The Legacy (30 page)

“Those clowns back there were putting us on,” Katz said. “Grinning at us. We should have known. I say we turn around and go back and if they don't let us through, we try some other road to Jackson.”

Jones, poring over a road map, told them, “There is no other road into Jackson.”

“You see this road?”

“This isn't a road. No. The only road is Route 80.”

Through the jack pines ahead of them, Fred was able to make out a clearing of some sort and what appeared to be an old shack. In any case, it could be a place where they might turn around.

“I'll try it,” he said to them, and then drove ahead. It looked like an abandoned farm, a rotting shack and barn, a tangle of corroded metal that might once have been a still. It was all very quiet, forlorn and poor, filled with the afternoon sunshine. To Fred it was a place out of another world, outside of his experience, a film set, used and forgotten. As he edged the car off the road, carefully, to make his turn, six men came out of the barn. Their faces were hidden by white hoods that fell to their shoulders, old pillowcases with eyeholes cut out, and each of them carried a shotgun. One of them carried a heavy, coiled bullwhip, and another a coil of rope slung over his shoulder. Fred braked to a stop as two of the men stepped in front of the car. Another put his gun through the open window, pressing the muzzle to Fred's neck, and said, “Now, sonny, you and your friends just get out of that old car nice and easy, nice and easy.” Then he stepped back. The other men took their places around the car. “Outside! Get your hands up against the car!”

The boys got out of the car, their hands shaking as they placed them, palms down, on the roof. Fred didn't know what the others were feeling; for himself, it was like a sickness, that pervaded every inch of his body. He felt his heart swelling, as if it would burst out of his chest; his mouth was dry, his lips quivering.

“Check them out, Artie.”

Fred felt the hands run over his body, in his pockets, emptying them.

“This here one's from California. Eighty-one bucks. Princeton College. You ever heard tell of Princeton College, Matt?”

“Shit, you are one ignorant bastard.”

“The nigger's got twelve bucks on him.”

“That is big money for a spade.”

“Hey, Matt, get this! This here good old boy is Mister Philip Strong and he is a bona fide member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He also has fifty-two dollars in United States bills.”

“He is one big sonofabitch.”

“You figure he is advancing this here nigger? Bertram Jones. That is a pleasant name for a nigger.”

When Fred turned to see what was going on, a fist caught him on the cheek, slamming his head against the car. Then his hands were tied behind him.

“You got our money,” Strong was protesting. “You don't have to tie us up.”

“Mister, you are going to bear witness to Southern justice. Nobody invited you motherfuckers down here. Once and for all, we are going to make it plain that Mississippi is off limits.”

Fred's nose was bleeding from the impact of his face against the car. “Oh, God,” he thought, “how did all this happen? How did we ever get into this?”

Because Barbara could think of no other place that might provide information as to the whereabouts of her nephew Fred, she took a cab to the local NAACP office on U Street, where a harassed and overworked black woman informed her that she was only one of many worried aunts or mothers. Putting down the telephone, she told Barbara, “That won't stop — not for a minute. Everyone wants to know where their kids are and everyone's worried sick. But we are not directly involved. These are civil rights activist groups from the campuses.”

“I don't know where to turn,” Barbara said. “I'm from California. I don't know Washington.” She didn't add that she loathed the place.

“I'll make a couple of calls and see what I can find out. A friend of mine, Claudy Kendrick, runs the clearing center for the registration volunteers, and if they was going down there to push registration then she might know something.” She dialed a number. “Claudy,” she said into the telephone, “this is Millie. I got a lady here from California who's worried sick about her nephew. He was with a group from Princeton who went down to Jackson, I guess, for the registration push.” She listened. “Yes, they drove.” She listened again, and minutes went by while Barbara became increasingly tense. “Yes — sure, I understand.”

She put down the telephone and turned a woeful face to Barbara. “Now don't go getting upset with what I got to say, Miss Lavette. God knows, I am upset enough right now, and I don't even know if your nephew was involved here.”

“Please tell me,” Barbara said.

“Yes. A terrible thing happen yesterday. They just got word. A Negro boy was lynched down there, not far from Jackson. Don't know who did it, maybe the Klan, and Claudy don't know his name or where he's from. But she says this. Four white boys was with him, and they was whipped ——”

“Whipped? What do you mean?”

