The Vain Conversation

by Anthony Grooms

  “What makes you think I can protect him? If the Klan wants to lynch him, how am I to stop them? You don’t think I have any association with the Klan, do you?”

  Milledge came to stand beside Bertrand. She wrung her hands in her apron. “Just that no harm would come to him if he was allowed to stay here at Woodbine. Just if you can go get him. Beah, she got the bail money. He can sleep in the barn. See, you are most rightly respected by everybody, and nobody would come—”

  Jacks stopped her with a glance. “And I’m supposed to protect Jimmy Lee? I don’t have a thing against Jimmy Lee. Hate to lose him. Best thing that could happen to him is that he gets sent over to Reidville and never come back. Bertrand, for Pete’s sake, tell me, what do you reckon ought to happen to a colored man that stabs a white man?”

  Bertrand fingered his hat brim round and round. “Well, if he did it, and I reckon he did, then he ought to be sent to jail. Leastways, he ought to go to the courthouse.”

  “You know, Mr. Venable is my friend and neighbor. How do you think he’s going to feel if I harbor the man that stuck him with a knife?” Jacks clenched his teeth hard, but Bertrand wasn’t sure that he wasn’t fighting to keep from laughing. “Bertrand, do you believe in justice?”

  “Justice?”

  “Justice, Bertrand. You know what justice means?”

  “Yes, sir. But it’s a hard question—do I believe in it? I guess I believe in it—”

  “Guess? Either you do or you don’t.”

  “Well, I do. I went off and fought for it.”

  “Well, I’m glad you did. But tell me Bertrand. Tell me with all of your learning and all of your traveling, what is justice?”

  Bertrand was unsure of whether the question was a trap. He studied Jack’s boyish face with its quick bright eyes. Jacks seemed at that moment to be sincerely interested in knowing what he thought, but how many times had he heard of white men who have set up colored men just this way. “It’s complicated.”

  “Hell, I know it’s complicated, that’s why I asked.”

  “It’s doing right.”

  “But whose right? What I think is right might not be what the judge thinks is right. Isn’t that why we just had that damn war because somebody’s right wasn’t the same as the other somebody’s?”

  “The Bible …” Milledge said.

  “The Bible? More wars have been fought over religion than over land. Fact is, you don’t know what justice is.”

  Bertrand wanted to say that justice was in the law, but he knew that too many laws in Georgia were unfair. They were made by people like Jacks for their own benefit. Perhaps, he thought, he should say that justice lay in God. It was beyond the law, even beyond The Bible. “The Constitution. That’s where you will find justice, Mr. Jacks, at least the kind I’m talking about. ‘We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish—’”

  “You learn that in the army?”

  “No, sir. I learned that over at the Normal School, right here in Talmaedge, many years ago.”

  Jacks sighed. “All right. Meet me here—this afternoon, after my dinner, with your bail money—and we’ll take the car over and get him out.”

  “Thank you, Jesus, Mr. Jacks,” Milledge exclaimed. Bertrand thanked him, too. When they got back into the kitchen, Milledge, in a near faint, leaned against the table. Bertrand helped her to the chair in the corner and watched over her until she declared, shaking her head, that she was okay. He felt dull, as if every sense had been dampened. Part of him said he had won a great victory, and another said he had fallen into a trap, and was only now in the moment between the release of the trigger and the clenching of the jaws.

  FOURTEEN

  Just four years earlier, in the town of Rome in Floyd County, on the western side of the state, the famous tenor Roland Hayes had been beaten. Hayes had been born in the area, educated at Fisk University in Nashville where he had sung with the famous Jubilee Singers. He had traveled all over the country and then to Europe on a tour with his own trio, singing classical songs in French and Italian, but also singing Negro spirituals. Luellen loved the recordings of his spirituals, and since the time she had been in college, she had played them on her old tabletop Victor Victrola. The phonograph was made of honey-varnished oak and had a tone arm and crank made of burnished and black-enameled steel. Luellen considered it a work of art. More than once she had said that the feel of the crank handle, smooth and oval, gave her nearly as much pleasure as the music.

