Blackberry Days of Summer

by Ruth P. Watson

  I saw a man entering the shack.

  “A man is dying in the path!” I exclaimed. I pointed in the direction where Mr. Camm lay. The man took off down the path at a run.

  I surveyed the yard and there were no signs of Simon. The only car parked in the yard was the one Mr. Camm had gotten from the white man down the road. He rarely drove to the joint. I didn’t stick around to find out what was happening. Instead I took the open road back to the house, my chest heaving and my breath short.

  When I put the mule back in the barn, our other horse was back and lying down on the hay. Someone had beaten me home.

  CHAPTER 31

  CARRIE

  I couldn’t stop thinking about Mr. Camm lying on the ground, and Simon’s involvement. I had seen him make the left turn to the joint. It was around two miles from us, hidden back in the deep woods at least two hundred feet from the road. The Shack was lit up with regulars and churchgoers celebrating the holiday. One of the deacons was talking to Momma when I walked in. Momma waved me over. The deacon told me Simon had walked in and taken a seat right beside him at the joint earlier that night.

  Momma was listening closely, though the deacon’s voice was so loud, it was easy to hear.

  “That boy walked over to the bar, and asked if anyone seen a fellow named Camm ’round tonight?”

  I didn’t say anything and he kept talking, mostly to Momma.

  “You know the bartender, Mae Lou? He’s that tall, handsome man with thick, curly black hair who almost looks white. He lives down the road a bit.”

  “No, I don’t think I do.” Momma didn’t go to the joint and she cut her eyes down at the deacon and smacked her lips in embarrassment when he asked if she knew the bartender.

  “He stopped in the middle of serving a customer, Mae Lou. Told Simon that Camm usually come in ’round eight o’clock. He poured the boy a beer. And then he told him, he look like a stranger, ain’t never seen him before.”

  Momma listened. “Uh-huh.”

  “He said it was his first time in the joint,” the deacon continued. “Now I don’t go there much myself.” Momma looked at him skeptically.

  “The boy was upset, Mae Lou. He had fire in his eyes,” he said with conviction.

  I left them in the kitchen and I listened in my room as the deacon’s mouth overflowed with gossip.

  “You could tell he wasn’t a beer drinker, but he needed something to relax him. I need to relax myself sometimes, too, Mae Lou,” he said, chuckling softly.

  I knew about the place, everyone did. It was a barn that had been turned into a joint. There were tables and chairs set up for the sitting customers and a large area reserved for dancing. Women sashayed around the bar with red lipstick and bosoms way high, looking for men to carry them home. Floozies, Momma called them.

  “Peoples were eating fried chicken, ’tato salad and homemade rolls, and listening to the beats of the musicians when Camm walked in the door.”

  “Who did you say?” Momma asked, as if she hadn’t been listening.

  “Yo’ husband,” he blurted, louder.

  “He walked through the door with another fellow. Now, I ain’t trying to tell on him, but he need to be home with you,” he said. “Simon’s eyes grew big, looked like he could hurt someone. He downed his beer. After a few minutes, Camm walked over to the bar. Told Jake to give him the same ole’ same ole’.”

  I imagined Momma’s face turning sour. “The same what?” she asked.

  “Mae Lou, the bartender looked at him, then cut his eyes toward Simon, trying to warn him. He was sitting two feet away. I watched it all.”

  “Oh yeah?” Momma dully remarked.

  “Camm walked up on the guy, said he heard he was looking for him. He looked Simon square in the eyes, told him to step outside. Now, I followed them to the door. The snow had started to fall again. I stood there peeking out the door. After a few words, Simon grabbed Camm by the collar, but that fellow Camm was with, he stepped in to stop it. He got control after pulling out a switchblade.”

  “Why would Simon be mad at my husband? Deacon, I hope you ain’t had too much to drink.”

  As if to underscore her point, he slurred, “Mae Lou, you know I ain’t a drinker. I take a drink every now and then for medical reasons. It helps get my bones to stirring.”

  She warned him. “Now don’t make up things on people, deacon.”

