Nobody Said Amen

by Tracy Sugarman

  “We’ve had a sea of troubles, Ted,” Luke murmured. “Being a farmer in Mississippi makes God laugh. Not only heat, but rain. Too much? Too little? Too late? Too early? And tenants who you needed, tenants who ran off, tenants who kept you awake because you knew they needed you, and you couldn’t always be there for them?” He paused, trying to answer Ted’s question. “How are we doing? Any black or white in Mississippi who can tell you that can be governor for life. We’re trying to stand up on Jell-O. The footing we were raised on is gone.” He looked at Willy and then at Ted. “Maybe you think it should be gone. We’ve got blacks in our legislature now, folks that weren’t even allowed in the library ten years ago. Maybe our kids will find out if it should be gone. But for Willy and me, it’s wrestling with the devil just trying to keep the family going.”

  When he left, Willy walked with Ted to his car. “And how is your family, Ted?” He leaned against the hood, frowning. “I wish I could tell you, Willy. The good part is that the kids are sprouting, like yours. Wonderful to see.” He paused. “The bad part is that for ten years I haven’t been around home long enough to see. And that’s been tough on Julia and, in truth, it’s been tough on our marriage.” Ted shrugged, a sad smile on his face. “I’m a gentleman caller, Willy, who signed up to be a husband.”

  She took his hand in hers, squeezed and grinned wickedly. “You mean it ain’t all sweetness and light out there in the real world beyond the Delta? You’re an old friend, Ted, and I so value you as a wise mentor. But I’ll share an insight I’ve found for myself. You can’t choreograph life.” Her gaze shifted to the house where Luke stood, waving a goodbye.

  Chapter Fifty

  Mendelsohn eased his car through the elmed shade of white Shiloh, crossed through the shimmering heat of Highway 49, and coasted into the Sanctified Quarter. Jimmy had said on the phone that he should pass Sojourner Chapel and continue to the beginning of the old McElroy plantation, due east of the Freedom School. “Hang a left and go past the old weighing station to a Quonset hut I bought from the Army. That’s the modest headquarters of J. MACK. We welcome old friends, strays, and the unemployed. Man, it’s good to hear your voice!”

  Ted spotted the Quonset hut, comfortably located in the shaded lee of the old McElroy weighing barn. Through its open doors he could see dust rising as sweating men stacked lumber. From the dilapidated tool shed beyond, he could hear the screaming of a ripsaw as a crowd of kids waited at the door. Each, in turn, carried piles of new boards to two flatbed trucks that were parked in the rear. In what had been a cotton field were the slender frames of two new bungalows. In the noon glare, the carpenters moved over the scaffolding like animated silhouettes. There was a din of kids’ voices, hammering, and straining motors as a bulldozer leveled adjacent areas for building and a backhoe prepared for the pouring of a foundation.

  Ted pulled his Chevy alongside the spattered wreck of a jeep that had J. MACK stenciled on it. The door of the Quonset was open and the shouting voice of Mack added to the cacophony: “The Mendelsohn is back in town!” He trotted out, taking Ted in a warm embrace when he stepped from the car. “Hey, my favorite outside-agitating wandering Jew! Welcome to your old home away from home.”

  Mendelsohn laughed and pointed at the frenetic landscape. “There hasn’t been this much activity since the Union troops took Vicksburg. It doesn’t look like my home away from home. It’s not at all like when I saw you last.”

  Jimmy grinned. “And the last time I saw you, you were high as a helicopter and singing ‘Revel in the joys of copulation.’ It was you, old buddy?”

  “Revel in the joys? It sounds like me. Even though it was ten years ago and I haven’t had a drop of bourbon since, it does sound like me. We Hebrews were never very good at drinking the hard stuff.”

  “I’m your witness, Mendelsohn! But come on in. You look hot. How about a drink of something softer, like Coke?”

  “Doesn’t have to be softer. Just wetter! Being hot is the price I had to pay to see you again, young James. I navigated the blazing desert, knowing there was an oasis waiting. And your letter is responsible, or irresponsible, depending on whether you were compos mentis when you wrote it. You weren’t putting coke in the Coke, were you?”

