Boy's Life (75 page)

     “It’s
necessary
,” the Lady corrected her. “Who on this earth can know where they’re going, unless they have a map of where they’ve been? Your husband didn’t come?”

     “He’s workin’.”

     “No longer at the dairy, I understand.”

     Mom nodded. I had the impression the Lady knew exactly where Dad was.

     “Hello, Cory,” she said. “You’ve had some adventures lately, haven’t you?”

     “Yes ma’am.”

      “You wantin’ to be a writer, you ought to be interested in those books.” She motioned toward the shelves. “Know what those are?” I said I didn’t. “They’re diaries,” she said. “Voices of people who used to live all around here. Not just black people, either. Anytime somebody wants to find out what life was like a hundred years ago, there are the voices waitin’ to be heard.” She walked to one of the glass display cases and ran her gloved fingers across the top, checking for dust. She found none, and she grunted with satisfaction. “Everybody needs to know where they’ve been, it seems to me. Not just blackskins, but whiteskins, too. Seems to me if a person loses the past, he can’t find the future either. Which is what this place is all about.”

     “You want the people of Bruton to
remember
their ancestors were slaves?” Mom asked.

     “Yes, I do. I want ’em to remember it not to feel pity for themselves, or to feel put-upon and deservin’ of what they don’t have, but to say to themselves, ‘Look where I have come from, and look what I have become.’” The Lady turned to face us. “Ain’t no way out but up,” she said. “Readin’. Writin’.
Thinkin’
. Those are the rungs on the ladder that lead up and out. Not whinin’ and takin’ and bein’ a mind-chained slave. That’s the used-to-be world. It ought to be a new world now.” She moved around the room, and stopped at a picture of a fiery cross. “I want my people,” she said quietly, “to cherish where they’ve come from. Not sweep it under a rug. Not to dwell on it either, because that’s nothin’ but givin’ up the future. But to say, ‘My great-granddaddy pulled a plow by the strength of his back. He worked from sunup to sundown, heat and cold. Worked for no wages but a master’s food and a roof over his head. Worked
hard
, and was sometimes whipped hard. Sweated blood and kept goin’, when he wanted to drop. Took the brand and answered Yes, massa, when his heart was breakin’ and his pride was belly-down. Did all this when he knew his wife and children might go up on the auction block and be torn away from him in the blink of an eye. Sang in the fields, and wept at night. He did all this and more, and by God… by God, because he suffered this I can at least finish school.’” She lifted her chin in defiance of the flames. “That’s what I want ’em to think, and to say. This is my dream.”

     I left my mother’s side, and walked to one of the blown-up photographs. It showed a snarling police dog, its teeth full of shirt as a black man tried to fight away and a policeman lifted a billy club. The next photograph showed a slim black girl clutching schoolbooks and walking through a crowd as rage-swollen white faces shouted derision at her. The third showed…

     I stopped.

     My heart had jumped.

     The third picture showed a burned-out church, the stained-glass windows shattered and firemen picking through the ruins. A few black people were standing around, their expressions dull with shock. The trees in front of the church had no leaves on them.

     I had seen this picture before, somewhere.

      Mom and the Lady were talking, standing over by the slave-spun pottery. I stared at the picture, and I remembered. I had seen this in the copy of
Life
magazine Mom was about to throw out.

     I turned my head to the left about six inches.

     And there they were.

     The four black girls of my recurring dream.

     Under individual pictures, their names were etched on brass plaques.
Denise McNair
.
Carole Robinson
.
Cynthia Wesley
.
Addie Mae Collins
.

     They were smiling, unaware of what the future held.

     “Ma’am?” I said. “Ma’am?”

     “What is it, Cory?” Mom asked.

     I looked at the Lady. “Who are these girls, ma’am?” My voice trembled.

     She came over beside me, and she told me about the dynamite time bomb that had killed those girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham on September 15, 1963.

     “Oh…
no
,” I whispered.

