Them (18 page)

“What is it you see, Mr. Reed?”

“Missionaries…”

“Not at all.”

“No?”

She ignored the sarcasm. “Things happen for a reason. I believe this is where we were led.”

He looked upon her now with a mixture of contempt and pity. She read his face and felt she knew exactly what he was thinking.

“Look, it's a long story. The short of it is that for a lot of reasons this neighborhood seemed like a good fit for us.”

“Uh-huh.” Barlowe started raking again.

“We know we have things to learn, too, as you can see from the incident with the tree…” She leaned forward, unsure he was listening. “But we're also willing to take risks and try. Isn't that what Martin Luther King did? Didn't he take risks? Didn't he try?”

Barlowe whipped around and faced her now. “Please, lady. Don't start with
that
. Don't drag
him
in this.”

“He's already in it,” replied Sandy. “I mean, what better place to try? I know that may sound corny to you, but—”

“You're right. Is corny.”

Sandy threw up her hands, exasperated. “Why is it so hard for people to accept—?”

He rolled his eyes.

“No, it's true. You have to give people a chance.”

“You got plenty chances, lady. All the chances in the fuggin world.”

“No, we—my husband and me—have been given
no
chance here so far, and that's not fair.”

Barlowe stiffened. “Don't—”

“But—”

“But
nothin
. Don't use that word with me.”

Sandy was startled, stung by the forcefulness in his tone. She threw up her hands again. “I can't win.”

“No, lady. You already won. Don't you know? You already won.” There was a long, tense pause, then: “Scuse me. I got other things to do.” Barlowe turned around and stalked indoors.

B
arlowe went on another job interview, at a print shop across town. There was a good chance they would offer him a position, but now he wasn't sure he would take it. The shop foreman was a man named Don Pritchard. Don seemed different from Billy Spivey, which was a good thing. But he'd appeared annoyed that Barlowe asked so many questions during the interview.

Once home, Barlowe went outside to work in the yard and mull over the prospective job. He plucked weeds from around shrubs and yanked at crabgrass in flower beds. When that was done he shifted around back and began rearranging flowerpots. He took a few pots to the porch and lined them up, trying to decide where to place them.

While he worked, he thought about the interview. If he changed jobs, would the new place be any better than where he worked? And what if by some stroke of cursed luck it turned out to be much worse?

That thought made him shiver.

If he went to the new place and it turned out to be a big letdown, he could wind up being twice as frustrated as he was now. He would have jumped, as the old folks said, from the skillet into the fire.

He thought about that a long while, posing some tough questions to himself. Like: What's the point in going from one plantation to another? What's the point in taking the risk, changing jobs just to add a few coins to his pockets? Caesar would claim the lion's share of the extra money, anyway.

Caesar.

Barlowe continued working, now moving a pile of pine straw to the side of the house. As he worked, Viola came creeping through. She walked gingerly, almost tiptoeing down the path. Viola wore new flats, the kind of cheap, tacky shoes worn by women who no longer care about their appearance.

When she saw Barlowe, she did a half-nod and shifted her eyes like she was unsure if he or the white people would hassle her. Barlowe nodded back and returned to his thoughts. Viola vanished around the side of the house.

He leaned over a few empty flowerpots and poured in soil. As he stood up straight, a now-familiar voice called to him from across the yard.

“Hi, there.”

He swung around and saw Sandy. He had seen her several times in the months since those first testy exchanges. The tension between them had eased up some, so much so, in fact, that she sometimes came out to work in her garden just because she saw him outdoors.

The two of them would chat, mostly about the yards. Then she'd return to her work, and he to his.

In spite of himself, Barlowe found Sandy intriguing. She seemed a bit different from most other white people he had run across. Although she'd never said so, he guessed she was college educated. Yet she seemed to understand so little about how the world
really
worked. He found her to be maddeningly naive sometimes. His instincts warned him to be careful.

Still, something about her—maybe the sheer force of her sincerity—led him to second-guess himself.

“Hi,” he said, looking at her now.

“I just got back from Pike's Nursery.” Sandy moved in closer, stepping across the boundary to his yard. “They have a sale going on. I got some azaleas, cheap.”

Barlowe finished filling another pot with soil, then closed the bag. Sandy hovered, waiting for him to face her. She pushed her hands deep into her blue jean pockets and crooked her slim neck to one side.

