The Road to Memphis (30 page)

“Sir?”

“’Bout us goin’ to war? What I tell ya? I know’d it yesterday, soon’s they bombed that place Pearl Harbor. Know’d it! Just done took the president this long to say so.”

“The president?” I said.

“Yeah, the president! Ain’t y’all heard? Y’all don’t never hear nothin’, do ya? He just done spoke up. Said we at war! Yeah! Sho did! Know’d it yesterday!”

“When you hear this?” asked Stacey.

“Just now. President just been talking on the radio. We done declared war on Japan! And from what folks been sayin’, we gon’ be at war with Germany and Italy, too, ’fore too long ’round here. You two boys, y’all best enjoy these here last few days y’all got, ’cause sooner or later y’all gonna be like them boys y’all see yonder in them uniforms. Yeah, y’all gonna be soldier boys! Y’all gonna hafta go fight this war!”

We looked somberly at the old shoeshine man, so sure of his own words, and turned away. “Y’all take care now,” he called as his rag popped. “Y’all take care.”

Stacey looked back. “Yes, sir . . . thank you.” Then the three of us hurried from the station, got into the Ford, and left Memphis, Tennessee.

It was near midnight when we arrived at Ma Dessie’s. As we drove into the yard we saw a lantern shining in the night, then someone called: “Who that?”

Stacey answered. “The folks from Jackson. We’re here about Clarence. He still here?”

“Yeah . . . he here.”

We got out of the car. The lantern came toward us now. Holding it was the old man whom we had seen yesterday sitting on Ma Dessie’s steps. His arm was outstretched, holding the lantern, and his eyes were squinted. “Yep, that’s y’all, all right,” he confirmed. “We was wonderin’ if y’all was comin’ back. Wasn’t rightly sho what we was gonna do, y’all ain’t.”

Stacey apologized. “Sorry to take so long, but we had car trouble. We told Ma Dessie, though, we was coming back.”

Little Willie laughed. “Yeah, couldn’t hardly go leave ole Clarence without no way home. Shoot! He probably put out with us. Hope, anyways, he got plenty of sleep, ’cause we gonna hafta burn some rubber to get him back ’fore he misses another day from that Army without leave.”

“How’s he doing?” asked Stacey of the old man. “His head still giving him trouble?”

The old man shook his head and was silent. Then he motioned to the house with the hand holding the lantern. The light swung eerily across his face.

“Bet the boy’s mad, though,” said Little Willie. “Course, now, can’t blame him none for that, we getting back so late.”

When the old man didn’t say anything, Stacey, too, looked at the house. “He sleeping? Know it’s late, and we hate bothering you this time of evening, but it couldn’t be helped, us getting back just now. All of us, we got to be back in Jackson before morning, so if Clarence here, we best wake him on up and—”

“That boy, he done got the headache bad,” said the old man in a sudden burst of words. “The boy was cryin’ and screamin’ something terrible. He done had the headache bad.”

“Thought he was better,” I said.

The old man hung his head. “He just give way—”

“Give way? What you mean?”

The old man looked at me in silence.

“What?”

“Ma’am,” he said, his voice soft, so soft. “Ma’am, that . . . that boy’s dead . . . .”

The night blackened and nothing was the same.

“Naw,” murmured Little Willie. “Naw . . .”

“Sister Dessie in there, she say y’all comin’ back, but we ain’t know’d y’all was or you wasn’t. That boy, he give way late last night, and he been lying up there dead all the day. We been looking for y’all, but we just ain’t know’d if y’all was gonna come. Sho didn’t.”

“Where is he?” Stacey’s voice was no more than a whisper. My tears were already falling.

“He on in here,” said the old man, turning and leading the way with his lantern. He climbed the steps of the shack, then told us: “Was thinking for a while maybe we was gonna hafta bury this boy up at our church graveyard, but then we got to thinking him being a soldier and all, maybe we best tell the sheriff ’bout it. But Sister Dessie, she said y’all was gonna come back for him. Sister Dessie, she say it’s the Lord’s will. Sister Dessie say that boy, he ain’t got no war to fight now He got no war to fight.”

A Final Farewell

The old man opened the door, and we went in. Ma Dessie, Tesda, the woman from the hospital, the girl Maylene, and some people we didn’t know were gathered there. The room was lit by one single kerosene lamp, and its light reflected on Clarence, laid out straight and neat on a board that rested on the bed. He looked soldier-perfect. His clothes were newly pressed. His hair was combed and parted, just right; his fingernails were dirt-free clean, and his face looked as fresh-washed as a newborn babe’s. He didn’t look as if he was sleeping at all. He lay too straight, too perfect, for that.

