Destiny (46 page)

"A soda, please." She counted out a httle bundle of nickels. The girl shd the cold glass across the counter.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

An Elvis Presley record came to an end; one of the girls in the comer slid a quarter into the slot, punched some buttons. A rich Negro voice singing Blue Moon filled the room, deep, husky, lingering, sad. The white girls leaned back in their chairs, quieter now, their eyes dreamy.

They played it three times in succession. Helene made the soda last that long. Then she slid oif the stool and walked out. She liked that record. And she knew she never wanted to hear it again. Not as long as she hved. Never.

"Billy Tanner . . ."

One of the girls by the jukebox spoke the name; the door closed on her words. Helene looked down the street and saw what they had seen.

Billy was walking down the sidewalk on Main Street. He was alone, and walking slowly. As he walked, he was watched. Cassie Wyatt came to the door of her salon; one of her assistants craned her head to look out the window. Outside the hardware store, a man was sweeping the sidewalk; he stopped sweeping and leaned on his broom. He was in Billy's way, blocking the sidewalk, but he didn't move aside. Billy had to step off into the street to go past.

He passed the patrol car, still with its blue light revolving, and one of

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the policemen got out. He leaned against its door, just watching, one hand on the roof, one hand on his holster. Quite suddenly, the street was silent. No one called out; no one moved. A woman coming out of Merv Peters's grocery store hesitated, a big bag of shopping in her arms. She had a child with her. She looked down the street, then down at the child, then she pushed open the grocery store door and dragged the child back inside. Helene glanced behind her. The girls from Selma High had left the jukebox; they were all crowding around the window, their faces pale, their eyes round with expectation. One of them had her hair in curlers. Helene looked back at the street; light glinted on glass and hot metal. Billy kept on walking. Down by the gas station, a powerful engine revved, and then gunned.

Helene stood still for a moment, under the canopy, in the shade. Then she ran out into the heat of the street, across the road, onto the far sidewalk. She took Billy's arm.

"Billy," she said. "Billy. Let's go home. Let's go swimming." Her clear English voice carried way down the street. Billy looked down at her; he shook his head, tried to release his arm, but Helene took no notice. She clasped it more tightly. Billy sighed, then smiled, and they walked on.

Neither of them spoke. They walked side by side, down Main Street, past the stores, past the confusion of houses, used-car lots, and liquor shops that marked the outskirts of town. They came out past the first cotton fields, crossed the tracks by the Orangeburg crossing, passed the old decaying frame houses built for whites, where Negroes now lived; passed the square brick Southern Baptist chapel, and the big sign that said jesus saves! All the way a black Cadillac kept ten yards behind them.

Halfway between the town and the trailer park, Helene stopped. Billy tried to make her go on alone, but she held on tight to his arm, and wouldn't move. The Cadillac slowed, approached, came alongside. Ned Calvert couldn't look at her—he kept his eyes on the road ahead—but the others did. Five grinning white faces, two up front, three in back, sun ghnting on chrome tail fins and the barrel of a hunting rifle. Helene stared at them: Ned Calvert, Merv Peters, Eddie Haines, the two others she didn't recognize.

"You looking for something?" Suddenly she screamed the words at them. "You want to say what it is you're looking for?" Her words bounced off the chrome, were swallowed up into the hot silent air. One of the men laughed.

Eddie Haines took the gum out of his mouth and flicked it into the road.

"You just lost yourself a job, boy. . . ." he called, and touched Ned Calvert's shoulder.

The Cadillac swerved in close, dust rising. Then it pulled away fast.

286 • SALLY BEAUMAN

Helena watched it disappear. Then she looked at her watch. Past noon, almost one. The sun was almost vertical over their heads as they turned oflF the highway and began slowly to walk toward the trailer park.

Y ou shouldn't go gettin' yourself involved." Billy's blue eyes looked X down into hers. "You know where I'd been?"

"To the police station? Of course I knew."

"You shouldn't have done it." He shook his head. "I don't want trouble for you."

"Billy." She pressed his arm. "It's hot. Let's swim." They were standing under the cotton trees, in the still, shaded air. The shadows of branches striped their skin. There was no sound except their breathing.

