Nobody Said Amen

by Tracy Sugarman

  Luke stood, “Can’t bail me out, or won’t bail me out?”

  “Can’t and won’t, Luke. Bank can’t hang on to the past and expect to survive.”

  “You selfish son of a bitch!”

  Burroughs’ face was suffused with sadness. “I loved your father. But God helps those who help themselves, Lucas. Banks, too. I’m right sorry, son.” He walked slowly to the door and held it open. “Send my best to your little lady.”

  Luke let the door slam behind him. He leaned against the wall, fighting to restrain the hot, angry tears that were threatening to humiliate him. He walked swiftly through the bright cool of the busy bank lobby, nodding automatically to neighbors, eager to leave the place. You bastard! I loved your father! The words repeated and repeated, a sarcastic dirge. I loved your father. His mouth felt sour, and he paused to wipe the sweat from his face. A husky black man crossed from the Green and approached the bank. He stopped short on the sidewalk, recognizing the planter. Carefully, he stepped aside.

  “Mr. Claybourne.”

  Lucas blinked and gruffly stuffed his damp handkerchief into his pants pocket as he stopped in front of Jimmy Mack. “Well, look what the good Lord has brought me. Jimmy the Organizer. The man who’s pulling the plug and helping us sink. Just who I wanted to see after visiting my friendly banker.” His voice was bitter. “How lucky can one man be in a single morning?”

  Startled by the man’s fury, Jimmy remained silent but Lucas was not yet drained. His eyes raked Mack’s go-to-meeting clothes and settled on the impassive black face. “Why y’all dressed up? Goin’ to a funeral?”

  “Not mine.” Jimmy started to pass but Lucas raised a hand to restrain him.

  Do not touch me, Claybourne.” His voice was firm. “Do not.”

  Lucas dropped his hand. “Just wanted a chance to talk with Justin’s nephew, Jimmy Mack.”

  “The last time we talked I think we were on a more informal level, Claybourne. Then you just called me ‘boy’.”

  Lucas reddened. “Did, huh? And you called me ‘Mister Claybourne’, if I remember correctly. You were a little more polite beginning of the summer. But your memory is better than mine.”

  Jimmy folded his arms. “I’m cursed with a good memory, Claybourne. I can remember almost exactly our last conversation. Boy, you’re not here to see your colored gal, you’ve got three minutes to get your black ass off my property.”

  Lucas rubbed his chin, his eyes watchful. “Said that, did I? Well, I thought our little Eula could have done a lot better than a rag-tag civil rights agitator. But no harm done. You left.”

  “Yes I did. And your little Eula stopped being your little Eula and left, too. Beats all, doesn’t it, Claybourne? Just another house nigger bein’ pushy, I guess.”

  Luke’s eyes kindled. “A house nigger? A live-in whore? You sayin—” He broke off and moved toward Mack. “Eula May was never a house nigger. She was our housekeeper. That was my house and Willy’s house. And you got a hell of a nerve suggesting that!”

  “And you never . . . ” Jimmy halted, picking his words carefully. “Ain’t a colored man I know in the Delta who doesn’t have nightmares about his woman who worked for old massa in the big house. Even if we pass a civil rights bill, it won’t make those nightmares go away.”

  “There are a whole lot of nightmares, Mack. And they come in all colors.” He looked over his shoulder at the bank. “Old massa’s got a few himself.” Calm now, he turned to leave. “What business you got with Burroughs?” He smiled for the first time. “You organizing his help?”

  “Not any of your damn business, but I’ll tell you anyhow. Mr. Burroughs wants to talk with me about the new housing Washington’s planning for the Delta. Seems to think I might have some connections that could help.”

  Luke stared. “Connections.”

  “It should be good for the economy, Burroughs says. More of a future than chopping cotton or organizing workers. You agree?”

  But Claybourne was walking rapidly away.

  Only when he was about to leave the highway to drive his truck up the long drive to the house did Luke Claybourne become startlingly awake. Christ! He stared at the driveway, blinked and shook his head as if to clear away the jungle of sorrowful underbrush that had been his companion on the long ride home from the bank. Instead of turning, he gunned the Chevy down the steaming macadam, swinging right on the caked dirt work road that snaked across the plantation. As he eased the truck between the endless rows of wilt and mildew, the unendurable frustration filled the cab like the moist heat from the fields. With a groan, he leaned his throbbing head back on the flaking leather and killed the engine. Send my best. . . . How did it go? Send my best to the little lady.