“We done bathed him,” said Ma Dessie. “Know’d it ain’t our place t’ do it—that place belong t’ his family—but seem’
he done passed on here and y’all ain’t come back, we figures it the best thing ’fore the death chills set in. Ain’t know’d what his mama’d want him buried in, so’s we just done bathed him wit’ scents and washed out that uniform and underclothes he done had on and put ’em back on him.” She glanced at us and was quiet.

For the longest time we just stood there staring at Clarence, but I didn’t know what to feel. It was as if something had turned off in me, making it difficult to feel anything. Too much had happened. I felt all drained inside.

Ma Dessie pulled a piece of folded paper from her pocket. “This here, we done found this here in that boy’s pocket.”

Stacey reached for the paper, but I took it. “I know what it is. It’s that letter for Sissy.”

“Y’all sit on down,” said Ma Dessie.

We sat on crude chairs around the bed, our eyes on Clarence, as if expecting him to suddenly jump up, grin, and strip away the pallor of gray that had settled over him. But Clarence didn’t move.

Stacey spoke quietly. “We’ll have to call down home. And we’ll have to call the Army.” His voice was dreamlike. Everything was dreamlike.

Neither Little Willie nor I said anything.

“Need to call tonight—”

“I don’t think so, boy,” said Tesda, standing behind him. “Not t’night. Ain’t nothin’ open t’ go makin’ no phone calls, and ain’t no colored folks ’round here got no phones.”

Stacey turned and looked at her. “But . . . we got to see to Clarence.”

Tesda shook her head. “Can’t nothin’ be done till mornin’. Y’all might’s well settle in for the night.”

“We’ve put you out enough—”

“The Lord done brung y’all here,” said Ma Dessie. “Now, the Lord done worked his will. Can’t go questionin’ the ways of the Lord, so y’all jus’ settle on down and don’t worry none ’bout us. We got food here. Can fix y’all a place t’ sleep.”

“We obliged to you, but if we can’t get a telephone till morning, may be best for us to go back to Jackson. We can do our calling from there.”

Little Willie kept his eyes on Clarence. “Then, that’ll be you, hoss,” he said. “You go on back, you and Cassie.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll stay on here . . . with Clarence.”

Stacey shook his head. “I don’t know—”

Little Willie turned to him now, and his eyes were bleary. “Should’ve done stayed with him before. It was me should’ve done stayed with him, but I . . . I had to see Memphis—”

“Willie—”

“Naw, ain’t gonna talk ’bout it now. Y’all just go on, call the Army, make arrangements. You better at that kinda thing than me. Then y’all can go on home and tell Mr. and Miz Hopkins ’bout what done happened. You know I’m making sense, man.”

“Yeah . . . I know . . . .” Stacey’s voice faded. He lowered his head and closed his eyes. Little Willie nodded, then suddenly got up, knocking his chair backward upon the floor, and, crying, rushed out onto the porch. I remained by the bed with Stacey, gripping Clarence’s letter to Sissy in my hand.

Before dawn Stacey and I were back in Jackson. We went straight to Rose Street and told Oliver, Cousin Hugh, and Cousin Sylvie about Clarence, then we called the Army. The Army said they had to verify Clarence’s death and that they
would send a vehicle for his body. They said that they would take him home. Shortly after calling the Army, Stacey and I got back into the Ford, left Jackson, and once more headed south for home.

Before noon we were back in Strawberry. Nothing had changed in the town during our few short days away, though I supposed, because so much in our lives had changed, that it would be changed too. We drove past the Dueeze Garage and the Barnett Mercantile, past the old gray men sitting in the morning sun, and everything was the same. Outside Strawberry the land, too, was unchanged. The forest, the fields, everything was the same as before we had left, and that seemed strange to me, for our lives had changed so that they would never be the same again.

As we approached Soldiers Bridge Crossroads we saw the sheriff’s car parked in front of the Wallace store. Several pickup trucks and wagons were parked there, too, and a number of people, all of them white, milled about the crossroads.

“Looks like trouble,” Stacey said, then pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car.

I looked at him. “Well, what you stopping for? It’s not our trouble.”

Stacey cocked his head toward a truck parked on the other side of the gas pump. Sitting in the rear of the truck was Harris Mitchum. His arms were behind his back, and his feet were tied. Sissy sat beside him, but there were no ropes on her. “Ah, no,” I groaned and shook my head at the madness of it all.

