Lay that Trumpet in Our Hands Read online

  “Hard as any man would who lost his only son,” Daddy says, his careful choice of words glinting in Ralph MacElvoy’s direction. My father can’t abide the Southern custom of calling a grown man a boy.

  Mr. MacElvoy gives Daddy an odd, sharp look. His eyes narrow slightly, then slide hastily away from my father’s steely gaze. Daddy’s not a large man, but he has the presence of somebody much bigger.

  “I think this business up in Lake County’s made the Opalakee Klanners a little trigger happy,” Aldo Brass, one of the church deacons, says in his slow, thick Alabama drawl.

  I learned all about this Lake County business when I got my pre-Easter perm at Miz Lillian’s Beauty Parlor. Not that Miz Lillian told me directly, but it was all the other ladies talked about. The story started a year or so ago, when a white couple was driving home after dark and their car broke down on a back country road. Another car with four young Negroes stopped to help and offered them a ride to the gas station. The man didn’t want to leave the car, so the woman went for help.

  “Though what white woman in her right mind would get in a car with four Negroes, I want to know!” Miss Iris, Miz Lillian’s assistant, said, eyes wide in the large mirror that runs the length of the shop.

  “And what husband would let her!” Miz Lillian wondered, raising a perfectly penciled eyebrow.

  The woman didn’t come back, but the next morning, her husband found her talking to the man at the gas station. The woman and the man told her husband she’d been kidnapped. The day after that, she said those Negroes had bothered her.

  Southern ladies use the word “bother” to mean anything from an inappropriate glance to rape, which is, apparently, a fate worse than death. The more serious the infraction, the further they drop their chins and their voice tones. From the steep descents surrounding me, the woman obviously claimed the worst.

  All the white men in Groveland got riled up about that and Sheriff Willis McCall deputized the whole bunch into a posse. The posse searched the county for the men who the papers called “the Groveland Four.” One man was shot “trying to escape,” but three others were caught and stood trial together.

  An all-white jury declared them guilty, sentencing two to The Chair and the other one, who was only fifteen, to Life in prison. When the N-double A-C-P got wind of it, their New York attorney, Mr. Thurgood Marshall, said the trial was unfair and filed an appeal. The Florida Supreme Court said the trial was fine, but Mr. Thurgood Marshall took the story all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court said it wasn’t fair at all, on account of the jury being all white men and the local newspaper getting everybody all riled up about it. Miz Lillian read us the part in Time magazine where Justice Robert Jackson said, “This is one of the best examples of one of the worst menaces to American justice I’ve ever seen.” So, now there’s to be a new trial for the two men on Death Row.

  “And don’t you bet Sheriff Willis McCall is fit to be tied about that!” Miz Lillian’s long, red-tipped fingers expertly flip the elastic cords off the pink and green curlers on my head.

  “Isn’t he some muckety-muck with the Klan in Lake County?” Miss Iris asked, wrist-deep in Miz Sooky Turnbull’s henna rinse.

  “Nuthin’ I heard about him’d surprise me a bit,” Miz Lillian replied.

  “I know some folks don’t think much of the Klan,” Miz Sooky, our across-the-street neighbor, called from the sink, “but as a woman, I have to say I sleep better knowin’ the Klan’s around to keep the Nigras from goin’ wild.”

  In the mirror, my face flushed furious at Miz Sooky’s ignorance. Miz Sooky’s not a bad person. She really isn’t. She’s always doing nice neighborly things like bringing over fresh-baked banana bread or sharing home-grown tomatoes. But, like a lot of people around here, she’s got a gigantic, gaping hole in her head when it comes to Negroes. Fact is, never once in my life have I seen Miz Sooky that she hasn’t worked in some reference to what she calls their “dark danger to Southern womanhood.”

  Miz Lillian, who’s as smart as a whip, pursed her red lips at me in the mirror and together we shook our heads. Miss Iris made a face at Miz Sooky’s lumpy old sack-dressed body, reclined headless at the sink, her square-cut hands like turnips, spotted and gnarled from gardening without her gloves on. As if any man, besides old Mr. Fred, would want to bother your frumpy old bones, I thought.

  “Sooky?” Miz Lillian said, changing the subject firmly, “You bringin’ your sweet corn salad to dinner-on-the-grounds this Sunday?”

  Deacon Brass leans against the big oak tree like a scrawny stork, jacked up one-legged, perched on his heel. After a long, slow drag on his Pall Mall, he lifts his chin, blows smoke and drawls, to no one in particular, “Re-trial or not, those two boys are gonna fry.”

