The Lesser People Page 7

  “Are you going to stay with us until you rebuild the church?”

  He sighed and wiped his eyes. “They aren’t going to let me rebuild and I don’t have the money for the lumber if I wanted to.”

  “What will you do then?”

  Preacher squeezed the wheel. “Something the Lord won’t approve of.”

  I wanted to ask him what that meant but Momma came hobbling back to the car and I wondered if the men who had thrown her on our porch had kicked her in the legs like they had Daddy and if that was why she was limping and why her arm was broken. None of it made much sense because those same men used to be our neighbors and they’d come over to drink beer from Daddy’s ice chest and eat food Momma had cooked on the grill and we’d visited with them and laughed and watched the sun set.

  It hurt my stomach to think about it so I lowered my head and wiped some frustrating tears away as Momma climbed back in and said, “They’re not sharing anything. Word sure travels fast in this town.”

  Preacher started the car. He didn’t say anything. I didn’t either, though I wanted to. Momma directed him to two more houses but the parents of Ben’s friends had nothing to say to her but to get lost, something about their tone hurting her more than I’d ever seen her hurt, even worse than the men who had broken her arm. A heavy air of something fell over the silent car and we rode on to the south of town where the good roads ended and the rutty washboard lanes began. Momma studied the small tar paper shacks, the little black children with such bright white eyes playing in weed-choked lawns, their heads turning to follow our progress. She didn’t say nothing until Preacher pulled into a driveway where a log cabin sat surrounded by silver maples that cut the sunlight into ribbons and cast their remains upon the pocked lawn.

  “I don’t know, Arthur,” she said.

  “Don’t know what?”

  She looked out the passenger side window and bit her lip, her face in profile from where I sat in the back seat, and I watched a tear slip down her cheek. She shook her head quickly, sharply, said, “I been discounting them so long it doesn’t feel right being here and asking one of them for help.”

  Preacher kneaded the wheel with his big hands and his face grew solemn. He touched Momma’s shoulder gently but firm enough that she’d turn and look at him. He said, “They don’t care what you think, don’t care what anyone thinks, Beth. They just want to live their lives like the rest of us.”

  A big fat tear spilled from Momma’s left eye and dropped from the point of her chin. I reached up and held my hand over Preacher’s. They smiled at me and Momma let out a long breath. She said, “I don’t know what to think.”

  “So, don’t think,” Preacher said. “Just let him set your arm. You don’t even have to thank him.”

  “But you will,” she said.

  He nodded. “I can be a cruel man, Beth. But only a fool is cruel to those who help him.”

  She nodded, stared at the floorboard a moment and lifted her eyes. “I’ve been a fool most my life, I think.”

  Preacher nodded back at me, said, “You ain’t no fool. You made him, didn’t you? And you were smart enough to marry Hank, a man with a big heart and strong values, a good father.” Something passed behind Preacher’s eyes as he finished speaking. I wondered if it had something to do with his own father, or if he’d been a father once, or tried to and it just didn’t work out the ways some things don’t.

  Glancing at the house I saw an elderly black man peeking out from behind a window curtain. He watched us and I pointed and asked Preacher if the man was the doctor who would fix Momma up. He said he was, said, “Come on now,” then squeezed Momma’s hand before he opened the door. I got out behind them, wondering where Ben had got off to and worried he’d turn up cut from crotch to chin because he was Daddy’s son, and Ben was ready to fight like him, would have went looking for one even because he didn’t have our father’s patience though they shared the temper. I wanted to ask Preacher to send up a prayer for him, ashamed to ask God for anything myself.

  Chapter Nine

  The old black doctor smiled as he opened the door and shook Preacher’s hand. He said it’d been slow for a Monday so the interruption wasn’t so much an interruption. He seemed to inspect Momma with his gaze, frowning as he looked at her arm. He smiled at me, frowned again, studying the bruises and scrapes from last night’s struggle, telling me, “You look just like your daddy but for those black rings under your eyes.”

