The Queen of Palmyra

by Minrose Gwin

  I was thinking about Ray and my dream about the burning tree. Ray didn’t seem to have any interest in any woman at all except Zenie. He was mightily interested in her. He never even looked at white women, much less bothered them. It was almost as if he was scared of them.

  I had to take up for Ray. I pulled on Daddy’s pants. “Ray isn’t bad, Daddy.”

  I didn’t like the way it came out. I didn’t mean Ray was the only Negro man who was nice. I knew of others. Mr. Lafitte, for instance. The old men on the benches at his store. L Junior. I was thinking there had to be hundreds, thousands, millions more.

  Both of them looked down at me, then rolled their eyes at each other. “Well. Got a smarty britches here,” Big Dan said. “What you going to do with Miss Smarty Pants?”

  Daddy’s mouth twitched like he was going to laugh. “Sister, what you got to understand is that there are niggers and there are good colored people. Ray and Zenie, they’re good colored people. They know their place and they’re useful. They don’t step over the line. That girl of theirs is another story. The one staying with them. A nigger, well, a nigger’s a nigger. Nothing good to say about them. They’re trashy and they don’t know their place. There’s a difference. These outside agitators, Jews and homos and all, they’re niggers too.”

  Big Dan nodded. “White outside, black as pitch inside.”

  “You got that right.” Daddy waved to Big Dan, and we started up Mama’s path to the Chevy. On the way to Mimi and Grandpops’ Daddy looked over at me like he didn’t know exactly who I was, riding along with him. I didn’t look him in the eye. I was scared I’d made him mad when I said Ray was nice. Now I was wishing I hadn’t said it.

  Instead of mad, though, Daddy seemed interested. “You getting pretty grown up, Sister.”

  “Yes sir.” I looked down at my feet, brown from the layer of dust that had built up on the floor of our house.

  “Maybe it’s time you got yourself educated. Learn a few of life’s lessons.” He threw the word out like a worm on a fishing line.

  “I’m going to school in September.”

  “I’m talking about a different kind of school.”

  He didn’t say anything else about it and I didn’t either. Much as I wanted to go to school with the regular children, I wasn’t wild about having to go earlier than I’d planned, which was the end of September. I’d been putting off the multiplication tables, which were deadly dull, and now Eva’d gone and scared my pants off about diagramming. I didn’t want to get caught short. Mainly, I was dearly hoping that Mama’d be back before September so she could get me some clothes. I’d outgrown almost everything and what I hadn’t was getting tighter by the day. Mimi tended to buy me prissy dresses, which I had no use for except for church. I needed outfits, but not prissy ones. Just regular ones. Crop tops and plain skirts. I also liked jumpers. You could wear them with short-sleeved shirts at the beginning of the school year when it was hot, then put your long-sleeved shirts under them when it cooled off. They were versatile, which Eva had said was important in a piece of clothing.

  A few nights later when Daddy got a call, it was earlier than usual, more light than dark. I went on down to get the box and the headache stick. When I got upstairs, Daddy was still talking. “All right,” he said into the phone, “I’ll bring her.” Then he hung up and turned around and gazed down upon me like I was a pleasure to behold. I handed him the box, but he didn’t take it.

  “Got a surprise for you, Sister, if you can be good.” His eyes had a shine to them.

  I perked up. I’d missed my milk shakes. Maybe he was going to take me to Joe’s.

  “How’d you like to go to a meeting? A get-together. You can carry the box yourself. Get yourself a little education.”

  A meeting wasn’t nearly as good as a milk shake, but it wasn’t as bad as having to go to school early either. “All right.” I tried to sound pleased to be invited the way Mama taught me to do when the Greats made me come over and sit in the dark parlor with them right before Christmas. The Greats were two of Mimi’s sisters who lived together across town in a house with peeling paint. They had lost most of their hair and smelled of camphor and offered peppermints in plastic wrappers and lukewarm water in paper cups. They always wrapped up something they already had and gave it to me at Christmas. One year it was a salt shaker in the shape of a reindeer. The next it was the matching pepper. Mama and I always brought over a perfect whole lemon cake just for the two of them, which they made much over, but hustled directly into the back like it was something private and shameful. Instead of offering a slice like you’d expect, they passed a little jagged white china bowl with peppermints in plastic and I had to act like they were the biggest treat ever.

