A Sky Full of Stars Read online

I shook my head. “Nope.”

  Shorty looked perplexed. “That ain’t like Johnny Lee,” he said.

  I shrugged and said, “He came out to Mr. Robinson’s place once. Fred Lee was a baby. I wasn’t even two. I don’t remember anything but my mama telling him to leave before my grandma caught him.”

  Shorty seemed to shiver. “I heard ’bout yo’ granmama. Heard she ain’t one to cross.”

  “You think that might be why Johnny Lee doesn’t come see us?”

  Shorty shook his head. “I’on know. But I know he a good man.”

  This time I didn’t stifle my grunt.

  “So you ain’t never see’d Willow ’n ’em then?”

  “Who is Willow?”

  “Yo’ lil’ susta.” Shorty leaned back and squinted at me. “She look jest like you.”

  “Her name is Willow? Like a tree?”

  Shorty laughed. “You named afta a flower. What’s the difference?” He held up three fingers and rattled off Johnny Lee’s children. “Betty Jean. Willow Mae. Johnny Junior.”

  “How old are they?”

  “Betty Jean seven. Willow Mae nine. Johnny Junior ’leven.”

  “My brother’s only twelve. Johnny Lee didn’t waste any time starting his new family after checking to see if Fred Lee looked like him.”

  “No sense bein’ bitter ’bout it. We all got problems. My daddy and Johnny Lee brothers, but my daddy don’t have nothin’ to do with me.” Shorty shrugged. “I guess Johnny Lee takin’ up the slack.”

  “Well, me and Fred Lee don’t have your daddy taking up the slack for Johnny Lee. We’ve had to grow up without a mama and a daddy.”

  Shorty stared hard at me. “You got Preacha’ Jenkins.”

  “Not the same,” I said, shrugging. “He’s the preacher. He has to take up time with his church members.”

  Shorty shook his head. “Nah, he don’t. Girl, you blessed that peoples like them Jenkinses take up time wit’choo. Be grateful.”

  I ignored his admonition to be grateful and asked, “You think you might see Johnny Lee before next week?”

  “I should.”

  “Since it’s Thanksgiving, maybe he can come see me and Fred Lee. My grandma probably wouldn’t mind since it’s a holiday. She’s usually nice on holidays.”

  Shorty nodded. “I’a let him know.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  Shorty smiled. “Ain’t no trouble.”

  I pulled my biscuits from my lunch sack, unwrapped them, and offered him one.

  He shook his head. “I eats a big breakfast. Don’t need no midday meal.”

  I took a bite of one of my biscuits and chewed heartily. I didn’t eat a big breakfast. I looked forward to my midday meal even if it consisted only of a couple of biscuits and, occasionally, a piece of fried salt pork.

  “Now that I helped you,” Shorty said, “maybe you can help me.”

  Just as he said that, the ninth-graders entered the lunchroom.

  Shorty glanced toward the door. “Guess I need to git outta y’all’s way.”

  Guilt grabbed me. I knew Hallelujah would not be happy that Shorty was sitting in his spot, nor would he join us at the table. But how could I just ask Shorty to leave after he’d been so kind to me?

  I shook my head. “It’s okay. Hallelujah will understand. I mean, we’re first cousins, right?”

  “He thank I’m ign’ant, don’t he?”

  I didn’t answer. I finished up my second biscuit and took a quick glance toward Hallelujah. He stared back at me, then strolled away and joined some ninth-graders at another table.

  “Well, I ain’t,” Shorty said. “I might not have book smarts like y’all, but I know ’bout life. And I know that if we don’t fight, these white folks go’n keep killin’ us. They ain’t go’n care who they shoot. They kil’t a fo’teen-year-old boy jest for whistlin’ at a white woman. Beat him near death. Shot him in the head. Tied a cotton gin fan ’round his neck. Thowed him in the Tallahatchie River. These peckerwoods’a do anything to a Negro.”

  My forehead creased. “What’s that got to do with Hallelujah?”

  Shorty side-glanced at Hallelujah and muttered, “Nothin’. Jest takin’ out my frustrations on the wrong folks, I reckon.”

  I reminded him why he was still at the table rather than Hallelujah. “What do you need me to do for you?”

