“No. I didn’t try any other houses. Just that one.”
“The white one in Cleveland?”
“Well, I don’t know where we was when I went in the house.”
“Why that one?”
“I don’t know. It just looked like the door was unlocked.”
“How you tell if a door unlocked just by looking at it from the street?”
“I just had a feeling.”
“I don’t believe you, Solemn.”
“I’m sorry I did it,” Solemn recalled she was to say. “I didn’t think anybody would get mad about it. It looked like these people had a lot of stuff as it was, so they wouldn’t miss anything. My daddy didn’t sell any DigiCates for a long time and I was just helping. But the people in the house looked rich. I didn’t think they’d care.”
“But, Solemn, you had to have known some people wouldn’t like it if they came back home and found out a total stranger had been in their home, going through their private things, touching their stuff, taking whatever they wanted. I mean, these people are very important. They’re not happy. They want someone to pay for this. And much as I’d love to help you, you go before a judge and you’re gonna be sent to a detention center. Now, we can try to get the time reduced … but that’d be up to a judge.”
“Well, I didn’t think about all that. I just thought about the stuff.”
“Okay, Solemn,” Bolden groaned. And for once, he wished it weren’t his vacation around the corner. “Okay. If that’s what you say, I have no choice but to believe you. But you do know you’re going to have your picture and fingerprints taken and all that? And if it all matches up, if some neighbors remember your face or if your fingerprints match ones found in the house … well. Solemn, this is really serious.”
“But I’m only a minor.”
“Yes,” Bolden said, with his eyes square into Bev’s, “you sure are that.”
3
THE NORTH
TWENTY-SIX
What appeared to the black people of Bledsoe to be a mount of gods where fates were handed down was nothing more than halls of secretaries, three-line phones, typewriters, computer databases, and bathroom meetings across a few precincts and a courthouse. What appeared to be sensational for them was customary for forces above them. What caused hysteria and alcoholism among the poor was a string of checked boxes and eye contact among the rich. It was all a syndicate.
Had Solemn not been coincidentally known to a token black officer turned detective, in one of the few noteworthy zip codes of Mississippi, she would have gone to Lincoln Training Center: to be detained for petty mistakes, tied down for illegal whippings, doused for defiance, tripped for oversleeping, starved for attention and dinner, then breakfast and lunch, passed in state education exams just for knowing how to write her name—no more. Solemn would have slept in barracks reeked of vomit and abandonment, unmanaged. She would have had patches of hair twisted loose by the bullies among them who confused domination with a chance. She would have been at the mercy of hard stone floors. She would have spoken to her visitors at slim tables in sweltering rooms. She would have found weed, cigarettes, and crack. If she had not found them, they would have found her. She would have been forced onto imprecise meds arresting her mind, changing it from what she could relate to.
However, there came an arrangement. The police weren’t stupid. That was not the test. The question was: “Do we care?” And they did not. At the northwesternmost edge of Mississippi, on 1-55 North, just a baby’s breath from Memphis, was a group home for girl truants and wards of the state: the Fanny O. Barnes Home, named for a rich white reverend’s wife who sent a few of her black help’s girls to private schools, paid so long as their mothers put up with mean and spiteful bosses like Fanny was before she died.
First in a tiny office of the Attala courthouse outside a courtroom, Bev and Solemn signed a lot of papers nobody bothered to read out loud.
Then Akila took Solemn for cheeseburgers and fries at the Tracys’ diner.
Next Bev met Earl at the jail to bring him home, few words between them but the same story.
Finally, Akila snatched Solemn out of the trailer before they got back. Landon covered for her. Solemn made sure to grab one thing. The jewelry and music box with its black threaded sides now unraveled, the unicorn missed a foot. She was warned. No girl in Fanny O. Barnes could have money anywhere but on the books—no trades. But still. She needed it.
“Solemn, we gotta go now!” Akila shouted from somewhere in the dizzy, blurred, and pin-striped world Solemn could not hold in her mind for too much longer. “We can’t start off breaking the rules…” she echoed on.