  The summer afternoon silence suspended over Claybourne’s plantation was as warmly familiar as the comforting curve of Willy Claybourne’s back, the little lady’s back. When the angelus carillon from St. James’s Church in town broke the silence, it startled a flock of blackbirds that rose helter-skelter from the field, then wheeled and disappeared. He reached for the doorless glove compartment and pulled out the dregs of a half pint of Jack Daniels. Here’s to you, Daddy’s best friend, you bastard. When he had drained the Daniels, he stepped from the sweltering cab, stared up at the unforgiving sun, and hurled the bottle into the parched ranks of brittle, suffocating cotton. And then he knew where he was going and why he was going, and he began walking up the hard dirt road.

  The cottonwood tree reached above the fields like a sentinel. It must have died before he was a kid, but it had been a pole star for Luke from his earliest rememberings. From there, he could always find his way home, however vast the seas of green had appeared to the little boy. At a curve in the road, the land dipped suddenly, descending into a brackish wetland where scrub trees and wild roses, poison oak and dark green ivy tangled around the pale ocher cottonwood. Imperious, the tree lifted long black fingers to the sun and ghostly white fingers to the Delta moon. And just beyond was the bright blue circle of the catfish pond.

  In the odorous mud he found the large flat rocks. He knew he’d find them. They had always been there, and only Daddy and he knew which was which.

  “The one with the fossil on the dark side of the slate is yours,” Daddy had said. “It was yours when you were here two million years ago and this was the bottom of the ocean.”

  “And I was a fish?”

  “No. You were a little crustacean. Here’s your picture.” And Daddy had taken his finger and followed the tiny ridges of the little fossil on the rock. And when he had laughed Luke knew he was just teasing, and that was okay.

  “There ain’t no ocean here, Daddy.”

  “No more,” he had said. “It all dried up.”

  “And how do you know which rock is yours, Daddy?”

  “It’s the one that’s bigger than yours.”

  “But I have the fossil.”

  And daddy had smiled and nodded. “And you have the fossil.”

  And every time they came to the cottonwood to go catfishing, they’d find the large rocks and sit on them. Lots and lots of times.

  He climbed up the bank. Old smells from the tangle of raspberry bushes made him pause, breathing deep, smiling as he remembered the raspberry taste of Never Titty. His eyes moved across the matted weeds, just the same as when the bank was Never Titty’s Court. He laid his hat on the damp ground and stretched out on his back, his drowsy eyes searching the black stain of the dead cottonwood as it scraped the sky. I’m guarding the castle from my watchtower, Titty. Protectin’ the Queen. And, bold as brass, she’d piped: Your queen is as beautiful as Nefertiti, Queen of the Nile. And then she had run to the pond and splashed down, squealing, on the shiny mud. In his ear he heard his daddy like it was yesterday. You be nice to that little nigger pixie, Lukie. She trusts you.

  He closed his eyes and was surprised to find they were wet. He beat the earth softly at his side. You bastard, Burroughs. I love this place. I love all of it.

  Ch
apter Twenty-Nine

  At two in the afternoon, Fatback’s Platter was as forlorn as the tuxedo in the window of Sol’s thrift store near the Trailways station. Even the crystal ball that would send shards of color drifting across the dancers once darkness reclaimed the room was a silent, cool, gray presence. Nefertiti surveyed the empty dance floor and the deserted tables with their ungainly chairs piled on them. It was her favorite hour. Luxuriously, she unwrapped the Havana cigar from its silver sheath and bent to the match, drawing in the rich taste. Her drowsy eyes moved across the tableau, visualizing the scene tonight when the place would throb and the calls would cut through the music: “Sing it, Titi! Yes! Yes! You go, girl!” Slowly, she exhaled, sending a mist of blue into the edge of sun at the end of the bar. How she loved this room. Everything was perfect. No. She squeezed tight her eyes, seeing again the holster and the heavy hands. Not everything. Sheriff Dennis Haley would never let it be perfect. Ever.

