A Fine Dark Line Page 5

  “He carry one too, though. And he done cut folks with his. I ain’t never cut nobody. But I did threaten me a nigger with it once. He got on my wrong side, that’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you. But I don’t want to cut nobody. ’Specially him.”

  “You love him?”

  “I shuly do, Stanley. I do. I don’t know why and shouldn’t, but I do. I ought to take the ole chicken axe to him, but I won’t. He don’t do nothin’ but make me crazy and sad. He messes with other women, drinks somethin’ awful, plays them cards, shoots that dice all the time. He ain’t no good at all.”

  “Then why do you love him?”

  “I couldn’t begin to tell, honey. I ain’t got no reason. Men’s got their reasons, and they reasons ain’t much and don’t last long. But a woman. She ain’t got no real reason. She jes’ does.”

  “But you’re scared of him?”

  “I am. I loves him, but I hates him too.”

  “Does he love you?”

  “I don’t know he loves nobody. He don’t even love himself. And Mr. Stanley . . . Stanley. You got to love yo’self ’fore you can love most anything. Even if’n it’s a flower, or some old bush you a growin’. You hear what I’m sayin’?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You so polite.”

  “So you think he could hurt you?”

  “I do. But don’t jedge on him too hard. You know what the Bible say about not jedgin’ least you be jedged yo’self?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Well it says that. Somewhere. Or so I been told by a preacher, but since he had his hand on my knee, I don’t know he was tellin’ the truth. I told him, you maybe ought not to jedge, but I sho ought to tell you to get yo’ hand off my knee. And he did . . . Bubba Joe, he done had it hard, Mr. Stanley.”

  “Just Stanley.”

  “Yes, suh. He done been put down by the white mens hard.”

  “White men? How?”

  Rosy Mae laughed. “Oh, chile, you just the sweetest thing. And don’t know nothin’, and that good right now, ’cause someday you’ll know somethin’ and you gonna be different. All coloreds be niggers then.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I hope you right, honey. I truly do.”

  “How’s he been put down, Rosy Mae?”

  Rosy Mae sucked at her cigarette, blew smoke in a little white cloud that hung about her nose, spread, and faded.

  “He a man, Stanley. Jes’ like you gonna be when you grow up. Like yo daddy. He a man. And Bubba Joe, he treated like a boy. White man calls him boy, and he a grown man. Bigger than most men you ever see. He six three, weigh near three hundred pounds. Stong as an ox. And I tell you another thing. He a war hero.”

  “Really?”

  “That’s right. He go over there to Korea, and he a hero. Got him a wound that cause him to walk a little stiff. But when he come back, come into Dallas, he told to go to the back of the bus. Told he can’t eat with white folks. He mean ’cause of them ways he been treated, Stanley. Way his family been treated.

  “When he a boy, them Kluxers, they hear Bubba Joe’s daddy stole a watermelon and a chicken ’cause his family hungry, and they take Bubba Joe’s daddy down in them bottoms and whup him good. Then they take off his clothes, and they got this big ole cottonmouth in a tow sack, and they make his daddy put his foot in that bag with that snake, and they tie the bag around his leg and waist so he can’t shake it off, and they tie his hands behind his back and leave him.”

  I had a sensation like someone rubbing an ice cube along the top of my skull.

  “What did he do?”

  “Well, Bubba Joe get this story from his daddy, and he tell it to me on one of his good times, when he’s happy I’m with him. Say his daddy can’t just stay in the woods till either he or the snake dies, so he try to walk home. He do all right at first, then the snake slip down to the bottom of the bag, and he step on it, and it gets its fangs hung in the bag. Now, he thinks he can walk on while the snake’s hung up, and he do good for a time, then the snake works loose, and he bites Bubba Joe’s daddy, and by the time he get to the house, he done been bit, three, fo’ times.”

  “Did he die?”

