I hated her for making Mama feel small.
“Run along, Moses. I be home the usual time,” she said.
From Mama’s place of work, I went down Nun to Front Street, past the Sprunt mansion, with palm trees in front and a set of massive white columns that dwarfed the ones at the Cape Fear Club. What was it with white people and columns?
Mr. Sprunt owned the largest cotton compress in town. White people called his workers Sprunt Niggers because on weekends, when the men splurged on bars and ended up in jail, Mr. Sprunt bailed them out.
I turned on Front Street and walked toward the business district. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until a trolley clanged past and white men fired guns out the window and made a racket with shouts of “We got ’em! We burned the Record!” The trolley stopped, and the men emptied out and joined a crowd that had gathered in front of the YMCA.
A fire bell started to ring, and I panicked. Two fires in the same day was more than I could take. The best thing to do, I decided, was to go toward the wharf. If necessary, I could jump into the river. I ducked into the first alley I came to and cut over to the waterfront.
I found myself in front of the giant Sprunt Cotton Compress. Equipment operators, cotton processors, ticket collectors, and laborers of all kinds streamed out of the building, bewildered. Stevedores abandoned the bales they were loading and left them on the dock.
“They burned de Record, and now they’s burning our homes. It be de devil’s own work!” someone shouted.
The crowd swelled as more people spilled out of the warehouse. The fire bell kept ringing. Some Negroes pointed to the sky, looking for smoke.
I looked up Walnut Street. The white men who had congregated in front of the YMCA were now marching toward the compress. The Sprunt workers far outnumbered the whites, but the white men were armed. The workers fell back, creating chaos as some tried to exit while others tried to reenter the building. No one knew which way to turn. Afraid of getting caught in between, I crossed the street to blend in with the workers.
A black man sprinted down the alley from Front Street and into the crowd of laborers, yelling, “Oh my Lord, the Red Shirts have killed one man and they gone butcher us all!” He ran inside toward a huge mound of loose cotton and dived in, disappearing into the downy pile.
Hundreds of panicked workers began churning, not knowing which way to turn. A white foreman tried to calm them.
A tiny, weasel-headed white man climbed on top of a pyramid of compressed cotton bales. I could tell by the way the workers stood at attention that this was Mr. Sprunt, the owner, whose house I had passed earlier. “Men, men. Quiet. I know you’re worried about your families. I sent a trusted employee into the community. You all know George.” He pointed to someone in the crowd of all black faces. “He tells me that other than the Record, there are no houses on fire. There is no violence. The rumors you’re hearing are only that. Rumors.”
The men murmured among themselves. I thought of what Daddy used to say: “Fear turns men’s brains to mush.”
Mr. Sprunt continued: “The bells are calling out the militia. I urge calm. If you want to go home, I’ll have someone escort you through the sentries, but I beg you, go back to your stations.”
“What have we done? We have no weapons,” came a voice from among the black faces.
Mr. Sprunt turned to the angry white men who had amassed on the other side of the street. “My men are unarmed. You, all of you, disperse, I beg of you.”
His plea had little effect on the throng, which bubbled and frothed like boiling navy beans. Someone in the white crowd hollered, “Let’s kill the whole gang of ’em!”
From his platform, the little man with the big house shouted, “Shoot if you will, but make me the victim!”
This seemed to confuse the white men.
Mr. Sprunt’s voice boomed: “All my workers, back inside. I’m barricading the door. We’ll protect you. I’ve ordered the guns on my yacht to be trained on this mob.”
“He don’t have no guns on his yacht!” someone from the white side shouted.
“Think what you will. After war was declared on Spain this spring, the navy outfitted some of our Cape Fear boats with cannons.” This seemed to cow the angry men.
Across the dividing line of Water Street, Mr. Sprunt addressed an elderly man in a gray frock coat with a double row of brass buttons down the front. “Colonel Moore, you acted honorably in defending the Confederacy. I beg of you, show the same courage now and stop this senseless terrorizing of my workers.”
