“The gang who burned our house and tried to hang Daddy were not the Jean Ville Klan. They were people who follow wrestling.” He didn’t turn to look at me but I could hear every word.
“Oh, is that good or bad?”
“When the local Klan found out who did it, they were angry because they were blamed, and because they were not asked to participate. The way I understand it, the sheriff thinks he should be consulted about all Klan activity.”
I was quiet. I just wanted to hear his voice. To be near him.
“Susie.” He continued to stare out the closed blinds. His talked softly but I heard every word. “I love you. For more than two years I’ve told myself it’s hopeless, but it doesn’t change anything. I can’t turn it off like a faucet.” I didn’t say anything. He turned around and faced me. “Look at me. Tell me you don’t love me and I’ll go away and try to forget you.”
“I don’t love you,” I whispered. He came to the side of my bed, bent forward and rested his forehead on mine. Our eye lashes bruised each other’s’.
“I don’t believe you. I know you love me. I can see it. I feel it.”
“I don’t love you, Rodney.” I said. “This has to stop.” I started to cry, hard. His lips found mine and he kissed me softly. Then he reached both arms around my back and pulled me to him. I didn’t respond and let my arms hang by my side. I didn’t want to touch him, too dangerous.
He took my right arm and wrapped it around his neck then gently placed my casted arm around his back. He pulled me close and I sobbed into his shoulder so hard my body shook.
“It doesn’t matter whether you tell me you love me,” he whispered. He lifted his head and I saw the tears pooled in his eyes. “I still love you. That won’t change. You can love someone else, you can even marry someone else someday, but I won’t stop.” I wanted him to hold me and force me to tell him the truth, but I couldn’t say the words. Too risky.
I tried to look at him through eyes at half-mast under wet, clumped eyelashes.
“I told my dad about us,” he said. He had a half-smirk on his face and, at first, I thought he was joking.
“You, what?” My eyes flew open. It was like a knee-jerk reaction. He smiled and looked like he was holding back laughter.
“He saw us at the Cow Palace,” Rodney said. “He asked. I couldn’t lie.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I’m in love with you.” He was still holding me and I could taste his words, almost swallow them, his lips were so close. I could see in his eyes that he knew how I felt, but I couldn’t say it. I pictured a noose around his neck, gasped and looked away.
“Oh, God. What did he say,” I asked.
“At first he was upset, taken aback, especially because of his relationship with your dad. But as time goes on, we talk about it more and he’s learned to accept it.”
“Even after what happened to him?”
“Well, we’ve had long conversations since then. He knows I’m here tonight, but I had to promise not to talk to you or contact you again in Jean Ville.” He pulled his arms from around me and held my head in his hands, his lips so close I could taste his words. “But we, you and I, we won’t be in this town forever, you know.” I let those words float in the tight space between our faces.
“If my daddy finds out, it will ruin their friendship.” I said.
“Right now my dad only tolerates your dad—because of what he did to you.” He looked away and I knew he realized he shouldn’t have admitted he knew what happened to me.
“What do you know? What does your dad know?” It frightened me that anyone might know.
“I told him.”
“Marianne told you, huh? Tootsie told Marianne?” I needed the truth. “Rodney, there’s something you aren’t telling me.” He looked unsure, like he was afraid of something. Protecting me? Shielding me? I wasn’t a weakling, he should know that.
“What?” I demanded. “Tell me.”
“They thought ... Um, well ... They thought you weren’t going to make it.” He said it slowly, as if to lessen the blow.
“Huh?”
“The priest gave you the last sacraments.” I must have looked as shocked as I felt because he seemed worried.
“When? Uh. Uhm. How long have I been in here?”
“Close to a month, now.”
“A month? My dad said I’ve been here a little over a week.”
“Twenty-nine days, and counting,” he said. He was sitting on the bed holding my hands. Within seconds my sadness turned to anger. I know he saw fire in my eyes. I was ready to fight my way out of the hospital and out of Jean Ville.
He took me in his arms and hugged me, gently but firmly. It felt so good to be loved that I melted into him and put my arms, even my casted one, around his waist and held him as if by holding on to him I would survive—a life raft. He didn’t pull away. Both of us were crying softly, both feeling like we were finally where we were meant to be.
Once he was sure I was okay, he kissed me. It was gentle, at first, then more urgent. I kissed him back. Our teeth hit and he pulled back and grinned at me.
“Don’t open your mouth so wide,” he said. “Just part your lips a bit.”
“I’ve never kissed anyone on the lips before,” I whispered.
“I know. It’s okay. I’ll show you.” He pressed his parted lips against mine and with the tip of his tongue he licked the outside of mine. It felt good. I closed my eyes. Our mouths formed a suction and he turned his head sideways just a tad. I tried to match the gentle movement of his mouth against mine. He was a patient, gentle teacher. We shared a long kiss that felt like a perfect joining of two lost souls seeking solace and finding it in each other. His breath tasted like peppermint and chocolate and I could feel the warmth of his body against mine. I wondered if he could hear my heart pounding like I could hear his.