Stacey looked at me, and his eyes told me he was feeling the same. Then he opened the door and got out, and I followed. We started across the road to the truck, but before we reached
the gas pump, Sheriff Dobbs met us. He gave us a good stare up and down, then he said: “Now, jus’ what y’all doin’ back here? Thought y’all had jobs up there in Jackson.”

“Yes, sir . . . we do,” answered Stacey. “But we had to come back . . . . We got bad news about Clarence Hopkins.”

“That soldier boy?”

“Yes, sir. He . . . Clarence, he’s . . . he’s dead.”

The sheriff stared at us in silence for a moment, then he shook his head and sighed. “Well, what happened?”

“Don’t rightly know. All we know is he had this terrible headache, and he said it was killing him. I suppose he was right because . . . because he just up and died. The Army, they’re supposed to bring him down, but his folks don’t know about it yet. Figured it’d be better if we told them anyway, and seeing we got no phones down here, we thought we come on back with the news.”

The sheriff again shook his head. “Sorry to hear ’bout this. That Clarence, he was a good boy. Ain’t never give me no trouble. Course, I s’pose we gonna be losin’ a lotta you boys now we in this war.”

“Yes, sir . . . I suppose so.” Stacey looked across the road at Harris. “We were just headed over to talk to Harris and Sissy—”

“May be best y’all jus’ go ’head and stay way from them.”

“They in trouble?” Stacey asked, as if he hadn’t already figured that out.

“You could say that. That boy Harris, he helped that boy Moe get away. Drove him out of Strawberry after he done took that crowbar to the Aames family. Mr. Caret Jones and his boys jus’ done caught up with him hidin’ down in them woods with his sister.”

With eyes still on Harris, Stacey nodded; then he looked
back at the sheriff. “How’re the men got hurt? They pulling through?”

“They survivin’, I reckon. Mr. Statler Aames, he up and walkin’ ’round, and so is his brother Leon.”

“What ’bout the other one?” I questioned, butting into the conversation I knew was best left between Stacey and the sheriff. “The one they call Troy?”

The sheriff gave me a look, and Stacey, after a quick glance my way, reasked the question. “He going to pull through?”

“Still touch and go with him.”

“Then you mean he could die?” I asked in a hiss of a whisper.

The sheriff looked at me again, and this time he answered me. “That’s ’xactly what I mean.”

I looked away, giving up a word in silent prayer, for if Troy Aames died, it was all over for Moe down here. He could never come back again. He would be lost to us forever. I also gave up a word in silent prayer for us all, for if people like Sheriff Dobbs got to checking, there might be more questions to answer, questions such as why Clarence was so many miles north of Jackson when he died, while Camp Shelby where he was due to report was a number of miles south of Jackson; questions such as why Stacey and Little Willie weren’t at work on Saturday night when they had told the sheriff that’s why they were in a rush to get back to Jackson. Hard questions to answer. All I could do was pray that they were never asked.

Stacey cleared his throat. “Mr. Dobbs, you don’t mind, we’d like to go on over and talk to Harris and Sissy. We been long friends with them, you know . . . .”

The sheriff was silent for so long considering, I turned back to them and found him studying hard on Stacey. He studied me again too. “Long as y’all don’t get no bright ideas ’bout
tryin’ to cut that boy loose,” he said finally. “Y’all jus’ stand put there at the back of that truck, and don’t y’all go gettin’ on.”

“Thank you, Mr. Dobbs.” Stacey touched my arm, to walk on with him, but then he hesitated and looked again at the sheriff.

“What is it?” said Sheriff Dobbs.

“Just . . . just that Sissy and Clarence were going to get married, and she . . . she doesn’t yet know ’bout him being dead. Appreciate you don’t mention it to her till we get a chance—”

“I got no need to tell her nothin’,” said the sheriff gruffly and stalked off toward a group of men standing at the corner of the store.

We watched him, then headed for the truck. As soon as Sissy saw us coming, she jumped up, ran to the edge of the truck bed, fell to her knees, and grasping Stacey’s hands, sputtered, “Oh, Lordy, Stacey! Lordy, I’m so glad t’ see y’all! They gonna take Harris away! They gonna put sweet Harris in jail!”

I studied Harris. “Harris, you all right?”

Harris nodded mutely, but he didn’t look all right. He looked as he had that night on the Rosa Lee.