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The
Lakestown Rebellion
Excerpt
The
fifth title in Coffee House Press's acclaimed Black
Arts Movement Series.
1
It
was a drowsy, buzzing day in July, the sort of day when
you could believe that summer was perpetual and everything
in it perfect and immutable, fixed in time under glass
like the vivid butterfly collection that adorned Doc
Thompson's otherwise dingy waiting room. That was, of
course, Fess Roaney thought, if you kept your eyes fixed
resolutely in only one direction, the west end of Lakestown,
toward Stony Mill. If you turned around and looked the
other way, toward Edgehill-but Fess did not need to
look over his shoulder at the nightmare, no, the hideous
reality created by men's machines and their greed. That
bleak, inhuman scar behind him was the reality; this
in front of him, this pastoral lushness and peace, was
the dream. He knew it and yet went on drinking it in,
drowning in it, a willing fool.
For the day to be at the height of perfection (and this
one was) it had to be not only midsummer but Friday,
a late Friday afternoon at that. The sun had slid down
from its point of highest intensity and no longer fried
the landscape. Lakestown merely simmered gently, like
a fine sauce on the back of the stove. Cool blue shadows
were already forming under the oaks in the Mount Moriah
churchyard. The excitement of a baseball game occupied
the adjoining vacant lot as usual and, as usual, frequent
high flies had to be retrieved from among the tombstones.
Reverend Bream and his parishioners chased the young
outfielders whenever they caught them, but in Fess's
view the boys did no harm. The tenants of the churchyard
could hardly be disturbed, and there was little enough
else for the kids to do all summer. Beyond the house
of God's worship the sun worshipers, a crowd the color
of boiled shrimp, gathered around a glare of light on
blue water that both hurt and affronted Fess's eyes.
The Dorsettown Swim Club, built on a spit of Dorsettown
land but plainly visible to all of black Lakestown through
an eight-foot chain-link fence, was for members-whites-only.
It was time to turn his eyes and his steps in another
direction, south toward Low Point and Josh Hawkins's
country store.
The first thing that met his eyes was Bella Lakes, plump
and golden as her giant marigolds, weeding her flower
border, a mighty rich and pleasing, if disturbing, sight-but
in shorts her upended rear and lush thighs were a good
disturbance. Fess sighed and felt better. This, the
best Friday evening of summer, was no time to become
possessed by bitterness. The hard-working men of the
town, the laborers and construction workers and stevedores,
were already home with their paychecks and out of their
work clothes into something softer and more comfortable.
If a Lakestown workingman didn't change out of his work
clothes on Friday night, it was because he had grown
so used to them over the years that nothing else seemed
as comfortable. And also because, wherever in Lakestown
the workingman planned to spend part of his pay, his
work clothes were socially acceptable; in fact, they
were a badge of hard-earned manhood and therefore as
much a mark of distinction as white tie and tails in
other towns.
Fess was not one of the workingmen, but the town did
not penalize him for it. Lakestowners had enough space
in their living arrangements and enough room in their
large minds to allow a wide margin of tolerance for
all of God's deviations. They accepted Cindy, Vinnie
Coddums's perpetual three-year-old-now there, by God,
was someone who had managed to arrest time-just as they
accepted Ronald P. "Fess" Roaney, a pensioned-off
navy veteran with a small, frail body and a bulbous,
overactive head that sometimes went haywire, and honored
the claim that he was still working on the Ph.D. dissertation
that had been abandoned twenty years ago.
He had abandoned it with good reason, Fess believed;
his dissertation had seemed empty and irrelevant after
a year back home in Lakestown. There were just too many
contradictions in his immediate environment to allow
him to endorse a single-premise hypothesis in social
psychology. So, perhaps searching for a new thesis,
perhaps not, he wandered about, listened, observed,
and marveled. Sometimes so many excited observations
and ideas were circulating in his head at once that
it felt like a spinning top. When that happened, he
called Doc Thompson in case he went into a coma, then
anesthetized himself with some of Mame Porritt's moonshine
and went to sleep until things made sense again. There
was so much material here-too much for someone with
time to think. Right now Fess was thinking about Lakestown's
laborers and why they wore their drab work clothes like
the uniforms of heroes. He decided that they were heroes,
a breed of supermen who stood up not only to grueling
jobs but to the unpredictable cruelties of white boss
men.
Fess smiled suddenly, remembering the year-had it been
'61 or '62?-when the roles had been miraculously reversed
and one white boss man had spent the whole summer working
for blacks in Lakestown.
Lonnie Jenkins, a road laborer, had lured his boss to
Lakestown by a show of that simple-minded ignorance
that white folks found irresistible. It had been just
that, a show, when Lonnie went whining to him about
his sudden problem with water in his cellar. "I
just don't know where it come from, Boss," he had
said. "I just don't know what to do." Or something
like that; something compellingly hopeless and pitiful.
