Freshwater Road

by Denise Nicholas

  "He was like a movin' picture star." Sissy seemed to float herself inside the color picture of Frederick Douglass, his wild, full head of hair and beard making him look staunch and sturdy.

  "They didn't have no movies in those days, girl." Labyrinth rolled her eyes at Sissy.

  "I know that." Sissy stood her ground.

  Celeste heard the two of them sounding like grown women fussing over a backyard fence.

  "He named his newspaper the North Star because the slaves used the North Star in the night sky to guide them to freedom," Celeste explained. "Today, he'd be like a movie star because he was very famous. Only he was famous for fighting for freedom."

  "See." Sissy sucked her teeth at Labyrinth.

  Labyrinth looked up at Celeste and shook her head. "Whatever you say, Miss Celeste."

  Say the word freedom over and over again until it becomes like the hair on their heads and the brown in their skins. Say it for yourself. Say it for yourself.

  "So, it helped to move people, Sissy, to guide them from a bad place to a better place. Like the star of Bethlehem at Christmas time."

  While Celeste focused too much on Sissy back at the church door, the other children grew restless. With dark flashing eyes and sun-brown skin that was as smooth as Momma Bessie's gravy, the children played a toned-down version of musical chairs to little stanzas of church songs that they sang out in bursts. Their clothes were nearly tattered. Next to Sissy and Labyrinth, Tony might be the one to make real strides in reading and Negro history, in seeing the possibilities of life. He had curiosity. But it was Labyrinth who was already feisty. Celeste wished they all had her spunk, because they were going to need it.

  The children perked up at the mention of Christmas with little pinches and whispers. Their high-sounding voices sparked the front of the church. Tony popped his head around towards Labyrinth and Sissy.

  "I see you, Tony." Labyrinth stuck out her tongue then wiggled her hips.

  "Okay, Labyrinth, come on back here and sit down." Celeste had to keep a handle on Labyrinth. "Sissy, leave the chair in the door so you can see from inside."

  Sissy smiled her distant smile as if she'd been piloting a group of escapees by the light of the North Star herself. She checked for the maroon car, caution clouding her face with the worried look of a grown woman. Sissy seemed to dote on Frederick Douglass from the first time she saw his picture on the book cover.

  When she called to Sissy to take her turn reading from the Frederick Douglass biography, Sissy was gone. Two men stood inside the door in shadow, one holding the chair that had braced the door open. They disturbed every mote of dust, every wilted and solemn molecule of air in the church as if the building itself held its breath. From the height and slight thickness of one of them, Celeste thought that Shuck had found his way to Pineyville to take her home.

  It wasn't Shuck or anyone like him. They were too young, with short-cut kinky hair, white T-shirts under their bibbed overalls lighting their dark, sweat-shiny faces. No curls and waves pomaded to flatness with a stocking cap, no diamonds sparkling, no stingy-brimmed hats, no suits and ties complementing pastel dress shirts. The men weren't like her brother Billy, either, or his friends, the ones she called the work-hard, party-hard set from Detroit. Nothing about them resembled the Negro boys who crept around campus, the big-muscled athletes or the brainy types whose sports jackets drooped off one shoulder and whose shoes were run down at the heels.

  They were calm, standing in the shadows neither smiling nor frowning. She saw now that the taller of the two wore wire-rimmed granny glasses. She fumbled, shuffling papers, beginning to feel that she'd conjured a mirage in the afternoon heat. But the children had grown quiet, too, waiting for a cue, eyes darting back and forth between the men and her. A child should speak up, calling to an uncle, an older brother, someone they knew. No one spoke. Instead, they left their seats to be closer to her. She put her arms around them. Tony took a step towards the men. Labyrinth was right behind him. Celeste grabbed the girl back to her.

  "Miss Detroit. How you doing?" Matt Higgens's Kansas City twang rang out in the still church. Matt and his friend came out of the shadows down the church aisle.

