A Garden of Earthly Delights (14 page)

“I'm gonna see Rosie,” Clara said.

“Like hell you are.”

“How come I can't?”

“Ask your father,” Nancy said. “What about them dishes, anyway?”

Clara splashed cold water from the pan onto the dishes. Each day when they came back on the bus she went out to get water from the faucets, then kept this water around until the next day. She washed the plates by putting them in a big pan and pouring water on them and swishing her fingers around. Then she took the plates out and put them facedown on the table to dry, so the flies couldn't get at them. There was old, faded oilcloth tacked on the little table, and Clara liked the smell of it. She liked to clean the oilcloth and the dishes because they were things she could get clean while other things were always dirty—there was no use in scrubbing the walls or the floor because the dirt was sunk deep into them, and if she tried to clear away the junk around the cabin it would just come back again.

“I'm goin out now,” Clara said.

“It's rainin.”

“Everybody else is out.”

“So the hell with Rodwell and Roosevelt,” Nancy said, drawling. “If they want to get worse colds, let them.”

Roosevelt was bad: he ran out anytime he wanted, and he never got over being sick. He was sick all the time now and wouldn't lie still. He wanted to come along to the fields with everyone else, then when he got there he wanted to play with the little kids and not work; if Carleton slapped him he would mind the way an animal minds, not wanting to but doing it out of terror. “Roosevelt's poison, that kid, an' Rodwell ain't much better,” Nancy said. “I told him I wasn't goin to bring up no baby of mine around them. I told him that.”

Clara's face got warm.

“I could leave here anytime I fuckin want,” Nancy said. She drank from the bottle, noisily. “He don't give a damn, that's his trouble. Always talkin about some goddamn half-ass job with buildin a road or somethin—when was he ever on a road crew, huh? There's all kinds of bastards lined up for that work, and chop down son-ofa-bitch trees, any kind of crap you can think of.
Buy me! Buy me!
Sonsabitches saying women are whores, well all of 'em are fuckin whores. And this here, crawlin in the mud, this is so shitty nobody wants to except niggers. You tell him that, huh? Tell him Nancy said so.”

Clara was trying to understand this, that flew past her head like a swarm of riled yellow jackets. “Pa said we were goin to leave real soon,” Clara said apologetically. She felt older than Nancy, sometimes. It made her tired. It would come upon her suddenly, a sense of expansion, something dizzy, too much for her to bear; like in those dreams where you are running, running, running—but where? Or, awake, like your eyes are rubbed raw, you see things other people don't see, or don't wish to see.

“Shit, I heard that before.”

“Pa says—”

“Pa says, Pa says! A lot of crap Pa says and he ain't gonna fool me with it anymore.” Nancy finished the bottle and tossed it out onto the ground with a flourish wanting it to break. It made a noise but didn't break.

After that, Clara would not remember anything clearly.

Except: the woman from the cabin next door running up. She was holding a newspaper over her head to keep off the rain and her face looked twisted and rubbery with excitement. “They're right here now—they just come in! They been trying to burn a cross, and the rain keeps putting it out.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Nancy got to her feet stumbling and scared.

“It's the Klan. Like people said. They're here.”

“Jesus help us, I heard of them torching a whole camp—”

The woman stood barefoot in the mud, toes curling. She was shivering with excitement and her face had gone crafty. “They ain't gonna do that. They can't. There's men from the camp gonna protect
him. The camp owners, they ain't gonna let the place get burnt down. This cross, it's taller'n a man, it's ten feet, it's soaked in gasoline and that burns but it don't burn for long, then—”

“Is Carleton down there?”

“He's there.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Nancy moaned with fear. “Can't somebody call the sheriff ?”

“It's all the Klan. All of 'em. Out of Tom's River, like people been saying. Half the sheriff 's deputies, people say.”

Clara came up behind Nancy, shoving fingers into her mouth.

“Who's comin? What's wrong? Where's Pa?”

She saw the women exchanging a quick, secret look. They were frightened yet suddenly both laughed, the way a dog barks out of nervousness. Clara said, scared, “Where's Pa?”

“None of your business, Clara. This ain't business for a young girl, you get back inside.”

Nancy tried to push Clara back but Clara squirmed free of her hands. There was a brief struggle then Nancy gave up, cursing.

