Midnight Without a Moon(51)

Papa cocked his shotgun. “I’ll shoot you and take your body to the sheriff myself. Even dig your grave if they ast me.”

For a moment, there was silence on the other side of the door, then the shuffling of feet. By the heaviness of his steps, I could tell that Slow John was wearing the steel-toe boots he’d used to whack Aunt Ruthie in the head.

Wump! Slow John kicked the door. “Come outta there, Ruthie, ’fo I come in there and git you,” he yelled.

Aunt Ruthie jumped. She had been leaning against the doorframe to Grandma Mandy’s bedroom, but now she stood, stiff-backed and trembling.

“My daughter ain’t leaving this house, so you might as well go home,” Papa said.

“She ain’t yo’ daughter no mo’, old man,” said Slow John. “She my wife.”

“Ruthie!” he called loudly. “I sorry. I sorry for what I done to you. I swear I ain’t go’n do it no mo’.” He paused for a moment, then said, “Got a new job, too, baby. Mr. Callahan said he give me work d’morrow. I told him, ‘Suh, I be there first thang in the moan’n. I couldn’t wait to git home and tell you ’bout it.” Another pause, then: “It broke my heart to find you gone.”

After a long silence, there was loud weeping on the other side of the door, then, “Ruthie, baby. Please. I loves you. I go’n kill myself if you don’t come back.”

The look on Aunt Ruthie’s face was hard to read. Her empty stare. Was it fear? Or pity?

“Ruthie,” Papa said, “you a grown woman. You make your own choices. You chose to marry that man. It’s your choice to go or stay. I can’t decide for you.”

Aunt Ruthie took a step toward the door.

“Dirn fool,” Ma Pearl hissed.

With a tremble in her voice, Aunt Ruthie called through the door. “I can’t wake up the chi’ren right now, John. I’ll be home in the morning.”

“I needs you home d’night.”

“In the morning,” Aunt Ruthie repeated. Her voice shook so badly that she could hardly speak. “You go on to the house and git some sleep,” she said to Slow John, staring sheepishly at Papa.

After a long silence, Slow John answered, “I gots to go d’work in the moan’n. I need to take y’all home d’night.”

Aunt Ruthie wrapped her arms around her waist, dropped her head, and muttered, “A’right.”

“Lawd, have mercy!” Ma Pearl cried. She threw her giant hands in the air and stormed toward her bedroom.

Papa gave out one more warning. “Ruthie,” he said, almost as a sigh.

“Let’r go, Paul,” Ma Pearl called over her shoulder. “She’ll learn ’ventually. That school o’ hard knocks is a dirn good teacher.”

With tears rolling down my cheeks, I, too, turned and went to my room, knowing my heart couldn’t take the sight of Aunt Ruthie walking through that door, especially with fresh blood seeping through the clean rag Papa had just wrapped around her busted head.





Chapter Twenty-Seven


WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21


“BEER!” MONTY YELLED. “BEER. IN A COURTHOUSE. During a murder trial. Stupid and senseless,” he hissed.

I sat on the floor in Grandma Mandy’s old mothball-scented room next to the kitchen, my ear pressed against the wall, straining to pick up every word of the conversation from the adults huddled around the kitchen table. There was so much excitement over the third day of the trial of Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam that I was sure the week of September 19, 1955, would go down as one of the best weeks in Negro history in Mississippi. Our little unpainted house on Mr. Robinson’s place buzzed with commotion that Wednesday night, and with so much hope. After Reverend Mose Wright had stood before a courtroom full of white people and pointed out J. W. Milam for the jury, Reverend Jenkins and Monty couldn’t stop bragging of his bravery.

But obviously Monty was livid over someone drinking beer during the trial. Having never been in a courtroom myself, I had no idea whether this was normal behavior.

“Mississippi is making a mockery of the justice system,” he said. “No one should be allowed to drink beer during a trial. It’s just plain stupid.”

“When you have the judge setting the example,” Reverend Jenkins chimed in, “what can you expect? He sat there and sipped on a Coca-Cola.”

“This kind of tomfoolery would never be tolerated in a northern courtroom,” said Monty.

“Baby, calm down,” Aunt Belle said with a slight laugh. “We can’t worry about what these people do or do not allow to go on in their courtroom, as long as they let the Negro press in to report the story. God knows we can’t depend on the white press to tell the truth.”

“Amen to that, Baby Sister,” said Reverend Jenkins. “Thank God for the Negro press—”

“But did you see that press table?” interjected Monty. “All our people cramped around a card table against the wall? And they made Congressman Diggs sit there too? And what’s with that fat sheriff strolling in there, greeting them with ‘Hello, niggers’ every morning?”

“Baby, we’re not gonna let the negatives overshadow the positives, okay?” said Aunt Belle. “Reverend Mose did a fine job. Stood right there in the midst of all that white, pointed, and said, ‘There he is.’”