  I smiled back and tried to wipe the tired marks away as the old man swung the door wide and invited us in. Momma hesitated there in the doorway and I wanted to squeeze past her because I smelled freshly baked cookies and my stomach started gurgling and my mouth started watering. I took her good hand and said, “Don’t feel bad, Mom. He seems like a nice man.”

  She nodded, looking off into the lamp lit interior of the foyer with Monday morning spreading its wings around her hair and creating a dark halo about her head. She said, “I’m really sorry, Eli,” though she didn’t tell me what she was sorry for, just tugged me along inside and asked me to shut the door. A living room with leather furniture was off to our left. Everything was clean and in its place, a bookshelf towering and full in the far wall. I wondered if the black man had read all those books or just pretended to and for a moment was ashamed of myself again and didn’t know why.

  The doctor told Momma to have a seat in a recliner. Preacher stood near a small Zenith television, propped a hand on top of it like he was at home, and I asked him, “You come here a lot?” while the doctor talked calmly to Momma, asking her questions like Does it hurt here? and the like. Preacher said, “My servants get injured now and then, can’t take them into the town doctor and they’re happy to see old Clarence. He’s caring and thorough and he’s one of their own.”

  The old man paused over Momma’s arm, kneeling there by where she sat in the chair, his hands on her wrist and forearm, and my mother about as tense as I’d ever seen her. Mr. Clarence said, “My people think old Arthur may have some of our blood in him and he just don’t know it.”

  They shared a chuckle but I didn’t like thinking on Negro blood because it made me think of Isaiah and thinking about him made the living room a little darker, made me think of Daddy who sat in one of the cells I’d seen many times, and though they were clean cells they were constructed of hard planes and hard edges.

  Clarence said, “A hand, please?”

  I stood there looking stupid not sure what he meant as Preacher moved over to him and helped him up from where he knelt. He walked stiffly to another room. While he was gone Momma and Preacher shared a look, her face gone soft, her eyes damp.

  Preacher smiled at her like she was his sister and he was proud of her which made my chest feel full and I wanted to hug them both because they were special and they were strong even if they didn’t know it.

  A moment later Mr. Clarence shuffled back into the room carrying some tan elastic bandages and a couple of pieces of thin piping and a few clamps to hold the contraption together. He was about to kneel again when I saw an ottoman at the far end of the sofa on the other side of the room near the bookcase. I asked him to hold on a second while I fetched it and after I had he smiled at me, then Preacher and Momma before he sat down. He said, “Thank you, young man.” I told him he was welcome and watched him whisper to Momma before Preacher brought over a bottle of whiskey. Mr. Clarence said, “Have a drink then bite on this.” He held a piece of wood like a plunger’s handle out, cut off about four inches long and full of teeth marks. Momma said, “I don’t need the whiskey.”

  The old doctor nodded, said, “Okay. I have some pills here in my pocket I want you to take with you for the pain though, agreed?”

  Momma agreed. Preacher held her good hand after she placed the chunk of wood between her teeth and bit down on it a little, her eyes fierce as Mr. Clarence ran his fingers up and down her arm, whispering, “Nod when you’re ready.”

  I thought if it was me sitting there he’d
be waiting a long time for that nod, but Momma did it right away, looked over his shoulder and directly in my eyes as the old black man jerked her arm a certain way. Her face flushed then drained of color, her forehead full of lines I ain’t never seen before and tears so big in her eyes as she bit down hard on the block of wood, grimacing and shivering for a minute, never taking her eyes from mine and I thought she did it because she saw Daddy there, saw him in me, but I had no idea what she was thinking until much later.

  Mr. Clarence bandaged then braced her arm so that it would heal right. He said, “You done a fine job, Mrs. Irons. A fine job.”

  She released Preacher’s hand and removed the scarred piece of dowel from her mouth and took several deep breaths. She wiped the tears from her eyes. I wanted to hug her but didn’t know if she’d let me. Before I could ask her if it’d be okay a plump black woman came in carrying a tray full of glasses dripping with condensation. It looked like lemonade, and stacked in the middle of the tray were the cookies I’d smelled upon first entering but had forgotten about as the doctor had went to work on patching Momma’s broken bone. The old woman had an easy smile and greeted us all as if we were family and I was ashamed of our town for hating her, for hating Isaiah, for hating at all.