     I heard the voice of Gerald Hargison, muffled behind a mask as he held a wooden box in his arms:
They won’t know what hit ’em until they’re tap-dancin’ in hell
.

     And Biggun Blaylock, saying:
I threw in an extra. For good luck
.

     I swallowed hard. The eyes of the four dead girls were watching me.

     I said, “I think I know.”

     Mom and I left the recreation center about an hour later. Dad was joining us to go to the candlelight service at church tonight. After all, it was Christmas Eve.

     “Hello, Pumpkin! Merry Christmas to you, Sunflower! Come right in, Wild Bill!”

     I heard Dr. Lezander before I saw him. He was standing there in the church doorway, wearing a red vest with his gray suit and a red-and-green-striped bow tie. He had a Santa Claus pin on his lapel, and when he smiled, light sparkled off his silver front tooth.

     My heart started beating very hard, and moisture sprang to my palms. “Merry Christmas, Calico!” he said to my mother for no apparent reason. He grasped my father’s hand and shook it. “How are you, Midas?” And then his gaze fell on me, and he put his hand on my shoulder. “And a very happy holiday to you, too, Six-Guns!”

     “Thank you, Birdman,” I said.

     I saw it then.

     His mouth was very, very smart. It kept smiling. But his eyes flinched, almost imperceptibly. Something hard and stony came into them, banishing the Christmas light. And then it was gone again, and the whole thing had been perhaps two seconds. “What are you trying to do, Cory?” His hand wouldn’t let me go. “Take my job?”

     “No sir,” I answered, my cleverness squeezed away by Dr. Lezander’s increasing pressure. He held my gaze for a second longer, and in that second I knew fear. Then his fingers relaxed and left my shoulder and he was looking at the family who entered behind me. “Come on in, Muffin! Merry Yuletide, Daniel Boone!”

     “
Tom! Come on and hurry it up, boy!
”

     We knew who that was, of course. Granddaddy Jaybird, Grandmomma Sarah, Grand Austin, and Nana Alice were there in a pew waiting for us. Grand Austin, as usual, looked thoroughly miserable. The Jaybird was on his feet, waving and hollering and making the same kind of ass out of himself here at Christmas as he had at Easter, proving that he was a fool for all seasons. But when he looked at me he said, “Hello, young man” and I saw in his eyes that I was growing up.

     During the candlelight service, while Miss Blue Glass played “Silent Night” on the piano and the organ across from her indeed remained silent, I watched the Lezanders, who were sitting five pews ahead of us. I saw Dr. Lezander turn his bald head and look around, pretending to be quickly scanning the congregation. I knew better. Our eyes met, just briefly. He wore an icy smile. Then he leaned toward his wife and whispered in her ear, but she remained perfectly motionless.

     I imagined he might have been answering the question:
Who Knows?
What he whispered to horse-faced Veronica, there between the “darkness flies” and the “all is light,” might well have been:
Cory Mackenson knows
.

     Who are you? I thought as I watched him during Reverend Lovoy’s Christmas prayer. Who are you really, behind that mask you wear?

     We lit our candles, and the church was bathed in flickering light. Then Reverend Lovoy wished us a happy and healthy holiday season, said for us to keep the spirit of Christmas first and foremost in our hearts, and the service came to a close. Dad, Mom, and I went home; tomorrow belonged to the grandparents, but Christmas Eve was ours.

     Our dinner this year wasn’t as grand as in the past, but I did like eggnog and we had plenty of that, courtesy of Big Paul’s Pantry. Then came the gift-opening time. As Mom found carols on a radio station, I unwrapped my presents beneath the Yule pine tree.

     From Dad I received a paperback book. It was titled
The Golden Apples of the Sun
, by a writer named Ray Bradbury. “You know, they sell books at Big Paul’s, too,” Dad told me. “Got a whole rack of ’em. This fella who works in the produce department says that Bradbury is a good writer. Says he’s got that book himself and there’re some fine stories in it.”