First thing Saturday morning, the boss man was seen
arriving at Lonnie's place in his golf clothes and his
sleek silver Mercedes-Benz. An hour later, after being
softened up by Jerutha's ham and hot biscuits, the children's
charm, and some more of Lonnie's whining, he departed
and returned in his work truck and coveralls. And from
then on, and for three weekends thereafter, Bossman
was to be seen digging around the soggy foundation walls
of Lonnie's house.
A crowd gathered to watch, to cheer him on, and to marvel
at his competence, and long before Lonnie's problem
had been solved, Bossman was listening to other pitiful
complaints. Someone's chimney was bulging more dangerously
every year, and though their prayers were holding it
up so far, they didn't know how much longer the Lord
would let it defy gravity and keep from tumbling in
a heap on the ground. Someone else had front steps that
were flaking away into a heap of powder while the owners
watched and wrung their hands helplessly. A third party
had a kitchen at the back of his house that sagged at
a forty-five-degree angle, making the cook dizzy and
the cakes lopsided. Why, the whole goddamned town was
falling apart, and only Bossman could save it!
Bossman responded heroically. Every weekend he was in
Lakestown shortly after daybreak both Saturday and Sunday,
and every weekend the crowd gathered to watch him work;
and their praise warmed him, and their complaints multiplied.
Bossman's wife threatened to divorce him when she learned
they were giving up the traditional two-week family
vacation so he could go on working out his guilt or
whatever he was doing over there in that nigger town.
But by then he was a man in the grip of an obsession
and, recklessly, he almost threw it all away-his beautiful
blonde expensive wife, his three adorable children,
his two cars, his five-bedroom house, his swimming pool-rather
than give up the first work he had ever really enjoyed.
"They need me," he had snarled at her in self-justification,
"a helluva lot more than you do." But if the
truth were known, the most satisfying fruit of his labor
was the feeling of superiority it gave him.
Nunc Farmer had expressed a desire for a concrete basketball
court "to keep these chirren out of mischief,"
but, like his fellow citizens, he hadn't the slightest
idea of how to make his project a reality. Nor, apparently-like
the rest of them-had he the slightest acquaintance with
money.
Bossman, smoothing away with his trowel, did not feel
the heat of the day as it grew torrid enough to melt
a glacier. He felt only the milder warmth generated
by the praise of his cheering section. Fortunately,
he never heard the comments from the fringes of the
crowd, the ones not meant for his ears.
"Look at that, will you? Just look at that white
man work. Ain't it wonderful?"
"Praise the Lord. I never thought it would happen,
but at last they're sending us slaves."
"That's Lonnie Jenkins' boss man," another
neighbor said.
"I know," a giggling woman responded. "You
can tell he's the boss man 'cause he's down on his knees."
The summer had ended with all of Bossman's projects
completed, his heart cheered, his soul elevated, and
his ignorance and ego still secure.
Fess grinned at the memory. It had been wonderful while
it lasted. It would never happen again; too many torches
had been applied since to too many structures, including
the white man's fortfications of illusion. Now, in 1965,
America's boss men were angry and wary and no longer
ashamed of their cruelty, feeling it justified. But
at least the week that belonged to them was over and
Lakestown was free to contemplate its blessings.
Those blessings were not much, maybe, to those who were
at ease with money and power and could casually order
desecrations like the one at his back without a second
thought-but to the people of Lakestown, who had made
them, they were miracles. The most splendid structures
in town were, in order, the school, which had cost everyone
a 20 percent tax increase; the fire hall, maintained
by teen-age pay dances and adult socials; the Grimes
place, a rambling ruin that still had grandeur when
viewed from a distance; the Loveland and Satin Club
bars down on Rowdy Row, and the half dozen new houses
that were situated on a little triangle of land that
jutted into Edgehill and tried to pretend they were
not in Lakestown at all.
Many other less pretentious houses, like Abe and Bella
Lakes's snug stucco rancher, were in a finished and
stable condition, but just as many others seemed to
be perpetually undergoing some process of completion
or renewal. Fess had heard them called shacks and shanties,
but to him, as to their owners, they were both original
and beautiful. He admired Nunc Farmer's place, with
pink shingles on the first story and bare lath beyond;
Doc Thompson's carport, held up crookedly by one column
of cement, one of cinder block, and two of wood, as
if waiting for the leisurely old doctor to make up his
mind, and the Adamses' grandiose design for a rancher,
as yet only a blueprint of a house. Still underground
like their dreams, it consisted of a tarpaper roof covering
a rambling basement partitioned into seven spacious
chambers in which nine people lived like happy moles.