  Shorty studied me for a moment, then frowned. “You ain’t the right person.”

  “The right person for what?”

  “This ain’t somethin’ you’a do, so I ought not to tell you ’bout it.”

  “How do you know what I’ll do unless you ask?”

  With his forehead creased, Shorty sized me up. “A girl like you won’t have the guts.”

  I straightened my shoulders and said, “Try me.”

  “Yo’ grandaddy got a shotgun?”

  “Of course.”

  “He usin’ it?”

  I shrugged. “He’s never had to.”

  Shorty smiled. “That’s what I figured.” With his head tilted to the side, he asked, “You thank he’ll let me use it?”

  “Why do you need to use my granddaddy’s shotgun?”

  “Don’t wor’ ’bout it,” Shorty said, shaking his head. “You ain’t the right person to be talkin’ ’bout this with. You too young and innocent.”

  “This is the second time you’ve asked for my help, and again you won’t tell me what you want.”

  Shorty nodded in Hallelujah’s direction. “First I thought I needed the lil’ preacha’,” he said. “But he like you. He too holy for this.”

  “You still talking about fighting?”

  Shorty shook his head. “Nah. Not no mo’. I been talkin’ with some fellas, and we come up with another plan. We’on need to fight. We jest need to put some fear in these white folks like they been doin’ to us.”

  “Why’d you ask me about a shotgun?”

  “We needs some. Right now we got two. Needs two mo’.”

  “We who?” I asked.

  “Jest me and a few other fellas that’s fed up with these white folks gunnin’ down Negroes.”

  “What y’all planning on doing?”

  Shorty frowned. “Go’n shoot out a few windas.”

  “Car windows?”

  Shorty shook his head. “Nah. House windas.”

  “House windows? Whose house?”

  Shorty leaned toward me and whispered, “Some o’ these crackers’.”

  I squinted at him. “You’re gonna shoot at white folks’ houses?”

  Shorty leaned back and crossed his arms. “I knowed a girl like you wouldn’t have the guts to help us out.”

  “No,” I said, “I don’t have the guts. But I got good sense. And you should have more sense than that. How you gonna get away with shooting out white folks’ windows without going to jail? Or worse, getting yourself killed?”

  Shorty scoffed. “The same way white folks been doin’ it for years. We go’n do it at night. They call theyselves night riders, right? Well, we go’n be the black knight riders.”

  I leaned in and hissed at him, “That’s crazy!”

  “We ain’t go’n shoot nobody,” Shorty said, now whispering so low that I could barely hear him. “Jest scare ’em.”

  “How many fellas you talking about?”

  “Me and maybe six mo’. I still gotta round ’em up. But we go’n need mo’ shotguns. I ain’t got but one. And another fella got one.”

  I shook my head. “Well, you ain’t gettin’ Papa’s.”

  “I knowed I should’na asted you.” He nodded toward Hallelujah. “Now you go’n run ’n tell Jenkins, ain’t you?”

  I ignored his question. “What if you actually hit somebody while you’re trying to do this so-called scaring?”

  “Look. We ain’t go’n hit nobody, a’right? It’a be in the middle o’ the night. We jest go’n drive by, shoot out some windas of a few white folks’ houses. Let ’em know they needs to be on the
lookout too. Let ’em know we armed ’n dangerous jest like they is.”

  “Good Lord.” I exhaled. “What if somebody’s sitting by the window? You ever consider that, Shorty Cooper?”

  “Ain’t our problem if they decides to stay up late.”

  I waved my hands in frustration. “You and whoever your fellas happen to be can’t just go out in the middle of the night and shoot at white folks’ houses. For one, you might kill somebody. And two, it just ain’t right.”

  “They killin’ us, and they ’on even care.” He drew in his breath and grew quiet for a moment.

  After shifting his eyes around the room, he said, “You know there way mo’ of us than there is o’ them?”

  I nodded. “Um-hmm. That’s what my aunt told my grandma after Emmett Till was kidnapped. She said we should stand up to white people, since we outnumber them. But you see what happened at that trial. It ain’t just the number of the people who matter, but the power they have.”

  “It’s time we take away some o’ that power,” Shorty said. “And we start by showin’ them what it feel like to live in fear.”

  “You ever stepped in an ant pile?”

