Grease Town

by Ann Towell

  “What was that all about, dashing off like a mad man?” Mercy joked when I reappeared. I felt like a mad man, that’s for sure. I couldn’t get the images of last night out of my head. It hurt so bad I wanted to scream. I sat down on the stairs by the front door. I was hunched over, holding my head in my hands. Beulah came and sat beside me.

  “You all right Titus?” She patted my hand. “Your head hurt?”

  I shook my head no. She pointed at the broken lens of my specs.

  “It’s broke! Can you still see?” she asked.

  I lied again and nodded. It wasn’t an out-and-out lie because I could kind of see through that lens. But it made the world look all shattered and broken. The truth is, I could see everything so much clearer when my eyes were closed. I got up and walked to the door of the hospital. Ogden was sleeping now. He breathed noisily through his mouth because his nose was plugged, but he breathed, and that was the main thing. Mrs. Croucher looked up and smiled.

  “He’ll be fine now,” she said and stroked her baby’s head. “I reckon we should get on home soon,” she added.

  I turned away from her. She didn’t have a home anymore, leastways not here in Oil Springs. There were three other patients lying in the room. Two were sound asleep while the third was propped up on pillows, reading. I supposed he would be well soon.

  “There was such a commotion last night. Do you know what transpired, son?” he asked.

  I only shook my head and went into the kitchen and wrote the words, Someone has to tell Mrs. Croucher she’s got no home.

  Mercy read the paper. “Oh, Titus. She knows. She means her other home.”

  All of a sudden, Mrs. Croucher was standing in the kitchen doorway with her shawl on. “Beulah is with the baby. I’d best go and see to the menfolk.”

  Mercy jumped into action. “Oh no you don’t! Nothing you do is going to help them in any way. You stay put until Amos comes for you.”

  “Why, Miss Mercy, don’t carry on so. I need to get this done. The baby, he’s fine now. I be back directly.”

  “You will do nothing of the sort.” I don’t know where Mrs. Ryan came from, but there she was helping Mercy convince Mrs. Croucher to stay. “You will remain here if I have to sit on you.”

  I almost laughed when she said that, but this was no laughing matter.

  “But I reckon my man needs me and my boy, too.” Mrs. Croucher had tears in her eyes.

  “How can you help them if you get hurt?” Mrs. Ryan asked. “There are angry, mean men out there, and we don’t know what else they might do. Please, Mrs. Croucher, stay here until Amos comes for you.”

  The baby began to cry again. Mrs. Croucher got up quickly and rushed into the parlor.

  “Thank goodness for that,” Mrs. Ryan chimed. “Little Ogden saved the day.”

  Suddenly I was powerful tired and I couldn’t keep my head up. I needed to sleep something fierce. My arms slipped down to the table and my head followed. That’s all I knew, until I woke up to loud banging at the front door.

  CHAPTER

  25

  “Open up Sullivan!” Someone was hollering and pounding away on the solid oak door.

  I looked around me as Mrs. Ryan came into the kitchen, whispering fiercely. “Take the Crouchers up the back stair. Hide them in the attic.”

  Mercy handed Mrs. Croucher a rag soaked with whiskey. I wondered what she was going to do with it. I led the family up the back staircase. The Crouchers and I were real quiet and the baby just happened to be sleeping. He did rouse a bit but Mrs. Croucher put the rag to his mouth and he sucked on it, instead of fretting.

  “Mama –” Beulah began, but her mother clamped a hand over her mouth.

  “Sssh. Hush now, Beulah love,” was all she said.

  We were just climbing into the attic when we heard a rumpus downstairs. Men were yelling at the women as I pushed the Crouchers up the ladder. I climbed up too, and then reached to pull the ladder up. I was just closing the trapdoor when I heard them climbing the stairs.

  They went into the bedrooms, hollering to each other. “They ain’t here.” “They ain’t here, either.”

  One of them spotted the trapdoor. It sounded like John.

  “They must be up there,” he said.

