Catfish Alley (40 page)

Daddy was quiet for a while, but I
could tell he was angry. Daddy is fiercely protective of Josephine and Sarah
Jane — almost as much as he is of Mama and me. He won't even let Mama scold
them too much.

Daddy told me not to worry, that he
would take care of it. That's all he would say, but I have a feeling that Ray
Tanner will be looking for work after today. Serves him right.

December 16, 2 p.m.

I hardly slept at all last night.
The dogs kept barking and barking from their pens, like they were trying
desperately to get out. This morning I was trying to make myself get out of bed
when Sarah Jane came bursting into my room. She didn't even knock. She slammed
the door closed behind her and stood leaning against it, clutching her arms to
her chest, and trembling all over. She had the most terrified look in her eyes,
and she was breathing so fast I thought she'd faint.

I jumped up and went over to her,
and just as I reached her she collapsed on the floor in a blubbering heap. I
finally had to shake her to get her to tell me what was wrong.

It took her a while to get the words
out, but she told me that a colored man was found dead this morning hanging
from a tree near the river. A tree on our property! Clarence Jones saw him from
his boat when he put into the river to fish this morning right after sunrise.
It was Zero Clark! Sarah Jane is devastated. I asked her if they knew who did
it and she said no, that whoever hung him was long gone by the time Clarence
found him and cut him down.

I have a feeling I know who it was.
Who had it in for Zero? Who was it Zero left town to escape from? Ray Tanner,
that's who. I can't help but wonder if I'm part of the reason this happened.
After all, I did insist that Daddy sack Ray from his job at the mill. If Daddy
did fire him yesterday, Ray probably blamed Zero and went after him. Dear God,
how can I live with this?

The RC is halfway to my mouth and
I
've gone numb with
disbelief. All this time I thought Zero Clark left Clarksville. I thought he
decided to go somewhere else to practice medicine. How did I get that idea?
Grace never told me that exactly, but she didn't tell me this, either. No
wonder she's so hesitant to talk about her brother! I feel hot tears burning my
eyes. I can't do this anymore. I can't hear one more tragic story. I can't
visualize one more horrible scene of white brutality. I get up, drop the diary
on the kitchen table, and pick up the phone.
I
'm canceling
everything — my time with Grace today, the appointment with Del Tanner, the
whole damn African-American tour! They can find someone else to do it.

I'm done. As a matter of fact, I'm done with all of it
— the antebellum dresses, the Pilgrimage Tour, the home restorations, the
pretending to be a pedigreed Southerner. No more.

As I stand there sobbing, the phone in my hand, the
off-the-hook tone bleating in my ear, I feel lonelier and more confused than I
ever have. I don't know what matters anymore. And, worse, I don't know who I am
anymore. I hang up the phone and sink to the floor. I'm sitting in the middle
of the kitchen floor, feeling the cold tile through my robe, and I honestly
don't know what to do next.

I pull myself to my feet and see my open address book
lying on the counter. A sticky note with Rita Baldwin's phone number floats
toward me like a life preserver to a drowning shipwreck victim. I pick up the
sticky note, and my hands are shaking as I dial Rita's number.

I'm still amazed that Rita was willing to drop
everything and come to my house. I tried to insist that I was okay, since I
realized as soon as she picked up the phone that I had no idea how to begin to
tell her why I called. I even attempted to pull myself together, giving some
empty excuse about following up on the antebellum home prospect, but she must
have sensed something, because she asked, "Roxanne, are you all right? You
don't sound too good."

That was all it took to cause me to completely lose my
composure again, and as I blubbered about finding out something horrible and
various other phrases that probably sounded like nonsense, she stopped me to
tell me she'd be right over.

So here we are, sitting at my kitchen table, and I'm
thinking how I've never sat at my own kitchen table with a friend for one of
those intimate conversations like Mama used to have when I was growing up. How
could that have happened? I must have drifted off in my thoughts again, because
I have to ask Rita to repeat her last question.

"So this was Miss Grace's brother?"

"Yes, and she never even hinted to me that
something this horrible happened to him," I say, taking yet another tissue
from the box. "Why wouldn't she tell me?"

"Maybe she's ashamed," Rita speculates.
"Or maybe she's trying to protect you."

"That's absurd! Protect me from what? Believing that
absolutely nothing in hers or her brother's life went the way they planned? I
was already there, Rita," I say, realizing how angry I feel. "This
whole thing already feels like a complete nightmare."

"Stop it, Roxanne," she says, and I'm taken
back by the anger in her voice. "Stop seeing these women as victims. They
don't see themselves that way. Yes, they've been through some horrible history.
But they didn't let it change their whole view of the world. They've learned to
live with the sadness and move on."

"But why?" I can't help but ask. "It all
seems so hopeless."

"Roxanne, wake up and take a look around you. My
husband works with Elsie Spencer's husband at the bank. You and I are having
coffee together at your kitchen table. Do you think those things would have
happened in 1931?"

I look up at her, and her expression is so intense I
have to look back down. "No, I guess not, but I feel like such a
hypocrite. I didn't take on this tour because I'm interested in black history.
I did it because I wanted to get Louisa Humboldt off my back and get the
contract to do the restoration at Riverview. I thought this was going to be
some simple little list of places that Grace would come up with and we'd be
done. I never thought I'd get so pulled into their lives ... their
history."

"And how do you feel now?" she asks, taking a
sip of coffee.

