Lay that Trumpet in Our Hands (16 page)

Chapter 31

Early Friday night, Doto herds the boys out of the house for dinner and a movie, a new Gene Autry, The Singing Cowboy, Western. As planned, I stay home to keep Mother company.

At 8:14, Daddy and Robert sit at the table, dressed in old dark-colored clothes and shoes, ready to go. Mother’s silent. I’m tightrope anxious and trying hard not to show it.

Mother and I jump at the sound of Luther’s knock. Letting him in, I’m surprised to see him dressed in a white shirt, dark tie and suit, as if for church. Behind him, Armetta in a navy blue dress carries a fat canvas bag by its cloth handles.

“Brother Luther, welcome,” Daddy hails him. “You, too, Armetta?”

“Luther and I thought y’all could use a little company while the men are out gallivantin’.” Armetta’s eyes are on Mother. “Were we wrong?”

“Not at all. Thank you,” Mother tells her and I can see she’s grateful. “I appreciate you thinking of us.”

“Thinkin’ of myself, too. Waitin’s hard work, unless you have comp’ny to distract you.” Her comment conjures up something Luther told Daddy the night Marvin was missing. “Armetta’s about worried herself to
death
,” he’d said. I want to hug her for being here.

“Luther, how come you’re dressed like that?” I have to ask.

“Well, y’see, Roo,” he says, enjoying himself, “mah friend Horatio at the Dump has a sort of bad reputation, mainly ’cause he likes to cook up a li’l moonshine now and then. A lot of people might find it hard to b’lieve a churchgoin’ man like mahself would visit a man like Horatio, unless, of course, it was to witness to him about his terrible evil ways. Horatio and Ah decided it’d be best, for
his
reputation and for
mine
, if Ah played the part of Brother Luther tonight. Got mah Bible in the car and everythin’. If we get caught at the lake or if anybody asks any questions, Ah might have to claim that Brother Horatio has
seen the light
and wants t’ be baptized there and then!”

Somewhere during Luther’s explanation, I realize everybody at the table’s grinning but Mother and me. Armetta reaches over and pats my hand. “It’s okay, honey, the Lord’s got a sense of humor jus’ like anybody else. Even King Solomon did a li’l play-actin’ . . . for a good cause.”

Luther looks down at his watch. “Y’all got 8:25?” he asks. As Daddy and Robert check their wrists, I eye the time on the kitchen clock above the stove.

“Ah b’lieve,” Luther says, “we could do with a word of prayer b’fore we go.”

“I think so, too, Luther,” Daddy agrees. “Please.”

“All right, then.” Luther spreads his palms out to me on his right and Daddy on his left. Wordlessly, we join hands around the table and bow our heads. Luther’s hand on my left is strong and calloused, his grip firm. Armetta’s hand, on my right, is velvety, smooth and comforting.

“Lawd,”
Luther says, low and respectful,
“You been watchin’ over us for a
long
time,
from our first breath to this one.
You know our
hearts
, Lawd.
And, You know we have
no hope
of accomplishin’ our task tonight
without Your help.
We
feel
, Lawd, like old Joshua, when You took him
to the great walls of Jericho and told him
to let Your trumpets
blow
.
Blow those trumpets, You said,
and the great walls of Jericho will come tumblin’
down
.
Old Joshua b’lieved You, Lawd, and so do we.
We ask You tonight:
Lay that trumpet in our hands.
We all know our part, Lawd, and we gonna do the best we can,
But it’s Mist’Warren and young Robert here
who need Your help the
most
.
Guide they steps, Lawd.
Protect they path.
Show them the way to the secret hidin’ place and,
Lawd
,
Lay that trumpet in they hands.
Give it to ’em, Lawd, then bring ’em
home
, safe and sound.
We
thank
You for the help
and for the hope that fills our hearts tonight.
We
bless
You for the privilege of doin’ this in Your name.
And we
praise
You, Lawd, tonight and forever.
Amen and thank God.”

