Passing through Perfect (Wyattsville #3)(67)

After the trial Martha spent weeks, months, and years bemoaning the fact that Tommy’s assailant had gotten off with just twenty years when he should have been put to death. Over time she stopped talking about it, but she never forgot. The hatred she felt was still there, just under her skin, and it throbbed like the pounding of a kettle drum.

“Carmella Klaussner never had a boy stabbed by a nigger,” she said angrily. “What right does she have to bring one into our neighborhood?”

“It’s not just him,” Prudence said. “He’s got a kid with him, and that surely means trouble. Next thing you know we’re gonna have colored schools and a neighborhood so thick with them we’ll be afraid to step out at night.”

“That couldn’t happen here in Wyattsville,” Darlene said.

“Oh, couldn’t it?” Prudence replied. She swore there was an area of Portsmouth that five years ago was a nice neighborhood and had now turned all black. “Once they get a foothold in a neighborhood, they take over,” she warned.

Darlene had been an impressionable fourteen-year-old when Tommy was killed, and through the years she’d heard only her mama’s version of the story.

“I don’t want a nigger living next door to Mama,” she said. “We’ve got to do something.”

For seven months prior to the arrival of her first-born, Darlene worked as a typist in a downtown law office; this, she felt, gave her the necessary expertise for drafting a petition demanding the Klaussners move.

Prudence hadn’t expected anything quite so drastic.

“Maybe we ought to just say not have any colored people living in their house,” she suggested.

But by then it was too late; Darlene had already pulled out her daddy’s old typewriter and started clacking out the letter.

“We’ll ask everybody on the street to sign it,” she said. “That way they’ll have no comeback.”

When Darlene finished the letter she handed it to Prudence. “This ought to get rid of the problem,” she said pompously.

Prudence stood there and read it. “Blight on our neighborhood? Legal action? Forced eviction? Don’t you think this is a bit too strong?”

“Not one bit,” Darlene answered.

Martha of course agreed with Darlene. But after a good bit of discussion and three more revisions, they ended up with a letter requesting the Klaussners remove their house guests to avoid the necessity for legal action. Prudence wanted to remove the threat of legal action, but Martha and Darlene stood firm on that.





Darlene was a lot like Martha, and once she set her mind to hating a thing there was no stopping her. On Tuesday morning she arrived at her mama’s house with the twins in tow and a clipboard tucked under her arm. Arm in arm she and Martha walked up and down the street knocking on doors and asking folks to sign a petition to keep coloreds out of the neighborhood.

Their first stop was at Rodney Edwards’ house. “Hell, yeah,” he said and signed his name without bothering to read what was written on the petition.

Once that happened Darlene’s confidence grew, and she regretted softening up the language of the petition.

“We should’ve insisted they move,” she told her mama.

Martha gave a barely perceptible nod. The truth was she’d spent a sleepless night tossing and turning. Hour after hour she thought of Tommy and could almost feel the knife being thrust into his chest. The problem was her memory of it got muddied when thoughts of Carmella Klaussner crept in.

They’d been friends for thirty years. After Tommy died, Carmella was the one who came with baskets of fresh-baked muffins and sat alongside her during those long and lonely days. And then four years ago when Tommy’s daddy keeled over with a heart attack, Sid Klaussner handled everything. They’d always been good neighbors, friends even, but now there was this.

When Martha’s heart began to go soft she considered giving up the angry petition, but then she called to mind thoughts of Tommy and the fire of hatred flared again.

At the Burkes’ house there was no answer so they moved on to the Lamberts’. Sylvia and Dale Lambert were younger than many of other homeowners. Before they’d moved to Wyattsville, Sylvia had spent seven years as a social worker in the city of Philadelphia. The moment the door opened, Darlene thrust out the clipboard and asked Sylvia to sign the petition.

“It’s to keep our neighborhood safe,” she said.

Instead of signing Sylvia read every word, then started asking questions.

“This man in question,” she said, “is he a convicted felon?”

Darlene shrugged. “Possibly.”

“Possibly?” Sylvia repeated. She went on to ask a dozen different questions, none of which Darlene could answer affirmatively.

“You’ve got nothing against this man,” Sylvia finally said. “There’s no way I’m going to—”

“My son was stabbed to death by a nigger,” Martha offered up feebly.

“But it wasn’t this man,” Sylvia replied. Without further ado, she closed the door.





At the end of the day Darlene had four signatures on her petition, six houses where there had been no answer, and five homeowners who’d flat out said no. Alexia Franklin had looked Martha square in the eye and said she ought to be ashamed of herself, turning on a friend in such a nasty way.