How High the Moon Page 16

  “Git!” he hollered. “Get on outta here!”

  There was a brief skirmish. Stumbling through the mud and bushes. The man shouted after them.

  “You best get on home to your mamas!” he said. “Go on, now, beat it!”

  I knew that voice. It was the voice from Mama’s record.

  J.P.

  ella

  Mr. Parker wrapped me in an old quilt he must’ve used to cover the bed of his truck on dry days. It smelled like the rest of the beat-up vehicle, like motor oil and dirty clothes. I’d washed myself some in the icy-cold creek to clean up my legs and arms a bit, but my cuts and scratches stung, and my entire body was sore. Even my scalp throbbed. It took me a while to finally begin to get warm again. I leaned into the passenger door with my face out the window, letting the familiar night air brush my face and calm me.

  Most of the ride, we didn’t say a word to each other. A song scratched in and out of the radio, the melody kinda nice, but the voice impossible to hear.

  “Lemme see how them scrapes look now,” he said, indicating my forearms. I held up my arms. They were torn and still bleeding, thin streams slowly making their way to my elbows, dripping onto the old quilt. It was the skin on the back of my thighs that was throbbing most, but I wasn’t about to turn around and show him my backside. “Okay,” he said, reaching past me to the glove compartment. There he found a small dry rag. “Here. They ain’t so bad. Granny’ll fix ’em right up.”

  I dabbed at my wounds, then pressed the cloth on a particularly deep one, holding it there so the bleeding would stop.

  I stole a look at Mr. Parker. His eyes were narrowed and intense as he looked out at the road. I guess he could feel me looking ’cause he turned to me. I had to turn away. My eyes landed on a photograph taped to the dashboard, next to the steering wheel. It was Millie Parker and her mother. They were wearing matching smiles. A flower, long ago dried up, was taped down at its corner. I’d seen folks tape up pictures of their loved ones in their car before. They put ’em where they could see ’em to make ’em smile during a bad day. To remind them that there’s someone at home that loves them. Someone that they love most of all.

  We was both looking out onto the road, the lone truck’s headlights cutting through the black night.

  I turned to him.

  “How’d you meet my mama?” I asked.

  “Lucille?” He looked at me and his eyes brightened. “Heck, I guess we’d known each other in one way or another our whole lives. She and her sister used to come into the shop with Granny all the time when we was just kids. Wasn’t till we was grown, though, that we came to really know each other.”

  We hit a pothole and I bounced in my seat. The truck’s whole body squeaked with the jolt.

  “Music brought us together,” he went on. “I saw her take to the stage at the Feline Club in Charleston one night. Amateur night. They’d let anybody get up and try out their talents on a real crowd.”

  I thought about Mama on the stage in Boston. Back in Charleston, did she shimmy? Did she sneak out of the house with a fancy dress under her overcoat?

  “She was good!” He laughed and looked at me, nodding. “Yes! I said, ‘Lucille, you gotta let me record you.’ I was trying my hand at recording engineering at the time.”

  “I know. I heard the record,” I said, picturing Mama and Mr. Parker in love. Strangely enough, it wasn’t so hard to imagine.

  “Oh, yeah?” His mind drifted off down the road again. “We both had big dreams.” He laughed and shook his head to himself.

  We passed through a rough patch of craters and crevices in the road. More bumps. I held onto the window frame.

  “Had plans to go to New York and try my hand at the big time, but two weeks ’fore I was to go, my daddy died.” He took in a long breath, remembering. “So much to tend to. And there was no one else to run the shop, so…”

  “What about Mama?” I asked.

  “Well, by the time I came back to town, your mama had already up and left for Boston. She just couldn’t wait to get up there.”

  “And what… what about me?” My voice was trembling as I asked.

  Mr. Parker turned to smile at me. “You? Well, first time I laid eyes on you, you was just a fat little thing—”

  “But didn’t y’all wanna see each other no more?” I interrupted.