Barlowe turned around and squatted over another flowerpot.

“I've been thinking about one of our earlier conversations,” said Sandy. “I wanna tell you the real reason why I wanted to move into this neighborhood.”

He turned to her. “That mean you lied before?”

She looked embarrassed. She always seemed to look embarrassed. “I didn't exactly lie, but it was—”

“A
white
lie.” He grinned.

She smiled, half-relieved, thinking,
So he has a sense of humor
.

“No, not a white lie,” she said. “It just wasn't the total truth.”

“So whas the total truth?”

“The total truth is that my decision to come here was not entirely a selfless one. It's true, I want to help, as I said before, but I also came for other reasons. One reason was convenience. Also I think that maybe I needed to find out some things about myself.”

Barlowe waited. He was curious now. What could she learn about herself by moving into
his
neighborhood?

Before Sandy could explain, they were distracted by a shout. It was an impatient, shrill shout. It came from the direction of her house.

“Sandy! Telephone!”

It was Sean. He had come home from work and seen them out there, talking. He stood in the doorway, holding the phone, a puzzled look on his face.

From the distance across the yard, Barlowe acknowledged Sean with a wary nod. Sean nodded back, also warily.

Sandy shouted over her shoulder, “Be right there!”

She turned back to Barlowe. “I gotta go…guess I should apologize. I was about to start rambling again.”

“Yeah. You do tend to do that.”

He didn't know what else to say. He couldn't tell her what he felt at that moment, which, oddly, was disappointment.

In a quick, curious counter to his snide remark, Sandy smiled, then ran off to get the phone.

 

Atlanta's springtime blew in early that year. The first few weeks of spring were erratic. One day, the flowers, bathing in the warm southern sun, perked up and appeared ready to bloom. The next day, temperatures would plunge into the thirties, freezing flowers stiff as ice. The dying winter hung on, resisting the seasonal change. In that time, Barlowe functioned in a kind of cloud.

Just as he'd expected, Don Pritchard offered him a printing job when a spot came open. Barlowe turned it down. He'd decided that he didn't trust Don. As distasteful as the acquaintance with Billy Spivey was, he
knew
Billy. Even though he hated Spivey, he took a certain comfort in that knowing. However Billy might try he could never catch Barlowe off guard. He could never do more than limited harm.

But Don Pritchard was different. Don was the devil he didn't know. Which meant the particular dangers he posed were unknown, too.

No,
Barlowe thought.
Too risky
. He would look for another printing job somewhere else.

Meanwhile, he went to work at the Copy Right Print Shop every day and, as usual, said no more than was required to get the job done.

Every now and then Spivey made a point of stopping by his press to say hello, smiling and spitting in that tobacco cup. There was a triumphant air about him. Barlowe guessed it might be linked to that stingy raise. He refused to let on that it bothered him. He was content to bide his time. Besides, there were other matters to think about. There was the issue of the nagging tension in his chest, the result, he was sure, of the long companionship drought. The tension pounded so heavy sometimes it seemed to press against his ribs.

As for the neighborhood, Barlowe wasn't the only person around there feeling stressed. Mr. Smith stopped him coming in one day, and the old man was so mad Barlowe feared he might work himself into a stroke.

“I got a visit from a city inspecta yestiddy.”

“An inspector?”
Caesar!

“Yeah. Gave me some kinda violation notice. Tole me I got thurty days to move my cah from off the street. Said if I don't move it they gonna come and tow and I'll have to pay a big, fat fine.”

Mr. Smith stared off into space. “Damn feller wouldn't tell me who called the city on me.” He looked toward Sean and Sandy's house. “Betcha I know who it was.”

Barlowe kept quiet.

In recent weeks, city inspectors had gotten “tips” that sent them rushing to other houses, issuing warnings for infractions that folks said were news to them. In some cases, harsh words and threats were exchanged. Tensions rose, and names were called.

The threat of inspectors was nothing compared to the aggressive land-grab now going on. It seemed every patch of vacant land in the ward was being snapped up by speculators.

Houses that went on the market usually were bought, fast, and renovated even faster. Construction crews invaded with ladders and saws and big, fat hammers, banging and banging until it left folks' ears ringing long after workers had left for the day.