Fess liked the houses in progress better than the completed
ones. To him they represented creativity, one of the
town's strongest assets and something that white folks
lacked. Maybe that was why they were so damned destructive,
he thought. And he liked, too, the fact that Lakestown
people took their time about their creations. One or
two more good business weeks and maybe Josh Hawkins
would finish covering his tall, skinny frame house and
store with imitation stone siding, unless he decided
to paint it yellow again or to build a chicken house
first.
For Lakestown people raised food as well as children,
knowing, among other ancient truths, that children must
be fed and food does not originate in supermarkets.
In the matter of gardens, as in everything else, the
town was as individualistic as hell. Fess felt a thrust
of his old, youthful anger rise up and take charge of
him-a contradiction in his own psyche, since he both
admired and deplored this individualism. If only these
people were less original they could be organized, they
could be led, they could be made to fight! His fit of
militancy ebbed as quickly as it had risen, his mental
fist unclenched as he remembered that he was, after
all, in his forties now and lucky to have reached them.
Anger was both futile and bad for a walking compendium
of all the major human ailments; a philosophic attitude
was healthier. And in a more conformist sort of place,
an oddity like Fess-unsightly, unhealthy, unmarried,
unoccupied because he would rather learn than teach,
and contumacious-would have been run out of town long
ago. He decided to appreciate both his blessings and
the gardens.
The Carter family went in for patriotically painted
cans, shells, and rocks arranged in intricate designs,
all red, white, and blue. Next door, the Jenkins yard
had a jungle of flowers, dozens of varieties, running
wild inside and outside the fence, hospitably inviting
passersby to stop and pick. The Adamses' corner lot
was sensibly landscaped with neatly staked tomato plants,
flourishing pole beans, collards and cabbages in front
of their sunken house, and old-fashioned flowers-cleomes
and daisies and snapdragons-behind it. This, Fess felt,
was the proper order of things for a man with seven
children; Bunky Adams was putting first things first.
The Grimes Funeral Home went in for topiary designs-hedges
that were baskets, hedges that were urns, were columns,
were birds-everything but hedges. He rather preferred
the ragged, untrimmed growth around the Grimes residence,
but the topiary work went well with its next-door neighbors,
Doc Thompson's fantastic cement sculptures, obelisks,
pyramids, towers, wishing wells, goldfish ponds, and
waterfalls, all encrusted like crown jewels with sparkling
bits of china and glass. Then, refreshingly plain after
so much ornament, came Josh Hawkins's country style
yard, a bare, dusty patch of earth raked in circular
patterns each morning, its only occupant a single frizzly
rooster said to keep evil spirits away.
The children, beneficiaries of so much of this cultivation,
were just as colorful: tan kids, chocolate kids, copper
skinned, golden, near white, and purple black-screaming,
fighting, laughing, playing, but mostly dancing, the
affluent ones to transistor radios, the rest to the
authoritative rhythms of their own pulsebeats. Tuesday's
children, every one of them, full of grace: from the
time they could walk they were doing the latest steps-the
slop, the shuffle, the bump, the hustle-and so moved
about town, bopping, slopping, and bumping instead of
walking, digging on the music and their own limber,
tireless bodies and on each other, knowing all the lyrics
of all the latest songs even though they could not tell
you the name of a single capital of a single state.
And also knowing no fury or fears, or they would be
marching on Trenton, the capital of this one, at this
very moment.
The only marcher in sight at the moment was Lakestown's
august mayor, Abe Lakes, who crossed Edgehill Road to
avoid a cluster of the kids and continued at his usual
brisk pace: head up, chest out, shoulders back, back
straight, as if reviewing invisible troops. Fess saluted,
but the mayor passed him by without noticing, his nostrils
flared as if assailed by a bad smell. Fess wondered
whether he had caught a whiff of live pigs from the
Wright place down in Froggy Bottom, or was it the aroma
of butchered and barbecuing pig coming from the opposite
direction? Fess sniffed, recognized the smoky tang of
Jerutha Jenkins's sauce, considered doubling back in
that direction, then decided against it. Today he would
keep his pride.
Cooked or alive, pork in any form would offend the mayor,
Fess was sure. Anything visually or culturally black
offended him, which must make it difficult to be the
mayor of the largest all-black community in the United
States and the only one in the North. Bella had told
Fess once that, after eating a fruit cup containing
watermelon and being informed of the fact, her husband
had instantly broken out into hives. And she, no doubt,
had made it worse by breaking into hearty laughter.
Bella loved watermelon and barbecue too, and people-especially
kids, and music, especially raunchy music-and humor,
especially the earthy variety: in fact, she loved life
with an intensity that must make her a bitter disappointment
to Abe. He had married her for her white appearance,
Fess was sure, but anyone who loved life as much as
Bella had to be blacker than her ivory skin and horse-tail
hair would lead a man like Abe to believe.
