A Thousand Never Evers

by Shana Burg

  As I sit here in this pew between Elias and Delilah, all of a sudden it occurs to me that a movement is just what it sounds like. It’s like when the wind blows hard and all the milkweed sways in one direction. Or when a bird in the sky changes course and hundreds of birds in the flock behind make the same shift. That man, Mr. Tubbs, he’s like the wind or lead bird.

  “Now things don’t have to be the way they’re looking to be. Even President Kennedy agrees,” Mr. Tubbs says. “A couple hours before some racist shot Medgar, our president went on television. Any y’all catch that speech?”

  Elias raises his hand.

  “You did not!” I whisper.

  My brother turns to me. “Did too!” he whispers back.

  “Where’d you see television?”

  “Didn’t say I seen it. I heard the speech. On the radio Bessie listens to in the Very Fine Fabric Shop.” A faint smile creeps across his lips before he turns back to stare at Mr. Tubbs.

  Of course, I could start wondering about what my brother was doing listening to the radio with Bessie on the white side, but I don’t because I’m too busy burning up about the fact that we still don’t have our electricity back. If we get our electricity back, then the next time the President speaks, all the Negroes in Kuckachoo can watch him on my television set. Of course, after the electricity comes back on, we’ll still have another problem: we’re going to need a TV antenna to get the picture clear. But Uncle Bump says he’s thinking on a way to get us one of those.

  A breeze blows through the open church window. The night air chills me.

  “Well, for those of you who missed it,” Mr. Tubbs says, “let me read you the words of President Kennedy.” Then he pulls a piece of paper out of his pants pocket and reads real slow so we can take in the shocking news: “‘The Negro baby born in America today, regardless of the section of the nation in which he is born, has about one-half as much chance of completing high school as a white baby born in the same place on the same day, one-third as much chance of completing college, one-third as much chance of becoming a professional man, twice as much chance of becoming unemployed, about one-seventh as much chance of earning ten thousand dollars a year, a life expectancy which is seven years shorter, and the prospects of earning only half as much.’”

  Well, I know my fractions. And hearing all those halves, thirds, and sevenths, I know right now it’s true: white folks really do think a Negro is less than one whole person. And I can’t even believe Mama considered keeping me home from this meeting when we’re talking about what kind of school I’ll go to, what kind of job I’ll have, and how long I’m going to live.

  Mr. Tubbs folds up the sheet of paper and tucks it back in his pocket. “It seems to me that the coward who killed Medgar delivered a message with his bullet: ‘You want integration? You want to vote at the polls? Never, Evers!’

  “When Medgar was shot dead, he was standing in the driveway of his home holding a stack of shirts, and on those shirts were printed the words ‘Jim Crow Must Go.’ All these laws that make us less than equal, these Jim Crow laws, they might get reversed, struck down, if Congress votes for President Kennedy’s civil rights bill. So I ask you, do you want Jim Crow to go?”

  I feel hot all over.

  “Jim Crow must go!” we all shout.

  Mr. Tubbs points to the heavens. “Tell it to Medgar up there!”

  “Jim Crow must go!” we all roar.

  All except Mama. When I lean forward to look over at her, she’s sitting squinty eyed, still sizing up our guest speaker.

  But whether Mama likes it or not, Mr. Tubbs isn’t through. “If Jim Crow must go, then we’ve got to tell our government we’re not gonna take it anymore,” he says. He paces in front of the pulpit. “If Jim Crow must go, we’ve gotta go down to Washington, D.C., and tell our Congress! Now how many y’all reverends here?”

  Reverend Walker and four other men raise their hands. I reckon they’re preachers from nearby towns.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Mr. Tubbs says. “I’m going to pay you reverends to come on board my bus. We’ll march together on the nation’s capital.” Mr. Tubbs turns to Reverend Walker. “What’re you doing August twenty-eighth?”

  Reverend Walker’s mouth falls open but no words come out. I reckon it’s the first time he’s ever run out of things to say. And one thing’s clear: our reverend never planned to take a bus across the country to tell our nation’s leaders that Jim Crow must go, that they’d better pass this civil rights bill right now.

  “Compassion without action is no compassion at all,” Mr. Tubbs says.