  So between Mimi’s too-loud hats and the Greats’ peppermints, I’d had practice in acting enthused when there was nothing to be enthused about.

  “Hold up now. You don’t sound too happy.” It was a warning. I looked up at Daddy, but I couldn’t quite see him the way I used to. It was odd, but as time went on without Mama in the house, I was beginning to see him as if he were a ways away. Even if he were right in my face, which he was most nights, he seemed far away. The sheets and pillowcases had slicked up with the shape of us, but seeing him was another story. He was like the little letters at the bottom of the eye chart. You could make out their shapes enough to say one was E and the other F, but you couldn’t really see them well enough to know them truly.

  “Oh boy.” I wanted my words to fly. Instead they hopped around on the ground like a pair of fat lazy doves.

  “Get some shoes on.” He eyed me up and down. “And go get on a better shirt.” He took the box and stick out of my hands and put them down on the coffee table. “Make it fast. I’m going to wash up. We got to get a move on.”

  He went on into the bathroom. I heard the water. When Daddy washed up, he splashed up a storm. It made puddles on the sides of the lavatory and puddles on the floor since Mama wasn’t there anymore to mop up his splashes. When he came out, I could see the grooves of the comb in his hair running in little lines across and down. He’d made a line part on the left side. Not a hair on the wrong side of the line. I’d put on my best everyday shirt, though it was getting too little in the shoulders and chest. It was blue with little pearl buttons and eyelet around the neck and sleeves. “Nice and cool,” Mama said when she brought it home all new and fresh last summer. Now it was faded and soft and wrinkled, though Mama would have ironed it if she’d been here. Not that I’d be going at all if she’d been there. The little pearl buttons were pulled tight.

  We went along the stepping-stone path to the car, me bringing up the rear. I carried the box and the stick, Daddy’s lady slave. By then it was just about dark and Miss Kay Linda’s night jasmine was revving up. Some of it brushed my face. I took a big whiff. It was so sweet it made me want to suck it like you suck honeysuckle. I was starting to feel not altogether bad to be going out with Daddy on a summer night, instead of getting left behind in a hot dark house all by myself. Enjoyable once I got into the spirit of it. Uncle Wiggily heading out on another adventure. The box was my valise. The headache stick my crutch. In my mind, I hopped up and down.

  When we got to the car, Daddy came around to my side to open the door for me. Just as I was getting in, he touched my shoulder. When I turned around, he was standing there with his finger under his nose again. “Do you remember what this means?”

  “Don’t tell?”

  He nodded. “Everything’s a secret from now on, Sister. Lips sealed.”

  I didn’t say anything, just nodded in a serious way.

  “Show me.”

  I put the box down on the seat, and put the first finger on my left hand up under my nose in the sign.

  He shook his head no. “Wrong hand.”

  I changed to my right and made the sign again.

  “Good. Now it’s a promise you can’t break. Nigh unto death. Swear it.”

  “I swear.”

 
The dark was crowding Daddy’s face, drawing a veil across the little space between us. I tried to see into his eyes to tell whether they were smiling. His mouth wasn’t. I couldn’t see his eyes. I stood there and waited for what was next. I didn’t see him move, but he must have because then he was opening the door on his side. I picked up the box and got in the car, closed the door. The box was riding in my lap. I had a good strong grip on the headache stick.

  I thought we’d have to ride a long way and end up out in the country on dirt roads, like when Mama took me to the boot legger, but we just bumped across town on regular streets. Daddy pulled into the Phillips 66 where he always bought gas. It was dark, closed for the night. There weren’t any other cars around. Next door was a big garage. When he turned off the engine, everything seemed quiet for a minute and then the night sounds came rushing in, nearly as loud as Daddy’s muffler but peaceful and settled. Daddy got out on his side and came around. When I handed him the box, he reached down and got the stick too. Then I got out. The back of my shirt was already wet with sweat and sticking to my back.

