A Cry of Angels (31 page)

 

 

I had heard about the Klan, of course, but their activities had al ways been confined to a time before I was born. I was surprised they still existed, especially here in Quarrytown.

"Come on," said Em, "let's get this icebox home."

"The nineteenth—that's today," said Tio. "The meeting's tonight! Hey, you want to go?"

"To a Klan meetin'?"

"Why not? They sent us an invitation, didn't they?"

"Heck yeah, why not? Hey, Em, you wanta come?" Em, out of patience, was hoisting the drink box on his back. "Fine lotta help you are," he grumbled.

"Do you want to go with us tonight?" I repeated.

"Hell no," he said, "I'm goin' to church!"

"
Church
!"

Mr. Teague was off the bench like a shot. He stood on the sidewalk, mouth agape, blinking, and I realized that Em had just exposed Tio's latest business-improving scheme.

"Merciful God, that's what's wrong!
Tio, we're open on Sunday
!"

The night was aglow behind Barton's auction barn. The song was "The Old Rugged Cross." And so strange to be crawling toward it through the weeds, toward that comforting old hymn trembling with fear, as though a monster might be calling in your mother's voice.

There were about a hundred people in the pasture, leaning against their vehicles, standing, squatting, singing, while a huge cross lapped its fire in the wind. On a flatbed truck a half-dozen men sat in metal folding chairs. They all wore white sheets and pointed hats, some trimmed in red, some in blue. A couple had brought their families, also in costume, the children, replicas of their fathers, playing around the truck in their own little sheets and caps. When the singing was finished the people waited silently, watching the great cross billow and roar and consume itself in black-orange flames.

I knew most of the people there, a number of whom had been forced out of the Ape Yard by the influx of blacks. Paulie Mangum was there, of course, and Pete Stokes, the deputy sheriff, and Vince Dupree, who ran the upholstery shop. Rudy and Randy Owens stood by their respective trucks, not talking to each other, of course. The brothers ran competitive gas stations and hadn't spoken to each other since World War Two. Something to do with a prostitute in Germany. The only one of the Klansmen on the truck that I recognized right off was Runty Alf Newton, a house painter who hadn't painted anything in recent memory but the front window of the finance company that had repossessed his car. One Saturday night in the picture show Alf awoke suddenly from a drunken nap and began firing a pistol at the villain on the screen. He hadn't been off the road more than a month.

One of the Klansmen stood up and stepped to the edge of the truck. Then I recognized Otis Barton. He flipped a hand out of a floppy sleeve and adjusted his glasses, and for me the spell was broken. I had to suppress a laugh. On Otis the pointed hat looked like a dunce cap.

"Friends," he said gravely, "you all know why we're here. You've heard the news. We've never had trouble with the niggers in Pollard County. We've treated 'em right and they've stayed where they be long. But they've been active. They've been pushing. Eisenhower's screwed up the army to where a man can't serve his country without living with 'em, and now the Supreme Court wants to put 'em in the schools with our kids!"

Otis waited for the murmur to subside. "Now, many of you heard Senator Broward when he was in town a couple weeks ago; said wasn't anything to worry about, but some of us feel it's time to get organized and be ready to meet this thing head on. The Klan's not been too active in recent years, but it's gettin' active now, and I feel it's time to organize a klavern here in Quarrytown. These gentlemen on the platform here are members of the Clingham, Georgia, Klan. I want you to listen to what they've got to say, and then walk up here and meet us man to man, and tell us where you stand on this thing." Otis patted his chest, fumbling for an opening, and finding none, turned away and, somewhat self-consciously, pulled up his gown. He extracted a piece of paper and read the introduction: "The featured speaker tonight is an ordained man of God, and a respected member of his community. He is pastor of the Logan branch Church of God of Clingham, Georgia, a Mason, Oddfellow, Woodman of the World, and Kludd of the Clingham Klan. I want you to make welcome, the Reverend Haskell Spann!"

