Catfish Alley (44 page)

Grace and Clarence hover on either side of my bed,
talking about the weather and whatnot. Although I'm happy to see them, I
remember that when the chest pain started last night I told myself that I had
to talk to Grace. I have to tell her before I die. There have never been
secrets between us, and I don't want to carry this one to my grave. I wait
patiently, and pretty soon Clarence gets restless and says he'll leave so
Roxanne or Rita can come in before visiting time is over. He stoops down and
kisses my cheek and heads for the door. When Grace starts to leave, too, I hold
on to her hand.

"I want you to stay for a minute," I say.
"Come closer, will you?" Grace leans in toward me. I smile at her and
reach up to touch her cheek. "Grade, you and me need to talk," I
whisper. My voice is weak.

"Sugar, we don't need to talk now. You just rest
and save your breath."

"No," I say, and I must sound stronger than I
think because Grade's eyebrows shoot up like they always do when she's
surprised. "I need to tell you something before I pass."

Grace is crying now. "You aren't going anywhere,
Adelle Jackson! You can't leave me behind. We've always done everything together...."

I don't have time for Gracie's foolishness, so I put my
hand over her mouth. "Hush up and listen to me. You always did talk too
much."

She obeys me and stands there waiting and listening.
The pain seizes my heart again and I have to close my eyes and catch my breath.

"Addie?" she says.

"Don't worry. I'm not dead yet," I say as the
pain eases a little. "Do you remember me telling you how I had to nurse
Ray Tanner when he was dying?"

"Yes, I remember. I still don't know how you did
it, Addie. The good Lord will smile on you for that."

"I'm not so sure about that, Gracie. Not after
what I'm fixing to tell you."

There go Gracie's eyebrows again.

"I didn't kill him. Not really. I just didn't stop
him from dying. Believe you me, I know an eye for an eye is Old Testament
thinking. Lord knows, I have done plenty of turning the other cheek in my
time." Gracie's listening real close now.

"His big bony white hands twitched. He was tied
down, you see. Those soft ties they use on folks in the hospital to keep them
from pulling out tubes and such. I thought about those hands twisting the
noose, slipping it over Zero's head.

"The connection between the machine and his
windpipe slipped loose somehow. I reckon I didn't have it taped up very well.
That breathing machine kept right on making its noise — in and out, in and out.
There was that little alarm button. Just one little push, Gracie, and the alarm
stops right away."

I feel the pain in my heart again. This might be the
one that gets me. I'd better hurry. I keep going. Grace is leaning even closer
to me now. "It's a shame, isn't it, Gracie? I heard it's a right
frightening way to die. Kind of slow-like. Like hanging when the neck doesn't
break right away. When he started to lose his air, his eyes flew open. I think
I was the last thing he saw before he passed. He probably thought he was in
hell."

March 2003

Roxanne

We're all gathered at Sandfield Cemetery, the
next-to-last stop of the day. The spring rains have kept the ground soft and
it's challenging to walk on. The sun is just coming out from behind the low
clouds that have been hovering and threatening rain. Rita and Jack are helping
Adelle, who is still a little fragile since her heart attack, and
I
'm helping Grace as we make our way across
to the grave sites.

A surprising number of people have arrived at the
cemetery, walking carefully among the graves. Some, like our group, are
visiting specific graves of loved ones or family, while others — the visitors —
have their brochures in hand, searching for the names of key figures from the
tour. We've brought pots of roses to decorate the graves, but there are flowers
blooming under all of the pine trees shading this plain little cemetery today,
yellow jonquils, pink azaleas, red tulips.

We stop first at the graves of Adelle's mother, father,
and grandmother. "I sure do miss them," Adelle says softly. I feel a
stab of pain noticing the two additional empty plots, knowing they are for
Adelle and Junior.

Adelle and Grace stand quietly with their arms around
each other as Rita, Jack, and I remove the old flowers near the headstones and
replace them with the new roses. As I watch the two women, I realize that even
with all of their strength, their bodies are as fragile as tissue paper. I
wonder how long it will be before we lose them. That thought is intolerable to
me right now. I've especially grown to love Grace Clark like my own mother.
Without her, my life would have just gone on from one social event to another.
I probably would never have had my eyes opened to any other perspective on life
in Clarksville, Mississippi. I certainly wouldn't have been proudly cutting a
ribbon for the Thomas Clark Memorial African-American Tour today.

The tour started at the Union School. Del Tanner
himself oversaw the restoration of the old warehouse. He even searched all over
Mississippi to find old school desks and a blackboard. Although Del kept his
distance as people moved into his lumberyard and through to the old school, he
stood there cap in hand, and watched us file by, with a look of respect in his
eyes. Respect and something else ... I'm still not sure what. Funny, when I
first met Del he said that if he allowed this school to be on the tour, he'd be
out of business in a week. But from what I've heard lately, his business is
doing just fine. Actually, it's picking up a bit.

From the school we went on to the other places: the
Jacksons' house, Catfish Alley, the Missionary Union Church, and other sites we
added over the past several months. This cemetery is the next-to-last stop on
what I'm proudly telling myself has been a successful first tour.

The final stop and the highlight of the tour is the
dedication of the Queen City Hotel Community Restoration Project. Thanks to
Jack Baldwin's financial wizardry, Daniel Mason's dedication and ability to
garner community support, and mine and Rita's combined restoration expertise,
plans have been drawn up and materials purchased to restore the old hotel. The
Queen City will be an African-American community center dedicated to black
history, and particularly to the preservation of the jazz culture. Mattie
Webster herself has agreed to speak at the dedication. I'm still a little
nervous about that since Mattie's such a wild card. But Grace and Adelle have
assured me that she will behave herself. We'll see.

