“Oh, God! And you said . . .”
Ren grins. “I gave him Marvin’s V-sign and said, ‘Maybe this year, sir.’ ”
I
groan.
“And he didn’t say nothing, just looked at me like I was an idiot.”
“You
are
an idiot!” I rail, shaking him. “If you don’t swear this
minute
, Ren McMahon, on the Holy Bible, that you will
never
go near Carney’s again, I’m going to tell Daddy
and
Doto, and you know they’ll make
mincemeat
out of you!”
“Leave me alone. Lemme go!”
Because our family seems so different from other people’s in Mayflower, Daddy’s always joked that we are strangers in a strange land. Somehow, Ren twisted that into believing he was anonymous or, worse yet, invisible. I have no idea whether Emmett Casselton recognized him as “the McMahon boy” or not. But I’m worried that Ren’s visit to the coffee shop draws attention to our family at a time when, Daddy says, “we need to be laying low.”
Chapter 33
Monday, April first, Fool’s Day, the Federal Grand Jury con-venes its investigations into Ku Klux Klan activities in the state of Florida.
By Tuesday morning, the news from Miami crackles through the school hallways like an electric current. Fourteen Klansmen have been subpoenaed statewide, twelve of them from Orange County, nine of them from Opalakee.
Before the first bell rings, Joan Ellen Marks broadcasts the morning report to a group of us lined up outside our classroom.
“Miz Lucy came over last night, mad as hell and wailin’ like a banshee,” Joan Ellen says. “I guess Mr. Reed thought there’d be a bunch more people from a bunch more Klans. But there aren’t but a few who aren’t from Opalakee. Miz Lucy’s ’bout gone ’round the bend ravin’ that Mr. Reed’s gonna wind up in
jail
! If
that
happens, Miz Lucy swears, she’ll never be able to hold her head up in this town again; she and May Carol’ll wind up in the
poorhouse
, or else livin’ with Mr. Reed’s mother, which Miz Lucy says would be a
fate worse than death
. It took Mamma most of the night to calm her down.”
“What about May Carol?” I ask, remembering her mother’s stinging slap at the Garnets’ pool party.
“She spent the night with me but went home to Miz Lucy this mornin’. Don’t think she’ll be in school today.”
In class, everybody wants to talk about the same thing, peppering our teacher with questions about Grand Juries and U.S. Prosecutors. Mrs. Finney, smelling an opportunity for some real-life Social Studies, puts aside Americanism versus Communism and begins a comparison of States’ versus Federal Rights.
“At the heart of this week’s events in Miami is the question of
jurisdiction
,” Mrs. Finney says, writing the word on the board. “Who can tell me what that means?”
My classmates, several of them related to the Klansmen now in Miami, appear well versed in the differences between state crimes (robbery, assault and battery, murder) and federal ones (the infringement of someone’s Constitutional rights).
“The jurisdiction of a Federal Grand Jury applies only to areas governed by
federal
law,” Mrs. Finney tells us. “Unless the Federal Prosecutor can prove that a federal crime has been committed, the people subpoenaed to Miami will have a nice vacation and come home in a few weeks, okay? May we move on to mathematics now?”
The news passed on from the maids to Armetta to us is pretty much the same. The nine members of the Opalakee Klan as well as the five others from the Orlando, Ocoee and Miami Klans were expecting many more Klansmen to be subpoenaed. Safety, so to speak, in numbers. They remain confident, however, and have been advised by no less than the state’s Grand Dragon himself that no federal jurisdiction applies.
Apparently, the Klansmen are free to discuss their testimony outside the courtroom and, according to the maids, call their nervous wives at home almost every day. “Loose lips sink ships,” the saying goes. They certainly destroyed Miz Lucy Garnet.
We hear the story from Armetta, who got it from Selma, who was there. “It’s pure pitiful,” Armetta tells us, “hurt my heart to hear it.” Mine, too.
After ten days of cooling his heels in a Miami motel room, Mr. Reed Garnet finally got his turn to testify.
Miz Lucy was a nervous wreck waiting to hear from him, smoked a pack of cigarettes nonstop before Selma even had time to clear the breakfast dishes.
After taking the oath and his seat, Mr. Reed answered the first question put to him by the Federal Prosecutor (“Are you a member of an organization known as the Ku Klux Klan?”) with a confident “No.”
Then the prosecutor, open file folder in hand, asked his second question. “Are you not presently a member in good standing of the Opalakee Klavern of the Ku Klux Klan?”
Again Mr. Reed said “No.”