Otis stepped back clapping loudly and the crowd half-heartedly took up the applause, clapping stiff-armed below the belt as country people do. The Reverend Spann was a tall, heavy man with craggy cheeks and broad, thick hands. He might have been a carpenter or a bricklayer, and probably was. I knew the man well from my experiences in backwoods churches. I was all ready for his trancelike, swaying shout-preaching, "Love-ah, God-ah, repent-ah," but when he started preaching, it was a different kind of sermon. This man was preaching hate.

Pure hate. It was the blood of every thought, every word. And as they listened, the men on the ground slowly, one by one, as though touched by some faint electric pulse, moved off the fenders and raised out of their squats and stood at attention, scarcely breathing. The man was not easy with his tongue; the words faltered and sentences broke off in the bell-tolling chant of his ranting. But the hate was there, eloquently there, and the people on the ground responded. Something ominous pervaded that gathering; it was as strong in the air as the black pine smoke that settled from the whipping flames. Hatred that night became a tangible thing.

"The nigger has got to be dealt with!" he roared, leaning a trembling finger into the light, "before he mongrelizes our race, and his ordained curse marks the skin of your own grandchildren!"

"
Amen, brother
. . . !"

Tio and I nearly jumped out of our skins.

Doc Bobo and Clyde Fay stepped out of the shadows not five yards to the right of us.

Without hesitation they made their way toward the truck. Stunned, the townspeople let them through. The Reverend Spann, a gesture frozen in air, at last found his voice.

"By the Lord Jesus . . .
coons
!"

Doc Bobo continued along, nodding and bowing his way through.

The minister whirled around. "Albert! Raeford! Are you gon' just set there?" Instantly, Alf Newton jumped off the truck and came running. The other two Klansmen clambered down after him, one of them clutching a tire iron. Scooping up a rock, Alf darted through the crowd toward Bobo; he was drawing up sideways, already into his swing, when Clyde Fay stepped forward and shot a fist to his jaw that dropped him in his sheet like a sack of flour. The next man doubled over with a boot in his groin, and the third was drawing back with the tire iron when his head suddenly snapped from under his hat with the force of the big Negro's fist. Alf Newton rolled to his feet and charged. Fay reached down and lifted him off the ground and stood looking at him, their eyes level.

Alf Newton screamed in fury, "Lemme go, nigger, I'll kill you!"

He squirmed and yelled over his shoulder, "Y'all come on here!"

"Hold on there!" shouted Otis Barton. He turned to Reverend Spann. "That's Bobo, the one I told you about. Y'all hold up . . . listen, I think it's all right, we ought to let him . . . let 'em through there, let 'em come on through."

Doc Bobo touched Fay's arm and Fay lowered the little red-faced Klansman to the ground. Bobo stepped forward, smiling politely, and climbed the steps to the truck. The Reverend Spann was plainly perplexed; it was obvious he was not accustomed to having black people appear at Klan meetings, let alone come up to speak, but he didn't know what to do about it either. He looked to the local folks, but they were doing nothing. In fact, some of them looked eager to hear what the black man was going to say. The minister had no choice but to step aside, although his look told the crowd he considered it highly irregular.

Doc Bobo waited, in that curious attitude of authority and humility he carried off so well, until the men on the platform reclaimed their chairs. But when he turned and faced the crowd, there was iron in his voice. "As your humble servant these thirty-odd years, I come to ask the reason for this gathering tonight, to learn what has been done to merit your distrust. Has any black man used the wrong restroom in Pollard County, sat on the wrong stool at a cafe, touched the wrong water fountain, conducted himself in any manner whatever to warrant your anger? If so, give me his name," he said, pointing. "
Give me his name
. . . and he'll not see the sunrise tomorrow!"

Doc Bobo paused to run his gaze along every face in the crowd. "My friends, we are well aware of your concern in light of recent events, but you must know that your concern is but one-tenth of ours. We, who ask nothing but to offer you our good and faithful service as we have served your fathers and grandfathers, we pray, gentlemen, that you will not, at this most crucial time in our relations, allow a wedge of suspicion to be driven between us."