“They got lashed, bad lashing, and they is in the Charity Hospital in Jackson. I don't know the details or what their names are, but they had a car that was burned and the car had California plates ——”

“But the boys are alive?”

“The white boys, yes, seems so from what Claudy says. She don't know too much. You can go over and see her.” Her phone was ringing again. She ignored it.

“It's all right. Please, answer it,” Barbara said.

“Do you want Claudy's address?”

Barbara shook her head. “No, thank you.” She almost raced out of there, found a cab finally, and back at her hotel, put through a call to the hospital at Jackson. Half an hour passed before she could break through the busy signals, and then a woman's voice asked impatiently whether she was a reporter.

“I'm the aunt of one of the boys, one of the white boys.”

“Which one?”

“Frederick Lavette.”

“Yes. Well, his condition is good.”

“May I speak to him?”

“I'm sorry. We don't have telephones in the wards.”

“And the other boys?”

“I'm not authorized to release information.”

Then Barbara put through a call to Higate. Adam answered. “He's all right,” Barbara told him. “Freddie's all right.”

“Thank God. We just heard about this godawful thing in Mississippi, and Eloise was sure that it was Freddie and his friends.”

“Adam, it was,” Barbara said. “Don't get upset. I've just spoken to the hospital at Jackson, and Freddie is all right.”

“You're sure? How can you be sure?”

“Adam, I'm here in Washington, I'll catch the first available plane for Jackson and I'll be there in a few hours, and I'll call you the moment I've spoken to Freddie.”

“No. I'll come.”

“Adam, be sensible. You'll have to tell Eloise, and you know what this will do to her. She won't be able to travel and you can't leave her. I would suggest you call the hospital in Jackson, the Charity Hospital. Meanwhile, I'll leave immediately, and I'll be in touch with you the moment I know anything. If Freddie can travel, I'll take him with me, and conceivably we can be at Higate tonight or tomorrow morning.”

The afternoon was dark and sultry, the rain pouring down when Barbara got out of the cab in front of the hospital in Jackson. No one helped her with her suitcase. She left it at the door and pushed through a crowd of reporters, cameramen, and local police, literally fighting her way to an information desk, where a beleaguered woman was attempting to answer her telephone and a machine-gun flow of questions simultaneously. No hope there; Barbara squirmed out of the crowd, surveyed the four uniformed policemen, selected the most sympathetic in appearance, and went to him and pleaded, “Please, my son is here, and I don't know if he's alive or dead. Please help me.”

“What's your name, lady?”

“Barbara Lavette.”

“You got some ID on you?”

Barbara found her driver's license and a credit card. The officer studied them for a moment. “I don't know. We got orders to let nobody talk to them.”

“For God's sake, it's my son.” The tears came easily. She had been on the edge of tears all day.

“Don't cry, lady. Hold on.” He called to another officer, “Lieutenant, you got one up there name of Lavette?”

The lieutenant joined them. Reporters began drifting over. “The tall, skinny kid with the blond hair.”

“Is he alive?” Barbara begged him.

The questions came from the reporters now: Who are you, lady? You a mother? Give me that name again? Come on, lieutenant, give us a break.

The lieutenant drew her away down a corridor, and the other officer blocked the press and barred their way. “Just keep walking, ma'am, down this way,” the lieutenant said. “You got to understand that we're in one awful spot with this. Nobody wanted a thing like this to happen.”

“It happened. Can I see my son, please?”

“It happened. Sure it happened. It could happen anywhere. People are pushed, and they go crazy. But until we get a line on what really happened, we got to keep those kids and the reporters apart.”

“Will you tell me whether my boy is alive!”

“I'm taking you there, ma'am. He's alive. He's hurt but he's alive. So just ease off, please, ma'am.”

They went up a flight of stairs. Nurses, men in white, the flurry and motion of a hospital, and then the doors to the ward, with another officer stationed in front. The lieutenant opened the door for her, and she entered the ward, six beds but only three of them occupied. One of the boys lay on his stomach; the other two were sitting up, both of them covered with bandages and dressings from neck to waist. Freddie had a dressing and strips of plaster on his face. A doctor was changing a dressing on the boy who lay on his stomach. The other boy sitting was large, round-faced, and he managed a smile at Barbara. Freddie just stared at her. She went to him, bent and kissed him, whispering, “I got in as your mother, Freddie. Go along with it.”