Bella seemed not to know what was wrong, why Abe disapproved
of her. For years she had tried with pathetic eagerness
to meet the exacting standards of the strange, rigid
man she had married, but no matter how painstakingly
she dressed, in half an hour she looked flushed and
rumpled, like a whore after a busy, exhilarating night;
and no matter how carefully she did up her hair, it
slipped out of place, just as no matter how hard she
tried to restrain her mouth, blunt truths kept slipping
out of it. Lately, Fess had observed, she had stopped
trying so hard. Abe did not seem to notice; it was his
way never to seem to notice anything that was beneath
his dignity. Thus he avoided being associated with anyone
who did not meet with his approval, which, his standards
being so inscrutably high, must make him a very lonely
man.
I wonder what he thinks? Fess asked himself. Does he
think he's white, and therefore better than the rest
of us? No, he answered himself, for he had heard the
mayor curse white folks with the sincere bitterness
of a frustrated man. Why frustrated? Because he's so
near to white and yet so far; because he refuses to
be a nigger, but they won't let him share their powers
and privileges.
2
What
Abe Lakes was thinking, at this or any other moment,
was nobody's business. His motives were seldom understood;
he knew this, and strove to keep it that way. He had
left the sidewalk to avoid not children but his brother
Isaac's disreputable establishment and the crew of loafers
who always lounged in its precincts. A sign advertised
it as Ikie's Pool Room, but Abe, who was fond of long-winded
euphemisms, particularly when he wished to disparage
something, thought of it with distaste as a billiard
parlor. One or the other of its habitués would
have been sure to speak to him, and it was to discourage
the familiarity of a "hello, brother" from
anyone, including the only person who had the right
to so address him, that he had crossed the street. Familiarity
was distasteful to him, and intimacy, especially these
days, was downright dangerous. Abe guarded the information
in his head the way a crab guards its vital organs,
with a hard shell of indifference. Not that anyone would
dare approach him with prying questions, but caution
was his long-standing habit, and in his present position
he could afford no confidants.
He was thinking, with a rich pleasure not visible on
his stern, hawklike face, of a certain meeting in a
certain private dining room in Edgehill, a gathering
that was to be convened again next week. The walls had
been paneled with real wood of a venerable patina, the
carpets had been thick as moss, the air conditioning
had been silent and efficient, the service bone china
and fragile crystal. He had taken one Gibson from a
properly deferential black woman in a black uniform
and then, uncharacteristically, reached for a second
brimming bubble, with a reckless jubilation because
he was there. Where, exactly, was there? Why, the place
where he had always known he belonged but had almost
despaired of reaching. Now it had happened; he had,
in the most satisfying sense, arrived. And it was all,
ironically, due to his father, whom he had often cursed
with saddling him with the responsibility of this wretched,
backward black town. Well, things had a way of working
out. Lakestown would be his bridge to higher ground,
and then he would be able to forget it existed.
The men in the room had all been white except Abe, and
they had all been on cordial terms. Here was the respect,
the equality, he had for so long been denied. With the
second round of drinks had come amiability; Mr. Grafton
had become Harry; Mr. Luciano, Dom; Mr. Lakes, Abe.
First-name usage was an American custom, fine if-but
only if-it were mutual. This time it was. Over lunch
(chicken breasts with white cheese, rice, string beans
with almonds, a pale lettuce salad) details had been
discussed and no problems foreseen.
His problem-no, his role-would be to sell the advantages
of the project to Lakestown and keep the dissident elements,
the ones who would complain if the Lord sent them chocolate-flavored
manna instead of vanilla, from causing trouble. With
the help of the man he came closest to calling a friend,
his police chief, Benson Boyd, it would not be difficult.
Together he and Boyd would send the malcontents back
to church, there to wail until their Jesus turned stone-deaf.
Perhaps, he thought, it would not hurt to have a little
private talk with the ministers. Bird could be reached
with an appeal to his self-interest; Bream, a half-baked
idealist, with the very real advantages of the plan.
There would be new ratables, a balanced budget, even
local jobs. He was satisfied; he was not selling the
townspeople out, and he expected no real trouble from
them. Not that his future lay here. No, he had been
promised something in the capital: something impressive
and wonderful, a deputy commissionership, at the very
least. Abe was the sort of man who habitually looked
gift horses in the mouth and, seeing no reason why he
should have been promised anything, sensed that this
one might have a few rotten back teeth, but he did not
wish to inspect it more closely. He honestly saw nothing
wrong with the highway plans, and he had waited so long
for this, so long.
Only one problem really troubled him. A man who held
high office must have a suitable wife, and already,
on the first rung of his climb to the top, Bella was
a potential source of embarrassment. The masculine get-togethers
had not included her, of course, but there had been
one mixed gathering, at the Grafton mansion in Edgehill,
where her absence had caused comment. Asked "where's
your wife?" he had mumbled something about a visit
to her relatives, ashamed to admit that he did not know.