  Reverend Walker stands there, still saying nothing, and it occurs to me that while the reverend always tells us Kuckachookians about our civil rights, so far as I can see, he’s never really done anything to help us get them.

  But here’s his chance.

  So with all eyes on him, at long last Reverend Walker says, “Why, yes! Yes, Mr. Tubbs! I’ll go, sir.”

  We all applaud.

  “That’s why I came all the way to Thunder Creek County—to get your reverends on board! Any questions for me before I head over to Laknahatchie County?” Mr. Tubbs asks.

  And before the words leave my lips, Mrs. Montgomery yells out, “The garden!”

  And Mrs. Jacks asks, “What garden?”

  And Mrs. Montgomery shouts, “Old Man Adams’s. He left six acres. Left it for the Negroes in Kuckachoo to share with the whites.”

  “The whites is making like it’s all theirs,” Brother Babcock calls out.

  Up front, Mr. Tubbs turns to Reverend Walker. “Well, well,” he says, “seems you’ve got your own civil rights battle right here in Kuckachoo.”

  “Reckon we do,” Reverend Walker says. He steps back to the pulpit. “We’re gonna have to talk this over,” he says.

  But Brother Babcock shouts out, “When? When we gonna talk it over?”

  “Now’s not the time,” Reverend Walker says.

  “If you don’t mind me saying,” Mr. Tubbs says to all of us, “when it’s your time, you’ll know.”

  “Uh-huh!” my brother says.

  “You won’t be able to sit on your rumps and watch,” Mr. Tubbs says.

  “Oh, yeah!” my brother calls out.

  “You’ll feel it in your bones,” Mr. Tubbs says.

  “Yes, sir!” Elias punches his fist in the air.

  “You won’t have a choice but to get up and—”

  Suddenly Delilah shrieks. A wretched howl of a shriek. It pierces my eardrums. The chapel falls silent. At first I think she’s pointing to Cool Breeze. But then I see I’m wrong. She’s pointing out the window.

  There, against the black of night, is a warning. A warning to us. A giant burning cross. Burning fire. Burning death. I’m struck to the bone.

  Elias throws his arms round my shoulders, pulls me close. I grab Delilah’s hand and look at the reverend. He’s shaky. And why not? Everyone’s heard of a church-burning or two.

  “Those Klanners are cowards,” my brother whispers.

  But I know those cowards are capable of cold-blooded murder. Cool Breeze told me all about how they used to hang Negroes from trees and invite their children to picnic and watch.

  Well, one thing’s clear: we need to get out of here. Fast! But it seems everyone’s got the same idea. Folks clamber for the window or the back door. And poor Delilah, skinny as a reed, she’s shoved so hard her feet lift right off the floor.

  Everything throbs: the crowd. The screams. The lights. The church. Nothing makes sense anymore.

  “Take the fight home,” I hear Mr. Tubbs call.

  But we’re trapped, desperate to get out, not knowing if this building will burst into flames first.

  Then a raspy voice sings out. It’s calm and low. It soothes the screams. “We shall overcome.”

  My face is pressed to the side. I can’t turn my neck. But I can see right where that voice comes from: Mrs. Jacks. She’s still. Still there. There in her seat in the last row
. Her eyes are closed. Her head sways. Elias joins in her song.

  “We shall overcome.”

  Soon the song fills our one-room church like a prayer.

  Everyone lets out a breath.

  Delilah’s feet land back on the floor.

  And one by one, we’re turned loose into the black night. The panic, it’s still there inside us. But it’ll have to wait. For now, we walk steady and strong. The burning cross lights our way home.

  CHAPTER 6

  July 12, 1963, Late Afternoon

  Ever since that cross burned, I’ve been hoping my best friend would come up with another good prank to cheer us all up. But these days, I reckon no one feels like laughing, not even Delilah. So I’ma try to make folks happy myself. Today being Friday, Mrs. Tate takes Ralphie to visit his grandmama in Bramble. I’ve got the afternoon off. And I’ve got it in my head to bake something special for Mama.

