When this was done we all sat down to eat, the little ones, their mother and father, the Missus and Mister, and Silva and myself.
“I sure hates to eat and leave,” the boys’ father said. “Way things going back home, make you wanna stay in places like this, where people make sense.”
The stout woman smiled and nodded her head in agreement, a mass of blue icing in piles at the sides of her mouth.
“Scott will tell you,” she said. “He know’d a man who owned his shop for fifty years. Folks come along one day and wanna show him how to do it. I tell you, ain’t no place the same. But I’m sure you’ve got your own problems down here, too. Ain’t nothing perfect no more.”
“It’s all these damn excuses!” the boys’ father shouted. “Been one way forever, ain’t nobody complaining till now. Ask Sissy, she’ll tell you.”
The stout woman turned to Miss Lula who sat quietly beside Mr. Kern, the old man never looking up from his half-eaten plate a minute during the meal.
“Sissy done run a good home all this time,” the boys’ father continued. “Ain’t nobody crying or complaining. You get some people come in from their parts and they say you doing it wrong. Do it like this or that.”
“We all believe in doing right by our negras,” the woman said, shaking her head at Miss Lula, whose thoughts were persistently elsewhere.
The boys paid no attention to this talk, now pleading for more cake, which they received by Silva’s hand.
“You gotta chop off the head,” the boys’ father said. “Then the rest will fall.”
The stout woman nodded, licking the icing from the tips of her fork. The family sat for a short time longer while Silva and I cleaned the mess around them, and the boys played outdoors before they gathered to sing another verse of some birthday song that was familiar to only them. The family then departed, kissing Miss Lula kindly as they tried to load those unwilling boys back inside the car and pry the smallest one from my knee.
“They prolly do better takin’ this one with ’em,” Floyd said as he pointed at the Missus, who watched pitifully, her eyes cast down like some sick child kept inside on a sunny day.
This bit of juvenile madness prevailed in her as she sulked for days after their departure and indeed until the very moment she rejoined them some three weeks later in Little Rock after all of Mr. Kern’s attempts at helping her regain her mood had failed and he just gave up.
Floyd was to drive Miss Lula to Greenwood Station, and I would accompany her on the platform.
Floyd remained in the grumbling pickup as he awaited us, turning a disinterested glance away from the Missus and her pathetic attempt at sympathy as we approached the car door. Floyd would not give her the pleasure, his eyes stayed on some lump of cotton that inched across the road as the thump of luggage hit the flatbed and the passenger side swung open. The interior cabin filled with light but was dark once more as the door closed.
Floyd placed the gearshift into first. He remembered each turn toward the station by blind sight, a combing of catacombs inside his pressed mind that, with great skill, he navigated thoroughly and alone. We sat in prickly silence as the Missus stewed and Floyd fumed. The silence lingered for the duration of the drive as we peered through the expanse of bug-splattered windshields. Floyd then stopped the truck and said not a parting word to the Missus as I gathered her things and we moved to the platform.
It’s funny how a train sounds if it is not wanted. It carries with it no awareness of its hulking presence or the sharp scrape of metal during those slight turns through the countryside. It makes not that shushing sound that children love, achieving to impress no one. It is invisible and carries not the weight one would give a passing stranger who has little to distinguish himself from the person to his left or right. It is, indeed, unnoticeable. That this woman of fine descent, who had all the life left of an infant born to the care of seventy servants, had heard nothing of its approach, saw no car or coach or occupants as they scurried along the platform at Greenwood Station just after the screech in the dead of night, says it all. With sad eyes she surveyed a note scribbled on wadded paper from some purchase she’d made a long time ago, indulging her fancy in rereading the not-so-legible script as she imagined the hand that had scribbled it, for that hand and its handsome owner would not leave the safety of her thoughts the entire afternoon and subsequent journey from Greenwood to Memphis and on to Little Rock, she would later tell me, and that says it all.
I had seen the two together, not just that afternoon of her birthday but several times during that three-week period before the Missus’s departure for Little Rock, when her spirit was at its lowest. I daresay they were friends, even though that simple notion was frightening in and of itself. They’d walked like lovers through the paths and in those wooded areas that kept private their secret affair, finding use for all those nooks and crannies just beyond the fields that stretched into the forests, although they had not yet shared a single kiss between them, as far as I could see. Still, they laughed with great frequency, although never too long, as even that bit of happiness was met by the Missus’s own wretchedness that precluded her from ever straying too far. Mr. Kern remained true to his nature too, tiring of her moods and paying no more attention to her dealings, which left her with ample time to scurry off amongst the wild columbines and irises of the far fields, finding some quiet place where she could be alone with Jesse and they could talk and whisper and behave like adolescents away from the prying eyes of adults. Part of her must have enjoyed his youth, the invincibility he possessed that came with having his entire life stretched before him and the possibilities that awaited his every footstep and how endless it all seemed, that even in a young black boy it was still present.
Although she’d been given the world, during these times together she still wanted more, more lingering stares, more tempting hands at each other’s sides, more gut feelings of want and reciprocation of love. Yet, as always in this life, there were those moments that pulled them apart, when finding heaven was not so easy and running away from this Dixie life was an impossible task, as the afternoon was not so long amongst the turnip flowers as they would’ve wanted. So, Jesse would merely scribble some note where the Missus could find it and once again be pleased as she cradled it to her chest like some silly schoolgirl unaware of the world and its schemes. I watched her do this every day and reported these sightings to Floyd, who had already spoken to the boy, yet Jesse continued his actions. And so, on this night, I would inform Silva, I told myself, as I was to have dinner at her home after we’d both been granted the night off by Mr. Kern by virtue of his wife’s departure.
CHAPTER 13
Floyd restarted the loud monster that had never quite cooled since our drive to the station. The ignition clicked then stopped, bringing all types of curses from Floyd’s lips as he climbed from the truck and filled the radiator with water from a jug in the back. He allowed the hood to slam as he tossed the jug back into the flatbed and offered similar curses, mostly toward the Missus, whom he blamed for us having to travel so far. The rumble of the engine started once more as the headlights peeled from the windows of the station. With the Missus safely aboard her train, we now headed to Silva’s home down by Route 82, just adjacent to the jailhouse, that place you never wanted to be, especially as a negro in the South. My cousin Levi could sure tell you that, if he still had breath in his body. Floyd would not stay for dinner, only offering to return to drive me home that evening. He still did not trust Silva and urged me not to as well, though he later conceded that women were of a different nature than men and, as such, our friendship made sense to him.