  “All I can tell you is that boy was mad, called your husband a no-good bastard. He put his hands around Camm’s neck, Mae Lou. Simon is strong and the veins in his own neck were pulsing. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Camm was suspended in the air.”

  Momma was grunting and saying, “Uh-huh,” but I could tell from her voice that she didn’t believe everything he was saying.

  “The bartender had to kick him out,” the deacon said, pausing to take what sounded like a sip of the last bit of coffee out of his cup.

  “The boy was mad, Mae Lou. He said curse words I wouldn’t dare think about. If it hadn’t been for that fellow, Camm might’ve been killed.”

  Momma listened to him go on and on about this and that. The deacon was like any woman who gossiped. I knew Simon had to restrain himself. He had to cool off. He’d never been hot-headed, but Mr. Camm had that effect on people. He worked everyone’s nerves.

  The deacon left shortly afterward with a piece of cake in his hands. I heard Momma say, “Lord, I hope he makes it home, drunk as he is.”

  CHAPTER 32

  CARRIE

  All of the stress, from the months before and that horrible night, made my insides cave in. It was too much for any young girl to bear.

  My fatigued eyes finally closed around two in the morning. Dried tears glued my lids shut. Around four, after only a couple hours of sleep, pains started shooting through my lower tummy. The intensity increased, until it pierced my entire torso. Excruciating pain stabbed me from my legs to my stomach to my lower back. I rolled from one side of the bed to the other, trying to find a comfortable position. The pains grew closer together, only minutes apart.

  It can’t be time for the baby, I thought. I had a month to go. I had been cautioned about labor pains, but no one had explained them the way they actually felt. It felt as if I was being torn apart. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and inched myself up. I sat on the side of the bed and waited for each sharp twinge to come and then ripple across my belly and then subside. During each crest, I prayed, inhaled, swore and cried. All of a sudden, a gush of water trickled down my thighs. Then the twinges became thrashes of whip-like pain gnawing from my inner thighs to my chest.

  I had trouble pushing the bed away from behind the door. When I stood, I required the help of the wall and the bed for support.

  I cracked the door open and yelled, “Momma, Momma, please help me!”

  Her door opened and Momma peeked out. The pains were so sharp that I slid down to the floor and balled up in a knot. She hurried down the hall to me. She put her arms around my waist and lifted me up on my feet. She put my arm over her shoulder and helped me to my bed.

  “I think it’s coming…it’s coming!” I screamed, short of breath.

  “What, Chile? What is wrong with you?” She could tell, but she wanted to hear me say it.

  “I’m having a baby, Momma.”

  She ran into the kitchen and started a pot of boiling water. She brought back an old stained sheet from her trunk and laid it on the floor beside my bed.

  She examined me like a doctor, feeling my stomach and looking between my thighs. “When it’s time, I want you to stoop down beside the bed. It’ll be easier for you.”

  I rolled over, trying to find a comfortable spot on the lumpy goose-feather and quilt-piece mattress. The pain was too unbearable. She brought a sharp knife and a pail of boiling water bursting with steam into the bedroom. She put the knife in the water. I screamed as loud as I could. She told me to concentrate on a picture of my grandmother hanging crooked on the wall. She checked between my legs one las
t time and asked me to squat as low as I could beside the bed. I held onto the side of the bed and pushed as hard as I could. Beads of sweat dripped from my face and dampened my gown.

  She caught the baby before its head hit the floor, then cut the umbilical cord and helped me back to the bed. She washed the baby off with a warm cloth before wrapping it in one of her quilts and then handed it to me.

  “It’s a boy, a fine boy.” She smiled at the baby, but when she looked at me, she was frowning in anger.

  I forgot about Mr. Camm when I saw my baby. He was tiny, innocent and helpless, and he was normal. He had ten fingers and toes. He was bright, lighter than anyone I knew.

  Deep inside, I knew Mr. Camm would not be coming home.