"Is this a time for disruption? New industries are coming to this region, new textile and chemical concerns are locating around us, as the honorable Senator Broward has pointed out, to bolster our own magnificent granite industry. There is talk of a hydroelectric dam to be built at Oconostee, with limitless economic possibilities for both our peoples, for federal jobs, gentlemen, and a boost to our local economy that will be felt in every business. Will we show a face of dissension? A community in racial turmoil? Or will we agree that
peace
is the common goal of both our races?" And here Doc Bobo emphasized his point: "
Peace as we have known it in this town
?"

He paused to let it sink in.

"You know me," he said softly, "you know what I stand for. Do you really feel a need for vigilantes? Is that the message we want sent from our town?

"Let us hold our fears to the light. The Supreme Court, by some vague reasoning known only to itself, has decreed that separate schools is unconstitutional. They have set no date, so, as the good Senator said, having made this gesture to the new liberal element that now controls our government, like as not they will forget the matter and turn their attention to other, more meaningful business. At any rate, as the Senator also pointed out, there is such a thing as states' rights, and we are fortunate enough to have people in Congress well equipped to look after our interests. Therefore, gentlemen, I trust you will forget this matter and turn your attention to other and more important affairs, such as the big centennial we have to celebrate this coming year, the first hundred years of our granite industry. You gentlemen of the Klan," he said, turning, "you come down to the Ape Yard, then, and we'll give you some barbecue that'll melt in your mouth!"

There was a loosening among the crowd. Even the Klansmen were chuckling their relief. "As for you, my friends and neighbors"—Doc Bobo struck a wide-eyed, comic pose—"you keep yo' eye on de Su-preme Co't. Ah'll take keer o' de Ape Yah'd!"

Caught by the sudden switch, a favorite trick of Bobo's at the civic clubs, the crowd roared its approval, bursting into enthusiastic applause. Doc Bobo quickly stepped down from the truck and made his way through the crowd, nodding to acquaintances, shaking hands, as he and Fay made their way across the pasture to the woods.

I felt it was time for us to be getting away from there, but when I moved Tio gripped my arm. He pointed with his chin. Then I saw them, black men, about a dozen of them, guns drawn, melting back into the trees.

We gave them plenty of time to clear the woods before we started crawling out.

With the coming of fall, work got scarcer at the corner. There was never enough to go around, and by unspoken agreement Em and I sat still with the other younger men until those with children had found work, and then the elderly. Often as not that was all there was, and we returned home with nothing but hope for the next day. Finally school started and I was limited to whatever I could find in the afternoons. Most often I found nothing but Em sitting under the oak, still waiting. At last we gave up the Corner for good and left the others, the regulars, the eternal hopefuls, waiting under the fall clouds as cold and gray as road-bank snow, talking of trivial things in their jumbled jargon. The sleepy, waiting families. Old Aaron Tim with twine in his shoes idling under the umbrella oak. Small boys shouting for echoes.

I stood on the curb a long time.

If I was to continue going to school, something had to be done. I was wearing my last pair of pants. The only other good pair I had, the corduroys, had caught on a hacksaw blade stuck under the siding of the garage and been ripped open to the knee.

I stood, looking up and down the street, trying to get up my courage.

The Good Samaritan Center was a combined effort of the local churches that collected clothing and other discards to be sold cheaply or given away to the needy. Pinnacle Baptist was one of its chief supporters. Miss Esther had collected a box every Christmas. After all those boxes I had delivered to the Center for Miss Esther, it didn't seem like charity to ask for one pair of school-grade pants.

It still didn't seem so to me, and I had given it a lot of thought since my and Em's argument about it the night before. In a roundabout way I had mentioned the possibility of the Center, and Em frowned and shook his head. It was a hypocritical position, I thought, but he was adamant. I was not to go begging.

But apparently it was all right to go to school in rags.