  And what about that murdering J. D. Bowman? Will he fry, too? Or, I want to scream at him, at all of them, does Justice wear a hood on top of a mask?

  Daddy, seeing my face, intercedes. Smooth as molasses, he asks, “Your mother ready, Roo?”

  I nod, mute, feeling the familiar catch in my throat, the pinch in my chest that comes from not being able to speak my mind.

  “Gentlemen,” Daddy says, throwing an arm around me that’s half warning, half comfort, and nods our goodbye to the men in the shade.

  Chapter 6

  At four-thirty, Ren and I race to the brick-front post office at the end of our street. This is it, we’ve decided, one week to the day since Doto’s friend Blanche forwarded the notice that Mr. J. Edgar Hoover had received Daddy’s letter. This is the day we’ll receive his reply.

  Together, we duck through the heavy, half-glass door, hoping to avoid our postmistress’ evil eye. Hands on the counter, Miss Maybelle Mason unpleats her neck, squinting into the afternoon sun, an old turtle sniffing for trouble.

  “Marie Louise!” she snaps, stopping us in our tracks. “You two want to explain why you’re not in school today?”

  “Easter vacation, ma’am, all week,” I say, wondering why she’d hit us with such an obvious question. The front porch of the post office is also our school bus stop. Each school day, Miss Maybelle watches us and the Samson boys like a hawk, making sure we don’t sit down on either of the two benches out front which she informs us are “U.S. Government property!” I’m sure she keeps track of school vacations closer than we do.

  “How old are you now?” she demands, giving me the once-over.

  “Twelve, going on thirteen in July,” I say, resenting her greenish-yellow gaze.

  “Good. My niece from Virginia is comin’ to town next month and she’s bringin’ her daughter who’s about your age. I’m callin’ your mother to have you two play together while my niece and I visit.”

  Miss Maybelle stops, not having asked me if I’m interested or anything, but clearly expecting a reply. As if, in addition to the P.O., she’s the boss of the world.

  “I’ll tell Mother you’ll be calling her, ma’am,” I say lamely, hating how she makes my blood boil.

  “Don’t forget! Now, what kind of trouble you two gettin’ into with no school all week?”

  “No trouble, Miss Maybelle, just playing at the packinghouse or down at Dry Sink.” Ren’s scratching the back of his left leg with his right foot.

  “Dry Sink! There’s no place around here called Dry Sink. What are you talkin’ about?” she demands. Nothing sets her off like an inaccurate address.

  “You know it, ma’am,” I say. “That big, dry sinkhole in the back grove behind our house.”

  Miss Maybelle’s age-spot-speckled face creases briefly into her snapping-turtle smile. “That what you call it? When I was a girl, it was Little Lake Annie, the local swimming hole.”

  “Dry Sink? A swimming hole?” we ask, truly amazed.

  “Certainly was. We had a rope off the big old oak tree on the side, used to spend hours swinging off it into the lake,” she cackles.

  Ren and I look at each other, dumbstruck.

  “You kids today have no idea what
real fun is!” Miss Maybelle huffs. “Go on, now. Marie Louise, tell your mother she’ll be hearing from me.”

  Ren and I beat a path around the corner to P.O. Box 122, second section, third row from the top. Moving fast, to escape Miss Maybelle and recover the conviction that “This is the Day!” Ren misdials the combination the first time and has to do it again. Finally, the little glassed door springs open. There it is—the large manila envelope from La Grange, Illinois, and a handful of small ones. I grab them all and, after cat-walking carefully past the front counter, we fly the half-mile back to the house.

  Doto’s where we left her, enthroned on the screened front porch with the large leather journals she calls her “book-work.” In the blue one, she records her “monthly updates” from the trustee who administers her father’s estate. In the red book, she tracks her “income and outgo.”

  We burst through the screen door and our grandmother looks up, cat eyes twinkling. We thrust the envelope into her hands, grabbing our sides and gasping from the run.

  Slowly, she takes her silver letter opener and slits open the top. Mother, having heard the door slam, appears expectant on the porch, reading glasses in hand. As Doto removes the stack of smaller envelopes from their enclosure, we eye each one for an official-looking clue. Quickly, she spreads them fan-wise like a bridge hand, scanning the return addresses in the upper left corners. Her face falls in the message it’s not here.

  “Look again,” we insist, as she deals the stack, one by one, face up on her ledger book.

