The Road to Memphis (22 page)

When I returned to the car, both the back and front doors were open and Moe was sitting on the front seat facing the open door, his feet planted on the running board, and he was looking toward the woods. Clarence, Little Willie, and Stacey stood beside the car.

Moe got out as I approached. “You all right?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just got an upset stomach, that’s all.”

“Thought you had more’n that,” said Clarence. “That screaming scared the daylights outa me, girl.”

“I was screaming because of a dream.”

Stacey came over and cupped my shoulder. “You sure you okay?” He was being very tender with me. I knew he had to
be worried and was no doubt regretting his decision to let me come along.

I nodded.

Little Willie, too, looked concerned. “’Ey, Cassie, why don’t you get on back inside? Lie down on that back seat. Moe, you sit on back there with her. Any of the rest of us wanna sleep, we can get in front.”

I didn’t argue with that. I got in, so did Moe. I stretched out, as much as I could, my head on Moe’s lap, my legs pulled again to my stomach, and tried to keep from throwing up anymore.

“You comfortable?” Moe asked softly, leaning down, his hand gently upon my head.

“Comfortable as I’m going to get, I reckon.”

I saw his smile, then closed my eyes.

When I awoke, I was alone in the car. As I moved there was an awful stinging in my knees, and it took me a few moments to realize where I was. I sat up slowly. The sun was barely up, rising timidly over a ridge of pines and white oaks. We were in a small clearing that looked to have been purposely hacked out of a brooding forest. All around the clearing, except for the trail that led back to the highway, there was nothing but pine and oak and brush. I squinted out at the sun, then noticed the boys standing quietly off to one side, staring at the car, and I got out.

“Yeah, man, you can fix it!” said Little Willie. “Why, shuckies! Ain’t that bad!”

“What’s not so bad?” I asked.

“’Ey, Cassie!”

“How you feel?” asked Stacey.

“Don’t feel like throwing up, but I don’t know if that’s saying a whole lot. What’s wrong?”

“The car,” said Willie. “Just telling Stacey here, it can be fixed.”

“Don’t want it fixed.” Stacey was adamant.

“What you mean, you don’t want it fixed?” I countered, figuring they were talking about the fan belt. There was no choice about fixing that. “We’ve got to get a new fan belt so we can get out of here.”

Moe’s eyes met mine. “It’s not the fan belt we’re talking ’bout, Cassie. Take a look at the car.”

I looked from him to Stacey and turned. It was then that I saw the ring that gouged the car. The beautiful, wine-colored finish was now marred by a deep, ugly scratch that ringed the car and festered like a sore under the rising sun. I glanced at Stacey, and what had been fear in me now was pure rage. This is what those men had done to my brother’s fine new car. “Those men at the gas station, they did this.”

“Good guess,” said Willie.

“They did it when I left the car. They did it when I was gone and Clarence was sleeping. I should’ve stayed there.”

“Best you weren’t there,” said Moe. “‘Sides, none of this would’ve happened we hadn’t been on the road in the first place.”

“What y’all doing laying blame on yourselves for?” asked Little Willie. “Y’all don’t hear Stacey laying no blame!”

“Good,” said Clarence. “’cause I was sitting right up in that car all the time myself and ain’t heard nothing.”

“Yeah, sleeping!” admonished Little Willie. “What’s the matter with you, anyway, boy? ’round here sleeping all the time?”

Clarence shrugged. “Sorry, Stace. I shoulda heard ’em. Don’t know what’s the matter with me. Maybe it’s this here B.C. I been taking . . .”

“Like Willie said, I’m not laying blame. Leastways to nobody here.”

I studied the car closely. “Maybe . . . maybe like Willie said, you can fix it, Stacey. You can’t fix it, maybe you can find somebody—”

“Said I don’t want it fixed, Cassie! I don’t want to fix it, and I don’t want anybody else to fix it either!” He stepped away. “We get in this war and I have to go fight, this here car can just remind me ’bout what all Mississippi done for me. I go to fight, I don’t want to forget I’ll probably be shooting at the wrong white folks.” With that said he abruptly turned and started for the road.

“Where you going now?” I called.

“Up to see if maybe I can’t find something open so we can get that fan belt and get out of here. There ought to be a town not far from here.”

“Well, I’ll be walking on with you, then,” decided Little Willie. “Maybe we’ll even meet up with Aunt Hannah Mays and get some more of them pies of hers. Them pies are good!”

