Little Sacrifices

by Scott, Jamie

  The wood spit as the flame fought to catch hold. They’d used green wood. It came to mind that they must make them one at a time. As the occasion dictates. Our very own. Customized. I wondered whether they came in different sizes in keeping with the offense, and whether ours was big or small compared to all the others.

  The gasoline burned off, freeing thick smoke to collect in the still air. A bitter stink drifted through the window, making my eyes tear. Ma held my arm with a shaking hand, watching with me from my bedroom window. She didn’t say anything as the tears ran to her chin. After a little while the flame woke up and stretched. Wooden arms supported the blaze as a strong man might hold up bales of cotton.

  Duncan’s shouts hurried us downstairs. He touched Ma, then me, then Ma, over and over. ‘Okay? You okay? Okay. Get in the kitchen and stay away from the windows. It’s okay. Everything’s okay.’ He was white eyed in the hallway light, his voice hoarse. Okay was one thing we weren’t. Suddenly the glass in our front windows shattered, one after the other. ‘Oh my God, they’re in the house,’ she whispered.

  Duncan moved for the door. ‘They’re not. They’re cowards.’

  ‘Duncan, no! What are you doing? Don’t, not out there. Don’t.’ Ma’s voice popped and cracked in unconscious imitation of the warning outside. Deep lines crisscrossed her forehead. Her body drooped on its frame as she tried to hold him.

  My father wrenched his arm free and strode to the porch. ‘You can’t intimidate us!’ He shouted into the flickering dark. ‘We won’t be bullied!’ No one who mattered heard him. They ran away as soon as the bricks crashed into our living room.

  Ma and I huddled together on the cool linoleum, listening for strangers’ footsteps or more crashing glass. My hair was damp, Ma’s hands clammy on my back. ‘We never should have come here. It was too much. Too much to expect,’ she said as she rocked me.

  Jim had bragged that the Klan wasn’t in Savannah. He neglected to mention that the Association of Georgia Klan was alive and well just over in Atlanta, and more than happy to travel. Ma couldn’t stop crying. ‘Hush Sarah. It’ll be okay.’ Duncan gathered us awkwardly to him on the floor. ‘It’ll be fine.’

  ‘Fine? Duncan, nothing is going to be fine. The Ku Klux Klan stood on our front lawn while we slept. They poured gasoline over a cross and set fire to it. They could have killed us and you know it.’

  ‘Sshh, Sarah. Don’t talk like that. No one is going to kill us–’

  ‘How do you know? How can you possibly know that? Because they do, Duncan. They do kill people, and you damn well know they do.’

  ‘It’s just a warning, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s all?! Isn’t that enough? Duncan, just keep out of the whole thing. I’m very sorry for the Johnsons, but you can’t change anything. He won’t walk just because you go to the police. You can’t undo what’s been done.’ She jerked her shoulder away from his touch. I let him keep on hugging me. He needed someone to reassure.

  ‘It’s not about undoing what’s been done, it’s about making sure it can’t happen again.’

  ‘But it will. This place is evil, Duncan. It’s full of evil people.’

  ‘That’s not true. All Southerners aren’t monsters, Sarah. Most people are reasonable around here.’

  ‘Reasonable. Duncan, for God’s sake, will you open your eyes and see the world the way it really is? There is a cross burning on our front lawn!’ Her foot caught in her nightgown as she tried to stand. Angrily she yanked it clear. ‘Damn it, Duncan, just mind your own business. This isn’t your fight.’

  ‘I think you’re wrong, Ma.’

  ‘What?’ Her eyelids disappeared in her frown.

  ‘It is our fight. Duncan is right. They’re just trying to intimidate us.’

  ‘Well, it’s working.’ Her lip twisted. ‘I’m scared to death.’

  Duncan walked to Ma and put his arms around her. Her body exhaled against him. ‘I know. I’m sorry.’ He tipped her face back to look into his. ‘I promise I’ll do everything I can to protect us all. I promise. Okay? We can’t let them bully us. You know that isn’t going to do anyone any good.’

