Nobody Said Amen (31 page)

Jimmy lifted a bottle and said, “To better times,” and Eula said, “To you, buddy. We’re glad you’re back.”

Dale said softly, “Bobby was so good with his kids.”

Later in the evening, after supper, he began to wander the room, seeking to frame the questions he had been asking himself, repeatedly, since the night in the kitchen in Los Angeles when Bobby was killed. Could we have known? Should I have been closer after the speech? Why did the Arab kill the one guy in America who had learned not to hate? And much later, What the hell do I do now? There were options, and for days they had intruded on every quiet moment. Leave? Go to Africa and fight for a pan-African future? Write a book about fighting Third World wars? Go to Oregon, where there were communes, with good people he knew? Run for mayor here in Shiloh? Hang up his shingle and practice law in Washington as a civil rights advocate? Get involved with the new Kennedy School of Government burgeoning in Boston?

Jimmy and Eula listened as he spoke, exploring avenues he might take, or not. “I was working for a man who had it all. The wit, the heart, the intellect, the family background, the money to make it all happen. And it all turned to shit!” And the final question, only half articulated in a faltering voice, “What qualifies me to even play in that league?”

“Everything,” said Eula. “You’ve been paying your dues for ten long years, Dale. Everything.”

Jimmy nodded concurrence. “You’ve seen so much up front, in the action, close to the center of gravity in this damn country. You know the stakes, you know the players. You even know when the deck has been fixed. And you’re in the position to pass that knowledge along, shape it, change it maybe. You loved Bobby for a reason. That didn’t get buried with him. I think you know the answer, Dale. You’re a born teacher. If they’ll take you, the new Kennedy School sounds like the place. You’d be working with the best and brightest young people in the country, most of whom don’t know what lynching, beating, harassing, surviving, organizing is all about. Teach them by telling your story. It’s an American story they should understand.”

“And celebrate,” Eula said softly. “They need to know.”

It was dark when Luke left Parchman, and the road was slick, something daunting to drivers in the Delta . He strained to see the treacherous road, swerving to avoid the oncoming careening autos. By the time he pulled into his driveway his eyes were burning with fatigue. When he stepped into the house, Willy rose to meet him. “You look beat. Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Just another terrible day at Parchman. The roads are glass and the drivers out there are lunatics. I’m just bushed.”

She led him to the couch. “Come put your feet up. Got something amazing to tell you.”

“Amazing? What could be amazing?”

Her eyes shone with excitement as she curled up beside him. “A half hour ago I got a call from Eula May Baker! My God, I haven’t talked to that woman in years!” She hesitated and then plunged ahead. “After she walked out I swore I’d never speak to her again. And that’s what’s so amazing. In five minutes we were talking like we used to at the plantation.”

He watched his wife quizzically. He hadn’t seen Willy this animated since they’d sold the house. “She said Jimmy’s doing well with the Mack Construction Company. Did you know that?”

“Not really.” His voice was flat, but she seemed not to notice.

“It was just so great hearing Eula’s voice!”

“Yeah? I hear her voice every day, and I don’t always welcome hearing it.”

“Oh, come on. You told me she’s been fine since you started working at Parchman.”

He nodded. “Sergeant’s been more than fair. It’s the work I hate. Wearing this monkey suit. Dealing with those creeps every day. But what did she want with you?”

“It’s the most exciting thing, darlin’. Eula wants me to start working with the women at the prison!”

“At Parchman?”

“Yes. To start a women’s group where they can talk about whatever is bothering them. Kind of like a ministry where I could help them deal with their problems.”

“You . . . at Parchman?” His voice was incredulous. “Is Eula crazy?”

“We were very close once, Luke. She knows I’d be good at it.” Her eyes kindled. “And I know it, too.”

Luke said, “You’re as crazy as Eula. Dammit, Willy, get it through your head. I don’t want my wife working in Parchman Prison. That place is a landmine just waiting to explode. Don’t you understand that?”

“I understand that. What you don’t understand is that I really want to help these women.” She walked away from the couch, then turned to face him. “Who do you think Christ was talking about when he said ‘the least of these’? They’ve been short-changed all their lives, and being in prison is just one more dehumanizing act.”

