Glorious (2 page)
E
aster, Mavis, and the older children carried the scant pieces of furniture from the house and set them down in the front yard beneath the hot Georgia sun. The chintzes swarmed and the children screamed and pointed as the tiny black bugs made a beeline to their death.
Easter soaked rags in camphor oil, dropped them into cooking pots, and set them aflame, filling the house with smoke, killing the chintzes that remained hidden in the walls.
Outside the younger children played tag and hide-and-go-seek. Mavis sat in her rocking chair with her eyes closed and Easter laid herself down beneath the shade of the tupelo tree and read.
Over the past few months it had been her great pleasure to work for Mrs. Olga. The woman had recognized Easter’s intelligence early on and did not miss the longing that flashed in her young employee’s eyes whenever they swept across the hundreds of books that lined the shelves.
“Can you read?” she’d asked one day as Easter rubbed mineral oil into the wood moldings around the doorway.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Really? Who have you read?”
Easter rattled off an impressive list of writers and their works. Mrs. Olga was flabbergasted, she had never met a well-read Negro. “Well,” she said as she removed her glasses and rubbed the strain from her eyes, “you are more than welcome to borrow any book that strikes your fancy.”
Easter was delighted, and devoured four books in just as many days. She read deep into the night. She read until the flame of her candle burned down to wick.
The two women discussed, in depth, the books that Easter had read. Mrs. Olga was impressed with her insight and was happy to find that Easter’s aptitude stretched beyond the frivolity of the dime-store romances most of the women in her generation swooned over. Olga started to feel that she had found a kindred spirit in the young Negro maid.
The day began to slip away and the sun swelled until it was blood-orange and then began its descent. Mavis and Easter went into the house, raised the windows, and opened the doors. They swept the dead chintzes into a black pile in the middle of the floor and then scooped them up and sprinkled them into the flames that crackled and spit in the fireplace. They moved the furniture back into the house and Mavis made a dinner of boiled yams, snap peas, and stewed chicken feet. The children were fed and put to bed. Mavis and Easter were sitting at the table enjoying a slice of pecan pie when the sound of a shotgun blast ripped through the quiet. The children bolted out of their beds, Mavis’s fork clattered loudly to the floor, and Easter pressed her hand to her heart. A second shot sounded soon after the first and everyone dropped to the floor. They waited for a third shot, but none came, just the pounding of fleeing feet. They crowded under the table, trembling and clutching one another, until the flame in the oil lamp burned out and the house went as black as the deed that had been done.
The following day, clusters of people gathered along the road, on porches and out in front of the general store, and the story of what had taken place the previous night jumped from one mouth to the next. A white man named Hampton Smith had been shot dead as he sat taking his supper. The second bullet had struck his wife in the shoulder.
“That nigger done gone and lost his mind,” Mavis’s neighbor, a widower named Bishop Cantor, said as he eased himself down onto the porch step, removed his hat, and fitted it onto the broad cap of his knee.
Easter stood near the doorway, her hands clamped at her belly.
“Who?” Mavis asked.
Bishop dropped his eyes and mumbled something Mavis didn’t quite hear.
“What you say, Bishop?” she hissed, stooping down alongside him, her youngest child straddling her hip.
Bishop drummed his fingers on the rim of his hat. “They say Sidney Johnson was the one that done it.”
Mavis puckered her lips and shook her head pitifully. Her knees cracked when she rose.
Bishop saw the dark wetness on the material of her dress. “Boy needing changing,” he grunted before he placed his hat back onto his head and stood. “Sidney must be miles away by now, and done left a heap of trouble behind him. White folk gonna make sure somebody pay, don’t matter who, jus’ as long as it’s one of us niggers.”
Mavis nodded her head in agreement and reached over and pulled a rotten splinter of wood from the railing.
“It’s gonna be hell here,” Bishop declared. “White men with shotguns coming in by the wagonload since six this morning.” He pressed his palms into his lower back and stretched. “Mavis, make sure you keep your boys close to home, ya hear?”