  She jerked away. ‘Suit yourself, Duncan. You always do.’ She moved toward the living room window. ‘We should call someone to put out the fire. I don’t see any of the neighbors running over here with buckets.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Duncan lifted the receiver. ‘Hello. Can I have the fire department please?’

  Minty’s father had a big mouth. The news that Duncan was a witness to the shooting was all over school within the week. Once again I walked into conversations stopped in mid–sentence and eyes that wouldn’t meet mine. But I was a year older and a lot smarter. I walked straight up to the girls at their lunch table. Most of the popular kids were withing listening distance, like I knew they’d be. Their utter silence told me they were surprised to find me standing in front of them.

  ‘I want to clear something up with you all,’ I said, with my hands clasped in front of me to keep them from shaking ‘A couple weeks ago, two boys drove by a schoolhouse and shot a man inside. He’s in the hospital right now, paralyzed. My father saw who did it and went to the police. He did the right thing.’ I looked from face to face. Only Minty had the guts to meet my gaze. ‘Do you have anything you want to say to me?’ I’d love to claim I delivered my speech off the cuff, but the truth was, I practiced all morning. Silence met my question.

  ‘No one has any opinion about this? I’m surprised, considering that you’ve been talking about nothing else all week.’

  Minty scoffed. ‘May. You aren’t honestly telling us that your father is planning to testify in court?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m telling you. If he needs to.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  Emphatic nods and chorus of agreement backed her up.

  ‘It’s not like a white guy got shot.’

  ‘... no big deal.’

  ‘... didn’t mean it.’

  ‘... shouldn’t have been out there, anyway.’

  I finally found my voice. My real voice, not the one I put on for show. It was an uncommonly good feeling to believe what I was saying. ‘Hold on a minute. A man’s been shot. It doesn’t matter what color he is, or who shot him, or why. It’s wrong, and it’s illegal. You might think that’s all right. Where I come from it’s wrong. And to do nothing about it is just as wrong. Anyone who disagrees with me on the matter can go to hell. Because that’s where you belong.’ I turned around and walked back to Fie and Jim. My hands weren’t shaking in the least bit.

  The next few minutes were some of the longest in my life. Every eye in the room soldered my backbone stiffer. No one said anything, or even moved. Only the lunch ladies were immune to the intensity of the moment, going about their business of knocking pans together in the kitchen. I settled across from Jim, whose face remained impassive. ‘What’dja get for lunch?’ He asked, normal as you please. Fie put a hand on my arm and I smirked. ‘Bologna, I think.’

  ‘I think it’s baloney too.’ He unwrapped his own sandwich and took a bite.

  I felt Fie’s stare. ‘What?’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll just be happy when we all get back to normal.’

  ‘Do you think we will? Get back to normal?’

  Normal. I wasn’t sure anymore what that meant.

  Chapter 40

  Minty’s dad dragged his feet about charging anybody because, he said, until Mister Johnson made up his mind about living or dying, there wasn’t anything to talk about. Eventually the doctors pronounced him unlikely to shuffle off this mortal coil, so Mark Seibert was brought in for questioning. He delivered his friend’s name to Sgt. Avery without too much fuss, which meant they weren’t very worried about the whole process. Sgt. Avery booked the men on assault charges, and a court date was set for the judge to decide whether there was enough evidence for a trial. Arraignments weren’t public, leaving us to pore over the local papers like tea l
eaves, looking for clues about its likely outcome.

  None of the men at the schoolhouse admitted to seeing anything. I asked Duncan if he was disappointed in them for sticking him with the dangerous work. He said no, and told me a story he swore was true. He’d read it the month before when a friend from Pittsburgh sent him a series of articles from the Pittsburgh Post–Gazette. Those inky pages held a landmark newspaper account by Pulitzer Prize–winning newspaperman, Ray Sprigle. Sprigle was white. He went undercover by blackening his skin and traveling through the South, to see for himself the injustice of those days. During his travels he met Missus Gilbert, a broken down black woman who told him about her husband, and this was the story Duncan told me.

