“I know,” Willie said. “He’s got more books than the library over on Wayne Avenue. There’s got to be at least five hundred just over this fireplace.” He looked at a thick volume entitled Poetry of the Negro. Imagine, he had thought it was a big deal because he’d memorized 665 poems, and there was more in this one book than in his entire head. There was something awesome about one man owning all this knowledge.
Braithwaite came in with a silver tray, holding a crystal decanter and three sherry glasses. “I hope you don’t mind sitting in here—there’s not much to the rest of the house. After my wife passed, I kept it closed off to save on fuel. Don’t look surprised, we’re not all well off down here on Tupelo Drive.”
There was a quiet dignity and deliberateness in the way he poured their sherry and handed the glasses to them, his long fingers cracked and ashen in the joints. It made it easy to overlook the crumpled pants bagging in the seat and knees, and the frayed shirt collar with gravy stains.
“I thought of heating some soup. But this will set you right.”
As the effects of the alcohol spread through his body, Willie realized how tired he had been. His insides began to loosen up, and all the feelings and questions he had suppressed that morning rose toward the surface. If he drank enough of this stuff, it would deaden them, and that’s exactly what he wanted. He knew he couldn’t do it here, but he ached to be home so he could really get drunk.
Braithwaite leaned back in his chair and stared at them with his opaque gray eyes. “World War One, eh?” He seemed to be enjoying a private joke. “Yes, I was just a bit too young to be drafted for that one, and as luck would have it, when the second one came I was just a bit too old. So I’ve seen no combat—on the battlefields at least. But wars are fought in many ways, my young friends, many ways.” He sipped his drink and his mind seemed to drift off. “We saw such a battle today. She fought valiantly, but she lost. I knew it was going to happen, it was just a matter of time.”
“You mean you knew she was crazy?” Lester asked.
“She wasn’t insane,” Braithwaite said. “True insanity, as frightening as it might be, gives a sort of obliviousness to the chaos in a life. People who commit suicide are struggling to order their existence, and when they see it’s a losing battle, they will finalize it rather than have it wrenched from them. Insanity wouldn’t permit that type of clarity. Laurel Dumont died as deliberately as she lived, believe me. And I could tell she was on that path months ago.”
“But if she was a neighbor of yours,” Lester said, “and you could see she was disturbed, why didn’t you do something?”
“What would you suggest I do?” Braithwaite’s voice was mild.
“I don’t know—talk to her old man. Get her to see a shrink. Something.” Lester leaned over. “If she had been a friend of mine, I—”
“But think now. She was the daughter of someone. The wife of someone. And even the granddaughter of someone right there in the house with her. Could they stop her? So how do you suggest that a mere outsider would have been any more effective?”
Willie shook his head. “I’m sorry, Dr. Braithwaite, but I can’t buy that. I can’t believe that someone would know what was happening and just stand there.” He shuddered. “That’s not being human, that’s being a … a I don’t know what.”
Braithwaite looked at him fixedly. “Weren’t those very human footprints that you saw in the snow?” He nodded at the shock on Willie’s face. “Yes, I know you saw them and I saw them, too.”
“What footprints?” Lester’s head swung between the two of them while Willie just stared in his glass.
“The footprints of someone who came up along the side of that house, stood there, watched, and then went away. Right, son?”
“Willie, what’s he talking about?”
“I don’t know what he’s talking about.” Willie gripped his glass.
“I’m talking about not being able to stop the course of human history, a collective history or an individual one. You can delay the inevitable, set up roadblocks and detours if you will, but that personal tragedy today was just a minute part of a greater tragedy that has afflicted this community for decades. And the person who watched it unfold understood that. He understood that to try and stop her would be like trying to ward off a flood with a teacup.”
“I don’t have a tenth of your education, Dr. Braithwaite,” Willie said, looking slowly around the room. “You’ve probably forgotten more than I’ll even live to know.” Now he looked straight at Braithwaite. “You see, I’m from across Wayne Avenue. And two guys on a Saturday night will often get into a real ugly argument. Everybody knows they’re not mad at each other, they’re mad about the lousy paychecks in their pocket—or no paycheck. And then they’re mad because they’re in that bar anyway, or at that poker table, when they should be home ’cause there’s kids to feed and rent to be paid. But they can’t face that ’cause they know those paychecks ain’t gonna do it, and they’re even madder that they’ll do it even less once they leave that bar. So they’re aching for a fight, ya know? And if they start a fight, someone will probably get killed. And everyone else in the room knows that ’cause they’re feeling the same way, too—that it would take just a little to push them over the edge. So you make a joke, you buy one of them a drink—you do something to keep the steam down. Even though you know that next week the same thing will probably happen again—different faces maybe, but the same damned thing. And it’s gonna keep going on, ’cause Putney Wayne won’t change and those paychecks won’t change. But you still say to yourself, ‘It would be a crime to let this happen.’ And I don’t care how you want to break it down, there was a crime committed out there today. As sure as I’m sitting here, there was a crime.”
“Holy shit, you mean someone killed her?”
“They might as well have.” Willie looked down into his glass.
“But who?”
