3 Day Terror (17 page)

Jack Chadwick swallowed hard.

“All right,” he said, “all right. Maybe for once old John’s keeping his nose clean. But he sure packed me a wallop!”

“He must have seen the lipstick,” she said, coming toward him in the night.

• • •

Night, at the Nelly, with Turner Towers saying, “Naw, no! I won’t go out there and say anything like that!”

“They’re coming,” Tappie said. “They’re two houses down de road. You gotta, Turner.”

The deacon said, “Your grandmaw’s right, son. We’re not Birmingham-big; we’re little here in the Nelly. We got to eat crow for this mob, son! Tomorrow maybe, when they’re back in the hills, we can hold our heads up — ”

“Maybe, Deacon! Maybe! Our kids are going to school here tomorrow!” He slammed his fist into his palm. “Do you think they aren’t?”

“Tonight’s tonight. Tomorrow’s tomorrow. This is a Ku Klux outside, boy! You have a family to think about now!”

Doris Towers got up and went across the room to her husband, touched his sleeve. “Turner, I’d tell you if you were right, if I thought you were, and you know that. But we’re just little in number, Turner. Big hope and big in prayer, but awful little in number.”

“I’m tired of being little and black! God damn it, are we just helpless?”

“Let dem answer for you,” Tappie said, “Dey coming. Marching wid that cross down de night.”

Night, with the grotesque black holes for eyes in the sheets and the chant: “Sick! Sick! Sick! Sick!”

“Here, stop here!” against the moonlight soft drooping willow branches, by the shack at the end of the block.

“C’mon out!” was shouted.

And the tension in the minute’s wait, while the door opened on the crack of light, and the dark figure walked slowly toward them, slump-shouldered, head down.

“Name, boy?”

“Towers.” Hot breaths waiting for the “sir” at the end.

“What are you?”

“A nigger.” Sigh-pause. “Sir!” Tired.

“What are you always going to be?”

“A good nigger, sir.” Resigned.

“And a good nigger don’t go to school with whites, does he, because that’s sick. Isn’t it, boy?”

“Yes, sir, it’s sick.”

“Yes, siree, boy, it is sick!”

While the cross went back to the shoulders, and the ghosts went on parade; and the chant: “Sick!” and the figure standing before the shack, bent like someone old, and “Sick! Sick! Sick! Sick!” shouted down the night.

M
ONDAY MORNING
the pickets appeared outside the Bastrop High School.

“Just hang on tight,” Jud said, coming up Love Lucy Hill, two children with him, one on either side, holding his hands, “and don’t look to left or right.”

A crowd formed along the walks of the school — the curious, the angry, the excited.

“And don’t pay any attention to anyone,” Jack Chadwick said to the pair he walked with. “It’s okay.” They came out of the Nelly.

Down at the courthouse, the judge was sifting through the evidence against Richard Buddy, and deciding there wasn’t any. His daughter was staying at home until the niggers got the notion of going to school alongside her out of their heads.

“What’s your favorite subject?” Poppy Porter asked the trio walking with her. “I always liked English best.” Passing over the brim of the hill, facing the long walk that led ahead.

Someone shouted: “Here come the niggers!”

And the chanting was drowned out by the wail of a hundred sirens, coming in from State 1, passing the cotton that whitewashed the fields where black faces paused in picking to stare, weaving past the rows of furs and cedars, golden poplars and the elms and Judas trees, up West Tennessee and down Court to another shout:

“Troopers!”

And again: “Niggers! Sick Niggers!”

“Keep ahold,” Jud said.

Chad said, “Steady, now. It’s okay.”

And Poppy Porter looked at the man who jumped out of the car behind the troopers and said: “Troy!”

“Go on home, now,” he told her. “I think we can control things now!”

Then it was eight-fifteen, and by eight-thirty tear gas was holding back the more stubborn element in the mob outside Bastrop High, and inside, Asa Towers, cousin to Turner, was turning to “The fourth page of the Composition Book,” the teacher said. “We’ll leave the opening pages to record quiz marks. We’ll write our first composition on a simple subject. What it means to live in America.”

Heads bowed to the task.

Beside Asa a towheaded teen-ager began to scribble: “It means going to school with jig-a-boos,” writing, smirking.

And behind Asa, a brown-haired boy wrote: “It means what happened here in Bastrop, Alabama, today. I mean — ” frowning, biting his pencil, and then rubbing out I
mean,
he wrote — ”In front of me there’s a Negro boy about my own age sitting at his desk. It means that …”

At eight-thirty:

“I’m hungry,” Jud said at the corner to the other two. “I’m going back and fix me some breakfast.”