I hear my parents and Armetta echo Luther’s “Amen,” and both Luther and Armetta squeeze my hands before letting go.

“Well,” Luther says, standing, “Ah best be goin’. Watch for the light on the lake at ten. Lord willin’ and the Klan don’t rise, Ah’ll see y’all back here at ’leven o’clock.”

Beside me, I hear Armetta suck in a soft breath as Luther leaves. Daddy and Robert, with thirty minutes to kill, decide to walk out and see him off, check the gear on the truck one last time.

Just before nine, they come back inside. Their goodbyes seem ordinary—Robert’s, a shy wave around the table, Daddy’s, a quick kiss for Mother and a confident “be right back” for Armetta and me—as if they were headed to the hardware store instead of into the very heart of the Klan’s secret headquarters. As if life, as we know it, doesn’t hang in the balance of what happens out there tonight. My chest feels clenched like a fist, like I’m sucking breath through a straw.

As the screen door slams shut behind them, Armetta lifts her canvas bag up onto the table.

“Reesa, Ah got somethin’ you might be interested in. Know what this is?” She’s holding a plastic container with a large brown glob inside.

“No’m,” I tell her, straining to hear Daddy’s pickup drive away.

“Well, with a little baking,
this
is a batch of my world-famous snicker doodles. You think you could find us a cookie sheet, maybe set the oven to three hundred an’ fifty degrees?”

As I search for and set out the cookie sheets, I feel suddenly chilled. In all the debates over tonight’s plan, nobody’s dared mention the real danger Daddy’s walking into.
What if
the fishing camp isn’t empty? What if somebody sees Daddy’s truck
driving into the Dump? What if they recognize Luther’s car, too,
and put two and two together? Everybody knows Daddy and Luther
are friends.

My hands, fiddling with the cover on the cookie dough, feel thick and stupid, like I’ve forgotten how to move. Armetta reaches over and covers them, warming me like a fire.

“MizLizbeth, I brought my sewing box along. I know with all these chil’ren, you
must
have some clothes that need mendin’, socks that need darnin’. If you’d like to help Reesa with the snicker doodles, I’ll be happy to sit right here and do a little mendin’ for you.”

Mother looks at Armetta’s face, searching, I think, for the words she’d like to say. Her hazel eyes are wet-rimmed with feelings.

“It’s all right, MizLizbeth. I’m an old hand at passin’ time. Could you bring me that mendin’ please?” Armetta says softly, opening her sewing box.

Just after ten, the cookies are done. Mother pours cold milk all around. As we sit down to sample our still-warm efforts, Armetta tells me she was my age when her Mississippi grandmother taught her the recipe.

“Have you always lived in Mayflower?” I ask her.

“Oh, no, chil’, I was born and raised in Ocoee.”

“Ocoee! There aren’t any Negroes in Ocoee.”

“Not
now
, but there used to be a whole community, like The Quarters here in Mayflower, only bigger.”

“What happened to it, Armetta?” Mother asks.

“Election Day 1920 happened, and a man named Mose Norman, our neighbor, drove downtown to vote,” she says, leaning forward, her eyes and voice calling us into careful attention. “The local Klan was mostly Dixiecrat and they were worried that day because
most
Negroes were votin’ Republican.

“The Klan showed up at the polls and started pushin’ and shovin’ our people away. Well, Mose Norman got hit and that made him mad. Mose drove over to O’landah to complain to a lawyer man, Mr. Cheney.

“Mr. Cheney told him to drive back and write down the names of
anyone
interferin’ with the vote, and anyone else who got turned away. Long story short, it turned into a mob scene and that night, the Klan showed up and set fire to our houses.”

“I remember hearing about this,” Mother says. “Didn’t the locals call it the Ocoee Riot?”

“Oh, they called it a lot of things, not much of it true.” Armetta eyes her mending.

