Sweet Song

by Terry Persun

  Standing as quietly and as alert as possible next to the window in his rented room, Bob alternately shivered and sweated, cried in defeat and bucked-up with a firm demeanor and clenched teeth. His knees wobbled and his mind became too self-absorbed, too preoccupied. If he had held back his own truth, this is what his life with Jenny would be like until the truth came out. And his secret would come out, somewhere, sometime, even if it happened one, two, three children down the road. He could see himself standing at another window, of some future house, while Jenny screamed from another room, giving birth to a Negro child.

  When Hugh came down the street, Bob almost collapsed in relief. He thanked the sweet, sweet Lord that Jenny or her brothers hadn’t appeared first. He had already accepted the fact that he would not touch the pistol in his sack, that he would step out and let them take him, shoot him, or whatever they chose to do. But it was Hugh who rushed down the street toward him. It was Hugh who showed up first.

  Either Jenny had kept silent or her brothers had assumed that he would be long gone. And perhaps he should have been. As Hugh approached, Bob grabbed his things and left the room and the house. The cool outside air stung his fevered brow and neck. The pain lasted a moment, then faded into his skin like snow on a hot rock. “Follow me,” Bob said.

  Hugh caught up to his side and kept pace. “What the hell’s wrong?”

  “I’m in trouble,” Bob said.

  Hugh turned one corner after the next with Bob in the lead.

  “Where are you dragging me?” Hugh asked.

  “A little farther.” Bob led the way past the shacks and into the hills above Williamsport. They puffed and gasped for breath as they climbed. Bob gleaned the area for a familiar place to hide. In a low thicket of pine scrub, Bob bent down and climbed along the ground until he felt they were hidden. They sat together for a few minutes to catch their breath.

  After a long sigh – Hugh was in better shape than Bob – Hugh asked again why they were hiding.

  “I told Jenny,” Bob said between breaths. “I don’t know what might happen.”

  “Whoa there for a minute. What righteous moment did you have that thought blurting out the truth would go smoothly? Jesus Christ, I told you to stay away from her in the first place. You know if you’d just get your pluggings from a Negro, it wouldn’t matter what happened. But shit almighty you go and fall flat for some well-placed white woman.” Hugh rampaged on, shaking his head and spitting out words like a preacher talking about damnation.

  When Bob was able, he said, “I know.”

  Hugh’s shoulders dropped. “What happened? Why’d you tell her? I should be asking why you didn’t listen to me, but it’s too late for that.”

  “The farm I worked for when I was a child. It’s on the other side of Pine Creek.”

  “Holy shit. They came to town? Why would you stay so close? I’m sure you don’t miss home. Christ.”

  “Hugh, please.”

  “All right. All right. No wonder you kept this secret. But it would of blown eventually anyway.”

  “I’m sorry. I thought I could get lost here. Never be found out.”

  “Did they tell the authorities?”

  Bob looked at Hugh. “It’s too complicated, too long a story, but my half-brother never even recognized me.”

  “Then what’s the problem? Did someone else recognize you?”

  Bob sat still and quiet. He searched for words, but found only the most mundane. “My white father.”

  “Holy shit.” Hugh shook his head back and forth.

  “But he couldn’t talk.”

  “I don’t think I’m following this. Is there a problem or not? If not, why would you tell Miss Jenny?”

  “Haven’t you ever done something without thinking?”

  Hugh said, “Yes, but nothing I could get lynched for.”

  “I was upset and confused. Seeing my white pa. I shot him. I didn’t know it until now. I don’t know how he lived through it, but now he’s stupid. He can’t even talk.” Bob shivered. He took a breath. Hugh remained courteously silent until Bob regrouped. “He had been with the posse who were chasing me. He shot and killed my black pa. Then he told the posse to stop chasing me. He let me go. When I found the gun, I twisted around and fired several shots, then ran off. I never knew what happened. I just found out that my half-brothers carried their anger back with them and murdered my whole family, every one who was left.” Bob fell back onto the ground. He stared into the brush. “I was confused. I got sick and vomited when I heard what had happened. I ran away. I don’t know why I felt like I had to tell Jenny that I was black, but I did. She doesn’t even know the rest of the story.”