  The whiskey had worked and the baby was asleep again. Beulah was right next to me, shaking and shivering. Or maybe it was me shivering and shaking. You couldn’t tell who was doing what, we were lying that close to each other.

  Mrs. Croucher’s fingers clutched my arm like a vise. It hurt but I didn’t move. The men hollered down to Mrs. Ryan to demand a ladder.

  She must not have answered because they clattered downstairs again. I opened the trapdoor a little so I could hear better. It sounded like more people had entered the house. Mrs. Ryan screamed and then there was lots of banging, like people were throwing each other against the walls.

  There was a fight going on down there. I closed the door again, but the darkness was terrifying, especially for Beulah, who whimpered.

  Mrs. Croucher warned her to hush up, or she would have to pinch her real good. How that was supposed to make the poor child stop crying, was beyond me, but strangely enough it worked. The poor little girl sniffled in the dark, but made no more noise than that.

  Then I heard Lem yelling at Longville, calling him the scum of the earth. Then Uncle Amos chimed in, and I knew it was safe to go down. I didn’t want anyone else to know that we were hiding the Crouchers, so I told them to stay put a while longer.

  When I reached the main floor, Longville and McQuarrie were sitting by the front door with their hands tied. Uncle Amos told Lemuel to fetch the constable.

  Longville snarled when he saw me. “I haven’t forgotten you, kid. You’ll get yours soon enough.”

  The next thing surprised me. Uncle Amos kicked him in the leg, good and hard. I had never seen him so angry. This time Longville couldn’t catch him off guard.

  “Mighty easy to kick a man when he’s trussed up like a hog,” McQuarrie said.

  Longville glared daggers at my uncle. “Don’t suppose you got the guts to fight me fair and square.”

  “Since when has fair been important to you, Longville? Do you suppose it was fair getting the mob riled last night and burning innocent people out of their homes?”

  “They had it coming.” Longville wasn’t a bit sorry for what he done.

  Uncle Amos hauled John to his feet, spun him around, and untied his hands.

  “You want to fight fair and square?” Uncle Amos even scared me, he was that angry.

  John smiled and spat in my uncle’s face. Uncle Amos wiped the spittle away with his shirtsleeve. Then he hauled off and slugged Longville in the face. John went flying against the wall.

  “That was for fleecing my nephew. This is for scaring his little brother.” Another fist flew. John slumped to the floor, next to his buddy.

  Uncle Amos was about to haul John up again, when Constable Puddicombe and Lem came through the door.

  “Hold on there, Amos. ’Pears to me this fella is already beat. Let up, now.”

  Blood trickled from the corner of John’s mouth. He’d be carrying a shiner come tomorrow. Served him right. The constable put an arm around Uncle Amos and moved him away from the men on the floor. Mrs. Ryan’s face was white as a sheet. I don’t suppose I ever saw her eyes that big, neither.

  A few people helped to haul off the “hooligans.” That’s what Aunt Sadie called them when we told her the story.

  Uncle Amos leaned against the wall. I knew his head was paining him. He closed his eyes and breathed heavily. I wanted to tell him how proud I was of him, but you already know that my tongue wasn’t working inside of my head. Some color had crept back into Mrs. Ryan’s face. She took my uncle’s arm and led him into the kitchen.

  “Go and tell the Crouchers it’s safe now,” she told me. “They can come down.”

  I didn’t realize it in all the excitement, but my legs had set to shaking again. I made it u
p the stairs, my knees knocking like a newborn calf ’s and fetched the Crouchers. The whiskey must have really worked because that there baby never woke even during all that noise and fighting downstairs. Beulah’s eyes were like two full moons. I suppose they would grow a mite bigger when she saw she didn’t have a home no more.

  Mrs. Ryan gave a drink of whiskey to Uncle Amos. She offered some to Mrs. Croucher too.

  “No ma’am. No thanks. I don’t drink spirits, seeing all the problems it causes.”

  Mrs. Ryan looked ashamed, and Uncle Amos stared at his cup, then pushed it away. “I can see your point, Mrs. Croucher,” he said respectfully. “It’s the drink that gives men false courage to do wrong.”

