Standing at the Scratch Line (45 page)

The reverend gave him a stern look. “It’s all in good hands, my boy. The land is purchased. Eight colored families has got a chance to start over somewheres else.”

“I believe you bought the property, but where are the deeds?” King asked. “The lawyer in New York say he ain’t received ’em!” This statement caused a commotion. Rambo stood up and made his way to the front of the church so that he could hear better. Others were concerned that something sneaky was afoot, so they leaned forward to hear the reverend’s answer. The first four rows of pews were filled with people and the mumbling was getting louder.

“Now see here!” the reverend said imperiously. “I don’t see why I has to answer to you alone. All these people know and trust me, that’s good enough for me. The only bein’ I has to answer to is my God. No one else! Only God! That is—”

King interrupted again. “You wastin’ time, Rev. Where are the deeds for the properties that’s been bought? The money them properties was bought with didn’t belong to the church! The people what put up that money got a right to know where them deeds are!”

Rambo stood. “What you getting at? Why are you asking about the deeds?”

“Well, the plan was that the deeds was gon’ be sent to New York to be owned by the corporation we was gon’ set up,” King answered. “I called New York and they told me they never received no deeds and without them there ain’t no collateral to set up a corporation.”

Someone snickered from the back of the group. “Oh, God! We’s our own worst enemy.”

“Wha-what!?” stammered Rambo. “I put up a thousand dollars! Where are those damn deeds!”

Sister Waters bellowed. “They’s right! Tell us where them deeds is!”

Reverend Pendergast stood up, alarmed by the general outcry. “Wait a minute, good people, you know me—”

“By what right did you change the plan?” Rambo demanded. “You had no say in this at all! He’s right, there was no church money in this deal!”

“I ain’t got but fo’ty dollars in it, but I is mad too!” An old gray-haired man smacked his hat against the back of the pew in front of him. “Is this gon’ be yo’ price, Preacher?”

“Good people, children—”

“This ain’t a good time for calling people children, Al. We’re too old for it,” Claude Duryea advised from the second row.

“Now, Claude, we’re never too old to be children of God. We’ll—”

“No, we’re just too old for you to call us children at a time like this! Just answer the question. My family has five hundred dollars in this too!”

“Please, please hear me out.” Reverend Pendergast clasped his hands together to emphasize his request. “The deeds are safe. I ain’t used them to fill the coffers of the church or to stuff my own pockets with ill-gotten gain. I was just tryin’ to use some common sense. Why do we got to send the deeds to New York? Why can’t we file them ourselves under the name of the church? If not this one, some other local church? I know someone high up in parish government who can ‘seal’ the sale of property.”

“So you made a decision on yo’ own and you didn’t send the deeds to New York?” King’s words had a low and dangerous tone.

“Where are the deeds?” demanded Rambo. He was apoplectic, his face was flushed, and his eyes were bugging out. “We made it very clear that the church was just the place that was used to orchestrate the deal. Now you’re making decisions with our money?”

“The deeds are in a safe place. I’m the only one who knows where they are. You have no need to worry. I won’t misuse yo’ trust. If you don’t like my idea, we can send it out with the mail packet tomorrow. Believe me, I had only yo’ interests at heart. Just remember them deeds are safe. I’m the only one who knows where they are.”

“That ain’t right!” the old man shouted and smacked his hat against the pew. There was a displeased grumbling sound rising from the group as a whole.

Seeing the displeasure on some of the faces of his flock, Pendergast quickly recanted. “Uh, uh, I might consent to tell a few trusted souls where I’ve hidden the deeds.”

“No,” King countered. “The mail packet for New York don’t come until Monday. Let the preacher keep the deeds hid until Monday and we can come here at nine o’clock in the morning and walk him to the posting office. That way only one person will know where them deeds is.” There was several minutes of animated discussion before a rough consensus was developed. It differed from what King had proposed in that it allowed Claude Duryea to hear where the deeds were hidden.

King and Sampson and Phillip and Claude Duryea were standing outside the Reverend Penderdast’s church in the warm air of a mauve dusk. The church was a large, whitewashed, two-story structure that stood on a rocky rise on the outskirts of New Orleans. It was surrounded by a small grove of sycamore and dogwood. The four men were standing in the clearing in front of the church when Pendergast stepped out and turned to lock its doors.

“I got a powerful urge to lay metal upside his head,” King admitted.

Sampson nodded vigorously in agreement.

“You can’t lay into every fool that crosses your path,” Claude said. “You got to choose your battles. Otherwise you’ll use your energy up in meaningless fighting.”

The reverend saw the group of men in the darkening purple twilight and headed down the steps in their direction, but when he saw King he abruptly changed his course and walked away from the group.

“He’s not thinking clearly,” Claude explained. “It’s sad how most people with a little knowledge and a little authority act like total idiots. That’s why whenever you’re dealing with people, you got to remember to control yourself first, then keep to your strategy. Laying metal upside their heads is a last resort!”

“I just wonder who he knows so well that he can get the assessor’s seal on them deed documents?” King mused as he and his three companions walked slowly down the hill toward their cars. Everyone else had already departed.