  I stand in our kitchen, measure the flour, and think about her. What I love about Mama is she never gives up trying to make our little house a home. She sewed yellow pillows to brighten the living room, and since she couldn’t spare money to buy real doors for the bedrooms, she embroidered old sheets with suns and stars and hung them from the door frames. Then she strung fishing line from one end of our bedroom to the other so Elias and me could have a closet for hanging up our church clothes. And if that wasn’t enough to turn our house into a palace, she also stuffed ticking with corn shucks so each of us could have our very own mattress.

  When Mama isn’t cooking, cleaning, and sewing for the Tate family, she’s cooking, cleaning, and sewing for us. But no matter how she scours the counters or sweeps the dirt from the floor, our home still looks exhausted. In the kitchen, where the floorboards split beside the oven, you can even see the ground. The two bedrooms tilt, and when it rains in summer, our house smells of mildew.

  Pretty soon, though, it’ll smell nothing but sweet.

  Don’t it just figure, I already mixed up the brown sugar and flour for the world’s best honey cake when I find out there isn’t any honey in the cupboard. Sure Mama’s taught me how to bake butterscotch cookies without baking soda and a pumpkin pie without butter, but how to make a honey cake without honey? I’ve got no idea, so I get cracking over to the Montgomerys’ place, but they don’t have any honey either.

  So I whistle and click for Flapjack. Tweet, click, click. Tweet, click, click. Together we cross the tracks to find Elias, who’s knee-deep in parsley on Mr. Mudge’s farm. By the time he locks the last sack in the shed, the sun’s starting to set. I ask him to take me to the Corner Store.

  At a time like this, all I can say is it’s a real good thing Mr. Mudge built his Corner Store just across the railroad tracks on the edge of the white side, because ever since that civil rights meeting, I don’t feel like going any deeper into white Kuckachoo than I have to.

  While we cut through the forest, I ask my brother if Mr. Mudge knows the garden belongs to us all. “The mayor came by and chatted with him a good long while, but he never mentioned the will or any of us,” Elias tells me. “Then the mayor handed Mr. Mudge the keys to Old Man Adams’s place.”

  All of a sudden, I’m madder than September frost. I can’t stand the thought of them passing round those keys that belong to my uncle.

  When we get to the Corner Store, I’m so angry I can barely talk. Still, I tell Elias, “Hurry on up!” because I’m not about to risk getting home after dark. Not with Mama so tense these days, and not when I’m working so hard to bake her favorite cake.

  Flapjack and me stand on the grassy patch between the bayou and the parking lot and wait. We’ve got to wait outside, because Mr. Mudge won’t let cats in his shop.

  I watch Mrs. Montgomery come out of the pay telephone booth behind the store. Mrs. Montgomery’s always saving her nickels and dimes to call her brother, who lives in New Orleans and actually has a telephone right in his house. Now Mrs. Montgomery waves to me. Then she crosses by the front of the shop and walks out the parking lot to Main Street.

  As usual, there’s a white girl sitting on the shop steps. Her name’s Honey Worth. Her blond hair falls like a bale of hay across her forehead. She’s wearing cutoff denim shorts and she’s hugging her fat cat, Sugar, in her arms.

  I don’t let Honey see I’m watching her because Mama always tells me not to look at white folk too close. Some of them are members of the Ku Klux Klan. And Lord knows I don’t want trouble from cross-burning haters, so I got in the habit of fixing my eyes to the ground while I wait for Elias to come on out of the store.

  Adding all the times I’ve waited on the grass beside the Corner Store parking lot, I bet I’ve seen hundreds—maybe even thousands—of feet go by. Black patent leather shoes with frilly white socks. Brown penny loafers oiled to shine in the sun. Saddle shoes scuffed on the black and white leather alike. And bare feet that never wear shoes, except maybe to church on Sunday.

  Today, though, it doesn’t take but a few minutes till I notice a pair of feet different from any I’ve ever seen: two plump sausages strapped in six-inch high heels teetering along the gravel edge of the parking lot. And this time I can’t help it. I’ve got to see the southern lady who can actually walk in such things!

  My eyes climb the green heels to the red-and-white-checkered dress, to the bright red lips, to the hat on the lady’s head. And there they are—a bunch of plastic strawberries stuck right on the brim.

  Before I know it, my eyes get ahead of my brain and hang a second too long on the far-out sight.