And that tarry witch, Vinnie Coddums, who would be their
maid, had eyeballed him mockingly, knowing Bella had
no living relatives.
He would not go out to meet trouble; he would let Bella
slide for the present, but when his appointment came
through, she would have to change or be left behind.
Abe was not a sentimental man; the substance had long
gone out of his marriage, but he could live without
that and was, in fact, relieved at no longer having
to grapple with it. But in the world into which he was
destined to rise, appearances counted a great deal.
Bella could make a splendid appearance, if only she
would cooperate, if only he could make her understand
the importance of good taste, manners, and discretion.
He did not care even if she had affairs, as long as
she had them discreetly. After all, a few wisely granted
favors could help his career. Why, in the right clothes,
with the right behavior, she could be as good as any
high-class white woman! But she seemed stubbornly determined
to remain low-class. Her lack of discrimination; her
democratic attitudes; her motley friends; her earthy
tastes; her blunt, frank speech; her bouncing, uncorseted
figure-all were acceptable in a country town like this,
but not on the Hill, let alone in the Capitol. Let her
slide, let her slide. The time was not yet here.
So, his fierce eyes turned inward, Abe Lakes walked
through crowds of attractive children and pungent waves
of barbecue, past jungles of vivid flowers and knots
of laughing adults, dreaming of silently air-conditioned
rooms with no odors, in which pale people ate paler
chicken breasts and lettuce.
3
Keeping
his back turned on that barbecue and walking firmly
into Josh Hawkins's store required a mighty moral effort,
but Fess managed to do it and felt proud of himself.
This town was so relaxed and relaxing that he was like
a British colonial overseer in the days of the Empire:
he felt the need to impose little disciplines on himself
to keep jungle rot from setting in.
Josh's store seemed to have been picked up and moved
intact from a rural county in Georgia. The floor was
bare wood worn smooth by many footprints; the walls
were rough, unpainted pine boards. The place smelled
of a wonderfully narcotic mixture of spices, hickory
smoke, chicken blood, and sawdust. The stock consisted
of things most northerners had never heard of, let alone
seen or tasted. There were cracklin's, fried pork rinds
in a big tin can, and every other product of the pig,
from black, smoked hams to white globs of lard. There
were huge croker sacks of field peas, black-eyed peas,
pinto beans, hominy, cornmeal, pecans, and peanuts,
both roasted and raw. There was homemade sausage in
oddly shaped lumps, heavily flecked with sage, that
could never have come from a factory. There was cold
sarsaparilla to drink and birch beer, and stronger things
too, if you had a real thirst and Josh knew you well.
And there was a delicacy Fess loved, souse, which consisted
of many mysterious little snips and bits of the pig
floating in their own gel like tropical fish in a pink
lagoon.
"A souse sandwich," he requested of the proprietor,
a very tall, very black man with the build and grace
of a sprinter and the deceptively slow, soft, stupid-seeming
speech of a deep southerner. The accent was deceptive
because Josh Hawkins was gentle only with gentle people;
and he was never stupid, though he had the southern
black man's knack of playing dumb when it served his
ends. Fess sometimes suspected that the southern drawl
itself was an art form invented by the earliest American
blacks to give them time to think up ways of outwitting
the white man.
"Got fish today," Hawkins said, without moving
toward his counter. "Nunc Farmer brought by some
porgies he caught this morning. Mae's fryin' 'em now."
The smell of frying fish, overpowering all the other
odors, was irresistible. "I'll have a souse sandwich
and a fish sandwich," Fess said.
"Got some ribs left over from lunchtime, too,"
Josh said, still without moving. "Barbecued 'em
myself this morning."
"I'll have a souse sandwich, a fish sandwich, and
some barbecue."
"Heeee," went Josh's high-pitched, artificial-sounding
giggle, like a siren about to go off full blast. "Heeee.
You gonna eat all that at once? Where you gonna put
it?" He pretended astonishment, letting his eyeballs
enlarge, but Fess knew Josh had seen him eat that much
and more at one sitting-or rather standing, since there
was no place to sit in his store.
"I am," said Fess, "but not all at once.
Only one bite at a time." He knew he was supposed
to keep his weight down, but goddamn it, it was down,
and he had already walked away from one temptation today.
"Heeee. I better get you a beer," said Josh,
who was not licensed to dispense alcoholic beverages.
"What you want first?"
"The fish, then the beer."
Josh went into the back room and came out with two cans
of beer in one of his giant hands and in the other two
slices of white bread from which several fins peeped
coyly. Fess took the sandwich gratefully and devoured
it the proper way, enjoying the texture added by the
bones, spitting out the big ones but crunching the small
ones thoroughly, along with the flesh and the crisp
cornmeal-batter crust.
