Darktown: A Novel

by Thomas Mullen

  Rake bade Mr. Calvin good-night, then walked home, feeling small beneath the stars.

  13

  IT WAS NINE and not yet abysmally hot as the bus climbed up Monroe. It passed Piedmont Park, where white ladies leisurely strolled through the greenery, clutching parasols or pushing prams, getting some air before that air grew stifling. Dew still clung to the grass and dazed squirrels hid in the shade at the base of hickories and red oaks.

  Boggs rarely rode the bus. Sweet Auburn had what he needed, and when he did require something farther off, he had his father’s car. But today’s errand was a unique one, requiring him to make like the majority of Negroes in his city, and thus he subjected himself to the back of the bus. He subjected himself to the white driver’s occasional comments about Negroes, which he made to some white men who sat in front. He subjected himself to the fact that the very road he was on changed names from Boulevard to Monroe not because the road itself changed but because the southern length of it was a colored neighborhood and the northern length was white and therefore the people who lived on it should put different words on their return addresses.

  He got off at the intersection of Piedmont. The houses here were close to the street but set up high on brick steps and wide porches, some of them surrounded by giant azaleas that rose to the houses’ second stories. Ansley Park was one of the wealthier neighborhoods in the city; Boggs had certainly never walked here before, and he felt those looming Tudors and Queen Annes observing him, their porches like noses held high in disdain.

  He was here to pay a visit to Lily Ellsworth’s former employer.

  He was wearing a white button-up shirt tucked into tan trousers. He was clean but had deliberately not ironed his clothes, as he’d been afraid of looking too together. From what he’d observed from Otis Ellsworth, he needed to be at least slightly shabby to pass for the man’s son.

  The previous day, the farmer had called police headquarters and left a detailed message for Boggs, listing the return address of all his daughter’s letters from Atlanta, as well as the name of the “senator” she’d worked for. Boggs had since looked up the addresses and checked them against the few records in the Negro precinct’s files: the first two addresses were boardinghouses. The third was Mama Dove’s, a brothel.

  Perhaps that was why Ellsworth didn’t seem to want Boggs to come out to Peacedale and see the letters? Did Ellsworth know his daughter had fallen that low? The call may have been a way for Ellsworth to forestall the visit. It certainly played to Boggs’s own fears: as much as he knew he should go out there—to see if any other information had occurred to Ellsworth now that the initial shock had passed, and to talk to the rest of Lily’s family and learn more about the “argument” between mother and daughter—he was wary of it. McInnis would fire him immediately if word got out that Boggs was traveling the state to investigate a murder. Worse, Peacedale was very far away indeed from the protections Boggs enjoyed in Atlanta. The thought of going that deep into the country chilled him.

  Instead, he had read the file on Lily’s murder, which had not taken long at all. The white detectives had noted that Otis Ellsworth admitted he wasn’t her biological father, something he’d failed to mention to Boggs. The report noted the detectives’ theory that Ellsworth may have killed her, a claim Boggs thought absurd, and apparently they realized it was a flimsy idea, as they offered no evidence and had not charged the man. Forensics had done little work on her body. The white detectives seemed to assume she had been killed in the alley and left there, but Boggs hadn’t found any blood on the ground. It seemed obvious to him she had been killed elsewhere and then moved.

  So today Boggs was walking toward the home not of a senator, as Ellsworth had incorrectly recalled, but a congressman: Billy Prescott, U.S. Representative. He was a longtime officeholder, notoriously sly deal-maker, and one of the few elected officials Boggs had actually met.

  Prescott had been in power since ’32. He was a Democrat, of course, as were pretty much all the elected officials from Georgia and the surrounding states of the old Confederacy (Republicans were the party of Lincoln, emancipator of the slaves, and therefore were considered by white Southerners to be barely better than Negroes, Jews, and Communists). Atlanta politicians weren’t typically the pitchfork-wielding demagogues like the state’s senators and rural congressmen were, however, and Prescott had been rather quiet on racial matters during his first years in office. Like the rest of his delegation, he opposed antilynching legislation, and he’d avoided any civic events that might involve leaders of the colored community. But his wary stance toward what white folks called “the Negro question” had seemed to change over the last few years, either because he was more comfortable in his long incumbency or because he could see how the Negro vote was shifting the balance of power in his urban district. Two years ago he had sat alongside Mayor Hartsfield in a meeting with Reverend Boggs and other colored leaders to discuss their concerns, chief of which was hiring Negro officers. Weeks after that meeting, he’d even agreed to speak at a conference on Negro rights at Morehouse—an unprecedented move for a Georgia congressman—so long as his presence wasn’t advertised in advance. Boggs had attended the conference with his father, and had been one of a few alumni war veterans who’d been invited to share a brief audience with Prescott beforehand. In those few minutes, Prescott had struck Boggs as intelligent and, if not exactly striving for racial fairness, at least curious to learn more about the overlooked corners of his district. Months later, Hartsfield’s decision to hire Negro cops sent most Georgia legislators into seizures, one group even drafting a state bill that would have banned Negro police. But Prescott (according to Reverend Boggs, who said he’d heard from friends at City Hall) had threatened to tie up farm subsidies of influential farmers in their districts if they followed through, and the law died in conference. Ever since, Boggs’s father had spoken of the man as an ally, if one he didn’t know well.