“You going too?” I asked Moe as he started after them.

“Just as far as the road. Need to stretch my legs.”

I watched them walk off, then I took off for the bushes. When I got back, Clarence was stretched out again, this time on the backseat of the car. I stuck my head inside. “That headache still bothering you? Don’t you feel any better?”

He gave me a dull look. “Can’t seem to get rid of it, Cassie.”

“You got any more BCs?”

“Took my last one in the night.” He was speaking softly, as if it pained him to talk. I spoke softly too.

“Anything I can do for you?”

“Naw,” he said and closed his eyes.

I slid into the front seat, curled my legs under me, then turned to face him. “You know, Clarence, I’ve been thinking about Sissy.”

“I been thinking ’bout her, too, for all the good that’s doing,” he confided, his eyes still closed, his voice still soft. “She ain’t nothing but a misery.”

“Now, you know that’s not so,” I contested. “That child’s crazy about you.”

Clarence grunted.

“I’ve been thinking I shouldn’t’ve told you what I did about Sissy. I’ve been thinking maybe I shouldn’t’ve broken my promise to her, especially since you went right back and told her I told you—”

“Sorry ’bout that, Cassie.”

“Found out you can’t be trusted with anything.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“Yeah, well . . . forget all that. Time for you to be thinking about making things up to Sissy.”

He opened his eyes now. “Ah, Cassie, come on, now! Said I’m through with that girl, and I mean that thing!”

“You through with that baby too? Tell me you haven’t been thinking about that child. Tell me you haven’t been thinking about how much you care about Sissy.”

“You worrying me, Cassie.” His eyes closed again, and he was quiet for some time. I didn’t bother him. I just stared at him until he had to look at me again. “Cassie, look,” he said, raising his arm behind his head and resting against it, “even if I was in a mind to make it up to Sissy, she won’t listen.”

“You talk, she will. She just wants you to
make
her listen. Why you think she came all the way to Strawberry to talk to you?”

“Well, don’t matter no way. I ain’t likely to get me a pass to go home again till Christmas. She be stubborn as a mule by then.”

“Don’t you know how to write?”

He stared at me as if the thought were foreign to him. “What?”

“Write her, Clarence!”

“Lord, Cassie, my head is splitting—”

“Well, maybe writing Sissy’ll take your mind off your head.”

“Don’t have no paper.”

“I can fix that,” I said and opened the glove compartment. As I rummaged through it I found a brush and comb as well as a black ribbon and pulled them out. I found a note pad and a pencil and gave them to Clarence. “It doesn’t have to be a long letter now, just a few words telling her how you feel about her and the baby. You can mail it in Memphis.”

Clarence looked at the paper. “I ain’t much on writin’ letters, Cassie. I can’t half spell.”

“Don’t you ever write Sissy from that base?”

He looked at me with a shamefaced grin.

I let him have it. “Boy, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! Here this girl just crazy to death about you—don’t ask me why! Talking about your love is blessed and all that kind of thing, and about how proud she is to be carrying your baby, and here you haven’t even been writing that child all these weeks you’ve been away. Can’t even find a few words to tell her on a piece of paper not much bigger than a postage stamp, and then you got the nerve to be calling yourself mad
because Sissy was trying to keep her pride and not force you into anything! Negro, I’d let you go!”

“Well, that’s what Sissy done.”

“Well, maybe she was right, then.” Clarence studied the blank note pad and didn’t say anything. I watched him, then, disgusted with the whole mess, got out of the car. “Well, I’m through with it. You write the letter or not, it’s up to you. I just know one thing. I sure am glad I’m not in love.”

Clarence glanced up as if to speak, but there wasn’t anything else I wanted to hear from him. I took the comb and brush, left the car, and went over and sat on a stump. I undid my hair, combed it out and brushed it, then tied it back with the ribbon. As I finished I saw Moe coming and went to meet him. “See anybody on the road?”

“Couple of cars passed, that’s all,” he said

I folded my arms across my chest and shivered. “Well, I’m hoping it won’t take too long for Stacey and Willie to get back here. I don’t feel none too comfortable in this place.”

“You cold?”

“I’m okay. Kind of hungry, though.”

“Well, what ’bout some of that food Oliver packed? Or maybe some of them store-bought pies? Willie said they was mighty good.”

I cocked my head toward two stumps. “We can sit there and eat. Be like a picnic.”