  She set the tray on the coffee table and said, “Dig in, folks.” Then she moved over to the sofa and sat back and kept smiling. She saw me hesitating there, trying to catch Momma’s eyes so I could ask her permission. Momma had the doctor by her side again asking him about the pain medicine and he pulled a small aspirin bottle from his pants pocket and dropped two pills into her palm. Then he asked her if she’d like a cookie or drink or both. Momma thanked him, said, “Just a drink please.”

  Preacher sat next to Mrs. Clarence and made small talk as he munched on several cookies, holding a napkin up under his mouth as he ate and laughed and the sunlight climbed higher on the wall. I sat next to him and ate one cookie, which was delicious and fresh, and I slammed the lemonade, thinking that Daddy and Ben should be there with us. The doctor, maybe reading my thoughts, asked Momma and Preacher how Daddy was doing and why he hadn’t come along, admitting that at first he thought it was because of Daddy’s job, but his instincts telling him there was more to it. He said, “It’s really none of my business, just curious.”

  Mrs. Clarence said, “Man has always been curious.”

  She nodded to herself and I could almost hear the angels saying Amen.

  Preacher told them about Isaiah. The doctor hung his head, shook it and said he was real sorry to hear that. His wife told Preacher that she’d send up a prayer for him and prayed the Lord’s will be done. Preacher leaned back heavily into the couch. He said, “With things like these I don’t know that the Lord will do a damn thing.”

  Momma, never one much for church, but who had once said she loved the idea of all the human race being special in God’s eyes, said, “They closed the case, Sheriff Bordeaux and the others. Said it was a transient that done it.”

  Mr. Clarence said, “You don’t think it was?”

  Preacher said, “What do you think?”

  Mrs. Clarence rearranged the hem of her skirt. She said, “There been talk going on.”

  Preacher nodded. “It’s a strange time.”

  The adults all nodded.

  Wanting to contribute something, I said, “Daddy killed a man.”

  Mr. Clarence and his wife looked at me. I felt shell-shocked suddenly by their interrogative gazes since I hadn’t put anything into context and now my tongue wouldn’t work and my brain didn’t know how to back up. Momma saved me. She said, “We had an altercation at Arthur’s church. Bill, the sheriff, he came out to the house with some other men. One of the deputies almost shot Eli.” Her eyes misted as she replayed it in her head and it was weird to hear her talking about it with that matter-of-fact voice, her face and body looking so rigid I thought she’d snap in two. She said, “Hank lost it for a moment. He didn’t mean to the kill the deputy, but he meant to give him a good beating. It went too far.”

  “Momma ran them off,” I said.

  The older black couple looked at their hands. Mr. Clarence said, “They come back then I take it?”

  Momma told them about the fight, about them hauling Daddy away to jail. She didn’t tell them about Benjamin being missing but some kind of fear played across her face for a second before she wiped it away and she hardened up again. She took a deep breath. “We’re going to have to go down there.”

  “Do you think they’ll hang him?” Mr. Clarence asked.

  Preacher said, “I doubt it and I hope not. He’s lucky he’s white.”

  Mrs. Clarence said, “Hank’s luck has nothing to do with his skin color.”

  “He’s a fair man, and he’s honest,” Momma said. “I’d like to think that will count for something when it comes time for a trial, but he’s an outsider now and he’ll want to serve out some time for killing the deputy because it’s what’s right.”

  I did my best trying not to imagine all the things they were talking about and what it all might mean. Preacher asked to use their phone to make a call and he disappeared for several minutes and he almost looked relieved when he came back into the living room. They talked for a while longer until Momma’s eyes glazed over a bit and she leaned her head back against the seat cushion, exhausted and talked out. Preacher stood and thanked the black couple and I offered my hand to them in turn, which they both shook and both told me not to worry too much about Daddy because things would work out, that thing always work out. I had a hard time believing that because I’d been on the earth ten years and I didn’t see things always work out. Sometimes things only got worse. Sometimes the bad kids won.

