Freshwater Road (43 page)

Celeste heard the words Magna Carta, and niggers, too, as she saw the
bloodshot hatred rise in Mr. Heywood's eyes, his face in full flush now.
How could he even speak the words Magna Carta in this place? Did he
know the Magna Carta? Of course he must. This was a man of poetry, of
books, of flowers and trees. She felt Mrs. Owens tremble and put her hand
on the woman's arm to steady her. He'd called them niggers.

"We been studying all summer. We ready." Mrs. Owens never said his
name. "Ain't no need for name-callin'."

"If y'all don't get the hell out this building, you going be looking at the
inside of a jail cell. Now, study that. Go on, now, get out that side door."
Mr. Heywood took in a huge amount of air, exhaled. "We forget this ever
happened. Now, go on. You hear?"

How generous, Celeste thought. The side door rather than the back
door. Progress. Didn't want them contaminating the front of the building
again. Something was telling her it was time to go. They'd made their first
try. Time to rethink and regroup. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a
man who must be the sheriff fast-walking down the hallway toward them,
passing under the white glass shades of the lights that lined the ceiling. A
blur of brownish pants and shirt, a silver badge, belt buckle, and shining
buttons, a gun handle, a flushed white face, young and hearty. Grandma
Pauline would say, "He come from good white stock, strong as dirt." Nothing to play with. No movie star cop with a fat cigar. Young enough, she
realized, to be with the movement.

Celeste thought it was time to leave, but Sister Mobley spoke. "Mr. Heywood, peoples got a right to registe' and they got a right to vote. We want to take that test like everybody else. Today. We don't take it today, we gon be
back tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and the day after that. Gonna be
more of us next time." She pursed her lips as if fully expecting her words to
be the final push to their success.

Celeste hadn't expected thin Sister Mobley, with her hair pressed to
stick-straightness, to say anything at all. She turned to look at the woman,
not knowing whether to encourage her on or to whisper to her to be quiet,
let Reverend Singleton lead. Celeste was proud of her, and confused by her
courage.

Mr. Heywood saw it all coming first and backed up a few steps. By the
time Celeste caught up with Mr. Heywood's eyes, Sheriff Trotter had spun
Reverend Singleton out from the group, picked him up by the lapels of his
nice summer gray suit so that his feet dangled above the floor, and thrown
him across the foyer. She felt out of step, unable to catch the moment.
Reverend Singleton stayed in the air for the longest time, it seemed, his face
contorted in surprise, his impeccable clothes bunched up under his chin,
the pink of his shirt in a gnarl next to the shock on his brown face. Nothing
in their practice sessions at the church had prepared them for this.

Celeste watched not sure of what she was seeing, feeling heat in her
ears that muffled the sound until a passing child screamed "mommy," and
the child tried to run toward Reverend Singleton as if to catch him. Her
mother snatched the girl up, her Shirley Temple curls shaking and shining in the cathedral light. Reverend Singleton's feet came down on the
hardwood, and he slalomed backwards unable to regain his balance before
finally hitting the far wall and crumpling to the floor. The sound echoed
in the cold hard foyer. Celeste wanted to move toward him to help him,
not sure if she should drag Mrs. Owens and Sister Mobley with her. Stay
together. She saw the sheriff to her side, retucking his shirt, and she decided
to go for Reverend Singleton, who hadn't budged. His eyes were closed.
She moved one foot toward him and before she'd completed the step, she
felt the cold metal on her temple, just a circle of coolness, then heard the
cocking of a gun.

"Take one more step, nigger, and I'll blow your brains all over this
lobby." The sheriff spoke quietly, calmly, with complete authority, his voice
thick with accent but somehow smooth, even, not dipping too far, like he
might be from someplace else. Celeste doubted one other person in the lobby
heard his words-she wasn't even sure she heard those words herself.