  Not there. Even though last week’s packet gave notice that our registered letter had been duly delivered to F.B.I. headquarters, even though he’s had a whole seven days to respond, Mr. J. Edgar Hoover has not yet found time to reply.

  “Damn,” Ren says glumly. As the three females surrounding him look at him sharply, he levels his eyes, obviously feeling justified.

  “Double-wide Hoover dam,” Doto tosses the compliment to what she calls his mettle.

  “Triple-toed beaver dam,” he tosses back.

  “Daddy’s in the car barn.” Mother sighs, veiling her disappointment. Ren and I run to deliver the news.

  Easter Sunday, Miss Maybelle nabs me in the vestibule. “Marie Louise, I hope you haven’t forgotten our social plans?” she says, squeezing a face-crease in my direction. “My grandniece Maryvale will be here the second Saturday in May and I’m sure she can’t wait to play dolls with Miss Reesa McMahon!”

  “Dolls!” I grouse to Mother once we’re seated in the church pew. “You think Maryvale is some little bitty old biddy like Miz Maybelle?”

  “I doubt it, Roo. I’m sure the Good Lord broke the mold after He made Maybelle,” Mother murmurs. “Now, sit up straight, here comes Daddy and the choir.”

  Chapter 7

  Easter night, Mother and I are peeling eggs when all of a sudden Buddy, asleep by the door, shoots to his feet and winds up his tail. At Luther’s tappety-tap-TAP, Mother calls, “Come in!”

  “Evenin’, MizLizbeth. Howdy-Doo-Roo,” Luther calls back. His over-bright smile’s a poor mask for the dark grief lines crisscrossing his face. “Y’all have a nice Easter?”

  “Okay, how about you?” Mother asks gently.

  “Good as could be, all things considered,” Luther says, dropping his eyes quickly to pat Buddy. My throat tightens at his sideways reference to Marvin, and following his lead, I swallow hard. After a moment, Luther looks up again. “How’d the program go?”

  Under Daddy’s direction, the choir performed an Easter cantata.

  “Came off well,” Mother says and leaves it at that.

  The Easter service had been agony for me. I’d gone unprepared for the effects of the familiar story—the bright young man, so kind and gentle, so gifted at storytelling, the murderous mob, the uncaring officials, the terrible sorrow of his family and friends. Of course, Jesus’ story turned out considerably better than Marvin’s. The rousing finale, Up from the grave He arose with a mighty triumph o’er His foes, left me sobbing. Miz Sooky Turnbull, sitting in the pew behind us, reached up and patted me encouragingly, heartened, I’m sure, by the hope that I’d somehow blundered my way into salvation. It wasn’t that at all, of course. Jesus rose, a victor o’er the dark domain. Marvin’s dead, gone forever.

  “How about yours?” Mother asks him.

  Few white people realize that besides being the best citrus pruner in the county, Luther’s choir director at St. John’s A.M.E. And nobody, outside our family and his choir members, knows that the choirs of both churches often perform similar programs, courtesy of sheet music passed between the two directors.

  “It was fine,” Luther says, his eyes appreciating Mother’s kindness.

  I watch the two of them, marveling at the way they tiptoe around each other’s pain, like the way your tongue probes yet protects a toothache.

  “Armetta do her solo?” Mother inquires.

  “Ah wish you could’ve heard her.” Luther’s smile is real this time. “Not even Paul Robeson hisself coulda sung ’bout the balm of Gilead any better. The whole church-house was lifted up, lifted right up.”

  “Wish we could’ve been there. Please tell Armetta I’m thinking of her,” Mother says, laying a soft hand briefly on his forearm. “Reesa, show Luther in to Daddy, please.”

  Luther trails me into the living room where Daddy sits at the piano working on his new piece.

  “Evenin’, Mist’Warren. What we got here?” Luther takes his reading glasses out of his shirt pocket and puts them on his nose. “Rhap-so- dee in Blue,” he reads. “How’s it go?”

  “You know this, don’t you?” Daddy asks. “I used to. Forgot all about it ’til Doto showed up with the sheet music.”

  “Can Ah hear it?” Luther asks with the briefest flash of his old self. Daddy sees what’s coming. Settling in on the sofa, so do I.

  “Play it for me, Mist’Warren,” he chides Daddy gently.

  Musically, Daddy and Luther are different as night and day. While Daddy works hard mastering his pieces, Luther has the ability to hear a song once and play it back, perfectly at first, then even better, embroidered with whatever he hears inside his head. In the comfortable, comforting game they’ve played for years, the rules are simple: Daddy plays first for Luther, then Luther returns the favor.