“That’s not the point, Lester.”
“I believe it is.” Braithwaite nodded. “Tell him who saw it.”
“Yeah, who, Willie?”
Willie hesitated. “Nedeed saw her, Lester. And he just stood there. He didn’t lift a finger.”
“Christ, that figures. But how did you know?”
“His footprints. Remember how he seemed to appear from nowhere? Well, those pointy-toe shoes were all on the side of the house that we didn’t shovel.”
“And you think that’s a crime?” Braithwaite asked.
“I know it is,” Willie whispered.
“You’re damned right,” Lester said.
“There was a time when I would have thought so,” Braithwaite said very gently, “when I was young like you. But I’ve seen too much over too many years.” He went over and drew the draperies on the far wall. “You see, I’ve had the privilege of this.”
Brilliant light flooded the room because the entire wall was made of double Plexiglas. And in front of his desk, Linden Hills stretched up in its snow-covered awesomeness. Through the naked willow trees, they could clearly see the police car pull out of the Dumonts’ driveway, the shrubbed meridian running up Tupelo Drive to the brick pillars, sections of Linden Road, and even the very housetops on First Crescent Drive.
“You didn’t think you could see that far up from here, did you? It’s a strange topography. When you’re up there, you can’t see all the way down, but if you’re situated at just the right point on Tupelo Drive, you have a view all the way up. No one’s ever thought about that here, because these homes were designed to face down—except, of course, for the Nedeeds.” He caressed his desk, a full, measured stroking. “I’ve spent many years having the privilege of seeing what Luther Nedeed has seen. Yes, I even watched him enter and leave that backyard. And I understand his futility.”
The light gleamed on his steel-rimmed glasses as he turned around to them. “Do you know what this area was like once, when Luther’s grandfather was around and your grandmother, young man, Mamie Tilson? Oh, yes, I knew who
you were. I’ve watched you both all this week, slowly making your way down this hill. Well, the road you took was unpaved once and most of the homes there little more than shacks. And the Nedeeds changed that almost single-handedly. A lot of families up there owe their educations to the Nedeeds. I know I do. My family’s biggest dream was for me to become foreman at the turpentine factory that was once on the other side of town. But Luther’s grandfather set up a scholarship fund that made it possible for me to attend Fisk. He said, ‘Daniel, go out there and learn all you can and then bring it right back to your community. Whatever field you decide on, we can use it here in Linden Hills.’ He didn’t think he’d wasted his money when I came back as a historian instead of a lawyer, engineer, or a real doctor. He put me down here and let me work. I’ve built a reputation from my studies about Linden Hills. The Nedeeds have given me exclusive access to all of their family records: survey reports, official papers from the Tupelo Realty Corporation, even the original bills of sale that date back to 1820. Priceless information that wouldn’t have been appreciated at the time anywhere but here and by anyone but them. When I first started my studies, no one in the outside world cared about the fate of a ragged sod hill. But look at it now. Sure, researchers come from all over the country and even Europe, trying to get access to the records about this community. But Luther has assured me that they will be mine exclusively for as long as I live.”
“Then you know everything about the Nedeeds.” Willie could feel his heart pounding as he leaned toward Braithwaite. “I mean the wives and children and all? You’ve got their lives all in your books?”
“The family is right out there.” Braithwaite pointed up the slope. “You see Linden Hills and you see them. The first Luther Nedeed lived for this community, and he passed that spirit on to his children. That there was something to strive for, something to believe in, that we could make it in spite of what the world said. Believe me, he wasn’t terribly happy, always having to fight the Wayne County city board, the white realtors, and sadly enough, the folks right here to turn this place into something to be proud of. The Nedeeds kept going because they felt our people needed a role model. It wasn’t easy, but they did it. And that was real black pride.
“I watched them build this place up from practically nothing. A handful of illiterate and unskilled people came here and prospered because of them. I’ve seen families grow up and grow out from being under the heel of Wayne County. Those families owe all that to the Nedeeds, but somehow they’ve forgotten that. Now, moving in here has simply become the thing to do, the place to be. But to be what? They don’t see that clapboard house at the bottom of this hill anymore. At the foot of this hill are colored men with a sense of purpose about their history and their being. If Laurel Dumont had had that, she wouldn’t have been so tormented that she felt the need to throw her life away.”
“If you really knew my grandmother, then you knew that she despised the Nedeeds,” Lester said. “They caused this mess that you’re talking about. They built the homes and they set the price tags, Dr. Braithwaite. They wanted a bunch of puppets who would give anything to be here. And that’s just what they’ve got. My grandmother used to tell me and anyone else who would listen, ‘You wanna make it in Linden Hills? You just gotta sell—’”
“‘That silver mirror God propped up in your soul,’” Braithwaite interrupted him. “Yes, I can almost hear my old friend now. And I remember her well, sitting up there on that porch chewing her tobacco. Your grandmother was a very shrewd woman, young man. But she was wrong about that. You see, she’d only come down here on occasion to fish with Luther Nedeed, and passing by these houses as you’ve done this week, she thought that the people in them were selling little bits of themselves to make it. If she’d had my vantage point all of these years, she would have known that they’ve sold nothing; pieces of themselves were taken away. And if anyone was more disturbed about that, it was the Nedeeds. They slowly began to realize that people could live here, but with a few exceptions like myself, it was inevitable that they couldn’t work here. So they had to keep going out and coming back with the resources to move down, but with less and less of themselves. You see, Mamie Tilson mistook the ends for the means. And that wasn’t the fault of the Nedeeds. If you must fault them for anything, fault them for wanting power. But it was black power they wanted. These were to be black homes with black aspirations and histories—for good or evil. But that’s not what Luther inherited. Put yourself in the place of a man who must reign over a community as broken and disjointed—as faceless—as Laurel Dumont’s body. If he could have stopped her, he would have. But what he saw diving off that platform was already a shattered dream.”
