The Bottoms (21 page)

Mama pulled back the curtains and looked. There were a dozen men on horseback, dressed in white robes. They were carrying torches. One man was standing on the ground, his horse
being held by a mounted rider. On the far side of our road blazed a cross about eight feet tall.

Toby had come up on the front porch, and he was barking in as ferocious a manner as he could manage.

“Run get your father,” Mama said.

I started that way, but Daddy was already coming. He wasn’t wearing any shirt. He was carrying our double-barreled shotgun. He leaned the shotgun beside the door, went out on the porch.

Toby continued to bark. Daddy said, “Hush, Toby,” and after one more bark, just to show he wasn’t any lapdog, Toby went quiet. Mama called him softly and he came inside the house, growling under his breath.

I could smell the gasoline the cross had been doused with. I watched the flames whip at the air like a bloody sheet in the wind.

“You boys done missed Halloween,” Daddy said.

The robed man with the torch said, “We command you now, pilgrim. Tell us where we can find the nigger you arrested.”

“You don’t do worth a damn trying to hide your voice, Ben Groon,” Daddy said. “I’d recognize it anywhere. You don’t command me nothin’. You hear?”

“Turn over this nigger you got, Jacob. You can’t protect him.”

“First of all,” Daddy said, “I ain’t got no one in custody. Second of all, I wouldn’t turn him over if he was on the porch with me. Take that cross with you, and leave out. And by the way, I recognize you, Nation, just the way you sit that horse. And that means them two dumb boys of yours are bound to be with you. So that’s four I know right there.”

Daddy called to me. “Hand me that gun, son.”

I was standing just inside of the doorway. I handed him the shotgun. He took it quickly, stepped off the porch, leveled it at the man he said was Groon, the general store owner. I had a hard time picturing him under that sheet.

“Pull that thing down and take it with you,” Daddy said.

There was a moment’s hesitation. Daddy cocked the shotgun. You could almost hear their butts grabbing at their saddles.

Groon spoke in a cracked voice, “Better go on and take it down. He said he ain’t got no nigger.”

The white hoods looked back and forth at one another. Finally one produced a rope, tossed it over the top of the burning cross, dragged it out of the ground and started down the road with it, the cross flinging sparks and flogging flames.

The others left out, except for the man holding Groon’s horse, and Groon himself. The rider presented Groon with his reins, and thundered off down the road.

“It’s one tight brotherhood, ain’t it?” Daddy said. “Groon, step up here on the porch.”

“We done tore the cross down, Jacob.”

“I know. Step up here.”

Groon came over, leading his mount.

“Tie your horse,” Daddy said.

Groon tied it to a porch support post.

“Lift that hood off.”

Groon lifted it, revealing his bald head. He looked half the size he had out there by the cross with the pointed hood on. I realized he wasn’t any taller than me, and only a little bigger. He appeared to be a silly adult who had been wearing a ghost costume.

“Now, come on in the house.”

“Jacob …”

“Just do it.”

Mama put Toby outside as Mr. Groon came in, just in case he might decide to take a nip at his ankles.

Daddy led Mr. Groon through our main room where the kitchen and dining table were. He took Groon into his and Mama’s bedroom, mine and Tom’s room, then out on the sleeping
porch, all of us tagging behind, trying to figure what in the world was going on.

We ended back up in the main room. Daddy said to Groon, “See any colored folk?”

Groon shook his head.

“Good. You tell your friends that. Now sit at the table.”

Groon was starting to shake. I was pretty darn nervous myself.

Daddy said, “May Lynn, would you mind gettin’ the cake out of the pantry?”

Mama looked at Daddy as if he had just decided to use her kitchen for an outhouse, but she got the cake out and put it on the table.

“And if I could trouble you for some plates. And some forks.”

Mama got out the plates and forks. She looked at Daddy as if he were ready to be put in a home for crazy folks.

“Now,” Daddy said, still holding the shotgun on Groon, “everyone please sit at the table.”

I did, and Mama did. Daddy lowered the shotgun, opened it. No shells flew out. It was empty. He made note of this to Groon, who let out a sigh of relief.

