Four Spirits (55 page)

While Agnes held her close to her body, Christine spoke in a gush, into Agnes's hair. “You know I could ask my sister. She used to 'em, but—”

“No, don't leave 'em with nobody but Tom and me. We done made our way. We ready.”

“I got it writ on this piece of paper what I want. You take this, keep it safe. Dee wouldn't fight you, but I want everybody to know. I choose you.”

Agnes began to kiss Christine right there on the street. It didn't matter who saw. But she listened to her thumping heart, how it wanted Christine to live and have her own life, even more than her whole being wanted the gift of children. Three children! She took Christine's typed-out paper, folded it, and kissed it, and pressed it next to her heart. She unbuttoned her dress right there on Twentieth Street and slid the paper insider her brassiere next to her flesh. They could snatch her purse, but they'd have to rape and kill her to get that paper.

“Now you go along,” Christine said. “I don't want you anyplace 'round here 'cause that's my babies' future you got there.” She gently helped Agnes rebutton. “And that's what this is all for.” She nodded at the White Palace, a place no more segregated than any other diner, restaurant, or lunch counter in Birmingham. Someday her children would go inside the White Palace, same as anybody, and eat a hamburger.

Agnes kissed Christine again on her cheek. Half blind, Agnes made herself begin to move down the sidewalk, to the south. She could feel the hand grenade soldier and the police behind her, but with every step she put space between herself and them. TJ would never have to go as a soldier again. She tried to fix her eyes on the sky, to thank God for love.

But Christine must live to have her children. Still, she, Agnes, was loved, and chosen, and trusted. Her eye fell on the big Fair and Square sign of Blach's store, the square ruler and the lily, pretty as the cross of Jesus.
Thank you, Lord
Jesus
, she tried to just mouth it, but the words came out, and she knew she mustn't talk to herself out loud or people would think she was crazy.

“Wait,” Christine called after her. Christine was standing where she was, but she called.
Softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling
. “You know their names, don't you?”
Calling for you and for me
. “Where the names come from. Diane, she oldest, and then I studied history, and the boys are named for kings of England.” Christine in her Sunday suit stepped closer to Agnes, and the confidential words tumbled out.
Come home, come home, come home, come home
. “Eddie, Edward 'cause King Edward gave up all for the woman he loved, and I thought Eddie's father might love me like that, but he left for Detroit and didn't ever send for us.”
All you children, come home, come home
. “And Henry, I call Honey, named after Shakespeare Henry the Fifth, who grew up wild but made a good man.”

“I know their names,” Agnes reassured. “Diane, Eddie, and Henry.”

“I think Eddie might needs some glasses. I been intending to have him checked, but I never did do it.”

“I get his glasses fit.”
All you children, come home with me
.

Now they were holding hands, two women making one. Agnes stopped crying. She needed to listen and learn. She needed to know as much as she could. “Keep on,” she said.

“That scar on Diane's shoulder. That just a chicken pox scar. I told her that was where she got her smallpox vaccination, but she ain't never been vaccinated really. I was scared of those vaccinations 'cause they say the germs ain't all the way dead. But I reckon I ought to go ahead and let her be vaccinated. And last Christmas wasn't so good, and I promised all of 'em, Santa Claus come double this year, if you can.”

Agnes felt that a dagger had entered her heart. “Don't say that. Don't say that, Christine.”

Christine shook her head. “You probably know better than me what younguns need. Don't pay any attention to this babble. Go on now.”

But Agnes had to sound the warning. “My voices told me to shop, yesterday and again this morning. I got toys in this shopping bag. I been to the presales, and me with no children that I buy for.”

She saw horror pass over Christine's features. Her body was trembling inside her navy blue suit.

“You already got toys for my younguns' Christmas?”

“I been trying and trying to tell you. Don't do this sit-in. My voice say, ‘Go look for Christine. Tell her go home this day.' ”

“Well, you've told me.” Christine was calming herself already. “I can't let myself be superstitious, Agnes.” Her body ceased its trembling.