When Solemn unrolled and opened the socks where her money went once the jewelry and music box became unnecessary and immature, nothing was inside them. Not one dollar at all. All that time. All that work. All those years. Nothing. Solemn recalled her hands through a house in Cleveland, thought about bigger hands and what they do.
* * *
At the Days Inn where they once honeymooned, Akila and Landon packed Solemn two suitcases and a hatbox full of four pastel General Dollar sundresses on summer clearance, a pair of tennis shoes, jeans, an alarm clock, deodorant, feminine products, toilet paper, lotion, and baby powder—like she was off to college. Had it not been for the state sheriff who trailed them in a dead giveaway, she could have been.
Next morning Landon’s new Buick LeSabre drove up the snaking driveway to the group home shrouded in a clearing razed for its purpose. Solemn perceived a mansion—first she had ever seen in real life, up closer than at the edges of interstate roads. It had columns, a fountain, a flagpole, pillars at the seams, balance, depth. Vines braided into the outside. Along its side appeared to be a flower garden, through an arch: periwinkles, marigold, and sunflower patches she could tell. Not a squad car parked in sight. No guards stood at the door. And, she was to live here? It was a punishment, to them. To Solemn, it was a dream come true. Solemn knew a thing or two about maps from the rides with her daddy. Memphis was in reach. Nashville was attainable to her. Chicago much closer.
Mittimus in hand, the sheriff confirmed his transport inside then snuck back out to his car. To nap. Landon, Akila, and Solemn sat in the corner of a lobby with nothing but a custodian and his whistling. There was no greeting. The custodian saw so many come and go. He did not trust a one of them. They were all nice in the beginning, sure. Next thing you know, he would clean up shit dumped purposefully outside the toilet, a reflex of abuse they were used to. They tripped him when he passed. At some point, a woman with glasses on a chain came to hand them some forms, placed in such stern order on a clipboard there was no way to disorder them. There was no invitation to observe what went on behind two curtained French doors leading to the back.
“Who do we put as her legal guardians?” Akila asked, the pen in her mouth.
“Daddy and Mama,” Landon said. “This ridiculous. Somebody should be out here going through this with us. Wait here. I need to find somebody who runs this place.”
“You think I should put us down? We bringing her here…”
“Do what I said.”
Akila understood her husband. Their nerves were brittle. A new house, new job, new babies … now this. Landon thought his parents were smarter than this. Now the Redvines were exactly what everyone thought niggers were: caught up in the criminal justice system, statistics, undesirables, broken, ridiculous.
According to the scribbled sign on the office’s glass window drawn shut, the front receptionist was now on a bathroom break, which was either diarrhea or a lie. After a five-minute wait, Landon had enough. He toured the hallways to search for staff, a few of them involved in interrupting disruptions or explaining schoolwork to hard little faces. He wore his corporal’s uniform on purpose. He planned to throw it in the cleaners soon as he left Fanny O. Barnes. Already, it felt sooty and dirty just being in there. But for now, it served a purpose: to walk his little sister through this menacing dump and let an
ybody who saw her know she had a brother who had access to the guns. It was working so far. Few staff members who did glance in his direction, though they did not help, stood at some attention and wondered at who he was and what he was doing there.
The war finally show up in Mississippi?
The facility’s hallways were a maze its staggering exterior had only hinted at. Landon ended up right back at the receptionist desk. She still wasn’t back. He saw no bathrooms, or water fountains, or bells on the wall. The muggy home sent his blood boiling and shut down any patience he acquired in a brief appointment to reconnaissance. He headed toward sounds of pots, pans, and running water. He smelled what turned out to be breaded chicken, green beans, and mashed potatoes from a kitchen far back. Above long and steaming trays was an older black woman alone, with a snaggletoothed young white boy. The woman taste-tested her gravy. Her subordinate mopped the floor.
“Excuse me!” Landon yelled. Only the cook looked up. She motioned him over. He stared at her upper right chest and saw a copper tag pinned, the name Ruth Golden. She put hands on her hips and peered at his face: “Yessuh?”
“Miss Golden,” Landon said, “I’m bringing my sister here for her first day, and no one’s here to help us in or see her on her way properly. Where do I go?”