Someone in the white mob shouted, “If you don’t give the order to shoot at the Negroes, we’ll do so anyway!”
Colonel Moore turned to face his men and said, “I’ve been placed in command by my fellow citizens, and until I’m removed from command, I will not allow bloodshed. Any instigators will be arrested. Is this understood?”
Sprunt ordered all his workers back inside. They stampeded toward the large open doors. I was shorter than the men and was smothered by the forward crush of bodies. I didn’t want to be barricaded inside and tried to stop and let others go around me, but I was swept forward. Remembering Daddy’s instructions for avoiding being caught in a riptide—don’t resist, but let the tide carry you until it loses its power—I gave in and let myself be pushed into the warehouse.
At the far end of the enormous space was a timber structure three stories high. It held the monstrous hydraulic machine that smashed the loose bales of cotton from the gin into denser blocks to be loaded onto foreign-bound vessels. I ran behind a stack of uncompressed bales and located an exit that had not yet been closed off.
I found myself alone on the deserted waterfront, eerie for its lack of bustle. I sprinted along the planks, past schooners and steamers, until I could go no farther. Then I cut over into the neighborhood, walking part of the way, then running. I had to get back to Boo Nanny quick, to warn her to get inside.
Others had the same idea. Negro workers in coveralls poured out of the shipping firms, sawmills, and turpentine plants along the river. The streets, already a cauldron of rumor and fear, were now filled with wild-eyed men desperate to get back to their families.
A gathering of loud white men forced me to go several blocks north before cutting over at Harnett Street. This was a mixed neighborhood and business district on the edge of Darktown, where whites and blacks had always gotten along.
On the southwest corner of Fourth and Harnett, a group of whites had gathered in front of Brunje’s Saloon. There were fewer than at Sprunt’s—dozens rather than hundreds—but these men seemed more agitated and unruly.
I looked around for cover. Kitty-corner from where I was standing, some thirty Negroes milled about in front of Walker’s Grocery, a one-story building with a tarp that extended out from the porch to shade the cabbages, potatoes, and apples stacked on outdoor tables. Our family had a running tab at Walker’s. Boo Nanny sent me there for eggs and sugar when we were out.
A burly police officer with a white beard and fat pink cheeks like Santy Claw tried unsuccessfully to get the Negroes to go home. When that didn’t work, a black man I knew by sight but not by name attempted to break up the crowd. “In the name of God, for the sake of your lives, your family, your children, and your country, go home,” he pleaded.
The men hissed at him. He continued: “I’m as brave as any of you, but we’re unarmed and powerless. Can’t you see that?”
Sensing trouble, I slipped under an old wooden boat overturned in Ernest Dockery’s front yard, one house west of the corner. Under the boat, I stretched out on the fishing nets and rested my elbows on a coil of rope. The boat was tilted enough so that I could peer out through the gap between the sand and the gunwale. Shivering, I put on the jacket the Love Ladies had given me.
Suddenly a shot rang out—from which direction, I couldn’t tell. The Negroes had no weapons. A woman from a house on the other side of the boat screamed, “Billy, a white man’s been shot!”
There was
a moment of silence, then all hell broke loose. Like Fourth of July fireworks, the air sputtered and spit with noise. Black men broke and ran in all directions, like pigeons released from a plunge trap, with whites firing after them.
One man from the white side shouted, “Shame, men! Stop this! Stop this! Don’t you see these dead men?”
“We’re just shooting to see the niggers run!” someone said.
A group of black men took off down Harnett Street, followed by a hail of bullets. Some men were driven back toward the railroad, with whites in pursuit. Those who remained at the grocery store hurled potatoes and cabbages at the white men across the street.
A bullet whizzed over the boat, and I rolled back from the edge, terrified. I remained there, shaking uncontrollably, until the firing stopped. Then I crawled out, crouched behind the overturned boat, and looked at the horrible scene.