  "You checking on me?" Celeste said, smiling. She saw his friend was Ed Jolivette, who she remembered had spoken at one of the orientation meetings in Jackson. He'd quieted a packed church with a soft voice. She'd sat in the back of the church that night with Margo and Ramona, and hadn't gotten a clear view of him. In the One Man, One Vote office, everyone spoke of him as "Jolivette" because the movement seemed to be so full of guys named "Ed." Ed Jolivette was different-that night, his quiet speech had set him apart from the other speakers, who beat you over the head with the obvious.

  Their self-possession frightened the children because they intuited already that Negro men with that air died fast in Mississippi. They knew it whether they could speak it or not. These two men were the strangers in town, the threat to all that had been before, gunslingers with no guns. Their eyes had no fear, no rancor, no need to please or displease.

  Matt seemed older than he had just the few weeks before when Celeste had last seen him. "It's okay." She said it to Tony. "Go on home. Be here on time tomorrow."

  Labyrinth pouted. "That your boyfriend, Miss Celeste?"

  "Go on home now, Labyrinth." Celeste gave her a chiding look, wondering which man she was referring to. "And be careful." In Detroit, it would've been, "be careful of the traffic crossing the street, be careful of bigger kids on the prowl to toy with little ones." In Mississippi, it was a general be careful of everything.

  The children walked out slowly. Tony lingered, eyeing the two men and her as they started to straighten up the church. Tony studied Matt and Ed like they were ebony carved statues.

  Ed Jolivette smiled at Tony and said, "Hey now, where you at, little man." Tony grinned.

  She knew he'd never seen anything like them, not even Reverend Singleton, but surely he'd heard stories and knew how those stories ended. Negro man stands up to white man and is killed, disappears without notice. These were the "stand up to" kinds of men. Even Reverend Singleton had to do a lot of bending to keep a church going in this town. Finally, Tony grabbed the hands of his two sisters and strolled out.

  "Pick that up, could you?" She pointed to the portable chalkboard. "It goes in the back office. You're Ed Jolivette. I heard you speak in Jackson. You were good." He seemed to move in a cocoon of stillness, as though there was some kind of seal around him, an invisible wrap with electricity running through it. She felt the charge.

  Matt took the front end of the chalkboard. "He's all right." Matt glanced away from Ed when he spoke.

  She led them to the back with the chalkboard balanced between them.

  "I try not to do much of that." Ed sounded comfortable with his own reluctance to be in the public eye at a time when new leaders were springing up like weeds. His voice was low and smooth, with an accent she couldn't trace. He had thin lips and dark red-brown skin. Everybody was dark down here. Celeste couldn't figure out how the white people stayed so white in all the sunshine. Maybe they had some secret balm they used to keep themselves white and separated. Negroes soaked up the sun-but not Wilamena, she remembered. Celeste wondered what she did in New Mexico to hide from the desert sun.

  "So you got five kids in here," Matt sounded like he wanted to say "only," but didn't. They came back into the church after leaning the chalkboard against the wall in Reverend Singleton's office.

  "Six, really, but one's got a daddy problem." Sissy must've seen Matt's car turn in off the highway, thought it was her father's, and taken off running. "He won't let her take the classes so she sneaks in and out. Some days, I have as many as fifteen." She grabbed her book-bag and felt Ed watching her, the way her yellow cotton dress fit. She realized she'd been in a kind of neuter zone since J.D., a place that quieted her sexuality in a way that seemed readable to any man who might've shown interest. She'd wanted time, and perhaps she got more than she
'd bargained for. "What? That not enough?"

  "You can do better." Matt chastised her gently.

  "One would be enough in this town," Ed spoke quietly, defending her. But she resented his speaking of Pineyville this way, even though she felt the same. It was her town now and her project. They were ganging up on her. She decided to ignore both of them and turned off the fans.

  "Matt, I knowy'all are giving me a ride to Mrs. Owens's house so I don't have to sit here waiting for Reverend Singleton." She sounded flagrant and strong and liked it. "Couple of times I just walked it because I got tired of sitting here."

  "You not supposed to walk from here to Freshwater Road, chere, no matter what. It's too dangerous," Ed chided. "You tryin' to get killed?"