  “Why were they chasing you?”

  In Hugh’s eyes, Bob saw a huge gap in understanding.

  “Terrible things went on,” Bob said, not wishing to go back to that place. “My mind was muddled and all I could think was to get rid of all the lies. I just needed to tell the truth.” Bob closed his eyes for a moment. “I never told her the whole truth though. And now I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to.”

  “You should have told me,” Hugh said.

  “I know. I should have never come here, either. No one should have found out. I should have kept it inside.”

  “That’s a hard life to live,” Hugh said.

  “You live it, don’t you?”

  “My past is locked away. I never go there. Never.”

  “Then I won’t make you go there. Just tell me, am I right?”

  “You’re right.” Hugh reached back and patted Bob on the shoulder, closing the deal on their pact never to go there.

  “What if she never tells anyone?” Hugh said after a few minutes.

  “I can’t stay here.”

  “No. Perhaps not. A lot of people know you. You’ve helped out more than you might know.”

  “It won’t matter. So many have had me in their homes, trusted me with their businesses, their children and wives. Once they know I’ve lied to them, there’s no telling what they might do. And there is that tiny fact about my shooting Mr. Carpenter.”

  “If you’d only gone black,” Hugh said.

  “I can’t.” Bob rolled onto his stomach and propped himself up on his elbows. “There is no way I can let a black woman touch me.”

  “I won’t even ask you why.”

  Bob fiddled with some fallen leaves and pine needles. “If she didn’t tell, if she went back and thought about it and still loves me, do you think she’d go away with me?”

  “You are one fucked up and confused man.”

  “I don’t want to be alone.”

  “And who will you be, then? The black man with a white wife? How will that be for her? For you, too? Your whole life will change.”

  “What life?”

  “Dammit, Bob, you have a life. People like you now. They’ll like you in the next town, too. No one will ever know as long as you don’t tell them.” Hugh sighed. “Come-on, you know it’s true.”

  “But I can’t marry, have a family, live normally.”

  “You aren’t living a normal life now. You said that.”

  “I want to.”

  “You get used to being alone. It’s not so bad. There’s always the crew you work with.”

  Bob rolled back over and sat up. “You should know.”

  Hugh stared out beyond the thicket, not turning to look at Bob once. “This ain’t about me.”

  “We all choose differently.”

  “I know. I know.” Hugh lowered his head. “And we should choose for ourselves. And those we love, well, they should have the chance to choose on their own, too.” He began to get to his knees to crawl back into the open. “Your life just ain’t going to be normal no matter what you choose.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To find Miss Jenny.”

  “Don’t. She’s upset. She doesn’t need this kind of trouble.”

  Hugh peered through the brush at Bob. “We’ll let her decide
her life.” Then Hugh was off and down the hill.

  The hidden sun let twilight slip into the scrub. Bob wondered what animal he might surprise when it returned in the morning. He thought to leave. He even got part way to his knees, ready to crawl out after Hugh.

  He stopped short. Hugh had been through something. Bob wanted to know what it was, to compare it with his own situation. Hugh had closed that part of his life away, though, and Bob didn’t wish to cause Hugh any pain. All Hugh was really saying is that he had made a choice in life and had learned to live with it. He wanted Bob to do the same. On his own. But Bob wasn’t so sure he wanted to decide.

  His memories sickened him, but would not let him sob. He knew that whatever happened to him was through ignorance, uncontrollable sexual urges, and, when it came to Fred Carpenter, by accident. Age, intelligence, and experience discolored everything he knew from his past. He thought that he had left the evil of his life behind, but now he had stepped back into it. The more he knew, the more he remembered, and the more disgusting his whole life opened to him. Was it even possible to change a past like the one he lived through? Would he have to carry it with him forever? Of course he would.

  Vomit crept into his throat. He scurried into the open. Throwing up near a tree – amidst the familiar odors of pine needles and loam – is where the hole in his memory tore wide open. His sickliness as a child had not been that of a weak body, but that of an innocent one torn by an evil he had been too young to understand.