“Dehumanizing?’ His enraged voice was a shout. “Why do you suppose ‘the least of these’ are in there? Because their mamas weren’t nice to them? Because they swiped some beef jerky from the Seven-Eleven? They’re in Parchman because they killed a guy with a kitchen knife, because they robbed a gas station with a shotgun, because they were dealing dope outside the high school, because one of them drowned her baby to stop her crying. These are violent people, Willy, and I won’t have you exposed to that.”

“I’m not stupid. I know these are desperate women. They’ve led desperate lives. I can help them, Luke. I know I can.”

“Listen, Lady Bountiful, whether you think you can help them or not, I’m your husband, and I don’t want you there. I won’t have it.”

“It’s not your choice. You’re doing something with your life. I need to do something with mine, something I can feel proud of. Working with the women at Parchman is what I want to do.”

“They’re whores, Willy! Murderers! Eula Baker must be out of her mind.” His face was flushed. “What qualifies you to even get in the cell with them?”

Willy touched his arm and her voice was quiet. “Because I understand where I come from. Much as you would like to think so, I wasn’t always the Magnolia Queen. Long as I can remember, my McIntire family was as dirt poor as some of theirs. You don’t know what hopeless is. And if you hadn’t come along and rescued me in high school, Lord knows what I might have become.”

“Like what?”

“Like Sadie Perkins who runs the whorehouse over on Newcomb. Her family did shares on the same plantation we worked. Or like some of those ladies you find so fascinating down in Jackson. Neither of us are pure as the driven snow, honey. Sadie Perkins’s way would have looked like an easy path out of where I was.”

He glared at his wife. “I doubt you would have made a good whore. You haven’t got the talent for it.”

She was angry now. “Obviously, you know more about whoring than I do.” She began to move past him to the door and he seized her arm.

“I’m not going to argue about this,” he said. “I don’t want you working at Parchman. Period. End of discussion.”

Willy calmly confronted him. “No. You don’t understand. Willy McIntire Claybourne is gonna do what she needs to do.” When he raised his hand to strike her, she seized it and slowly pushed it down. “Don’t you dare, Lucas. Don’t you ever goddam dare.”

The guard left Willy at the door of the women’s section on that first day at Parchman. “They’re all yours, Mrs. Claybourne. Watch your back.” She stepped inside, and he lingered for a moment, holding the door open behind her. Five black women lounged around a table with soft drink bottles and coffee cups. Their conversation was muted, focused on two of the women who were angrily arguing.

“You doing same inside as you did outside, stealing anything not nailed down. Like you stole my Henry!”

The woman opposite shrugged and laughed, turning to the others. “You hear this bitch? Says her toilet paper is same as Henry!” When the guard closed the door, the banter stopped and the women swiveled to face her.

“Good morning,” Willy said. “I’m Wilson.”

There was silence until one woman said, “Sergeant Baker said your name was Willy. She wrong?”

Willy smiled. “My growin’ up name was Wilson. To my friends, I’ve always been Willy. We’re not friends yet, but I’d like you to call me Willy.”

“Your name ain’t Willy. It’s Wilson Claybourne. Recognized you minute you came in. Yeah, the Claybourne plantation. My Aunt Livia used to work there till she got fired. What you doin’ here? This ain’t the country club.” No one laughed.

Willy said, “I didn’t want to go to the country club. I wanted to come here.” Her eyes met theirs as she scanned the table. “This shit hole
is
Parchman Prison, isn’t it?” For a beat there was silence and then laughter erupted.

“Oh, yeah,” said one. “This shit hole is Parchman Prison!”

A large, very dark woman with a scar from her eyebrow to her lip poured a cup of coffee and handed it to Willy. “What do Willy Claybourne know ’bout shit holes?”

Willy nodded thanks and took the cup. “Long ’fore I was Willy Claybourne I was Willy McIntire. And we had a shit hole for a toilet when my family worked shares at the old Stennis place. And if any of you remember Stennis, you know he never offered anyone choppin’ cotton a cup of coffee. Even cheated on the weigh-out scale.”

The dark woman nodded. “Coffee? You lucky you got water! He was a mean son of a bitch.” She tilted her head and examined Willy. “I remember there was a cracker family named McIntire used to pick, must have been you. Only family that wasn’t colored in this part of Magnolia that worked those fields. We worked Stennis summer of ’41. Never figured out which was worse, old man Stennis or the cotton-mouths in his back forty!”