  This being late July, Congress was still in session and Representative Prescott was busy with his legislating up north. Though he lived in Washington most of the year, his home in Atlanta left little to be desired. A white Tudor, it had a wide porch set behind twin magnolias and a perfectly maintained lawn unmarred by a single magnolia pod or stray leaf. Black-eyed Susans dotted the garden, and two lavender chaste trees flanked the driveway, their branches adorned with long, spiky purple flowers like some strange new hairdo. The house looked like the sort of place that should have a gate around it, and it probably would before long.

  Boggs had not yet sweated through his shirt, but the small of his back was damp. Traffic passed intermittently behind him.

  The door to the house seemed wider than it needed to be. Its knocker was made of brass. Boggs imagined it would issue quite an authoritative knock.

  He did not consider using it.

  He instead walked past the entrance, his shoes crunching on the stones of the semicircular driveway. Having swallowed his pride, he followed a dirt walkway around the side of the building, searching for the back door. He was careful not to peer into any of the side windows. The holly bushes were well manicured, their dry leaves no doubt sharp enough to draw blood. He found the much-less-impressive back door, walked up the three wooden steps, and knocked.

  The steps had creaked when he walked up them and they were pocked with holes from carpenter bees. Behind him were three fig trees, a hummingbird darting past. He’d been waiting long enough to consider a second knock when the door opened a few inches and he saw the face of a maid. She was young, maybe twenty, pretty, and annoyed.

  “What do you want?”

  “I was hoping to speak with Mrs. Prescott.”

  She eyed the bandage on his forehead. Everyone did. “What is this regarding?” She looked a few years younger than Boggs, yet she spoke to him as if he were simple. “Because unless what you’ve come to talk about is real mighty important, you’d best not trouble her with it.”<
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  “I’m looking for my sister, who used to work here. I was hoping Mrs. Prescott might know where she moved on to. Please, miss.”

  She watched him for a second. She seemed interested in the mention of her predecessor. And that interested him.

  “Which girl?” she asked, but the question seemed fake to him, like she was asking only to cover up her initial reaction.

  “Lily Ellsworth. I’m her brother, Lucius. We haven’t heard from her in a while.”

  She looked down for a moment. “I’ll go see if she’s available.”

  She was backing up and closing the door when Boggs reached out and held it open.

  “I know you, don’t I? Or at least your people? They worship at Wheat Street, don’t they? The Joneses?”

  He was lying, but it worked, because she replied, “No, Ebenezer Baptist. We’re the Cannons. I’m Julie.”

  “I’m sorry, my mistake. You just looked familiar.”

  He dedicated Julie Cannon to memory while he waited, studying his surroundings. He wondered if any white detective had come knocking on the Prescotts’ door yet. Had she been a white former maid to a congressman, a detective would have at least asked a few questions, albeit discreetly. But Southern discretion was so strong that a full-bore investigation would have been unlikely even for a white girl. Because Lily was only a Negro, the case had not been judged important enough to bother such an esteemed household. The suggestion of any sexual improprieties (had the wife fired her because the congressman had taken advantage and the wife was jealous?) would never be made. Boggs was willing to bet he was the first cop to come here since Lily’s murder. The household might not even know she was dead.

  He heard footsteps. He made sure he was standing straight but not too straight, hands at his sides.

  Caroline Prescott—he had looked up her name in the Auburn Avenue library the day before—was exceptionally thin, the cords of her neck too prominent. The severe way in which her hair was pulled back made her light blue eyes seem to bulge. She stood without a cane but he wondered if she used one when she was outside her home.

  “Yes, what is it today?” she asked in the kind of tea-soaked tone certain white ladies use when addressing Negroes.

  “Yes, ma’am, my name is Lucius Ellsworth and I understand my sister Lily works here?” He did not look her in the eye. He imitated Otis Ellsworth’s accent, though a few degrees less country. Given that Otis had described his daughter as educated, Boggs figured she would have sounded different from her stepfather. “We haven’t heard from her in some time, and my folks asked me to come—”

  “Lily no longer works here.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry, ma’am, I didn’t know that. About how long ago—”

  She seemed irritated to be bothered with such a trifle. “I can’t recall, a month or two ago.”

  “Did she by chance leave a forwarding address, or maybe a—”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea where she might be. It did not work out for her here, I’m afraid. I hope she found her way to something more suited to her talents.”

  He couldn’t tell if she spoke so coldly to every colored person or if this particular subject had caused her claws to come out.

  “All right. Thank you, ma’am.”

  Over her shoulder he could also see, a good ten feet away, the new maid, Miss Julie Cannon, observing the scene with a furrowed brow. She could hear that he was speaking differently than before.

  He took a step back, as if to go, but first he added, “She spoke very well of this place, ma’am. Really enjoyed working here.”

