Shades of Mercy

by Anita B. Lustrea

“Like Glenn and Marjorie.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Pop said. “For instance, like Glenn and Marjorie. But also like all this land settlement talk coming from the Maliseet and even how the Supreme Court’s school ruling for the Negroes in Topeka affects us up here.”

  “But the Maliseet already go to school with us. No one objects to that.”

  “Yes, they go to school with you. And I’m glad for that. But it’s not true that no one objects. Plenty of folks have thought the Maliseet children should be sent to their own school. Some have claimed the Maliseet influence on our children would be damaging. But up until now, most of us have argued that this was a terrible idea. Although, it’s gained popularity.”

  “Because of Glenn and Marjorie,” I said.

  Mr. Pop nodded at me. “Because of Glenn and Marjorie,” he said. “But, really. Just because we haven’t segregated schools doesn’t mean we’ve accepted the Maliseet into our lives.”

  “You have,” I said.

  He breathed in deeply. “To some degree. Maybe.”

  I spooned some cornflakes and gave them a couple chews before asking, “So what do you think? What’s going to happen?”

  A few months ago, I would’ve felt certain of Mr. Pop’s answer. Today, of course, I wondered. Having heard nothing but Mr. Pop’s silence when Mr. Carmichael raged about killing Glenn and having seen him sitting in the car while my mother defended the rights of the Maliseet showed that Mr. Pop might be coming around. The widespread community fear caused by Glenn and Marjorie had gotten to Mr. Pop and changed his heart and his mind.

  “What I think,” Mr. Pop said, “would be best answered while you and I ride to pick up the men.”

  He didn’t have to ask twice.

  In the weeks before harvest when the fields showed off in their purple-flowered glory, the Maliseet came to the farm to work odd jobs with Mr. Pop and Ellery and Bud. Mr. Pop had mentioned something about needing a bigger potato house, but I wasn’t sure. And I didn’t want to ask, to throw him off the subject. Not that he was talking yet.

  Instead, Mr. Pop was enjoying the beauty of the fields. It was hard not to. Potato fields in full bloom in July might be the most exquisite sight on a farm. Even though they signal backbreaking work of potato picking just around the bend, the grace and elegance of the flowing rows of blooms focuses all eyes on the joy of the present, not the work of the future. Purple blossoms up against the rich, dark green leaves are a striking sight. The creamy yellow blossoms look antique. The beauty came when, like patchwork, different varieties of potatoes grew in fields side by side. The delicate cream color echoes the hue of the tuber just below the surface of the rich brown dirt.

  While folks in Augusta or Portland might have rolled their eyes at the idea of our holding a festival and crowning a Maine Potato Blossom Queen, well, if they’d just look at the soft waving fields, they’d agree it was only right to celebrate this bit of alluring and inviting brilliance in the midst of our otherwise rough and rugged landscape and life.

  I wondered what this year’s Potato Blossom Festival, which was starting in less than a week, would be like. Certainly, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as fun as last year’s. It was hard to believe it’d been just last year when Mick and I first caught each other’s glances, and something changed in each of us. From childhood friends to whatever we were now: secret boyfriend-girlfriend? Or woodchucks, like Mick said.

  It was hard to believe it was just last year that Marjorie Carmichael won the Maine Potato Blossom Queen title and had gotten to go to the Bangor Hotel. Of course, Molly had hoped to enter this year but her family put a quick stop to that. Mr. Carmichael was actually pushing the festival committee to put an end to the Potato Blossom Queen Pageant altogether. He credited it with driving the Indians wild with lust, and accused the pageant of being nothing more than a public peep show of sorts.

  “So, the Indian Rights Council.” Mr. Pop’s words jarred me back to the present, to this truck, to the fields, to where we were headed. To Mick. “The mayor asked me to serve on it.”

  “You’re on it?”

  “I felt it important to say yes, especially now. We’ll meet in Fort Fairfield the weekend the Potato Blossom Festival begins.”

  “But that’s next week!” I was surprised they were moving ahead so quickly. “Why now? Why not wait until after harvest?”