After that, the prosecutor turned to shuffle through the stack of file folders on his table. That’s when Mr. Reed saw it, the briefest flash of a familiar black-and-white pattern. At first, he told Miz Lucy, it reminded him of a schoolboy’s composition book. But as the prosecutor turned to ask his third question (“Are you not a former Exalted Cyklops of the Opalakee Klavern of the Ku Klux Klan?”), it reminded him of something else.
An hour later, during the morning recess, Mr. Reed called home, fuming to beat the band. Miz Lucy took the call in the kitchen, a scant five feet from where Selma stood cleaning out the oven.
“Lucy, listen to me carefully,” he said in a tone Selma said was way beyond upset. Mr. Reed was
riled
. “Call Emmett. Tell him to check the fishing camp. I think they’ve got our record books! How the hell could they have our record books?”
“What record books?” Miz Lucy asked him.
“Membership, attendance, the goddamn list of officers. We keep them at the camp, but I swear I saw them here in the prosecutor’s files!”
“Oh, Reed, what does this mean?” Miz Lucy wailed, sinking like an empty sack into the kitchen chair.
His answer was loud enough for Selma, scrubbing the oven, to hear every word. “It means I just fucking
perjured
myself in front of the goddamn Grand Jury! Hang up the phone and call Emmett
now
!”
Miz Lucy did as she was told. Her call to Emmett Casselton included a strident retelling of every word Mr. Reed had said, followed by fifteen minutes of frantic pacing and chain-smoking, waiting for the return call.
Emmett Casselton’s confirmation (“They’re gone”) sent Miz Lucy into orbit. Two more calls—one to her brother, an attorney in Macon, and a second to Miz LouAnn Marks, her best friend next door—pushed her spread-eagled, sobbing hysterically, onto the sofa.
“If I’d been there, I’d have known what to do,” Armetta tells us sadly. “Poor Selma’d never seen her that way, hadn’t the slightest idee how to handle things.”
Miz LouAnn arrived shortly, grabbed a bottle of bourbon and hauled her friend back into the bedroom. An hour later, Miz LouAnn emerged, told Selma, “Miz Lucy’s resting. Under no circumstances, is she to be disturbed.”
Mid-afternoon, Miz Lucy stumbled into the kitchen in search of some ice. She found Selma serving May Carol an after-school snack and told May Carol that when she’s finished she’s to run next door and play with Joan Ellen. Then she asked Selma to leave early, she needed peace and quiet “to rest,” she said. Both Selma and May Carol did as they were told.
That evening, Miz LouAnn brought her friend supper on a tray. When her knock on the door went unanswered, she let herself in and found, to her horror, that Miz Lucy, aided by the bourbon and her barbiturates, had rested herself into peace and quiet of the most permanent kind.
The news of Miz Lucy’s suicide casts a pall over Opalakee, and puts thoughts in my head that I’d rather not think about.
Armetta’s worried sick about May Carol. “That chil’s gonna need all our prayers to survive life as a Garnet without her mother,” she says, shaking her head.
I remember last March, how fragile and upset May Carol looked when Armetta, her other mother, left. Now she’s lost her real mother, too. What’s to become of her if Mr. Reed goes to jail? Why is it, in this whole mess, ever since Marvin, innocent people are the only ones suffering?
Mr. Reed Garnet, granted temporary leave by the Grand Jury, returns home to bury his wife. My parents, knowing the small Opalakee Presbyterian Church will be packed with wary Klansmen and their heartsick wives, send flowers but elect not to attend.
After the funeral and the paying of respects at the Garnet home, Joan Ellen and May Carol sit quietly on the patio just off the living room while Miz LouAnn suggests to Mr. Reed that May Carol move in next door.
In the girls’ locker room, Joan Ellen shares what happened next:
“So Mamma says to May Carol’s Daddy, ‘Reed, that child’s been through so damn much. Why don’t you let her stay with us for a while, at least ’til this business in Miami’s cleared up?’
“ ‘Might be longer than you think,’ Mr. Reed says with a smirk. ‘
Besides
, she’s goin’ to Mother’s,’ he says, meaning May Carol’s grandmother, Miz Hannah Garnet. Y’all know what Miz Lucy used to call Miz Hannah, don’t ya?
H-R-H
, which Miz Hannah always thought stood for
Her Royal Highness
, you know, like the Queen? But Miz Lucy told Mamma it really meant
Hannah Right outta Hell!
They did
not
get along!
“Anyway, my mamma says, ‘Reed, you can’t let that old hellcat have that child!’
“ ‘It’s a done deal, LouAnn,’ he says. ‘And Mother’s already arranged May Carol’s transfer to Mount Laura Academy.’