“You still got the choice, girl.” Agnes's thoughts scrambled to make everything straight and fitting together. “Whether you live or die,” she said, “these Christmas things going to your children. That's all
that
means. You live and keep your children for yourself.”

HER HOUSE WENT, NOT WITH A BOOM, BUT A LOW THUD
and sudden collapse, as though a mallet from the sky had, with a single blow, pounded the structure earthward. The windows in the front bedroom blew out in a flash of light, and the entire corner of the house sank down. Immediately there were flames ready to consume the wreckage.

I can kill my enemies,
Lee thought.
I know how. I know the long and short of it.
Why did that phrase please her so much? From her vantage point across the street, she puzzled over it an instant.
The long of it is deciding. The short of it is doing it.

In the end, while he was snoring, she had snatched the beautiful crochet-lace-trimmed table drape, and she held it now, wadded up, pressed against her heart. Her treasure. She had taken her treasure away. In the end, she had cut away the clock and just lit the fuse.
Suppose I trip,
she had thought, but then she told herself the truth:
I won't.

And then in her smugness, just after she positioned herself across the street, she remembered what she had seen. Just out of the side of her eye, running toward the lean-to back porch. She had seen Superman coming to save her worthless husband. Superman all shrunk little, and running like a little kid, not all-powerful and flying. Disappearing from her sight just at the moment of the boom, the exploding glass, the sinking down of the foundation, the refiner's fire.

That, she could not face. That, she would never ever face. She promised herself: she had not seen anything. That was impossible because Bobby had been
sent to her mama's, and Bobby was a good child who obeyed. Run! She was the one who must run!

And she did. Nobody was looking. Not yet.

She ran like a wild woman. She made herself smile as she ran. When her neighbor a block away called out “Where you going?” Lee tossed back, “I won a prize. I won a prize. I'm going after it!” And she knew glee was all over her face because she had done it, and
that
was not imagined.

She was free. She had never been so terrified. Her bottom was healed now. She'd never been so scared and glad. She was strong as Wonder Woman, even panting like she was, and she held out one wrist to one side and the other to the other side to deflect whatever bullets or arrows might come. The sweat was pouring down her face, after she'd run half a mile or so. Lee made herself slow to a fast walk.

She saw a little colored boy pushing an ice cream cart, and she felt in her pocket.
Yes,
there was a dime. Just before she lit the fuse, she had picked up the loose change on the bedside table. She had done everything right. She'd sent the children, all the children, to her mother's, and Bobby was a good child, who always did exactly what she told him. Hadn't she said,
Y'all stay till I come to get you
?

The colored boy was barefooted, and the pavement was hot, but she knew their feet was tough and he was used to it by now, and he had ringworm on his neck, but she didn't care, the Popsicle would be wrapped up good. She folded the lace cloth into a triangle and draped it like a shawl over her shoulders. When she asked for orange, the boy lifted the thick square lid of his pushcart. Smoke from the dry ice came lofting out like he had the fires of hell in there. He reached down in it almost to the pit of his skinny brown arm, and out came her double-barrel Popsicle, with frost on its wrapper and its twin wooden handles sticking out.

Then she thought of Vulcan and his Popsicle.

“I've changed my mind,” she said, and the boy looked scared, so she went ahead and gave him the dime, but she added, “I'd like cherry flavor instead of orange.”

He peered down in the cold hole, returned the orange and brought up the cherry. Then he went on down the street, ringing his bell with new confidence and hope.

Red, old Vulcan, 'cause somebody died today.

She started to pull off the thin paper, but some of it wanted to stick to the frozen Popsicle. She breathed her warm breath on the stuck place to make it loosen, and it did—a science trick most kids hadn't known when she was growing up, but she'd taught all her kids.

Taught 'em every little trick she knew. And they'd taught others. When she was little, she'd kept the secret for herself. She could keep a secret. She licked the sweet colored ice. Cherry was more sticky than orange, she'd always thought.