“Late that night,” she continues, “there was a big gun battle at the home of July Perry, who lived in the middle of his own orange grove. At the time, he was the most influential Negro in town. Now, July Perry hadn’t done a
thing
but the Klan came after him jus’ the same, said he was hidin’ Mose Norman in the house. ’Course, by that time, old Mose was
long
gone.

“When July Perry asked to see a search warrant, the Klan opened fire. July Perry tried to scare ’em off by showin’ ’em his high-powered rifle, but it didn’t help. When two white men attacked his daughter, he shot ’em. Sheriff tried to haul him into jail, but the mob lynched July Perry, on the big oak tree outside his house.”

“Armetta!” Mother exclaims. I hear the tremble in her voice and know she’s thinking of Daddy.

“The rest of us jus’ scattered, scared outta our wits by burnin’ crosses and flamin’ houses. For a couple hours, my family—Mamma, Daddy and the six of us kids—hid out in a orange grove, listenin’ to the sound of gunfire and people yellin’ and cryin’ in the streets. Then my daddy decided it was safe to move and we started walking. It was
pitch
-
dark
that night. Most of us had been asleep in our beds when the trouble came, so we were barefoot. We walked all night, through the palmetto flats outside Ocoee, through the piney woods around Lake Opalakee, then
finally
, just before sunrise, we made it to Mayflower, where our cousins took us in.”

“How old were you?” I ask.

“A year less than you, honey.” Armetta’s eyes glow like embers. She seems at once both here and back there walking barefoot through the pitch-dark wood. “You remember Selma, works at the Garnet house now?” she asks me.

“Yes,” I say, nodding her on.

“
Her
people were in Ocoee, and they went to Opalakee. Others went to Kissimmee or to Eatonville outside O’landah, wherever they had fam’ly or friends. All in all, ’bout fifty people died that night, includin’ my best friend, Jolily Johnson.” She stops, then says, “But
no
body never did anythin’ about it. The F.B.I. came into town later, took statements from all the
white
men involved, didn’t even
bother
talkin’ to a single Negro.”

“But what about your things, your property?” Mother asks.

“
No
body ever went back. At first, we were scared to. Later on, we just didn’t want to.” Armetta picks up her needle, pulling thoughtfully at the thread. “We keep in touch, though,” she says, her face softening as if she’d remembered something pleasant. “Matter of fact, a bunch of us get together fairly reg’lar, not to dwell on what we
lost
, mind you. But to remember they’s
some
things can’t nobody take away, no matter
what
.”

My eyes stray up to check the clock. Mother sits staring at the plate of fresh-baked cookies, untouched between us.

Chapter 32

At 10:33, we hear the purr of A the DeSoto coming down the driveway. Mother and I hurry out to help Doto with the boys, who are both asleep in the deep leather seats. I carry Mitchell, Mother half carries, half walks Ren up the stairs to their beds.

The kitchen clock shows nine ’til eleven when we hear Luther’s truck, followed by his careful tap at the back door. Mother gets up quickly, stiffly, to open it.

“Should be right behind me, MizLizbeth,” Luther tells her quietly. He’s loosened his tie, left his jacket in the car. Walking in, he pauses beside Armetta to place a hand on her shoulder. She covers it with one of her own.

“Be here any minute now,” he says and the five of us—Mother, Doto, Luther, Armetta and me—sit silent, listening for the truck. I watch the second hand hop around the clock, nudging the minutes from 10:57 to 11:03 to a full ten after.

Luther checks his watch and shakes his head. “I
saw
’em,” he says, “walkin’ outta the lake and into the grove. Shouldn’t’ve taken but another
five
to reach the truck.”

Mother stands and leaves the room. I hear her walking back and forth on the porch. Luther and Armetta follow her. As I get up to join them, Doto stops me, tells me to “sit down and stay put.”
What’s wrong? Where are they?
I want to scream.

Doto remains confident. “Calm down. Your daddy’s smarter than any ten of those men put together. He’ll be here.”