Ruth Golden set the ladle on side of her brown gravy pan.
“Come on with me, baby,” she said.
Landon returned to Akila and Solemn with Dr. Pamela Givens.
Dr. Givens’ office was a former unmarked closet near the emergency back door where they hid the trash. She wore tweed in Mississippi and Tennessee near fall. A chain fastened her spectacles, too. She was directed to the only child in the room. She knew the story. But she never knew shit. She just went by what she was told.
“Well, sorry we don’t have personal greeters around here. Come on back.”
The walking tour was down two hallways passed by two hall-size rooms of faces, lethargy, and tension. They kept on down the hallways to her office. She pointed out relevant rooms. But all the while, her head split to another direction of inside talk:
These folks ain’t got a clue. They done had it with this child and think I’m gonna work a miracle. And I ain’t. If she’s a hooker, forget it. She’s hooked. If she’s a pimp, she’s done. If she’s a gal with no daddy, forget it. She’s feral. If she’s a girl with no mama, I’m lost. That’s in its own little category I’m still trying to figure out myself …
“We have three floors,” the orientation began. “Main floor for everybody. Better behaved get the top. Lesser in middle. All the doors alarmed. All the windows alarmed, too. This is not a jail, so we don’t keep bars. But it’s a special code to get the windows open, ’cause this ain’t no hotel, either. We don’t pay for air-conditioning here. But we understand the conditions. This is Mississippi, or Tennessee, depending on which way you looking. Windows only open a few inches. If they want a fan, they gotta check one out with Miss Bernadine at the front, and check it back in.”
The orientation continued long enough to get back to her office one could easily pass, a display of Margaret Burroughs prints and African sculpture and books.
“Please, sit down.” She motioned to them and sat herself down in a grand armchair. “Four days a week I’m here and one day on the weekend. We keep at least eight people in here all the time: secretary at front, three people in the kitchen, some volunteers, formal staff. Janitor ain’t part of it.”
Landon took one of two extra seats. Solemn took the other. Akila stood. Other than her art, Dr. Givens’ office was uninviting. It was cramped, with file cabinets and bulletin boards with pinned letters and photos of the graduates who reached back with pictures, invitations and programs for their babies, weddings and graduations. Dr. Givens’ certificates from her past degrees and accomplishments set in prominent frames behind her desk: Spelman for psychology, Emory MBA, Tennessee State Ph.D. in education. Most who came into her office did not know what the letters meant or where the schools were. The window faced a once hopeful but makeshift vegetable garden, intended to be a group-home project. Instead, it withered to playtime.
“What’s done to get them an education?” was the first thing Landon asked.
“The best we can,” Dr. Givens answered. “For the most part, they carry on pretty independent till it’s time to eat. Individual lockers. Shower and dress time always supervised. It’s only one bathroom stay open after hours, on the first floor, by the front desk. Need a key. Nobody go outside without permission and watch, usually when we have enough volunteers. I been here thirteen years. Ain’t never had one girl drop out on my watch. Now, we have had two jump out the windows. First a white gal. Died. Accident. Some muddy haints got to working her mind down. She couldn’t keep up.”
She pulled out Solemn’s files.
“The other one, little black gal, we knew she was trying to. But this was before we got the alarms and the stops on the windows. Matter fact, it’s why we got ’em.”
Her orientation was rusty. Usually, the charges arrived alone or in a patrol car, the only talk being, “Sign here.”
“So, Solemn Redvine: breaking and entering, estate robbery, possession of stolen property…” Dr. Givens went on. “Well, young lady, you shole got some sticky fingers.”
“Solemn’s been a good girl all her life,” Akila said. “This whole situation just a misunderstanding. Even Solemn don’t seem to know what happened.”
Dr. Givens stared at Solemn with her glasses slid to the edge of her nose.
“That true? You don’t know a thing about how you got here?”
“No,” Solemn told her. “I forgot all about it by now. It’s been a long time.”
