Nobody Said Amen (35 page)

Mendelsohn said, “Is that what you think, Jimmy?”

“I wouldn’t have written you a letter asking you to help me fight a losing battle. I think we can win, but I think it’s going to be damn hard.”

Ted nodded. “I think it’s going to be damn hard, and I don’t know if we can win.”

“So where do we go next, Ted?”

“Let’s try it another way. Tell me everything you really want to say, and then we’ll try and twist it into what you can say that they can hear.”

“Are you kidding?” Jimmy rose and walked to the front of the room, his chin up and eyes bright. “Listen up, you arrogant bastards. When are you going to learn to hear? To see? To feel? We know about you. We’ve washed your dirty laundry for three centuries. But you don’t really know anything about us because you never wanted to know.”

Mendelsohn said, “Jimmy, you can’t.”

But Mack charged ahead. “We’ve raised your kids, nursed them when they were sick, loved them when you were too busy to remember, gave them years we never had to give to our own kids. And then you taught them to have the same contempt for us that you have.”

“Jimmy.” Ted’s voice was strained but it was lost in the rush of Jimmy’s words.

“We were never contented animals, Mr. Charlie. Never! We were slaving in your fields, draining your swamps for less money than the dumbest white cracker could make.” His angry glance swung to Eula. “Our women were never grateful property. They were abused property! Hell, we were all abused property. Did it ever occur to you that your black beasts of burden might have the same God-given brains that you have? That all we needed was a chance to show it? Three hundred years of waiting?” Jimmy’s dark young face was shiny with sweat, but he seemed unable to stop the torrent of words. “You kept us poor, you kept us ignorant, you built us better prisons than schools, and you were surprised—surprised!—that there were more accomplished black criminals than qualified black students!”

Mendelsohn leaned forward and put his hand on Eula’s, both of them swept up by the ferociousness of the speech. Jimmy’s eyes glittered. “Can you really be that blind? That deaf? That unfeeling? If you have the guts, if you could see us, you could learn from us. Are you humble enough to learn from your darker brothers and sisters? Are you ready, neighbors? Because I’m one of them, and I’m ready to show you.”

Only when Mendelsohn stood and placed his hands on Jimmy’s shoulders did the tirade stop. The sudden stillness in the room was like the pause after a cloudburst.

“We’ve got work to do, Jimmy.” Ted’s voice was husky and low. “You’re not preaching to the converted. You’re talking to men and women in Magnolia County, Mississippi. Every white in that room is saying, ‘I was never Simon Legree’ and is heading for the hills, carrying the vote you need with him.” He turned to Eula. “Mississippi needs Jimmy Mack, but we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

The fire in the bungalow behind Fatback’s Platter was called in to the Shiloh Fire Department at 3:00 a.m. by a seed salesman passing on the road who noticed a glow behind the juke joint. When the call came to the sheriff at 3:30, he called Harold Butler at his home, demanding to know how this could happen. Butler protested that he had left the juke joint after meeting with Nefertiti when she closed at 2:00. “There was no goddam fire,” he said, irritable and sleepy.

Haley snapped, “Meet me there.” By the time the fire chief had reached the volunteers and gotten them to the scene, it was 4:30 and the bungalow had been eviscerated by flames. The challenge left for the firefighters was to find the nearest well and try to save Fatback’s Platter and the surrounding pines from the surging fire.

When Haley arrived, the firemen were soaking the rear of Fatback’s Platter with their hoses, and the small house in the woods was a sodden, smoking pile. “Wasn’t anyone in the place,” the Fire Chief told Haley. “Rotting wood, old electric circuits, no water available except the well out back. A lousy combination. But we saved the bar. Just lucky that no one was trapped. Don’t know where that black singer who owned the place has gone to. Bet that nigger never even had insurance.”

When Butler reached the scene, he slid into the seat next to Haley in the police cruiser and silently handed the Saturday night envelope to him. “What do you want me to do?”

Haley slipped the envelope into his glove compartment and confronted the apprehensive officer. “You just happened to not be here? Did the Klan preacher have anything to do with this?”

“Hell, no.” Butler’s voice was aggrieved. “Why would he? Just a no-account nigger house in the woods? He’s got other fish to fry. Besides, he knows I work here for you.”

“Stay here till the fire’s out and make sure nobody gets into the Platter. Those rednecks will steal all the liquor if you give them half a chance.” He stared at the desolate bar and his distracted nod was a dismissal. Butler swiftly closed the car door behind him and stationed himself at the front door of Fatback’s Platter. The sky was just beginning to lighten behind the pines.