It got so bad that the people of the Old Fourth Ward went to bed at night and heard the
clack, clack, clack
of those big, fat hammers in their sleep. In their burning restlessness, some had nightmares, too, about battalions of construction crews storming the streets, bursting into their homes, hammering away.

When summer arrived, people's hope of salvation seemed to rest on the crest of an oppressive heat wave, which some folks swore was sent by God. The heat wave lasted most of the summer. It ushered in a wicked drought that wreaked environmental havoc, wilting flowers and scorching land.

The heat wave lasted so long that some folks began to hold out the feeble hope that it might somehow stifle the ravenous grab for land and houses in their midst.

The drought drained lakes and sucked rivers dry. It forced the mayor to impose restrictions on water use. It was decreed from City Hall that people throughout Atlanta could water their lawns only on even-numbered days if their houses ended in even numbers, and odd-numbered days if their home addresses called for that.

The formula seemed simple on paper, but by the end of the first week, it got all confused in people's heads. From day to day, some folks couldn't remember, so they stopped watering their grass altogether, rather than risk being hit with fines. Others watered their lawns in the dark of night, in case they had gotten mixed up and missed their turn.

In the spirit of good citizenship and conservation, some whites in the Old Fourth Ward promptly phoned downtown and reported neighbors who broke the law. Generally, whites could afford to be law-abiding. Almost to the family, they had installed automatic sprinkler systems, which sprayed well water in their yards.

While black folks' scorched yards turned an ugly shit-colored brown, the whites' lawns were lush and full and green.

When the contest for the annual Green Thumb Prize was held, it turned out to be no competition at all. The sprinkler systems prevailed, hands down. Whites won every gardening category that year.

T
he meeting of the Old Fourth Ward Civic League convened at The Way of the Cross Baptist Church, a modest, two-story structure at the southern tip of Auburn Avenue. The meeting normally was held at seven o'clock on the first Tuesday of every month. This time, a special session had been called on a Saturday at noon.

Civic league gatherings were usually poorly attended, but the church was packed this day. Word had spread that there was a crisis afoot. Nothing on the one-page agenda hinted at the nature of that crisis. (Community leaders were too shrewd to put it in writing.) All around the ward the news had been whispered from ear to ear, with a private vow: No white folks were to be told about the gathering.

Practically everybody was there. Clarence Sykes broke a poker engagement to come; Lula Simmons showed up (though some folks regarded her presence with deep suspicion), followed by pretty Marvetta Green. The boys from the mini-mart, who otherwise never set foot in God's hallowed house, also hobbled over. Even Henny Penn and some of the thugs who hung in and around the Purple Palace came to see what was going on.

Barlowe entered the church and joined Mr. Smith and his wife, Zelda, in one of the center rows. Tyrone drifted in minutes later.

The meeting opened with a long-winded prayer, followed by the secretary's report. The secretary read off a detailed summary of proposed zoning changes and announced that City Councilman Clifford Barnes was in the house. With routine civic league business done, Barnes and a group of ministers paraded to the front of the sanctuary. They were led by the church pastor, the Reverend Dr. Owen J. Pickering, Jr. Watching the preacher come forth, Barlowe thought about the last time he had seen him, standing on the steps of King's birth home.

When he had taken his place behind the podium, Pickering paused a moment and scanned the crowd, waiting until all eyes were fixed on him. Before he opened his mouth to speak, Councilman Barnes stepped forward, as though insisting on being the first speaker. The minister, visibly annoyed, hesitated, then gave up the mike.

Standing there in a pin-striped suit, Barnes looked like a displaced king among commoners. Speaking in measured tones, he told the crowd the meeting was called to discuss a neighborhood problem, which he described as an “invasion of sorts.”

“In recent months we've seen people moving into the Old Fourth Ward at a shocking rate. Some of the newcomers are black professionals, like myself.” (He could barely contain his pride in the comparison.) “Most of the new people, though, you could classify as ‘other.'”

That jab drew scattered laughter. Barlowe shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“We certainly don't mind people fusing new blood into our neighborhoods,” Barnes declared. “We're all God's children, for sure. But as we look around the city, we see a curious pattern taking shape. It's happened in Summerhill. It's happened in Oakhurst. It's happening in Kirkwood. It's spreading to East Point, and now we're seeing it with our own eyes, right here in the ward.”

A chorus of grumbles flowed forth from the crowd.