  *****

  Preacher drove us home and on the way I said, “I liked Mr. Clarence and his wife.”

  He nodded, smiled back at me, then looked at my mother. “And you?”

  She stared out the passenger window as the landscape and buildings changed from black and downtrodden to lush healthy green and fresh paints.

  Momma looked straight ahead down the winding ribbon of road and said, “They were nice, Arthur. Very nice. Thank you.” There was a tension and a sadness in her voice that I didn’t fully understand and I thought she should be happy that the doctor and his wife were so nice, but I figured she was thinking about Daddy and Ben being gone, that they wouldn’t be there when we got home.

  I asked Momma if we were going to go see Daddy soon. She said, “After we check on the house and see if your brother’s returned.”

  We came upon a fork in the road. An old rusty tow truck had sat there for as long as I could remember. The truck was still there in all its fading glory. Many times I imagined buying it when I was old enough to drive and fixing it up with Daddy and Ben’s help, and using it to help people for free when the river flooded the streets and people got their cars stuck in the mud on the shoulders of the road. Preacher slowed as we approached it. I was ready to smile, to day dream about the coming days when it’d be mine and I could do something good with it, but my smile died on my lips and I heard Momma gasp as it passed by our window.

  A black man hung from the boom, his feet dangling casually a couple feet off the ground. His face was a sickish purple, his eyes bulging, his tongue stuck out like he was playing a joke. His hands were shaped like claws and the breeze stirred his clothing almost making him look alive.

  Preacher pulled over onto the shoulder of the road.

  Momma looked over her shoulder at me and said, “Don’t look at that, Elijah.”

  It was too late for that though and I found that once I looked at something grotesque and horrible it was difficult for me to look away. I said, “Who did it, you think?”

  Preacher said, “Sure as hell wasn’t some transient riding the rail cars.”

  Momma huffed, shook her head, maybe remembering what the doctor had asked and maybe she was picturing Daddy up there. I looked at the dangling body again to make sure it wasn’t him, almost rea
dy to cry, even though I knew it wasn’t. Preacher opened the door. Momma asked him what he was doing. I stared out the back window at the wrecker, not wanting it anymore, all the future fun jerked away from me.

  Preacher said, “I’m going to see if I know him and I’m going to cut him down.”

  Momma asked, “Why?”

  “Because,” he said.

  It seemed good enough reason as any.

  I asked Preacher if he wanted my help but he said no. His lanky form passed by outside and he climbed up on the back of the rig, wrapped a long arm around the black man’s torso and lifted him a few inches so he could use his other hand to slip the rope off the hook. He almost tipped over as the dead weight jerked down. He set the man down gently, leaned him against the big winch and wiped a hand across his forehead before he knelt in front of him and looked hard into his face.

  I asked Momma, “Do you think he knows him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why did they hang him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why’d they have to do it right there?”

  Momma’s eyes widened. She shook her head again. She said, “This is the way they all come toward town, the ones from the south side, must be a warning not to come around anymore, to stay in their own area.”

  I thought on it a bit. Thinking hurt my head sometimes. I swallowed the saliva building in my mouth, thinking of the Clarence’s cookies to distract myself from what was right in front of us, this ugly truth that men I’d known, men from our town had done this to scare the Negroes away. I felt a sudden intense rage. I wondered if it was what Daddy felt every day. I said, “They’re cruel.”

  Momma didn’t move. She said, “Life is cruel, honey.”

  I had a ton of questions I wanted to ask her about what we could do about it yet I couldn’t ask since she only gave out her one-liners on life when she was done talking. I bit down on my curiosity and watched Preacher pull the dead black man onto his shoulder. He carried him like a wounded soldier, a fallen comrade, all the way back to the car. He asked me to open the back door. I did, not sure why he wanted me to.