And with that he was gone. Mavis blinked and saw the gray of his shirt disappear around the corner of the house.
The killing spree started that evening. Three innocent men were lynched over just as many nights, and on the dawn of the fourth day a woman’s terrified screams echoed through the blue darkness. “Another one,” Easter gasped as she tiptoed to the front door.
“A woman?” Even as Mavis uttered the words she couldn’t believe it.
“Who you think they got?” Easter whispered.
Mavis stared wide-eyed.
The two women had used the kitchen table and chairs to build a barricade in front of the door and now Easter began to quickly dismantle it.
“What you doing?” Mavis’s voice was filled with panic.
Easter ignored the question. “Help me move this table.”
Mavis backed away. “I will not!”
Easter summoned all of her strength and pushed. The table slid across the floor and Easter pulled the front door open and stepped out onto the porch.
“Git your black ass back in here, gal, are you crazy?”
The torch-wielding mob stomped past the house and Easter hitched her gown above her ankles and started after them. Mavis didn’t call to Easter again. She watched her niece sprint down the road and was sure it would be the last time she would see Easter alive and so turned her face to the heavens and asked God to make Easter’s death swift and painless.
Taking shelter behind a tree, Easter stood, unnoticed, not more than three feet from a mother who had her arm wrapped casually around the shoulders of her young son.
The abducted woman shrieked out again. Easter recognized the voice and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. The crowd parted and Easter’s eyes fell on Mary Turner’s terrified face.
Mary stood whimpering and shivering with her arms wrapped protectively around her swollen belly.
Someone yelled, “String the bitch up!”
Isaac, a big, brawny, red-haired man, shoved Mary hard to the ground and two men rushed forward, one bracing her flailing legs, the other pinning her arms, both taking pleasure in digging their dirty fingernails into her brown flesh. Isaac wound the coarse lynch rope once, twice, three times around her ankles, and then did the same to her wrists.
“Castor!” Isaac turned to the crowd and yelled for his son. “Castor!”
The woman who stood spitting distance from Easter bent over and whispered in her son’s ear, “Go on, Castor, your daddy’s calling you.”
Castor dutifully trotted over to Isaac and a jubilant cheer rose up from the crowd.
“This is my boy’s first lynching!” Isaac proudly announced, and he handed Castor the tight end of the rope. The boy appeared to Easter to be no more than five years old. Isaac hoisted his son up and onto his broad shoulders. “Toss it over the limb,” Isaac instructed, which Castor did successfully on his first try.
Ten pairs of hands and dozens of mouths heaved and hoed and Mary’s body slowly rose up … up … up … until she swung like a pendulum, ticking away the seconds until she would be dead.
Someone threw a stone that struck her over her eye. The next stone caught her squarely in the center of her forehead. The third one sliced her cheek, all this as Mary begged for her life and her eyes cried a waterfall of tears.
There was a splashing sound and the night air was suddenly filled with the scent of gasoline.
Again Castor was called upon. His father handed him a torch and Castor wrapped his small fingers around the stem. The flames cast a luminous light across his face. The boy was smiling. Time stopped for a moment, and when it started again Mary was ablaze. She screamed, a horrible, haunting scream that would stalk the dreams of Valdosta’s residents for years. Her body jerked and twitched wildly as the flames quickly engulfed her and she was dead.
Then the vilest thing happened, the thing that turned the stomachs of even the evilest members of the group. A young man, maybe sixteen, maybe younger, fought his way to the front of the crowd; his arm was raised, shielding his face from the heat of the flames. In his other hand he clutched the wooden handle of a rusted machete. He charged toward Mary with the machete held high above his head and when he was in striking distance he brought it down in one precise stroke and the blade split Mary’s belly clean open.
The infant tumbled bloody and squirming from her womb, careening downward, stopping just inches above the ground, its impact thwarted by the umbilical cord.
