Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League

by Jonathan Odell

  Hayes looked up at the picture on the mantel of Pearl, the Senator, and Levi as children. He was repulsed. “You talking blood?”

  “Blood?” Pearl scoffed. “Blood, indeed! Hayes, blood is the least of it.”

  “What do you mean? Blood is everything.”

  “Blood is mostly incidental,” she said, dismissing Hayes with a flourish of her handkerchief. “History is everything. Through the years his people have schemed to kill us in our sleep. Our people have sold, hung, and bred his people. Levi’s great-grandmother burned down the house on the Virginia plantation. We hung his grandfather for trying to start a slave uprising. Levi’s father died saving the Senator from drowning in the river when he was only a three-year-old child. Hayes, we have hated and loved and killed and saved each other for three centuries.”

  “Blood!” Pearl went on with a laugh. “For all that time we’ve taken care of each other. Looked to each other. Not to the government, not to the community, not to the church. You can’t divide us any more than you can divide air. The Senator may not be talking to Levi, but they will never be able to separate themselves. They—we—all breathe through one another’s history. Levi as good as raised Delia and Hertha. He was a second brother to me. The Senator was in love with Levi’s wife before Levi was. That’s the way it is. And it will never change. It’s not about the weak loyalty of blood. It’s fiercer and more stubborn than that. We are grafted to each other through our histories. We are fated to one another, for good or for evil. We may kill each other, we may save each other, but it is up to us to do it.”

  Pearl gave Hayes a stern look. “Nobody—and I mean nobody—better try doing it for us. Can you understand that, Hayes?”

  Hayes looked at her like a pouting child.

  “I thought not,” Pearl said with a sigh.

  She rose up from the sofa and walked over to him. Putting her hand gently on his shoulder, she said, “Hayes, I’ve been giving your future a lot of thought. If I’m going to finance your campaign, I would prefer that you focus on something pleasant and uplifting. Perhaps a statewide beautification program. Or tourism. That would be wonderful, wouldn’t it? Get out the true story about Mississippi. The Hospitality State.”

  “Yes. Wonderful.”

  “Oh, Hayes, don’t be so morose! I’m sure I’m right. I’ve always been good with my hunches. Like when I told my brother to name you president of the bank. That’s worked out well, hasn’t it?”

  “Yes, Pearl. I’m sure I will never be able to thank you enough.”

  The handkerchief flew into the air. “Hayes! I’ve had another inspiration. I think you should get down on your knees and beg that Hazel Graham to campaign for you. Why, I can probably get the Trois Arts League to nominate her as the Hopalachie County Woman of the Year.”

  Pearl touched the handkerchief to her heart and breathed deeply. “She’s a saint, Hayes,” she said, her words deeply felt. “A genuine saint has been living in our midst all this time. I knew there was something special about that woman.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  THE RESURRECTION

  The sheriff pulled out from the old bootlegger’s lair set deep in a hollow. His police radio was all static, exploding like fireworks in his head. Not helping matters, the sun was out again, sending the temperature up into the eighties even though it was November.

  Billy Dean rolled up his window and turned the air conditioner on high. He’d had it put in just last week, special. Cold was the only thing that seemed to make his migraines ease off some, that and keeping the radio quiet. The only dispatches he ever got were the constant updates on the four-month-old countywide search for Delia’s body, which was now the longest in Mississippi history. He could guaran-damn-tee there wouldn’t be any news breaking on that front. Not by a long sight.

  Why should he care? Today was the first day of his retirement from the honorable profession of law enforcement. He reached down and clicked off the radio.

  He stopped the car before he hit the blacktop and dug into his jacket for the wad of cash. After counting it a second time, he crammed it in the car pocket with the rest of the day’s receipts. He stomped on the gas, tires squealing onto the pavement. In spite of his headache, Billy Dean felt pleased with himself. Nice day for collections so far. It was to be his final one. As promised, Delia had sent word. Tomorrow, December 1, he was to drive up to Memphis and meet her at the Peabody. This nightmare was coming to an end.