  He tensed. Memory exploded. He retched, coughed, and retched again. Bob fell to the ground, his elbows holding him up, his face close to his own vomit. Dry heaves leaped in and out of his throat. His lungs burned. Images of his mother fondling him burned like flames licking at his mind’s eye. He had never understood why he hated the tickling, the touching. He never fully felt the pain and pleasure so keenly. His mother’s hand squeezing his balls, rubbing his erection until his pain burst, his body jerking and squirting its fluid, the wrong in it, the evil in it, all coming down on him. Vomiting at the side of the shack or in a bucket became his way of erasing what had happened.

  How Big Leon lived with him and Bess was a mystery. The mental torture that man must have gone through. Yes, Bess was Fred’s favorite: they shared a tenderness that excluded Big Leon. The only way to keep Big Leon away was to disgust him. Was that it? Or was it that Bess struck out at both men? Was Martha sympathetic to Big Leon or did she love him? It was a fact that he could not have children. Were he and Martha lovers?

  Bob rolled onto his back. The sky opened as the day closed. Twilight turned to starlight before his eyes.

  He would never know the answers to all his questions. But he was alive. He was real.

  Bob’s skin cooled. Evening breezes turned to night winds. Mixed clouds shifted and moved, turning into new shapes. Between the clouds, stars flared up and came close enough for Bob to reach out and touch.

  He shut his eyes and images of his past fell before him, the curtain drawn, the catastrophe of his life playing out. He’d watch awhile, detached by the feel of his own skin, the scent of the ground, and the hoot of an owl. When the play in his mind became too horrible, he’d open his eyes and breathe in his present life. When nearly elated with just being alive, Bob would close his eyes again.

  That is how he spent the next few hours, turning his memory on and off, reminding himself of the difference between a life past and a life being lived. For years he wondered who he was, and how he should live his life. Would he ever know the answer?

  As the night wore on, his tears dried. His shoulders relaxed. His jaw let loose its tension. Knowing what he had held all those years allowed him to release it. The memory might remain, but the emotion fell away. The emotion would return, but he’d be ready for it. He was no longer innocent. He was no longer that child that could be manipulated and abused. He no longer had to blame blacks or whites; he no longer had to choose black or white as his savior. They were merely people back then, individuals, most of whom were gone now. He alone had escaped.

  Bob unrolled his blanket and moved back into the hollow of the pine grove and underbrush. He stretched out and put his hands under his head. He was not out of hot water yet. He knew that much. But he felt real, more real than he’d felt for years.

  By the time he dozed off to sleep, it was only a few hours before morning. His dreams were sweet and free. His body fell into the earth and disappeared. He slept whole. He slept completely, but he woke with a start.

  The voices took a long time to feed through his deep unconsciousness, but when they did, he recognized them. His heart raced. His blood built pressure as it rushed to his brain. His eyes opened. Jimmy and Jerry Finch kneeled next to Hugh. Their faces big as the opening Bob had crawled into. His first thought was that Hugh had betrayed him.

  CHAPTER 30

  Get the hell out-a there,” Jimmy said.

  Bob rolled to his side. Sleep held to him like dew held to the morning grass. He felt the gun under him and his hand closed around it.

  “Come on,” Jimmy said.

  Bob stretched his legs and slipped the gun under his blanket, then began to roll them up together. He wanted the pistol near, but not seen, not threatening.

  The three men backed up and let Bob slide out from the brush. Once Bob was on his feet, Jimmy Finch cold-cocked him and he fell back down. The bedroll dropped from his hands. He saw Hugh scoop it up. As he got to his knees, Jimmy hit him again.

  “You said he’d be safe,” Hugh yelled out.

  “That’s for hurting my sister’s feelings.” Jimmy rubbed his fist with his other hand. He glanced at Hugh. “Had to do it.” Hugh’s interruption had changed the tone of attack. Jimmy looked as though he was getting ready to hit Bob again. Instead, he turned to Jerry, who looked equally surprised at the attack. Rather than swing at Bob, Jimmy pulled a gun.

  Bob’s eyes opened wide. He looked at Hugh holding his bedroll. “I just told her the truth,” Bob said.

  “I don’t care what you did. She cried half the night.”

  Bob lowered his hands and stared into Jimmy’s eyes. Jimmy wasn’t going to shoot him. Bob could tell. Drooping eyes and a slack mouth indicated that the man burned with sorrow, not with anger, for what his sister had been through.