Still, he stared, unable to speak.

“Are you Freddie's mother?” the other boy asked. “I'm Phil Strong. Freddie's all right. He's just had a hard time. We had such a hard time. Just a hard time. That's Al Greenberg, over there on his stomach.” Then he began to cry, not emotionally, his face unchanged, the tears rolling down his cheeks. Barbara would remember it as one of the most unsettling things she had ever seen, the big, oversized young man, sitting there in bed, his trunk swathed in bandages, crying so quietly.

“It's not the pain,” Fred said unexpectedly. “It doesn't hurt so much now. It's Herbie and Bert. They hanged Bert Jones and they whipped Herbie Katz to death. That's why Strong is crying.”

“You can sit down, ma'am,” the lieutenant said, pulling up a chair alongside Fred's bed. “I guess you can stay as long as you want to.” He left the ward then. The doctor who had been working on Greenberg said to him, “That's it, kid. You can sit up, if you want to.” He helped him into a sitting position. “Best if you lie on your stomach to rest.”

As he started for the door, Barbara intercepted him and asked him, “How are they? How serious is it?”

The doctor, a very young man, an intern in his twenties, looked at Barbara and then nodded at Fred. “That's your son?”

“Yes.”

“Step outside a minute, please, ma'am.”

In the hall, he explained, “Not that there's anything that I have to keep from them, but they're upset, damned upset. With reason. I never treated anyone who had been whipped before. Animals — those bastards. I'm sorry. I get carried away. I'm from Pennsylvania, and I just can't hack it with these idiots. The boys are all right. I mean, they'll heal all right. No torn muscles, no nerve injuries, just a lot of very bad abrasions and bruises. Painful as the devil. Your son has a cut cheek, result of a blow, but just a cut. No stitches. It's mostly shock, both physical and psychological, that they're suffering from. I guess they're lucky, if you can call it that. The other white boy, Katz — do you know him or his parents?”

Barbara shook her head.

“He died. They whipped him to death. I don't know why I'm telling you this ——”

“I want to know, please. He was their friend.”

“Well, the story I get from the boys is that first they hanged the Negro boy. Made them watch. Then they whipped Katz until he lost consciousness. Then they whipped the others, but not as severely. Funny thing, Mrs.—?”

“Lavette.”

“Yes, of course. Thing is, they say some sort of deputy cop steered them into the situation. Then he must have called the ambulance, which is another thing I'll never understand about these people. We worked like hell to save Katz, but his heart just gave out.”

“When can I take him home?” Barbara asked.

“Tomorrow. No reason why he can't travel tomorrow. Then you can have a doctor look at him when you get him home.”

Barbara went back into the ward and sat down next to Fred and took his hand.

“Please stay here, Aunt Barbara,” he whispered.

“I'll be back, Freddie. I have to call your folks. They're worried sick. Then I'll be back. And remember, I'm your mother. I want to get you out of here with as little fuss as possible.” She turned to the other boys. “Can I help? Can I call your folks?”

“They know,” Strong said.

“They ought to be here pretty soon,” Greenberg told her.

“We sure screwed up,” Strong said. “Poor Katz, poor Jones. We sure messed things up.”

Wandering through the great cathedral in Milan, Jean Lavette said to Stephan Cassala, “I do love being a tourist.” He could concur in that. They had already seen the
Last Supper,
worn, faded, a shadow of what Leonardo had painted, perishing slowly in the Santa Maria delle Grazie; the altar paintings at San Lorenzo and Santa Maria della Passione; four palazzos, La Corte, Marino, Ciani, and di Brera; and now, finally, the great cathedral. “It's really very snobbish,” Jean went on, “but I manage to enjoy my shortcomings. Otherwise, life would be utterly impossible. I mean, one sets oneself apart. Here is all of human history, and one simply observes it, as if one were a visitor from Mars. Yet this place touches me. Saint Peter's leaves me cold, reminds me of Grand Central Station in New York — or of Grace Cathedral back home. I grew up almost across the street from Grace Cathedral, always felt it was a sort of large annex to daddy's mansion. But this place — I think I could believe in something if I remained here long enough. Do you feel it?”