“So what you’re saying is that what he did was right?” Willie asked.
“Now, think back, I never said it was right. And I’m not saying it was wrong either.”
“But it’s got to be one or the other,” Willie said.
“Why? Why should it be other than from some personal need that the young, like yourself, or the intellectually sluggish have to want their worlds neatly boxed? Was slavery wrong? It would depend upon who you were talking to and when—black or white. The rise of Hitler? The fall of the Aztec empire? There are no absolute truths, and the best historians know that. You strive to capture a moment of time, and if your work is done properly, history becomes a written photograph. Put your subject too much in the shade, too much in the light, dare to have even a fingernail touch the lens or any evidence of your personal presence, and you’ve invalidated it.” He went to a shelf and pulled out a huge tome. “Look at this—the work of a lifetime. It’s one of my eleven volumes about the history of Linden Hills. By the time I had only completed volume six I was being seriously considered for a Nobel Prize. It was with this volume that I detected that there was a drastic change in the goals of this community, that what my studies were actually amounting to was the record of a people who are lost. I didn’t bemoan that fact and I didn’t applaud it; I did nothing but continue to compile the data that Luther brought me and to crystallize my own observations. I’m now into the twelfth volume, and I’ve heard that I’m being considered again, because no one else has been privy to these documents, and since the turnover here is tremendous, there’s a mass of data almost each year.” He stepped over to the window and tapped the telescope. “I miss nothing; I record it all in its minutest detail. As long as they keep coming—and they will do that—I’ll finally get that ultimate recognition.”
“Did you ever stop to think that you could use your work to help save people?” Lester asked. “If you admit it’s a terrible situation and you have all the evidence to prove it, why not come out and say so? You’re in the position to have people listen to you.”
“I don’t believe you’ve heard a word I’ve said. People are going to come and live in Linden Hills regardless of what I or anyone else does. Do you know that when that crucial sixth volume brought me international acclaim, Luther’s father threw a huge party and made gifts of the entire set to everyone who lived here? Did they sit down and take the time to read it? Did they trace themselves as I’d traced them, making that headlong rush into damnation? If they did, it hasn’t stopped them. Because it’s inevitable, don’t you see? And I would have been foolish to try and hold back that flood. And since that’s the case, I would have been a greater fool not to take advantage of the access the Nedeeds have afforded me to this priceless information. Luther knows and I know that I can only hope to record that knowledge, not rectify it.”
After such knowledge, what forgiveness?
Willie was startled when they both looked at him, and he realized he had thought aloud. “I wasn’t asking that question. It’s just a line that popped into my head from some poem. I really don’t know why,” he lied as he glanced around the room involuntarily. “It doesn’t have a thing to do with what we’ve been talking about.”
“You know, I’m quite fond of poetry and I’ve quite a few interesting collections here. Th
ere’s even a signed copy of that wonderful Mr. Cullen’s The Black Christ somewhere in this jungle. I’ve always felt that creative artists and historians are somewhat in the same business, the task of capturing life. Who was the poet you were thinking of?”
“You know, it’s really funny but I can’t remember.” Willie felt rather than saw Lester’s shock, and he prayed he wouldn’t say anything. The linen napkins carefully folded for them, the silver tray and crystal decanter obviously held back for special company and offered with the long, delicate fingers that had spent a lifetime scribbling what would do people no good—or a little worse than no good. You don’t repay kindness with needless cruelty.
“That’s a pity,” Braithwaite said, “but it’s one of the reflections of our times. Young minds today are dulled by television and other visual sensations. When reading was one of the few pleasures available, we could recite whole passages to each other.”
“Yeah, that must have been something,” Willie said.
Here I am, an old man in a dry month
Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.
I was neither at the hot gates
Nor fought in the warm rain
Nor knee-deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass
Bitten by flies fought.
My house is a decayed house.
Lester turned to Braithwaite. “I wanted to get back to something you mentioned before. Since all your work about Linden Hills comes from the records and information that the Nedeeds have given you, no matter how objective you try to be, you’re still only getting one side of the story—their side.”
“That would be true if I relied solely on their documents. But that’s not how a reputable historian works. You take the family records and then you must view them in light of material from other sources: county court transcripts, the minutes of the state realty board, personal interviews with the residents here, et cetera. It becomes a whole series of checks and balances from numerous sources before you come up with the whole story, the real story if you will.”
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