  Momma practically ignored me for the next day. She brought me Birdseye for the baby that had been torn into pieces for diapers. I didn’t know anything about caring for a baby. I felt embarrassed about feeding the baby from my breast. Whenever I’d seen someone else doing it, I’d turn my nose up and mumble to myself, “I’m not gonna be sitting around with a baby sucking on me.” Now I was like all the other girls in Jefferson. Most of them were locked into caring for children with men whose only ambition was farming. But I was worse. I was all alone.

  Later, I heard whispers in the kitchen. “She what?” Carl said.

  “I knew som’thin’ was wrong with her. She didn’t say a word. Simon didn’t open his mouth, either,” Mary whispered to Carl.

  “Yeah, I told Mae Lou to watch her. She always was a little sneaky,” Aunt Bessie added.

  Momma hummed one of her spirituals while they whispered in the background. Mary came to the door once and knocked. I pretended to be asleep. Then I heard her say, “I hope she knows what to do with a baby without a husband.”

  Momma sent Aunt Bessie and her family next door to Carl’s. She didn’t think that a lot of people needed to be around a newborn. “They can catch ev’rything,” I heard her tell Aunt Bessie before closing the door behind them on Christmas morning after everybody had stuffed themselves for brunch on the leftovers from Christmas Eve. The sounds of wood popping in the stove and Momma’s occasional hum echoed throughout the house. The near quiet silence drove me crazy. I wanted to tell Momma the whole story and I could tell that she wanted to hear it, but I kept my lips sealed. After all of this, I was still afraid to talk to her. I’d figured out many things, but not how to approach my own momma. The only thing that I was happy about was that Mr. Camm had not come home.

  That afternoon, Momma came into the bedroom. She pulled up a chair close to the bed. “Does Simon know about the baby?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, why didn’t he do the right thang and marry you? He was just here yestidy and he didn’t have the courage to be a man and take on responsibilities?” She looked at me with pity. “I told you to get yo’ education.”

  “Momma, we need to talk. It’s more to it than you think,” I said, wondering why she was jumping to conclusions before she knew the whole story. I wasn’t naïve, though; she’d always been that way. She was quick to look down her nose at people that did not live up to her standards.

  “Seems like to me, it’s too late for talking,” she said, keeping her eyes on the baby.

  I sat up in the bed. “Momma, this baby is not Simon’s. Simon is not the kind of man you think he is.”

  She drew back in surprise. “Whose is it, then? Look like all that sneaking done caught up with ya,” she said, her voice hardening.

  The baby started whimpering. Embarrassed, I put a diaper over my shoulder, and then put my nipple in the baby’s mouth.

  I was tired of being accused of doing something wrong. I had done everything she’d asked of me and more. I’d never missed a day of school. I’d read like she had insisted until it became my passion and now, when I needed her most, she was thinking bad of me and believing the worst.

  “Momma, Mr. Camm is the one that did it. Your husband raped me when you were working at the Fergusons’.”

  She pulled herself up, and pointed a finger at me. “You hush yo’ mouth. Don’t make up lies to cover up your own faults. You’ve been running around with that boy for a long time. You have been sneaking around with him, now you done ruined your own life. Blame yo’self.”

  She had reacted exactly like Mr. Camm said she would. He’d warned me that she would think that I’d been sneaking with Simon. It was true, but we never even came close to making a baby.

  “Momma, Mr. Camm raped me,” I protested. “You just don’t want it to be him. You know he ain’t right!” I shouted, though I still felt weak.

  “I don’t want to hear another lie from you,” she growled. “You have to get out of here. You got to find you and your baby someplace else to live. You are not welcome here.”

  My ears burned from her hateful words. He’d brainwashed her. She was standing up for a man she didn’t really know. He lived here, but no one knew him like I did. He was as low down as they came. His suave talk had turned her against her own family. Now I was as much ashamed of her as she was of me.

  “Momma, I have not been with Simon or anyone else,” I insisted. “Mr. Camm, he took advantage of me right here on this bed.”

  Her voice became weaker. “You have got to go, gurl…you gotta go. I will give you a week to get your things and leave.” She threw her hands up in the air and disowned me as if I was a stranger.

