Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League

by Jonathan Odell

  Like a cannon, the voice of the Senator came booming from the kitchen. “All right now, Lillie Dee. Tell Levi to come on in.”

  They entered through the back door, and Vida saw the Senator up close for the first time. His frame rose before her like a cypress trunk, dense and broad. He had one massive arm propped against a marble biscuit block while the other held out an empty whiskey glass to Lillie Dee, who took it and left the room. Other colored servants scurried in and out of the kitchen carrying silver trays of tinkling china.

  “Now, what’s so important that it can’t wait, Levi? And why you got the young’uns with you?” The Senator wiped his hand on his linen suit coat. “Hurry up, now, I got company.”

  Levi kneaded the brim of his hat with both hands. “Yessuh. I know you do. I just thought, see’n as you and me go way back. . .well, suh. . .what I gots to say. . .”

  Vida’s heart dipped down past her stomach. This was not how it was supposed to be at all! This was her father, the man whose words made people shout with joy and dance in the aisles. Who stood up to the white man. She found herself taking a step backward toward the door.

  The Senator’s face colored. “Stop beating the devil around the stump, Levi. Spit it out.”

  “Yessuh. Well, my girl here. . .well, she got something to say.”

  Vida could feel the Senator’s bleary gaze fall upon her. No words would come. The only sound was the pulsing of her blood pounding in her ears. She took yet another step backward.

  When things didn’t seem as if they could get any worse, her father’s shoulders fell like a cord of wood had been dropped on his back.

  Looking up, Vida saw that Billy Dean had stepped into the room. His eyes, as dark and cold as the iron pots that hung on the wall behind him, bored into Vida through mean little slits.

  “Go on ahead, girl,” he said. “What you got to tell the Senator?”

  Vida’s knees went soft as Nate grew impossibly heavy in her arms. She backed against the warming oven to keep from crumpling to the floor. Even though she wasn’t supposed to look a white man in the eyes, in Billy Dean’s she had seen murder.

  “Billy Dean,” the Senator said, not bothering to turn around. “I’m glad you were able to tear yourself away from Delia. She ain’t yours.” His voice was full of scorn. “You know, it’s getting hard to tell which of my daughters you got engaged to. I hope I don’t have to point Hertha out to you.”

  “Only being sociable, Senator. Don’t you worry about me none. I ain’t letting Miss Hertha out of my sights.” Then Billy Dean stepped up beside the Senator and smiled a sideways grin. He slapped the Senator on the back. “I’m a man of my word. Just like you.”

  The Senator wasn’t amused. Billy Dean quickly removed his hand and then waved his drink at the callers. “You having yourself some kind of high-level meeting back here with all these fancy-dressed niggers?”

  The Senator scowled at Billy Dean. “This here’s the colored preacher I was telling you about. You take care of ol’ Levi and he’ll tell you what the nigruhs are up to.”

  The Senator smiled fondly at the preacher. “Ain’t that right, Levi?”

  “Yessuh. That sure is right,” Levi mumbled, looking at his shoes.

  “Why do I care what the niggers are up to?” Billy Dean scoffed.

  The Senator spun toward Billy Dean. “I’ll tell you why you better care. If you going to be my sheriff, looking out for my five thousand acres, you sure as hell better know what the nigruhs and everybody else is up to. I want to know about Yankee labor agents trying to steal my tenants, and croppers lying about gin weights, and the federal government trying to agitate. That goes double for the Klan scaring off my coloreds. And I better know about trouble a day before trouble happens. You got that, Billy Dean?” The Senator kept up his glare until Billy Dean dropped his eyes. He focused instead on Levi’s chain, glowering at the praying hands.

  “Whatever you say,” Billy Dean grumbled, looking as if he had more to add but jiggling the ice in his drink instead.

  The Senator turned back to Levi. “Now, what you got to tell me about the election?”

  Vida prayed for her father to say something. He stood there motionless, bent like a willow after an ice storm. There was only silence. Finally Lillie Dee returned with a tray of fresh drinks for the Senator and Billy Dean.

