Freshwater Road (45 page)

Momma Bessie stared out the back dining room windows to her yard,
then turned into the kitchen and rattled around in the sink. "Bring me that
saucer and glass when you're done."

Shuck heard the water running, the small clanks of glasses and silverware.

"All right then." He picked up his shirts, took his dirty dishes to her, and
went on out the front door calling back, `Be sure to lock up, now."

He saw Momma Bessie standing in the kitchen doorway with her hands
on her hips and a stern look on her face. He was leaving too soon, but sitting still had never been easy for him unless he was sitting in a nightspot.
She'd think about what he'd said, but he didn't know if she'd ever make
the move. Maybe.

He arranged the shirts in the trunk, got in the car, put the top up against
the sun, and headed toward Outer Drive. Manfred's After Hours Joint,
where Gravy spread his whiskey-soaked rumors, was a mere four blocks
away. Too close for comfort. The old neighborhood had run its course. Decay had long since raced past the possibility of rejuvenation. Too late.
The scales tipped in the direction of desertion, departure, letting it go.
Time to put the past behind him once and for all. But life rarely granted a
once and for all, overlapping instead, under-towing, circling back, linking
the inevitable and the unpredictable. If he moved Momma Bessie to Outer
Drive, and Alma, too, he'd be as close as he could get to having the home
life he wanted. Get this Freedom Summer thing done, Celeste out of Mississippi in one piece and Wilamena out of his head. Once and for all.

The echoes of shoe heels on hardwood, the rustling of suit pants, the thistledown of summer dresses swishing on bare legs in the cool lobby as the white
citizens of Pineyville went about doing their morning business. Reverend
Singleton, as always dressed in a tailored suit like he still lived in Chicago,
walked in favoring his bruised back. Stiff-lipped Sister Mobley, the bodice
of her print day dress trimmed in white lace, followed clutching her bible,
holding it out from her body like a shield. Geneva Owens, looking ready for
church, carried herself as if she'd been coming in the front door of the Pearl
River County Administration Building for her entire life. This time they
were joined by Mr. Landau in dark summer slacks and a long-sleeved shirt
and Dolly Johnson, her cotton skirt and blouse ensemble giving her the
look of a clerk typist, The two newcomers stayed close behind the veterans,
eyes glued to Reverend Singleton's aching back.

On their first attempt, the whites had dropped their voices to a whisper when the group entered the lobby through the front door. Today, in
their self-conscious attempt to ignore them, their voices rose and bounced
around the lobby, talking about this and that over the event taking place in
front of them. Celeste was mindful of Sheriff Trotter's promise to blow her
brains all over the lobby. She wondered why Mr. Heywood hadn't already
come tearing down the stairs. Maybe they'd be ambushed at the top of the
stairs this time. Inching toward freedom, she thought.

Just as the small group rounded the balustrade to go up the stairs to
Mr. Heywood's office, the sure-footed sound of hard police shoes thunking fast through the hall announced Sheriff Trotter and a deputy as young and
robust as Trotter himself. Celeste put her hand on Geneva Owens's arm, as
much to keep from running as to give support to the older woman.

Trotter and his deputy held handcuffs out and ready. "Y'all back, huh?"
Trotter's face pressed toward lightheartedness, his tone a chiding imitation
of a benevolent shopkeeper.

Every muscle in Celeste's body pulled tight in preparation for the blows
she had every reason to believe would be coming soon. She had a fleeting
wish that Mr. Landau hadn't been talked into this nonviolence thing. A few
passing whites stopped to watch. When Sheriff Trotter smiled, they smiled
with him. He was their sheriff.

Reverend Singleton stiffened. "Yes, sir, we are. We've come to see Mr.
Heywood about registering to vote." His clear preacher voice lifted above
all other voices in the high-ceilinged lobby.

Celeste held her breath. Her jaws clamped, her forehead sank into furrows and frowns in memory of Sheriff Trotter's gun against her temple.

