Over the Fence

by Mary Monroe

  Yvonne suddenly sat up ramrod straight and gasped. “Oh my God! It was Lester!” she shrieked. “He said he was going to get back at me!”

  “Lester who?” Willie Frank wanted to know.

  “Yvonne’s used-to-be. We had a serious run-in with him the day Yvonne left him for me,” I explained.

  “Hmmm.” Willie Frank caressed his chin. Then he flopped and waved his hand. “This Lester sounds like a good prospect, I guess.” And then his dark mood got even darker. Them sky-blue eyes of his looked almost black. “I believe in fighting fire with fire. Tell me where I can find that asshole, and I’ll give him a dose of his own medicine. I’ll sic the police on him for a bogus rap. I’ll get one of the gals in my family to say he raped her. This is right up my cousin Peggy Louise’s alley. All we’d have to give her is a jug of white lightning and a dollar. And . . . and I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles that I seen the whole crime!” I had never seen Willie Frank so fired up, not even in prison, when he was kicking another inmate’s ass.

  I raised my hand. “No, no, no. Don’t do that. Let’s not get too close to the deep end. We don’t know who is behind this mess, and we might never know. What we need to concentrate on now is getting out,” I said gently.

  I didn’t need no mirror to show me that I looked right pitiful. I didn’t care about that, though. But to see a woman as pretty as Yvonne looking like she’d been beat with a ugly stick just about broke my heart clean in two. That bastard had slapped her so hard, he’d left his handprint on her jaw. She had a black eye and a busted lip. I couldn’t imagine what the rest of her body looked like after she’d been raped by them two sex fiends.

  “Don’t worry about the house. When I seen that truck pulling away with y’all in the back, I drove around the block so them cops wouldn’t see me. When they turned the corner and sped off, with the siren going, me and my folks waited a little while before we doubled back to check on the house. I found Aunt Mattie in the kitchen broom closet and Sweet Sue up in a tree in the backyard, but everybody else got away. All the cars and trucks that had been parked out front was gone.”

  “Shoot! I didn’t even have time to count the money we’d made so far tonight!” I complained. “And we was making money faster than ever before.”

  “Tonight’s profits was the first thing I looked for when I got inside. The cash was in the shoebox under the kitchen sink, where you always put it until the night is over.”

  “Bless you, Willie Frank. That’s a relief,” I told him. “Take it to your house and hold it until we know what’s going to happen.”

  Willie Frank stared at Yvonne. When he seen that her blouse had been ripped down the front, he shook his head. “Yvonne, did they put their hands on you?”

  She nodded and let out a dry laugh. “This is a fucked-up world we live in. The cops came looking for a raped white girl to rescue, and then they commit the same crime on me.”

  “What we need to be concerned about now is getting to the bottom of this mess,” Willie Frank advised. “And hope the cops don’t drag nobody else into it. Was Joyce and Odell at the house?”

  “Uh-uh. He wasn’t feeling good, and she had to stay home to take care of him,” I answered.

  “I guess they heard the commotion, because when I first pulled up, I seen their bedroom curtains moving. And when I came back, their lights was on,” Willie Frank said.

  “I’m glad they didn’t come outside and get involved. Knowing them cops, they might have cuffed them up, too.” I had to stop talking and cough. When I did that, more blood dribbled out of my mouth.

  “Hallelujah! Unworldly, straitlaced folks like Odell and Joyce wouldn’t last a minute in a cell,” Willie Frank commented. Right after he stopped talking, one of the deputies came back and told him his time was up. Willie Frank gave me a thumbs-up. “Y’all stay strong. Whoever made that call might not be done yet. For all we know, they could be plotting to have somebody steal everything in the house!”

  “Willie Frank, there is some presents for you on the dresser in our bedroom. Go back to the house and get them before somebody else do,” Yvonne said. “Me and Milton got you something real nice. I hope you’ll like it.”

  “I’m sure I will. Thanks. And don’t worry. I’ll lock up the house when I leave.” Willie Frank looked from Yvonne and back. Regardless of the thumbs-up he’d just gave me, I couldn’t ignore the weary look on his face. “Naw, naw. I can do better than that. I’ll get my brothers and some of my crazy cousins to go there with me. We’ll guard it until we know for sure there ain’t going to be no looting.”