  Mr. Parker turned to me, brow twisted. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, didn’t you love her?” As soon as the words escaped my lips, I wanted to shove ’em back in my mouth. It was the way he looked at me. The way he’d asked me what I meant. My whole face caught fire. Suddenly I felt embarrassed for what I was thinking. For all my screaming and crying. For having run off into the woods after dark and getting myself in trouble. Mr. Parker had come out there to help. He’d rescued me from them boys, but… but I’d had it all wrong.

  “Didn’t I… what?” He looked at me, confused at first, but then his eyes widened and he took in a deep breath. He turned his eyes back to the road and let out a heavy sigh. We drove in silence a bit before he turned to look at me again. But I couldn’t meet his eyes. “You think I’m your daddy, Ella?”

  I felt so stupid.

  “Well,” I explained, “I found a letter, and Mama’s record. They was signed ‘J.P.’ I just thought that maybe… I mean, when I heard you on the record, I just thought…”

  Mr. Parker didn’t say nothing. He looked back out at the road and the black night. I could see that he was frowning a little and chewing on his lip. He’d gone deep into a thought and it was a full minute before he seemed to remember I was sitting there next to him.

  “The week before your mama took the stage on amateur night, she came into the store with Rhoda. I hadn’t seen Lucy—or Rhoda, for that matter—in some time. She—your mama—was so different from the last time I’d seen her. Had grown so much. I guess we all had. We all got to talking… and laughing. I never knew how funny she was. Really witty. And, well, pretty. Your mama’s got a real smile on her.” He looked down the road, like he was watching a memory. “I didn’t wind up at amateur night by coincidence. I’d overheard them talking about it and made a point of being there to hear her sing. And I guess I was just about as smitten as every other fella in the club that night.” He let out a chuckle.

  “I got her into the studio, and I think we made one heck of a record. To thank me for recording her, she planted a tree in honor of my mother when she passed,” he said. “Yes, we did become friends, but… I’m not your father, honey.”

  The radio had given up on scratching out sound and resorted to static. Mr. Parker switched the thing off, leaving just the squeaking of the rusty truck and my sniffling.

  A ways in front of us, a red fox darted across the road. As the truck passed its path, I tried to make it out in the dark, but could only hear the pleading squeal of a cottontail.

  “Well…” I searched Mr. Parker’s face. Surely he would tell me the truth. “Did you know him? Did you know my daddy?”

  His face was sad. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Ella,” he said.

  The tears came easily. “I don’t know who he is,” I said. “I need to know.”

  We were turning down my driveway.

  “Look at me, Ella.”

  I calmed my breath and turned to face Mr. Parker. He slowed the truck and put it in gear. “Maybe… maybe the fact that he didn’t stick around is all you need to know.”

  Granny came out to the porch just as we pulled up. She wrapped her arms tight ’round her body as if to keep out a chill, though it wasn’t the least bit cold. She looked fragile as a mended teacup.

  “You know you got your mama’s fire in you, don’t you, girl?” Mr. Parker took my chin in his hand and smiled at me. I felt myself blush a little. “It ain’t your loss you never got to know who your daddy is. It’s his loss he never got to know you.”

  A long silver chain carrying a medallion hung from the rearview mirror. Mr. Parker pulled it free and handed it to
me. The carving was of a man carrying a staff in one hand and a child on his back.

  “That’s Saint Christopher. The patron saint of travelers and children. Ever seen one?” he asked.

  I shook my head. I ran my finger over the metal ridges, over the man’s face, staring, watchfully, over the child. I held the medallion out to Mr. Parker, but he didn’t take it from me.

  “No, no. I want you to keep that. Even the toughest of us need a little protection now and then,” he said.

  Poppy, Myrna, and Henry all poured out of the house.

  “Go on, now. Your family’s waiting for you.”

  I pushed open the stubborn, squeaky door and climbed out.

  “No more going out after dark,” he said.