Troy waved as he went: “I suppose,” he said to Chadwick, “there’ll be all sorts of reports about the thug in the crowd who broke the reporter’s camera.”

“I don’t know about that,” Chad answered him, “but I’ll be damned if I don’t think I’m going to vote a straight ticket this year, Senator.”

“Not yet,” Troy laughed, “not by a damn sight. Do you think we can hold the fort, Chad?”

“I think so.”

“If not, there’s six hundred National Guard and twelve tanks where those boys came from.”

Across the street a horn honked.

“Looks like Dee,” Troy said. He poked Chad in the ribs. “She still chasing you?”

And down at the Wheel the stranger was setting up a box to stand on, that Monday morning that found Mrs. Benjamin cowering in the Chandler kitchen, before Duboe, who was grinning, holding his sides, his knubby fingers slipped into the loops of his jeans:

“You heard what I said,” he said. “A friend of mine entrusted this little old letter to me. A-yeah! In fact, I wasn’t even supposed to read its contents, ma’am, but you know I’m a curious one. Want me to read it again?”

“No!”

“Then if you want it back to protect your daughter’s good name,” Duboe giggled, “you gonna do what I say, hear? A-yeah! You gonna do as I say, Mrs. Benjamin, if you want this here letter! Now, how about it?”

And the muse Terpsichore was no longer voluble, on Monday morning, near noon, John Beggsom saw Jack Chadwick and Delia Benjamin park outside his place.

Crabb Suggs was standing with him in the back, and old John saw them from the window.

“He’s got a nerve!” Beggsom said. “Lookit them sitting out there in broad daylight!”

“There’s not time now,” Suggs said. “Worry that some other time. Buddy’s got to have a place to come to. They got troopers all over the place, but you got that shack.”

“I can’t put him up,” Beggsom said, still watching out the window at the car parked there in the sun. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Just overnight. They be looking for us both. I’ll stay out to my sister’s in Morrow.”

“Lookit them, goddam them!”

“C’mon, John, I gotta have an answer fast. It’s twenty to twelve now, and school breaks at noon.”

“I don’t want no trouble, though,” Beggsom said.

Near noon they could laugh about it, and they were laughing now.

“But I was scared, Chad,” she said. “I’d started off to see what was going on down at the school, and I’d gone back for my cigarettes when I saw Mother with them. The look on her face, Chad, gaw, I — ” and she began to laugh again, her shoulders snaking. “But I was really scared.”

“Well,” he said, “we got the letter back.”

“And Mrs. Chandler is now a member of the Methodist muses, asked in person by Terpsichore. Gaw, Chad.”

“I hope you get rid of that thing.” He glanced down at the wadded up paper in her lap. “Was it all that bad?”

She looked away, beginning to tear it as she talked. “Poor Mama. She wouldn’t even look at me afterward.”

Jack Chadwick said, “Aw, I think she was just mad because Mrs. Gus spat at her.”

“Poor, poor Mama,” Dee repeated, sighing. “I was always her trial, I guess.”

Jack Chadwick pushed down the door handle. “I want to call Cass,” he said. “Could you stand a Coke?”

She said, “Sure could.”

Beggsom was still watching them from the window.

He turned abruptly and yelled to the Negro out front: “I ain’t here, see?”

Then he went through the back door, out and around to the side of his place, springing the blade in his jacknife, scowling.

At noon “Everything’s fine,” Cass said, “I just talked to Jud over the telephone when Chad called. He said Arnold was having lunch brought into the school. There are still some picketers, but for the most ‘part things have quieted down.”

She said, “I’m proud of you, Jack. Can you hear me?”

And the whistles blew in twelve o’clock with a crash that sent a rock flying through Turner Tower’s store window down by the tracks, while the Negro boy out at Beggsom’s Place slid into the telephone booth after Chad, and Chad said to Dee at the table: “We might as well have a bite to eat right here. What do you say? It’s lunch-time.”

M
ONDAY AFTERNOON
at one o’clock when they were finishing their sandwiches at Beggsom’s place it happened.

“What happened?” Jack Chadwick asked, looking up suddenly at the trooper in the doorway, but the trooper brushed past him, went on out through the back of Beggsom’s place.

“He said he was searching.” Dee dropped a crust on the paper plate and wadded up her napkin. “Yes, but searching for
what?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “but here comes Cass.” They both looked out the open door to see Cass Chadwick running up from the car. “In Mama’s car, of all things!” Dee said.