     I paged to the first story. “The Fog Horn,” it was called. Skimming it, I saw it was about a sea monster rising to a foghorn’s lament. This story had a boy’s touch. “Thanks, Dad!” I said. “This is neat!”

     As Dad and Mom opened their own presents, I unwrapped my second package. A photograph in a silver frame slid out. I held it up to the hearth’s light.

     It was a picture of a face I knew well. This was the face of one of my best friends, though he didn’t know it. Across the bottom of the photograph was written:
To Cory Mackenson, With Best Wishes. Vincent Price
. I was thrilled beyond words. He actually knew my name!

     “I knew you liked his movies,” Mom said. “I just wrote the movie studio and asked ’em for a picture, and they sent one right off.”

     Ah, Christmas Eve! Was there ever a finer night?

     When the presents had been opened and the wrappings swept away, the fire fed another log, and a third cup of eggnog warm in our bellies, Mom told Dad what had happened at the Hall of Civil Rights. He watched the fire crack and sparkle, but he was listening. When Mom was finished, Dad said, “I’ll be. I never thought such a thing could happen here.” He frowned, and I knew what he was thinking. He’d never thought a lot of things that had happened in Zephyr could ever happen here, starting with the incident at Saxon’s Lake. Maybe it was the age that was beginning to take shape around us. The news talked more frequently about a place called Vietnam. Civil strifes broke out in the cities like skirmishes in an undeclared war. A vague sense of foreboding was spreading across the land, as we neared the plastic, disposable, commercial age. The world was changing; Zephyr was changing, too, and there was no going back to the world that used to be.

     But: tonight was Christmas Eve and tomorrow was Christmas, and for now we had peace on earth.

     It lasted about ten minutes.

     We heard the shrieking of a jet plane over Zephyr. This in itself wasn’t unusual, since we often heard jets at night either taking off from or landing at Robbins. But we knew the sound of those planes as we knew the freight train’s whistle, and this plane…

     “Sounds awfully low, doesn’t it?” Mom asked.

     Dad said it sounded to him like it was skimming the rooftops. He got up to go to the porch, and suddenly we heard a noise like somebody whacking a barrel with a fifty-pound mallet. The sound echoed over Zephyr, and in another moment dogs started barking from Temple Street to Bruton and the roving bands of carolers were forced to give up the holy ghost. We stood out on the porch, listening to the commotion. I thought at first that the jet had crashed, but then I heard it again. It circled Zephyr a couple of times, its wingtip lights blinking, and then it veered toward Robbins Air Force Base and sped away.

     The dogs kept barking and howling. People were coming out of their houses to see what was going on. “Somethin’s up,” Dad said. “I think I’ll give Jack a call.”

     Sheriff Marchette had stepped ably into the job J. T. Amory had vacated. Of course, with the Blaylocks behind bars, Zephyr’s crime wave was over. The most serious task that lay before Sheriff Marchette was finding the beast from the lost world, which had attacked the Trailways bus one day and gave it such a hard knock with its sawed-off horns that the driver and all eight of the passengers were admitted to the Union Town hospital with whiplash.

     Dad reached Mrs. Marchette, but the sheriff had already grabbed his hat and run out, summoned away from Christmas Eve dinner by a phone call. Mrs. Marchette told Dad what her husband had told her, and with a stunned expression Dad relayed the news.

     “A bomb,” he said. “A bomb fell.”

     “
What?
” Mom was already fearing Russian invasion. “
Where?
”

     “On Dick Moultry’s house,” Dad said. “Mrs. Moultry told Jack it went right through the roof, the livin’ room floor, and into the basement.”

     “My Lord! Didn’t the whole house blow up?”

     “No. The bomb’s just sittin’ in there.” Dad returned the receiver to its cradle. “Just sittin’ in there with Dick.”

     “With
Dick?
”

     “That’s right. Mrs. Moultry gave Dick a new workshop bench for Christmas. He was in the basement puttin’ it together. Now he’s trapped down there with a live bomb.”