Catfish Alley (33 page)

Adelle opens her beautiful eyes.
They're her best feature. Zero always says she has the eyes of a young doe.
Today her eyes are glazed and dull. When she recognizes me, a depth of sadness
crosses her face that breaks my heart. I instinctively reach for her and have
to stop myself. Slowly she pulls her hand out from under the quilts and extends
it toward me. I drop to my knees beside her bed and take her hand with its long
graceful fingers, calloused from the hard work of nursing school, in both of
mine and press it to my cheek. We're both crying now.

After a few minutes, Adelle tries to
sit up.

"Let me help you," I say,
carefully supporting her shoulders as I test her response to the physical
contact. Adelle allows me to help her sit up, and she pats the bed beside her.

"Sit beside me, Gracie ...
please," she says in a small, scratchy voice.

"Thanks be to Jesus!" Mrs.
Jackson whispers. "She's talking to us, Grace! Baby girl, is there
anything we can get for you? Are you hurting anywhere? Are you hungry?"

I sit quietly beside Addie, trying
to keep myself calm, even though seeing her in pain makes me so angry at
whoever hurt her, I want to scream. I'm hoping Mrs. Jackson will calm down,
too. I think she's making Addie more anxious. I'm surprised when Addie's voice
comes out stronger.

"Mama, I'm not hungry, and the
medicine you gave me earlier is still helping. But I need for you to leave
Grace and me alone for a little while." Mrs. Jackson looks crestfallen,
but turns toward the door.

"And, Mama," Addie says
softly as Mrs. Jackson looks back at her. "Thank you."

After the door closes behind her
mother, Adelle takes a deep breath and sits up straighter. Although I'm full of
questions, I'm silent, fearful of saying something that might cause her to go
mute again. I can hear the hiss of the heater and the pinpoint tapping of the
rain turning to sleet on the roof outside. Finally, Adelle speaks.

"I'm going to tell you what
happened and then I don't want to talk about it anymore ...ever again."

"But, Addie ..."

"No, I mean it,
Gracie...."

"All right," I say,
thinking she doesn't really mean it. She just feels that way right now.

I listen as Adelle recounts her trip
from the bus station, how she planned to surprise her parents. The walk from the
station was just a few blocks. Her voice drops to a whisper and have to strain
to hear her as she tells how Ray Tanner and Pete Hatfield came out of nowhere
and dragged her into the alley. She hangs her head in shame as she describes how
she tried to scream for help and how Pete held her at knifepoint. Her voice
turns bitter and cold as she recalls what Ray Tanner said to her before he
raped her.

"I thought they were going to
kill me, Gracie. I remember thinking I'd never see any of you again."
Adelle starts to weep quietly and can't talk. I hold her close, both of us
crying. After
a f
ew
minutes, she stiffens and pulls away from me.

"You don't have to talk
anymore," I say to her.

"Yes, I do. I have to tell you
this." I nod as she continues. "I tried to kick Ray Tanner in the
groin, and that's when Pete cut me. After that, all of the fight went out of
me. When it was over, they ran off, and all I could think about was getting
home without anyone seeing me. So I kept to the alleys and stayed behind bushes
the last few blocks. When I got to our back door, I think I must have
fainted."

"Yes," I say. "Your
mama told me you were facedown on the porch when she found you."

"I didn't even go to my own
front door, Gracie," Adelle whispers. "I was too ashamed to go to the
front door of my own house."

I can feel her shame as she looks
down at her hands. My own anger seethes inside my belly like boiling water. I
want to run screaming from this room and tell the whole town what Ray Tanner
did. I want to see him tied up and dragged to the courthouse. I imagine Junior
holding him while Zero punches him in the face and stomach. I never knew I was
capable of such violent thoughts. It occurs to me that if I feel this way, how
will Zero feel?

"Addie," I say. "Zero
knows about the attack. When I found out, I called Alcorn State and got word to
him. He'll be here today on the six o'clock bus."

Adelle's body begins to tremble and
she turns and grasps both of my arms. I'm surprised at how strong her grip is.
"He can't know what happened, Grace. We can't tell him about the ..."
Adelle can't bring herself to say it.

"But we have to tell him! He
loves you. He'll want to know the truth," I say.

"Don't you see, Grace? If he
knows, he's going to feel like he has to do something. And there's nothing
anyone can do. You and I both know that Ray Tanner will deny all of it. No one
saw what happened. It would be my word against his, and who's going to listen
to a colored girl?"

I don't want to believe this. I try
to argue. "But ..."

"But nothing, Grace."
Adelle is insistent, and I turn away from her fierce eyes. "Look at
me!" she insists. "If Zero knows what happened, he'll go after Ray
Tanner. And you know how long Ray Tanner has had it in for Zero. That's just
what Ray wants him to do."

I nod and then try again. "Yes,
you're right,
but..."

This time Adelle shakes me.
"I'm afraid, Gracie. I'm afraid if Zero finds out what really happened,
he'll get himself killed!"

"What did you do?" Roxanne asks.

I look at Adelle. "I went to the bus station that night
and picked up my brother and I told him the story that Addie made me promise to
tell."

"What was that?" Billy asks, looking back and
forth between Adelle and me.