The stillness in the foyer deafened thought. Then the sniffle of the child
echoed off the polished wood, the beginning of a cry. She remembered her
own helpless crying when a blind man had come to the door begging for
money, how she'd pulled on Shuck to give the man some money. Reverend
Singleton opened his eyes and nodded "no," his body still splayed out like
a drunk on a no-name corner. In that flaring moment, Celeste saw black,
then lost her breath as it searched around for a way out. Shuck, I'm dying in
Pineyville. She imagined her face broken into pieces, her eyes hanging by
nerve-wires, her nose falling away on the floor. She dried up inside, feeling
only the cold metal on her temple. Where was Mrs. Owens? Sister Mobley?
Head not turning, breath held, she felt urine on the verge of seeping out
and clenched herself tightly closed, her body floating above all need except
the need to live. Please don't kill me in this coldplace.

Sheriff Trotter lowered the gun, the silver barrel whisking through the air
at the corner of her eye. "Now, y'all get the hell out of here like Mr. Heywood
said." The sheriff spoke again. "Get on." He pushed Celeste forward.

Celeste's spine creaked to life, blood-heat replacing the metallic cold on
her temple. She glanced at the sheriff's bright blue eyes and saw that they
sank to near-black, saw the badge that read Trotter. She knew his name, had
heard it first from Matt and then from Negro people all summer long, had
seen him in his car staring hot and mad at her. Eyes as dead as marbles, as
hot as a branding iron. Reverend Singleton gathered himself from the floor.
Mrs. Owens took Celeste by the arm.

Sister Mobley raised her bible like a shield. "Depart from evil and do
good, so you will abide forever." She waved it at the sheriff, who stood there
looking at her. Her bony arm shook. "For the Lord loves justice, and does
not forsake His godly ones." Sheriff Trotter ignored her though she spoke
directly into his face.

The child across the lobby let out a bawling cry that first caught in her
throat and then just kept coming. Celeste turned to see the woman pick
up the child, curls bouncing. They raced out the front door, the sobs and
whines of the little girl echoing in the lobby.

Mr. Heywood wedged himself between Sister Mobley and Mrs. Owens
while Celeste helped Reverend Singleton to his feet. The sheriff shoved
them along, the minister's gray suit seams pulling apart under the force
of the sheriff's hands. Celeste blessed her tennis shoes, the only things between her and the hard floor. Mr. Heywood tugged the two older women, Mrs. Owens's hat shifting forward on her head, ushering them energetically
down the never-ending hallway toward the side door. The compromise door.

Whites lined the hallway, all hard eyes and gaping mouths. Celeste
fully expected them to applaud, but they didn't. She thought about the
little girl wanting to help Reverend Singleton when he fell backwards.
What would her mother tell her when they got home? Would she say, you
are never to help a person whose skin is not white, ever in your life, no
matter what? What she told that child would make all the difference in
the world, Celeste knew.

"I have seen a violent wicked man, spreading himself like a luxuriant tree
in its native soil." Sister Mobley talked to the paintings as if she knew them
all. Her voice rang out. "I be back to register. You can't stop me forever."

The somnambulism of Pineyville came to an abrupt end.

When Reverend Singleton stood in the pulpit that evening, the church
half-full, his sleeves rolled up, his eyes set in a no-nonsense glare, he told
the assembled that no man, white, black, or green, had the right to treat
him and the rest as they'd been treated that morning at the Pearl River
County Administration Building. He knew, as the word spread through
the hinterlands that he'd been assaulted by the sheriff while asking for his
constitutional right to vote, that the people would come and they'd be
ready. Some people needed more encouragement, more motivation than
others. He announced that there would be a pep rally every night until
they broke through the wall of resistance at the registrar's office. Negro
people would be voting in Pineyville or his name wasn't Reverend Bernard
Singleton.

Celeste sat with Mrs. Owens and Sister Mobley in the front row as he'd
asked them to do.

"Some of us think the burden for change should fall on just a few. If
we don't have more than a few, we might as well have nobody at all." He
paced. "You must bring the slow ones along." His anger stewed like the
compressed heat in the church.

"That Sheriff Trotter picked me up and threw me, do you hear me? He
threw me across that lobby. My back may never be the same." He pointed
into the air. "He put a gun right to the temple of Sister Celeste. He threatened to shoot this child dead right there in the lobby of the Pearl River
County Administration Building. Threatened to kill her right before our
very eyes." He reached a hand out towards Celeste. "That registrar of voters, Mr. Heywood, insulted and embarrassed Sister Mobley and Sister Owens.
Do you hear me, now?" He reached both arms out toward them. "Now,
let me tell you this. We cannot have this. We did not go there to threaten,
we did not go there to hurt. We went there to register to vote. To register
to vote. Do you hear me?"

