Whistling Past the Graveyard (14 page)

16

t

he worry must have wore me down ’cause I woke up to voices in the kitchen. Mrs. Washington was talking, even though she had sat with me in the dark while I ate my toast and not said a word. She didn’t like me.

“What’s wrong with her?” Mrs. Washington asked.

Was she asking about me? Well, she coulda found out herself if she’d just opened her mouth while she was sitting here, instead of acting like we didn’t both speak American.

Miss Cyrena’s calm voice said, “Just sit here, Eula. I’ll get you something to drink.”
I sat straight up. Eula was back! I started to get up and hurry to the kitchen, but just then Miss Cyrena asked, “Is Starla asleep? She doesn’t need to hear any of this.”
I froze like a rabbit.
“Yes. The baby’s back down, too,” Mrs. Washington said.
I heard Miss Cyrena’s sharp footsteps coming toward the living room. If there was something she didn’t want me to know, the best way to find out was to play possum until I heard what I needed to hear. Real quick, I laid back down and closed my eyes.
When I heard her footsteps leave the doorway again, I got off the couch, nice and quiet. I was a little dizzy, but better than before I ate the toast. I made it to the kitchen door by holding on to the furniture to keep my balance. I plastered my back against the wall by the door, then slow and easy peeked around the jamb. I was real good at this, having had a lot of practice spying on Patti Lynn’s brothers.
The only light burning in the whole house was the tiny one on the back of the stove top. It was just bright enough that I could see the funny way Mrs. Washington was staring at Eula. I could only see Eula’s back. She was sitting at the table with her head bent and her face in her hands.
I wanted to hurry in there to see what was wrong, but kept myself still. They’d clam up for sure if they saw me. Or they’d make up some story that even a three-year-old wouldn’t believe.
Mrs. Washington leaned close to Miss Cyrena and whispered, “I told you strangers would bring trouble. You gonna keep on goin’ until the Klan burns your house and runs you out of town like they did Purnell Morgan? You got a good job . . . a life. Why you want to risk it?”
“Shush! Trouble was here long before I, or Purnell, allowed strangers in our houses. We’d all just been putting up with it.”
“It ain’t worth it,” Mrs. Washington said, shaking her head.
Miss Cyrena looked like she was getting her back up. “This”—she pointed toward Eula—“tells me it is worth it. If we don’t take some action, this kind of thing will never stop. This woman just went out to earn a day’s wage and now look at her!”
I bit my lip. What had happened to Eula?
Now Mrs. Washington looked to be getting her back up. I edged out a little farther, maybe get a better look at Eula; those two women were staring at each other so hard, they weren’t gonna notice me.
Eula was so still I thought maybe she’d gone inside herself again.
Mrs. Washington said, “All you and your N-double-A-CP friends are doing is making things worse!” Her whisper was sharp. “More outsiders always bring more trouble. Nothin’ is ever gonna change in Mississippi.”
I was getting all antsy-pantsy. Why couldn’t they stop talking about strangers and N-double-A-CP, whatever that was, and talk about Eula?
“This has nothing to do with the N-double-A-CP,” Miss Cyrena said.
“You don’t think so? I suppose you don’t think it had anything to do with Tober Bryant getting beaten within an inch of his life, either?”
“It wasn’t the N-double-A-CP who beat him and left him bloody in the road! It was the Klan . . . and the Klan has been doing wrong long before the N-double-A-CP showed up. Besides, Tober knew the risk and he decided it was worth it.”
I was itching to jump into the kitchen, get a look at Eula, and ask what trouble they was talking about. But I held tight, listening.
Mrs. Washington raised her chin and humphed. “I reckon we’re never gonna see eye to eye on this.”
“Probably not.” Then Miss Cyrena put a hand on Mrs. Washington’s arm. “Thank you for staying with the children.” Her voice had lost all of its mad, just like that.
“I did it for you, not for them.”
“I know. You’re a good friend.”
Mrs. Washington put her hand over Miss Cyrena’s. “Have a care, Cyrena.” Then she went out the back door.
Miss Cyrena turned around and I had to duck out of the doorway.
“Now, how about that something to drink?” Miss Cyrena asked Eula.
I held my breath, waiting. Hoping she hadn’t gone inside herself. Miss Cyrena wouldn’t understand. She might even send Eula to a hospital—or the loony bin. I couldn’t let that happen.
I was just about to go through the door when I heard Eula say in a faraway voice, “Maybe some tea?” She didn’t sound normal, but at least she was talking and still in the world.
A cupboard door opened and closed. “I think some of Kentucky’s finest might do you better tonight.”
“Don’t care for hard liquor,” Eula said in her tiptoe-around-Wallace voice. “Tea be fine.”