"Helena?"

"I want to swim, Billy."

She stepped back from him; light and shadow glanced in her mind. The heat of the morning, and the cool of the cottonwoods. She knew exactly what she meant to do. Not why—but the "why" didn't matter; it was very unimportant, very small.

Billy was watching her, his body tense and wary, as if he could sense something hectic and wild in her behind the calm of her voice.

Helene lifted her hands, which did not shake at all, and began to unbutton her blouse. She took off the blouse, her wristwatch, the blue jeans, the sandals, the underclothes. Billy never moved. When she was naked, she stood still for a moment; Billy sighed. Then she turned, and shpped like a fish into the cold brown water. She surfaced, and tossed back her wet hair from her face, rivulets of water glittering like diamonds on her arms.

"Please, Billy. . . ."

For a moment she thought he was going to refuse, though she knew he understood. Then, slowly, he pulled off his shirt, eased off his sneakers. He kept his jeans on, and came into the water slowly, the water inching up over his body, as if he were going to a baptism. When the water was up to his chest, he paused; then he smiled at her, a slow crooked smile. Suddenly he ducked his head down and under the water, and came up in a shower of spray. He laughed, a loud sudden shout of pure elation that echoed through the trees; then he swam in the water beside her.

They swam for a long while, side by side, back and forth, never touching. Helene climbed out first. She stood on a part of the bank that sloped gently, a hollow of ferns and shadows. She waited. She knew he would come to her; she knew time had stopped; she knew Orangeburg didn't

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exist, nor Montgomery, nor the past, nor the future. There was just—^this: one right thing in a worid gone crazy.

Finally Billy came out of the water. He cUmbed up the bank and stood beside her, looking down into her face. A kingfisher flash of blue; eyes that were sad and troubled.

"I can't," he said at last. "Not now. Not Uke this. I can't do the wrong thing by you—you know that."

"The right thing! The right thing!" She lifted her hands and rested them against his chest. "It's very important. I know you understand."

"I understand." He covered her hands hghtly with his, pressed them.

"That doesn't make it right. Now. Here ..."

''Especially here." She lowered her head. "I want you to be the first, Billy."

She felt his hands tighten over hers, and his body give a Uttle jerk. She glanced up quickly.

"You knew? You knew I was seeing Ned Calvert?"

"I saw you together one time." Billy shrugged. "I knew better than to say anything. Knew you'd find out soon enough—what he is. It was better that way."

"Don't talk about him! I don't want to think about him! Billy, please— I'll never ask you for anything else ever again. Just this."

"I loved you a long time. So long. Long as I can remember." He shook his head; a tremor ran through his body. "If I'd thought you loved me back ... if I'd ever thought that ..."

He paused, and as Helene opened her mouth to speak, he lifted one finger gently to her Ups. "Don't you go teUing lies now. No lies, you hear? There's no need for lies. Not between you and me . . ."

Helene looked up at him. His face looked gentle, and his eyes immeasurably sad. Slowly she lifted her arms and wound them around his neck, her breasts brushing against his bare chest. She pressed her Ups to his cheek, then softly against his mouth. Then she drew back.

"I know I'm right. I know I was never more right in my whole Ufe." Her blue eyes blazed up at him. "I know I could make you, Billy ..."

"I know it too." Billy smiled. "I understand. There's no need for that."

Gently he put his arms around her, then he drew her down onto the ground beside him. He looked into her eyes then, as if there were something he wanted her to understand, something he couldn't say.

"First and last." He frowned slightly. "You were always that, Helene. Where I begin and where I end. That's all. Tell me you know that."

"I know." Her voice broke.

288 • SALLY BEAUMAN

"That's all right then," Billy said.

As he bent his head, and kissed her lips, she heard a bird stir among the branches.

When they lay beside the pool, Billy had three hours left to live. They killed him just around five, where the track from the trailer park met the Orangeburg road.

