding. "And you know where to find anything you need."

  Silas nodded and pushed himself to his feet. He suddenly was wearier than he'd ever been in his life, and though most of it was brain and heart weariness, it was his legs that seemed not to have the strength to walk him into the next room. First watched him leave, this man who was his son, and saw the very strong resemblance to himself. Maisy always marveled that no one ever remarked on their similarity.

  He walked out into his backyard and toward the work shed, but he didn't go in. He was not yet ready to interact with other people, and his four workers would be busy converting the items that Beau salvaged into useable and saleable goods and, as always, they'd want his advice or opinion about their performance. For now, he wanted only to think—and to feel—and perhaps to remember his other life, when he and Carrie and William and Maisy were young…

  As deep in thought as he was, he heard the car that turned too fast into the alley at the end of his street. He heard it stop too suddenly at his back fence, heard the door open and slam shut. He opened the gate and was rendered speechless to find Jonas Thatcher standing there. The boy looked like hell had run over him and left him lying in the road. "What is it, Jonas?"

  Jonas told him—everything. Then he said, "I can't give Miss Nellie back, but I can give this back," and he held out a piece of paper.

  "What is that?" First Freeman asked, looking at the paper but not accepting it. Even if he could read, he wasn't inclined to accept anything from this boy at this moment, for, in truth, the first time in his life, First Freeman had been totally and completely startled. Surprised and struck dumb. Even after all he'd learned this day, including the fact that he was recognized by his son and grandchildren, what Jonas told him left him unsteady.

  "The deed to Uncle Will's property. Pa had it. He went and and got it right away. He knew what was going to happen and he was ready." The disgust in the boy's voice bordered on hatred and that was even more unsettling to the man who, until this very moment, would have sworn his own hatred of Zeb Thatcher.

  "You hungry, Son?"

  "Yessir, Mr. First."

  "Come on, then," First said, turning toward the house.

  "What about my car?"

  "It'll be awright. Anybody needs to get by, they'll let me know."

  Jonas followed the brick path through the perfectly cut grass to the back door of the white house, both house and green trim looking newly painted. He, too, wiped his feet on the straw mat and entered the house. It was dark and almost cool inside, and quiet and still. Jonas dropped into a seat at the kitchen table, suddenly feeling more exhausted than hungry. He closed his eyes and opened them when he felt a hand on his shoulder to see a plate of bacon, eggs, grits and buttered toast. "Thank you, Mr. First," he said, and began to eat. He drank both the coffee and the milk he was given, and ate two additional pieces of toast, these with apple butter on them. He'd never eaten apple butter and when Mr. First saw how much Jonas liked it, the old man pulled two jars from the pantry and put them on the table.

  "I love it too, and Maisy Cooper makes good and sure I have plenty of it."

  Jonas picked up one of the jars and studied it closely. "I could sell this in my store, Mr. First. Charge a lot of money for it, too. If Miss Maisy wants to make some extra money—"

  First Freeman gave a loud back of laughter. "Beau sure was right about you. You just a money-makin' machine." He laughed again. "I'm gon' be seein' Maisy this evenin' and I'll ask her. She might like the idea of havin' some money of her own." In fact, he was certain Maisy would like the idea, especially since Zeb was dead and gone. But not buried. He pointed to the land deed Jonas had placed beside his plate. "That land is yours now, Son, fair and square."

  "Nothing fair about it." Jonas slapped the table and his dishes jumped. "My Pa stole this land from Uncle Will and you know it."

  "Don't matter how he got it, the deed says the land is his. And if he's dead, then the law says the land is yours. That means ALL the land: Them stores and that house." First stood up and grabbed Jonas by the shoulder. "You go 'long on home, Jonas. That house is your home now. Ruthie got a home with Mack. Little Si got a home with Beau, and Big Si got a home with me. Go on back to the Crossing, go to your store and get you some furniture, and live in your house." The old man was walking him out of the back door and down the brick path to the back gate. "And if you would, ev'ry now and then, think about Carrie and Nellie and Ruthie—the women who made that house a home—they'll help you make it your home. One more thing you got to do, though, when you get back: When them ashes cool off, you got to get rid of them bones."