  “Come on,” he said, and started toward the garage. “I got stuff to do. Got to open this place up.” There was a door on the side with a padlock. He pulled a key out of his key chain and opened it. The door was big and heavy and had a spring on it that made it swing shut if you didn’t hold on to it. He backed up against it to hold it open for me. “Get on in.”

  After I went through, Daddy let go of the door and left us in pitch black. Then he reached up and pulled a chain. A bare bulb shot up light and there we were, in a little room with another big door. It had a peephole on it. That door was locked too, but Daddy used another key to get it open. “There’re only two people in the whole world who have this key,” he said, “and I’m one of them.” Then we went into a big room. The place was swampy and close. Daddy turned on a switch and a big attic fan started up so that the night air, which had seemed so hot outside, came rushing in sweet and cool.

  The room looked like a Sunday school class getting ready to commence. It had a gold shag rug that felt soft the way grass feels soft. Folding chairs arranged in a neat square all facing the middle raised-up part, which had a cross that stood up taller than me. It was made out of two pieces of wood and a whole bunch of red lightbulbs. There was a poster tacked up on the wall of somebody in a white hood and robe on a rearing up-horse that was wearing a skirt and a hood too, which was probably why it was rearing up, it couldn’t see where it was going. The horse person reminded me of the Queen of Palmyra heading into battle, except she was covered up in the white robe, with two crosses on its front where the queen’s bosoms would have been. At first I thought I saw the moon curve of those bosoms under the white, but when I looked again, I could see it was not a woman but a man, with a look on his face that said I’m as pure as the driven snow, don’t mess with me.

  Daddy fished the little key to his box out of his shirt pocket. He unlocked the box and pulled out the Bible, the little sword, the vase, and his two flags. He handed me the Bible. “Find Romans,” he said. “It’s in the New Testament.”

  Of course I knew Romans was in the New Testament. Right before Daddy’d absconded with us, I’d dedicated my life to Jesus at the First Methodist Church, along with a bunch of other children. The preacher had given each one of us our own King James Bible. After the service he had gathered the children together and got us to open our Bibles to the first page. Each one had: I, [YOUR NAME], took Jesus Christ as my savior and Lord on March 2, 1961, and I am saved. He told us to write in our names, and the deed would be done. When I wrote in Florence Irene Forrest, I felt a fluttering inside my chest and I figured it was the Holy Ghost coming in for a landing.

  Later, when I got home, I added my own personal PS, which said, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” On the facing page, I drew the outline of my own hand and wrote inside it THE FINGERS OF GOD. I’d labeled each finger the way we’d been taught in Sunday school. The thumb was the saving finger, the pointer the warning finger; then there were the guiding finger, the judging finger, and the keeping finger. I wondered which finger had tabs on me tonight.

  I was glad to have something to do while Daddy was getting the place set up. While I was pouring through the Bible looking for Romans, he went over and plugged in the cross. A few of the bulbs were gone, but it looked pretty anyway, Christmas and Easter all rolled into one, though witchy. Daddy put the two flags into pole holders on either side of the cross so that they draped down on it. It made a pretty sight. Each flag hung over one arm of the cross so it seemed safe and at home underneath them. Then he went over to a sink and filled up the vase with some water. I was thinking this was going to be some kind of party, with flowers no less, but then he just put the vase on a tall table next to the cross and laid the sword next to the vase. He turned off the overhead light and looked over at me. “Did you find Romans, honey?”

  I hadn’t found it. It was now dark in the room except for the lit-up cross, which was red, in any case. I’d started singing in my head the books of the Bible so I’d know where to look, but when I got to Romans I didn’t see it in my head because the song went “Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Actsandepistlestotheromans, so I didn’t catch the Romans part of it. I was almost to Revelations.