  Billy Dean tossed back half his drink and wiped his mouth. He sniggered. “I bet I know what Levi wants. He wants to vote for me come the election. That right, boy?”

  Levi looked as if he had been slapped. “Nosuh!” he said quickly, the sound of alarm ringing in his voice. “Voting is the white man’s business. You won’t catch me messing with none a that.”

  “I don’t know,” Billy Dean said. “Could be I heard talk about you and that secret nigger club. What y’all call it? The Double-A-C-P?”

  The Senator looked at Billy Dean as if he were an idiot. “Levi?” He gave a sharp laugh. “Levi cares as much about voting as a horse cares about Christmas. Besides, he knows which side his bread is buttered on.” This time it was the Senator who slapped Billy Dean on the back. “Just like you, boy.”

  Billy Dean’s face reddened again, but his angry scowl was directed toward Levi.

  The inside kitchen door swung open and a plump, well-dressed white woman about the Senator’s age poked her head in. “What are you men doing in here?” she asked, holding a lacy handkerchief up to a neck whiter than the china on the countertops. “You are entertaining guests, Hugh. Did you forget?”

  When her brother didn’t answer at once, she looked carefully around a kitchen filled with tense expressions. Without speaking another word, she touched the handkerchief to her lips and eased back through the door.

  Straightening his jacket, the Senator started after his sister. “Billy Dean,” he said on his way through the door, “you find out what Levi wants. Then come tell me. Get some practice at being my sheriff.”

  Left alone in the kitchen with the preacher and his family, and his face still flushed from having been told off, Billy Dean motioned toward the back door. Through clenched teeth he said, “Let’s go outside and have us a little powwow.”

  Vida hurried Nate down the steps first. Before her father could take the first step, Billy Dean shoved Levi hard, causing him to topple down from the porch and land sprawled on the ground at Vida’s feet.

  Looking up, she saw the crazy smile on Billy Dean’s face. His eyes cut toward the boy in her arms and at last Vida found her voice. “Lillie Dee!” she screamed.

  The old cook was at the door in a flash. “Merciful Jesus! What’s going on out here? Levi, what you doing spraddled out in the dirt? You hurt yourself?” Without waiting for an answer she yelled out into the yard, “Rezel! Where you? Get here and help the Rev’rund on his feet.”

  Her boy emerged out of the dark of the yard. From his fierce expression Vida could tell Rezel had been watching the whole thing. After helping Levi up, he went to Vida’s side.

  “You and Nate all right?” he whispered.

  She nodded, thinking about begging Rezel to run away with her that very minute

  Just then the Senator’s younger daughter, Delia, the one they called “the pretty one,” joined Lillie Dee on the back porch. “Billy Dean,” she cooed, “what on earth are you-all doing out here? You were in the middle of telling me an amusing story, remember?”

  Then she saw Levi brushing himself off. “My goodness, Levi, are you all right?” She shot Billy Dean a pouty look. “What have you done to Levi?”

  “The old man fell down’s, all,” Billy Dean said gruffly. “I’ll take care of it. Everybody get on back in the house.”

  Lillie Dee did as she was told, and when Rezel hesitated, his mother ordered him inside. He reluctantly obeyed.

  Yet Delia remained behind. “Levi, you tell me to stay and I will. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  The woman’s tone confused Vida. It sounded kind, but the way you would be kind to your pet dog. N
othing to hang your hopes on.

  “No, ma’am, Miss Delia,” Levi insisted. “Nothing going on out here to worry you about. I was just giving my best to Mr. Billy Dean on his election.”

  She looked back at Billy Dean. “You!” she laughed tipsily. “Our next sheriff. How low has our democracy sunk?” Delia shook her head, teasingly. “Hurry on back in, Billy Dean. Your fiancée is getting—oops!” she said, covering her mouth in mock embarrassment, “I mean, your food is getting cold.” She gave out a giggle and went back into the kitchen.

  The screen door shut behind her, and Vida felt their last hope had left with her. She could hear Billy Dean’s breathing, fast and furious. In a voice bled dry of emotion, he said, “This ain’t over,” and then stomped back into the house.