  When she walked out the door, though, the tension around my neck went away. I suddenly felt light as a feather. Holding all that in for all those months had been a burden on me. I only regretted that I hadn’t told her sooner. But she wouldn’t have believed me then, as she didn’t believe me now.

  I knew what I was going to do. I would go stay with Ginny. And when the baby was old enough, I would say good-bye to Jefferson forever.

  CHAPTER 33

  CARRIE

  Rumors were circulating all over town about Mr. Camm’s murder. With a killer at large, everyone was afraid for their lives. They didn’t go far from home, and in the case where they had to, they traveled in threes and fours. Nobody knew for sure who’d killed Mr. Camm, but speculation traveled throughout the county. Some said it was Momma. Others said it was Simon, and one even said that she’d heard Mr. Camm had a young girl expecting and the girl was angry enough to take him out of his misery. “I know someone who heard ’im,” this last one said.

  The gossip was no surprise to me. Jefferson was a small town and everyone knew one another. That was one of the reasons why I was so determined to leave. The place was so barren one murder was the most interesting subject for discussion at the dinner table. “There’s a killer loose ’round here and we need to be cautious,” were the words spoken in most homes.

  Yet everyone knew that Mr. Camm had too many women and he’d made his share of enemies.

  I was one of the people he violated and I didn’t feel sorry about what happened.

  “He got what he deserved,” someone had said to me.

  “Sho-nuff did,” I fired back.

  Jefferson had a sheriff, but most of the coloreds avoided him. He never minded seeing a colored lying dead. That’s what he’d said when he investigated the last killing in Jefferson. He’d even let the young man hang from the tree, where he’d been lynched, for an entire day before he’d allow anyone to cut him loose. He was the last person anybody in Jefferson would seek out for help. But when Mr. Camm was found, Mr. Perkins panicked. He ran straight to the sheriff. The sheriff didn’t have too much compassion for anyone. He believed that most people created their own problems. The first thing he said when given the details of the discovery was, “Let ’em kill themselves off; I don’t give a damn.” Mr. Perkins was immediately sorry that he’d even gone to report the crime.

  Soon enough, the sheriff pulled up to Momma’s and knocked on the door. The knock caught her off guard, and she dropped the glass that she’d been washing in the sink. It broke into what seemed like a hundred pieces.

  �
��Yes, Sheriff?” she said when she opened the door and saw the sheriff’s piercing blue eyes gazing at her. I watched from the living room.

  “Let me in, Ms. Mae Lou,” he said. The sheriff respected Momma above most of the coloreds in town. She was the kind of person he could get along with. She minded her own business and she never disrespected anyone, especially whites.

  “Yes, sir. Come on in.” Momma invited him into the kitchen.

  “Want something to drink, some food?” Momma offered, and then hung his coat up on the nail behind the kitchen door.

  “I don’t mind if I do. Coffee?”

  Momma poured him a cup. “Cream or sugar?”

  “A little sugar to take the bite off.”

  Momma put a cube of sugar in his coffee and set the sugar bowl nearby on the table. She scooped up a ladle of soup and poured it in a bowl and offered a piece of cornbread.

  The sheriff waited for her to sit before he started his questioning.

  “Ms. Mae Lou, what you know about the murder?”

  Momma was nervous. She had been ever since it happened. She’d poured herself some coffee, too.

  “I don’t know much, Sheriff. I only know what the peoples tell me.”

  The sheriff talked with his mouth full. “What are they saying, Ms. Mae Lou?”

  She twiddled her fingers and bit her bottom lip as she searched for the appropriate words. Over the past few days, she’d heard more stories than she was willing to mention. Most of them were stories she’d been hearing and had tried to erase out of her head the entire time she’d been married. She never saw any of what the people gossiped about and despised those people who spoke badly about her family, in any manner. She felt that outsiders had no right.

  “They say my husband had a woman outside of the marriage.”

  “How did it make you feel, hearing all this about the man ya loved?”

  “Not so good,” she mumbled.

  “When did you furst hear this?”

  Momma had always been a cautious woman. She rose from the table and steadied her trembling hands while she poured the sheriff a refill of coffee.