Reincarnation (24 page)

"It's too hot," Mike objected. The car's fan had conked out somewhere around Kentucky.

"The handbook says to," she insisted. "We should have done it miles ago, but I was just now leafing through the book and remembered."

Beside him, his older brother Ray snorted disdainfully. "I'm not roasting to death in this car.

We're not in the Soviet Union. Don't be so paranoid."

"Shut up, Ray," Mike said, mildly annoyed (as he often was around Ray). "You didn't even come to the training in Ohio."

Ray rubbed his jaw, a habit that majorly irritated Mike. Whenever he did it, Mike could be

fairly sure he was about to say something especially jerky. "I didn't come to your stupid

training because I'd never have come on this lame-brain trip in the first place except Mom

begged me to catch up with you and make sure you don't get yourself killed."

242

This was about the hundredth time he'd reminded Mike about this, implying that Mike was

incapable of going it alone. It was not a gesture Mike appreciated. Most likely, Ray's true

motivation for coming along was because he saw it as a treasure trove of available young

women. Every time he turned around to the three in the backseat, he flashed that bright

shark's smile at each of them. It made Mike want to kill him.

Ray had showed up on the last day of their training at the Western College for Women in

Ohio. It had been organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which the

students referred to as "Snick." Ray had been warmly welcomed, as they all had been, but Ray was particularly welcome because he looked like the star football quarterback that he

had been in college until graduating last year. A big, good-looking,

Ail-American like Ray could come in handy if things got ugly -- and they already had. Three

Civil Rights volunteers had been murdered in just the first ten days of their drive to register

Negro voters here in Mississippi. Two were white, one black. In addition, there had been

beatings, arrests, and bombings.

Rolling up his window, Mike looked at the three signs at the crossroads: Savage, Alligator,

Coldwater. One of the girls in the backseat had taken out a map. "We're headed for

Ruleville, so I think we should go that way," she said, pointing.

243

"Isn't that where they beat up Fannie Lou Hamer just for registering to vote?" another girl asked.

"I think so," said the third. "Can you imagine?"

They drove down a two-lane road past sagging shacks made of wood and tar paper. Vistas

of endless cotton fields spread out on both sides. In most cases, the cotton grew right to

the front doors of the shacks. "Remember, go five miles under the speed limit," the first girl coached from the backseat.

"Is that from your handbook, too?" Ray asked disdainfully.

"Yes," she replied. "We don't want to give the local law enforcement any reason to arrest us."

"Paranoid," Ray muttered.

They stopped at the address they'd been given, just outside Ruleville. It was a simple, run-

down, wooden house with an open front porch. Three other cars were parked in front. A

man with a beard, wearing jeans, sandals, and a T-shirt with SNCC on it, came down the

porch to greet them.

"Welcome, I'm Dave," he greeted as Mike rolled down his window. "There's a pot of chili inside and ice-cold soda."

"Hallelujah!" one of the girls cheered, stepping from the backseat and smoothing her

madras shift dress. She led them up the steps, where they were met by other volunteers.

Mike stopped on the porch to bask in the cool of an old electric fan balanced precariously

on a rickety table. Next

244

to the fan was an open record player. At least the place had electricity. That was something.

Inside were twelve other volunteers -- five guys and seven young women. All of them were

college-age, white, with middle-class ways. They greeted Mike and his carload with smiles

and offers of food and drink. Although his fellow idealists were all strangers, Mike felt right

at home.

The house was dominated by one large central room, which contained a small, antiquated

kitchen, a table with a linoleum top, and a faded green velvet couch. Two small bedrooms

were behind this room.

After eating, the tall bearded man took out his guitar and led some singing. Perched on the

table and the couch or cross-legged on the floor, they sang protest songs: "Eyes on the

Prize," "Oh, Freedom," "Blowin' in the Wind," "We Shall Overcome."

Inspired by his hero, Bob Dylan, Mike had written three protest songs of his own. They were

in the trunk of his car, and for a moment he entertained the idea of showing them to the

group. But before he could work up the nerve, they moved on to popular songs like "I Want

to Hold Your Hand" by the Beatles and "Chapel of Love" by the Dixie Cups. Ray grinned at the three girls from the backseat when they got up and did a rendition of "Leader of the

Pack." Mike guessed Ray assumed they were thinking about him as they sang, "That's why I fell for ... the leader of the pack."

"Tomorrow you'll start going door to door to register

245

voters," Dave told them at about ten o'clock. "It's not going to be easy. These people have already been threatened not to register and they know all too well that these are not idle

threats. They won't trust you right away. You're white. Why should they? We have to be up

early to avoid the worst of this heat. Better get some sleep."

"Should we lock the front door?" the handbook girl asked. During their training sessions in Ohio they had been instructed not to let themselves be taken by surprise at night. Makeshift

headquarters like this one had already been set afire, bombed, or raided.

Dave shook his head. "It hasn't got a lock. Besides, we'll die of heat in here if we shut the inside door. Maybe one of us should stay awake. We'll change shifts every two hours."

"I'm not tired," Mike volunteered. He spread out his sleeping bag on the floor of the main room where the guys were sleeping and settled down with his hands behind his head. In

minutes, he heard Ray's unmistakable snore, followed by Dave's sputtering

version.

Silver moonlight rimmed everything as it flooded in through the screen door and kitchen

window. It was still brutally hot. The crickets were nearly deafening and a mosquito had

gotten into the room. When its shrill buzz stopped, he knew someone would feel the red

circle of sting in the morning.

Afraid he might sleep, he walked out onto the porch, where the crickets were louder still.

The fan was still on

246

and he indulged himself again in its breeze before heading down to his car.