  “I think the rumblings and speculations and anger seething under the surface has barely been held at bay. You were at the Hendersons’ after church that night. I might not have been inside, but I knew it was some hot supper of a meeting. Your mother is like a pot of beans simmering on the stove all day. When troubles bubble and boil inside, it doesn’t take long at all before the lid is pushed from the pot and her righteous anger rises to the top. With most people it’s just anger, but with your mother you can count on it being righteous anger—that’s why she made a speech. She’s always been a barometer I watch closely. It’s one of the things I love about her.”

  “You love this about her?”

  “Of course I do. How can you ask that?”

  “Because it sure didn’t look like love when you were sitting in the car. At least, not to Mother.”

  Mr. Pop sighed heavily. He clenched the steering wheel tighter, steadied his breathing, then relaxed his grip. “Your mother and I have talked about this. I apologized. Well, I apologized to her for not being there. I would’ve stayed had I known the pot of beans was about to boil over.”

  Mr. Pop glanced over my way, hoping I’d crack a smile. I gave in.

  “So you weren’t avoiding her speech?”

  “Not at all. But I was avoiding everyone else’s.”

  “But you never run from stuff like this!”

  “I wasn’t running, Mercy. Just sitting it out. There’s a difference. None of us has to get involved in every little thing, every little conversation, every big fight no matter how much we care about it.”

  “But you weren’t inside. She had no one to back her up.”

  Mr. Pop clenched the wheel again. “She had you, Mercy. Did you back her up?”

  I stared out the window. Of course, I hadn’t said a word to defend Mother. Until now, it hadn’t even occurred to me to do so.

  “I’m sorry, Mercy. Wasn’t your job to back her up. Would’ve made it awkward for you. I know that.”

  I turned to Mr. Pop as the car slowed at the stop sign, ready to roll into town. “You know what?” I asked.

  “I know you’re worried about how people see you. I know you’re wondering what everyone thinks about you and Mick.”

  I answered too quickly: “Mick and I are friends. Why would I worry what everyone thinks?”

  Mr. Pop tried to hide a wry grin. “Your Mother and you think I don’t know anything. You think I’ve got my head buried deeper than the potatoes. You girls think I can’t see.”

  I picked at my thumbnail and stared straight ahead at Second Baptist’s steeple coming up behind town. I was too nervous to say anything. I knew Mr. Pop could see. I just didn’t know what he had seen.

  “Mick’s a nice boy, Mercy. He’s smart and a hard worker. In many ways, I’ve loved him like a son. So all I’m saying is … land sakes, what’s going on up there?”

  My eyes shifted from the church’s steeple to the sidewalk just ahead where a crowd had gathered in front of Fulton’s. Mr. Carmichael was yelling and pointing.

  Mr. Pop pulled the truck over and we both jumped out. Though, Mr. Pop raced far ahead of my more dazed steps. Somehow, as I drifted toward the crowd, I knew. Though I couldn’t hear his words, I recognized the fury of Mr. Carmichael’s voice.

  Then a path cleared among the people, and I could see: Mick standing in the direct line of Mr. Carmichael’s finger above Old Man Stringer. Mr. Carmichael’s words rang clear to my ears now as well as he yelled to my father just what he had seen.

  “He killed him, Paul! I saw him through the window. That boy struck Old Man. Cold blood. He’s dead.”

  Mr. Carmich
ael swung around to the crowd, his eyes flashing, his hands waving. “It’s like I’ve been telling you people. Maliseet aren’t simply pagan. They’re monsters.” Mr. Carmichael lunged toward Mick. The crowd gasped as Mr. Pop grabbed Mr. Carmichael, restraining him.

  And then something overtook me. I pressed through the crowd, stepped over Old Man and Dr. Benson, who someone had run to get, and grabbed Mick, wrapping my arms around him as though we were back in our fort, as though we were alone, as though not all eyes were on us.

  I never heard the sirens or the commands for Mick to let go of me and go with them. I didn’t hear Mr. Pop urging me to let go. I never heard his words of assurances that all would be fine, that he’d sort this out. All I heard was Mick whispering “someday” before being pulled away and then Mr. Pop thrusting the keys into my hand and grabbing my shoulders.

  “Go right back home. Tell your mother to call Uncle Roger. Now!”