  There was a young black man from Troup County, Georgia, who was, by all accounts, a no–good scoundrel. One afternoon he was chased down and stopped by a white farmer for running over a calf in the road. The farmer saw fit to teach the young man a lesson, so he walloped him with a club. Now it was well known in the South that if a black man raised his hand to a white man, he may as well try to kill him, because he was going to get lynched for it anyway. So, in retaliation for the beating, the Negro shot and killed the planter, right in front of a church where he then claimed refuge. The deacon, Mister Gilbert, however, didn’t subscribe to the fugitive’s point of view, and promptly had him arrested.

  Unfortunately the deacon’s law–abiding behavior didn’t hold water with the authorities. A few weeks later, the sheriffs turned up at Gilbert’s home with an arrest warrant for aiding and abetting the escape of the murderer. They drove off with the deacon, not bothering to tell his wife where they were taking him. It took her nearly two weeks to track him down. When she finally found out he was at the jail, she cried with relief. She was wearing her best dress, waiting for a ride into town, when her neighbor broke the bad news. The deacon was dead, killed by one of the officers, in self–defense, he said. Some self defense. Mister Gilbert’s skull was crushed soft like a late summer peach, his leg and arm broken and all the ribs on one side shattered to bits. He had five bullet holes in him. The case was ruled by the state of Georgia as justifiable homicide in self–defense. That was justice for a black man who had the temerity to turn a cold–blooded murderer over to the police. I didn’t blame the men out at the schoolhouse for not speaking up. As it was, I was having serious second thoughts about telling Duncan to do so.

  The days following my Custer’s–last–stand performance in the lunchroom were a far sight more challenging than the fallout from my parents’ war views back in Williamstown. The morning after Mark Seibert was charged, I turned up at school as usual. The hallway was crowded with kids but as I walked past, silence descended from the rafters. It wasn’t merely the absence of chatter that made me wary. Theirs was a hostile quiet. Everyone shuffled away from my locker, and as I approached I saw the reason. Nigger lover was scrawled across the front in what smelled like – was – shit. It knocked the breath out of me. ‘Who did this?’ I muttered to no one in particular. I expected no answer, and wasn’t disappointed. I hadn’t the faintest idea what to do next. The idea that someone so malicious might be standing beside me, admiring my reaction to his handiwork, suddenly made me very afraid. Duncan was wrong. We could be in real danger. The sound of squeaky wheels rumbling along the floor caught my attention. I saw the stooped form of our old janitor pulling his mop bucket behind him. ‘Morning, miss.’ He didn’t say another word as he went to work on my locker, soaking up my shame with his sponge. Tears ran as freely as the stinking water into the bucket as I watched him clean the shit with more dignity than a whole school full of rednecks would muster in a lifetime. I left the tainted locker and walked alone to my homeroom.

  Succor comes from unexpected quarters. Principal Mathers wanted to see me after class. His booming voice answered my knock. ‘Well, May, I understand you had some trouble this morning.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Your locker.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Now, do you want to tell me what happened?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. I came into school and it was like that.’

  ‘Is this about your father?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I think it is.’

  ‘Do you know who was responsible?’

  I had my suspicions but didn’t voice them. Principal Mathers sighed and looked out the window. ‘Times are changing, May. You and your family know that. I see that. And there are lots of young men and women around here who see it too. But they don’t welcome these changes like we do. They resist. And they’ll keep resisting and blaming the people who are trying to make things better. Now. There isn’t very much I can do about what happens outside of school, but in here I’m the boss. You leave everything to me. All right?’

  Within an hour we were assembled in the school gym. Principal Mathers heaved himself into the middle of the basketball court and called for quiet. ‘I’ll make this short and simple,’ he said. ‘I want to know who was responsible for befouling a locker this morning.’ A hundred pairs of eyes impressed their innocence upon him. ‘No one is willing to take responsibility for this ignorant, not to mention unsanitary, vandalism?’ Silence. ‘Well, that’s fine. It’s only natural that you may not want to make your confession public. I can understand that. So you have until the end of the day to come forward and tell me who did it. If I don’t have the name of the person or persons responsible this afternoon, you will all stay for detention. Everyone. Every day. Until I have the name.’

