by Lisa Belmont
You could see it written on Hattie Mae’s face. The smoldering anger that started way down deep and liked to bubble up something fierce. Momma said she’d taken the job at Whitehall shortly before Big Jim’s father left. He never did pay alimony and Hattie Mae had to work as a cook and maid just to get by. She never went to the juke joints or drank alcohol. She kept away from smoking and wouldn’t remarry cuz she’d had enough of them low-down, no-account husbands. Seemed like everything she had got poured into Big Jim.
“Ain’t right to be puttin’ out them traps. Reverend Wilson would tell me to forgive my enemies, but I ain’t forgiving just yet,” she said.
“That’s one of Joss’s traps,” Widow Jones said, sitting beside her. “I reckon he wasn’t planning on catching no bears.”
I didn’t say anything about Caleb putting them traps out. Momma woulda tanned Caleb’s hide if she knew he was trying to trap some poor critter.
“Don’t Mr. Bleekman know folks can’t see them traps in that tall grass? Why he wanna go around hurting my baby?”
Widow Jones handed Hattie Mae a box of tissue and put an arm around her. I took the red velvet cake from the counter and sliced up a piece for each of us.
Hattie Mae didn’t want to eat at first, but Widow Jones told her it’d do her good to have some comfort food.
“Dr. Fontaine will take excellent care of Big Jim. You don’t have to worry about anything, Hattie Mae, you hear me?” Widow Jones said, but Hattie Mae was too far gone. She started crying and Widow Jones drew her into a real good hug. Lord, I’d never felt so guilty in all my life.
I went home that night and found Pa and Joss on the porch. They were sitting together, smoking their corncob pipes like they were a couple of chimneys.
“Where’ve you been?” Pa said.
“Nowhere. Just getting some fresh air,” I said, holding the kerosene lantern that Widow Jones made sure I took with me.
Pa looked at me funny, and I realized why. I never liked to walk through Foxhole Swamp at night. Why, I’d rather take the eggs from a gator’s nest.
Ain’t that funny? I was so worried about Big Jim that I forgot to be afraid of the dark. It didn’t bother me one bit walking under all them cypress trees dripping with Spanish moss.
“You watch out for them traps of Caleb’s,” Pa said. “You hear?”
“Yessir.”
“Them traps’d like to take your leg off,” Joss grinned.
I’d never seen a grin so vile. It liked to turn my stomach as Caleb came down the path of overgrown grass. He’d caught a couple fish down by the stream and was holding them from the line.
“You sure caught you a coon, son,” Pa said, getting up from his rocker.
“I did? In one of my traps?” Caleb said, looking real happy like he’d just traded Henry for a Babe Ruth baseball card.
“Yeah,” Joss said, slapping Pa on the back. “A big nigger coon.”
They laughed and I ran inside. Momma was getting supper ready and had mixed up some hazelnuts and peanut butter for the birds.
I put my arms around her and told her how mean Caleb was to set out them traps.
“Tell him he can’t do any more hunting, Momma.”
She looked at me real serious like and said, “Nobody wants your pa and brother to quit hunting them critters more than me, but some things just are what they are.”
“No, Momma,” I said, pulling away and running to my room. “Things ain’t gotta be this way.”
All cruelty springs from weakness.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Chapter Twenty-Three
The next morning Caleb and I walked to school together.
“I don’t want to hear about how you trapped Big Jim,” I said.
I’d heard it all last night over supper. Pa was gloating something awful. He even took a second helping of sweet potato pie and said, “Caleb, you’re a fine trapper, boy.”
Chester caught up with us in front of Uncle Hickory’s General Store.
“You caught yourself a nigger, didn’t ya?”
“Knew them niggers weren’t as smart as coons,” Caleb said. “Ain’t caught a coon yet.”
“Just shut up. The both of you,” I said, clutching my books.
Caleb looked at me funny. “What’s the matter with you?”
“How’d you like to get caught in some trap?”
“I ain’t gonna get caught in no trap. They’re made for vermin.”
“Then I’d be careful,” I said. “Cuz that’s exactly what you are.”
Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it.
Frances Wright
Chapter Twenty-Four
Miss Lilly was wearing a navy polka dot dress with a vinyl belt, looking real pretty at the front of the classroom. I sat at my desk, feeling sick over what happened with Caleb. He was my kin, sure enough, but I couldn’t stand him. Pa neither.
“Okay, class,” Miss Lilly said, coming around to the front of her desk. “Today we’re going to be studying a very important case in U.S. history.”
I looked at the chalkboard where she’d written PLESSY VS. FERGUSON, 1896.
All I could think about was her pretty nail polish. It reminded me of Widow Jones’ coral roses. I wondered if she chose it because it matched the dewy sheen on her cheeks. Sometimes I wished I could be that put together, but Momma said I was too young for makeup.
“Does anyone know what this court case decided?”
No one raised a hand. Chester picked at the scab on his arm that he’d gotten from swinging on a vine. Thought he’s a regular Tarzan but couldn’t keep from falling in a briar patch.
Seeing that no one raised a hand, Miss Lilly went to the board and wrote SEPARATE BUT EQUAL.
“Okay,” she said, facing the class. Her Mary Jane style pumps went real well with her outfit, and I wondered if they sold them in the Sears catalog. “Plessy versus Ferguson was a court case that established the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’. What it means is that white children must go to their school and colored children must go to a different school. The schools are meant to be ‘separate but equal’ according to the clause, but that isn’t typically the case.”
I looked out the window. The colored school on Ashford was beyond a thick grove of trees. The ramshackle hovel sat forlornly by the creek, like it was waiting for someone to come along and spruce it up. Sweep its floors and line its shelves with books.
Mills Hollow Grammar School for white kids had nice polished desks and shiny blackboards. We also had a real good library with plenty of books to read. I was always hearing Miss Lilly say she was donating supplies to the colored school cuz they ain’t hardly got none.
I’d never thought about it before, but Miss Lilly was right. There was nothing equal about our separate schools.
That night at supper Pa asked me what we were learning in school.
“Nothing much,” I said, playing with the peas on my plate.
“Nothing much? Is that what you call all that talk about black folks thinking they oughta go to the white school?”
I looked up, and Pa said, “Chester done told Joss all about it. He’s going down to talk with Miss Lilly tomorrow.”
I didn’t know what to say. There was no way I was going to be able to defend Miss Lilly.
“And something else,” Pa said. “You’ve been acting mighty strange lately.”
He winked at Caleb. “Your brother tells me you’d like to beat the tar out of him over what happened to Hattie Mae’s boy. Is that true?”
“No,” I said. “I just don’t think it’s right to be putting out traps where someone can get hurt.”
“Someone? Meaning Big Jim?”
“Yeah, Big Jim,” I said, feeling his hard stare.
I knew I shouldn’t have said that. Pa was riled up enough as it was.
He set his napkin down and looked at me real good. “I don’t wanna ever hear you speak against your brother again. You hear me?”<
br />
“Yessir.”
Pa grabbed a chicken leg and started gnawing on it like a beaver chewing the bark off a tree.
“And another thing,” he said, waving his chicken leg at me. “You gonna treat me and Joss with respect. Don’t you be running off like the other night. You hear?”
My insides were all churned up thinking about them sharp metal teeth that clamped down hard on Big Jim’s leg. But Joss was practically my own kin. That’s how Pa treated him anyway. Sometimes I wished that boar had just gone ahead and gored Pa. At least then I wouldn’t have to hear about how he owed Joss everything from his outhouse to his undergarments.
“Yessir.”
Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering.
Henry Ward Beecher
Chapter Twenty-Five
The next day I walked to Widow Jones’ under the guise I needed to borrow some books. I brought a fan and hummed a tune I’d heard on Uncle Hickory’s radio. I got halfway through the swamp when I heard the strangest noise. It wasn’t them frogs or crickets or even them woodpeckers. It was the sound of giggling. The kind of giggling that Pa would whup my hide over.