  “And one more thing. Swing by Odell and Joyce’s house and let them know what’s going on.” I had to pause and cough some more. I was glad blood had finally stopped oozing from my mouth. “Tell them what happened.”

  “I’ll tell them all I know. For the time being, y’all get some rest, and don’t do or say nothing that’ll make things worse. Me and my kinfolks will do all we can to help y’all get through this mess. I’m going to go up to Uncle Lamar as soon as I can.”

  “All I want to know is who made that damn call! I declare, if I find out, their butt is mine!” I yelled, almost spitting out the words. “Raping a white woman is the worst crime a colored man can go down for. It’s a miracle they ain’t lynched me already by now!”

  “Milton, they didn’t say you raped nobody. They claimed we set it up!” Yvonne reminded.

  “You think that’ll make a difference with them racist jackasses running this town? I bet they out there right now, trying to round up as many other colored men they think might have been involved.” I was talking so fast, I choked on some air. I cleared my throat and went on. “I already done time for another crime I didn’t do. Now I got to deal with another one?”

  “You hold on there, buddy. Let’s wait and see what’s going to happen next,” Willie Frank insisted. “They ain’t even done no paperwork yet, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Time is on our side.”

  “No it ain’t. Eight of them nine colored boys in that Scottsboro mess back in thirty-one was all sentenced to die, and one was sentenced to life because two hobo white girls claimed they raped them. There wasn’t no proof, and one of them heifers eventually admitted they’d lied on them boys. But they went to trial twelve days after they got arrested,” I reminded. “So don’t tell me nothing about time being on our side.”

  “You got a point there,” Willie Frank admitted in a tired tone.

  We stood up and group hugged until the deputy came back and told Willie Frank to leave again.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can!” he boomed as he stomped out.

  I kept my arms around Yvonne, and we crumpled back down to the floor. She was quiet, but when I started crying, she gasped and passed out. And I knew why: She realized, as well as I did, that we had come to the end of the road. Because the only time my body allowed me to cry was when somebody I loved was dying or had already died.

  CHAPTER 53

  MILTON

  AS HUNGRY AS WE WAS, WE DIDN’T TOUCH THE GRITS AND BISCUITS on a tray that one of the deputies had set on the floor in front of us the next morning. There was no telling how much spit, piss, or other nasty mess he had added so we wasn’t going to eat none of that shit.

  One of the other deputies came back a few hours later and dropped off a bucket with some murky water and a sliver of lye soap for us to bathe. When he seen we hadn’t ate nothing, he got mad. “You crazy niggers must not be too hungry! But we ain’t bringing no more food in here until y’all eat this first meal!” he barked before he kicked the tray across the floor and stormed back out.

  We was funky as hell and our clothes was stiff from our dried blood, but we didn’t touch that bucket of water, neither. Eating and scrubbing off was the least of our worries.

  Wednesday was one of the longest days of my life. That morning and afternoon, we got up off the floor to stretch and look out the window a few times. But we spent the rest of the hours hugged up on the floor, prayi
ng and declaring our love for each other.

  We slept on the floor again that night. Because of the hellish thoughts bouncing around in my head, I dozed off only a few minutes at a time. The fact that I had actually cried the night they brought us in was a bad omen I couldn’t ignore. When the story of our arrest hit the newspaper, every lynch mob in the county would come out of hibernation. We probably wouldn’t live long enough to be transported to the county jail or make it to court. The last colored man they arrested in Branson for fooling around with a white woman got shot to death when he tried to “escape” the day after he got locked up.

  The sheriff had told us that we couldn’t enter our plea until Judge Tucker returned to his office the day after tomorrow. He only came in three days a week. I didn’t care what them white devils said or thought, we was pleading innocent.

  When daylight broke Thursday morning, I had been wide awake for a long time. My stomach knotted up when I heard heavy footsteps clomping in our direction. I tightened my grip around Yvonne’s shoulder and held my breath as the steps got closer. It was one of the deputies and Willie Frank. He let Willie Frank into the cell and hurried back down the musty smelling hallway, cussing under his breath.

  “How y’all doing?” Willie Frank asked in a gentle tone, wringing his hands as he rushed over to us. My poor buddy looked so tired and distressed, you would have thought he’d been arrested, too.