  When she heard Z’s car crunch to a stop, she shook herself and moved down the bar to the bottle of Chianti Classico which she had brought from Jackson as a special gift for Z. She poured two glasses of the ruby wine and held them aloft as Z entered through the sudden blazing light of the front door and paused, letting her eyes adjust to the shadowed stillness of the bar. When she saw Nefertiti she grinned broadly. “Ciao, Titi!” and crossed swiftly to embrace her. She took the two glasses and retreated to a corner table. Nefertiti smiled, savoring this familiar ceremony with this exotic creature Billy had brought to Fatback’s when she arrived from Italy. All her life, Nefertiti had been a man’s woman. No woman had been allowed that close in her 30 years. But the past months had disclosed that there was a strong presence inside this olive-skinned Italian, a woman like herself who had traveled a long distance to find out who she was. Nefertiti brought the bottle and settled happily in the facing chair. She lifted her glass. “Mia amica d’Italia!” Z laughed, and their glasses touched. “My American friend!”

  Nefertiti bent to relight her cigar, noting an unfamiliar tremble as she dropped a match and struck another.

  “And how goes your world, Sister Titi? Bene?”

  Titi’s eyes lifted briefly and held on her friend. Then she resolutely shook out the match. “You don’t miss much, do you? Bene? Not so bene, Z.”

  Z’s voice was gentle. “I heard about Bronko. I’m so sorry, Titi. He was important to you?”

  “He was. We never talked much. Talk wasn’t what he did. He was so damaged, so damn confused. Maybe more like me than I admitted. Important? Hell, I don’t know. We were comfortable together. He was there for me. But I never let him stay till morning.” Frowning, she glanced at the front door. “And now he never will.”

  “You will miss him, I think. Who will handle your door? He was a very strong man.”

  “My silent partner will tell me who. And I will pretend it’s okay. It’s the way it is.”

  Z’s hand covered Titi’s. “Women here are like women back home. Not quite separate. Not quite equal. So we have to make our own rules sometimes. Lentamente.”

  “Lentamente?”

  “Slowly.” She smiled. “The men find out later. Maybe also your silent partner?”

  Titi’s laugh was brittle. “My silent partner doesn’t learn and doesn’t forget. What he remembers all the time is what he owns.”

  Z refilled their glasses. Her eyes seemed to be viewing another landscape. “I knew such a man. He was rich and very powerful. And he owned land in Umbria that was larger than any plantation in the Delta. His family had owned it since the fifteenth century, a present from the pope. Three hundred years before your Revolutionary War, Titi! In Italia we had serfs centuries before there were any slaves in America.” Her lips curled. “People have owned people for a long time.”

  “How did you know such a man?”

  “His name was Sforzi. Count Ricardo Sforzi. My father had been on the Italian Olympic team in 1932 and won a gold in rifle shooting. It was a great Italian victory. The count was on the Olympic Committee and when the games were concluded he hired my father to be his game-keeper. It was an incredible opportunity. So my mother, my father, and I moved into a house on Sforzi’s land, and we became part of what the count owned. The war had started in 1939, but it never seemed to touch us in any way, perhaps because the count seemed to be a friend of many in Mussolini’s fascist party. My childhood was spent with my father, hunting and shooting in the mountains, and I was well taught. My mother became part of the household staff. We paid for nothing. I was schooled there. The count was very attentive, and seemed to take a special interest in me. And when I turned sixteen, my father was told by the count that now I was to move into his quarters. He had waited long enough.”

  Titi’s eyes filled. “And your daddy could do nothing. You were to be a house nigger.”

  Z drained her glass. “My father said my daughter will move into your quarters when her tutor leaves on Friday afternoon. And on Thursday night he led me through the mountains to a group of partisans who were fighting the Fascisti. He gave me a rifle and his blessings, and he went back to confront the count on Friday. My mother was put off the land and my father was arrested. He died in prison two weeks before the liberation. My mother lives with relatives near the Anzio beaches where I fought with the Partisans and met Billy.”

  “And you came to Mississippi to be free? That may be a first.” Titi’s smile was ironic and sympathetic. “You are like your father. You ought to get a gold for that!”