  Jimmy waved the pistol for Bob to get up and move in front of the three of them.

  “I didn’t know,” Hugh said to Bob.

  Bob nodded. What had Hugh told them? How much more did Jenny know now? How much did Jimmy and Jerry know? He questioned himself, but knew that he wouldn’t get an answer until Jenny appeared. The thought hurt his chest. How would she look at him? What would she see?

  As the four of them walked down through the north end of town, children came out to watch. Jimmy held the gun on Bob like a false security against him running off.

  Mathis Williams, one of the more outspoken Negroes who had run abolition meetings long before the war, stepped out into the street. Bob recognized him and knew that Jimmy’s parents had helped him get from Virginia to Pennsylvania and into Williamsport a long time ago. “What’s goin’ on here,” Mathis asked Jimmy.

  “Private matter,” Jimmy said.

  “When there’s a gun in the street, the matter ceases to be private, my friend.”

  Jimmy swung around to Mathis.

  Bob stopped walking and watched out the corner of his eye.

  “This is a private matter,” Jimmy said. “We’ll be off the street soon enough.”

  “Son,” Mathis said.

  “No, Mathis. It has to do with family. You understand.”

  “Be careful, son. Holding a white man at gunpoint when you’re already a Negro sympathizer might not sit well in this town. You got enough trouble.”

  Jimmy thanked Mathis, who stepped back inside his house.

  Bob didn’t want to bring pain to yet another family. Everyone he touched got caught in the storm of his evil.

  Whether Mathis got through to Jimmy or his sadness for his si
ster eased, he slipped the gun into his shirt and patted it with his hand.

  Bob had no intention on running.

  When they reached the house, Jimmy shoved Bob inside. Bob tripped over the door jam and landed on all fours.

  “Shit, Jimmy, take it easy.” Jerry said.

  Bob could see into the parlor down the short hall. Jenny sat with a handkerchief to her nose.

  “In there,” Jimmy said.

  Bob glanced back. Jimmy had put his hand over where the pistol was tucked into his shirt. Jimmy should have finished him off in the underbrush. That certainly would have been better than facing Jenny like this.

  “Get!” Jimmy said.

  Bob jumped up and went into the parlor. He braced himself against another shove, which didn’t come.

  Jenny looked up. “Oh, your face.” She stood up.

  “Sit down,” Jimmy said to her. He handed Bob a bar towel. “He’ll be fine.”

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Jenny said to both men.

  Bob touched his burning cheek with the cloth. There was little blood. At least he hadn’t been hit with the pistol. He felt lucky in that.

  “Leave us alone.” Jenny sat back down.

  Bob remained standing.

  When the others were gone, Bob said, “I only wanted you to know the truth.” The words were harder to say than he had imagined. His lips quivered. He could, rightfully, be hanged for what he’d done. That wasn’t what appeared to matter though. It was Jenny that mattered. He had not wanted to hurt her. “I thought,” he whispered, “that getting the truth out now would let me love you better.”

  “You’ve carried your secrets long enough,” she said. “I can see that.”

  Bob thought back. He didn’t even know whether he kept secrets or merely kept silent. That, too, has its own link to deceit, but it’s not the same. It never felt quite the same.

  “If anyone finds out—”

  “It could be bad.” She rubbed her eyes. “I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be totally accepted for who you are and not who your family is, or what your family had done. I wonder what would have happened in my life.” She laughed pitifully, disingenuous. “But that is not what happened. That is not what led me to this moment. I know you could die at the hands of others for your truth – even what little I know of it. Passing as white should not be a crime, but it appears to be. Being black shouldn’t be a crime either. That’s what this town was built on. But you can’t change those who move in.” She put her hands into her lap and jutted her chin forward. “Is it worse to be lynched quickly or to be avoided and ridiculed much of your life? I only played with Negro children when I was small. There were plenty of other families who believed like my parents, don’t get me wrong. The boys? Well, no one cared what they did. Most of the girls grew up and left town for a new life. I swear what my parents did was the right thing for them and the Negroes they helped, but not the right thing for a little girl too innocent to know what she did.”