The air sucked away. Some women bent and spilled sick onto their feet. Others clasped their hands over the eyes of their children. The men looked away and then looked back again. The second swing of the machete severed the cord and the baby hit the ground with a soft thud and uttered a pitiful wail.
Isaac looked around and saw that shame had replaced the rage of the crowd and one by one the people turned their backs on him and started home.
Castor peered down at the crying infant, then up at his father. “Can I have it, Daddy?”
Isaac shook his head, raised his foot, and brought the heel of his boot down onto the baby’s skull.
The following day Valdosta was as quiet as a crypt and Easter was packing to leave.
“They turn on you,” Mavis murmured as she watched Easter throw the few pieces of clothing she owned into her suitcase. “I don’t know why, but they do.” She sat down on the bed and pulled her knees to her chest. In that moment Mavis looked just like Easter’s mother, and Easter almost cried.
Mavis smoothed her hand absentmindedly across her hair. “You know, Mary nursed that boy when his mama was too sick to do it herself.”
“Which boy? The one that cut her?”
Mavis shook her head no and leaned back on her arms. “Castor, the one that lit the flame.”
Easter glanced around the space to make sure she had everything. When she looked back at Mavis she said, “You should come with me. You and the children.”
Mavis stood and wrapped her arms around Easter and squeezed. “You don’t even know where you’re going.”
“Any place gotta be better than here.”
Mavis stepped away and snorted laughter. “Girl, every place the same as here, they just go by different names. Anyway, I’d rather stay here and deal with the devil I already know.”
P
art vaudeville act, part circus, Slocum’s Traveling Brigade crisscrossed backwoods America, entertaining Negroes barely forty years free of slavery who were uneducated hard workingmen and -women who, when told to sign on the dotted line, all had the same name:
X
.
They went to the jig show, clutching their nickels and pennies. The men tucked pints of moonshine safely into the back pockets of their overalls and wore their straw hats slung back on their heads, as they looked on in awe at the fire-eating Indian, the counting goat, and the magician who made a raccoon disappear right before their very eyes.
Easter, leaving but not really heading anywhere in particular, with anger lodged in her throat like a peach pit, marched right past the brigade and then doubled back. She paid her nickel and found herself in the midst of the adults-only midnight ramble, so called because the female performers often stripped out of their clothes.
Easter planted herself between two men. The one to her right was a grizzled old guy who smelled of wet earth. He stood slump-shouldered with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his pants. His fingers wiggled beneath the material, in search of something Easter was more than sure wasn’t coins. The man to her left was long and lanky, with eyes that bulged unnaturally from their sockets, veiling him with a comical jig-a-boo look the white folks caricatured in their daily newspapers.
The members of the three-piece jug band climbed onto the wooden stage and peered put at the audience. A young boy moved along the row of oil lamps carefully igniting their wicks.
Slocum, the short, round, dimple-cheeked proprietor, bounded onto the stage and cast his toothless grin over the crowd before joyfully announcing: “Women hold onto your husbands, men hold tight to your hats, a storm is coming that I guarantee will leave you soaking wet!”
The audience tensed.
“Put your hands together for Mama Raaaaiiiiin!”
The jug band struck up. Fingers covered in thimbles glided down the belly of a washboard, lips blew breath over the ceramic mouth of the whiskey jug, a pick plucked banjo strings, and two pewter spoons angrily conversed. Combined the sounds created music, and Easter began to tap her foot against the sawdust-littered ground. The audience swayed in unison, becoming one living, breathing, rhythmic organ, and then Mama Rain sauntered onto the stage and everyone went still.
Six-foot, red-boned, green-eyed, Geechee girl with close-cut curls the color of straw. She was barefoot and Easter thought that Rain had the prettiest toes she had ever seen. She wore a yellow-feathered boa coiled around her neck.
The music climbed and Rain began to dance, to shimmy and shake, and with every lunge, every hop, the peach pit in Easter’s throat began to break apart, to disintegrate into dust. Her mouth went dry and her tongue withered like a tuber left out beneath a blazing, midday sun.