  “I’m sure she did.” If Mrs. Prescott’s voice had been cold before, now it was bloodless. Yet she did not slam the door, as that would have been unladylike. She didn’t even close it. She simply vacated the area, and in her absence Julie appeared, as closing doors was part of her job.

  Julie watched him carefully. He winked at her without smiling, then walked away.

  The night before, Boggs had returned home after another long shift and sat in his parents’ study, a lone lamp keeping him company. Most nights, no matter how tired he was, he needed this brief moment, maybe only ten minutes, to sit and rest and let all he’d seen bleed from his mind. A glass of water carefully placed on a coaster beside him, window open to the sound of locusts, he read the Bible.

  He had memorized several verses about perseverance to help himself through the awful months of the South Carolina army camp. Despite knowing them by heart, he read them now from an old family Bible—the very same one that his great-grandmother, born a slave, had learned to read from. As if seeing the words on paper rather than in his mind would make them more real.

  Galatians 6:9—“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

  James 1:12—“Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”

  Somewhat more ominously, Revelation 2:10—“Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

  Sometimes it was helpful to be reminded that others had felt the same way he did, people going back centuries, all over the globe. Others had endured so much more. Surely he, a man with a salary and a roof over his head and a loving family, could withstand that which plagued him.

  Other times, the words grated. So much about suffering and enduring. So much about the nobleness of feeling the pain inflicted by others. It was then that the words on the page felt as dead as those who had written them, and Boggs shelved the book and went to sleep.

  Boggs and Smith walked south toward the Decatur Street clubs, the roughest part of town, just across the street from the railroad tracks. Women in lurid and revealing dresses had a habit of slowly walking the sidewalks alone here, empty bottles magically rolled across the street, knives found a way to lodge themselves into people’s backs. It was another thick night, and as they approached the neon sign of Early’s Late Place, they heard the scuffling of shoes and the hollers. They picked up their pace and were running by the time they saw the scrum of men spilling into the street.

  “Police!” Smith yelled. “Break it up!”

  Men were falling down and getting up and being pulled back down again. A circle of men, widening and spinning and out of control. Boggs thought he counted five men, but there might have been a sixth in there somewhere. He realized he was lingering at the periphery only when he saw his partner launch into the mess.

  “I said Break it up!” Smith hollered, pushing past one man who’d already been falling anyway.

  Another man pulled back his arm to throw a punch, and in so doing his elbow brushed against the bill of Smith’s cap, knocking it off. Smith took out his billy club and struck the man’s right shoulder. The man dropped, his unthrown punch a memory of things that never happened. Whoever he’d been trying to hit now stood up and saw before him the figure of a capless Officer Smith with a billy club pulled back a second time, eyes searching for a new target.

  “Awright, awright!” The man submitted, palms out.

  Smith kept his baton in position and pointed behind him with his other hand. “On the sidewalk, on your ass. Now.”

  Two other men were tangled together and rolling on the ground, their bodies like the interlocked fingers of two hands desperately trying to become fists. Each time one of them was on top, he’d try to pull one of his arms loose to throw a punch, but then his opponent would flip him, an endless seesaw of futile anger.

  “Break it up!” Boggs yelled at them, trying to pull off whichever one was on top. Then they rolled again, nearly taking out his legs in the process. He backed up and was about to try again when h
e heard a blow land somewhere behind him, and a body knocked into him from behind.

  He turned around in time to see that body fall, and then Smith stepped forward to club another man down.

  Smith looked disgusted at his partner. “For God’s sake, subdue them!”

  Boggs yelled at the two wrestlers to stop, but Smith clubbed whichever unlucky one of them happened to be on top at the moment. One blow is all it took, between the shoulder blades. The cops heard a grunt and before they could even see the man go limp, his opponent took advantage by flipping him over triumphantly.

  So Smith clubbed that fellow, too, over the head.

  A moment later the subjects were lined up on the sidewalk. The cops had dragged those who weren’t in any condition to make it that far themselves. Turned out there were actually seven of them, two of them unconscious.

  From out of the club walked a tall man whose white apron and large belly marked him the chef or owner or both. The glorious scent of smoked meat pervaded the whole neighborhood, and his person particularly.

  “We had things under control,” he said. “Didn’t need no police out here.”

  Boggs spoke first, needing to recover some authority after seeing that look in his partner’s eyes. It didn’t escape his notice the other night, with Little, he’d nearly been brained, but tonight, with Smith, they’d controlled a whole group of belligerents. No thanks to him, as his untouched billy club still was safely nestled in its strap. “Yes, things appeared very under control when we arrived.”

  “We have better things to do than clean up your messes.” Smith’s voice was much louder than his partner’s. “Now get your ass inside unless you want to join them.”

  “I run a clean business, Officers. I just seem to be attracting some bad elements now and again.”

  “Funny how that happens,” Boggs said. Sweat from his forehead was making the sewn-up wound sting beneath its bandage. Even with his cap on, others could still see an inch or two of the white gauze. His fellow officers had assured him otherwise, but he knew he looked ridiculous.