  During the ride home, the car was thick with things not said. Vida could tell from her father’s clenched jaw that he was figuring hard, considering and then discarding one option after another. As for herself, she could only come up with one, and she was doing it, holding tight to her baby until the nightmare passed.

  Levi parked the car next to their house, switched off the motor. He left the lights burning. He sat there motionless, looking off into the distance where the headlights cut a ghostly path across the field.

  Without looking at Vida, he said, “The boy ain’t safe here with us. And we ain’t safe with the boy.”

  Nate was trying to tickle Vida’s neck with her plait. She stilled his hand, struggling with her father’s words. “What you saying, Daddy?”

  “You heard the man. He say it ain’t over. Nate make that man crazy.” Then he said, almost to himself, “Your momma got kin in Alabama.”

  Grasping his meaning, Vida cried, “I ain’t letting go of Nate, Daddy. You can’t make me do that.”

  “We ain’t got no choice, Vida.”

  Then she remembered. “Rezel’s going to the Promised Land! Me and Nate can go with him!”

  “No, daughter. You know better. Rezel can’t take care of you and a baby. Rezel can’t take care of hisself. I promise, you pray on it and you’ll see it my way. God going to show us the righteous path.”

  Chapter Seven

  MOTHER AND CHILD

  Floyd made it to the hospital in Greenwood in less than thirty minutes.

  “Now, everything is going to be OK,” he said, striding confidently beside Hazel as they rolled her down the corridor on a gurney. “All you got to do is lay back and let nature take its course. Do everything the doctor says, do you hear?”

  “Yes,” she said, feeling a spark of irritation at her husband.

  “And remember to push. That’s always a good thing.”

  “Yes, I will,” she said. Yet what she wanted to say was, “How do you know? How many babies have you birthed between cotton picker deals?”

  Mercifully, the nurse told Floyd he had to stop at the delivery room door. Hazel was more than relieved when she heard the sound of his footsteps retreating toward the waiting room.

  With or without Floyd, Hazel could never have been ready for what came next. The pain was unlike anything she had ever imagined. Nothing anybody could possibly live through. And that wasn’t the scariest part. As she lay spread open and vulnerable on that table, pinned down and surrounded by a doctor and nurses who were demanding so much of her, her own body turning on her, with only her elbows to support her, the worst part was that this time there was no escape. No back door. No place to run. It had been put squarely on her shoulders. At eighteen she was expected to see it through all alone.

  The bright lights that caromed off the sterile white walls were indifferent to her pain. The faceless doctor yelled at her, telling her to bear down. She didn’t think she could. Hazel shut her eyes against it and prayed to die.

  “She’s crowning!” the doctor shouted. His tone was now jubilant, conveying to Hazel that she was doing something right. No, that they were doing it right—her and her baby, together. With the doctor’s words, from the center of her pitch-black world of hurt, flashed the most glorious realization. She could read it like lightning across the night sky. This baby was coming to save her, not to harm her.

  Hazel gave in to the pain, no longer afraid, and thrilled by the prospect that somebody was arriving who, no matter what, would always be on her side. She welcomed her son into the world with a cry of joy.

  Back in her room, Hazel held her baby, whispering softly to the newcomer in her arms, “My baby. My baby,” over and over, trying to get her ears used to the words. The nurse patted Hazel’s hand and said right there in front of Floyd, “You did a real good job, honey. Your son is healthy, whole, and one of the best-looking things ever to come out of the Greenwood Leflore Hospital.”

  Hazel smiled at the baby. “He knew what he was doing, all right. I couldn’t a done it without him.”

  “Well, little momma,” the nurse said after a short silence, “I guess I never looked at it that way. What y’all going to name him?”

  Without batting an eye, Floyd announced his decision. “Johnny Earl Graham.”

  “After who?” asked the nurse.

  “After nobody,” he said proudly. “From neither side. Our boy ain’t gonna owe his future to nobody’s past.”

  Hazel smiled, liking the sound of that. Maybe it was true. She hoped it was—that she and Floyd and Johnny Earl had been cut loose and were traveling free, floating high above all the doubts and fears that prowled the past. Maybe there was nothing ahead of them but a blue-sky future.