I moved off the trail and peered through the trees. Emma Kate and Caleb were walking down Lovers’ Lane sure as there’s salt in the Ashley. They came to the end of the trail and sat on a log bench. The bench was famous in these parts. It looked over a gurgling waterfall that splashed into a little pool where it was said you could see the reflection of all the lovers who’d walked this way before. Joss and Alma were supposedly two of the faces you’d see. Pa said they were always on Lovers’ Lane when they were young. Apparently, Joss would come home after a night with Alma and have three or four hickeys on his neck. Lord, if Caleb started doing that, Uncle Hickory would never let us in his store again.
Caleb laced his fingers together and stretched his arms up real high like Henry Bleekman taught him. It was an old trick, but Caleb chickened out and yawned instead of bringing his arm down around Emma Kate’s shoulder. She looked away, and I figured Caleb would have to tell Henry he was too scared to be no Casanova.
Emma Kate crossed her arms, and I figured it was curtains for Caleb, but he stood up and pulled off his shirt, real slow and easy like. Emma Kate looked up at him, her eyes moving over his bare chest real good. He’d gotten tan this summer from paddling his canoe around. And his arms had gotten downright huge from chopping wood. I hated to admit it, but he was handsome. Not that I’d ever tell him that. Lord knew he had a big enough head already.
Emma Kate blushed brighter than a persimmon as Caleb tugged on her hand and said, “Let’s go for a swim.”
“Ain’t got my bathing suit,” she said, with wide, innocent eyes.
Lord knew she’s playing coy. Talk was she’d been down Lovers’ Lane dozens of times.
The sunlight creased through the trees, and Caleb picked up a smooth stone. He stood on the bank and flung the stone so that it skipped seven times across the surface.
“How’d you do that?” Emma Kate said, joining him at the water’s edge.
Caleb showed her how to flick her wrist to make the stone glide over the water. She tried a few times to no avail. Every one of them stones sank right to the bottom. Once she nearly knocked a warbler right out of its nest.
“I’m no good at this, Caleb. Show me again,” she said, caressing his arm.
He got a wide grin and said, “Not unless you catch me.”
He unbuckled his britches, and his pants fell to the ground. I sucked in a big gulp of air. Lord, if he wasn’t standing in his underwear sure as my name is Chloe Jane Mason.
I splayed my fingers over my eyes, looking through them like a web. Caleb jumped in the pond, making a great splash. It was fresh water, not more than thirty feet across, but there might be gators. Folks said there weren’t, but you never knew.
The sun rippled on his shoulders and he smoothed back his hair.
“Come on in. The water’s great.”
There must’ve been something in the air that day. Something sweet and fragrant, like all them puffballs that grew on the mimosas, cuz Emma Kate giggled and shimmied out of her skirt and blouse. She tossed them on the same branch as Caleb’s and posed in her white bra and underwear like she was a model for Sears catalog.
She stood at the water’s edge, making all them glamour poses, until Caleb reached up and pulled her into the shimmery water. She melted into his arms, and they got to kissing real good.
I knew I shouldn’t watch, but I was curious as all get-out. Emma Kate slipped out of her bra and Caleb tore off his underwear. Both items went flying into the cattails. Lord, I didn’t stick around to see what else happened. Caleb would tan my hide if he knew I’d seen this much.
I crossed my arms and hightailed it back to the path. I fanned myself good all the way to Widow Jones’. I didn’t think I’d ever live to see my brother skinny-dipping.
I walked along the narrow path that’d been beaten down from years of use. The dogwoods were through blooming, but I liked looking up at all them layered branches. In spring they looked like they were covered in white lace. Wasn’t much more that could bring a soul a heap load of peace than them dogwoods blooming so genteel like.
When I got to Whitehall, I went straight to the library. I thumbed through a few books, thinking I’d find Big Jim one of them easy readers.
Hattie Mae came to the doorway and stood with her arms crossed. She looked at me real good before saying, “Thanks for teaching my boy to read.”
“I ain’t…” I said and then dropped the act. “He’s smart, Hattie Mae. He’s even reading the Bible.”