  Jimmy laughed and walked to the small fridge next to a cluttered worktable. “No. Knowing you were on the way, I ordered up your special beverage.” He handed the chilled bottle to Ted and settled behind the table. “So put your feet up and stay a while. I’ve been following your byline halfway round the world. Now I want to hear everything from the horse’s mouth. I’ve missed you. You’ve been missed in Mississippi.”

  “It’s mutual. There are so many I want to hear about.”

  “A lot of friends we made back in the bad old days jumped ship when the Panthers came on the scene, Ted. They never got their hands around the Black Power movement. But you understood what it was and what it wasn’t, and stayed aboard. I know because I’ve been your faithful reader all these years you’ve been traveling.”

  Ted looked at Jimmy, silently appraising him. “You haven’t changed, Jimmy. You’ve never been out of mind, kid.” He chuckled. “I always knew you’d abandon your careless ways and grow up. And I was right.” He went to the wall and examined the blue prints of the bungalows that were rising in the abandoned cotton fields outside. “Jesus, look at all this! J. MACK!” He returned to his seat and studied the attentive man across the desk. “Why would you want to think about politics when you have this money tree growing in your backyard?”

  “Because J. MACK is a hell of a lot more than a money tree. I think it’s a ticket to ride.” He grinned at Ted. “A ticket to ride to Washington. I really want to talk to you about my running for Congress.”

  “Are you really serious? Congress?”

  “Dead serious. And I need you on the train.”

  Ted finished his drink. “Talk to me about why you want it, and why you think you can make it.”

  Jimmy got up and carefully closed the door. His voice was low and serious. “It started with Dale. Through him I got to meet the go-to people who are trying to bring the Great Society to Mississippi. They got their orders from Johnson even before they passed the Voting Rights Bill in ’65. Word was out that he wanted things to happen real quickly down here, because he was planning on running in ’68. That’s how J. MACK got born, seed money from HUD and generous loans from our suddenly friendly banker, Burroughs. The president got a load of good public relations with the new black voters about ‘our Negro entrepreneur in the Delta who was a Freedom Rider,’ and J. MACK gets to transform the hovels of the Sanctified Quarter with good clean housing.”

  Ted smiled. “And Jimmy gets rich from doing good.”

  “Not rich, but getting there. And now I want to do some payback.” He stood up and began to pace the room. “Housing is important. But so are the malnourished kids. So are all those brothers getting their only job-training from criminals in Mississippi jails. So are all the public schools, screwed out of funding because the white kids are going to private academies. And so are all the jobs that have disappeared because the men have had to go north to feed their families.” He stopped, embarrassed by his passionate speech. “There’s a ton of pain here.” He took the seat close to Ted. “Only politics can help. And that’s why I need you.”

  Mendelsohn’s eyes were alight. “Last time I heard you that revvedup was at the mass meeting when you were nearly blitzed by Stanley Bronko. Truth is, if you’re crazy enough to run for Congress in Sterling Tildon’s state, then I’m probably crazy enough to help you. Being fiftieth of fifty in nearly everything important means Mississippi needs all the help it can get.”

  Jimmy clapped and grinned. “How come I’m not surprised?”

  “So what’s my mission?’

  “You’ll run my campaign so I can punch my ticket.”

  “That’s all?”

  “For now. But first you’re coming home to see Eula and meet Junior.” He grinned. “I told them
this morning why I asked you to come down and Junior bet me twenty-five cents you’d say no. You can be there to see me collect the bet!”

  Mendelsohn smiled. “Junior’s probably smarter than both of us. What did Eula say?”

  “Eula only said, ‘I hope he still likes pot roast, that’s what we’re having.’ She’s not a politician like Junior and me. But she’s dying to see you, now that you’re back from the world. She wants to ask you about Washington and New York and Chicago, everything north of Memphis. She’s tired of reading you, Mendelsohn. She wants to hear the real thing.”

  Eula welcomed him with open arms and an agenda of questions that rippled through supper. Junior was shy, watching Ted from the corner of his eye. When he brought his quarter to his father to pay off his debt, Jimmy gravely thanked him. “You’re our witness, Ted. My son has acted honorably and hopefully has learned that you don’t bet money on politics.” He squatted and faced the wide-eyed boy. “This quarter is the beginning of my campaign for Congress, Junior. Let’s hope it brings us luck.”