  And not a minute too soon. While he was cleaning out his desk drawer at the house that morning, he discovered it unlocked. He could have sworn there’d been a letter from Delia in there, one he hadn’t got around to burning. Hertha was bound to be the one to have found it. Or Missouri. Either way, that meant his wife was onto him—he had no idea for how long, but knowing her, she was probably setting some kind of trap. Probably had already told the Senator. Anyway, after one last collection he was on his way out of the state for good. He’d worry about a divorce later.

  The sky was beginning to cloud up again. It had been doing this all day. Big black clouds, fat with rain, would roll in on a cold wind, darkening everything around. Then they would move out again without shedding a drop, temperatures shooting immediately to almost summertime levels. Maybe he and Delia could live someplace where it stayed cold all the time. Snowed even. That would suit him fine. By now Billy Dean had pretty much talked himself into looking forward to a new life with Delia. After all, she was a good-looking woman. Probably meant the child would be good-looking, too. That would be a nice change. Wouldn’t feel as if he were part of a circus act every time he took the family out in public. And them treating him like he was the freak.

  His old uncle once told him that Brister blood always won out when it came to looks. He had been wrong. The Bristers had lost a couple of rounds bad, in Hertha’s case. Besides being unsightly, his daughters were turning out as cold and calculating as the rest of their women kin. There was something mighty scary that came in on that side of the family.

  Twenty minutes later, the sun shining in his face, Billy Dean crested Redeemer’s Hill. He cut on his siren and floored it, careening down into the Delta for old times’ sake. He remembered being a kid and taking the hill with his uncle Furman. Back when all he wanted was a Stetson and a pair of hand-tooled cowboy boots.

  There was no turning back now. Soon certain things were about to show up missing. Such as the county tax receipts he had embezzled and the contents of Hertha’s safe deposit box, the one that held a small fortune in heirloom jewelry. Then there were her family bonds he had cashed in. If by some miracle he could stay out of prison, he still wouldn’t be able to keep his job, the only thing he loved besides Delia. Not with the coloreds trying to vote and Levi sitting up in jail, still alive and uncharged. There was already strong talk of impeachment. What a joke! Billy Dean Brister would be thrown out of office for being soft on the colored. His daddy would roll in his grave. No, he had burnt all his bridges. It was now Delia or nothing.

  About a mile before Hannah’s the rain began to fall, pelting the windshield with small, hard drops. He had to make one more collection before the day was done, and he figured that would push his private pension fund up to about fifty-five thousand.

  Billy Dean cut off his siren and swung onto the dirt path that led up to Hannah’s. His plan had held together so far. Barely. Hazel Graham had been one close call. Jesus, those idiots! Taking that fool woman for some kind of Yankee civil rights ringleader. And then shooting her while she was delivering food to the goddamned poor, for Christ’s sake.

  “God almighty!” he had told them boys, “Helen Keller lives just over the state line in Alabama. Y’all can probably go knock her off and be back by suppertime.” Right there was another high-profile crime that would have to go unsolved by Billy Dean Brister. Just add it to the bill of impeachment.

  The sheriff got out of the cruiser, leaving the door wide open, and eased up the plank steps without a creak. He didn’t surprise anybody. Willie a
nd Hannah had been waiting for him ever since Willie returned from Delphi with the news. For the first time ever, they were delighted to see the sheriff. His showing up at Hannah’s instead of heading straight out to the Columns meant he hadn’t heard the news. Finally they had something on Billy Dean Brister.

  When Billy Dean stalked through the door, he found the two standing behind the bar, side by side, exactly as they’d rehearsed it. The sheriff asked for his whiskey as he always did.

  Hannah reached under the bar and pulled out the fifth of Evan Williams she kept for the sheriff and set it down before him. He drank right out of the bottle, refusing as always to use one of her glasses. As the rain pecked at the tin roof, neither Willie nor Hannah spoke. They were biding their time.

  “You know why I’m here, Hannah,” the sheriff said. “Let’s have it.”

  “Sheriff, this is your third run this week. I ain’t got no more to give. Can’t get blood outa no turnip.”

  “Then don’t bother taking out my cut. Hand me the whole damned tin.”