  I shook my head and pushed the heavy door closed. He nodded good-bye and I did the same. I wanted to say more. But there was nothing more to say. I ran to Granny. With her arms wrapped around me, we watched the truck drive off, red taillights disappearing into the black.

  ella

  I went inside, but didn’t say nothing to nobody and nobody said nothing to me. I just went straight to my room.

  All the covers and sheets from my bed was pulled off and onto the floor. The side table lamp was knocked over. The new doll I’d brought home from Boston no longer had a face. I had smashed its porcelain head open. Its features—an eye, the nose, the pink mouth—were scattered across the bedroom floor. Her body lay in a corner of the room on its back, arms outstretched.

  The black shards of Mama’s shattered record were everywhere.

  I pulled a sheet from the floor and lay back in my bed.

  Granny came in with a cup of peppermint tea and a bowl of warm water.

  “Sip on this, baby,” she said, handing me the mug. “It ain’t too hot.”

  She set the bowl down next to me, then pulled bandages and a tin of ointment from her pockets. She dragged a small stool in front of me and began cleaning my wounds and wrapping them.

  The healer in her was fast at work on my scrapes and scratches, but I was waiting for her to soothe my mind. Was waiting on the truth.

  “Why won’t you tell me ’bout my daddy, Granny?”

  Without looking up, she finished wrapping the last gauzy bandage and securing it before setting the bowl of water off to the side and gently taking my elbows in her hands.

  “Baby, your mama… I guess she didn’t want nobody meddling in her business, and… I reckon ’cause…” She took a deep breath. “’Cause he was white, she didn’t want nobody knowing anything about him.”

  “He was white?” I felt my heart start racing again. What did that mean?

  “Honey, that’s all we ever did know—”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “Folks saw them together. People talked. I think they tried to keep it secret, but… I imagine that’s why he left town. I can’t imagine it was so pleasant for him.”

  “And he just… left?”

  “Seemed to me like it was over just as quick as it’d started.”

  “You think he knew about me?” I searched her face for the truth.

  “I don’t know, baby.” She shook her head. “I don’t.”

  A hot tear dripped into my tea. And then another. He was out there. Probably in California just like they’d all said, and maybe he did know there was a baby, but he just didn’t want to be a daddy. Not to a baby like me, anyway.

  “But all my life… How come you didn’t tell me that I was…?” But I didn’t know what to say. What was I? Was I black or white? What did it mean to be both?

  Granny wiped the tears from my cheeks and took my face in her hands.

  “You is the same person you was yesterday, Ella. You understand me?”

  But was I?

  “You understand me?” she asked again.

  “Uh-huh,” I said, still frowning. Still somehow doubting.

  “This is who you is, Ella.” She tapped my heart. “All this other…” She traced my bare arms, my cheeks, anywhere she could find my peanut skin exposed. “It don’t matter.”

  “It sure matters to some folk,” I said. I was different. I didn’t want to be, but I was. Truth was, though, that I’d been just as different the day before, and the day before that.

  “But what some folks want you to be and what you is… well, sometimes they gonna be two different things. But you will always know who is in here. Got me? This is who you are.” She was more stern than I was used to seeing her. “You is the same.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  But really, nothing was the same.

  myrna

  Over the next couple of weeks, we all held our breath. We made sure to always walk together to and from school. And once we came in after school, we didn’t go out again at all, never mind curfew at six. Poppy and Granny made most trips to the store or the post office. There was no telling if those boys would come back to finish the trouble they’d started, or if anybody would be wanting to take out their anger on us for what they thought George did. Honestly, I didn’t wanna go nowhere. Hated having to go to school. Everybody wanted to talk about George. Him not being there. I couldn’t stand it. I was happy to go home at the end of the day and just be.

  Our family was spending more time with one another, doing chores and farmwork, but also sitting together, listening to Poppy tell stories, talking about the day, playing cards. Sometimes I’d crochet or knit. I think we all needed each other; needed the comfort of each other.