  By eight o’clock, the dishes had been cleared and Junior was up in his room playing. Eula led the men into the living room and settled on the floor, her back against the couch. “Have I talked your ear off, Ted? It’s so good to hear about some place that’s not Parchman or Shiloh or Mississippi! Thank you. But Jimmy wants to talk about Parchman and Shiloh and Mississippi with you, and I want to listen, too.”

  Jimmy frowned. “How come I’ve got no problem talking to you, Mendelsohn, but I’m tongue-tied when I’m asked to speak in front of an audience that looks like you?”

  “Because you trust me and you don’t trust them. But you can do it, Jimmy. It’s no different than talking to your carpenters and plumbers.”

  “I’ve had a few white journeymen I’ve hired and fired. But they were listening to their boss. That’s different.”

  Ted shook his head. “Wrong. People who show up to listen want to know what you have to tell. You’re the boss of that moment, so you take charge and you decide what you’re going to talk about.”

  “And you think honkies are going to listen?”

  “They’re not honkies, Jimmy—they’re voters. You have to start thinking that way. You’ve got to be the candidate who happens to be black, not the black candidate, and they are voters who happen to be white. You have to set that table if you’re going be their congressman.”

  Jimmy turned to Eula. “You hear this guy? Says I should set the agenda. I think he’s been away from Magnolia County too long!”

  Ted smiled. “I have been, but when I left here you would have thought it crazy to even think about running. So let’s find out where we are.” He stood and walked around the room, then turned. “Let’s road-test this. Worst-case scenario: I’m a cracker in the back of the auditorium and suddenly I stand up. ‘What makes you think you should run for Congress, nigger boy?’”

  Jimmy’s eyes narrowed. “Thank you, sir. I think I should run because I have the education, the qualifications and the guts to confront somebody as ignorant and bigoted as you are, you son of—”

  Laughing, Ted held up his hand. “No, pal, that won’t do it. Let’s try again. ‘Coon, you think having you sit in Congress is going to change things in Mississippi? That’s a legislature, not a zoo!’”

  Jimmy’s eyes flashed. “I sure do. Things’ve already begun to change. Schools, restaurants, back of the bus. Equal rights have to mean equal opportunity, and that’s what my vote is going to mean.”

  Eula grinned and clapped, but Mendelsohn pressed on. “But what’s your vote gonna do for me, Sambo? Let you marry my daughter?”

  Jimmy’s voice was tight. “It’s going to put you in your place, you bastard!” He stopped abruptly. “I can’t do this.” He turned to face the two of them. “I can’t say what I want to say.”

  For a long moment Mendelsohn remained silent and then seated himself opposite Jimmy. “Yes, you can. Listen to me, Jimmy. You’re not preaching to the choir at Sojourner Chapel, and you’ re not selling bed sheets to the Ku Klux Klan. You’ve got to be who you are, but you’ve got to put a leash on that temper of yours. You have every right to be angry, but don’t let it show. Not if you want to get white voters to cross the highway—a damn wide highway. And you do.”

  “Yessuh, Massa Mendelsohn.”

  “Knock it off, Mack.” Ted’s voice was sharp. “You said you’re serious? Then be smart.”

  Eula touched Jimmy’s arm. “Hear what he’s saying, baby.” Her concerned gaze flicked from Jimmy to Ted. “Anybody ready for a cold one?” When they nodded, she left the two grim men but returned quickly from the kitchen with the glistening bottles.

  Jimmy fixed his eyes on his intent mentor as Ted drank deep and then pushed ahead. “You got to tell it like you see it without hanging a guilt trip on every white voter sitting out there. You can’t hold them responsible for three hundred years of abuse.”

  Jimmy placed his beer on the coffee table. “You know, Eula doesn’t even want me to do this. I think she believes I’m going to lose.”