  “No, no, you passed it up.” Daddy grabbed the Bible out of my hands. He was in a hurry. “Here, right here. Now Chapter Twelve. Right here.” He put the Bible on the table too and then took a quick look around. He was sweating, but he pulled his black robe and hood out of the box and put them on. In the witchy red glow it seemed as if he’d just left the room he was so invisible under all that black. When he spoke to me from behind the hood, it didn’t sound like him, but just a muffled voice from way out yonder. “Come here,” the voice said and Daddy’s arm reached out and took my elbow and pulled, which hurt on account of my scars. He corralled me over beside the front door just as there was a bang on it. Then a scratching sound.

  “Who is it and what is your business?” The question came from behind Daddy’s hood, but it didn’t sound anything like him.

  From behind the door came “I am Klansman Chisholm. I seek entrance to the Klavern to meet with my fellows.”

  “Password?”

  “Rose.”

  “Pass, Klansman.” Daddy opened the door. “Hey Big Dan, you’re the first.” Daddy’s voice was back to normal. “Here, take her till I get everybody in.” He shoved me at Big Dan like I was a plate of cookies.

  That’s when I got it. Daddy was in a club, like Eva’s girl club except it had a clubhouse and a password, and he’d asked me to join. Suddenly I felt like a queen. You didn’t see Little Dan or May here. Just me.

  I was relieved to see Big Dan looking like his normal ugly old bald self, no robe or hat or hood. Between the red glow the cross made and Daddy in the black, I had been feeling a little put off.

  “Sure, Win, plus I got a surprise for her. Look honey, Miss Kay Linda made it for you.” Big Dan pulled out what looked like a white brunch coat with long sleeves and a tassel tie and a little pointy hat made out of a white paper sack. “Come on, let’s put it on.”

  Daddy’s voice came back again. He sounded choked up he was so happy. “Look at that, Sister. Miss Kay Linda made you your own robe. How sweet is that? Say thank you to Big Dan, Sister.”

  “Thank you.” I said it but I didn’t mean it. The last thing I wanted was something else to put on. I’d already sweated through my nice blue shirt, plus I’d popped a button and lost it to boot. If Mama ever came back, she was going to be aggravated. “I’m hot as fire.” It came out whinier that it should have.

  “I’ll take care of Little Bit here. Come on, honey.” Big Dan took my hand. His hand was squishy. I felt like I was holding on to a piece of raw beef liver. It was sticky too, and wherever you pushed, it gave. He took me over into a far corner of the room where it was dark. He squatted down in front of me. “Let’s take off your shirt,” he said. “That way you won’t be so hot undernea
th.”

  I was counting my blessings not to have to wear the thing like a choir robe over my clothes. I was going to unbutton myself, but he reached over and started on the buttons. I could have done them faster. I didn’t like him doing them, but I didn’t worry he could see me because it was dark except for the glow of the Christmas-lit cross, which his back hid. He was slow as Christmas himself, taking his time with each one. Fumbling around because it was so dark. Once he tickled me in fun, which reminded me of Mama’s electric shock treatments in Jackson. Finally, my blouse was open and he drew it slow over each arm. He was nice and careful. “Do you want to keep it off for a minute, just to cool off?” His question was a nice little breeze blowing over my front. “I can fan you with it.”

  He was already fanning my front. It felt cool and refreshing. I was the queen and he was my slave with a palm.

  Meanwhile, men galore were piling on in. It was old home week. I could see them over Big Dan’s shoulder, but they couldn’t see me. They were having themselves a good time jawing and patting this one and that one on the shoulder. Some of them I knew. Mr. Jenkins, who owned the drugstore. The little man in a neat uniform who filled us up at the Phillips 66, Daddy called him Sam. Daddy was the only one dressed up in an outfit. He was still at the door taking the password. In the dark I didn’t recognize anyone else. They were all ages and shapes, but they had the same glad look on their faces, as if this party was the highlight of their year. They were milling around. There was a little table over the side, and one man was pouring out of a jug into paper cups.

  A few of them noticed me and Big Dan and started over. I was feeling less than private. I grabbed the sack out of Big Dan’s hand. “Let’s get me dressed now.”

  “Sure, honey. You cooled off?”