Rain tossed her head seductively to one side, kicked her leg out, pulled it back, rolled her hips, took three dainty steps toward the edge of the stage, and bent over the crowd so that the tops of her breasts peeked above the jewel neckline of the orange silk shift she wore. Mama Rain offered a girlish grin as her shoulders caught the rising melody of the angry pewter spoons. Up in the air now, square with her perfect ears, they began to pump. No one was ready for the next thing that happened. Mama Rain straightened her back, placed her hands on her hips, and with one sudden visceral move she sent her groin forward. The thrust was accentuated by the thundering sound of the band members’ heavy boots crashing down onto the stage floor. Two men standing in the front row fell backwards, as if hit by an invisible battering ram. Another thrust and three more men crumbled.
Mama Rain clasped her hands behind her head, curled her mouth into a devious smile, and threw her pelvis forward again, sending five men to their knees and striking Easter with a thirst that she would soon realize a hundred tin cups of water would never satisfy.
When it was all said and done, Rain was soaking wet, the thin shift cleaved to her body, outlining every luscious curve. Easter heard someone whisper, “My Lord,” in a sinful and dirty way, and when she looked around to see who had uttered the sacrilegious statement, two sets of eyes were staring right back at her. Easter clamped her hand over her mouth, turned, and fled.
***
Easter didn’t have a plan or a place to go and so she hung around the brigade grounds, hoping to catch sight of Rain one last time, but she had disappeared and had not reemerged. Easter tried to look as inconspicuous as possible lugging that brown suitcase and dressed in a blue and white dress that made her look like a schoolgirl on the run. She tried to blend, but instead she stuck out like a snowflake in a vat of coal.
“Ain’t you got no place to go?”
Easter spun around and found herself eye to eye with Slocum. He considered her, and she took in his blistered lip and heavy eyelashes.
“I need a job.” The words jumped out of her mouth and landed on the ground between them. Slocum grunted, slipped his hands behind the bib of the overalls he wore, and rocked back on his heels.
“Oh, really now? What you do?”
Easter shrugged her shoulders. “This and that.”
“This and that? Well that’s just what we been looking for!” Slocum clapped his hands together and laughed. “Go on home now, ain’t nothing here for you.” He dismissed her with a quick wave of his hand.
“I—I can cook and clean.”
Slocum was walking away. “Can’t use you,” he threw over his shoulder.
“The hell you can’t!” The unmistakable voice boomed behind Easter causing her heart to lurch in her chest. Slocum turned around, an annoyed smirk resting on his lips. “Bennie like to kill me with his cooking, we need a feminine touch. I’m tired of eating lumpy grits and undercooked eggs. Besides, I need someone to attend to me,” Rain barked.
“Aww, come on, Rain,” Slocum whined, “she just a child—”
“Shut up, she looks pretty grown to me.”
Easter was shaking like a leaf.
“Turn around, sugar, lemme get a look at you.”
Easter turned around. Rain was standing outside of her tent; the silk robe she wore flapped open revealing her naked body. Easter dropped her eyes.
Rain waltzed over and caught her by the chin. “What’s your name, girl?” Her fingers felt like fire against Easter’s skin.
“Easter, ma’am,” she quaked in a timid voice.
Rain’s eyes sparkled. “Easter? That’s a real old-timey name. Had a great-aunt named Easter.” She cackled and released Easter’s chin. “And I ain’t no ma’am.” She spat, then, “You say you cook and clean?”
“Yes m—I mean yes.”
Slocum stepped between the women, wagging his finger in Rain’s face. “We ain’t pulling in enough money to pay and feed another soul, Rain!”
Rain eyed him menacingly. “Nigger, if you don’t get outta my face …” Her words trailed off, but the threat hung heavy in the air.
Slocum’s hand floated back down to his waist and he stepped cautiously to one side.