  Before Bertrand stepped onto the porch, having come back from Woodbine, he heard Hayes’ articulate tenor coming from the front room. The lyrics gave him pause, and he stood by the screen door listening before opening:

  I know my robe’s gon’ to fit me well

  I’m goin’ to lay down my heavy load

  I tried it on at the gates of hell

  I’m goin’ to lay down my heavy load

  For some reason the song seemed to encourage Luellen, but for him it seemed morose and ominous. Since he had learned of Hayes’ beating, the song reminded him more sharply of his place, and the place of all Negroes in Georgia. Though Hayes had been born in poverty, the son of a slave woman, he had managed to become one of the wealthiest people in the country. He had become so wealthy that he had returned to Georgia and purchased the plantation, over six hundred acres, on which his mother had been enslaved. He had performed for the wealthy in New York and Chicago, and for royalty in Europe, and yet in Georgia, when his wife wanted to buy pair of shoes, she was insulted, and he was beaten and jailed for protesting her treatment.

  Luellen was in the kitchen. Very much unlike her, she was still in her night clothes. She looked up as he came in, and gave him a smile, her eyes wide and questioning. “How did it go?” she asked.

  He nodded his head, not sure what the answer was. “He said he would help.”

  “But?”

  The question gave him a heavy feeling. “But … I don’t know.”

  Hell is deep and dark despair

  I’m goin’ to lay down my heavy load

  She sighed deeply, turned to the stove, and pulled at the sleeve of her nightgown. “You had breakfast?”

  “No, not hungry.” He sat while she ate, saying little, but listening to another spiritual sung by Hayes called “L’il Boy.” The song was about Christ as a little boy. After listening to a few verses, he went upstairs, and took off his clothes, and lay on the bed, wanting to nap before he had to meet Jacks again. But he could not fall asleep. His mind went back and forth, replaying his conversation with Jacks and thinking about Hayes, who after his beating was accused by the Governor of having first attacked the white men who beat him. As drowsiness came, among the twitter of bird calls from the woods, he thought about Ester pleading for the lives of her people before the king of the Persians. When she thought she might be killed for making her plea, she replied, “If I perish, I perish.” For some reason, he couldn’t think of, that comforted him.

  When he woke, Luellen stood over him. She was dressed in the flower-print dress she often saved for church. She told him it was almost time, and he was suddenly alarmed, worried he had overslept and kept Jacks waiting.

  “No, husband, relax. I’ve taken care of everything.”

  She had already driven to Maribelle’s Diner where she had picked up Beah, who was waiting downstairs. Quietly, they ate a lunch of ham sandwiches and buttermilk. Beah seemed cold to Bertrand while they ate, but as they got in the car to make the short journey to Woodbine, Beah touched him on the arm and he nodded back to her. It was both a nod of apology and one of forgiveness. Luellen drove. As they pulled off the main road onto the tree-lined drive that lead up to the manor house, Bertrand suddenly felt his stomach clench into a painful knot.

  “Luellen. Beah,” he said, trying to even out his breath. “Y’all don’t come. Just let me go. Just let me do it.”

  “It’s too late now, husband. Besides, we are here now.”

  “Y’all can wait with Momma, o
r you can take the path on back to the house. I’ll go with Jacks.”

  “No,” Luellen said calmly. “We all go together. It’s better that women go along. Isn’t that right, Beah?” Beah didn’t answer. “With women along, there’s less chance of anything happening.”

  They drove to the back of the house and parked. Jacks was waiting for them in the yard. He waved Bertrand over to his car. “Come Bertrand,” he called, “you can ride with me.”

  “Don’t you go with him,” Luellen said. Bertrand opened the car door and swung his legs out. “Don’t you go with him.” This time Luellen hissed. Her jaws clenched.

  “Mr. Jacks,” Bertrand called. “How are you? I reckon we can just follow you down there. That way it’ll be the least trouble to you.”

  “Don’t waste my time, now,” Jacks said. “Those girls can take your car home, and you come ride with me. So we can talk.” Bertrand stood and shut the car door.

  “We’ll follow you,” Luellen said.

  By now, Jacks had walked over to them. He seemed impatient. “Y’all go on back home,” he said to Luellen. Bertrand and I will take care of this.”

  “But this here,” Bertrand said pointing to Beah in the back seat, “is my cousin Beah. She’s the one who will pay the bail.”

  “She can give you the money.”

  “I wants to go,” Beah said. She was looking at Bertrand, but he felt she was talking to Jacks.

  Jacks kicked at the grass a bit. “Okay, then. Come on. What for I don’t know. It’s just another worrisome thing to deal with.” When Beah didn’t get out of the car, Jacks turned to her and said, “You are wasting my time.”