The kiss ended and we held each other, for a long time. Then I heard a noise outside the door and pulled away. He kissed me again, deeply, then looked at me, his face so close our noses touched. And he smiled.
“I love you Susie Burton.” I could still feel his mouth on mine.
“You have to go, Rod.” I whispered.
“Okay, I’ll go,” he said. “But know this—you don’t have to tell me you love me, I know. And nothing will change how I feel about you. You’ll come to your senses and I’ll be here, waiting for you.”
He kissed me again, on the lips, then on the forehead and he gently put my hands back over my stomach. When he reached the door to the hall he turned back towards me.
“I have a plan for us,” he said. “When you realized it’s not your job to protect me and my family, let me know and I’ll share it with you.”
He stood at the door a few seconds and waited for me to say something. I didn’t. I couldn’t.
I was discharged a few day s later and Daddy took me with him to San Francisco on a business trip the next month. We stayed at Embarkadero Wharf where we watched the ships come into the port and could actually see Sausalito across the bay. While Daddy was in meetings I rode the cable cars to the Ghirardelli chocolate factory, Fisherman’s Wharf and Chinatown. Daddy took me to Union Square and bought me several new outfits. He insisted, and told me I looked beautiful in everything I tried on. I was almost sixteen and had developed breasts, which I was a little embarrassed about around him.
We talked about his political aspirations and he said he counted on the Negro vote to help him win when he ran for Mayor of Jean Ville the following year. I thought about how terrible it would be for him if anyone found out about my relationship with Rodney. It would probably destroy his political chances. I silently thanked God that I’d be off at college by then.
Part Four: 1968
Chapter Eleven
Graduation
1968
I TOOK A HUGE chance on graduation night at Adams High School. With Marianne’s help, I disguised myself i
n one of Tootsie’s dresses with a head scarf wrapped around my red hair. Marianne sneaked me into the gym through the girls’ locker room and I stood in the little hallway just off the gym floor and watched Rodney march down the aisle with his class, two gold ropes with tassels hanging from his neck. He was so handsome. I stayed long enough to hear him give the salutatory speech and to receive the Christian athlete award, then I crept out into the dark night and made my way through the trees and shrubs to Mama’s station wagon parked near the projects, about a block behind the school.
Marianne told me about the rest of the evening. She said that every time Rodney sat down, his name was called to receive another award—Math Award, Athlete of the Year Award, Literary Award. She said that he told her at the party afterwards that the only thing missing was me.
If I wasn’t sure of it before, I was sure after that night what a special person Rodney Thibault was, and it made me love him more than anything. For that reason I had to get away, away from any temptation to see him. I couldn’t love him, I had to forget him.
Rodney had other thoughts that I wasn’t aware of until months later. He said that, in his mind, I was there at his graduation. In fact, he said he thought he saw me slip out of the gym after his speech. I didn’t admit to anything.
As for my own last year of high school, it flew by. At the beginning of May Mama took me to Alexandria to buy new clothes for graduation parties and to take to college. We rode the train from Mansura and had lunch at the Bentley Hotel. She told me about her first year at LSU and how frightened she was at my age, sixteen.
“At least you have a family to come home to on weekends,” she said. “I stayed on campus. It was either that or go back to the home in New Orleans.” She told me about how difficult it was to live in a girls’ home, and that she spent most of her time alone, reading and writing poetry.
I understood her loneliness and why she had retreated to books, and I guess I had a better grip on why she married a control freak like Daddy, who screamed at her, too. When I was eleven I heard her yell. I ran into the kitchen to find him holding her against the wall by the throat, a butcher knife in his free hand. I remember asking her later why she stayed with him and she said, “Where will I go? I have five children and no family.”
I knew what it felt like to be trapped and I suffered for Mama. It was funny how, when she was away from home and it was just the two of us, she seemed so different, almost loving and motherly.
When we got home and Daddy found out how much money she spent on me, all hell broke loose. I thought we’d have to return all my new clothes, but Mama stood her ground and, after a couple days things settled down, although I don’t know what type of insanity Mama suffered from Daddy’s anger.
Graduation plans sort of took over. We didn’t have a big celebration—just a few of my parent’s friends and our family. My grandmother came from Shreveport and James came home from college with a girlfriend, who stayed in my room with me. Sissy slept with Mama and Daddy. The adults got drunk and we teenagers swam in the pool and ate grilled burgers that James had to rescue when Daddy forgot about them.
The Banner, Jean Ville’s only newspaper, covered both graduations, Jean Ville and Adams High. My high school’s story was on the front page, with pictures of all the graduates. I didn’t receive a lot of awards or recognition since, technically, I didn’t have a senior year—but my grade point average was in the top five and I garnered a number of certificates of achievement.
Rodney’s name was mentioned as receiving the most awards at Adams High School graduation, but there was no mention of what they were in the one paragraph on page six, at the bottom. Whether anyone in Jean Ville knew how special he was didn’t matter to me. I was so proud of him.