“I’ll pay her myself, don’t you worry about it, you cheap bastard!” Rain snapped, and then turned and started back toward her tent. Easter just stood there, frozen, watching Rain’s hips sway beneath the fabric of the robe.
“I done told her ’bout talking to me like that,” Slocum grumbled to himself as he kicked at the dirt. “Well what you waiting for, sun-up? Go on, git!”
Easter jumped to life and double-timed to Rain’s tent.
“I want you to know right now that I likes women,” Rain said as she shrugged her robe off and tossed it onto the cot.
Easter’s face unfolded and her stomach clenched. “Not to worry, sugar,” Rain laughed, walking over to Easter and pinching her cheek, “you too young for Mama Rain. I like ’em seasoned and you just out of the shell.” She laughed again and glided to the opposite side of the tent where she squatted daintily over a cream-colored chamber pot and relieved herself. “You still a virgin?” she asked in a non-chalant tone.
As embarrassed as Easter was by the question, she was more than a little disappointed that Rain wouldn’t even consider her as a lover, and then she became angry with herself for wanting such a thing. Easter remained silent.
“Figures.” Rain chuckled, gave her bottom a quick shake, and then stood. “Dump it before this entire tent is rank with the stink of piss.” She pointed to the pot and after a moment’s hesitation Easter hurried to fetch it.
Rain sighed and began to untwine the feather boa from her neck, exposing the keloid scar that looped from one collarbone to the next, resembling a string of brown pearls. Easter’s mouth dropped open and then clamped shut again when Rain turned smoldering eyes on her.
“Well what you gonna do, stand there all night holding my piss?”
“Uhm, no ma’am—I mean no,” she stammered as she backed out of the tent.
Outside Easter moved quickly and recklessly, causing the piss to slosh over the sides, wetting her hands. She was disgusted and intrigued. She looked cautiously around her, and when she saw that no one was watching, she brought her finger to her nose and sniffed. Rain’s piss smelled like gardenias.
Easter would learn that Rain didn’t much like men or the snake that grew down between their legs. It had never been sweet to her, not from the time she was someone’s sweet little girl, with pigtails, living in Louisiana and singing in the choir, just eleven years old when her brother’s best friend cornered her in the outhouse and pressed his forearm against her throat as he rammed himself inside her, all the while whispering in her ear that she had it coming. “This is what happens to cock teasers,” he’d said. Afterwards, he called her a “yella heifer,” while he used his shirttail to wipe her blood from his penis.
Nothing but trouble followed the men that came later and Hemp Jackson was trouble with a capital T. As mean and black as the day was long, Hemp had the body of a bulldog and his right eye was a cloud of cotton. He chose not to wear an eye patch; he liked the hideous look that damaged eye graced him with and the fear it struck in the hearts of men. He claimed that Rain was the only woman he’d ever loved and gave her a feathered boa to prove it, which turned out to be a poor substitute for an apology, since he was the one who’d sliced her neck in the first place. After that there had been a period of gentleness from a soft-spoken man with kind eyes. That relationship had produced a son who after two months Rain had wrapped in a blanket, placed in a basket, and left on the front porch for the soft-spoken man’s
wife
to raise. Then she walked right out of that life without even so much as a goodbye to her parents.
Rain didn’t like men, which made it easy for her to shake her ass and roll her hips for them. It was the women she loved.
At night, Mama Rain would stretch herself out on her cot, naked except for the boa, and she’d smoke and sip from her flask of white lightning and talk about all the good and bad that had been done to her, the whole while absentmindedly stroking the hairs of the triangle of black hair between her legs. When she caught Easter staring, which was often, she would snort, “This here my cat, I got a right to pet it.” And then she would laugh, long and hard, until the laughter became a chuckle and the chuckle became a snore and the empty flask fell down to the sawdust floor.
Show after show and night after night, through downpour and drought, snow and clover, Easter’s thirst for Rain swelled and so she reached for her Bible and plunged herself into Scripture, and when that didn’t work she turned to her own words. But words—anointed or not—offered no solace and absolutely no quench.