“Go to hell, then. Like you're goin to go, miss.
I
ain't your pulin old ma.”

Nancy and the woman hurried away in the rain. The newspaper flapped out of the woman's hand. Clara jumped down and ran after them. A cross? A burning cross? A torch? Something had been going to happen that night, people were saying. Everybody knew, but nobody would tell Clara. Now older kids were running in the mud, kids she knew and was a little afraid of, but she ran after them not minding the rain or the mud. “Where's it? What is it?”—Clara asked but nobody bothered to hear her.

Clara saw men in the rain, in front of Rosalie's house.

Maybe it was a sickness? Some bad sickness like they'd had in one of the camps:
meningitis.
It was just sounds to her she'd memorized:
bacterial meningitis.
And there was chicken pox they'd been inoculated against, a nurse-looking woman giving you shots in the upper arm from a needle. Nancy hadn't wanted to be inoculated, Nancy near-to fainted like a big baby, but Clara thought the hurt hadn't been so bad. And clothes and things from the camp had been burnt in a big fire, and everybody stood around watching. And it
had been fun, kind of. Except it wasn't like that now. What they'd tried to burn was two wooden planks nailed together to make a cross like a cross on a church. Maybe why Nancy said
Oh Jesus.

There was Carleton, you could see him he was so tall. With some of the other pickers. But they were standing at the edge of some louder men, angry men you could see weren't from the camp. It was like Hallowe'en—some of the men were wearing white sacks over their heads, with holes for eyes. White robes that, when they walked fast, kicked open to show their pant legs. Something to do with the cross? Like priests? Except they were carrying shotguns and rifles and were angry-looking, and yelling. Clara shrank from men yelling, it wasn't like women and kids yelling. At such times you are made to know
Something bad will happen now.

The men in the white hoods were dragging Rosalie's father Bert out of his cabin. The man was pleading, crying. Hanging on to the doorframe so one of the men with a shotgun rammed the butt against Bert's fingers and Bert screamed with pain and let go. All this while Clara was whimpering, “Pa! Pa …” She could see Carleton at the side grimacing, clenching his fists, but he couldn't do a thing, couldn't push free to help his friend. Clara saw the gang of white-hooded men how they'd taken over, so many of them, there was nothing you could do except stand aside, and watch.

Clara tried to push through men's legs but people just pushed her back. Somebody leaned down to shake her—“Little girl, get the hell back home.” There was a surge in the crowd and Clara slipped or was pushed and fell into the mud bawling, “Pa! Pa! Rosie!” A man's booted foot came down on her hand, but the mud was soft, it didn't smash her fingers.

They were beating Rosalie's father. Clara couldn't see but she could hear him pleading with his assailants, and she could hear the whacks of the blows. Up at the cabin there was Rosalie's mother in the doorway, she'd been screaming and screaming and in the rain her clothes were soaked through, and her face and hair were streaming wet. “His property! His property! You got no right!”— over and over she was screaming this, till one of the white-hooded men slapped her, hard.

Some of the men in white hoods, they'd pushed them back now
so you could see their wet glistening heads. They were like any other men you'd see in Jersey, Clara thought. Like her own pa, not that different. It was surprising to her, and confusing. Clara was calling, “Pa—” and there came Nancy to grab her by the arm and yank her free of the crowd. “You, Clara! Oh what did I tell you!” Nancy's face was white and twisted-looking like a rag. She made Clara run with her out of the crowd, panting and stumbling, and told Clara not to look back, though the men's shouts were heightened, and something seemed to be happening. Clara whimpered, “Where's Pa—” but Nancy paid no heed. Nancy had slung her arm tight around Clara's thin shoulders. So Nancy didn't hate her! Clara was thinking she would forgive Nancy speaking so cruel of Pearl.
Pulin old ma
Nancy had said but maybe she hadn't meant it.

Farther back into the camp, near where the Walpoles' cabin was, people stood in front of their cabins in the rain, worried-looking but just watching. Somebody asked Nancy what was happening, had they got the man they'd come for, was it that man that his daughter was having a baby, and Nancy shook her head wordlessly and pulled Clara on. And now Clara knew: Rosalie was having a baby. A baby! It was a stunning fact and yet it didn't stay with her, there wasn't time. Like rain falling, running down her face and arms. Like the men's shouts. You were so scared hearing them, when the shouts stopped you wanted to forget right away.