Just beyond the trees, lining a descending, deeply rutted dirt road, was a small commercial corridor consisting of a general store, a cooperage, a feed store, a seamstress, and a cobbler’s shop. There were no streetlights to light the way in this part of Colored Town. The streetlights didn’t begin until the railroad tracks were crossed. The stars had not yet begun to gleam.

Nestled at the bottom of the hill at the junction of the road and the cobbled lane was a mixture of shacks and small houses. It was the farthest reach of Colored Town before the Kenner Road took off through the rice fields. Once King and his companions were among the buildings, the smell of cooking fires and hot food was strong. Some people were sitting on their porches husking peas and corn, cleaning collard greens, or smoking corncob pipes. Just beyond the shacks and houses was a clearing where people generally left their cars and wagons before climbing the small hill to the church. The high-pitched sound of children’s voices carried in the warm evening air.

Phillip Duryea cranked his truck up a few times before it sputtered to life. King assisted Claude as he climbed into the truck. Before he could step down, Claude held his hand and said, “Reverend Pendergast may be stupid, but he isn’t a traitor to his people. He serves the parishioners of Zion on the Mount Baptist Church with a great deal of love. He just made a stupid decision!”

“I just hope you’s right!,” King rejoined. The truck’s engine revved and then it moved slowly down the road and joined a stream of early evening traffic heading out of New Orleans to Metairie and Kenner. King and Sampson drove off in a different direction, toward Nellum’s Crossing. Captain Mack had invited them for dinner. Once they reached the macadam highway, King let down his window and felt the warm night on his face.

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Journer Braithwaite rubbed her eyes as the smoke from the burning church billowed past her. People were running back and forth shouting directions. Three deacons had organized most of the volunteers into several lines that led from the well to the church, and buckets of water were being passed hand to hand. The pastor’s quarters were in ashes, but the flames for the most part had been defied. The main hall of the church was saved, although there were still plumes of smoke curling up the sides of the walls. Journer did not attempt to join one of the lines. She walked heavily over to where the injured were lying on the ground, squatted down on a low bench, and began tearing a linen sheet into strips. It was not yet ten o’clock in the morning and she was already tired. She was concentrating on tearing cloth dressing strips for bandages. Five people lay on the ground, moaning from burns and injuries. One of them, a teenaged boy, was in serious condition.

Journer realized that there was not much that she could do for the injured, and it pained her to feel so helpless when people were in need. She knelt down by the closest person, a middle-aged woman who had received a deep gash in her thigh, and changed her blood-soaked bandage. Next to her, an old man, the caretaker of the church, moaned and twitched fitfully. Another woman volunteer knelt down beside Journer, took a few bandage strips, and began working on the old church caretaker. The woman murmured a few soft words to him as she attempted to bandage the charred flesh on his back.

The most serious burn victim, the teenaged boy, cried out; tears were streaming down his face. Journer rose and moved her bench closer to him. Even in his delirium, he was shaking in pain. His arm was cooked all the way through; it would have to be amputated. She had heard from several people about him. He was the one who had carried several people out after they had been overcome by smoke and flames. His bravery would end up costing him his arm. As he was rescuing his last person, a burning beam had fallen free, struck him a glancing blow, and pinned his arm underneath its burning mass. The young man’s eyes opened wide. He lifted his head with an effort and cried, “What’s gon’ happen? How come I’s bein’ punished?” He cried out to no one in particular. His head fell back and his eyes fluttered shut.

“You ain’t bein’ punished,” Journer Braithwaite said soothingly. “Can’t nobody explain it, ’ceptin’ God. Life is just that way. Sometimes, you thinkin’ you’s doin’ right and the whole world falls on you and just crushes you like a bug. Then it gets up and keeps on goin’ without ever lookin’ back.” She saw that he had passed out once more. “We needs a doctor here!” she shouted. “We needs a doctor!” Journer kept talking to the boy, more for herself than for him. She dabbed at his brow lightly with a piece of linen. “You reconciles yo’self to hard work and the fact that a poor colored person ain’t gon’ get an even break in the white man’s world, but then somethin’ else terrible happens and makes you wonder whether the afterlife is gon’ be any better. It makes you wonder if God really is color-blind.”

She knew there was a good chance that he was going to die. His chest was disfigured by broken blisters and burnt flesh and his breathing was uneven. She knew that he would probably not regain consciousness. She wished him a quick death and momentarily envied his impending departure from the pains and disappointments of the mortal plane. She now thought often of death. Life itself did not seem bearable or worth the discomfort of continuing. She felt tainted and unclean. She could not rid herself of the memory that her own mother had bartered her for the Fleur-de-Lys. She had married Phillip more out of gratitude than love. Marriage was something he had wanted and he had risked his life to obtain it. She could not deny him, but she had no emotion left for him.

“Journer! Journer!”

Journer looked up and saw Phillip waving at her as he and three other men carried another victim toward her on a homemade stretcher. The body of the victim was grossly overweight and looked somehow familiar. A feeling of dread clouded her thoughts. As the men drew nearer, she saw it was the inert body of her mother. She couldn’t speak. She tried to rise, but she couldn’t stand. She was frozen on her knees. The men set the body gently down beside her. Her mother groaned as her body came to rest.

“She tried to stop the Klan from robbing and burning the church,” Phillip explained. “From what I understand, she fought pretty hard before they shot her!”