  “Just who do you think you are?” the lady snaps, and soon as she does, I see she’s got enough freckles to fill a pepper mill. Her face is the spitting image of Honey’s. I reckon she’s Honey’s mama, Mrs. Worth. “A stare like that can get a girl like you in big trouble!” she says.

  When Mrs. Worth talks, the strawberries on her hat jiggle, and something about the moving strawberries makes the laughter bubble up inside me like cola shook up in a bottle. Thank goodness she disappears inside the store, because even though I cup one hand over my mouth, a giggle gets out anyway. And then a snort. I stare at the hole in my sneaker and try to stop, but the more scared I am, the more giggles I get, till an ugly voice splits the sky.

  “Ain’t you got manners, dirtbag?”

  I look up, only to see Buck Fowler skulking toward me, Jimmy Worth steps behind him.

  There’s no mistaking what kind of trouble these two bring. And I’ll tell you one thing: if I knew they were here at the store, I would’ve waited for my brother round the bend.

  But now it’s too late. Buck hovers above me. “Nobody laughs at Jimmy’s mama,” he says. “Nobody.”

  My bottom lip quivers worse than ever.

  I pick up Flapjack, glance across the parking lot to the shop steps, and wonder what’s taking Elias so long. No doubt there’s plenty of white folks to ring up first. Well, soon as my brother does come on out of the shop, he’ll know what to do. He’ll make Buck and Jimmy leave me alone. In my head, I beg for Elias to open that shop door, while my breath, it flames inside my chest.

  I take a step toward the store.

  Buck whips out an elbow to block my path. “Gimme the cat,” he says.

  I hug Flapjack tight, but Buck clenches the scruff of Flapjack’s neck and tears him from me.

  Flapjack moans.

  I jump up to save him but snatch twilight instead.

  Honey’s voice scrapes across the lot. “Leave the cat alone!”

  “Stay out of it, pudgeball!” Buck yells.

  I turn to see Honey slink back down on the store steps. I open my mouth and gulp the sky like it’s water. But it’s hard to get enough. I look round real quick. For Delilah. For Cool Breeze. But who am I kidding? They’re not dumb enough to be stuck out here when the sun’s starting to set.

  Soon it hits me: even though Buck and Jimmy play for the white high school’s football team, I’ve got no choice but to fight them off myself. So I ram my shoulder into Buck’s stomac
h. Then Buck throws me to the ground with his free hand—the one that isn’t wrapped round Flapjack’s neck. The pavement rips open the skin on both my knees, and through the blur of my tears, I see Flapjack’s paws scrape the blue-gray sky.

  “Reckon coloreds don’t learn manners at school,” Buck says, cackling. “Think we ought to teach this one a lesson?” he asks Jimmy.

  Jimmy is Honey’s big brother. He’s got butter white hair and looks like he tumbled into a bucket of freckles.

  “Go out for the pass!” Buck yells. He shakes Flapjack up and down while my liver slams into my spleen or whatever’s in there next to it.

  “The pass?” Jimmy asks. Jimmy’s the star quarterback, so all the white folk are counting on him to take the Kickers to the state championships come December. But anyone can see Jimmy Worth, three bricks shy of a load, has been tackled one time too many.

  “Yeah, Jimmy, the pass,” Buck says.

  Jimmy sprints across the parking lot toward the bayou, arms open like he expects to catch a ball.

  Buck hoists Flapjack back in his right arm. Even from here, I can see Flapjack’s green eyes bulge under the streetlight while Buck hurls my cat halfway across the lot.

  Standing at the bank of the bayou, Jimmy catches Flapjack round the ribs. And Buck is so excited he jumps up and down. “Drop-kick!” he shouts, and laughs.

  Jimmy stretches out his arms and holds Flapjack between them. Then slow, real slow, Jimmy swings back his leg to take the kick.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, prepare for the worst.

  But what I expect to hear—the crack of Jimmy’s boot against Flapjack’s skull—is not what I hear at all. Instead, I hear glass crash against pavement.

  When I open my eyes, I see Flapjack scamper free across the lot and Jimmy’s body strewn across the rocky ledge of the bayou, looking dead as they come. A shattered honey jar rests by his side. And there on the Corner Store steps stands my brother, looking mighty pleased his pitching practice paid off.