I heard a bottle clunk on the counter. “Sometimes it’s best to let hard liquor care for you. I’ll add just a splash to your tea. It’ll calm you.” I heard the kettle fill. “As for myself, times like these call to forego the tea.” I heard the cap come off a bottle and something glug into a glass. “Bourbon straight up. The school board would be mortified.”
A chair slid across the floor. Then it creaked; I figured Miss Cyrena sat down.
The kitchen stayed quiet. I wondered what they were doing in there, not talking, but was afraid to peek around the corner. I was getting real shaky, so I slid down and sat on the floor.
Finally, the teakettle whistled.
“Ah,” Miss Cyrena said, “there we are.” The whistle stopped. The refrigerator opened and closed. She clattered some dishes and silverware. “I added honey and milk. You won’t even taste the bourbon, but it’ll calm your nerves.”
The cup and saucer rattled onto the table.
Miss Cyrena’s chair creaked again. It was quiet for a second, then she sighed. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I really don’t drink much. Lately occasion has called for it.”
The teacup and saucer made some noise.
I started to think they wasn’t gonna say anything interesting at all and I might as well just walk on in there, admit I was awake, and get a look to make sure Eula hadn’t got a new black eye or something.
Then Miss Cyrena said, “The men who followed you . . . they were white?”
Eula must have nodded ’cause Miss Cyrena said, “I thought as much. Why did you feel you had to hide?”
It was quiet again.
“Eula, did they hurt you?”
“No.” Eula’s voice was so soft, I barely heard it.
“Did they threaten you?”
The teacup rattled and I heard Eula take a slurpy sip.
“Eula?”
“I didn’t want ’em followin’ me back here  .  .  . to you and the young’uns.”
“So they did threaten you.”
Eula didn’t say anything.
I listened close. Her breathing changed, getting noisy and deep. In my head I could see her face, the way it had looked when she figured out that Wallace wasn’t getting back up. It was that kind of breathing, the kind you did to keep from screaming.
“Ain’t them followin’ like that a threat?” Eula finally said. “Went on for blocks. I even turned round and went back the way I come and they stayed just over my shoulder like the devil’s shadow.”
It hit me hard. Eula’s keepin’ a secret. A secret about what all them men done to her—or what she done back to them. Eula was used to being bullied and scared. Why, most of the time she just went on about her business when Wallace was doing regular bullying. If she went and hid, it was ’cause of more than followin’ like the devil’s shadow. It was ’cause she’d seen the devil.
“It certainly seems like a threat to me. Although I’m afraid the sheriff won’t think so.”
“No sheriff!” Eula then lowered her voice. “I was prob’ly just worked up from what they done earlier. No need for the sheriff.”
“Earlier? You didn’t say they’d bothered you earlier.”
“T’weren’t nothin’.” The teacup clattered a little.
“Eula, you hid behind those stacks of sour-smelling milk bottles on the loading dock of the dairy for two hours. I think it must have been something.”
I heard Eula sip her tea again.
“I won’t call the sheriff, Eula,” Miss Cyrena said. “But I’d like to know what happened.”
Eula sighed. She sounded real tired.
“Please,” Miss Cyrena said.
“When I was workin’ in Miz Clark’s front flower beds, they come by in a truck.”
I leaned so I could see into the kitchen. I was so low, I saw mostly legs. Miss Cyrena’s knee was jumpin’ like a jackhammer. I knew how she felt, all jittered up inside and no place to put the aggravation. Happened to me a lot.
Eula went on, slow, but steady enough I was pretty sure she was gonna stay in the world. “Passed two or three times before they stopped right in front of Miz Clark’s, hung out their windas, and hollered round some—like they do; nasty man-talk. I could tell they was in the juice real good. I kept my head down and ignored ’em, like always.” Eula stopped for a second.“Then I heard one of the truck doors open and a foot hit the ground. One of ’em yelled for me to look at him when he talkin’.”
“Oh, dear.”
“I held myself still, tryin’ to decide if I should get up and run or stay put, when I heard the screen door squeak. Miz Clark, she come out on her front porch. I was afraid she was gonna fire me, ’cause of the trouble I was causin’. But that weren’t what she had in mind. She had a shotgun—ain’t never seen a white woman hold a shotgun. She yelled at them men, ‘Y’all get your white-trashy selves back in that truck and get on down the road. Leave my woman alone, else I’ll have to use this.’ Then she cocked the gun and put it up to her shoulder.”
Miss Cyrena slapped her palm on the table so hard and sudden, I jumped. “That’s why I respect that woman! No man is going to get away with any mischief while she has her eyes open. So, did they leave?”
“Uh-huh. Didn’t see ’em no more while I was at Miz Clark’s.”
“But when you left? They followed you?”