Blood was everywhere. The dirt street was covered with spent bullets and torn clothing. The splintered, hand-lettered sign from Walker’s Grocery lay upended in the sand. Potatoes, cabbages, and apples littered the road. Black bodies lay crumpled and bent into odd shapes, like driftwood scattered on the beach.
A bell started ringing from the steeple of St. Matthew’s English Lutheran, the white clapboard church beside Brunje’s Saloon. The militia would be here soon. My neighborhood was at war.
It didn’t take long for the ambulance from Cowan’s Livery Stable to arrive. A freckled young man brought two white horses to a stop at the intersection. The wagon he pulled had a large Red Cross banner on it.
The Negroes had all disappeared, except for the dead and injured. Relatives had hauled off several of the bloodied men, and I saw one man crawl on his stomach, pulling himself by his elbows, the way Lewis and I inched through the underbrush when we played war. The man managed to get himself under a little shotgun house raised on rocks, just north of Walker’s Grocery.
By now the white men had reassembled in front of the saloon. Their numbers had swelled, as had the number of weapons.
“Where’s the man who was shot?” the young ambulance driver called out.
A white man shouted, “They took him to Moore’s Drugstore!”
My heart was beating so hard, I thought I might faint. I wanted to tell the ambulance driver, “Can’t you see? Open your eyes! Use your ears!” There were black men writhing and moaning in the street. But I dared not come out from my hiding place to show him the injured men. I was a coward.
One of the white horses raised its tail and dropped a steaming pile onto the street by a crumpled body. The young driver struck the animal’s rump with a whip, and the ambulance zigzagged around the bodies and galloped off toward the drugstore, leaving the injured men behind in the sand.
I crawled back under the boat and rolled myself into a ball. If I’d had the guts to approach the ambulance driver instead of cowering behind the boat on top of a stinky fishnet, I could have saved the lives of several wounded men. My insides felt sour. I would never, ever tell anyone about my craven deed. It was my secret shame. I wept, both for my lack of gumption and for the things I had witnessed.
I took a roundabout way home, avoiding the streets and traveling behind houses until I reached the sunken railroad tracks, where Lewis and I had once defended our territory from the white boys. No one would bother me there.
Sure enough, the weedy track was empty. I followed the wooden ties, keeping an ear out for the train whistle. It didn’t take long to reach the bridge near my house that crossed over the tracks dividing Darktown from the white neighborhood to the south.
Because the south slope was not as steep, I climbed up that side, burrowing out toeholds in the dirt and pulling myself up by the bushes and vines that clung to the bank. When I reached the top, I immediately realized my mistake. The road was clogged with angry white citizens, brought to a standstill at the narrow mouth of the bridge. There were both civilians and militia—Rough Riders, Red Shirts on horseback, and the Wilmington Light Infantry, all trying to get into my neighborhood at once. Men pushed and shoved to get across. The crowd forced some men up against the shanks of snorting horses, skittish from the crowds. The man driving the Gatling gun stood on the wagon seat and yelled for people to make room for him to pass. No one budged.
Behind me, a boy and his father were trying to cross the bridge. I turned and recognized Tommy. I hadn’t seen him since our skinny-dipping caper in the Cape Fear River. His freckles had faded to faint splotches.
With horror, I realized that I was wearing the Love Ladies’ jacket, the one with the cinched waist. I was mortified that he would see me in it, even though I wasn’t sure, from his blank stare, if he recognized me at all.
Before I could take the jacket off, Tommy passed in front of me. People were jammed so close together that our legs got tangled and I stumbled. “Sorry,” Tommy mumbled.
His father jerked him by the shoulder and said, “What’s that, boy?”
Tommy looked confused. “I tripped him by mistake,” he said.
“But what’s that you just said to him?” His father wore a red shirt and had a pistol tucked in his waistband.
“I said s-s-sorry,” he stuttered.
“Are you a half-wit? You don’t apologize to a nigger. Ever.”
His father was a big man. Tommy looked scared—more scared than when he had seen the ghost on the railroad tracks.
“I didn’t mean it,” he said, and it was unclear whether he didn’t mean to trip me or didn’t mean to apologize.