“All right. You go ’head and sit down. I’ll get the food.”

I gave Moe the comb and brush to take back, and he went to the car. Soon he returned, carrying one of Oliver’s bags in his hands. “What was Clarence doing?” I asked as he settled beside me.

“Sleeping.”

“Already? Again?”

Moe shrugged and served the food. We each took a chunk of pie and a piece of chicken. We ate hungrily, then split a third piece of pie and a chicken breast. As I finished off my first bite of this second helping, I studied Moe. He hadn’t said much of anything since we had started eating. “Moe? You all right?” I asked after a while. “You been so quiet.”

Moe took another bite of pie, swallowed, then looked at me. “I near to killed them boys, Cassie. How can I be all right?” I waited for him to tell me. He looked at me and away again. His shoulders bent as he settled an elbow on each knee and stared out at the glade. The slice of pie seemed forgotten in his hand. “I don’t know what come over me, Cassie, to go hit Statler and Leon and Troy like that. I been through a lot worse with these white folks down here, and I know how they are. I wasn’t ’tending to hit nobody, hurt nobody. Maybe I should’ve stood what Statler done. Remember that time Josie Wallace spat right in my face? Didn’t use a crowbar then.”

“Maybe you should’ve.”

“You know . . . one of them boys could be dead. Maybe I killed one of ’em.” He looked at me, his eyes full of hurt and pain. “Cassie . . . Cassie, what if any of them boys die? What if any of them already dead? I could be a murderer and not even know it. Maybe . . . maybe I done took a life, Cassie . . . .”

I searched for words to comfort him. “Well . . . you were talking about becoming a soldier. You’d’ve been killing folks you were in a war.”

He shook his head. “Not the same thing. Not the same . . . .”

“In a way . . . it is . . . .”

“I can’t go back, Cassie, I can’t never go back.”

“Maybe one day.”

He seemed not to hear me. “I know I shouldn’t’ve done it, but it’s just that I figure no man got a right to be laying his hands on another man that way and laughing at him about it. Just don’t figure nobody got that right, and then Statler said what he done ’bout you. Well . . . a man don’t like to hear that kinda talk ’bout his womenfolks.”

I smiled.
“His womenfolks?”
I teased. “Since when did I become one of your
womenfolks?”

He ventured a look at me. “Guess you think I’m a fool, huh?”

“Now, what would I be thinking that for, Moe? I’m glad you hit them.”

He shrugged and looked at the ground. “I was so scared, Cassie. All that time Statler was talking to me I was so scared . . . then he knocked me on the head like that. Like I wasn’t nothing. Like I wasn’t no man at all! Right in front of you too! I—I ain’t wanted you to think me less’n a man, Cassie. Couldn’t’ve stood it, for you to think that.”

“I wouldn’t’ve thought that,” I said quietly. I wanted to tell him about what had happened at the gas station so he would know that I understood, I mean, that I really understood. But I knew that, like Stacey, if he knew, if any of them knew what had happened to me and they went back, they could possibly be killed or imprisoned, so I did not tell him. Instead all I said was “I know what you feeling, Moe. I do. Really.”

He shook his head. “How could ya?” He was silent for a long time. He ate the rest of his pie. I ate mine too. When he was finished, he spoke again, “I’m kinda glad I’m on my way to Chicago, Cassie. Ain’t glad ’bout how come, but ya know how sometimes a body talks and talks ’bout doing a thing but can’t make up his mind to go ’head? How sometimes your
mind just gotta get made up for ya? Well, that’s what’s happened with me. I can get me a good job there in Chicago—”

“Job? Thought you were going in the Army so fast.”

“Don’t figure I can now. Army get to checking on me, they’ll send me back.”

“Well, anyway, maybe some good’ll be coming out of all this.”

“Guess you right.” He smiled. “Chicago. Be making plenty of money up there. Maybe I’ll even find myself two jobs. Maybe I’ll get to making so much money I can send you something back for your schooling.”

“How come you always worrying so much about me?” I questioned. “Like I told you before, you get yourself some money, you best be seeing to your own schooling.”

“Yeah . . . I know you told me that. But you going places, Cassie, and I wanna help you—anyway I can.” He looked away shyly; then suddenly he turned back, leaned over, and kissed me, flat on my mouth. It was a quick kiss, a mere brush of his lips against mine, but it surprised me. Moe had never kissed me before.