Josh waited considerately until Fess had taken the edge
off his hunger before he spoke. And that was true politeness,
for, as slowly and casually as he talked, he was bursting
with news.
"My boy just got back from New York City,"
he announced. "He had a big time up there. Heard
about it?"
"No," Fess said, genuinely surprised, for
news traveled through Lakestown faster than one cat
chasing another. "I thought he went to Georgi
a."
"He did," Josh said. "But something happened
down there and he ended up in New York. I don't rightly
understand it myself. I'll let him tell you about it.
Hey, Lukey! Lukey!"
"I'm right here, Pa," said the soft-spoken
boy, who was as tall and slender as his father, with
the same big-footed grace, which had allowed him to
come in soundlessly in his size-thirteen sneakers. "But
I don't understand what happened either. One minute
I was on a bus coming back from Grandma's house in Valdosta
and the next thing I know I'm in New York and people
are buying me dinners at them big hotels and asking
me to make speeches and all."
"What'd you say in them speeches, boy?" his
father asked.
"I didn't say nothing, Pa. I told them I didn't
know how to make a speech, then I just said thank you
and sat down. They liked that a lot, though. I think
they liked it better than if I'd really made a speech,
'cause they applauded so long I had to keep getting
up and taking bows."
"Ain't you forgetting something?"
"What, Pa?" the young man asked, with what
Fess felt sure was feigned innocence.
"What happened between the bus out of Valdosta
and the other bus, the one to New York?" his father
prodded.
The youth dropped his eyes and shifted from foot to
foot, an exact imitation of his father's parody of embarrassment.
"I thought you wouldn't want me to tell people
I was in jail, Pa."
"Heck, boy, why not? Didn't them white folks in
New York think it was the greatest thing ever happened?"
"Yeah, Pa, but that was them, and they was kind
of weird and crazy anyhow, and, well, folks around here
might think I done something wrong."
"Well, son, maybe you're right, maybe you shouldn't
tell everybody in town. But Professor Roaney here, he's
an educated man, he'll understand."
"I hope so, Pa, 'cause I don't understand it myself."
"Why were you in jail, Luke?" Fess asked,
sucking on barbecued ribs.
"I don't know, Mr. Roaney, and that's a fact. See,
the bus going down was half empty, but coming back it
got plenty crowded. A funny thing, too; most everybody
on it was my age. They were all students at them Negro
colleges down there. We all got seats, but we had to
squeeze in any way we could. Squeezed up like that,
we got pretty friendly. They was a nice bunch of kids,
even though I didn't understand half of what they were
talking about, shouting "freedom now" and
"move on over or we'll move on you," stuff
like that. And they was singing on the bus; I didn't
think that was polite. But maybe I would have understood
them better if we'd talked more. We didn't have half
a chance to get acquainted, 'cause the bus hadn't gone
five miles out of town before the police stopped us.
And they put us all in vans and hauled us off to the
county jail.
"After that, I only got to know my cell mate. His
name was Raymond Williams, from Albany. Albany, New
York, I mean. He had come all the way down there just
to go to jail, can you beat that? I mean he seemed happy
to be in jail, like that was his whole reason for making
the trip. I could hardly believe it, but I don't think
he would lie.
"Jail wasn't all that bad, except I couldn't talk
to anybody but Raymond, and I guess the others were
lonely too, 'cause they kept singing songs. They usually
sang all night, so I didn't get much rest. And I got
hungry, too, 'cause the other kids had decided to go
without eating, and that meant I didn't get no meals
either."
Luke's mother, Mae, a woman so tiny it was hard to believe
she had given birth to this giant and two others, brought
him a fish sandwich, as if to make up for his recent
deprivation.
"Thanks, Ma. But I ain't hungry no more, not after
all them fund-raising banquets and parties in New York.
It wasn't as good as the food you fix, though."
"Of course it wasn't. White folks don't season
their food," she said calmly.
"But really, it wasn't so bad, what happened to
me. I was only in jail four days; less than that, really.
Three days, twelve hours, and twenty-five minutes. Them
N double-A lawyers came right down from New York and
fixed up our bail and got us out. And one of them was
white. I never knew the N double-A had white lawyers,
did you, Pa? Anyway, he was the one asked me would I
be his guest in New York. Said it would help the cause."
"What cause?" Fess wanted to know, though
he was beginning to suspect the answer.
"That's what I asked him. The freedom cause, he
said. Well, of course I'm for freedom, got to be for
freedom, 'cause I'm an American and this is the land
of the free, so I said yes and I went. I sure didn't
know I'd have to show up at all them fancy places, though,
and be introduced and asked to make speeches."
His mother sighed. "I just wish you'd had some
of your good clothes. Why didn't you call us? We would've
sent them to you."