Like a wave, fear rises up to choke me.
What if you’re
wrong
? I wonder. As if she’s read my mind, Doto glares at me to keep the faith.

At 11:30, worry, like a magnet, pulls Doto and me out of the kitchen and onto the porch. Nobody’s talking. Out in the yard, the crickets rub their wings and my nerves together, a pair of bullfrogs croak our concern, and a lone night bird cries for its mate.

I stand beside Doto, willing Daddy home.
It’s a ten-minute
drive; you should be here NOW!
My heart bangs inside my chest. For another lifetime, we stand and wait, watching the dark, not wanting to acknowledge the possibilities that swirl like demons around us.

And then, we hear it . . . the roar of the truck entering the driveway, its headlights arcing into view. Mother flies down the steps. Daddy brakes, leaps out and grabs her tightly. I wait my turn to hug him.

“Tire!” he says. “Goddamn
flat.
Picked up a nail on the way in . . . flat as a pancake when we got back.”

“They’re
fine
,” Doto announces, queen to her court.

“Right as rain,” Luther says, shaking off dark thoughts.

“And just about as wet,” Daddy says, tossing Robert a towel and swinging his waterproof ditty bag onto the table. “Sorry for scaring you all. Everything was fine until that tire. Never changed a flat so fast in my life.”

“We made it through the grove in
no
time, saw Luther’s light and headed down the beach,” Robert tells us.

“Didn’t see a soul,” Luther tells him. “Ev’ry one of them Klanners musta been at that big rally downtown.”

“The lake wasn’t any more than three and half feet deep,” Daddy says. “We waded right across it, holding the bag and the shotgun over our heads. Only thing was, in the middle, Robert looks at me and, quiet as can be, asks, ‘Did Ren ever say whether or not there’s ’
gators
in this lake?’ ”

As Mother gasps, Daddy smirks, “Let’s just say it’s a good thing my pants were already wet. We picked up the pace after that. Made it to the fishing camp fine, but as we walked up onto the beach, Robert nearly stepped on a
water moccasin.
”

A shiver snakes up my spine. Unlike a rattler, a deadly water moccasin will strike without warning, just as soon kill you as look at you.

“Scared me half to death,” Robert says. “Didn’t dare shoot it, though. Mr. Mac’s next to me whispering, ‘Stand
still
, stand
real still.
’ Now how am I s’posed to stand still when I’m shakin’ like a leaf?”

“Snake was as scared as we were,” Daddy says. “After a while—”

“He means
forever
,” Robert interrupts.

“—it slithered off. After that, we expected just about anything. Crept up to the door of the building and started searching for a padlock. Robert tries the handle and the door
opens
—we walked right in!”

“Tell ’em about
that
,” Robert says, nodding Daddy on.

“Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. On the outside, that building’s just plain pine clapboard, badly in need of paint. Inside, we switched on our flashlights and it’s varnished tongue-and-groove cypress, paneled like a high church or a courtroom. There’s a small anteroom, like a vestibule, in front and a big paneled door; beyond that, a fairly large meeting hall.”

“You wouldn’t
believe
it,” Robert tells us.

“Black, red and gold everywhere,” Daddy says. “Like a House of Horrors, with a big square painted on the floor. In the middle of that, some kind of altar.”

“Gave me the
creeps
.” Robert mock-shivers.

Daddy nods. “On three sides of the square there are chairs, some kind of ceremonial seats. And on the far side, opposite from where we came in, there’s a throne on a raised dais, big as a church pulpit but painted blood-red and black.”

“With a
huge
Florida longhorn cow’s skull above it.” Robert holds his hands wide apart to show us the size of the skull and horns. “I told Mr. Mac, ‘Wouldn’t surprise me to see the Devil himself sittin’ up there.’ ”

“Made my skin crawl,” Daddy agrees. “I went one way, Robert went the other, tapping the paneling with our ballpeen hammers, looking for a hollow spot. Took us about ten minutes, but just behind a small table on a side wall, we found it—hollow panel, about waist high, with a sliding door concealed in the woodwork. We got that open, and inside, there was a shelf and a good-sized tin tackle box. We opened that and found three books and a zippered bank pouch. The top book was a Bible.”