  “We still alive,” I said, shaking Yvonne. She opened her eyes right away and we stood up at the same time. She was so wobbly I had to keep my arm around her shoulder so she wouldn’t fall.

  “I got to talk fast,” Willie Frank said, his tone sounding encouraging. That gave me hope. “I got some good news and some bad news.”

  “Tell us the good news first,” Yvonne croaked. I had never heard her sound so bad before.

  “Y’all getting released in a few minutes,” Willie Frank blurted out.

  What he’d just said worked on me like a tonic. Yvonne gasped and almost collapsed. Both my jaws dropped. “Say what?” I asked. “W-what—”

  Willie Frank held up his hand and cut me off. “Y’all remember me telling how my uncle Lamar pulled a few strings and got me a reduced sentence when I cut that man over a woman? If it hadn’t been for him and his connections, I’d still be behind bars.”

  Me and Yvonne nodded. “Is he going to help us?” she asked.

  “Yup. They finished up the paperwork and he’s outside talking to Sheriff Potts right now. Getting y’all sprung wasn’t easy. We paid a visit to the sheriff’s house last night and done some serious talking. The deal is, y’all getting off on account of lack of evidence. I’d like to see the look on that asshole’s face that set y’all up when he hears his plan didn’t work.”

  “Me, too! Hallelujah! That is good news.” I was jubilant, but only for a couple of seconds. “What’s the bad news?” Before Willie Frank could answer, I started to cringe and shake so hard it felt like my legs was going to buckle. My heart started to beat so hard and fast, I was scared it was going turn upside down.

  Willie Frank blinked and cleared his throat. “It cost a pretty penny. Sheriff Potts wanted two hundred bucks to drop the charges,” he told us with his voice cracking. “Uncle Lamar brung the money to him this morning.”

  Yvonne smiled for the first time since we got arrested. “Your uncle done that for us? Bless his heart,” she said, choking on a sob.

  Willie Frank bobbed his head. The distressed look was back on his face, so that told me we wasn’t going to like what he said next. “The bad news is, he wants his money paid back in full by the end of this month. I promised him y’all would come through.”

  Me and Yvonne gasped at the same time. “What’s wrong with you, Willie Frank? You know we ain’t got that kind of money!” I hollered.

  Before either one of us could speak again, the deputy came back. “Get going!” he hollered, stamping his foot and motioning for us to leave the cell. “And be quick about it before we find something else to charge y’all with!”

  We scurried out like scared mice. “We’ll finish talking outside,” Willie Frank mumbled as we skittered down the hall and on out the front door.

  When we got outside, Sheriff Potts was standing on the sidewalk talking to a roly-poly, elderly, silver-haired white man in a beige suit and a wide-brimmed black hat. I had met him before, so I knew he was Lamar Perdue, Willie Frank’s uncle. He was a shady landowner with some deep pockets and a niece married to the district attorney, so he had a lot of pull in Branson. Him and the sheriff glanced at us, but they kept talking. We stumbled over to Willie Frank’s truck parked on the street in front of Lamar’s shiny black LaSalle.

  “Willie Frank, where we going to get two hundred dollars by the end of this month?” I asked with my lips quivering.

  “We’ll figure out something. I—” Willie Frank stopped talking when Sheriff Potts clapped Lamar on the back. The sheriff was smiling until he looked in our direction. The expression on his face turned so mean it made me shudder. Then that low-down, greedy, hateful dog threw up his hands, shook his head, and went back inside.

  “Well now,” Lamar started as he waddled up to us with his hands on his hips. “Y’all dodged a real big bullet!” he growled with a dead-pan expression on his pie-shaped face. “I declare, I straightened things out . . . this time.” He paused and hawked a huge gob of spit on the ground and sucked in a deep breath. “Milton, I know you ain’t no bad egg. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have stuck my neck out this far for no coloreds.”

  “Thank you,” was all I could think to say. I reached my hand out to shake his, but he acted like he didn’t see it. Instead, he just looked at me for a few seconds with that dead-pan expression still on his face. But when he turned to gawk at Yvonne, he smiled. Even as scruffy and musty as she was, she was still a desirable woman. Lamar’s gaze stayed on her so long, I got nervous. Now I had something else to worry about. What if he wanted to pleasure hisself with her, too? I put that nasty thought out of my mind real fast and prayed it wouldn’t come back.