Rodney said that the summer following graduation passed by slowly for him. It was hot and humid as he pumped gas, cleaned windshields, made small-talk with the customers and swept the concrete in the evenings. He told me that he dreamed of Southern University, of sitting under huge live oaks with a breeze on his skin while he read Chaucer, Twain, Joyce, Fitzgerald. Mrs. Jones told him that the library at Southern University held all of the classics and that students could borrow them, at no charge. It seemed like a dream, one Rodney was excited about, and that was one of the things that got him through that hot, humid summer.
It was mid-August when we finally saw each other again. I drove up to the gas pumps in the new 1967 white Camaro Daddy had bought for Will and me. Rodney hadn’t seen the new Chevrolet model until now, so he was busy admiring the car, not concentrating on who was behind the wheel. When he reached my window to ask what I needed and realized it was me, he couldn’t speak. He just stared at me as if I was a mirage. I laughed. It had been almost a year since that night in the hospital.
I was older, more mature, more confident. He did a double take.
“Hi, Rodney,” I said. I tried to sound nonchalant but my voice came out a whisper and seemed to float in the air. I wasn’t sure he heard me.
“Susie?” He stuttered. His eyes blinked several times as if to focus. He said he was afraid the image would disappear and leave him with that familiar feeling of waking from a dream.
“Remember me?” I laughed.
He stood riveted to the concrete, with his lips parted.
“Hello? Anybody there?” I laughed again. The sunlight hit the green flecks in his eyes and created prisms of color that danced in front of his face. It was like seeing a triple rainbow, so close I could almost touch it.
“Hello, yourself,” he stammered. “How have you been? I haven’t seen you all summer.”
“I’ve been in Baton Rouge—went to summer school at LSU.”
“Oh. No one told me.” He thought for a moment. “Uh,” he stammered. “How are you?” He looked at me so intently I thought he might see right through me
“I’m fine. And you?”
“Good. Good. Glad to be done with high school.”
“Yeah.” I said. I smiled at him.
“How’d you do? “
“In high school?
“Yeah.” I figured he’d read the newspaper and knew I received some commendations. The one I was most proud of was the volunteer award—for literacy work with underprivileged children, most of them colored. Of course the textbook program was a secret, no one knew how that happened.
“I did fine. Ancient history. I’m really glad to be done.”
“I know, I read about you. Congratulations,” he said.
“I read about you, too. I’m really proud of you. I’ll bet you dad is, too.”
“Hmmm.” We just stared at each other for a minute, neither of us knowing what to say next.
“Did you like it?”
“LSU?” I asked.
“Yeah. Baton Rouge. Being away from here?”
“It’s a big school, but it wasn’t too intimidating this summer. I understand that when all 30,000 students show up in the fall, it will be a zoo. But anywhere is better than here.”
“Yeah.” He just stood there. He seemed content to look at me. Neither of us talked or moved. We just stared. Who would blink first?
“Hey, Rod!” His dad called. “You going to fill up Miss Burton’s car or you going to stand there?” There was a sharpness in his voice.
“Oh, yeah.” he said under his breath. He looked at me and could probably tell I wanted to laugh. He grinned. “Do you want me to fill it?”
“Sure,” I said. He pumped the gas and stared at me through the side mirror. I stared back. Our connection was so strong that he forgot about the fuel until it bubbled out of the tank and onto the pavement. He jumped back and took his hand off the trigger. I laughed. He looked around to see if anyone else saw. His dad and brother were sneering at him near the car of another customer. They didn’t look happy.
Rodney put the pump back and grabbed the windshield cleaner and squeegee. First he cleaned up the gas spill off the car then he came around to wash my fro
nt windshield. He asked about the car. I told him that it was Chevrolet’s newest model called, Camaro, and that Daddy bought it during my senior year for me and Will.
“Will gets to keep it when I’m at LSU. He still has three years of high school and Daddy says he needs it more than I do.”
“That’s not fair,” Rodney said.
“Nothing in my life is fair,” I said and laughed. He looked at me with concern and I realized he probably thought I meant that there had been more violence. He didn’t ask. Maybe he didn’t want to know.
“When do you go back to Baton Rouge?” he asked.
“In two weeks. I have orientation before the fall semester begins. What about you?”
“Less than three weeks.”
“Excited?”
“Yes. But I hate to leave my family. Dad really needs me, and I offered to stay, but he insisted I go. I’m going to miss them.” When he said that it reminded me that I didn’t have a loving family. I was jealous and it was a sore spot for me. “Are you okay?”
“Sure,” I said.
“I mean, really, Susie. Are you really okay?”
“I just have to survive two weeks.”
“Can we talk sometime?”
“I’m not sure, Rod,” I said. I looked off, through the front windshield, at the sky and beyond. I was trying to decide whether to go through with my plan.
“Okay. Whatever you want,” he said. He looked sad and defeated as he stood with the wet rag and sprayer in one hand and put his other arm above my window. He leaned his forehead on it his forearm. I could smell him, the familiar oozing of all the scents I loved drifting through the car window. He was only a few inches from me. I had to look up to see his face. I wondered whether he knew the effect he had on me.
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