  Shorty’s eyebrows shot up. “Ant pile? What that got to do with anything?”

  “Have you?”

  Shorty cut his eyes at me. “Yeah. One time.”

  “All of them rush up your foot and bite like crazy, don’t they?”

  “Girl, what is you gittin’ at?”

  “There are more of them than there are of you, but in the end, you still manage to get them all off your foot and destroy them.”

  “I ain’t go’n jest stand there and let no lil’ bitty ants eat up my foot. I’m bigger than they is. I’m go’n kill ’em.”

  “Well, think about that before you and your black knights go out and shoot at white folks’ houses,” I said. “They have the law on their side, and the law is bigger than you and your fellas.”

  I glanced toward Hallelujah. I caught him staring at me, but he quickly turned away. I sighed and faced Shorty. “You ever hear of Nat Turner?”

  “Yeah, I know who Nat Turner was,” he said. “He was a fighter. He had a vision. His mama told him when he was a boy that he was go’n deliver his peoples. Just like Moses.”

  “You know he got killed by the law, right?”

  Shorty squinted at me. “I done told ya, we ain’t ’bout to bust up in no white folks’ house ’n shoot ’em like Nat did. We ain’t go’n do no mo’ to them than them night riders be doin’ to us. What you thank the white man did afta Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves?

  “They went afta the folks that left. Kil’t ’em. Prob’ly didn’t thank twice ’bout it either. Right afta the war, bunch a whites kil’t off colored soldiers, plus womens and chi’ren, right up there in Memphis. Ast Jenkins ’bout it. I’m sho’ he know ’bout that riot up in Memphis. Happened in 1866.”

  “You sure know a lot for somebody who—”

  “Don’t go to school that much?” Shorty asked, his brows raised. “Jest ’cause I don’t study the white man’s history don’t mean I don’t know my own. The white man Mama Vee used to work for had a whole bunch a papers and notes on Negro history. Mama Vee used to sneak ’em to me and let me read ’em.”

  I narrowed my eyes at Shorty. “You really planning on shooting at white folks’ houses?”

  “They doin’ worse than that to us.”

  “Nobody’s shooting at you.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why would a white person wanna kill you? You haven’t done anything. You ain’t NAACP, or out trying to get colored people registered to vote.”

  Shorty grimaced. “You thank that’s the only reason they’a shoot a Negro? Did that Chicago boy do somethin’ worthy o’ death? Was he NAACP? Was he roundin’ up Negroes takin’ ’em to the coathouse?

  “Nah, he wadn’t doin’ none o’ that. And even if he did whistle at that lil’ white woman, it wadn’t no reason for him to git beat half to death. So don’t try to tell me that white folks gotta have a reason to shoot a Negro. We ain’t gotta do nothin’ but look at ’em wrong.”

  I thought about how Mrs. Robinson had scolded me for having the audacity to smile back at Mrs. Jamison. She made it sound as if I had committed a crime.

  Yet there was Mrs. Jamison, in that room full of women who wanted to keep the races separate—​she had not only smiled at me, but she had also spoken out against the injustice of segregation.

  “Not all white people are bad,” I said to Shorty. “Not all of them want to kill colored people for voting or being a part of the NAACP.”

  “I know all ’em ain’t bad,” Shorty said. “The man Mama Vee used to work for wadn’t too bad hisself. But I wouldn’t say he was good either. Git him ’round the wrong white folks and he mighta turn’t on her.”

  I didn’t think Mrs. Jamison would do that. She had stood her ground with those ladies. “Well, if you’re crazy enough to shoot at white folks’ houses, don’t shoot at the Jamisons’ house. They at least try to be nice to colored people.”

  Shorty winced. “I’a do my best. But in the dark, everybody’s house jest might look the same.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Wednesday, November 23

  I WAS SICK FOR TWO DAYS AFTER TALKING WITH SHORTY. Thoughts of him and other colored boys sneaking around Stillwater in the middle of the night, shooting at the windows of white folks’ houses, spun around in my head like a whirlwind. By the end of the day the whirling had attacked my stomach. I was so sick that I couldn’t eat supper.

  What if Shorty carried out his plans, and white folks retaliated? It could be like that riot he talked about that happened in Memphis. Stillwater could turn into a bloody battleground.