  “Might near. But they take him over to a colored man works on horses and such, and he cuts the leg off ’cause it done turned black as the bottom of a well, and swole up big as an oak tree trunk. Bubba Joe’s daddy lives, but now he can’t work no mo’. And he turns mean. He gave some of that mean to Bubba Joe. Coloreds got reason to be mean, but it may be worse on a colored man ’cause he don’t never get to be no man ’cept in his own house, and he overdo it. He knows he goes out, he jes’ another nigger. Some little white boy comes along, he got to step off the sidewalk. Little white boy can call him boy, and he has to grin and live with it. Wears on a person.”

  “Does it wear on you, Rosy Mae?”

  “Yes, chile. It shuly does. But all that said, it ain’t no excuse for doin’ the wrong thing to people. They’s lots of people ain’t happy, but you don’t get no happier makin’ people unhappy. Least you shouldn’t. Well, I done smoked my smoke. We ought to go on back down see there’s anything we can do ’sides set a fire and rob a bank.”

  “Rosy Mae? Do you know anything about the house that stood where those trees are?” I pointed in the direction of the pine stand beside the drive-in.

  “That ole place belong to the Stilwinds. They a big important family, and they still ’round here. That house, burn down on the same night little Miss Margret Wood was messed with and murdered. And when it burn down, it burn up that young Stilwind girl, Jewel Ellen. Hard to believe how fast them pine trees growed up after that house burned down. That was in, let me see, nineteen and forty-five. ’Course, that ole oak and some of them elms and them sweet gums out to the side there, they always been there long as I can remember. They jes’ bigger.”

  “Who was Miss Margret?”

  “Why she a young girl then, about fifteen. I think me and her about the same age when that happen.”

  “Who murdered her?”

  “Ain’t nobody know.”

  “Was she murdered in that house?”

  “Where you get such an idea? Miss Jewel Ellen die in that house. In the fire. Miss Margret, she killed over by the tracks. Someone do somethin’ mean to her. And Mr. Stanley, you and me don’t need to talk about what that was. That ain’t for me and you to discuss. But I tell you she was laid out with her head put on them railroad tracks, an’ that ole train come along and cut it right off. That’s what I hear, anyway. They never did find her head. Say her ghost still wander down there, where the woods run close to the tracks. That’s where she was murdered. They was this man say he thought he saw an ole stray dog runnin’ along down there with that head in its mouth. But that could have been a wolf. Or a wolf’s man.”

  “A wolf’s man?”

  “Mr. Stanley—”

  “Stanley.”

  “Stanley. White folks don’t believe this, lot of coloreds don’t. But I believes there’s mens can turn themselves into wolfs and such. That a wolf’s man. Like the movie with the wolf’s man. I ain’t sayin’ no wolf’s man got her head now, I’m jes’ sayin’ could have been. It might have been an ole stray dog or other varmints. It might have been smashed like a pumpkin when that train hit her. It might have been cut off ’fo she was put on the tracks. Ain’t no one ever find Miss Margret’s head. But they say her ghost down there lookin’ for her head most nights and I believe that. I ain’t never seen it myself, but I done hear on it plenty from them has.”

  “What started the fire?”

  “Oh, chile, I don’t know. I jes’ remember it burnin’ down and that sweet Jewel Ellen burning up.”

  “You knew her?”

  “I know’d them all. My mama used to wash the mess out of that whole family’s drawers, and that Miss Margret, she live on across town in the lesser part. You see, this here used to be money here. Right where the drive-in stand. Then money move on over t
here a ways. You know all them big pretty houses ’cross the highway?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Well, I know they’re there. I’ve never really looked at them.”

  “I don’t know lookin’ such a good idea. I look over there, I feel how that Lot’s wife felt in the Bible when she looked back on stuff she wanted, and God turn her to that pillar of salt. ’Course, she least got to have it oncet. I ain’t never had it none. Ain’t never gonna. Ain’t no need for God to turn me to nothin’ for lookin’ back. There ain’t no lookin’ back. Place I live ain’t nothin’ but a nigger rent house. I don’t be lookin’ forward or back.”

  “What about Margret?”

  “Miss Margret live over on the other side of town, ’cross them tracks. It’s the place where the poor whites live, down by the swamp land. Their house set off a bit from the others.