  “That’s a good idea,” she said. “I’ll show you what nothing looks like.”

  As Hannah reached behind her, she nodded at Willie.

  “Sheriff, if you stop by this way when you get back from the Columns, I ’spect we’ll have a little something for you then.” Willie smiled his smoothest smile.

  The sheriff narrowed his eyes at him. “What makes you think I’m going out that way? I never said.”

  “Nosuh! I reckon you didn’t. I figured with all the commotion and all, you be heading out that way first thing.”

  “Commotion,” the sheriff repeated almost to himself. He studied Willie closely.

  Setting the cash box down on the counter, Hannah jumped in. “Don’t mind him none, Sheriff. He ain’t meaning to be telling you your business. Why, you was probably the first one to know about it, a big thing like that.”

  Billy Dean’s eyes kept shifting between the two, desperately trying to snag the piece he was missing.

  “Nosuh!” Hannah exclaimed. “I bet you knew before she hit the state line.” Hannah smiled brightly at him. “Something as big as Miss Delia coming home alive.”

  “What’d you say?” he sputtered, gaping at Hannah.

  But it was Willie’s turn to go. “I sorry for misspeaking like that, Sheriff, suh. Hannah’s sure right. Nobody knows the goins-on in this county as good as you. Nosuh!”

  Hannah went next. “So when we heard what she brung back with her, well, we figured you’d surely head on out there first thing.”

  Hannah flipped the cash box in her hand and shook it. “That’s why we ain’t got nothing here for you yet. Thought we had a little time to scrape something together.”

  “What she brought back with her?” Billy Dean was sick at his stomach. She couldn’t have had the baby already, could she? No, not for a couple of months. At least that’s what she said.

  “Yessuh,” Willie said with a laugh. “What she brung this time sure beat them Yankee husbands to hell and back.” Willie looked up at the sheriff with an innocent grin. “I hope you don’t mind me saying so, Sheriff.”

  “Why should I—I mean—no.” The sheriff was so tangled in what he was supposed to know and what he wasn’t, his tongue knotted on him. Damn, how could Delia ever keep it all straight? At last he could only shout, “Mind your own goddamned business” and, almost as an afterthought, “you nigger!” Then he fled through the door.

  As the sheriff tore away in his car, Hannah and Willie turned to each other and said simultaneously, “Nigger?” So that was the best shot the big bad Billy Dean Brister had left! Then they fell out laughing.

  Billy Dean figured there was only one thing to do. He had to go straight out there and get into the middle of it. Shoot his way out if he had to.

  When he pulled into the circular drive, everything seemed peaceful enough, the only disturbing detail being the little foreign car with the New Jersey tag. However, as he climbed the steps up to the gallery, he could hear shouting loud enough to pierce the cypress door. It was the Senator’s voice. “I’m going to kill that sumbitch! Gimme my gun. Where the hell is my gun!”

  The sheriff unsnapped his holster, eased the door open, and stuck his head inside. The first thing he saw was the Senator, jabbing wildly toward the top of the stairs with his favorite hickory cane, the one with the Confederate flag burned into the handle. From somewhere in the house he heard Delia crying, “Leave him alone, Daddy. I love him. If you kill him, you’re going to have to kill me, too.”

  With his head still poked through the doorframe, Billy Dean wondered if this was the right time to be there after all. Maybe after things cooled down a bit. As he pulled the door to, the hinge creaked and the Senator whipped around and saw him.

  “There you are!” The Senator came at him still waving the cane. Billy Dean drew his gun and aimed it.

  “It’s about time you done something right,” the Senator said.

  “Wha—?”

  “Billy Dean, take that gun and shoot the both of them. I’ll take full responsibility.”

  Shoot Delia and my baby? Billy Dean thought, trying to reason this out fast. That don’t make any sense. And why in the hell is he acting so glad to see me, now that he knows about Delia and me?

  “Billy Dean!” came a cry from upstairs. “Is that Billy Dean Brister?”

  Delia came down the stairs carefully, one hand on the railing and the other holding her very prominent belly. “Oh, Billy Dean! You’ve got to help us. Daddy’s gone berserk.” Once down the stairs, she scurried over to his side.