Cass Chadwick was breathless. “I almost didn’t make it. I kept watching the meter sink down to empty.” “What is it?” Jack said. “What’s happened?” “Jud was beaten up — when he was coming from his house after lunch. I got a frantic call from your mother, Dee. She was near to hysterics and I ran over there. When I tried to call from there this line was busy. I tried and tried, and then I just got in her car and came on out here? They’ve got Jud at Benjamin’s still — he’s pretty bad off. I heard the troopers were heading out here and I just got scared for you, Chad, and for Papa. Is Papa all right?”

“I haven’t even seen him,” Chad said. A trooper came in from the rear. “Who called to say they were going to hide out here?” he wanted to know. “A colored boy, sounded like. Said he knew there’d be trouble and the guilty parties would head out here. Where’s he at?”

“He was here a minute ago,” Jack said, “but we didn’t know anything about it.”

“Well, he called up down to the police station,” the trooper stood there aimlessly.

“You better go to your place, Dee,” Cass said. “Your mother’s in a state! Jud’ll need you too. The doctor’s with him, but he’s hurt bad, Dee!” and as Dee started, Cass said, “Wait, don’t take the car until there’s more gas in it. The meter’s way down. There’s a pump outside.”

“Take my car,” Chad said. “The keys are in it.”

The trooper asked, “Whose car’s that out behind. Says Suggs Store on the side.”

“That’s who beat up Jud,” Cass cried. “Suggs and that stranger!”

“Then they did come this way.” The trooper scratched under his cap. “Where in hell are they, then?”

Dee swung onto State 1 and pushed her foot hard on the pedal. She was not thinking of her mother now, but of Jud, and of the worst that could happen to him, but not without his knowing, no God, she prayed, not without his knowing the truth. If she ever wanted to tell the truth in her life it was now, and she drove to get faster to the time when she could, thinking why couldn’t I have had the guts to do it yesterday, when I knew in the vestry what he was remembering, or last night, when he walked across the street and sat with me on the front porch, and said in that flat, solemn pronouncement: “I still love you, Dee. I still never forgive myself.”

She drove so fast the car swayed with the curves, but she was a good driver and she knew the winds and twists of this road better than any other, knew when it broke to gravel down near the Dip and didn’t slow for the dust it always kicked up in that spot, and she was rounding the bend for the twin hills near town when she became aware she had a rider:

“You want to kill us, Deel,” he said.

She heard the name “Deel” with a certain leap to her heart, and then she saw his face. Her rider was the stranger, Richard Buddy.

“I want you to head off down here where we can turn around. I want you to go to Chandlers’,” he said.

“I’m going to town,” she told him. “I don’t care where you’re going.”

“I got your letter,” he said, “in safe keeping. You better turn around or I’m going to read your letter down at the Wheel before the whole crowd, Deel.”

She laughed, knowing the lie, remembering how she had ripped that letter to shreds. “You just do that!”

“I mean it!” he said. He began to climb over to the front seat, his legs first, then his arms, one on her shoulder, one on the steering wheel. “We’re going to ride a crooked mile, Deel, until you head back. And you’re going to, you know. Now do as I say, head back!”

He moved a foot over near the brake pedal.

“Are you crazy, on
this
road?” she said. “Do you want to wreck the car!”

“I want to turn around,” he said, “and I’m going to see that we do.”

He touched his foot to hers, then pressed hard.

She could feel the sting when he clamped his shoe against the skin of her ankle, and then she heard the sound like a gun. The car’s wheel flew from her grasp like a berserk spring.

T
HE END OF
the school day, came at the top of Love Lucy Hill where Asa Turner turned to the tall brown-haired boy who had walked with him. Said: “Thanks, Alan.”

There were others milling around, a few picketers who had followed them, the six white boys and the seven Negro children, and a reporter and a photographer.

“Shake hands, boys,” the photographer said.

The brown-haired boy turned: “We don’t have to. I don’t shake hands normally.”

A flash-bulb went off and the six Negroes started on down the hill, but Asa lingered.

“I can go on my own steam tomorrow,” he said to the brown-haired boy.

“You want to repeat what you just said, colored boy?” the reporter asked. He smiled at Asa. “It’s all right. I want it for the folks to read. This is real democracy.”

“You don’t give us a chance,” the brown-haired boy said. “You’re worse then those with the signs.” He waved at Asa. “See you tomorrow,” he said. Another flash of light beamed from the camera. “Here,” the brown-haired boy pointed to where he stood. “I’ll pick you up around eight-ten.”

Asa said, “You don’t have to.”

“I know I don’t,” the boy said. “See you.” He waved again.

Behind Asa a big man carrying a picket sign yelled: “Sick!”

“Stand over here,” the reporter said, “so I can get you both in. Glare at him, Rastus, just like you was doin’.”