“Teach him a lesson.”
“Let’s just keep going,” Tommy mumbled. “It don’t matter.” He didn’t look at me, and I dared not look at him. I didn’t know if Tommy knew that I had kept his identity a secret and protected him from the police.
“What do you mean it don’t matter? He’s in your way, you kick him.”
“He wasn’t. Please. Let’s move on.” He looked around desperately.
I wanted to return to the way it had been underground, in the pitch black, when our differences didn’t matter so much as the fact that we were in a tight spot together, and together we had to get out of it.
His father twirled Tommy around and shoved him in my direction. “You go back and show him who’s boss.”
Looking down, he gave a little tap to my ankle, barely grazing me.
“That ain’t no kick,” his father said. “Harder. Act like you mean it.”
Tommy looked at me with sad green eyes, fighting back tears. I could tell for sure that he recognized me and remembered everything. We were bound together by secrets: secret gifts, the secret tunnel, a secret friendship. And now this final secret: he didn’t want to kick me. Of this I was certain. As certain as anything I knew in my life. But his father towered above him, and Tommy was shaking. He had no choice. With his chin tucked on his chest, he cocked back his leg and let it fly. The pain shot up my shin.
“Atta boy. That’ll teach him,” his father said.
It wasn’t the welt that smarted so badly. What hurt was something that wouldn’t go away as quickly.
I broke sideways through the crowd. When I reached the edge of the drop to the railroad tracks, I leaned over and emptied the contents of my stomach into the weeds. I felt humiliated and deeply, deeply sorry, whether for myself or Tommy, I couldn’t say.
When I finally got across the bridge, I was in familiar territory but I felt no safer. The Negroes had fled from the streets in terror, leaving only armed white men. An alarming number carried axes, as if the lumberjacks from the pine barrens had been called into service.
I passed by the house of one of the shut-ins from Boo Nanny’s church. I saw two men reduce her front door to splinters. The elderly widow was hard of hearing and couldn’t walk without a cane. I sometimes brought her groceries.
White men suspected everyone of harboring weapons, even the churches. I glanced down the block to the Baptist church. The Gatling gun that had been ahead of me on the bridge was now aimed at the entrance to the church
. Navy Reserve members in crisp white uniforms were lined up across the street, rifles pointed. I had to get home quickly. Nothing was safe, not even the churches.
The day had turned gray and heavy. I scurried along with my head down, not wanting to call attention to myself. I would have cut through the backyards, but the Holloways had a mean dog and a broken-down fence, and I didn’t want to chance it. Instead, I moved over to the median that divided Fifth Street—a sandy strip lined with live oaks drooping with kinky gray haint’s hair.
From up ahead, I heard a terrible shrieking. I didn’t know whether to go toward the cries or away. I continued and soon came upon a little girl leaning against an oak. She had braids all over her head, each tied with a pink ribbon, and looked to be about seven. The lower part of her arm, from the wrist to the elbow, had been split open by a bayonet. The gaping wound made me think of the inside of a pomegranate with the shiny red seeds. For such a little girl, she made a big noise, and the armed men had cleared away from her.
I tried to quiet her down and get her to tell me her name, but all she could do was wail “Mama.”
“I’m not your mama, but I’ll get you fixed up. Don’t you worry,” I said.
I knew I had to save her. It was the only way I could make up for what I had done earlier, when I let the ambulance drive away from the wounded men.
We were three-quarters of a mile from the hospital but only a few blocks from my house, so I decided to take her there. I looked around for help. The Negroes had cleared off the streets, but after going down an alley, I was able to round up a thin, middle-aged woman and an unshaven man with grizzled white growth on his face, like frost on a nut.
Luckily, the old man seemed to know what to do. “Take off your shirt,” he instructed me. I did, and he bit into the tail, ripped a strip off the bottom, and tied it around the little girl’s arm above the wound, like the tail on a kite. Then he knotted the arms of my shirt around a branch to make a flag.
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