  “Help. . .us?” Billy Dean asked, confused. He motioned with his gun to Delia’s belly and asked haltingly, “You mean. . .us?”

  She quickly turned her face away from her father. “No, Billy Dean,” she said in a low, scolding whisper, “not that us.” Then her face went all soft and innocent, and she cried out, “Oh, Billy Dean, I’m so sorry for not writing, but it happened so fast.”

  “Why should you be writing him?” the Senator asked, scowling. “What’s going on here?”

  Delia gave Billy Dean a quick little wink. Yep, he thought, she’s enjoying the shit out of this. Whatever it is.

  “No, Daddy, all I meant was, I should have at least sent the sheriff proof that I was still alive so he wouldn’t go to all the trouble of searching.”

  The Senator laughed bitterly. “That would have been most considerate of the sheriff’s feelings.” He stamped his cane on the floor. “What about the feelings of your goddamned father?”

  Delia gave her golden hair a sulky toss. “Well, you can probably deduce from this recent display of insanity why I might have had my hesitations.”

  God, she’s smooth, thought Billy Dean. She had everything so off-kilter, he didn’t even know where he fit into her little play.

  The Senator aimed his cane at Delia. “Arrest her, Sheriff. Right now. Don’t listen to any of her fancy talk. I want her taken to jail and then hung. That’s what I want. Give her Levi’s cell. Looks like he won’t be needing it now that my daughter’s been resurrected.”

  The sheriff grinned at the Senator, feeling a little relief that it was Delia he was furious with and not him. Whatever game she was playing, Billy Dean seemed to be totally in the clear. He watched her with growing admiration. She was a better schemer than he had ever dreamed. More beautiful than he remembered. He wanted her now more than ever.

  “What’s the charge?” the sheriff said, playing along with the Senator.

  “Miscegenation!”

  The sheriff hesitated, trying to recollect the word. “Ain’t that. . .?”

  “Yep, Delia got herself engaged to a nigger!”

  “Daddy!” Delia whispered angrily, cutting her eyes upstairs. “I told you not to call him that.”

  The Senator jabbed his cane toward the stairs again. “Drove him right through Delphi in broad daylight in a foreign convertible. And a Yankee nigger at that. Delia, you’ve really gone and done it thi
s time.”

  Delia poked her bottom lip out. “Jeffery’s never going to come down now, Daddy.”

  “Jeffery?” Billy Dean said weakly. “Delia, you’ve gone and got engaged to a. . .and the baby, but I—”

  Once more Delia shot Billy Dean a severe look of warning, and then, seeing that it had been received, immediately brightened, singing out sweetly, “Yes, the baby!” She laid her hand on her stomach. “You noticed! It must be impossible to miss now. How precious of you to concern yourself.”

  “Concern myself?” he stammered. “But. . .”

  “Now, don’t you worry, neither of you. Jeffery will be a wonderful father. Daddy, did I tell you he owns twelve filling stations in New Jersey alone?” Delia raised her voice to the top of the stairs. “Don’t you, honey?”

  There was only silence from upstairs. “See there, Daddy? Are you happy now? Jeffery’s too scared to even speak.”

  “He oughta be. I’m gonna to shoot his black ass the minute he hauls it down those stairs. Better yet, you go shoot him, Billy Dean. You already got your gun out. Go do it for me, son, as a personal favor.”

  Billy Dean didn’t move. Things were happening too fast. He desperately needed time to regroup.

  “You still going to have to resign being sheriff for bankrupting the county searching for a girl that ain’t even dead. And for the voting mess. But if you do this little thing for me, I promise I’ll find something for you. Go on and shoot ’im.”

  All Billy Dean knew was that he had better find a place to sit down, fast. His head was about to bust and his stomach was going queasy. Collapsing on the settee against the entryway wall, Billy Dean took off his Stetson and dropped it on the floor. He sat hunched with his head in his hands, the room spinning and the gun pointing at the ceiling.

  “I’m hearing some pretty brave talk down there,” came a booming Yankee voice from up above. “Who’s got the guts to back it up?”