The big man moved to get into the shot, but Asa ran down the hill, grinning.

“Sick!” the big man shouted from the top of Love Lucy, his eye on the camera. But the camera pointed away and down; and the guard came over the lens.

“That’s all for now,” the photographer said. “We’ll get more in town tonight when your boy speaks at the Wheel, but right now that’s it.” The big man hesitated. “That’s all for now,” the photographer repeated.

The reporter sighed: “Guess we might as well head out to the highway and see what that crash was all about.”

“I’m pooped,” the photographer said, “I’m going back to the hotel and nap.”

• • •

Out on the highway the troopers gathered around the car, smashed and swinging on a crane, the fields still clinging to it.

“Yep, wheels were slashed all right,” one said, “both the front ones. But it was the front left that did it. Blew out. Other one held up.”

“Both might have,” a second said, “but she was doing some fancy twisting with them, looks like from the burn marks.”

“Where are the bodies beautiful?” another said.

“There was only one of that caliber. She’s at the hospital. Other one’s on a slab, I suppose, waiting to go to grass.”

“Yep, wheels were slashed all right,” the first one yawned. “Haul her off!” he yelled at the driver of the pickup. “Geee-hoah!” He wiped his face in the hot afternoon sun.

“Hound Dog” was playing in the background down at the jail.

Cass Chadwick came down the long corridor leading away from the cells and out into the bare-walled waiting room where Chad stood waiting.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s the answer.”

“But why?”

“Beggsom blood,” she said. “Same reason I can’t hate him for it. He almost killed you, but when I saw him in there crying, I couldn’t hate him anymore, Chad. He said he did it because he thought you and Dee were doing more behind my back. Said after he did it he came to our house to be with me, and when I was gone and he heard I’d gone out to you, he said he had to call and warn me not to get in your car. He couldn’t get the line. The colored boy left the phone off the hook after he warned the troopers, afraid they’d call back and check and he’d get in trouble. So Papa called the police.”

“Too late.”

She looked up at his face when she heard the tone of his voice.

“Too late,” he repeated. Then he said, “Dee died an hour ago.”

• • •

By dinner time that night, Jud was well enough to sit up. Poppy and Troy had him at their house, and Troy was the one who told him.

Jud said, “Did her mother tell her about the wire?”

“She never came to after the crash,” Troy answered. “What about the wire?”

“It was sent to the house this afternoon when I was resting up over there. Mrs. Benjamin was so excited the whole time she ripped it open without seeing who it was for. It was from New York. Peculiar. Just one word.”

He sighed, rubbing his eyes with his hand tiredly, “Just said
vibrations.”

“Whatever that means,” Troy Porter shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

• • •

The end of that time came at evening down at the Wheel.

For a while there had been the chants of “sick-sick-sick,” strong at first, then petering out in a sigh, while a small crowd milled around the box on the green lawn, under the ginkgo tree. Across the street, the reporter sat on the curb, doodling aimlessly on his note pad; and behind him, the photographer, rested from his nap, lolled around the flagpole, pulling threads from his coat and filing down his nails.

The big man was in the crowd still carrying the same picket sign he had carried to Love Lucy hill, and now and then he spoke out about the “niggers” and “the sick Supreme Court.” But at one point a voice shouted: “How’s Jud Forsythe? Who knows
that?”

And some looked at the big man, threatening him with their eyes; and the big man was silent.

“I guess the jails are full up tonight,” someone cackled. “And the morgue,” another, deep-sounding, desultory. They shuffled around uninspired, looking awkward and lost and pointless.

“No one’s coming,” a thin little man spoke out. “No one left to come.”

“We’re here, though,” a voice said weakly.

Then a new voice spoke up, a loud, strong voice: “We ought to all go on home,” it said. “Who was he anyway? Some Yankee! Some butting-in Northerner! What’d he know about Jud Forsythe? What’d he know about any of us? Where’d he come from?”

“Ask me,” the thin little man said,
“he
was sick!”

“We ought to all go on home,” the new voice said. “Who was he to chase-ass himself down here and run our affairs for us? We run our own goddam affairs!”

“We ought to all go on home,” the big man said, dropping his picket sign. “Who was he?”

• • •

Across the street the reporter pulled himself to his feet. “They’re breaking up, looks like,” he said. “Crowd’s thinning out.”

“They’ll be out again tomorrow,” the photographer said.

“Naw, I don’t think so,” his colleague answered. “There was a turning point somewhere during the middle of the day, along about noon, when that preacher fellow got the beating.”

“You just don’t pound on a man of the cloth,” the photographer said.

Together they walked down Court in the hot evening.

THE END