  When Daddy lays his hands on the keyboard, everything about him elongates. His head rises above an upright back. His legs extend flatly to the floor, right foot on the pedal, left toes gently tapping. His fingers stretch out on the keys, wrists flat.

  “Rhapsody in Blue” is my new favorite song. When Daddy plays it, I imagine I’m in a place far away from here, where people are nothing but nice to each other. I see it clearly inside my head:

  A beautiful ballroom, the handsome, tuxedoed gentleman and the charming Miss Rhapsody—a vision in sky-blue chiffon, swirling about her, around them as they dip and float across the polished marble floor. The sound of sophisticated music, the perfume of jasmine and orange blossoms fill the air, and her hair, with sweetness.

  “That’s a fine song. You played it right elegant!” Luther tells Daddy at its end.

  “Thank you, sir.” Daddy nods, ceremoniously yielding the piano bench to his old friend.

  Luther sits. His long, loose-jointed body curls over the keyboard, palms pressed together briefly as if in prayer. Lightly, he lays one finger, then another, on the keys, tickling out the La-Da-Dee-Da of the opening. Then, fanning his fingers like a faith healer, he plays. Once the basic line is laid, he begins his embroidery, threading twice as many notes as Daddy did. Elbows, arms and his entire right leg pumping, angular yet effortless, like an ibis taking flight. Mother appears in the doorway. Doto, Ren and Mitchell crowd the upper stairwell.

  Luther’s version of the song is local—less Rhapsody, more Blue. His lady lays sobbing-hearted on her bed, waiting for the one who has not come. Memories of their last perfect dance together fall like leaves onto the crumpled heap that was her party dress, now abandon
ed on the floor. At one point, she gets up, suddenly alert, certain he’s come. But, no , she realizes. Nobody’s there. Sinking back into bed, sadder than before, she knows he’s not coming, not tonight, not ever again.

  Oh, Marvin . . . Remember when I said I wasn’t looking forward to teenage dances because I didn’t know how; and you said, “Don’t worry, li’l Rooster. Ah’ll teach yuh t’ Car’lina Shag with the best of ’em!” Who’s going to teach me now?

  When Luther finishes, my entire family applauds him wildly. He looks up, dazed and distracted by a sorrow so thick it’s seeped out his fingertips. He nods, thanking us all. “No, Luther, thank you,” Doto calls from the top of the stairs. “That was wonderful.”

  “You’s most kind, Miz Doto,” he says softly.

  Doto says goodnight and herds the boys back into their bedroom. Mother returns to the kitchen and I remain, temporarily forgotten, on the sofa.

  In a voice worn and tired, Luther says quietly to Daddy, “Mist’Warren, Ah come for your help.”

  After their first year in Mayflower, my parents say, they asked Luther to stop addressing them with the customary Mistuh and Miz attached to their names. “We’re friends,” they told him, “our first names will do.” But Luther wouldn’t have it.

  “Ah ’preciates what you saying, and Ah’m proud to call you friends ’cause you’s quality folk; but you’s in the South and got to get use to they ways. If Ah was to call you jus’ Warren and Lizbeth, the white folks ’round here bound to think you’s crazy, and they’d laugh at you and leave you alone. Worse’n that, they’d take a notion that Ah’s getting uppity and that don’t bring nothing but trouble, Ah mean!”

  Eventually my parents surrendered to Luther’s logic, yet, in his way, Luther rebelled against it, pruning the customary Mistuh down to Mist’ for Daddy, grafting Miz and Lizbeth into a single word.

  What is it, Luther?” Daddy asks, sitting in the chair nearest the piano bench, leaning forward.

  “Armetta’s plum grief-struck over losing our Marvin. Since it was the Klan that kilt him, and Mistuh Reed Garnet’s a member, Armetta swears she can’t never set foot in they house again. Miz Lucy Garnet’s been up to our house with they little girl crying, please come back, saying Mistuh Reed had nothin’ to do with it, it was the Lake County devils that kilt our boy. Armetta won’t take a listen—though she loves that li’l May Carol like her own, such a sweet child. But, Mist’Warren, Armetta’s use to working, she needs to work, take her mind off funeralizing. Ah’m wondering if you might have something for her to do. Not in the house. We know MizLizbeth likes to tend her own. But, maybe at the packinghouse, cleaning up, clearing out. Just enough to get by ’til she finds herself a new fam’ly to work for.”