  “Sir, we didn’t do none of the stuff somebody said we done,” she blurted out.

  Lamar shook his head and spoke to her in a gentle tone. “It don’t matter if you did or not. There ain’t no evidence and I got the sheriff to realize that. Me and him go way back so my word is good. He wanted to by-pass a trial, hang y’all out to dry, and ride y’all out of town on a rail. Y’all wouldn’t have had a chance.”

  “We . . . we would have if we had hired us a lawyer,” Yvonne mumbled.

  Lamar’s mouth dropped open and he looked at Yvonne like she had lost her mind. “Lawyer? Pffft!” He lifted his hat and scratched his head. His bloated jaws was twitching. “You people typically don’t come to court with lawyers.”

  “That’s why we people typically get convicted,” I threw in. I wasn’t trying to be funny, but Lamar and Willie Frank snickered.

  “Well, just go home and get on about your business. Lay this little mishap to rest. Enjoy life while you still can,” Lamar advised.

  “Um, Mr. Lamar, you ain’t got to worry. We’ll do whatever we have to do to scrape up the money so we can pay you your two hundred dollars back by the end of the month,” I said with a nod.

  Lamar heaved out a mighty belch and grunted, “Three hundred!”

  “Huh? Willie Frank said you paid Sheriff Potts two hundred!” Yvonne pointed out.

  “Yup. That’s what I paid.” Lamar looked from me to Yvonne. He let out a strange laugh before he went on. “I know y’all didn’t think I was doing this unless there was something in it for me!” He laughed again. “I figured a hundred would be a real sweet treat for me. Keep in mind, I could have asked for more. And it’s a good thing I got to the sheriff before he put this incident in the newspaper and the Klan got wind of it. He was fixing to turn in the report today. God couldn’t have saved y’all then.”

  “Oh. Well, honest to God, we will get you your money back on time,” I promised.

&nb
sp; “Good, good. Now I got to haul ass. Y’all have a blessed rest of the day and keep your noses clean!” Lamar gave us a tight smile and tipped his hat before he whirled around and trotted toward his fancy car.

  Just as Lamar was driving off, the sheriff and one of his deputies came outside and stood in front of the building, giving us more mean looks. We scrambled into Willie Frank’s truck lickety-split.

  Nobody said nothing all the way to our house. As soon as we got inside, we flopped down on the couch with Yvonne in the middle. I was pleased to see how good Willie Frank had cleaned up the mess the cops had made when they knocked over the food we had set out in the living room. But there was still a few bits and pieces of the birthday cake on the coffee table. “Willie Frank, I’m sorry we didn’t get to celebrate your birthday,” I said, trying to get my mind off our real troubles.

  “Don’t worry about it. We can celebrate later. But I did take them gifts y’all got for me. A man can never have too much chewing tobacco. I needed a new belt and that tie was right on time!” Willie Frank gushed. “My cousin Fanny June is having a church wedding next month and it’s going to be right formal. She told me I had to wear a tie and now I ain’t got to go hunting for one.”

  Yvonne jabbed me in my side with her elbow. “You said a tie was a bad gift for Willie Frank.”

  I wasn’t in no mood to be talking about a tie when we had a three-hundred-dollar debt to a white man hanging over our heads. It wouldn’t take long for it to turn into a noose if we didn’t pay it back this month.

  Willie Frank must have read my mind. “Look, I don’t want y’all to fret none. With God’s help, we’ll get that money somehow. Even if it means we have to rob Peter to pay Paul.”

  “Pffft! We’ll have to rob a bunch of Peters to come up with three hundred dollars!” I snapped.

  “Hold on now. It ain’t as bad as you think it is. Y’all still got a lot of friends in this town. I swung by Aunt Mattie’s place after me and Uncle Lamar left Sheriff Potts’ house last night. That sweet old woman feels so bad about this mess. She said she’s going to do a hoodoo that’ll help y’all stay strong and also calm down them lynch mobs. If she is that sympathetic and concerned, I’m sure she’d be good for at least a fifty buck loan, maybe even a hundred.”