“ ‘Dammit, Reed,
no
!’ Mamma tells him. ‘You know every time Miz Hannah brought up that prissy-ass boarding school, it made Lucy crazy. You know how
set
she was on keepin’ May Carol home!’
“ ‘Well, Lou,’ Mr. Reed says, just as
mean
as could be, ‘if she was
that
set, she should’ve stuck around instead of climbin’ into the booze and her little pill bottles!’
“
Well
,” Joan Ellen reports to us, rolling big eyes around our circle, “when he said
that
, I thought my mamma was gonna strangle him. And poor May Carol, sitting right next to me, heard every word!
“ ‘Reed Garnet,’ my mamma says, ‘you
knew
Lucy was havin’ a hard time of it. If you’d spent
one damn minute
thinkin’ about
her
instead of yourself . . .’
“ ‘Ain’t a problem anymore, is it, Lou?’ Mr. Reed says.
“ ‘You are every bit the
animal
she always said you were!’ my mamma told him.
“ ‘Well, then,’ he says, in a real
ugly
voice, ‘you’ll excuse me, but I have a plane to catch. The Miami
zoo
keeper’s waiting for me to crawl back into my
cage
.’ And with that, he opened the door and told Mamma to ‘
Go home!
’
“Last time we saw May Carol, he had her all packed up and on her way to Miz Hannah’s house. Damn jackass didn’t even give us a chance to say goodbye.”
Chapter 34
In the gray days after Miz Lucy’s suicide, there are no further updates out of Miami. Reporters camped outside the Federal Courthouse pester the Federal Proscecutor for news. “Patience,” he chides them. “This process will not be rushed.” The papers are guessing another two to three weeks before “justice is served.”
The big question I have is “Who’s saying how much, about what?” Backed into the corner of perjury versus self-preservation, how long before these human snakes bare their fangs at each other?
It has
to happen, doesn’t it? They can shed their skin,
but not their nature, right?
Mother believes the longer the proceedings run, the better. “It takes time,” she tells me, “to draw everyone’s cards out on the table.”
Hope has begun to glimmer at our house like the flame of a small candle. I see it first in Mother. Or, rather, when the woman who looks like my mother but hasn’t acted like her real self for months invites me to play a game of Gin Rummy. The first hand is awkward, but, after the third, she catches my eye when I say “gin,” and grins. My mother’s lopsided, dimpled grin.
I don’t dare acknowledge it, for fear of somehow scaring her away again. But as I gather and sweep the cards in her direction, with a quiet “your deal,” I feel the pieces of myself fall back into place, and my heart welcomes her home.
While the small towns surrounding Orlando wait for the results of the Grand Jury face-off in South Miami, another confrontation draws our attention north to Tallahassee. Presidential candidate Estes Kefauver is on his way, back onto Governor Fuller Warren’s forbidden ground.
Everyone’s anticipating the fray, including the ladies at Miz Lillian’s Beauty Parlor:
“They say Governor Warren’s goin’ to meet him at the border with the state troopers,” claims Miz Ethel May Burch, cut and curling. “Goin’ t’ tell Kefauver to turn around and take his coonskin cap and his redheaded wife back to Tennessee.”
“I hear he’s flyin’ into Miami,” Miz Lillian says. “Goin’ t’ cavalcade right up the Trail, all the way to Jacksonville.”
“What color red is his wife’s hair?” Miss Iris asks.
“ ’Bout the same as mine,” Miz Lillian tells her.
“Outta the same
bottle
?” Miz Ethel May asks wickedly.
“Now, now, Ethel May, only my hairdresser knows for sure,” Miz Lillian shoots back, patting her copper-red French twist.
“I personally think it’s
foolish
of Governor Warren to make such a big
deal
outta this,” Miz Agnes Langford, my old Sunday school teacher, says. “Any of y’all see Senator Kefauver on television during the hearings in New York? That man tore that thug Costello to pieces. If Governor Warren thinks Kefauver’ll be a pushover, he’s likely to be surprised.”
“You for Kefauver, Aggie?” Miss Iris asks.
“Well, I’m just not sure I’d be comfortable with a Cracker like Russell in the White House, or if the rest of the country would be, either. Personally, I think Kefauver’s got a better chance of beatin’ that warmonger Eisenhower in the fall.”
Everyone at Miz Lillian’s knows Miz Agnes has a son in Korea and is anxious to get him home.
The following week, both Democratic candidates, Senator Kefauver of Tennessee and Senator Russell of Georgia, come calling on the voters of Florida. Not long after Kefauver’s arrival, Governor Warren openly challenges him to a twenty-one-question debate.