She licked her Popsicle as she walked along. Not too fast, but fast enough. She was going someplace. Anyplace. Back when she was a child, she'd tested her theory about cherry and orange stickiness. Back when Popsicles were just a nickel each, she had bought two, and closed her eyes so she wouldn't see the color. It was her science experiment. A “blind” experiment to see which kind was stickier. She'd chosen cherry, but the teacher had said, though she couldn't see the colors, she could taste the difference in the flavors and knew in advance that way which was which, so it wasn't really what you could call a blind experiment for
stickiness
. Lee had been mortified.

When she was home, her mother had laughed at her, but then she had stopped, just all of a sudden, and said, “They can't expect a child to be a scientist. You done good, for the first time.”

You can't expect any child to be perfect all the time.
That was her mother's lesson.

Lee shook her head. She didn't believe that, and she didn't believe what you saw out of the side of your eye. Because that couldn't be true. Because she would never hurt one of her children. She had control about that. She bit off the end of one of the Popsicle columns, the left side first.

The lump of cold in her mouth cooled her tongue so hard it almost burned. For a moment she stopped walking to hold her Popsicle up in one outstretched arm, like Vulcan. Twice as powerful as Vulcan. If he could talk, Vulcan would say,
You did it! You had the nerve to kill, little girl,
because he was a
pagan
god. Her minister was agitating to have him pulled down.
Ryder deserved it
—seemed like Vulcan himself was rumbling approval from up on the mountain. She'd always liked Vulcan and felt proud of him. Birmingham was famous for Vulcan. Her minister was a weakling.

She licked and bit till half the Popsicle was gone, and there was the pretty jagged half, full of ice crystals on one edge like little needles. She heard the sound of a fire truck, its bell, and a siren. A police car drove right past her, lights flashing, red and blue.

She was just a lady with a white lace shawl who was enjoying a red Popsicle, walking along on the sidewalk.

People get what they deserve,
she thought. Otherwise, God wasn't good, and he had to be good to be God. Justice was good. She'd done justice. Then she saw the pictures again—those four colored girls—the way they'd been in the newspaper.
They were just children
. And she didn't understand how God had let it happen in his own house. Maybe it was to make people think. Maybe it was to make people like her think. But that wasn't fair. God wouldn't make them die so a white woman would think. God was better than that. They had the same God as her; if that wasn't true, what was the point of sending missionaries to Africa?

Ryder hadn't suffered.
That was the only problem. He hadn't suffered like he'd made her suffer. And he hadn't known she was the one who blew him to kingdom come.

But she felt fit. She felt absolutely fine. She loved her own sweat. The way she could walk and walk, and not get tired, at least not very tired. She glanced behind her and saw the bus marked 15 Norwood, felt her pocket—yep, there was her getaway money. She raised up her hand (just about like Vulcan) so the driver would stop.

She'd go back in time. She'd ride the bus to Norwood. She'd walk on Norwood Boulevard. She'd find the house where the kind old crippled woman lived. She'd chew Juicy Fruit again and take some home to her kids, especially Bobby.

What had she seen? She'd seen the deep lace, starched and white, of the cloth next to the bed, dangling not far from Ryder's face and the scar on his cheek. She never had asked him how he'd come by that scar. And now he probably didn't have any cheek or any head.
Stop! Or I'll blow your head off.
That was what they said in the movies. She imagined his head, still asleep, blowing out the window, but what had she seen? Just the roar of glass flying out, and the flames, like a refiner's fire. The quick purity of the flames. And a little Superman.

No, not that!

Here was the Boulevard, and she pulled the exit cord. She had to get out!

“Bobby!” she screamed as her foot hit the ground. “Bobby!” The bus pulled rapidly away. She was tearing her own hair out. “Bobby!” She began to run. She'd find the crippled lady. The crippled lady would let her in. She'd
always been so kind. Whenever she'd remembered her all those years, she'd been kind. So fragile, like china, but just as kind as she could be. She remembered where the house was—up a little hill. And three children, just like hers, playing in the yard next door. The little girl had been blond, just like her Shirley. And right now, Big Mama was probably giving her own children little glasses of milk and taking the peanut butter cookies, with the crisscrossed fork marks on top, out of the oven. That's where her kids were, with her own mother, but
where
was that house?