Willy grinned. “First snake I ever killed was with a hoe at the Stennis place. Was just before my first period. I thought for a long time it was the snake made it happen!”

The scarred corner of the woman’s mouth lifted and she chuckled. “Wasn’t no snake, girl! I’m Lena. Why don’t you pull up a chair? You can meet all these losers. Just don’t believe anything they say.”

Willy laughed. “I don’t see losers. Just some women stuck in this Parchman shit hole.”

After the first three sessions, Eula concluded that Willy’s ministry was working. A house mother sometimes, she could also cuss them out like a top sergeant. Willy was giving her people a taste of outside, an ear that listened and an eye that recognized some of the past that had distorted their lives. The first time Eula heard them singing, “Jesus loves me, this I know,” she knew Willy was reaching them.

“Yeah, Jesus loves you,” Willy said, “but you got to love yourself. Why would your old man want you back? What boss would hire you? You got to be ready to leave here one day.”

Slowly the volatile temperature of discord was lowered, and the violence in the Women’s Section declined. Sergeant Eula Baker’s new ministry program with Willy Claybourne was the gossip of Parchman. Lucas watched his maddening “born-again” wife from a distance with a mixture of jealousy and pride.

And then there was the visit from the governor. Eula had told Willy he was coming, his first visit to Parchman since his inauguration.

“He’s heard good things from Dora Walters, his Prisons Department Director, about our program. The governor wants to check me out and meet you.” She had grinned. “Walters said the governor remembers you as Magnolia Queen when he was a student at Ole Miss.” Willy had been embarrassed, but Eula had kept on. “You don’t have to wear your ball gown or your crown, Willy!”

Willy had recovered quickly. “It will be nice meeting a man who wants to talk to me. Luke seems to have forgotten how.”

The governor, tall and rather courtly, had stood up when Willy arrived at Eula’s office. “You’ve had a remarkable six months, Mrs. Claybourne. Mrs. Walters has kept me in touch with Parchman developments and Sgt. Baker has been describing the changes you’ve brought to her Woman’s Program. It is impressive.” He smiled, “I never thought the Magnolia Queen had to be anything but beautiful.”

Willy grinned. “Thank you, sir. There was nothing in the job description that called for anything more, Governor.”

He had invited her to sit and talk and was remarkably candid. “When you attain the prize of the governorship of Mississippi, you also inherit the fact of Parchman Prison.” He had smiled wryly. “And that’s not a gift. As you know, Parchman has had an ugly history. Hearing good news from this facility is a rarity, Mrs. Claybourne, so I took this opportunity to meet you.” He stood up and extended his hand. “I wish you continued success with your ministry.”

Driving home that night, she recalled the governor’s compliment. “You’ve had a remarkable six months.” Exhilarated and exhausted, she shook her head and thought, “You don’t know the half of it, Governor.”

The last six months had damn near cost her her marriage and her sanity, trying to build trust with discards who had never been trusted, let alone finding a new neighborhood for one son who missed his friends and another who was mad at her that he was going to be in a strange school. Remarkable? You could say that. She peered into the gloom as she slowed the Chevy and turned into the gravel driveway, eager to get home. It had been the most remarkable six months of her life.

A month after the governor’s visit, Eula summoned Willy to her office. A slender, light-skinned black woman prisoner stood defiantly before her desk. What distinguished her was the intensity of the appraisal in her dark eyes. Willy had the feeling that both she and Eula were being imprinted and catalogued behind the intent young face.

Eula said, “This is prisoner Minny Lou Thompkins. She’ll be housed in your unit.” She sat back down behind her desk and her eyes locked on the seething young woman. “Prisoner Thompkins, you can make your time here as difficult as you wish. Or you can use it to your profit. That’s up to you. I will take your request for a headscarf and pass it to my superiors for their decision. Making demands and shouting, as you did upon arrival, will not hasten their decisions or mine. You’ve been convicted of a very serious crime, and you will have to pay for that here in Parchman. You will be treated like every other prisoner.” The Sergeant handed the woman’s file to Willy and glanced at the wall clock. “Your meeting starts in fifteen minutes, Mrs. Claybourne. Take the prisoner with you and introduce her to the women in your group.” Willy was struck by the concerned gravity in Eula’s eyes. Prisoner Thompkins had clearly made her presence known.