“Presented to Mr. Reed Garnet, on the occasion of his confirmation into Opalakee Presbyterian Church,” Robert tells us.

“Age twelve, by his loving mother.” Daddy grins.

“Oh, Lord,” Mother moans, “wouldn’t Hannah Garnet just die if she knew where that Bible ended up?”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Armetta purses her lips.

“We left it there, along with the pouch, which had a little bit of cash in it, and took the other two books with us,” Daddy says.

“What were they?” I ask, hardly able to breathe.

“Not much.” Daddy shrugs. “Just the Membership and Attendance Records. And the Treasurer’s Log.”

“Ohhh, if that don’t beat
all!
” Luther is grinning, slapping his thigh.

“
Then
what happened?” Doto demands.

“We put the hammers and the books in our bag, slid that tin box back inside the secret panel, closed the door, waded back across the lake, crossing our fingers that if there
were
any gators they
weren’t
hungry, ran through the grove, changed the flat and hightailed it home!”

“Were you scared?”

Daddy turns to face me. “Terrified,” he tells me softly.

“Can we see what y’ got?” Luther asks.

“You bet!” Daddy empties his bag in front of us.

Maybe because I was expecting big leather-bound volumes, like Doto’s ledger books, the black-and-white cardboard composition books, like Ren and I use in school, surprise me.

Daddy opens the Membership Book first. There, in someone’s tidy handwriting, is the list of names far longer than the F.B.I.’s list I saw last month. This one has columns with years of dates across the top and checkmarks showing who attended which monthly meeting. Apparently, the last meeting was just five nights ago, with all but a few members present and

accounted for. After that, there’s a section listing Klan Officers. Emmett Casselton’s at the very top, as Exalted Cyklops, above a list of strange-sounding titles like Klaliff, Kludd, Klokard, and others with the letters KL.

The second book, the Treasurer’s Log, has neat, numbered entries for dues paid and fines collected. Armetta is the first to notice that in the back of the Treasurer’s Log, there are a few odd enclosures. All of a sudden, she freezes, eyes wide, nostrils flaring, hand flying to her throat.

“What is it, Armetta?” Mother asks her.

Slowly, carefully, without removing it from its place, Armetta points out the newspaper clipping. “I have a copy of this at home. It’s the story about the Moores registering voters in The Quarters. My name’s in it, too.” Turning the page like it will tear if she touches it, she uncovers another sheet taped into the book. A rough pencil drawing. “Good God Almighty! You realize what
this
is?”

Daddy leans forward, studying the bunch of squares and rectangles with letters inside. I see “P,” “K,” “LR,” and, in one, a “BR” with a circle around it.

“Luther! Don’t you recognize it?”

“Recognize what?” Luther says, his eyes darting from the drawing to Armetta’s face and back again.

“It’s the Moores’ house!” Armetta says, pointing. “See here, ‘P’ is for porch, ‘K’ for kitchen. This ‘LR’ right here is the livin’ room. You and I sat right there last October visitin’. This ‘BR’ over here, the one with the circle, is the bedroom where the dynamite went off.”

“Are you
sure
about this?” Daddy asks, his blue eyes boring into her brown ones.

“Dead sure,” she says, returning his gaze steadily.

Daddy sits back in his chair. I find myself staring at the open window over the sink, wishing it was closed.

After a few long seconds, Daddy leans back in. “Anything else?”