  "Not really." Celeste said it loud. What was that "chere" business?

  "Big city impatience don't work down here." Matt harped. He sounded the way he had when they first started driving down from Jackson, before they were stopped on the road. Matt was supposed to be her ally. He was showing off for Ed, being harder than he would've been alone.

  The men's voices conquered the space, devoured it. Their long arms dangled, their big hands gripped the pew backs and folding chairs. They walked around the small church, their footsteps thudding on the boards. She felt relegated to the side, part of the backdrop. Women only rented the space when they sang on Sunday morning, rearing back, dropping their jaws, pushing their music and their hearts toward Jesus. Then they sat down and shut up. Men just spoke into the space any time of the day or night and owned it.

  "What the hell am I supposed to do?" She started toward the door but stopped and turned to Matt, the impulse to put her hands on her hips like Labyrinth strong enough to make her clutch her book-bag instead. "I'm sorry." She said it to the church more than to the men. "Must be the heat."

  Matt and Ed had crystallized here as if they were characters out of a Bible story, disciples winding through the land provoking a man here, a woman there, goading all who'd listen to reexamine everything they'd heard for the last one hundred years about the way life was supposed to be lived. She stood at the door, digging around for her place that seemed to evaporate the longer she stayed in a space with Matt and Ed.

  "Her daddy's a numbers man." Matt said nonchalantly, cocking his head back to look at her.

  "Is that true?" Ed nodded his approval, his accent sending a whistle of air on the "t."

  "He owns a bar. Numbers are a side thing." She slid it out there, claiming Shuck for all he was worth, proud.

  "You been into Hattiesburg, yet? Yo daddy got the coin, you can take us out." Matt put his hand out to Ed for the slapping five, something in his tone putting her down. She couldn't have been more disappointed in Matt.

  "Haven't been anywhere." She rolled her eyes at both of them as she held the door open. "The last time Hattiesburg came up I was with you, remember? I don't have a car, you know."

  "Don't need one if you do what you supposed to do." Matt walked out on a roll now, as if everything they'd been through together had created no kind of bond at all. He swaggered around like he owned Pineyville. She bit her tongue, not wanting to get into a verbal snarl with Matt in front of Ed Jolivette.

  As oppressive as the church was, when she stepped outside in the direct sunlight she flinched like she'd been hit, and squinted so hard she lost track of where she was until she got her big sunglasses on. The sun burned the oxygen out of the air, scorched the lungs. Breathing became a cumbersome act.

  "I better put a note on the door for Reverend Singleton so he won't be worried." She was thinking she'd better tell Reverend Singleton to swing by and tell Mrs. Owens, too, so she wouldn't be worried if they were really going to Hattiesburg. She pulled paper and tape out of her book-bag and watched Matt and Ed head for the dusty Dodge, noticing the back of Ed's tall body, the balance of it and his easy gait as he strode over the white rock gravel. Her cotton dress suddenly felt like burlap scraping the surface of her skin. She unbuttoned another button, revealing the round of her modest cleavage. If Reverend Singleton drove up before they got out of there, she'd have to rebutton it. She knew better than to test those boundaries in this bible-toting place where innocent gestures carried the weight of sin. If Mrs. Singleton happened to be with him, she'd button the dress up to her neck.

  "Mrs. Owens said you could cook ribs on the church steps this time of day." It was just about high noon when she joined them at the car, tossed her book-bag into the back seat, climbed into the front in the middle. She glanced back to see her note taped to the church door, clearly visible to anyone coming up the church road. "Glad you got your windows fixed, Matt." She tried to put some smart jokiness in her voice, remembered that glass flying across the front seat of the car, wanting to remind him of their history together. "Now, that was something else."

  "It's been worse." Matt said, backing the car around, heading down the bumpy church road.