  Ella was sad about George like all of us, but she was also carrying around something else. A different sadness.

  One night, we were in bed and I was just starting to fall asleep when Ella whispered through the dark.

  “Myrna, would you sing to me?”

  I hadn’t sung Ella to sleep since she was six years old and I was nine. Back then, I used to have to sing to her every night. She couldn’t go to sleep unless I did.

  I turned to her in her bed. She was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling, eyes wide. Her hands gripped the sheets high and tight to her chest. Sleep didn’t look like it was anywhere near her.

  O they tell me of a home far beyond the skies,

  O they tell me of a home far away;

  O they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise;

  O they tell me of an uncloudy day.…

  Ella let out a satisfied sigh as she turned to face the wall. The rest of the house was completely silent. I couldn’t hear Granny rustling about, or any squeaking of the floorboards. Henry must’ve been asleep, too. Outside, the birds and the tree frogs were still.

  O they tell me that He smiles on His children there,

  And His smile drives their sorrows all away;

  And they tell me that no tears ever come again,

  In that lovely land of uncloudy day.

  It was the song I sang for George at the picnic. After I sang for him that day, he said that my voice had a soothing quality. I’d said “Shut up!” and tried to dismiss his flattery, but inside I knew that my singing did soothe my little cousin. I hoped that when George read my letter, he heard me singing the song. That the words, telling him to hold on and not give up hope, came out as soothing as a song. I hoped he’d found comfort and strength when I said we all believed in him and that it would all be okay. But writing wasn’t what I did best. Singing was.

  I turned and faced the wall, closed my eyes, and quietly sang the hymn for George. I sang it through my heart and went to sleep knowing that somehow, in his cold cell, he’d heard it.

  henry

  It took the jury only ten minutes to come back with a verdict of guilty. They sentenced him to die in the electric chair.

  The news stung everyone on our side of the railroad tracks. Cut us all to the quick. Wasn’t nothing like any bad news I’d ever heard of before. Nobody gossiping about what they heard, or what so-and-so said. There wasn’t no gossiping. There was hardly any talking at all. We was all stunned into silence.

  The cou
rthouse had been so full up that there was folks spilling out onto the front steps of the place. Must’ve been more than a thousand people crowding in there. All white folks. Weren’t no colored folks allowed inside. They was all white jurors, too. White men.

  It only took ’em ten minutes to come back with a guilty verdict. I just couldn’t understand how they could all be so sure he was guilty when I was so sure that he wasn’t.

  The NAACP came to town to try and help. They tried to make the case that the trial wasn’t fair. George’s lawyers didn’t call no witnesses, and George was questioned without a lawyer when they took him in. Didn’t even have his folks there with him. That ain’t fair. That ain’t right. There was never nobody looking out for him. And that confession they all talked about, well, nobody never did show any documents saying it. The NAACP has been known to be able to help bring about justice in some cases, so for a couple days we got hopeful. I think they was hoping that they would at least change the sentence to life in prison. But it turned out there wasn’t nothing they could do for George.

  School closed down for a week. Mostly folks stayed in they homes. Some went to church and prayed. Myrna wouldn’t come out of her room. There was nothing anyone could say to her. Granny had to take her food to her, else she wouldn’t have eaten at all.

  Ella and I picked up Myrna’s chores. No one asked us, but we was glad to do it. I think we both wanted to busy ourselves as much as possible. Sitting still just meant thinking, and I know I could hardly bear being alone with my thoughts about George. Ella tried to talk to me about it. She had as many questions as I did, but I was a year older than she was and I think I understood that there just weren’t good-enough answers.

  Less than two months after the sentencing, they put George to death. It rained all day, and for two full days after. Even after the rain passed, it took a week for the sun to break.

  I was having a hard time sleeping. I woke up constantly. When I did sleep, I dreamed of George or giant tidal waves or quicksand.