There wasn't going to be any cross burnt. The camp wasn't going to be torched. They'd got who they came for.

“Roosevelt! Get in here. Your pa's coming in a minute.”

Nancy gave a swipe at Roosevelt who was squatting in the mud. Clara's brother's head had been shaved, for lice, and that gave him a retard look; he was twitchy and nervous all the time, and now so scared when Nancy went to grab him he flinched like a dog fearful of being kicked, which pissed Nancy so she cuffed him, and hauled him into the cabin. “You damn kids! Goddamn you kids! —Where's Rodwell?” Nobody knew where Rodwell was.

Inside, Roosevelt hunched himself in a corner, bawling. Nancy was saying in a voice trying to be calm, “Now we're just goin to shut this door. We're goin to shut this door.” She shut it, and dragged a
chair in front of it but was too nervous to know what to do, to secure the door from being shoved open. Clara tried to help her but they were both too nervous. Out the window you couldn't see much that was happening. Clara's teeth were chattering bad and she had to pee. Nancy said, “Goddamn, Roosevelt, I'm gonna warm your ass if you keep bawling. Drivin me crazy.” The boy crawled into the next-door room and lay on the mattress he shared with his brother, like he wanted to burrow into it and hide. Nancy said loudly, “Look, they ain't comin here. That's the Klan you saw. Klansmen. They punish people need to be punished. They don't hurt innocent people. See, it's to protect us. Like against niggers, and bad people. We ain't done a thing wrong in this house. No daddy ever touched his daughter in this house. You kids, your pa is a good man, a Christian.”

Clara thought of her father, and why he was different from Rosalie's father. And how the Klansmen would know.

She was seeing Rosalie's father when they tore his fingers from the doorframe. His face, when they grabbed at him. She was hearing him pleading. A spurt of blood at his mouth, she believed she had seen.

“No gun went off,” Nancy said. “I never heard no gun.”

Clara asked, when her teeth weren't chattering so bad, if maybe they'd shoot Carleton, if they mixed him up with somebody else; and Nancy said vehemently no they would not,
no.
Clara persisted, what if they shoot Pa, what if they beat him bad like they were beating Rosalie's father, and Nancy said
No!
“Nobody's goin to shoot Carleton Walpole.”

But Clara had to wonder, did any of those men in the white hoods even know her father's name.

The cabin was darkening. They huddled in the dark. Whatever was happening, it was passing them by. Clara crawled over to crouch beside Roosevelt, where he was huddled on the mattress, and would fall asleep. Drew her bare legs up to her chest and hugged them tight and in the morning she would see mud marks everywhere, not just hers but prints made by the others, too. She would see, and she would know.
Whatever it was, it passed us by.

Waking later to hear Carleton's low voice in the other room. Saying, “We couldn't do nothin. One of them hit me with his gun and—I couldn't do nothin for him. They about broke his face in with their gun butts. They dragged him out to this pickup they had waiting. Some of them was sheriff 's deputies, not wearing their uniforms but you could tell. Where they took him, I don't know.” Clara had not heard her father speak in such a way, almost quiet, and wondering; Nancy was asking questions, but Carleton talked slow and solemn like a man trying to explain something to himself he knew he could not, but had to try. Clara snuck to the doorway to see her father hunched over in a chair like an old tired man. His hair was wet, in strands on his face, and you could see the bald patches, and parts of his scalp showing through. Clara was shocked to see how beaten-looking Carleton's face was, blood and sweaty dirt like a mask. Nancy kept saying, “He ain't killed. They wouldn't do that. I just don't believe they would do that.”

Carleton laughed harshly. In that low flat dead voice saying, “He'd wish he was killed, then. When they're done with him.”

“Look here, Carleton: they're Christian men. They swear by the cross. My folks in Alabama, some of them are Klansmen. They only punish people who need punishing.”

Carleton laughed again. It was a sound like ashes being shaken in a woodstove.

In a softer voice Nancy said for him to come to the sink so she could wash where he'd been cut, it looked dirty. This shirt was ruined, nothing to do but throw it away. Carleton muttered to leave him alone but Nancy persisted and finally he heaved himself to his feet like it was a heavy task, and he was swaying so Nancy had to help him and there was Clara crouching unseen in the doorway telling herself
My daddy is safe. My daddy.