  Celeste knew he was stifling her allusion to their camaraderie in the trenches. She'd kept her wits about her while he got a real Mississippi beating. "Well, that may be true, but that trip ranks up there at the top of my bad list. I was scared they were going kill you, and God only knows what they might've done to me." Just in case Matt hadn't told Ed about it, she wanted to be sure he knew she'd earned her stripes. She sat up straight, holding her own, feeling good that she hadn't let him roll over her life's experience for the sake of making her look wimpy in Ed's eyes or even in her own.

  "By the end of the summer, that ride down from Jackson will look like child's play." Matt couldn't resist, she thought, letting her know he was the one with the notches on his belt in Mississippi. She was still green and underneath, he seemed to be saying that no matter what she did, she'd never measure up.

  "Somebody shot through Mrs. Owens's house the other night." She one-upped him right back. "We sleeping on the floor now."

  "You and damned near every volunteer in Mississippi." Matt swatted her back down hard.

  Celeste's blood rushed up to her neck and face. Why was he being so hard on her? He was tearing her down in front of a stranger. Was it Ed Jolivette? It clicked in. He didn't want Ed Jolivette to like her because she might like him back. She couldn't tell if Ed understood what was going on between them or not.

  "How many you got in voter registration?" Ed brought them back to business.

  "It keeps changing. I'm teaching remedial reading and civics at the same time. My core group is about four or five." She didn't finish before Ed broke in.

  "What'd you expect?" It stung even though he said it quietly.

  She ignored him. "Half the time, they can't get to the church for the class. I don't know." She'd had about enough of both of them. At the same time, she felt Ed's naked arm touching hers, so smooth she didn't want to say anything to make him move.

  "Goes with the territory." Ed sounded like he'd seen it all, and there was no burden to it. He sounded almost apologetic.

  Celeste didn't want him to see her face for fear it would reveal the charge she felt in being close to him, even though they'd been dueling since he walked in the church door. He was the movement; she knew he'd been arrested and beaten more than once. Like Matt, he lived in the frontline trenches long before Freedom Summer ever started. They exuded the same manliness, the same new root meaning of Negro man, but Matt had an edgy, street-wise side to him. Ed came off like a quiet bookworm, but maybe that was just the wire-rimmed glasses leading her off on a dead-end tangent. He'd taken them off. She glared at him. Clear boundaries, sweet eyes, but dread hiding way back in his heart. No compromising here. He'd walk away or die first.

  "Trust what you're doing." Matt drove slowly north on Highway ii. "We need to see one of your voter registration classes." Matt backed down a bit. More than likely, he was following Ed Jolivette's lead.

  She rested her head on the back of the seat. "Fine by me." The whip of the breeze patted her face dry. She spied the bend of Ed's long legs, the shape of his knee and his thighs beneath
the denim overalls. His dark brown arms slendered into elegant wrists. No watch. No rings. He seemed older.

  The air thickened like a pot of stew with too much flour. The sky opened and a hammering rain fell. They rolled up the windows of the Dodge, locking in the plump air. Lightning snapped at the crabby trees. Dry branches ignited, and when the quick fires died, the trees were leafless black embers, still standing upright.

  The last time she was locked in a car with Matt, he'd assumed everything about who she was and what kind of family she came from because of the way she looked. I been to Detroit, baby, I know. Yo momma'd shit a brick ifshe knew somebody as black as me was this close to you. You a red-bone. By the end of that trip, she believed they'd gotten past all that. He'd accepted her. But now she wasn't so sure. Why did she have to prove how Negro she was to the Marts of the world? Shuck would say that was his problem, not hers. She wanted to ask them if there was anything new in the search for Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman. She'd read in the local newspaper that their burned-out car had been found, containing Mickey Schwerner's wristwatch stopped at 12:45. Dead time. These deaths, these unfound bodies, made gargoyles of men who turned their eyes away, pretending this thing made a man truer to himself and to his God. The women who slept with the men who did the killing knew what happened to those boys. If you listened to men, they told you everything. Who were these women, who slept with death on their lips and woke up silent?

  The countryside whizzed by though of course they drove well under the speed limit. Crows jostled on the telephone lines and cross poles, breaking for chatter before another sally into someone else's nest.

  "Fish crows," Ed said. "Up from the Gulf."