“I've got some ideas to share about that matter,” said Barnes. “But first we'll have some people come forth and talk about how things are starting to look and feel for them.”

He summoned several people sitting in a roped-off section on the second row. First came Dawn Ransom, a pygmy of a woman who shuffled forward and pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her jacket pocket. Doe-eyed and crowd-shy, she stood up straight and cleared her throat, like a student preparing to recite a class report.

“I got a simple story to tell, but I wanna make sho I don't get nervous and forget. I ain't never spoke in front a no crowd befo.”

She opened the paper and read: “I was sittin in my livin room one day and some folks came a knockin at the doe. I knew what they wonted. They axed me if I would sell my house. Said they pay me cash.

“I tole em I ain't goin nowhere. I been livin out chere since right after Martha Lutha Kang died…I tole em ta git the hell way from me.”

“Good for you, sistah!” somebody shouted. “Good for you!”

“And that weren't the last time.” Dawn gained more confidence as she went along. “They keep comin back. Not a week don't go by that one a them crack—er, uh, white people—don't come knockin…They jus like roaches, comin and comin.

“Now when they come to my doe, I git my butcha knife and run em off.”

“Amen, sister!” came the shouts. “Amen!”

Barlowe shifted in his seat again. Something troubling gnawed at him. He struggled to get a handle on what it was.

Dawn Ransom was followed with a similar story by a toothless old lady with rollers in her hair. Then a deacon in Reverend Pickering's church came up and testified after her. It went on like that until several people had shared disturbing stories or lodged complaints.

The people mumbled angrily, as each witness walked back to his seat.

Returning to the mike, Councilman Barnes moaned out loud: “Um! Did y'all hear that?” The word
y'all
sounded awkward, forced, rolling off his privileged tongue.

“It's interesting to see that some people speak of these developments in our community as though it's some brand-new phenomenon. But I'm here to tell you, they've got it wrong!”

Somebody shouted, “We hear you! Yes!”

He paused as the crowd grew quiet, attentive. “I don't have to tell you all what's happened before, do I? Visit an Indian reservation and see for yourself.”

“Teach, brother! Teach!”

“People, I'm telling you this so you'll understand. And I'm telling you so you won't sit on your hands, or go treating this like some great mystery! This is no mystery. This is just history—repeating itself!”

Somebody shouted: “I know thas right!” The crowd responded with hearty applause. As Barnes spoke the old preacher took in the young politician's words, studying him with a frigid stare. Pickering listened closely, his heart dripping with disdain.
What kind a leadership,
he wondered,
can the people expect from a man whose breath still smells like baby's milk? And how can that man profess to be qualified to lead when he ain't never paid his dues?

There was no questioning Pickering's civil rights bona fides. He had marched, been jailed and bled for the cause. He was once a finalist for consideration as a warm-up act for Dr. King. It was said that when Pickering was inspired, his preaching could wrench the devil straight up from hell.

Still, he didn't get the warm-up job. After several interviews, King's handlers noted that, although Pickering was a gifted orator, he took too many shortcuts on the “th” sound. Phrases such as “beneath the cross” came out sounding like “beneet da cross.”

“I'm sorry,” the selection chairman said, somberly delivering the decision. “The committee has deemed that such linguistic lapses are unbefitting of the crisp doctoral eloquence of Martin Luther King.”

The rejection had been a major blow, one that haunted Reverend Pickering to this very day. Now, after years on the front lines, he was tired of being passed over for one thing or another and seeing his contributions to the Movement routinely ignored. He was especially vexed by both the gall and the success of young bucks like Cliff Barnes—Johnny-come-latelies who reaped the bounty of all
his
suffering, and without having to shed a drop of blood!

When Barnes wound down his prepared speech, the audience applauded again. He nodded acknowledgment of their good taste and appreciation and took a few triumphant steps back to hand over the mike.

Now it was Pickering's turn, and he stepped forward. The reverend was a tall, high-bellied man with deep razor bumps and dark skin that had the kind of oily texture you see on the faces of people who drink too much. His hair was thick on the sides, topped with a thin, stringy crown. He wore a shiny beige suit and matching shoes.

As he stood before the civic league gathering, a host of anxieties tugged at him. After four decades in the pulpit, the reverend feared he might be losing his thunder. His church membership was tapering off. His worshippers were being lured away by the new breed of celebrity preachers, clerical capitalists who served up fancy words like candied yams. With their manicured nails and tailored suits, the celebrity pastors preached a gospel of prosperity that appealed to black folks with hefty mortgages on expensive houses and fat bank notes on late-model cars.