  The gym exploded in protest. No excuses were accepted, not after–school jobs, football practice, play rehearsal, music lessons, babysitting, or our Constitutional rights against unlawful detention without accusation. To listen to my classmates, you’d think there wasn’t a busier bunch of kids on the planet. Principal Mathers deflected each and every excuse back into the face of its maker. ‘Then it’s in your best interest to find out who did it, and let me know. As soon as that happens you will have your afternoons free again.’ Eventually he got tired of repeating himself and left the gym.

  The girthy despot had proved himself a masterful administrator. He never mentioned my name but turned the whole incident into a contravention of school rules. My classmates had no one to blame but themselves, and they knew it. Under the circumstances, I didn’t mind staying after school the least bit. I wondered how long it would take for the guilty party to be exposed.

  A peculiar thing happened during our incarceration. A few of the kids started to let me know they weren’t so against Duncan’s stance as they’d appeared. Mostly they were small gestures, a friendly smile or a hello between classes. Only Jim and Fie were brave enough to back me publicly, but I took heart that at least the rest weren’t running for their white hoods. The girls even managed some small talk in my direction.

  Jimmy Seibert was finally fingered as the malefactor by a kid fed up with spending his afternoons cooped up in study hall. He got suspended for a couple weeks, and I breathed a little easier knowing he wasn’t lurking in the lunchroom corners. Our days running up to the indictment went nearly back to normal. Fie even managed to put her immodest assault on our friend behind her, though she confessed to me that she’d always carry a soft spot for him. For his part, Jim was as even–keeled as ever, for which I was grateful. Given the circumstances, I couldn’t very well afford to have bad blood between my only friends.

  Once the indictment hearing was set, Duncan spent most of his time with the district attorney going over what he saw of Walter Johnson’s shooting. The DA was a young shaver named Harvey Darnell who looked like his mom still made his sandwiches for him. Duncan insisted that he had a fine lawyerly intellect and told us not to mind the fact that he was still a bit wet behind the ears.

  Harvey did his homework and concluded that aggravated assault was the strongest charge he was likely to get past Georgia’s courts. The judge saw fit to indict Mark Seibert on that charge, and a court date was set for more than a month away. His pal wasn’t going to trial at al
l. Earl Carron got off scot–free to live the rest of his life without the State’s judgment. His part as alleged driver was of no account, though in Harvey’s opinion there was ample evidence that proved otherwise. Despite Mark’s admission that Earl was with him that night, no one saw his face at the schoolhouse. The facts against him were ruled circumstantial. The front page photograph captured the moment perfectly. Mark hung his head and Earl smiled straight into the camera.

  Chapter 41

  The trial tested the sensibilities of Savannah’s citizens. It may not have been the court case of the century, but it was a big deal in our small town. Everyone took a side except Ma. She maintained that, of course, it was right to see justice done, but refused to support Duncan’s decision to testify. I didn’t respect her position, but I thought I understood it. Maybe after so many causes, she just had no comfort left to give him.

  Jim wanted to go to court with me, and I was glad for his company. I felt a lot better knowing that at least he’d catch hell too for being there. Ma and Duncan left for Harvey’s office at an unsavory hour, leaving me to eat my breakfast in rare solitude, glad I didn’t have to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes about playing truant from school.

  The air in front of the courthouse was tense with photographers and reporters jostling for position along the steps. We spectators filled the square opposite with more genial anticipation. The adults ambled in their churchgoing clothes, making acquaintance and arguing about the trial’s likely outcome. Breakfast picnics were spread along the edge of the square. A stranger looking in on us might have assumed a celebration was at hand, though so many blacks among whites or whites among blacks would have raised an eyebrow or two. A few kids from school saw fit to brave the Vice Principal’s wrath and come along. Social studies were no match for the draw of a spectacle. We acknowledged each other without smiling, everyone well aware that we stood on opposite sides of the fence. Seeing them made me glad again for Jim’s shadow at my side.