"Oh, I didn't need them, Ma. They wanted people
to see me like this, in my overalls. They said overalls
made me look like one of the people. Personally, I couldn't
see why I couldn't be people in a nice suit, but I went
along with it. But I wouldn't go out looking beat up
and dirty like they wanted me to. I washed my clothes
every night and pressed them every morning."
"Well, I should hope so," his mother said.
"I raised you."
So, Fess realized, work clothes had become heroic uniforms
outside of Lakestown. Every time black folks adopted
a costume it became the fashion, and most blacks had
to find something new. But the men here would go on
wearing their overalls and dark twill work pants, because
Lakestown was outside fashion, or so far behind it that
it stayed ahead. Quite rightly, too; people here knew
what became them. This tall, limber father and son,
who would look stiff in sharp-edged new suits, were
at ease and elegant in their neat, dark denims. "How
long did you stay in New York?" he asked the boy.
"Six weeks," Luke replied, reaching for a
rib. "It was all right, but I was getting tired
of going to all them banquets and parties to raise money
for the cause, and the air conditioning didn't agree
with me, and neither did the champagne.
"They didn't want me to leave. They said I could
do lots more for the cause, but I found a way to fix
it so they sent me back here right away."
Josh chuckled and urged his son to tell just how he
had fixed it.
"Well, I finally made a speech. Not a long one.
I just said I thanked them all very much, but I didn't
want to take up any more of their time, 'cause I never
meant to be a freedom rider, I just wanted to go see
my grandma, and I didn't know why they was making such
a fuss over me anyhow."
"I don't know why, neither," his father said.
"But I'm just an old country boy. Maybe the professor
can explain it."
"I sure hope so, Pa, 'cause I don't know why they
did it either."
Then father and son both laughed, mutually slapping
knees, sly, high-pitched laughter that made it clear
they both understood every bit of it and were not about
to drop the masks of ignorance that let them make the
most of every situation.
"Aren't you in college down south too, Luke?"
Fess inquired.
Now that he had finished his story, Luke's accent was
suddenly crisp and northern. "Yes, I go to Duke.
That was another reason I had to get back here. Basketball
practice starts early."
Josh, too, had clipped his drawl. "He's majoring
in finance and economics. Too many colored get money
and don't know what to do with it. We want him to be
different."
"But I don't know what it's all about yet, Pa,"
the boy said. "I only had one year."
"Hell no, he don't understand what he's studyin'.
But he's tryin', and he's started him a pretty little
collection of stocks, Texaco and IBM and Hilton Hotels
and ITT. His ma and me, we bought some of them too,
just to encourage the boy. But I guess they ain't worth
nothing."
"I suppose not," Fess said, poker-faced. "But
you never know."
"You still want that souse sandwich?" Josh
asked, seemingly suppressing another fit of laughter.
"Yes, I'll take it with me. And I'll have another
beer," he added recklessly, even though he was
due at Doc Thompson's next for his compulsory six-month
checkup and the beer would surely raise his blood-sugar
level. On the other hand, it might relax him enough
to lower his blood pressure. When a man had almost every
serious ailment in the book, he had to kind of balance
things out.
He shook the boy's eleven-inch hand and added by way
of parting, "Glad you're home, Luke."
"Me too. I didn't like staying cooped up twenty
stories high in those little air-conditioned boxes they
call houses, but I didn't like coming down to the street,
neither, on account of the noise and the crowds. I been
home two weeks, and I just got back to sleeping my normal
ten hours a night. But say, Professor?"
"Yes?"
"Don't tell anybody about what I got into up there.
It got to be an awful strain, being a hero."
4
Munching
his sandwich on the steps of Josh's emporium, Fess heard
high squeals from somewhere behind him. Were they laughing
at him, or was Josh merely slaughtering a pig?
Moving on, he wondered how much of the scene he had
just witnessed had been a performance for his benefit.
Just when he thought he understood people like the Hawkinses,
they confused him.
"I'm for freedom 'cause I'm an American,"
young Lukey had said, "and this is the land of
the free." Was that some more of the family irony,
or was it really the extent of the boy's political consciousness?
He had shown that he was not really that simple, and
yet Fess thought that that statement at least was sincere.
What was worse, he suspected that Luke's attitude was
shared by everyone in this isolated, insulated little
town. The fires of revolution were raging everywhere
else, but Lakestown would be the last place in America
to ignite.