  “Yes sir, it does. I reckon last night’s tragedy could have been stopped if there was no drinking involved.”

  “I reckon you may be right,” Mrs. Ryan said. “Though there are some who don’t need spirits to rile a mob and make trouble. No … some people are just born mean.”

  Finally, I got around to asking my uncle what happened to Moses. Of course, I wrote it down on my slate. I supposed the reason I waited so long to ask him was because I was real worried that Moses was dead, and I didn’t want to know the truth. Uncle Amos told me he had set some broken bones and Moses was in very rough shape. Lem would bring them home to us under the cover of darkness.

  They hid in our house for a few days, though I hardly saw them because I spent most of the time up in my room. Moses lay in my bed, recovering. We never said a word to each other. I know that must seem strange to anyone reading this, but Moses slept most of the time because of the medicine my uncle was giving him. Me, I still wasn’t talking.

  I watched Moses sleep while I sat in a corner of my room. All the beds were taken downstairs. It was awful difficult, seeing my friend in that state. Anger began to build in me and suddenly, I was throwing things around the room. Moses awoke and tried to sit up. The fear in his eyes was dreadful. I stopped what I was doing when I saw that fear, but it was too late.

  I went to him, and he backed away from me. I was ashamed of myself then, knowing full well I had made Moses relive that night. I left the room, closing the door quietly behind me. I sent Mrs. Croucher up to look in on him.

  I got some blankets and a pillow from Lem’s room and banished myself to the parlor where I could hear the adults in the kitchen. It was soothing just to know they were there.

  CHAPTER

  26

  No one knew what to do with Moses and me over the next few days. I was told it would be best to stay away from him while he healed. Uncle Amos kept the curtains closed in the house so no one would know we were hiding his family. I tried to help a bit but I was still shaky and not feeling well. When Mercy brought me soup one day, I threw it on the ground in a display of temper. I don’t even know what set me off.

  “Well, I never,” she huffed. “You always were uppity.”

  She cleaned up the mess and told Uncle Amos that was the last time she was bringing me anything to eat. I could come to the kitchen and eat with the rest of them. All the while I was feeling sorry for myself, Uncle Amos, Lem, and the Crouchers were working to see that justice was done. People came and went at our house because of meetings they held in the kitchen.

  They tried to get witnesses willing to testify against the men who had done this. Most of the men arrested had escaped while Constable Puddicombe and his deputies were bringing them to the small jailhouse. Baby Ogden and Moses were getting better. In a few days, they would travel back to Kent County where their real home was. Uncle Amos said Mr. Croucher was heartily sick from all that had transpired here. He was heartsore. He’d figured this was the land of freedom, but he figured wrong. At least by now he knew I’d had nothing to do with taking part in that night and that I had only tried to warn them.

  Lem told me that the papers were saying the Americans who came to Oil Springs for the oil boom were responsible. They were for slavery and just hid up here to escape fighting in the war. I don’t suppose I blame them none for not wanting to fight in a war. I read enough in the Blackwood’s magazine about the war to know it was awful.

  While everyone was busy, I stayed alone in that room reliving the horrible night over and over. At least no one was killed. Many of the black folks had left right away with their horses and wagons. They’d had enough of working for lousy wages in a dangerous village.

  A few days must have gone by when Uncle Amos came to talk to me. I was holding a book in my hand but hadn’t been able to read. It takes powerful concentration to read when your mind is somewhere else … remembering. But, it also takes a good pair of glasses.

  “How you feeling boyo?”

  No words came out of my mouth.

  “Titus, the time is now to begin to talk. We want to have the people responsible for this tried in court.”

  I still said nothing.

  “Do you understand?”

  Nothing.

  “I know you were there, as were many others, but it’s the others who were part of the problem. You were a witness, and we need you, Titus, to identify the ones who started burning the homes of the colored folks.”

  I could see the drips of the snow melting from the roof. The sun would catch them and sparkled through them. I wanted to tell Uncle Amos to look and see how beautiful it was but I also knew he wanted me to answer questions, questions I wasn’t able to answer.