  Eula shook her head vigorously in the negative. “No! Not so, Ted. That’s not what I believe. I grew up outside Money where they killed Emmet Till just for flirting with a white woman. What are those people going to try to do to my man when he beats one of theirs? No, it’s not because he couldn’t win that I don’t want him to run.” She looked at her husband. “It’s because he could.”

  Mendelsohn said, “Is that what you think, Jimmy?”

  “I wouldn’t have written you a letter asking you to help me fight a losing battle. I think we can win, but I think it’s going to be damn hard.”

  Ted nodded. “I think it’s going to be damn hard, and I don’t know if we can win.”

  “So where do we go next, Ted?”

  “Let’s try it another way. Tell me everything you really want to say, and then we’ll try and twist it into what you can say that they can hear.”

  “Are you kidding?” Jimmy rose and walked to the front of the room, his chin up and eyes bright. “Listen up, you arrogant bastards. When are you going to learn to hear? To see? To feel? We know about you. We’ve washed your dirty laundry for three centuries. But you don’t really know anything about us because you never wanted to know.”

  Mendelsohn said, “Jimmy, you can’t.”

  But Mack charged ahead. “We’ve raised your kids, nursed them when they were sick, loved them when you were too busy to remember, gave them years we never had to give to our own kids. And then you taught them to have the same contempt for us that you have.”

  “Jimmy.” Ted’s voice was strained but it was lost in the rush of Jimmy’s words.

  “We were never contented animals, Mr. Charlie. Never! We were slaving in your fields, draining your swamps for less money than the dumbest white cracker could make.” His angry glance swung to Eula. “Our women were never grateful property. They were abused property! Hell, we were all abused property. Did it ever occur to you that your black beasts of burden might have the same God-given brains that you have? That all we needed was a chance to show it? Three hundred years of waiting?” Jimmy’s dark young face was shiny with sweat, but he seemed unable to stop the torrent of words. “You kept us poor, you kept us ignorant, you built us better prisons than schools, and you were surprised—surprised!—that there were more accomplished black criminals than qualified black students!”

  Mendelsohn leaned forward and put his hand on Eula’s, both of them swept up by the ferociousness of the speech. Jimmy’s eyes glittered. “Can you really be that blind? That deaf? That unfeeling? If you have the guts, if you could see us, you could learn from us. Are you humble enough to learn from your darker brothers and sisters? Are you ready, neighbors? Because I’m one of them, and I’m ready to show you.”

  Only when Mendelsohn stood and placed his hands on Jimmy’s shoulders did the tirade stop. The sudden stillness in the room was like the pause after a cloudburst.

  “We’ve got work
to do, Jimmy.” Ted’s voice was husky and low. “You’re not preaching to the converted. You’re talking to men and women in Magnolia County, Mississippi. Every white in that room is saying, ‘I was never Simon Legree’ and is heading for the hills, carrying the vote you need with him.” He turned to Eula. “Mississippi needs Jimmy Mack, but we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  The fire in the bungalow behind Fatback’s Platter was called in to the Shiloh Fire Department at 3:00 a.m. by a seed salesman passing on the road who noticed a glow behind the juke joint. When the call came to the sheriff at 3:30, he called Harold Butler at his home, demanding to know how this could happen. Butler protested that he had left the juke joint after meeting with Nefertiti when she closed at 2:00. “There was no goddam fire,” he said, irritable and sleepy.

  Haley snapped, “Meet me there.” By the time the fire chief had reached the volunteers and gotten them to the scene, it was 4:30 and the bungalow had been eviscerated by flames. The challenge left for the firefighters was to find the nearest well and try to save Fatback’s Platter and the surrounding pines from the surging fire.

  When Haley arrived, the firemen were soaking the rear of Fatback’s Platter with their hoses, and the small house in the woods was a sodden, smoking pile. “Wasn’t anyone in the place,” the Fire Chief told Haley. “Rotting wood, old electric circuits, no water available except the well out back. A lousy combination. But we saved the bar. Just lucky that no one was trapped. Don’t know where that black singer who owned the place has gone to. Bet that nigger never even had insurance.”

  When Butler reached the scene, he slid into the seat next to Haley in the police cruiser and silently handed the Saturday night envelope to him. “What do you want me to do?”