Adelle raises her chin and tightens her mouth in a
stubborn line, but doesn't respond. I answer, watching Adelle. "She made
me promise to tell Zero and her parents that she was robbed. She made up this
story that she had thirty dollars in her suitcase that she'd earned from doing
independent nursing jobs on her days off from Tuskegee. She had me say the men
who hurt her were colored men after her money. They pushed her down and she hit
her head on a pipe and was knocked out. While she was out, they ransacked her
suitcase and stole her money. She even said she didn't recognize them, that
they weren't from around here."

"You made her say all of that?" Roxanne asks
Adelle. She sounds shocked.

"I sure did," Adelle replies. "I knew
what would happen if Zero knew the truth."

Billy Webster

Monday morning and
I
'm back in Chicago, but my mind is still in
Mississippi.
I
'm
staring out of my tenth-floor office window in the City Planning Department. A
light snow has begun to fall, driven sideways by gusts of wind off the lake. I
just hung up the phone with Daniel Mason. He called to say that the contractor
and a local black architect are going to draw up some plans to take to the
bank. Jack Baldwin has agreed to take the idea forward to Mr. Spencer. Daniel's
also started to generate some interest among the young men from the community
to help with the work. I still feel the warmth in his voice when he talked
about the boys.

"Some of them have actually heard of Louis
Armstrong. I told them a little about the early days of jazz and the black men
who were the first musicians to play the music that people all over the country
eventually became crazy about. You know, Billy, at first they acted all tough
and like they didn't care, but then they started to ask a few questions, and
now I think they might actually be starting to get interested — realizing they
have a heritage they can be proud of."

I'm impressed, once again, with Daniel Mason. He has a
way with people. And although I'm the first to be skeptical of anyone's
intentions, he seems to care about those kids and the black history of
Clarksville. I still can't understand why he would leave a high-energy city
like Chicago for a small town. I would absolutely dry up there. For one thing,
there's nothing to do in Clarksville — no theater, no jazz clubs, no nice
restaurants to speak of, unless you count the Catfish Cabin. But then, every
Southerner can fry catfish.

I remember the fire in Daniel's eyes when he talked me
into restoring the Queen City the night we had dinner together. I could use a
little more of that fire. I certainly haven't met a man who sparks my interest
the way Daniel Mason has. I shake myself and get up to pour a cup of coffee.
What the hell am I thinking?
When I left yesterday I told myself that I was leaving thoughts of Daniel Mason
in Mississippi. Nothing can ever come of that, anyway. I need to get my mind
off of him and back on my work.

I flip through the files on my desk. Permit requests,
new trash route proposals, traffic light replacements, all the usual stuff.
None of it seems very interesting today. Maybe I'll try to focus on one of the
requests and get at least something done before the staff meeting at nine. The
top file is a permit request for a new jazz club opening on the South Side.
Once again, I find my thoughts drifting to my conversation with Daniel about
the beginnings of jazz and how so many musicians from Mississippi and Louisiana
migrated to the South Side of Chicago.

I also think about the conversation with Gran and her
friends during Saturday's card game. They talked about how proud Junior Jackson
would be of the Queen City Hotel. But they didn't finish telling me what
happened to him. We got sidetracked into what happened to Miss Adelle. I
shudder at how horrible that must have been for her, hiding what happened and
living in the same town all of her life with the man who raped her.

We all got so sad and quiet after that conversation. I
really had been enjoying myself playing cards with the ladies. I had even been
getting a kick out of watching

Roxanne Reeves hanging out with Gran and her friends.
But the fun went out of the day after they told those stories. When Miss Grace
finished, I decided that I needed to get out of there for a while, and I think
Roxanne was just waiting for a cue. She left to bring Grace and Adelle home. So
we never got back to the story of Junior Jackson. Did he tour Chicago? Is he
still alive? He'd have to be almost ninety by now, so probably not. As I gather
up my papers for the meeting, I have an inspired thought.

My best friend, Travis Sprague, is a huge fan of jazz.
He owns tons of old records and spends just about all of his spare time
searching for classic jazz to add to his collection. He might know of a Chicago
musician named Junior Jackson. I pick up the phone to call him. I can be a
little late to the meeting.

Travis and I agreed to have a drink after work. Now
we've drifted over to Andy's, our favorite jazz bar on Wilson Street, to catch
the eight o'clock show.

"It's been too long since we caught a show,
Billy," Travis says in his raspy voice as he lights a cigarette.

"Yeah, I know. I work too much sometimes," I
reply, swirling the olive in my Martini.

"What you been doing with yourself? You been on
vacation?"

"I've been down in Mississippi visiting Gran. I
had to stay a little longer this time. Had to do some business with that old
hotel that Grandpa used to run." "Did you finally talk her into
selling it?" Travis asks, a note of disappointment in his voice. I told
him about the Queen City Hotel several years ago when we first met. He's nagged
me ever since not to sell it or let it be torn down. For years, he's been
trying to convince me of its historical significance, but I just haven't been
able to get interested.

"You'll be happy to know that I've been talked
into restoring it. We may turn it into a community center," I reply with a
sly smile. "Maybe even have a jazz program for kids."

"Well, how about that!" Travis grins. How did
that happen?"

I stir my martini and take a sip. "There's this
white woman down there trying to start

up an African-American tour of Clarksville—"

Travis interrupts, almost choking on his career.
"Hold on a minute! You mean to tell me that a white woman talked you into restoring
the Queen City?"

"Not so fast, Travis. I'm not done yet. One of
Gran's old friends brought this woman over to the nursing home to meet Gran and
they talked Gran into considering it. I wasn't there at the time, but when I
got there to visit last week, it was all she could talk about. Plus, there was
the preacher."