I pause for a minute to think about the answer to that.
"Everything's different now. Somewhere along the way it started to matter.
And now I'm totally confused. I don't think I'm the right person for this job.
Maybe you should take over."

"Why? Because I'm black? Don't you think Grace
Clark had a reason for doing this the way she did?"

I think about it and suddenly realize that Grace
probably knew all along that if I'd known about Zero from the beginning I would
have bailed on the whole project before we even got started. "Yes, I
suppose she did."

Right now I feel completely bewildered. My marriage is
falling apart, my daughter is upset with me, I truly believe most of the women on
the Pilgrimage Committee think I've lost my mind, I'm depressed over the
injustice to a man I never even knew, and I think I'm developing my first real
adult friendship with a black woman ... maybe. Her next comment reminds me that
Rita Baldwin does not tiptoe softly around any topic, and I'm stung.

"I think Grace Clark knows that the white women
who join the Pilgrimage Committee or the Junior League are 'to the manor born,'
so to speak, and most of you have spent a tremendous amount of time ignoring
what goes on around you between blacks and whites every day. She used this
opportunity to let you
in
...
to let you see, if you were willing, into
her world ... our world."

I can see that if I want a friendship with this woman,
I'm going to have to be as honest and direct as she is. No more pretending. No
more hiding behind Dudley's family, or money, or my own little pathetic created
story. "I wasn't born to the manor," I say. "I was born to a
poor family on the bayou in south Louisiana." I sigh, thinking this is
probably going to be the quick demise of an almost friendship. "Rita, I'm
probably the biggest impostor you'll ever meet."

She listens to my whole story, one I've never told
anyone before. When I'm finished, I'm surprised by how relieved I feel. She doesn't
show much of a reaction one way or the other. I can't tell if she's appalled,
or uninterested, or just generally thinks I'm pitiful.

"Sounds like we have a lot more in common than I
thought," she says, and her smile is warm. I start to feel a glimmer of
hope ... maybe see a little squeak of light down in the hole I've dug for
myself.

"There's one big difference between us,
however," she says.

"What's that?"

"You could choose your path
because
of the color of your skin. I had to choose mine
in spite of it."
She says this gently, looking at me with a clarity I envy. I'm still struggling
to understand. My glimmer fades a little. What now?

She stands up and rinses out her coffee cup, places it
in the dish drainer. "I think you'd better go wash your face and put on
some makeup," she says, reaching for my cup.

I look at her, puzzled. I'm still reeling from our
conversation.

"You and I are going to go meet Grace and
Clarence. We need to hear the rest of this story."

Grace

I knew the time was coming soon when I would have to
talk to Roxanne about Zero, but I didn't think it would happen this way. I
expected her at nine o'clock this morning, but she showed up an hour late, her
eyes red and puffy like she'd been crying, and she was having a hard time putting
a coherent sentence together. The other surprise was that she brought Jack
Baldwin's wife, Rita, with her. She's a real nice woman, and even though I
can't see it happening, I think she would make a good friend for Roxanne.

All Roxanne was able to say before we left my house for
town was,
"I
've
got to talk to you about Zero, but I want to wait until we get to
Clarence's."

Now we're all sitting at Clarence's kitchen table, and
she pulls a leather-bound book out of her purse and lays it on the table.

The book looks to be old; its pages are brittle and
yellowed. I notice she's trembling as she pulls her hand away.

"What's this?" I ask, wondering if I really
want to know.

"This is Ellen Davenport's diary," she says,
and she takes a deep breath. "Louisa Humboldt found it in her attic at
Riverview. I was reading it to see if it contained any history about
Riverview." She reaches in her purse for a tissue, like she's worried
she'll start crying again.

I'm trying to piece this together. Why has Ellen
Davenport's diary got her so upset? Then it dawns on me, and I look at
Clarence.

"Sarah Jane," Clarence says, and I nod.
Clarence and I are both remembering that Sarah Jane Weathers worked for the
Davenports. She was there the morning Clarence found Zero. Clarence later told
me she was hysterical that day. We both knew she was sweet on Zero, and she was
as close as a sister to Ellen Davenport.

Roxanne is watching us. "So you know, then?"
she asks. Her eyes are wide, almost accusing, as she looks back and forth between
Clarence and me.

I look at Clarence again and back at Roxanne. "Why
don't you tell us what you read, sugar? I never knew Ellen Davenport was
writing in a diary about things that happened back then." I'm wondering if
Ellen and Sarah Jane knew something we don't. All these years of wondering what
happened that night, and here I am, hearing a white woman's version of it.

Roxanne is crying again now, and Rita reaches over and
pats her shoulder. "Go on," she says. "Tell them what Ellen
wrote."

Roxanne stares into her coffee cup and shakes her head.
She tells us in a halting way about the very first time she read the diary, and
how Ellen described Zero delivering Andy Benton's engagement ring. "And
then you confirmed that part the next time we talked," she says. "To
tell you the truth, the main reason I was interested in the diary at all was
because Louisa mentioned Zero's name being in it."

"How come you didn't tell me about this
diary?" I ask.

"I decided not to mention it to you because you
were always so private about Zero. I guess now I know why," she says.
"I read far enough in the diary to know that Ellen's elopement didn't work
out, that Ray stopped it, and she was brought back here ... that her heart was
broken. Again, your stories confirmed all of that. So for a while, I forgot all
about the diary."