The lowest species of animal would fight over its territory,
but Lakestown people saw their land threatened by a
superhighway and did nothing. The town tolerated aggression
just as good-naturedly as it tolerated characters like
Essie Mae Merchant, who dressed up daily in elaborate
finery to go about on her imaginary errands. Whenever
she got tired she stopped, and wherever she stopped
she was fed. Informal but efficient; that was Lakestown's
system of public welfare. Tipping along Edgehill Road
in high-heeled silver sandals, Essie Mae wore a ratty
fur cape secured with a big safety pin, a flowing red
satin gown, a black straw coolie hat bobbing with cherries,
and her usual vacant grin. Biker Boyd, the police chief's
harmless, moronic brother (all the town's officials
had embarrassing brothers, it seemed) glided up beside
her on his brilliantly decorated bike, braked, and tipped
his hat. There was a moment's hesitation, then the grin
on Essie's face spread wider. She hoisted her long skirt
and climbed aboard the back of Boyd's vehicle, which
was redecorated every month to reflect the seasons and
their holidays. This being July, the bike was resplendent
with red, white, and blue streamers woven into spokes,
American flags fluttering from handlebars, and glued-on
stars. Essie made herself comfortable, Biker reseated
himself, and they took off together down the road, a
gaudy, improbable, and splendid spectacle.
Fess found himself smiling because they were so splendid
and because this was a splendid town to let such people
roam free instead of locking them up in institutions,
until he saw an even more improbable sight that spoiled
his pleasure. He rubbed his eyes, but he had not been
mistaken. It was a house on wheels trundling along at
about five miles per hour on a wooden platform, a recognizable
house, Dunce Cap Carter's home. Square, gray, and Victorian,
it moved along with serene dignity as if unconscious
of its humiliation. Nothing about it seemed disturbed,
not the curtains at the windows, not the flowerpots
on the sills, certainly not the owners.
"Damn!" Fess cried aloud in pain. The original
Lakestown settlers had not been so complacent. They
had risked cruel punishment or death, those first Lakeses
and Merchants and Carters and Farmers, to flee slavery
in South Carolina for a precarious hope of freedom in
the north. They had lived with danger, fighting off
bounty hunters with shotguns until Emancipation, and
after that with hardship and deprivation. The last fierce
Lakes, Abe's father, old "Freedom George,"
had piled on more hardship when he fought to secede
from Dorset Township-and won. After that, Lakestown
was on its own, free, black, and independent and, like
most independent black ventures at the start, broke.
Where had all that fierce pride gone? Into the history
books, probably, Fess sighed. There was money in the
borough treasury now, there were fat chickens in the
backyards, and there was no one in Lakestown who gave
a damn what the white man did, even if he picked up
their houses and moved them away. Creatures who would
not fight for their own preservation were doomed; any
high-school biology student could tell you that. Perhaps
he had miscalculated; perhaps there was hope somewhere.
. . .
The small Edgehill-Lakestown bus, a jitney in all but
name, rumbled past him, whined to a stop, and spewed
out Vinnie Coddums and a half dozen other maids home
from another day of serving white folks. People called
the bus line the Cook's Tour; almost no one rode it
but domestics. In the old days, before Freedom George
achieved secession, the bus had been larger and packed
with standees. Domestics, salaried slaves, had been
the main support of the settlement that existed, like
so many small black hamlets near prosperous white towns,
on the edge of the Hill, its economy truly marginal,
its only function to serve white families. The town
had no other source of income then and no identity except
a nickname, The Edge, a sad comedown from its proud
original designation, New Freedom. But old George Lakes
had changed all that back in '29. He could hardly have
picked a worse year for Lakestown's declaration of independence.
Times were suddenly hard, even for the rich, and service
jobs had grown scarce, not that the Edgehill whites
hadn't been mad enough to fire their newly uppity help
anyway. Lakestown was incorporated with a fine new name,
the name of its largest founding family, and little
else. Somehow it had survived. But at what price-the
loss of memory, the loss of pride?
The small bus seemed to ride several inches higher after
relieving itself of Vinnie's weight. She looked tired,
hot, evil, and sweaty, as she well might, being both
overweight and overworked, but she also looked like
a person determined to go somewhere and do something.
Fess felt a sudden, unreasonable excitement. This seemingly
ignorant woman might possess the key to saving Lakestown.
Her boss, Senator Grafton, a fearsome power in state
politics was said to be the author of the project that
was cutting the guts out of the town. Vinnie seemed
to care only about her white folks, her Jesus, and her
child, in that order, but he had just been reminded
that people in Lakestown were seldom as simple as they
seemed. She might know a great deal; might have seen
and heard things that were helpful, might even be angry
about something besides the party she'd had to serve
this evening after scrubbing and waxing nine floors.
The set of her jaw as she trudged straight up Merchant
Avenue instead of turning toward her house certainly
gave that impression.
When Sapphire gets mad at Whitey, Fess thought, that's
when he's through. For years he's been able to count
on her loyalty, but he should never take it for granted,
because when that goes, he goes.
He was probably wrong about Vinnie, but he decided to
follow her.
Novels
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