  Chapter Thirty

  Sampson Sparrow, looking fashionable in his red vest and black bow tie, continued wiping off the Shiloh Club bar when he saw them enter, his eyes quickly measuring the room. Most of the White Citizens Council regulars were already huddling at the end of the bar or seated at the tiny tables, chatting and laughing. One scanned the Clarion that was lying on the bar, then held the newspaper story aloft and called over to another, “Where would they have taken that Nigra cop if he wasn’t dead, Mike?”

  The man hooted. “Not in our backyard! Directors at the hospital would’ve all had coronaries. Maybe they would have left him with the NAACP over in Cleveland. They’re always looking for new members.”

  As laughter rocked the room, he read aloud from the Clarion story: “‘Without a moment’s hesitation, Deputy Sheriff Luther Lonergan faced down the rampaging, rogue Negro as he wheeled to fire his weapon. The white deputy’s aim was true, and the life of James Mack, the Negro labor organizer, was spared.’ Who the hell hired this crazy Nigra and gave him a .45? You any idea, Gene?”

  The mayor’s Town Counsel held up his hands. “Not my table. A question we might ask Sheriff Haley if he gets here. All I know is he’ll be buried in the Nigra boneyard over in the Sanctified Quarter.”

  Sparrow, the elderly Negro bartender, watched as they passed the Clarion story from hand to hand. That poor blue-eyed nigger, he thought. Nobody gave a damn when he was breathing and nobody gives a damn now that he ain’t. A mean mother, all in all. But they sure as hell used him. The old man grunted and shook his head in disgust. Who gave him the .45? Amazing how these men only knew what they wanted to know.

  When Deputy Lonergan and Mayor Burroughs entered from the staircase there was a moment of surprised silence and then a ripple of applause. With a broad grin, Burroughs led his guest to the bar. “Two of the real stuff, Sammy. One for the mayor and one for the hero.”

  Sammy nodded. “Yessir, your honor.” He swiftly poured two tumblers of bourbon. Burroughs said, “Sammy, this is Deputy Sheriff Luther Lonergan.”

  The bartender slid the drinks forward, his eyes on the flushed face of Lonergan. “Yessir. I recognized him from the Clarion picture. He’s the hero who saved the Negro labor organizer and shot the Negro deputy sheriff.” His voice was so cool and flat that the mayor frowned and Lonergan’s eyes widened.

  “Sammy your name, boy? ” The deputy’s voice was very quiet. “I like to remember names, boy.”

  “The name is Sparrow, Deputy Lonerg
an. Sampson Sparrow. And I’m old enough to be your father, sir.” Without another word he turned and moved down the bar.

  The policeman turned to Burroughs, his face livid. “Did you hear that old nigger?”

  The mayor shrugged and smiled. “Don’t let Sammy rile you, Luther. He’s been pouring drinks for the Shiloh Club since Senator Tildon’s daddy was still running the bank downstairs. Not worth getting upset about.”

  Moments later, when Sheriff Haley came in the door, the mayor tapped on his glass and addressed the noisy room. “Gentlemen, I’m glad that our sheriff has joined us because I want to propose a toast to a man who has made us all proud. Our police force and the town are going to benefit from his dedication. I give you Deputy Sheriff Luther Lonergan!”

  The glasses were raised. “Lonergan!”

  The mayor raised his hand and in the silence he led Lonergan to a nearby table. “Resolution is everything.” He turned to the sheriff. “Don’t you agree, Haley? Your Deputy Lonergan is the personification of resolution.” He paused and then grinned. “Hell, you can’t be irresolute if you’re going to ride a Bronko!”

  As appreciative laughter broke around him, Sheriff Dennis Haley looked over at the beaming Lonergan. He leaned back on the bar and said, “Sammy, get me a scotch. I didn’t know we were going to be celebrating such a special occasion.” When the mayor put his arm around Lonergan’s shoulder, Haley called to the watchful Sparrow, “Make it a double.” Sparrow served the drink and crossed his arms, his eyes bright.

  Haley raised his glass, nodded to the mayor, and gazed at Lonergan. “Here’s to Deputy Lonergan. A good deputy, willing to learn. I got great hopes for him, Mr. Mayor. He’s a great shot, for openers.”

  Burroughs cupped his chin in his hand and stood beside Lonergan as Haley’s voice sliced through the room. “I didn’t know one of my boys was the personification of resolution, of course, but then the boss is always the last one to find out.” The room grew very quiet. “Thank you for pointing that out, Mr. Mayor.”