  “But,” Bertrand said, “they will just follow behind us.”

  “The hell they will. I’m already stretching my neck out for you. I’m not about to go into town being followed by a bunch of women. Now you either want me to get Jimmy Lee out, or you don’t. I just as soon see him rot in there. So either get in this damn car, or not.”

  “Come on then, Beah,” Bertrand said softly. Beah got out of the car, and Luellen followed her.

  “And where do you think you are going?” Jacks asked Luellen.

  “I intend to accompany—”

  Jacks threw up his hands. Then he chuckled. “All right. If this isn’t some circus!” The women sat in the back seat, and Bertrand in front, next to Jacks. As he drove, Jacks questioned Beah about Maribelle’s Diner. He wanted to know why she wasn’t working at lunch time, and she said she had gone in early to prepare the food. He wanted to know if her recipes were her own, or Maribelle’s. Beah said that some were hers and some were Maribelle’s. Who owns the chicken recipe? he wanted to know. I guess that one belongs to me, Beah said. Bertrand saw her smile slightly. Well, Jacks, concluded, you should write it down.

  The bail fine was only twenty dollars, which surprised Bertrand. Luellen peeled a twenty dollar bill off of her roll of nearly two hundred and handed it to Beah. On the way home, Jimmy Lee sat in the back, behind the driver, with Beah in the middle, next to him.

  Bertrand’s stomach bothered him less now. He watched the swells of fields and forests pass by, framed on the horizon by hazy ridges. A cooling breeze rushed through the car, and outside, the landscape was serene, so quite it seemed nothing moved. The leaves and needles of grand shumard oaks and loblolly pines, a hundred feet tall, did not stir. The hayfields, ripening in the sun, and the shrubby margin between forest and field, where so much of the drama of life and death plays out, were still as a Dutch master’s painting. Suddenly, with all the worry he had had in the morning, he felt proud of Talmaedge County. I live in a beautiful place, he thought. Even after they turned off the main road and drove past the vast fields of Thousand Acres, the Venable plantation, he was calm. They entered the hilly woods that lead down to the bridge. From the crest he saw the glinting snake of the river, with its iron colored boulders and white stripes of riffles.

  From the back seat, Luellen spoke into his ear, her urgent whisper bringing him from his daydream, and he saw several cars parked along the road flanking the bridge and a crowd of people standing.

  “Mr. Jacks,” he said. “What you reckon going on?”

  Jacks said nothing, but began to slow the car.

  Bertrand looked at him, now in profile, his eyes shaded by the brim of his fedora, his mouth set firm. “Don’t slow down, Mr. Jacks. Just keep driving through.”

  “Let me handle this,” Jacks said.

  “Look,” Luellen said into Bertrand’s ear. “There’s Cook’s car. How did Cook beat us here?”

  “Mr. Jacks, why is Sheriff Cook here? What’s going on?” His stomach knotted, then relaxed. He knew what was going on. He looked at Jacks but could not read in his face whether he was a part of it or not. “You said you would help us, Mr. Jacks. That was your word.”

  “I did.” Jacks’ voice had an icy crack in it.

  “And now you won’t?”

  “Let me handle it.” He stopped the car halfway down the hill, a distance from where the crowd gathered. “Y’all sit still. Be calm, now. I’ll see what this is about.”

  “Back up,” Bertrand said. His vision had blackened around the edges. He was aware that Luellen was speaking, but he focused on the men in the crowd, then on Jacks, and back to the crowd. “Back up fast.” He wanted to grab the gear handle, but Jacks hands clutched it already.

  “Don’t worry,” Jacks said. “I will handle this.”

  “That’s just empty sweet talk,” Luellen said.

  The crowd was coming toward them, about fifteen men. Two of them were Cook’s deputies, but the others, though familiar, he did not recognize. They were beginning to leave the bridge bed and climb the hill toward the car. One of the deputies was signaling to Jacks to bring the car forward.

  “Maybe they just want me,” Jimmy Lee said. Beah sighed sharply and Jacks said again to let him handle it.

  “There are women in the car,” Bertrand said. “A pregnant woman.”