“These last two sheets aren’t taped . . . let’s look.” Armetta unfolds the two sheets and places them in the middle of the table. The first one is a duplicate of the flyer inviting Klansmen to tonight’s Kounty-wide Klonverse in Orlando. The second one is titled Why the Klan liKes IKe! It calls on “Good Democrats and Real Southerners” to support Eisenhower for President. The flyer cites Ike’s record as “an enforcer of racial segregation in the U.S. armed forces,” his “opposition to civil rights legislation,” and his “support of immigration laws which bar Colored Races from entering the country.”

“Jim Jameson was right, this stuff
is
dynamite,” Daddy says. “Lizbeth, where’s the pouch?”

As Mother retrieves the mailing pouch Mr. Jameson gave Daddy, Armetta folds and replaces the flyers in the book. Daddy brings Armetta a plain sheet of paper and asks her to write a note to Jim Jameson stating that the drawing in the Treasurer’s Log appears to be the floor plan of the Moores’ home which she visited last fall. After she writes the note and signs it, Mother and Daddy sign it, too, as witnesses. Daddy puts the note on top of the two composition books, slips them inside the mailing pouch. He seals it and hands it, along with Mr. Jameson’s twenty-dollar bill, to Luther, who’s agreed to mail it from the Wellwood post office first thing tomorrow morning.

“Once you put that pouch in the mail, we’ve done our part. Now, we just have to hope that the Good Lord and the Grand Jury do theirs,” Daddy tells him.

“Amen to that,” Luther echoes.

“I still wish we could’ve blown that place up tonight,” Robert says on his way out the door.

“Back to hell where it came from?” Daddy asks. “Me, too.”

Robert grins and waves goodnight.

“We’ll see y’all later,” Luther and Armetta call quietly as they disappear into the night.

In the kitchen light, my parents’ faces seem drained of the excitement that filled the room just minutes ago. I’m dead-tired myself, not wanting to think.

“And now we wait,” Doto says, so softly I almost don’t hear her. I’ve never seen her look so old.

“Now,” Daddy says, helping her up, herding me out of the room, “we try to get some sleep.”

The Saturday morning after Daddy and Robert went into the Klan fishing camp, Ren (who knew nothing about their efforts) did the second most foolhardy thing of his life.

Privately, he and I had decided that the man who shot at him was most probably J. D. Bowman, the same trigger-happy Klansman who murdered Marvin. “But, of course, we’ll never know for sure,” I told him, trying to let that particular sleeping dog lie.

Well, Ren, applying the kind of cockeyed logic that only a boy is capable of, got up and took himself off to Carney’s Coffee Shop, the flat-topped fried-food restaurant across from Voight’s Grocery Store. Everybody knows Carney’s is where Mr. Emmett Casselton, King of the Klan, regularly holds court with two or three other men in the big corner booth facing the street.

Ren walked in, sat himself at the counter, ordered a hot apple fritter and a glass of milk, and settled in to eavesdrop on Emmett Casselton’s conversation!

“I was hoping they’d talk about the shooting and who did it and all,” he brags to me later, cocky as can be.

“Are you
crazy
?” I yell, dumbstruck by his brashness. “The Klan almost blows your head off and, first chance you get, you’re off to Carney’s pestering Emmett Casselton?”

“I wasn’t pestering him, I was just listening. But all he talked about was money, price of fruit, price of juice, price of land. Hardly worth the trip.”

“And that’s
all
that happened?”

“Well, yeah, until they got up to pay and Mr. Casselton noticed my Dodger cap. I had it pulled way down so he couldn’t see my head.” Ren’s scrapes have healed into beet-red welts.

“And?” I’m ready to strangle him.

“And he asks me, ‘You a Brooklyn fan, boy?’ ”

“And you said . . .”

“Well, nothing at first. He’s kinda scary-looking. Got these pale alligator eyes with no lashes, big old nose with gray hairs sticking out the holes, and skin like leather with sun spots all over him.”

“So, you didn’t answer him?”

“Yes, I did, too. I said ‘yes, sir.’ And, he said, ‘The Brooklyns are bums. Goddamn nigger lovers never won a Series, never will.’ ”