Trotter fumbled for his next words. "Well, he's ...he's not here today."
His phony jocularity lost heart. "You turn and let me get these cuffs on you.
I get y'all situated in a cell, then go see if I can find him. How's that?" His
lips turned corners, bent like pipe cleaners. He swiveled Reverend Singleton
and brought his wrists together to fasten on the cuffs. Reverend Singleton
winced. The deputy did the same with Mr. Landau, who had a face of stone
so set and unmoving he might have been a sculpture, a face carved in some
forgotten hinterland.

Trotter recognized Mr. Landau. "You one of them working over at
Crown Zellerbach?"

"I am." Mr. Landau didn't say "sir."

A silence hung in the air where that "sir" had lived for years. They might
hit him, and hard. That "sir" defined the entire relationship between Negro
men and white men. Nobody smiling now. Celeste knew that white business owners in town had tried to get Mr. Landau fired from his job when
his truck had been identified outside the church during voter education
class. So far they hadn't succeeded.

Celeste eased closer to the deputy, hoping he'd be the one to handcuff
her. Stay away from Trotter. She scanned the lobby for any Negro people
who might be witnesses in case things got out of hand, in case Trotter drew
his gun. If any had been there, they'd already scurried out that back door when they saw Reverend Singleton, Celeste, and the others coming in the
front. Didn't want to be associated with the protestors, the agitators, hadn't
found defiance in themselves yet.

Trotter reached for her arm. His face flushed and his blue eyes hardened
into granite the way Shuck's eyes had when he'd met J.D. for the first time
in front of the student union on campus. She brought her other arm to the
back, making it easy for him.

Unlike the day before, Trotter couldn't have been more polite. He must
have been caught off-guard then. It was possible that since the world had
its eyes on Mississippi, the state government had decided to at least feign
civility towards its Negro citizens. Some national press still swarmed all
over the state. No way to know how long it would last. But civility or not,
they were headed to jail, and the only thing they'd done so far was come in
the front door of the building and ask permission to register to vote.

Dolly Johnson volunteered her wrists in front of her body. The deputy
slid her strappy straw bag up onto her shoulder, spun her quickly, and
brought her arms around her back with a good yank. A woman from the
small crowd of onlookers said, "Oh, my," her voice sounding almost like a
fainting moan of sexual pleasure. Perhaps she recognized Dolly Johnson as
the Negro woman who had the blonde-haired child and needed to express
her joy at seeing Dolly publicly shackled. Celeste gave a look to Dolly, a
confirmation that it would be okay.

Dolly's face got pinched and dark. She cut her eyes at the deputy, who
cuffed her, then gently pushed her toward the rest of the shackled group,
his thin face and diluted blue eyes intent on his work.

Mr. Landau's face masked whatever he felt. Reverend Singleton had
spent a good hour convincing him that nonviolence hadn't yet run its
course, that there was a power in this he'd never know by using a gun. Now,
here he was in handcuffs for trying to do what the Constitution guaranteed.
He wasn't a man who could've withstood chains.

The officers handcuffed Sister Mobley and Geneva Owens last, holding
their bibles and purses for them. It was all done in a few short minutes with
not a voice raised or a scuffle heard. No need to excite people. The white
citizens of Pineyville went back to their business, inured overnight to this
new activity in the lobby of the public building. The Negroes had been
handled satisfactorily. No guns drawn, no ministers flying across the lobby
and crashing to the floor. No aching cry from the lungs of a terrified child. Celeste felt grateful to be alive and maneuvered herself as far away from
Trotter as possible. Again, she expected the white people in the lobby to
applaud the imminent incarceration of the troublemakers. They didn't.

The deputy hustled Celeste and the other women to the women's jail in
an L-shaped lip of the building on the back parking lot, near the Negro entrance. Reverend Singleton and Mr. Landau disappeared, led to the Negro
men's section-the jail that Leroy Boyd James had been dragged from
before he was shot and thrown into the sludgy Pearl River.