When he was alone, Haley opened the envelope. Printed neatly in Nefertiti’s careful handwriting was the amount of receipts from the weekend, $2,420.00, the subtraction of 20 percent, $484.00 (as per agreement with the proprietor), and the amount of receipts enclosed: $1936.00. At the bottom was a brief note in her hand. It had been crafted over two long afternoons in the back booth of Billy’s Chili.

TERMINATION OF CONTRACT

October 20, 1974

As of this date, I bequeath Fatback’s Platter to Mr. Dennis Haley. The residence on the property built and owned by Mr. Calvin Bell, until recently occupied by Nefertiti Bell, the proprietor of Fatback’s Platter, will have been destroyed by a fire of unknown causes. Among the possessions that will be lost in the fire, will be a rocking chair, a bed, and the services of Nefertiti Bell, all once owned by Dennis Haley. Nefertiti Bell is now under legal contract to Mr. Richard Perkins, owner of Richard’s Rook at the Silver Spoon Casino in Gulfport, Mississippi. It is my wish that Fatback’s Platter continue in its long tradition of providing the best of Delta blues to the citizens of Magnolia County.

A full, dated record of all transmissions of funds from Fat-back’s Platter to Dennis Haley during the years of prohibition of the sale of liquor in Mississippi will be found in Nefertiti Bell’s deposit box whose number is held by my attorney, Mr. Leroy Ellis of Tupelo, Mississippi.

If there are any physical or monetary impediments to the execution of the terms of this termination of contract by Dennis Haley, his deputy, Harold Butler, or any other parties associated with Dennis Haley, my attorney is instructed to immediately send copies of this termination of contract to the Liquor Authority of Mississippi, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mrs. Dennis Haley, the mayor of Shiloh, Mississippi, and the editor of the Shiloh Clarion-Journal.

Nefertiti Bell

Natalia Johnson (witness)

When the last engine finally pulled out of the muddy parking lot, Harold Butler blinked as the sun topped the pines, flooding the forlorn scene with a cheery radiance he didn’t feel. He was dying to sleep as he climbed into his truck. It was only then that he saw the sheriff’s car, parked on the far side of the demolished bungalow in the shade of a huge pine. Butler eased alongside. A nearly empty bottle of bourbon was tilted on the dashboard, and in the driver’s seat sat Dennis Haley, staring drunkenly at the sodden scene before him.

Butler rolled down his window. “Anything I can do for you, Sheriff?” Haley stirred, trying but failing to focus. Butler got out of his truck and approached the car. “Wanted to know if there’s anything I can do.”

Dennis Haley peered out at the voice then closed his eyes, and his head fell to his chest. Butler waited, but there was no response from Haley,who began to snore deeply. Butler shrugged, reached inside the car, and drank the rest of the whiskey. As he carefully replaced the bottle on the dash, he spotted the crumpled letter on the passenger seat. He checked the unconscious driver and then took the letter into the sunshine to read. It was nearly seven on the dashboard clock when he dropped the letter back on the empty passenger seat.
When I say jump, you say, how high?
He grimaced, spat, stretched, and drove home in the morning sun. He was grinning as he pulled up to his mobile home. Wait till I tell Luther Lonergan.

Four damn days. Even with the work of the prisoners, and the back-hoe he got from Parchman to clear the burned wreckage and fill the foundation, it had taken four damn days. Dennis Haley watched as the prisoners finally entered their van and started down the highway, the backhoe lurching slowly in its wake. Now Fatback’s looked like a bereft orphan. The sign he’d placed on the door, CLOSED TILL FURTHER NOTICE, spoke to no one. Who the hell was going to come with Nefertiti gone? He gazed morosely at the building. Some fucking gift from that smart-assed bitch. He caught a glimpse of his scowling face in the car mirror. Meet Br’er Rabbit in the briar patch. How the hell could he get out of this?

Late on Saturday afternoon he got the call from Billy Johnson. “Afternoon, Sheriff. This is Billy Johnson, of Billy’s Chili? Thought maybe you might find a little time on Sunday morning to drop by here, have a cup of Joe together. I’ve got a few ideas that I’d like to talk to you about, and Sunday morning there’s nobody at Chili’s but me.”

Puzzled and wary, Haley frowned at the receiver in his hand before replying. “Sunday sounds good, Billy. How about ten o’clock?”

“Coffee’ll be ready.”

Other than a few families walking to St. Ann’s for the ten o’clock mass, downtown Shiloh was Sunday-still. When Haley opened the door at Billy’s Chili, Billy called to him from the rear of the restaurant and brought two mugs of coffee to the table.

The sheriff settled back and raised his cup. “Thank you. My Sunday coffee is usually in bed, but you sounded like this was something important.”