Helene heard the shot when she was halfway down the track, starting the walk back to Orangeburg to meet her mother. She stopped; the noise was very loud; a flock of ring doves rose clattering from the trees, wheeled over her head, then settled again in the silence. Then she heard running feet, the tearing of undergrowth, the slam of a car door, the screech of wheels on dusty tarmac. When she reached the place where they had left him, the air still smelled of scorched rubber. Billy was lying on his back in the grass by the side of the highway. His hands were relaxed; he lay in an attitude of sleep except that his eyes were open.

She fell to her knees by his side, panting. There was a film of sweat across his forehead; the freckles across his cheekbones were each distinct; his hand was warm to the touch. She thought: He's all right; they didn't do it; they missed; they meant to scare him is all; he's all right. Then she saw the red and the grayish-white on the grass, seeping out of the back of his head. She gave a cry and put her hands down to cradle his head, to heal the wound, to hold him together, to piece him back, to hide him—she didn't know what. Then his head lolled and she saw what they had done with their shotgun; the back of his head had gone; Billy had gone. She lifted her head like an animal and started to scream.

There were so many people, suddenly so many. She couldn't imagine where they came from so quickly, or why, when there was nothing they could do—it was too late. Children, dragged hastily to one side; the young couple from the trailer park; a man passing in his car, who stopped, and then turned into the bushes and threw up; the doctor from Orangeburg—who had called himl Couldn't they see Billy didn't need a doctor, not now? They were all looking, looking, and she hated them for it. She crouched over Billy, because she didn't want them to see him, not the way he was, and they didn't understand, they kept pulling at her, and saying things, and trying to get her to move. Then there was a ripple, a sound like a sigh; she saw feet moving back.

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She looked up, and Mrs. Tanner came through the crowd. She had the latest baby on her hip, its fat legs hooked around her flowered pinafore. She stopped, and put the baby down.

Then she knelt down next to Helene. She didn't cry out; she didn't speak; she just looked. She lifted Billy's hand and held it in hers. One of Billy's shirt buttons was undone; gently she laid his hand down and did up the button. As she did so the rain began, quite suddenly, the way it did after the hot days. Heavy drops splashed onto her head, onto Billy's shirt. She put her hands out, fingers splayed, as if she could keep the rain off him.

"His new shirt. His clean shirt. I just laundered this shirt." She lifted her head and her eyes met Helene's with the same blue gaze as her son's. "My oldest. My firstborn son. Billy ..." Her voice rose. She reached forward and shook him suddenly, as if she could wake him from this deep sleep. "Billy. What they done to you? What they done to my boy?"

Then she bent down and cradled him in her arms. She stayed that way until the police came. When they tried to move her, she hit out at them with her arms, wildly, then stopped, her eyes focusing on Helene's face as if she saw her for the first time. She pushed her violently, her hands wet with rain and blood, her face suddenly contorted with hate.

"You get away from him, you hear? Just get away. What you want with my son? I warned him about you. I told him. Stay clear of that girl. I said, that girl is trouble, Billy, you look at her and you'll get hurt. Way back when he was a httle kid I told him. ..."

The hate went out of her body then; one moment she was rigid with it, the next it was gone. She went hmp, and they moved her away. The baby began to cry; the air flashed white and blue; the ambulance siren screamed; the people were being moved back.

Helene stood up and groped her way to the side of the road. She crouched there, while behind her, people moved, and shouted instructions, and the baby's cry grew to a howl. She was still crouching there when Cassie Wyatt pulled up in her old beaten-up Ford. She went over to the patrol car; she said something; she came back to Helene. She bent down to her, her face furrowed and gray with tiredness, and hfted her to her feet.

"Get in the car, honey. Just get in. That's right. You're doin' fine. You got to come with me now, honey. Your mama needs you. She's askin' for you. Helene—you hear what I'm saying to you?" She turned on the ignition. "Your mama needs you, honey, needs you real bad. ..."

290 • SALLY BEAUMAN

Her mother had come back on the four o'clock bus, two hours early. She had collapsed on the sidewalk outside Cassie's beauty parlor, and Cassie closed up shop and took her inside. When she saw the bleeding, she got her into the Ford and drove to the Catholic hospital in Maybury. There was a bigger hospital nearer Orangeburg, but you had to have medical insurance to go there. "No Blue Cross card, they let you die on the sidewalk," Cassie said.