  “He don’t care,” Luellen said. “He’s with them.” Contempt was in her tone, and Bertrand felt it was meant for him as much as for Jacks. “They didn’t stop for women and babies in Rosewood. They swarmed like rats. A little nigger meat on the ground and they swarmed all over it. They won’t stop with just one of us. When they’re finished with one, they’ll go on to the next one.” Her hands fanned in front of her, “and the next one, tearing everything to bits—”

  “Stop!” Bertrand said, he turned and put his hand on Luellen’s shoulder.

  “Yes, shut up and let me think,” Jacks said.

  “About what?” Luellen said.

  “They just want me. Just let them take me.” Jimmy Lee started to open the car door, but Jacks ordered him to stop.

  “Shut up. Sit still, and let me handle it.” He let the car roll forward, slowly to meet the men in the crowd.

  “Mr. Jacks,” Luellen said, “why do you want to do this to us? What have we done to you that you’ve got to do this to us?”

  “Luellen, he’s trying to help us,” Bertand said.

  “What you think I’m trying to do, Luellen?”

  “You know, Jacks.” She emphasized his name. “Mr. Jacks, you’re going to need a strong mind, because this won’t be easy on you. You’ve known Bertrand and Milledge for all your life. I’m Bertrand’s wife, Beah is Deacon’s daughter, and Jimmy Lee has worked for you for a good many years. It doesn’t matter that we are Negroes. You are going to need a strong mind—”

  “Luellen!” Bertrand tried to cut her off.

  She raised her voice. “If he’s going to kill me, he’s going to know he’s killed a person!”

  “Ain’t nobody going to kill you!” Jacks shouted.

  “Bertrand,” Luellen said quietly, as the car approached the crowd. “The minute this car stops, you run. If you want to live. You run. All of you. Run. Run every which-a-way. Run and hide.”

  Run. Run. Run. Bertrand thought. Luellen had been running since Rosewood. But what goo
d was running? Wouldn’t they catch her eventually? Hadn’t they caught her now?

  “Bertrand, if you don’t run, you won’t have a chance.”

  Bertrand nodded. He could feel the car slowing.

  “Cook and Venable,” Luellen said, pointing to them. “Bertrand, you see this now?”

  Yes, Bertrand thought. It was obvious, but what was he to do about it? He turned to Jacks, who was smiling for Cook and Venable. The car stopped and Jacks turned off the engine and pulled up the brakes. “Y’all just stay put. I’ll handle this.” He turned and stared at Luellen. His eyes were clear and he smiled a little, a little break around his mouth. “These are friends of mine. They do what I tell them to do. Now, you stay put.”

  “Mr. Jacks,” Luellen said. “I see your soul. I know your soul. You are not a’tall as hard as you think you are. You will feel something. You will feel something for the rest of your life, and it will hurt you.”

  “Shut up!” Jacks said and got out of the car. He leaned back before slamming the door. “Bertrand, keep her put.”

  No sooner had Jacks slammed his door than Bertrand heard the pop of the lock on Luellen’s. He turned in the seat and saw that already she had one foot out the door. Their eyes met, and he saw in hers the distant wildness of the Rosewood trance. He started to speak to her, and suddenly a swelling came in his throat. All was lost now. All the dreams of whatever God had created for them, lost. He wondered in that moment why it was that he had been born and survived the war, only to meet this fate, here, in his home country. Maybe he had never had a life, but was only a figurine played out on a master game board. Luellen would run. He grabbed her wrist, holding it tightly and trying to pull her back into the car. What had called them together? What had made them pull one into the other with gentle kisses on the lips and fiery passion? And, yet, they would have no children to follow them. What had given him a mother who had nurtured him, and now, would tear him away in her old age? Was this the will of God or was this the devil’s world? Luellen pulled against his grip. “Bertrand, you can see this now.” He loosened his grip, and she snatched her hand free, swung open the door. Run! She pushed the door wide and slipped out of the Buick, got low against the fender, and ran along the side of the car and crossed the ditch. A car was pulling up behind them, but Luellen was already running up the hill. She moved slowly, scrambling on the embankment. Jimmy Lee had started to sneak out of his side of the car, and Beah, following him, tripped over the floor hump. Bertrand ached all over. His hand clenched the door handle, but he did not pull it. He saw that Luellen was on level ground and she was running hard. Oh God, let her get away. Let her run! But where to? It was useless. He heard yelling, and knew that the alarm had been sounded. Cook, pointing to Jimmy Lee, was rushing past Jacks. Bertrand looked up the embankment. He couldn’t see Luellen, only a slant of light through the trees.