Go up a little hill. It's close. Yes, if she turned right, she'd go up the hill, and she knew it was close to Vanderbilt Road. And then in her mind, she saw the house number, just like it was: 3621. She hadn't pictured that for many years. And there it was, in skinny metal letters:
3621,
and the two number had a little wiggle in it. All the thin numbers slanted decoratively. And she thanked God for letting her remember what she needed to remember and to forget what she needed to forget.

As she hurried up the porch steps, she could hear music from some TV show like
The Guiding Light;
yes, that was the sort of thing the old lady would listen to. Lee pushed the doorbell button and unleashed a terrible rasp of a sound. Did no one ever ring this bell? She heard movement inside, a slow thump, a sound like a dragging foot. Then the voice, “I'm coming,” and
yes,
it was the same voice, with the same quaver, and from inside, the lady was running the clasp chain out of its metal slot and she was opening the door.

“Please,” Lee said. “I came here when I was a little girl.”

“Did you?” the woman asked slowly. She was cautious. Her face was more deeply lined than Lee had remembered it, but her hair was exactly the same shade of deep red, only now Lee knew it must be dyed. And then the woman's name, like the house number, came back to her.

“Aunt Pratt!” Lee exclaimed.

“Well, that's me,” she quavered. “But you look all upset. Come on in, darling.”

Lee had to restrain herself as Aunt Pratt moved slowly out of the way. How had she known Lee wouldn't come bursting in, knock her down accidentally? Or be a robber? Slowly, slowly, Aunt Pratt moved to one side and then gave the glass door a little shove.

“Come on in,” Aunt Pratt repeated, as though she was speaking to a reluctant cat.

And Lee was inside. Yes, Aunt Pratt was dressed all in red, even her shoes
were red. The same heavy metal brace with the leather knee pad encased one leg. The brace went right through the shoe heel.

“Lord, darling,” Aunt Pratt said, “I don't really know who you are.”

“I'm Lee Jones. I live over—over yonder.”

“Oh, Lee. I remember. You're married to cousin Millie's nephew Ryder Jones.”

“I never knew we was kin.”

“Oh, yes. That's the connection.” She spoke so carefully, her voice seemed all cracked. “Please sit down. I am so sorry. I saw it on the TV. Channel Six but not Channel Thirteen.”

“I blowed up my husband,” Lee blurted out.

“Oh no,” Aunt Pratt said. “You must never say that again.”

Lee was surprised, but she became silent.

“He blowed himself up,” Aunt Pratt said. “That was on live TV. Sit down on that settee.”

Slowly Aunt Pratt reached out with her good foot and dragged the brace leg after her. Thump and drag. Time was about to slow to a stop. Thump and drag till she reached the dining room armchair, built up with an extra thick cushion, that had been placed in the living room. “I don't get around so well anymore,” Aunt Pratt said. “Did Ryder bring you to visit? I don't quite remember when you were here.”

“I was trying to sell tomatoes and vegetables. I came to the front door, and you gave me some chewing gum.” Lee let one hand wring the other. She couldn't help it. Over and over her hands tumbled like savage kittens.

“You need to calm down,” Aunt Pratt said politely. “Go into the kitchen and open the icebox. Get out the juice and an egg and break the egg in it. That's what I always drink when I get upset about Son—”

At the very word, Lee bolted from the settee. She couldn't go outside. She hurried through the dining room into the kitchen. She did as she was told. It was on TV!

When Lee came back to the living room, Pratt told her to change the channel. “You must turn the sound down,” Aunt Pratt instructed. “My niece Stella has a sick headache, and she's in that front bedroom lying down. I don't think she heard you though.”

There was Lee's house! The firemen were hosing the house.
A tragic accident occurred today
…. Lee could hardly stand to listen. Then the camera panned
over to her mother, and! Bobby! The sound came on and the lens moved close on his face, and in agony, he yelled, “Where's my mama?”

“Here,” Lee yelled. “I'm right here safe with Aunt Pratt!” And she burst into ragged sobs.

“I was so scared,” she told Aunt Pratt in jagged bursts. “That I might of killed my son, too, 'cause he might of gone back.”