  I had never believed in fasting before. But that weekend I fasted involuntarily. Hardly a crust of bread passed my lips. All I wanted to do was lie in my bed and pray.

  When I returned to school on Monday, Shorty wasn’t there, and Hallelujah wouldn’t talk to me. He didn’t say a word to me on Tuesday or Wednesday either. Which is why I was surprised when he passed me a note in church on Wednesday night.

  “Why were you sitting with him?” the note read.

  I cut my eyes at him before I lowered my head and scribbled, “When your daddy gave us paper and pencil for note taking, I don’t think this is what he had in mind.”

  Hallelujah scoffed at my note. “You’ve done it before,” he wrote back.

  “So?” I mouthed.

  “What did he want?” Hallelujah mouthed back.

  I wrote: “We talked about my daddy.”

  Hallelujah’s face twisted in puzzlement. I gestured for him to return the note to me.

  “My daddy might come see us tomorrow. For Thanksgiving,” I wrote.

  When Hallelujah read the note, a smile spread across his face. I smiled too—​happy at the prospect of my daddy coming to see me. But then I glanced at Ma Pearl a few pews ahead of me and wondered whether she’d even allow him in the house. I decided to offer up a quick prayer that she would. With all the darkness swirling around me, I needed something good to happen in my life.

  Hoping I had satisfied Hallelujah, I turned my attention back to Reverend Jenkins. But I should have known Hallelujah wouldn’t let the conversation drop there. He passed me another note.

  “So, what else did you talk about?” the note read.

  I didn’t want to tell Hallelujah about my conversation with Shorty, especially since Shorty had predicted I’d “run ’n tell Jenkins.” I had to think of something quickly.

  But the next words out of Reverend Jenkins’s mouth sent chills up my arms. “Wherefore putting away lying,” he said, “speak every man truth with his neighbor.”

  My eyes quickly turned to the podium. Why do you always do this to me? I wanted to scream.

  “Good people have been lying for centuries,” Reverend Jenkins said. “Abraham did it. His son Isaac did it. Isaac’s son Jacob did it. Even King David, the man af
ter God’s own heart, did it. But the apostle Paul said in his letter to the Ephesians to put away lying, and speak truth with your neighbor.”

  What difference would it make if I told Hallelujah about Shorty’s plans? Would he tell Reverend Jenkins? Would Reverend Jenkins have a talk with Shorty and try to stop him? Would Shorty be mad at me and not help me connect with my daddy?

  But what if Shorty was right? What if white folks would change if they knew how it felt to be terrorized for no reason?

  I thought about that day Ricky Turner threatened me on the road. One of his buddies had hurled a tobacco-spit-filled beer bottle at my head. Then Ricky shouted, “Next time it’ll be a bullet, you coon!” He did this for no other reason than to instill fear of himself in me.

  When Hallelujah faked a cough, I glanced his way. Pretending to scribble, he motioned for me to answer his question.

  Speak every man truth with his neighbor. Well, technically, I wasn’t a man, and Hallelujah wasn’t my neighbor. So I wrote, “Nothing. Just talked about my daddy and my half-sisters and brother.”

  Hallelujah read my note with a smile that seemed to say, “Oh, that’s nice.” Then he scribbled something back. “The looks on your faces made me think it was something more serious.”

  I glanced over at Hallelujah.

  He frowned.

  He knew I was lying.

  Guilt punched me in the gut. But the pain it left didn’t outweigh the shame of wondering whether Shorty was right. Or Hallelujah was wrong.

  I wrote, “Shorty said something about a riot in Memphis. In 1866?”

  Lines crossed Hallelujah’s forehead as he read. He frowned and began his note on a fresh piece of paper. From a glance, it seemed his words would occupy most of the paper.

  Hallelujah’s note read: “Started with white policemen and Negro soldiers. Ended with lynch mobs of whites killing Negro men, women, and children. Negro homes robbed. Negro churches and schools burned. Terrible tragedy.”

  I wrote, “Sounds a little like the Nat Turner tragedy.”

  Hallelujah raised his eyebrows when he read the note. “Don’t get any crazy ideas,” he wrote back.

  I shook my head and mouthed, “I won’t.”

  He beckoned for the note, then scribbled, “And Shorty?”