  I nodded and stepped backward toward the truck. People spilled out from the brick facades along Main Street, bunching together, at first staring and then turning toward each other to start churning the rumor mill. Then a few folks splintered off, running toward Dr. Benson’s office, following his pointed finger and clipped demands. While I walked backward, the scene ahead of me blurred, the bricks of the buildings and clear glass of the doors and height of the steeple at Second Baptist and the cross of St. Mary of the Visitation faded and whirled together in the terror of my mind.

  I had lost sight of Mick, of the police who led him away, and of Mr. Pop. But as I stepped up onto the running board of the truck, I saw three figures walking up the steps of the jail, each with their hands on the boy in the center. Two police officers grasped Mick’s elbows, leading him ever forward, toward who-knew-what future. Mr. Pop rested one hand on Mick’s back and raised his other toward heaven, toward the One who knew that future.

  PART TWO

  “But what doth the Lord require of thee?”

  Chapter Eight

  MID-JULY 1954

  Dear Mom and Dad,

  Sorry it’s been so long since I wrote. Just wasn’t ready, I guess. Well, I want you to know you can be at peace. What you’ve almost certainly thought about me isn’t true: Glenn did not take advantage of me or force me to do anything I didn’t want to.

  But the truth is so much different and so much better. Yes, we’re married. After we left Watsonville, we drove to New Hampshire and got married by a justice of the peace there. So don’t worry. I’m Mrs. Glenn Socoby and have been for six wonderful weeks.

  The point is … Glenn is a good man and a gentleman, even, and made sure we did things right. I know you’ll never see this as right—the running off and all—but what else could we have done? I love Glenn. I wanted to be his wife. Glenn wanted to go to you and ask for my hand, but I knew Dad would sooner kill him than give us your blessing.

  Besides, I knew I wanted to build a life away from Watsonville. And I knew I’d never get your blessing for that either.

  I wish it could’ve been different, but I didn’t see any other way. Not after hearing Dad night after night talking about how the Maliseet were evil and filthy and responsible for all the crime and corruption in town. How could I tell you I loved a man whose entire tribe Dad wanted to see “sent off to camps like the Japs”? How could I tell you I wanted to spend my life with a man you’d rather see sent away?

  I couldn’t. So I left instead. Well, I want you to know now that Glenn got a job at Royal Lace Paper Works, Inc. here in Brooklyn. Yes, maybe you saw the postmark that I’m writing from New York! Mr. Booker at Great Northern sent Glenn’s new boss a stellar recommendation. Within three weeks of starting, Glenn got a promotion. From mill worker to supervising ten men. He got a raise too.

  I’m taking a correspondence course to learn shorthand. We don’t need the money right now, but one day I’d like a job in one of those glittering towers in Manhattan. Mom, you wouldn’t believe them if you saw them! Some buildings are taller than Mt. Katahdin, I swear! And the women who head in and out. Ah, so glamorous.

  Life isn’t as glamorous in Brooklyn as it is in Manhattan, but it’s wonderful. Really, I thought life would be so much different in Brooklyn than it was in Watsonville; I was scared that Glenn wouldn’t be as accepted at the mill in Brooklyn as he had been in Millinocket. I thought the people would be mean and the neighbors uncaring. That’s the way Dad had painted the world outside Watsonville.

  It was because of Watsonville’s unusual purity and safety that Dad said we needed to move the Maliseet. Always made it sound like Watsonville was safe and holy and the Maliseet were a corrupting influence.

  But when Mrs. Franza from downstairs helps me carry my groceries up our five flights or when Glenn’s boss takes us out for a fancy steak supper at DeVito’s to celebrate his promotion, I realized, Dad, you’re wrong about people. Just like you are wrong about the Maliseet.

  In whatever ways you might be worried about me, you don’t need to worry about me in this: People in New York are just as nice as they are in Watsonville. Our neighbors look out for us. Jenny from two floors down even invited us to her church.

  And now for the news you thought you already knew: it’s early days yet, but I’m almost sure—okay, very sure—that there’s a baby on the way! Please know and believe me when I tell you that he or she was conceived the “right” way—in marriage.