“I think they been waitin’. I hadn’t got two blocks when that truck got to creepin’ up ’hind me—” Eula stopped talking suddenlike, just the way she did when she didn’t want to tell everything.
Her head shook and she put her face in her hands.
“Eula?” Miss Cyrena’s voice got softer. “Eula, I need to know . . . in order to protect you—and the children. You must think of the children.”
Something changed in Eula’s shoulders right then, she looked like she got smaller. She said, real quiet, so quiet I leaned forward and almost lost my balance and fell through the door. “You know what them kinda men’re like.”
“Oh.” Miss Cyrena’s leg got going faster. “Did they . . . ?”
“Tried . . . but I got away.”
Did they what? Tried what? If I went in and asked, I knew they wouldn’t tell me. Why did grown-ups have to talk with so many blank spots?
“How?” Miss Cyrena asked.
“Eye pokin’. They was pretty drunk and clumsy.”
“Good . . . yes, good.” Miss Cyrena sounded like she wasn’t sure it was good at all. “Tell me about this truck. New or old? What color was it?”
“Not new, but not old. Red-and-white. Had a Confederate flag painted on the hood.”
Miss Cyrena hissed. “Jenkins brothers. Mrs. Clark was right, those men are white trash. Worthless, do-little scraps of humanity. Make themselves feel important by picking on women and children—and of course, Negros.” She paused. “I only hope . . . well, it’s good you hid and they don’t know where you are.”
I felt my red rage coming on, not strong as usual ’cause I was sick. Why did everybody have to be so daggone mean to Eula? After I got better, I was gonna find that truck and break out its headlights.
“How did you lose them and manage to hide?” Miss Cyrena asked.
“Now that’s somethin’ I learned as a young’un; gettin’ away and hidin’. Learned it real good.”
Miss Cyrena’s voice dropped so quiet I had to listen hard to hear when she said, “You’ve had a difficult life . . . more than most of us, I imagine.”
My ears perked up then. I’d been more and more curious ’bout Eula and her pap and her no-account brother. I already knew more than I wanted to about Wallace.
But Eula didn’t say anything to ease my curiousness. She just said, “Think I’ll only take backyard or indoor work from now on.”
“Yes, I would. Once those ruffians set their sights on you, it’s usually best to stay out of their way. And they’ll have a grudge to carry now, too. Never known them not to get their revenge.” Miss Cyrena was quiet for a second. “I think I have a better idea. Why don’t you use my kitchen to make baked goods? That green-tomato pie you made was the most delicious I’ve ever tasted, and the hot-milk cake . . . my, oh, my. Mrs. Washington went on and on about that peach cobbler I took over to thank her for the collards from her garden. You could probably sell things to the coffee shop and restaurants and not have to work outside of this house at all. I could do the sales and delivery—even the shopping. You won’t be exposed at all.”
“Can’t until I earn enough to buy bakin’ supplies.”
“I’ll front you the money.”
“No, ma’am. I couldn’t take any more from you than I already have.”
I couldn’t be still any longer. “Do it, Eula,” I said, walking into the kitchen. It would keep Eula safe while we got our money built up so we could fix the truck and get on to Nashville. “It’s a good idea. And I can go out and collect bottles along the roads, turn ’em in for the refunds. You shouldn’t be out where those men can get at you.”
“Starla! I thought you were sleeping,”Miss Cyrena said. She put her arm in front of her glass, like she didn’t want me to see it.
Eula reached out an arm and motioned me close. I stepped right up next to her and looked at her face. She didn’t have any more cuts than the ones Wallace had given her, which was healing up nice. A little of the antsy-pantsy left me.
She wrapped an arm around me and touched my forehead with her other hand. “No more burnin’.” She smiled. “You better, child. You better.” The gladness in her voice made me feel special—like she’d felt poorly ’cause I felt poorly. I got a sudden attack of being ashamed; she was in so much trouble ’cause of me.
I laid my head on her shoulder. Her arms wrapped me tight and I was all the sudden taken by a cryin’ fit.
“Please, Eula,” I said against her shoulder. “Please do like Miss Cyrena says.”
Eula petted my hair and rocked me. “Shhhh. Shhhh, child.”
I jerked away. “I mean it! It ain’t safe for you out there with those men and the N-double-A-CP.”
Her eyes got wide. “You been listenin’ awhile.”
I nodded and wiped my eyes. “What is the N-double-A-CP?”
Miss Cyrena said, “An organization to help Negros get their full rights as citizens of this country.”
“Like what?”
“Voting without harassment. Equality under the law—not separate rules for Negros and whites; no separate schools or toilets or bus seats.”
“Oh.” I couldn’t imagine a school with white kids and colored kids all mixed up. “Mamie said everybody likes it the way it is—not just whites, coloreds, too.”
“That’s what most white people say,” Miss Cyrena said. “They don’t want it to change.”