One by one, the deputy removed their handcuffs and pushed them into
the cell. When the door clanged shut, the women were standing in a small
concrete square with two metal-framed bunk beds, a scummy seatless flush
toilet without toilet paper, and a face bowl whose metal finish barely showed
through brown filth crusted over it. Not a piece of soap in sight. They hadn't
been processed in, no fingerprints taken, no photos snapped. No legal proof
that they'd been arrested. The old trick. The other cell across the hallway
stood empty. Celeste climbed up to one of the top bunks and figured that
Dolly, who was younger than either Sister Mobley or Mrs. Owens, would
take the other top bunk. Instead, she sat herself down on the bottom bed,
then stretched out on the filthy mattress.

"You might give that bunk to Mrs. Owens or Sister Mobley so they
don't have to climb up." Celeste pulled way back on her tone, not wanting
to antagonize Dolly.

Dolly looked at Celeste with Labyrinth's expression, all single-minded
petulance. "I have a fear of heights," she replied. She sat up, bending over
to avoid grazing her head on the upper bunk. Labyrinth's chip-on-theshoulder attitude came straight from her mother.

Celeste wondered where Dolly got a fear of heights in a low-building
town full of, at most, two-story houses. Certainly the houses where
Negro people lived were all single story, except the Sophie Lewis mansion, and that was damn near to New Orleans. She doubted Dolly had
ever been there.

Sister Mobley threw her bible and small cotton purse up on the top
bunk and made motions to climb up there. "No need for a fuss."

Celeste jumped down to the concrete floor, thankful she'd worn her
tennis shoes again. "Sister Mobley, don't climb up there by yourself."

Mrs. Owens lowered her chin, stared at Sister Mobley's ill-fed body.
"Sister Mobley, get on that bottom bunk. Now, Dolly, you get your hind parts up on that top one. I'm old, I'm tired, but I'm not too tired to deal
with your smart mouth."

Sister Mobley scuffled trying to get herself up on that top bunk fast before the war started. Celeste stood there for support, feeling Sister Mobley's
thin fingers digging into her shoulder.

Mrs. Owens came over and took Sister Mobley's bony arm and sat her
down on the bottom bed. Sister Mobley popped up like a jill in the box,
grabbed her bible and purse from the top. "I don't mean to be no trouble."

Celeste backed away.

"You're not the trouble." Mrs. Owens put her hands on her hips and
stared at Dolly Johnson.

Dolly came off the bunk and stood in the middle of the cell. "Who says
you get to tell everyone what to do?

The older woman's hand fluttered to her heart and her breath came in
tight little fits. "You just like everyone else in here, Dolly. You barely got a
pot to pee in and a window to throw it out of." Mrs. Owens paused. "And
I'ma tell you something else, you coming down here with us, that Percival
Dale ain't gon side with it. No matter what you think, no matter how many
times you roll over in that bed with him, when his back's against the wall,
he's a white man and to him, you a poor-butt nigger woman with one of
his kids to feed. You go on and climb up there to that top bunk. Fear of
heights. Whoever heard of such a thing? Ain't no height. It's a bed. And
not much of one at that."

Celeste'd never heard Mrs. Owens say so many words in a row, and
certainly never heard her express herself with such wrath, the kind she
might've wanted to display in the lobby but knew she dared not.

Dolly Johnson's face trembled then folded in on itself and tears listed
down her cheeks. "You didn't have to go and say all that, Geneva Owens.
That wasn't called for." She took her straw purse from the bottom bunk
and threw it on the top. "Mr. Dale don't do nothing for us but help me
feed my kids. Ain't nothing else." She sobbed. "Oh I don't want to be in
this old place."

"Calm yourself, child. We would all of us rather be at home." Sister
Mobley patted her bible.

"If he does that, he's doing the very least of what he supposed to do.
But, I bet he ain't gon come here and see about you in this jail. He's got a
wife right around the corner. No point in you coming in here trying to act grand." Mrs. Owens paused, calmed herself, and sat down on her bunk.
She took a handkerchief from her purse and wiped her whole face then her
hands as if she had water. "Now, Dolly, get up on that bed and take a rest
cause we don't know what's coming. Dealing with those children and no
husband to help, Sister Mobley more needs a rest than anybody in here."
Mrs. Owens shook her head from side to side.