“Depends,” said Billy. “Could be important.”

“Could be? What’s on your mind, Billy?”

“I want to buy Fatback’s Platter. And you own it.”

“Who said I own Fatback’s Platter?” Haley shifted in his chair. “That’s an unlicensed juke joint, Billy.”

Billy put his elbows on the table and regarded Haley. “Let’s just say you do own it, and I know it. Let’s just say that, before she left Shiloh, Nefertiti had a close friend that she told, and the close friend told me. Let’s just say that it’s so, and that since it’s so, I want to take this burden off your shoulders.”

Haley’s eyes narrowed. “And, if it’s so, why would you do that, Billy?”

“Because unlicensed juke joints are disappearing, and the state is going to be legally selling the booze that used to be bootleg. That’s going to make some folks who liked it the other way very unhappy, folks who had a good thing going for a long time. I thought that being so, Fatback’s could be a burden.”

“It could be.” Haley’s eyes never left Billy’s as he finished his coffee. “But you want to buy it, if I own it and if I’m willing to sell it. Why is that?”

“I could make Fatback’s into a real fine, legal chili and jazz joint, Sheriff. And you’d have some folding money so you could go to Belize and do the fishing you always said you wanted to do.” He refilled their cups. “How long you been on the job, Sheriff?”

“It will be twenty-one years next January, Billy.”

“Twenty-one is a nice long run. Maybe it’s time to quit and go enjoy yourself.”

“Maybe.” Haley rose from the table. “A lot to think about on a Sunday morning, Billy.”

“A good day for thinking.” He followed Haley to the door. “I like Sundays,” he said.

On Monday, Deputy Harold Butler picked up the police cruiser and was at the curb when Lonergan left the mayor’s office. He climbed in, and Butler eagerly shared his news about Haley’s dilemma. Lonergan listened and nodded, a secret smile in his eyes as he gazed back at the office. “Uh hunh.”

Butler hit him with his elbow as he moved into traffic. “Uh hunh? That’s it?” His voice was incredulous. “The nigger, Nefertiti, has Dennis Haley by the balls, and you don’t care? The guy who has the job you want?”

Grinning, Lonergan turned to face him. “It don’t change anything for me, partner. Burroughs just promised to appoint me sheriff soon as Haley’s term is over, end of December.”

Butler’s eyes narrowed. “Burroughs said that? Knowing about you and the preacher . . . ”

Lonergan cut him off. “He said any outside arrangements I might have are to be terminated as of now, and he doesn’t want to know who or what they involve.” He spread his hands and laughed. “Home free, baby! No skeletons in the closet, no preachers I got to explain, no nothing as of this date. It seems to be an understanding he has arrived at with the FBI to guarantee close cooperation. My mayor has bought himself a virginal sheriff-to-be—loyal, brave, clean, and reverent!” He shifted in his seat and looked at Butler appraisingly. “May be a good idea for my partner to shed some arrangements also, given that he is known to be my pal and partner.”

Butler blinked furiously, then stumbled over the words that came tumbling out of his mouth. “You fink! You turncoat selfish bastard! You just walkin’ out?” His voice rose. “Skipping away? Free at last? Well, let me tell you, you Judas prick, you got skeletons in the closet, and I’m one of ‘em! And the preacher is sitting on his porch, right now, waiting to see us. And he ain’t gonna be pleased that you’ve decided to take a walk. I think you’ve lost your mind.”

Butler stared at the road, gunning the cruiser past the town green and heading south on highway 49, his foot flooring the gas pedal. “You forget what happened to Frank Tinsley when he decided to leave the preacher?” He shouted over the roar of the racing engine, refusing to look at Lonergan. “Feds found him tied to a tree four days later. Jesus, you saw his back!” His head swiveled. “You ain’t with the preacher, ain’t with me, then you’re with the devil and all those Commie bastards who want to bury us!”

Lonergan reached over and turned off the ignition key. Startled, Butler fought to control the wheel as the car swerved to a lurching stop at the side of the highway. Lonergan calmly slid the key into his pocket and got out of the car. Once on the curb he leaned against the hood and tapped his knuckles on the roof. “Sorry you didn’t get the message, Butler. You’re cussing out your new boss who’s going to be perusing the personnel records of those officers he wants to have rehired. And you, buddy, sound like an embarrassment to me and to my friend the mayor. As of now, the Klan is yesterday’s newspaper, and you and the preacher are on the front page. The FBI is all over this, Butler. Maybe you and the preacher should go away for a while.” He walked around the cruiser and opened the driver’s door. He pointed to the dirt road that angled off the highway. “Preacher’s house is right up the road. You won’t have to call him.”