Dr. Givens thought this young girl was unaware of what a long time really was. According to her papers, Solemn Redvine was supposed to serve two, three years at Fanny O. Barnes (two if she was perfect), from Mississippi State’s Department of Corrections’ assessments, from Singer’s homes origin, from Bledsoe stock. And, according to some other notes and letters and signs and calls and vague mentions she could recall, Solemn Redvine was to spend it as if she was a child who truly had others waiting for her. Or the type of child who could leave with a future or a vengeance. So, the meeting was short. It was formal, a courtesy really. It was much more than most received. Since, well, this girl, Solemn Redvine—with her Singer’s address and Detective Justin Bolden’s notes and private turned corporal in the Army brother, and two thousand dollars Akila left in her top desk drawer before Dr. Givens put it inside the neat inside pocket of her faux brown leather purse—did.
* * *
Sat in Sunday best, Solemn watched Akila and Landon walk out of Dr. Givens’ door. She was about to lift herself up to start walking out right along with them. But Landon put his arms on one shoulder. He said some words she did not quite catch. Akila did the same. Solemn looked between the two. Dr. Givens stood behind her brother and sister-in-law. She took off her glasses to twirl them around her finger. She seemed totally different than she was at first. She spoke chatty-like now. She grinned. Landon and Akila lingered their eyes upon her near the door. Then, they turned to go suddenly and quickly in an about-face, away from her. The woman led them out. They did not look back.
Solemn wondered where they were going and how long they would be. Maybe they were hungry. They had passed a roadside diner named Rosie’s and a Shell gas station with a hamburger, taco, and hot dog counter inside. Maybe they needed to eat. Before they returned to finish the tour. This woman needed to show them the ways there and back. Okay. Solemn reclined back into her seat and put her head back. She gave very first notice to the room’s drop-ceiling chandelier. It was the room’s original, from 1966. It was wide, dark, dusty, intricate, and overwhelming. It bore down like a spider to deracinate her more than she already was, to graze its tentacles onto Solemn, then yank her up into the life of its web. And to fight the fear of the vision’s returns and the malaise of secrets when her heart beat or not, Sol
emn knew she now had nowhere to go but to love. She just didn’t know the way.
* * *
Fanny O. Barnes kept fifty disgorged and ragamuffin girls. Their offenses ranged from infant sexual assault to petty larceny to hooking to car theft to abandonment. To keep them in check were three day people, two custodians, a food services quartet (only the elder cook, Miss Ruth, exempt from taunts or ridicule), one secretary until 5:30 (Miss Bernadine), one freelance social-working nurse and nutritionist weekly, volunteer community college interns to fill in, and at least two regular people at night to look out for whichever one was sleeping at the time. No security guards. The entire staff split that job. Any workers were supposed to be certified in CPR and basic self-defense. It depended. Most of the dorm parts were stationed on the lower second floor for faster accessibility. The more volatile girls stuffed in a twenty-bed open-space dormitory. Petty offenders and better ones got third-floor quarter rooms and a few double rooms at the corners, doled out for good behavior or two thousand dollars tucked in top drawers.
Wilena. Lisa. Mona. Carrie Mae. Terina. Erika. Shante.
The Day Staff’s degrees entitled them rights to look over kids who had a variety of issues their case notes never fully revealed. It took time to recognize which girls would attempt to have sex with the grown-men staff and which ones would attempt to fight the grown-women staff. No amount of psychology or sociology coursework could fully prepare them for the tsunami of venom poured from the wounds of not knowing a father, or knowing disdain by a mother, or being an ensured check to a foster parent, or losing a battle with siblings for a home. Still, they put B.A. or M.A. behind their official names on every incident report, release form, work order, and nutrition request. It mattered to them.
Unlike the day people, the Night Staff were day laborers; they got no benefits but hourly pay, punishment for wrong turns or no degrees. So, they blamed the girls for every issue and disaster of their lives. God forbid they started sneezing or glimpsed a gray hair or stuffed themselves into constipation. It was all somehow related to “them girls,” all them girls’ fault. Some of them even occupied the position of near temps: they only got the call from Fanny’s at the top of the night, if somebody called off or there was a disaster. They arrived and punished any problem, nightmare, or desire incompatible with the plans to sleep. That was pretty much anything.
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