“Now, Groon. I want you to have some of this cake. May Lynn is the best damn cake baker in these parts. And I want you to note that everything here was made from supplies we bought at your store.”

Groon looked at Mama. Mama tried to smile, but it didn’t quite work.

We all ate cake.

When Groon was finished, Mama said, “You like another piece, Mr. Groon?”

“Yes ma’am, I would.”

I don’t know how late Daddy and Mr. Groon talked, but it was late. I finally tuckered out and drifted to the sleeping porch with Mama. We sat together on the swing there, and when I woke she was gone and I was lying on the swing with a pillow under my head and a blanket over me. The sun was coming up and our rooster crowing. I went into the kitchen. Daddy and Groon were still in there, sitting in front of greasy plates, well sopped of eggs and fatback grease. Mama was pouring coffee.

“You like some eggs and biscuits, Harry?” she asked.

I told her I would, and sat down at the table. Tom came wandering in, rubbing her eyes. Sometimes she could sleep through a marching band. She looked at Mr. Groon, who still sat at the table wearing his robes, his hood pushed back. In the morning sunlight, his hair looked even thinner and whiter and the bald spot was a soft, smooth cream color. I could see liver spots on the back of his hands.

“You got on a ghost suit, Mr. Groon?” Tom asked.

He smiled at her. “I guess I do, missy.” He stood up, stretched out his hand to Daddy. “You won’t have no more trouble from me.”

“Fair enough,” Daddy said.

“Good cake, and a good breakfast, Mrs. Cane. Thank you.”

Mama nodded.

Groon got up and went outside. Daddy went with him. The air still smelled faintly of gasoline and burnt wood. Toby was lying on the porch. He shifted slightly and put an eyeball on Mr. Groon. Mr. Groon leaned forward slowly and extended his hand to Toby. Daddy said, “It’s all right, Toby.”

Toby sniffed at the hand, then lay back down, satisfied.

“Maybe we ought to walk your horse down to the barn, get some grain and water,” Daddy said.

“That’d be good,” Mr. Groon said.

“I’d like you to look around out there. See there’s no colored hiding there.”

Groon nodded.

“Son,” Daddy said, “clean that up, will you?”

He was talking about a big pile of horse manure Mr. Groon’s horse had left. “Yes sir,” I said, and went to get the shovel.

As I went around the house to where the shovel was leaning against the outside wall, I heard Daddy say: “Ben, wasn’t any shells in that gun, but I want you to know, I had some in my pocket.”

Later that day, I walked down the road following the path of the dragged cross. Eventually, I came upon what was left of it. The rope had burned through and the remains of the cross lay in the center of the road. It was a black-charred ruin, but still obviously a cross.

As I stood looking, a sharp wind came along and kicked ash off of it and some of it stuck to my shirt, the one Mama had made of bleached flour sacks. The one that was almost snow white, not from design, but from wear. And even though Mama washed it afterward, using good lye soap, it never came completely clean.

Somewhere, even now, after all these years, and me long grown out of it, I still have that shirt. Folded up in a trunk in storage, moth-eaten and turned yellow, with stains the color of ancient dried blood dotted just above and below the left shirt pocket.

Part Three

T
he other night, here in the home, under warm blankets with sleet slanting in hard against the window, I drifted off and awoke to the sound of a horn blaring, and though the horn had a different noise than those on the old cars, when I heard it, I awoke immediately thinking of Grandma.

I may have even called to her, for in that moment, with the sound of the horn still in my ears, and me slowly realizing the sound had come from out on the highway near the home, I was reminded of her enthusiasm. She liked her horn, and was known to honk it at the slightest reason.

I awoke thinking of her, and tears rolled down my cheeks. Not only because of her memory, but because I was even more reminded of then, and suddenly I was pulled into now, and I do not like now, for I am old. So very old. Older than she got to be. And I’m not sure a person ought to live to be too old. For when you can’t live life, you’re just burning life, sucking air and making turds.

Perhaps it’s not age, but health that matters. Live long and
healthy, it doesn’t matter. But live long and unhealthy, it’s a living hell. And here I lie. Not doing well at all.

Only the past seems to matter now; only it seems to be alive; only it can support my soul.