  From the Dairy of Jonas Farley Thatcher Fall, 1921

  My whole life, my whole world changed in a few minutes over the summer. Which few minutes? The ones around the first of July when I was hiding and listening to my pa and the klan planning to steal all the land from the colored people and run them out of town? The few minutes when I was hiding under the window of the Thatchers house listening to Uncle will tell everybody he and my pa was brothers and how it felt when I knew I was some kin to Ruth
ie and Si and Beau?The few minutes whenI knew that my pa would shoot and kill me? The few minutes when I shot and killed him? The few minutes when Mr.First told me everything my pa owned was mine? When I got back to CC that morning—it was still morning. I couldn't hardly believe it. It felt like it should be night and time to go to bed, I was so tired.Course I had not been to bed the night before but my mind was more tired than my body. Still I did what Mr. First told me, just like always. When mr. First tells you a thing, you do it. So I went to the store and got me a bed, a table and some chairs, and some soap and some sheets and towels.I made Clem help me put everything in the car and take it home. He liked that, thought it was for Pa.He kept asking where was pa and after we got all the furntures in the house,I showed him where pa was and he got reel scred and then he got mad when I told him it was his fault pa was dead. Then I went to find chief Fordham and I showed him pa and told him the same thing I told clem. It was there fault pa was dead for wearing sheets. I told them pa got burnt up trying to put the fire out because he was mad that they were burning down his barn and they beleved me because they know how pa acts sometimes.then I went in my house and went to sleep and I slept for a long, long time, until the next day. Then I got up early and went to my stores. I fired clem and esther. It was my store and I could do that I told them I didn't want sheet warers working for me.then I went and told doc gray and Rev Wilson about chief Fordham and they got hopping mad like I knew they woud. They like to think that CC is high class and that peple who live here are high class and they think klan peple are low class. I told them I alreddy fired clem and they got all the high class rich peple in town together for a meetng—I was there, too, and we fired chief Fordham! But it didn't matter bcaus all the colored peple were gone now. Rev Wilson told me I was the richest man in CC now and I would have to go to church now. I don't like it but I go to set an example. That's what he and doc gray said I have to do. And they said I have to fix my house. Make it bigger. I don't want to do that because I don't know if miss carrie and miss Nellie and Ruthie would like that, but I can't tell nobody why I don't want to make the hous bigger so I will do this. Doc gray says one day I will have a wife and children and I will need a big hous. but I don't want a wife since I can't marry with Ruthie so I will live in my big house myself.

  From the Recorded Memories of Ruth Thatcher McGinnis

  My life changed completely and totally in the time it took us to drive from Carrie's Crossing to Belle City that night. Or morning, I should say. I think it was about two or two-thirty when we left. The burning barn lit up the night sky for miles. We later learned that more than our barn burned that night, but I think Uncle Will was the only one to set fire to his own property. We also weren't the only ones on the road that night. Every other Black family in Carrie's Crossing fled that night. The whites got their wish—there were no Colored left in town—and I've never been back there. Miss it? What's to miss? Everything I cared about was either dead or with me in Belle City. I did miss Jonas. He was a good friend and, at the time, I thought I'd never see him again. Mack stayed furious with him for a while, still believing that Jonas knew what Zeb and the klan had planned for us, but he finally came around, especially after Mr. First—Grandpa—told us about the visit. I have to laugh when I think how difficult it was for us to call him Grandpa, and how easy it was for Pa to call him Pa. I also have to laugh when I remember how we all, at the same time one night, looked at the two of them standing side-by-side, and realized they look almost exactly alike. Of course Pa was his son. How we could not have known? But we didn't. At least we children didn't. I think Ma knew. I remember how she'd look at Mr. First sometimes when she thought nobody was watching her. Stare at him like she was trying to read the writing on his bones. But if anybody else noticed, nobody said a word, and by the time we all got to Belle City early that August morning, it didn't matter. We were home and we knew it. Mack and me only stayed a week or so with his parents—our house was so close to being finished that we moved in. What we hadn't planned on was having to get a baby's room ready so soon, but we had so much help. But what I remember most clearly about those first few months was that Si and I got to go to school every day. What a joy! Beau needed him on the truck but he said that learning was the most important thing, so Si went to school every day, then worked with Beau evenings and on Saturdays. Of course nobody worked on Sundays. We all went to church, and we rotated the location of Sunday dinner: Mack's parents' house, then our house, then Toby and Belle's, then Belle's ma's, then Mr. First's, then we'd all go over to the East Side to Miss Maisy's. Of course it wasn't long before I had to prepare myself for being a mother. I had to stop going to school when I began to show. Why? Because back then, unlike now, girls didn't go to school pregnant, Sissy. That's why. It didn't matter that I was married. The schools back then thought it was important to set an example and a pregnant girl in class, married or not, was not the kind of example they wanted to set. Anyway, I used those three months to immerse myself in the study of French—I still harbored the notion that I was going to France to rescue Eubie—and to read each and every newspaper I could get my hands on. So much about the world we didn't know living in Carrie's Crossing. Then we got radio and oh, my goodness.