“I know. He read me some.”
She eyed me across the room, and I knew I was treading on thin ice.
“Is that what you’re doing in here? Getting books for Big Jim?”
“I thought he might like to read Tom Sawyer.”
“Now listen here, Miss Chloe,” she said, sounding madder than a wet hen. “Don’t you be teaching him nothing in this house. If Mrs. Jones hears what you’re doing, it’ll be all over Mills Hollow. Big Jim don’t need nobody knowing what you’re up to.”
“Yessum.”
Hattie Mae was right. I hated to admit it, but I was putting Big Jim in danger by doing the very thing he wanted.
“Can I just say hello to him?”
“Only for a minute. Mrs. Jones’ll be back soon.”
I found Big Jim in the guest room. Folks were already talking about him staying up here.
“It’s sinful he’s at Whitehall,” Joss had said last night. “Carlton would be rolling over in his grave if he knew niggers were staying in his house.”
I was glad Widow Jones let Big Jim stay at Whitehall, though. The doctor from Charleston wouldn’t go out to the river shacks where Hattie Mae lived. That neck of the woods was taboo to white folks.
When I found Big Jim, he was lying in bed with a white quilt pulled up to his chest. He was laid up pretty bad with a cold cloth on his forehead and towels at his bedside. His foot stuck out the end like a brown stump. I think the doctor must’ve given him some strong pain medicine because, despite his wound wrapped in protective gauze, he looked downright peaceful. He was lying on one of them down pillows and I watched him sleep.
“Get better, Big Jim,” I whispered.
I have learned now that while those who speak about one’s miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more.
C.S. Lewis
Chapter Twenty-Six
The following day I walked with Momma to Widow Jones’. I was hoping we wouldn’t see Caleb and Emma Kate buck naked in the woods. I kept looking toward Lovers’ Lane but never did see them.
I was glad, too. By the time Momma’d get through whuppin’ Caleb’s hide, he wouldn’t have no hide left.
I started thinking of all the things that had to be done at Whitehall. Now that I was helping Momma, I got to do some of the extra chores like waxing the flo
ors and washing the windows. It got me tuckered out just thinking about it.
Momma and I hung up our coats in the closet. The last thing I expected was to hear Hattie Mae wail like she’d seen the ghost of Foxhole Swamp. Momma and I found her in the drawing room with Widow Jones and Dr. Fontaine. He steadied her into a tufted chair by the fireplace.
“Lord, tell me it ain’t true. Tell me you’re lying,” Hattie Mae said.
“No, ma’am,” the doctor said. “I’m not lying. I thought you knew.”
“That boy don’t tell me nothing.”
Widow Jones handed Hattie Mae a handkerchief and she got to blowing in it real good.
“I wanna see his back for myself,” she said, wiping her eyes.
“Of course, you do,” Widow Jones said, helping her up.
Hattie Mae stood there a minute, inhaling a deep breath and squaring her shoulders. She couldn’t hold it too long. She stepped forward and her back bent over like she was carrying a sack full of rocks.
I started feeling the same way. I knew if Big Jim told what happened, then Widow Jones might want to press charges against Pa. It’d be his word against Big Jim’s, but I’d seen it. I might be called as a witness.
Hattie Mae went in the room, and it got real quiet. Lord, you could have heard a pin drop. None of us said a word until Hattie Mae let out one of them howls that liked to shake the paint from the walls.
Momma took off down the hall, following Widow Jones and the doctor into Big Jim’s room. Big Jim was lying face down on the bed. Hattie Mae was kneeling at his side, shaking something awful. She got to praying real loud, asking the good Lord to heal his wounds. They’d scarred over real bad.
“Oh, dear God,” Widow Jones said, looking down at all them puffed-up marks.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this, baby?” Hattie Mae said, a tear rolling down her cheek.
Big Jim closed his eyes like he was hoping to forget. It was the most sorrowful sight I’d ever seen. I couldn’t imagine what it must’ve been like for Hattie Mae to see her son lying there, whipped like a dog. His back torn to ribbons and his ankle cut up good.