Inside his trunk was a knapsack of clothing sitting beside his unstrung bow and quiver of

arrows, which he'd left there after his last competition. As usual, he'd won first place.

Though not the super athlete Ray was, at least there was one shelf in their paneled den for

his many archery awards.

From inside his knapsack he took out his paperback copies of Hermann Hesse's
Siddhartha

and Jack Kerouac's
The Dharma Bums.
Everyone he knew was reading Kerouac's
On the

Road.
He found he preferred
The Dharma Bums.
He'd done some research and learned that dharma was an important concept in Hindu and Buddhist religions. It meant one's spiritual

place in the universe, or what a person must do in order to do his spiritual duty.

Lately there was a lot of interest in eastern religions.
Siddhartha
was about Buddha's journey to become ... well, Buddha. Buddhism interested Mike but he wasn't sure he quite

understood it. It seemed to him it might take a lifetime to fully get it right.

Mike liked to think -- or hoped, at least -- that coming here to Mississippi was part of his

spiritual duty.

Everything was up for grabs these days. Dylan's latest album said it all:
The Times They Are

A-Changin.
At least he hoped they were. He had come all this way to Mississippi to be part of that change. It might improve his karma -- or

247

maybe it was his dharma. He wasn't sure, but he was hopeful.

He sat on the porch, thinking these things, letting the fan wash over him. Remembering why

he was awake, he stood and walked to the edge of the porch, scanning the miles of

cotton fields for any sign of movement. He offered silent thanks to the moon for giving

them such a well-lit night.

Turning back to the chair, he noticed again the beat-up record player on the table. The

record on it was as worn and old looking as the player, but was probably even older. His

grandmother had owned records like it. It was a collection of songs by a female singer he'd

never heard of. Delilah Jones.

Curious, he turned it on, quickly lowering the volume so he wouldn't wake anyone.

Immediately a bluesy jazz voice filled the night, singing of a lover who got away.

Slowly he sat, transfixed by the soaring voice that cut through time and space to reach him

as nothing else had ever reached him before.

Louisa Raymond sat on the porch of the same house she'd lived in as a very young child,

rocking and fanning herself. The young man walking up the dirt path to the house had

parked down on the road. Squinting into the sunlight, she tried to see him more clearly.

Lately things had become a bit blurrier than they'd once been, though in her estimate

248

forty-seven was far from old. She was sure others, especially young people, would disagree.

Fishing in the pocket of her cotton dress, she pulled out cat's-eye-shaped spectacles and

held them to her eyes.

Right away, she knew his business.

He was one of those voter registration kids from up North. It was written all over him: the

plaid cotton shirt, the slightly longish hair, the clipboard, and the way he moved, so crisp

and alert.

"Good morning, ma'am," he addressed her with one foot on her bottom step. "I'm Mike Rogers. I was wondering: Are you registered to vote?"

"No, young man, I am not registered nor do I wish to be," she replied.

"Would it be all right if I asked why not?" he said politely.

She smiled slightly. These young volunteers had such a cordial way of talking. She admired

that. Someone had coached these kids well. "Yes, you may ask. I do not wish to register to

vote because there's trouble enough in this world without provoking it."

"What about your rights as an American?" he asked.

"As a
what
?" she asked, her voice rising into a hoot of derisive laughter.

The young man didn't smile. "You are an American, aren't you?"

"I suppose I am, but I have always considered myself

249

a citizen of the world. It's here in the United States that I must endure the indignities of

second-class citizenship."

"And doesn't that make you angry?" he prodded.

"Where do you go to school, young man?" she countered, preparing to point out the great

cultural gulf that divided them, how clueless he was about her life and what it was like. "Do you spend your weekends singing 'All Hail Harvard' or 'Yippee for Yale'?"

"I attend Princeton," he replied.

"So it's 'Pip! Pip! Princeton,' then."

As she spoke, the world tilted, actually seemed to lurch to one side. She gripped the sides of

the chair to keep her balance.

In a bound, he was beside her. "Ma'am, are you all right? Can I get you anything?"

"Would you get me some water from inside?" she requested. "There are clean glasses in the dish drain."

Licking her lips, she scowled across the sun-bright fields.
What was that?
she asked herself.

It might have been some new manifestation of the cancer in her breast, but she didn't think

so. It felt like something else. Yes, it was something else and she realized what it was in a

sudden flash of understanding.

Mike Rogers returned quickly with a glass of water. "Is it the heat?" he asked, crouching to hand it to her.

As she sipped the water she studied his hazel eyes and brown curly hair. "Have I met you

before?" she asked.

250

"I don't believe so. I'm not from around here."

"I just experienced the most overwhelming déjà vu. Do you know that expression?"

"You felt that you'd lived through the exact same moment before?" he offered.

"Yes -- just back when we were talking about Princeton. It was amazing."

His eyes grew larger. "I felt it, too."

Was he making fun of her?

He continued. "When you spoke those words, a picture came into my head. You were saying

the same thing to me. You had a big black cat with you. Weird, huh?"

Louisa grabbed the walking cane hung at the side of her chair and stood abruptly. This time

the world spun once, then twice. She gripped his arm as it spun again.

And then everything went black.

He laid the woman on the couch in her living room. He wasn't sure if this was the right thing

to do, but he couldn't leave her outside in the heat. Hurrying back to the kitchen, he found a

clean dishcloth, soaked it in cold water, and returned to the living room to lay it on her

forehead.

It would probably be best if he just left, but that didn't seem like the right thing to do,

either. What if she didn't come back to consciousness? He should call a doctor but he didn't

know who to call. He'd give it another minute.

251

This was the nicest house he'd seen since arriving here, at least of those belonging to the