  Well, Glenn will be home soon and will be hungry. I need to get supper started. Mrs. Franza taught me how to make lasagna—something we never had in Maine, right?—her mother’s recipe from Italy! I made a pan this morning and need to close now and get it in to bake.

  I hope you can forgive me and maybe even come to visit. I hear New York is beautiful in the spring. And the baby will be beautiful too, I just know. Oh, and if it’s a boy, we’ll name him after you, Dad.

  Your sweetheart,

  Marjorie

  Mr. Carmichael had torn Marjorie’s letter right open on the steps of the post office and read it quickly, no doubt hoping it would tell him the whole thing was a mistake, and she was on her way home.

  But in a few simple sentences, Marjorie had delivered the news Mr. Carmichael had most feared: a baby. At least, probably.

  While most folks would have been relieved that a coming grandchild was legitimate and that no sins were committed, to Mr. Carmichael this had to be worse. There could be no rescuing and rushing Marjorie off to one of those homes for unwed girls. I’m sure he had imagined storming into her Brooklyn apartment, convincing her of her sin. Then Marjorie would confess and together they would board the train to St. Andreas Home for Unwed Mothers in Biddeford, where Mr. Carmichael would hug his repentant daughter goodbye, promising to return in the spring. By then, town gossip would have died down. They could return to their normal lives. Marjorie could find and marry a nice boy, a lawyer’s son, perhaps from Bangor.

  And then the letter came, shattering Mr. Carmichael’s plans and heaping all kinds of new evil. It would be that much harder to convince her to give up the baby now since they were married, and divorce would have to enter the picture for them to break up, another evil. And now that she was settling down happily in New York, it could only get worse.

  He looked lost somewhere in his thoughts when Mrs. Carmichael walked out of Mildred’s Bakery and up two steps and sat beside her husband.

  He thrust the letter at his wife without a word. As she read the letter, Mrs. Carmichael’s face grew from concern to delight.

  “Her very countenance beamed,” Mildred from the bakery would later say. But Mr. Carmichael tore the letter out of her hands, ripping it in half while Mrs. Carmichael begged him to stop.

  “His face was stone,” Mildred said later. “Then he walked into his store.”

  The bells at the top of the door jangled wildly as he slammed the door behind him.

  I figure Mr. Carmichael must’ve decided that his own personal agony had been getting lonely. Which was why he decided to drag Mick down into it with
him. And it was too easy. Mr. Carmichael had been looking for any opportunity to discredit the Maliseet in Watsonville, and he hadn’t planned on being choosy. All of them had a hand in Marjorie’s choices and in her demise.

  And then a plum opportunity for revenge fell right into his lap. As he wrote up an order for roofing nails, he looked out the front window of Fulton’s and saw Mick. From Mr. Carmichael’s vantage point and mental state, Mick was clearly up to no good. Old Man Stringer was just to the left of the front entrance to the store, and Mick was toe-to-toe with him. He had Old Man’s face in his hands. A person in a better mind would’ve seen Mick trying to help Old Man stand up, to help steady him in his drunken stupor. That person would’ve seen Mick smack his face, trying to help him focus and become more alert.

  And ordinarily ten people would’ve attested to that. This time was different. Frankie Carmichael was on the accusing end, and most right-minded people had a long line of credit at Fulton’s. They couldn’t afford to pay up and stay current with their account, and the whole scenario made them a bit nervous. What if Mr. Carmichael cut them off, took their credit line away? Besides, when push comes to shove, people stick with their own kind. If Mr. Carmichael said he saw Old Man drop to the sidewalk after Mick accosted him, it must be so. When so much hate fills your heart, you can make a leap to any conclusion. You don’t need the truth because you are above the truth. You create the truth.

  Mother was waiting for me on the porch, one hand grasping the porch rail, the other jammed into the pocket of her skirt. Mother wore this skirt every day, but as the truck rolled up on the gravel, for the first time I noticed the blue of it. Not dingy at all as I’d come to see it but crisp and cool like the summer sky, like her.

  When I opened the truck door, Mother rushed forward, as though she knew those steps toward the house would be impossible for me to take alone. And she was right. My body went limp against her as soon as she wrapped her arms around me and pulled my head onto her shoulder.