The church moaned. They fanned against the heat and humidity, called
on God and rustled around in their seats. The sun faded into dust and
there would be the ride home with no protection. From this day forward,
Celeste knew, they would be like ducks in a shooting gallery, like renegades,
dreadful pariahs to the white community. The whites' hatred of them was
no longer beneath the surface but in full bloom, right out there in the light
of day and in the darkness of night. They knew that these Negroes had to
be stopped or the entire south would change. It was war, and the whites
had all the guns. Now their nonviolence would be tested down to its bone
marrow, to its core.

Sister Mobley stood up. "I saw it with my own two eyes. It was awful.
That Mr. Heywood grabbed aholt of Sister Owens and me, and that sheriff
put his gun right to her temple, held it there, then he pushed this child
and the reverend out the door. Oh, Lord a mercy." She swooned back into
her seat.

Mr. Landau stood and everyone quieted. "I know you don't believe in
self-defense. I know. But, if the brothers in the Deacons only drove their
cars over there, stayed in their cars with their guns, all this would go a
whole lot better."

With no instruction from her brain, Celeste felt her head nod in the
affirmative. It sounded reasonable until she remembered that in truth, that
kind of confrontation would lead to a bloodbath, and even the Deacons for
Defense and Justice didn't have enough guns to win. The whites had all the
old laws on their side, too. It just sounded so good when Mr. Landau said
it. She had seen the hatred in Sheriff Trotter's eyes, in Mr. Heywood's, too.

Reverend Singleton thanked Mr. Landau and asked him to stay around,
to have a word with him at the end of the meeting. Mr. Landau sat down.
Celeste would get to hear what Reverend Singleton had to say to Mr. Landau as he and Mrs. Singleton always drove her, Mrs. Owens, and Sister
Mobley back to Freshwater Road after the meetings.

Reverend Singleton called for the second group of volunteers to be ready
to go with the first group to swell their numbers. They would meet at the church again in the morning and go to the County Administration building again and again and again until someone in this town was registered
to vote. He asked them to stand and led them in the singing of freedom
songs. The singing felt good to Celeste, released the residual anxiety from
the day, from the gun to her temple, but she knew it was only the beginning
and only God knew where it would end.

After the singing and the greeting, Dolly Johnson and Mr. Landau stayed
behind and volunteered to join the group on the next visit to the county
building. Reverend Singleton took Mr. Landau to the side, leaving all the
women. Celeste felt she should've been included in that conversation, which
she was sure was about nonviolence, and tried to hear what was being said.
A few minutes later, Mr. Landau walked from the church without saying
another word to anyone. Reverend Singleton gave her a quick nod.

Celeste had hoped against hope that Sissy's death would provoke
Mrs. Tucker to stand up and away from her husband as she'd done at the
funeral. She had it in her mind that Zenia Tucker would appear at the
church door, just as her daughter had done. Celeste prayed that the woman
would find the courage to join them as a way of healing her own heart. Her
prayer had not been answered and her hands were tied because she could
not go to that house and try to convince Mrs. Tucker that this thing they
were doing was Sissy's dream, too.

When Reverend Singleton brought the rest of them back to Freshwater
Road, Celeste walked to the big mailbox, praying for something, anything
that had life outside Pineyville written on it. She reached inside and felt the
soft pad of mail. Letters. This place of no phones made letters so much more
important, scripted voices from places far away. A storm began to whisper,
the clouds gaining girth. She brought the mail out and read her name on
an envelope. The return address was the One Man, One Vote office in
Jackson, and "E.J" was written above it. The others were for Mrs. Owens.
One had a Chicago return address-probably from her sons. She put the
letter in her book-bag, grinning right into the dark clouds. She held her
face up to catch the fine drizzle that began to fall, seeing Ed Jolivette with
the moonlight on his dark skin, catching the whiteness of his teeth. In her
mind, he was always dancing.