“I’d be happy to talk to the Governor,” Kefauver replies, “but a debate’s sort of a
candidate
thing. Last time I looked, I didn’t see the Governor’s name on the ballot. Is it there? Did I miss it?” Kefauver asks the press.
Both Senators tour the state, shaking hands, making speeches up and down the Orange Blossom Trail. I’m at the packinghouse when Senator Russell’s parade passes through Mayflower. A dozen state trooper cars, lights flashing, sirens blaring, announce their arrival and departure at both ends of town. In the middle, the Georgia Senator and the Governor wave like kings from the air-conditioned comfort of their shiny gold Mercury.
Kefauver’s pass-through was much smaller, Daddy tells us, riding in an open convertible with him and his pretty wife smiling and waving at the people beside the Trail. Mother confirms that Nancy Kefauver’s hair is very much the same color as Miz Lillian’s. Whether or not Miz Kefauver’s a natural redhead, she couldn’t say.
On May fifth, the day before the Presidential primary, Luther stops by with questions about the voting process. This will be his very first time at the polls. He wants to make sure he knows exactly what to do.
Daddy says he’s not surprised that Luther and most of the folks in The Quarters are backing Kefauver.
“Ah like the way he talks about cleanin’ up the gov’ment,” Luther says. “Wish he’d start right here with Gov’nor Warren. That man has deviled poor Mistuh Kefauver up and down this state with his ‘Twenty-one Questions,’ like it was Mistuh Kefauver caught buyin’ concrete from Al Capone! Ah hope he gets his chance to clean house in Washin’ton. God knows Ah’d be willin’ to lend him a hand with a broom!”
The next night, I stay up late with the adults to watch the results roll in on the television. As expected, the larger cities and the eight counties around them go for Kefauver. The country counties, especially those in the panhandle, tip heavily toward Russell.
In the end, Russell wins, nearly 360,000 votes to Kefauver’s 285,000. Despite the fact that their man lost, Daddy and Luther are jubilant. “Governor Warren promised Kefauver a humiliating defeat,” Daddy explains. “But thanks to th’
Negro
vote, he didn’t get it!” Luther boasts. “We kep’ things fair an’ square.”
Like a democracy should be
, I decide.
Wouldn’t
Mr. Harry’ve been proud to see that?
As both candidates head north with less success than either had hoped for, attention turns south, back to Miami.
The headline on the front page of The Miami Herald says it all:
TRAIL OF VIOLENCE LAID TO KLANSMEN
Daddy reads the lead story aloud:
A federal grand jury Wednesday submitted “a catalog of terror that seems incredible” in a report of Ku Klux Klan activities that ran the gamut from murder and arson to beatings and bombings.
Two White girls were severely beaten for bathing in the nude; a Negro man was shot in the back; the home of a Negro woman in Miami was burned; a Negro man and his wife were killed when their home was bombed;
“Mr. Harry and his wife!” I cry.
“Yes,” Daddy nods. “Let me finish . . .”
a White man was beaten for neglecting his family; a Negro worker was thrashed for union activities.
“Nothing about Marvin?” I’m fuming. Daddy gives me the eye and continues.
These are only some of the acts attributed to the KKK by the jury in its roundup of terrorism dating from 1943.
Only those acts to which one or more Klansmen admitted participation were attributed to the KKK by the jury as it recited a long list of unbridled acts of violence in Greater Miami and central Florida . . .
The jury said the list it submitted to Federal Judge John W. Holland in its partial report is far from complete. “Details grow monotonous through sheer repetition,” it explained.
The story Daddy reads says that, after a brief recess, the Grand Jury will hear more witnesses and
“consider criminal aspects over which there may be federal jurisdiction.” Their statement indicated that the jury expects to return indictments when it reconvenes.
After seventeen paragraphs outlining the gruesome list of confirmed Klan activities, the Grand Jury has this to say about the KKK:
It is founded on the worst instincts of mankind. At its best, it is intolerant and bigoted. At its worst, it is sadistic and brutal. Between these two poles it has its existence.
Out of the wells of prejudice, it draws its inspiration. It is a foul pollution in the body politic. It is a cancerous growth that will not be cured until the hand of every decent man is raised against it and the whole power of the law is marshaled to stamp it out.
At the tail end of the story, buried at the bottom of page 10, are the three sentences that quickly become the talk of Mayflower:
The jury revealed for the first time that two years before the Moore murders, a floor plan of the Moore house was exhibited at a meeting of a Central Florida klavern. The report stated, too, that newspaper clippings of Moore’s activities were read at klavern meetings and that mention of him was made on other occasions and in other places. The jury said the Central Florida klaverns were “known to have a malevolent interest in Moore.”