  Five days later, as Floyd drove, neither he nor Hazel could take their eyes off the baby, which put Floyd all over the road. Peeking at the child in his wife’s arms for about the hundredth time, Floyd asked, “How’s my little monkey doing?”

  “Floyd,” Hazel said, “I hate it when you call him that. He don’t look anything like a monkey.”

  He patted Hazel on the knee. “That’s not what I mean by it. He’s just so cute and all.”

  Narrowing her eyes at the baby, she said, “Floyd, he’s got your black hair. Your dark eyes. He even got them wide moccasin jaws. I swan, I don’t see me anywhere. Looks like you did the whole thing on your own.”

  Floyd laughed, and without bothering to look he said, “He’s got your cute pug nose. Don’t you see?”

  Hazel didn’t, but she figured Floyd was giving her the nose to be nice, which was perfectly fine. Right now she needed him to be real nice. Without a whole hospital of nurses backing her up, she was already struggling to keep on top of her fears. She was returning to Floyd’s world, and she was not going alone. She had a baby to keep alive. Here was this living, squirming, kicking, crying, puking, peeing, wordless ball of needs. Everything depended on her being able to decipher what he wanted quick enough to keep him breathing, so that he would grow up and love her enough to be grateful. Until then, she hoped Johnny Earl gave good directions.

  “I’m so glad you went to get Momma,” she said. “I got a million questions to ask her about babies.”

  Hazel’s mother brought little comfort the whole time she was there, insisting that there was nothing special to raising a child. “It’s only your first, Hazelene,” Baby Ishee said more than once. “I had fourteen. Twelve lived. Some make it and some don’t. It’s mostly up to them, I reckon.”

  After her mother left, Hazel spent one sleepless night after the other, repeatedly getting up out of bed to check on Johnny in his crib. In the beginning she was afraid to touch him. Later, she was afraid to set him down. She studied him frantically for signs of intelligence, of hunger, of thirst, of infestation and blight, trying to read him like she would a field of corn, pleading with him to tell her what it was he wanted of her.

  “What would a good mother be doing now?” she asked him over and over. He stared back silently with those big, dark, Indian eyes, not so much looking at her, she thought, as considering her, like he was sizing her up.

  Floyd watched anxiously from the sidelines, hoping Hazel would find her gait and come around to the job. “Ha
zel,” he called to her one night, gently shaking her arm. “Honey, you’re doing it again. Wake up.”

  Awake now, she continued to cry. “Oh, Floyd! It was awful,” she sobbed. “I was trapped in Daddy’s storm pit and I couldn’t find the door. I knew it was there somewhere and it was so dark and I heard Johnny crying on the other side and I couldn’t get a match lit and he. . .and. . .”

  Floyd pulled her to him and soothed her with his words, letting her cry until she was all cried out. He said all the right things. That they were in it together. He would always be there for her. They had come a long way and had a wonderful life still ahead. He said even he had his doubts sometimes.

  “You, Floyd?” she asked, feeling an immense comfort in his confession.

  “Uh-huh. Everybody does.”

  “Tell ’em to me, Floyd.” She anxiously waited to hear what they were. Maybe she could comfort him for a change.

  Floyd switched on the light and smiled at her sympathetically. At first she thought he was going to say that he loved her. Maybe without the “anyway”—his expression was just that tender.

  “Hazel, honey?” he said.

  “Yes, sweetheart,” she answered, feeling comforted. “I’m listening.” She nuzzled up to his neck.

  “Hazel, honey,” he said again, “I think it’s time you learned about the Science of Controlled Thinking.”

  “Wha—?”

  “Now, hear me out,” Floyd said, taking her hand. “Controlled Thinking is the way to get rid of all the second-guessing you been doing. It’s the reason why I’m selling more equipment than any John Deere salesman in the Delta.”

  “Floyd, what has that got to do—”

  “Now, I’ve been considering it for a while, and I don’t think raising a baby is no different. Sure, you’re having a little problem adjusting to it all,” Floyd said. “Any change is hard. But change is also opportunity. If you let me help, I promise you’ll come around.”