It does occur to me that none of my people are here. No
husband. A daughter who, of course, couldn't get out of the cruise she had
scheduled with her college girlfriends. But I've also noticed that the lonely
feeling I've carried around for so long seems to be dissipating. As I look into
the wizened old faces of Grace and Adelle and the proud, open faces of Rita and
Jack, I think I know why. For the most part these days, my consciousness about
being one of the only white people in a group has dissolved along with the
loneliness.

Billy Webster is flying in from Chicago for the
dedication ceremony. Daniel Mason has gone to the airport to pick her up and
they'll join us at the Queen City. She told Rita and me the story of how she
and her friend found Junior Jackson living in that old house in Chicago. Another
heartbreaking story, without a good ending. There have been so many. She
visited him a few times after their first conversation, but she says he still
won't budge about coming here. Rita, Billy, and I decided not to tell the
ladies about Junior. Why add to their old hurts? Of course, Billy's been coming
to visit quite regularly over the past several months. I'm still hoping Daniel
Mason will talk her into moving back. I think they make a great couple. I was
just telling Rita the other day over lunch, "I think Billy ought to marry
Daniel Mason and move back to Clarksville."

"Are you kidding me?" she said. "She'll
never leave her job. I think he ought to move up there and find a church. It's
easier for a black man to find a church than for a black woman to find a
high-paying management job." In our ongoing debate over issues of color,
Rita usually wins the argument.

My mind wanders to the time I'll have on my hands after
launching this tour. Thanks to Elsie Spencer's blackballing, I didn't get
elected as pilgrimage director this year. But, as I expected, it was a relief.
And Rita and I are working together now on the Queen City restoration project.
I think Louisa and Ellery Humboldt's place might be my last antebellum home
restoration. The home I thought Rita and Jack might be interested in purchasing
didn't go on the market this spring after all. But I'll keep my ears open —
even though my connections aren't what they used to be, since I've stopped
working so hard at maintaining them.

Dudley filed for divorce, so we sold the big house and
I'm looking for something smaller, maybe a little bungalow near the college
campus. In the meantime, I'm staying with Grace at Pecan Cottage. We make
pretty good roommates. She's even taught me to make muscadine jelly ... and cathead
biscuits.

As we move on toward the Clark family graves, Grace and
I trail behind the others, and I'm overcome again with emotions about the
stories I've heard in the past few months. I take Grace's arm. "I still
can't fathom how kind and gracious you and Adelle are after all that you've
been through in your lives. If anyone has a grudge to carry, it's the two of
you." It startles me when Grace stops and squeezes my arm with an iron
grip. She turns and faces me, looking up into my eyes. She takes my hands and
holds them in her gnarled smooth ones. I look down at our hands there together,
not even thinking about pulling away. I'm embarrassed that my tears fall on
Grace's hands.

"Now you listen to me, Roxanne Reeves,"

Grace says. "Holding grudges doesn't help anyone.
I learned that a long time ago when we lost Zero. Life is full of pain, but
there is joy, too. Adelle loved Zero with all of her heart, and after she lost
him, she was never the same. But she still found joy. She found it in her
family and her church and her work. Why, she was a pioneer! Remember, Adelle
Jackson was the first black nurse to work at Clarksville Hospital."

"I remember," I say, pulling my hands away to
search my purse for a tissue to dry my eyes.

Here we are: me, a mid-forties white woman, letting go
of my climb up the Southern social ladder, and Grace, an eighty-nine-year-old
black woman who's never been the least bit interested in climbing anybody's
ladder, strolling slowly through an old cemetery talking and looking at the graves.
I recognize other names: Ezekiel Green, Robert Webster — Jr. and Sr. I know all
of their stories now. They're no longer anonymous black people from the past.
They're alive for me with all of their tragedies and joys.

Grace and I come to a stop behind the others at the
graves of her mother, father, grandmother, and Zero. Zero's headstone reads
Thomas "Zero" Clark, 1911
to 1931, He Is with the Angels Now.
I ask Grace,
"Do you really believe that?"

"What's that, sugar?" Grace asks.

"That he's with the angels."

"Yes, I do. I believe they all watch over me.
That's what carries me through."

Grace insists on placing the flowers at Zero's
headstone herself. Jack kneels to steady her and Rita helps Adelle over to the
stone bench that has been placed near the graves. I look out across the
cemetery and am pleased and surprised to see Daniel and Billy walking toward us
along the graveled center lane. Between them is a stooped elderly black man.
He's wearing a black suit and hat and I can tell he's leaning heavily on
Daniel's arm. I don't recognize him. As he gets nearer, I can tell he's
probably about Grace's age. There's something vaguely familiar about him, but I
imagine I'm confusing him with someone else — I've seen so many photographs and
heard so many stories.

Grace is still bending down, straightening the flower
arrangement on Zero's grave. Jack is kneeling beside her, waiting patiently to
help her up.

"Rita," I say softly, "I think you need
to look at this." Rita follows my gaze and, for a moment, forgets Adelle
as she comes to stand beside me.

"Who is that?" she asks. "It couldn't be
..."

As they draw closer, Billy raises her hand and waves.
Daniel Mason has a grin on his face that could only mean one thing. As we watch
them approach, I glance back. Adelle has not seen them yet, nor has Grace. They
are both focused on getting the flowers just right.