Midnight Without a Moon(35)

“I knowed he did something,” I heard Ma Pearl say.

Standing on tiptoe, I could see that she was sitting in the chair next to the window, her arms folded defiantly across her bosom.

“Since when did speaking to a woman become a crime?” asked Aunt Belle, her tone icy.

“Any fool know it’s a crime when you is colored and the woman is white,” retorted Ma Pearl. “That boy oughta knowed better.” She paused, then said, “His mama oughta taught him better.”

“The boy is fourteen, Mrs. Carter,” said Monty. “He was born and raised up north. Things are different there. Negro youths and white youths attend the same schools even, so it’s only natural the boy would assume a few words to the woman wouldn’t harm anything. He was probably only being polite.”

“Things ain’t no different up north,” Ma Pearl said. “Y’all jest fool yo’selves into thinking they is. Colored is colored, and white is white. I don’t care where you run to. Chicago. Saint Louis. Detroit. It’s all the same. You a fool if you think they ain’t. They jest ain’t got the signs posted, is all.”

“Mose’s boys said his nephew didn’t say a word to the woman, as far as they know,” Papa said. “It’s her white word against his colored one.”

“But he did whistle when she came out of the store, according to one of the boys,” said Monty.

In the mirror, I saw Papa shaking his head. “Po’ Mose,” he said. “If them boys would’ve told him ’bout the boy doing the whistling, he could’ve been ready. He could’ve sent him on back to Chicago, or at least he would’ve had his shotgun ready. He wouldn’t’ve let them come in his house like that and walk ’way with his kin. He wouldn’t’ve,” he said, shaking his head. “I know Mose. He wouldn’t’ve just let ’em take that boy like that.”

Papa himself had two shotguns. I wondered if he had them loaded and ready. Many Negroes, according to Papa, had armed themselves with shotguns and pistols. But I’d never heard of one using them to defend himself against a white man. It seemed the only folks Negroes shot were one another. Sometimes in self-defense, and sometimes just out of plain anger.

“And that boy’s poor mama,” Aunt Belle said quietly. “Lord, she must be some kind of sick with worry.”

“Imagine how Mose felt when he had to call her,” said Papa.

Ma Pearl threw in her nickel’s worth. “If the boy’s mama was so worried, she woulda kept him up there in Chicago. Any fool know Mississippi ain’t no place for quick-tongued niggas.”

“Woman, you’re just plain evil!” Monty cried. “How can you say something so cruel? That poor woman’s son is missing. In Mississippi at that. White men with pistols came in the middle of the night and took him from his bed. Didn’t even want him to take the time to put on a pair of socks, for God’s sake. And you have the nerve to blame his mama for letting him come down here?”

Unfazed, Ma Pearl answered curtly, “And you jest plain stupid. And disrespectful. And you can git the devil on outta my house.” She glowered at Monty and swung her thick arm toward the direction of the door.

I heard the settee creak as Monty stood.

“Sit down, son,” Papa said. “I wear the pants in this house.” To Ma Pearl he said, “Pearl, I’ve had enough of yo’ nonsense. Mr. Bryant and his brother had no right to come in Mose’s house like that in the middle of the night and take what didn’t belong to them. No right at all,” he said, shaking his head. “Mose is tore to pieces over this, and his wife done up and left too. Said she wasn’t coming back. Never setting a foot in that house again.”

How I secretly wished Ma Pearl would do the same!

“This ain’t the time to blame nobody ’bout how they raised they chi’ren,” said Papa. “This is the time to pull together. To help. To pray that the boy is returned safe.”

Ma Pearl grunted but otherwise remained silent. Papa might not have been a man with an imposing stature, but when he spoke sternly, even Ma Pearl listened.

“Maybe he’s lost somewhere,” said Aunt Belle. “Maybe they just scared him and let him go, so maybe he wandered off in the woods somewhere and can’t find his way back to Preacher Wright’s house.”

I thought about nine-year-old Obadiah Malone running through the woods to get away from Ricky Turner. When his daddy found him, he had passed out. What if this boy was lying somewhere in the woods, passed out from the loss of blood or dehydrated from the heat? Being from Chicago, surely he wouldn’t know how to find his way through the woods.

“You believe that lie, baby?” asked Monty. “You believe two white men would force a Negro from his bed at gunpoint in the middle of the night, have a little chat with him, and then let him go?”

The room grew quiet.

“We can hope,” Papa finally said.

Ma Pearl shifted in her chair. “You say Mr. Bryant was one of the mens that took the boy?”

“That’s what Mose say,” Papa answered. “Said he wanted to talk to the boy from Chicago. The one that did all that talk up at his sto’.”

“And a big bald-head one was the other man?” asked Ma Pearl.

“Um-hmm,” said Papa. “Mose say he was the one with the pistol. Said he walked through the house like he owned it. Yelled at anybody that woke up to go back to sleep. Threatened Mose. Told him if he wanted to live to see sixty-five, he best forget his face.” With a sigh, Papa dropped his head. “Mose say he’ll never forget that face.”