One night, as he knelt in prayer, Reverend Pickering told God his ministry badly needed a boost. Now he suspected he was about to come upon God's reply. That was what Reverend Pickering was thinking when he took the mike. He was thinking God was about to speak through him.

Ministry or no ministry, God or no God, he was not
about
to allow himself to be upstaged by some greenhorn politician, some young boy with nothing more to offer the people than a fancy Yale law degree. He intended to show this boy how to speechify.

The preacher stepped forward and started slowly, almost reluctantly, just like King used to do back in the day. Speaking in a thick southern drawl, spiced with low and rhythmic Baptist cadences, he ran off, rapid-fire, a long list of despicable deeds, carried out at the behest of this country's leaders, that had led to untold suffering and hardship throughout the world. These were loathsome, callous leaders, he said, whose salaries they—black people!—helped pay.

From there, the reverend flowed into a freewheeling, half-hour rant against misguided domestic policies, unfettered graft by lobbyists swarming Capitol Hill and rampant corporate greed. Then, with the audience hanging on his every word, he deftly steered the ship back to its local port.

“I don't know bout y'all,” he bellowed, “but I'm sick-and-tied a dis! And I'm sick-and-tied a bein sick-and-tied!”

Reverend Pickering took a strategic pregnant pause and lowered his voice to a near whisper. (He used to love the way King did that; it left folks eating out of his hands.) He spoke so softly that people seated in the middle pews had to lean forward to hear.

“There are those who say we should step aside!” He pounded the lectern. “Uh-uh! Uh-uh!
Y'all
might step aside, but I'm not!…I'm a fighta from the ooolll school!”

As the preacher went on, Barlowe beamed in hard, trying to get a read on this man's heart. He studied the meaty nose, wide and long, and the bulging eyes—maybe the most fiery eyes he'd ever seen.

“I'm tellin you that, insofar as Gawd is my witness!”—Pickering pounded the lectern again, harder this time—“I shall
not
be moved!”

When it was timed just right, that simple phrase, peppered with a dash of pastoral passion, had worked charmingly during the Movement. It usually got folks all fired up.

This evening was no different. The people clapped heartily, louder than they had clapped for Barnes.

Pickering proceeded to milk the cow: “We must fight like the biblical David, who took on big, ol Go-li-a wit no weapon, save for a flimsy slangshot and a sturn faith in Gawd…I'm tellin ya, is time for l'il David to dust off his slang!”

There were more approving shouts, screams and wild applause.

He tilted his head skyward: “I saaaiiiddddd is tiiimmmeee for li'l David to dust off his slang!!”

Before long, the crowd was on its feet. Some folks shoved clenched fists in the air, in a Black Power salute. Others stomped, shook their heads and banged the pews like conga drums.

Still others hissed, “Yeessss! Yeessss! Yeesssss!”

By the time he crossed the midway point, Pickering had achieved what he had set out to do: As oratorical matches go, he thought, he chewed that young boy up and spit him out like a pork chop bone.

Barnes watched and listened with grudging admiration, itching for another crack at the old warrior. But it was too late. The momentum had swung to the reverend now.

As for the people, this was the moment they had been waiting for. They were outraged, restless, ready to attack somebody—
now
.

Even Henny Penn and his hoodlum crew joined in. They were so charged they forgot where they were. Just when the crowd began settling down, Henny rose to be recognized. Everyone turned and studied him.

Henny Penn was a sturdy, handsome man. He kept his hair cropped short and meticulously neat—parted down the middle, New York style. He sported a mustache so thin and straight it looked like it had been drawn by a stylist skilled at eye shadow work. This day, Henny wore a red velour jogging suit.

Henny wasn't shy about speaking his mind, not even in a gathering of decent folks. He shouted, at the top of his lungs: “I say we kick they asses! I say we run them crackers outta here!”

Somebody invoked the ghost of Malcolm. “By any means necessary! By any means necessary!”

A few supportive shouts came from other young people scattered in various corners of the sanctuary. “Yeah! Yeah! Any means necessary!”

Reverend Pickering calmly watched and listened, waiting for the commotion to die down some. Then he signaled for the people to take their seats.