  From the Diary of Jonas Farley Thatcher

  March 1923. Beau got me a birthday present. A set of golf clubs! Brand new except for 1 missing club which the owner threw in the water. Seems like Beau remembered better than I did how much I wanted to learn to play golf. He also knows me well and knows I would not spend money to buy golf clubs. I spent money on my house and on my business and on land. I buy up land whenever I can. Beau does too but he won't talk about it so much like I do. Beau doesn't like talking about money. He also doesn't like talking about his family to me and that's what I want to know about—how are Ruthie and Si doing. It was Mr. First who told me Ruthie and Mack had their baby. A boy named Mack McGinnis the third and he was born on the 19th day of march.

  From the Recorded Memories of Ruth Thatcher McGinnis

  Time moved so fast in Belle City. One thing after another after another. Mackie was born then Si got married then Toby and Belle had Little Belle and we all were so happy for them. She had lost one baby and we were fearful for her health. Then I had Thatcher. It seemed like it happened overnight, but Mackie was two already. Si and I graduated from Booker T. Washington High School and started college.We were so proud of ourselves—and so proud of Mack for being a good enough teacher to prepare us to hold our own among students who'd always gone to school every day. And we never forgot for a single moment where and how it all began—with Ma at the kitchen table, late at night, teaching us the alphabet and numbers. I often thought, though I never expressed it, how unfair it was that Ma never got a chance to live in Belle City with us. That was her dream for us, but it also was her dream for herself.

  From the Diary of Jonas Farley Thatcher

  New Year's Day 1926. This is the year I'm going to college. I promised myself—and my Ma—that I would go to college. I'll be 21 years this year and if I don't go to college soon it will be too late. We have so many new teachers in CC now and we have a high school that I have graduated from and all the teachers say I could go to college. They say I'm lucky because I have the money and so many others do not. Yes I have the money but I do not have the time. I do not have anybody to take care of my business. I wish things were different because the one man I would trust to take care of my businss is Beau Thatcher. Good thing all the high class people in CC can't read this but it is true. In fact, I would trust two men. First Freeman is the other one. Two colored men I would trust with anything but I cant because theyre colored. That preacher we got is always preaching to us to be good and decent and honest men and that's what Mr. First and Beau are but they are colored and I don't understand that. It makes me not want to like white people who wear sheets at night and go to church on Sunday. Good, decent and honest men?

  From the Recorded Memories of Ruth Thatcher McGinnis

 
; Talking about these things is very painful, Sissy, but also very good for me, for a number of reasons. First, it lets me know that dementia hasn't yet set in despite my advanced age. Who's being ridiculous? I'm a hundred years old! Of course it occurs to me that my mind might go, though I don't suppose I'd know if it did, would I? But a major reason this recollection is good for me is it requires that I say out loud some things I've refused to think about for many years, and one of them is how easily we convinced ourselves that we outran slavery the night we ran away from Carrie's Crossing. What I mean, Sissy, is that even though people I loved with all my strength—Uncle Will and First Freeman and Maisy Cooper—had been released from slavery in 1865, some 60 years later the laws in Georgia, indeed throughout most of the country, guaranteed that we still lived in bondage. Those of us fortunate enough to live in places like Belle City—and there weren't many places like it for our people—most of the time we lived like we truly were free, and so came to think we were.Of course, reality always was just a Jim Crow law away. I'd also let myself forget that bad news arrived in clusters. I should have known 1926 would be a bad year because Maisy Cooper died in January. We were stunned, though I don't know why. She was 81 years old and had been a slave. The miracle was that she'd lived as long as she had. But because we couldn't imagine life without her, we gave no thought to the possibility of her death. Sue said it was peaceful. She went to sleep and never woke up. It was a month before any of us had a peaceful night's sleep because we were so afraid that Mr. First—Grandpa—would go to sleep and not wake up. They all were born in the same year—1845. Doesn't that sound....I don't know how to describe it, to talk about knowing people who were born in 1845. How could you possibly understand, Sissy? Oh. Yes, I see. After all, I was born in 1905 and it's now 2005. Well. 1926. Si was ready to give up on his dream of being a school teacher. Georgia would rather hire a criminal than a Colored man to teach school. And I had to give up on my dream of going to France because Colored people couldn't get permission to leave town, to say nothing of being able to leave the country.