  “Miss Margret was poor, but seemed like she had it pretty good to me. My momma would have jes’ wanted to move us up that much. For her, it would have been a castle. Miss Margret had a yard out back, even if it was wet land, and the house was painted up white and nice, and it was big enough she might have had her own bedroom. And Miss Margret, she jes’ as pretty as could be. Had dark hair and dark eyes and this real pretty skin, and she smile, she got a big smile, and a big silver tooth right next to these front two.

  “I use to see her ’round. She didn’t have no daddy ’cause he run off when Miss Margret born. That’s how I heard it. I think he was some kind of Mex’kin and white man mixed up, or some such thing, and her mama got some Indi’n blood.”

  “So they weren’t really white?”

  “Well, when you a colored girl, they white. Miss Margret look like she gonna grow up to be a movie star, she so pretty. I really liked that tooth, though I don’t know white people would make no movie star out of some girl with a silver tooth.

  “I hear her mama was kinda mean, though. Really don’t know much about ’em ’sides little Miss Margret was nice. Both her and that Jewel Ellen was nice. That brother of Jewel Ellen, James Ray, he not always so nice. He pinch me on my bottom oncet. I’m on the street, carryin’ white people’s wash home to be done by my mama, and he pinch me on the rear end and laugh and say he give me money I do somethin’ for him. I got away from there real quick.”

  I thought: M for Margret and J for James. Some of the mystery was coming together.

  “Is James still around?”

  “After they house burned down, he growed up, lived on the hill over there where the money is. Guess he still live there. He own a big store downtown. Men’s shop with suits and the little drugstore next to it, and the picture show. Colored can buy hamburgers and get a pop out back the drugstore. Movie house has a big upstairs and it’s where the colored go. But, James Ray, I don’t really know so much about him. He don’t ’vite me over for supper, you see. All I remember was him wantin’ to pinch my bottom, and I wasn’t but a girl.

  “Come on, now. I don’t want no one thinkin’ I’m takin’ leave ’cause your momma been nice to me. Let’s go down see there’s anything left we can do . . . And, Stanley, you tell me. I shouldn’t have mentioned that salt in them green beans, should I?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I know’d it when I done it. But I jes’ couldn’t helps myself.”

  ———

  THAT NIGHT after the drive-in was closed and Rosy Mae was given a place to sleep on the couch, I slipped out of my room, leaving Nub to curl up on my bed, opened Callie’s door, stuck my head inside. “Callie?”

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  “I wanted to talk.”

  “You’ve talked to me more in the last two days than since the time you learned to talk.”

  “I found out some stuff about the old house that burned down.”

  “Oh . . . Come in.”

  I sat on the foot of her bed. Callie sat up in bed and turned her face toward me. I couldn’t make out her features completely. Her dark hair was undone and fell down to her shoulders. In the moonlight I could see a bit of her face and the horse designs on her pajamas. The water-cooled fan beat the warm air into near submission.

  “What do you know?” she asked.

  I told her what Rosy Mae told me.

  “That’s kind of creepy, Stanley. To think a little girl burned up right over there.”

  “What’s creepy,” I said, “is that a little girl named Margret was murdered on the same night as Jewel Ellen Stilwind died, and her brother’s name was James. Don’t you think it’s odd, Callie, that the letters we have are from an M to a J? Margret to James, who got her pregnant.”

  “It may not be connected at all. You certainly didn’t even know how a girl got pregnant until I told you.”

  “I know now. Come on, it’s interesting? Right?”

  “Tomorrow, maybe we’ll look into it. Right now, I got to sleep. I’m exhausted. Beat it.”

  I told Callie what Rosy said about Margret’s ghost, about her missing head and the wolf’s man.

  “Oh, poo. I don’t believe that. Coloreds are always telling ghost stories. Besides, I don’t want to hear that right now. This whole thing is kind of scary to me and I don’t want bad dreams. Now beat it.”

  “It isn’t any harder for this to be connected, than believing someone stuck that balloon through your window when your bedroom was downstairs.”