  “Son, I know sometimes people can’t talk after something like this but I need you to talk anyways. You need to remember what you saw that night and tell me.”

  His voice was soft and tempting. I wanted to answer so much, I did truly, but my brain and my tongue weren’t connected.

  I kept staring out of the window. It was like his voice was somewhere else and not in the room. The drops of melted snow were more real to me than my uncle as he pleaded with me. I could not seem to turn to him and give him what he wanted, even though he tried very hard to reach me.

  I heard him sigh. He turned my head toward him with his big hand and looked down into my eyes like he was searching for something he had lost. I guess he couldn’t find anything there because he turned away and left the room. I reached my hand out after him, but I didn’t have the energy to get up or call to him. I was trapped in my own body with my useless brain and my good-for-nothing tongue.

  To tell you the truth, I don’t rightly remember a lot from those days. It must have been the day the Crouchers were leaving back for Kent county. I think I must have held a book in my hands most of the time because when Moses knocked to come in I stared down at the book and wondered how the knocking noise could come from it. When I noticed a movement through the corner of my eye I looked up, and there was Moses.

  “I hate this town and what they did to us.”

  I nodded. What could I say even if I could say something? I picked up my slate and wrote I hate it too. Then I added I hate myself more.

  “Why?” Moses asked. “My daddy said you tried to warn us.”

  I wrote, Because I couldn’t stop them.

  “Listen here, Titus. Your uncle told me you couldn’t talk. I figure you got hurt too, just like me, even though you’re not carrying bruises.”

  His head still had a bandage on it and his one arm was in a sling. Uncle Amos said he had broken ribs too but there wasn’t anything he could do about that.

  “You can help us now,” Moses said, looking at me very intently.

  I wrote the word how followed by a very big question mark.

  “We need you in court.”

  I wrote the words I can’t even talk, how can I help?

  “You’ll be able to talk by then. Your uncle and my pa have a lawyer from Sarnia to take our case. I’m a witness too, but you have to give me the names of the people. If I describe them, can you tell me their names?”

  I nodded.

  Moses went on to describe John and Max and another two men who I knew to be Henry Wren and Samuel Fish. He already knew John and Max. I wrote their na
mes down for Moses. There were others too, but it turns out they never got charged.

  Moses was excited. “That’s who Lemuel thought they were when I described them.”

  Lemuel came in while we were talking and writing. He said that the town was quite now and most people were ashamed of their part in it all. They wished now they had tried to stop it. “Just goes to show what drink can do to a crowd.”

  Moses looked down and pulled at a hangnail. “It’s more than that, Lem,” he said. “They all were itchin’ to do something long afore that.”

  “What are you saying?” he asked Moses.

  I wanted to scream at my big brother. “Open your eyes. See what’s in front of you. Didn’t you hear them complain about the colored folk all the time?”

  But I could only sit there, frustrated that I had lost my voice when I needed it more than ever. All those years of talking about nothing and now something needed to be said, and I couldn’t say it.

  CHAPTER

  27

  The Crouchers left in the dead of night. I heard noises down by the barn. I wiped the moisture off of the window with my sleeve, and looked out to see Lem holding a lantern. The family must have kept to the shadows because I couldn’t see them. The barn door creaked open. Lem had worked out what he was going to say if anyone should ask him where he was going. He was fetching medical supplies.

  I don’t know how they did it, but Mr. Croucher’s horse and wagon were stowed in our barn. With luck no one would look too close at the horse because it was dark brown, instead of black. All the Crouchers were hidden in the back and covered with blankets.

  We had said good-bye earlier, Moses and me. We patted each other’s backs and shook hands.

  “Promise you’ll be a witness?” he asked one more time before he left.

  I nodded, though I didn’t see how I could do it. That’s when Uncle Amos said I should start writing things down that happened that night, and maybe I would get my voice back. He could see that I wasn’t getting enough sleep because he mentioned how tired and worn out I was. He was the one that came running every time when I screamed at night. I couldn’t quite figure out how I could yell in my sleep, but do nothing when I was awake.