  “Stanley, you little shit, get out of my room.”

  I beat it with regrets, knowing full well I shouldn’t have added that zinger, not if I wanted Callie’s help. But, heck, it was the brotherly thing to do; I couldn’t help myself.

  I didn’t go right to sleep. I got the letters out from under my bed and looked at them. I read the journal carefully. Nothing in the letters or the journal mentioned Margret’s last name. But I was convinced these letters had been to James and that Margret had torn out the journal pages and given them to him, maybe to keep her mother from seeing them, or as a gesture of some kind.

  I put the letters and pages up, went to bed, dreamed of a decapitated girl walking along the railroad tracks, searching for her missing head. I dreamed too of a wolf’s man, as Rosy called it, running through the brush with Margret’s head in its mouth.

  5

  NEXT MORNING after breakfast, I pulled Callie aside and we walked out to the drive-in lot.

  “Are you going to help me find out more?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.”

  “Last night you said you would.”

  “I didn’t say for certain. It sounded like fun last night. But in the light of day, I’m not so sure. What if it is the same Margret? So what?”

  “She was murdered. No one ever found the murderer. That’s a real mystery, Callie. James Stilwind lives over on the hill with the rich folks. He might know something.”

  “You’re just going to knock on his door and ask him about his burned-up sister and a murdered girl named Margret, and a boxful of letters he might have owned?”

  “I hadn’t really thought about what I was going to do. Not really. Are you going to help or what?”

  “I’m not allowed to go anywhere. So what can I do?”

  “But last night . . .”

  “I forgot. I forget about it ten times a day because I didn’t do anything. Then there was that crack about the balloon . . . So, just solve your own stupid mystery.”

  Callie crunched across the lot’s gravel, back toward our house, which was an odd way to think about a movie screen thick enough to contain two stories, a roof view, and all the comforts of home.

  I got my bicycle out of the storage shed, placed Nub over my thighs, and rode across the highway into the residential area where the rich folks lived.

  For the first time I really noticed the houses there.

  They were built along different designs, but all were big and fresh-looking, as if someone came daily to wipe them down from roof to porch. Some of the porches were big enough for a family of four to live on. All the other houses were equally as magnificent.
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  I put Nub down so he could run alongside me. I rode on through the neighborhood until the steep hill got to be too much, then I pushed my bicycle, checking the names on mailboxes. They were all neat mailboxes with black lettering, and not a one was different from the other in size and design. None of them said Stilwind.

  I came across a girl playing in her front yard that looked to have not only been mowed, but manicured with nail clippers. She was sitting at a little table with chairs, a tea set, and dolls. She wore a pink dress and had a pink bow in her shiny blond hair. She looked as if she were about to go to church.

  I called to her from the street. “Do you know where the Stilwinds live?”

  “No. Why are you dressed like a nigger?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you’re wearing those blue jeans with the cuffs rolled up.”

  “All the kids do.”

  She took a sip from her teacup, said, “Not around here. Your mama make you that shirt?”

  “So what?”

  “A feed sack and a Butterick pattern?”

  “It’s not a feed sack . . . It’s plaid.”

  “I don’t wear homemades, and I don’t wear hand-me-downs.”

  “So?”

  “That little dog looks like a mutt.”

  “You look like a mutt,” I said.

  “Well, I never,” she said, standing up from her little chair and placing a hand on her hip.

  I rolled my bike on, and when I was away from her, I glanced down at myself. My blue jeans were patched, and the shirt I had on was a little thin and faded in spots, but I looked okay. Surely the folks over here didn’t dress up all the time, just to play or ride bikes.

  I passed three teenage boys tossing a football. They were wearing jeans and tennis shoes just like me. But there was a difference. They looked as tidy and confident as bankers, and as the little girl had reported, they didn’t cuff the legs of their jeans.

  I was about to get on my bike and start riding again, when one of the boys tossing the ball in the yard called out to me.

  “Who are you?”

  I turned, looked at him. He was tall and blond. Probably seventeen or eighteen. He repeated himself. I told him who I was.