The Last House on the Street(10)

“I didn’t know that.” I’d been startled last summer to see a small procession of Klan members, both men and women, dressed in their white satin robes and tall pointed hats, strolling—unmasked, proudly—on the sidewalk through downtown Round Hill. An anomaly, I’d thought then, and when I mentioned them to my mother, she said, “Oh, it’s more of a social club these days, honey. People like to belong to something.” To me, the group had looked silly. To a Negro person, I imagined there was nothing at all silly in the sight of them.

“They’re not as … violent here, though, right?” I asked.

“Don’t bet your life on that.” It sounded like a warning. He glanced at Brenda, then back at me. “If you work for SCOPE, you’ll have to be watchful. Every place you go. Everything you do,” he said. “The thing the Klan hates more than a Negro is a white person who tries to help a Negro. Have you really thought this through?” he asked.

“I … I think so,” I stammered.

“I don’t think you have. You thought you’d be able to sleep at home with Mama and Daddy every night. You need to understand what you’ll be doing. You might have to walk five, ten miles a day canvassing, trying to get people to come out to vote when they have twenty good reasons not to.”

“I’ll do anything you need,” I promised. I felt Brenda’s eyes on me. She probably thought I’d lost my mind.

“The other thing.” He shifted his position on the pew again till he was facing me more directly. “The way I distrusted you when you walked in here? No one’ll trust you. Not the people you’ll be trying to help and not even the other students. The Northern students. They’ll be suspicious of you.”

“You could put me in an office if you need to hide me away,” I said. “But let me help. Please.”

“You need to take some time to think it over.”

“Maybe that’s a good idea.” Brenda spoke up for the first time, nudging my arm. I ignored her, but she continued, speaking to the minister. “I don’t understand why you’d bring in white Northern students to do this,” she said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Reverend Filburn nodded as though he’d been asked the question a dozen times before. “Do y’all remember the three civil rights workers who were killed in Mississippi last summer?” he asked.

I nodded. Beside me, Brenda gave a noncommittal shrug. The pictures of the three young men had been everywhere after it happened. There was so much on the news about them that I even recalled their names: Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner. I remembered how Aunt Carol wept about their fate.

“You wouldn’t remember them at all if they’d all been Negro,” Reverend Filburn said. “Two were white. That’s why it made the news. That’s … unfortunately … why so many people cared. White SCOPE workers … they’ll get the attention from the press. But Negro folk won’t trust Southern whites, so we’ll bring these bright, motivated students down from up north.”

“I understand,” I said.

He tilted his head, looking at me from behind his thick glasses. “Why do you feel so strongly about this?” he asked.

“I know it’s unjust that so many people—have a hard time registering,” I said. “I can sit home and gripe about it or I can … act on my convictions.” I imagined Aunt Carol sitting beside me on the pew. “I … I see the dirt road we drove in on.” I gestured toward the road. “The awful condition of some of the houses and buildings. The fact that your pharmacy can’t get everything it needs. And I know voting makes a difference in getting those things taken care of.”

He looked at me wordlessly for a moment. “Yes, it does,” he said finally, getting to his feet. “Leave me your address. I’ll make a call.”



* * *



Back in my car, Brenda turned to look at me. “You’re not seriously thinking of doing this, are you?” she asked.

“I am,” I said, turning the key in the ignition.

“It’s crazy, Ellie! You’d have to sleep in colored homes! Do you really want to do that?”

I hesitated. “It’s hard to picture sleeping in any stranger’s home,” I admitted. I turned onto the dirt road, my car bouncing in and out of a deep rut. “But sounds like it comes with the job. I’d want to be treated like the other students.”

“If God had meant us all to live together, he wouldn’t have made us different colors,” Brenda said.

I looked at her in exasperation. “That’s the most ignorant comment I’ve ever heard you make,” I said. But I suddenly remembered back to the year before, when two Negro girls moved into our dorm. We all had to share one large bathroom, and Brenda suggested we put a COLORED sign on one of the stalls so Dora and Midge would only use that one. I thought she’d been making a bad joke. Right now I wondered. We rarely talked about race. We were white girls who’d grown up in a mostly white town. Race didn’t come up much in our conversations.

Even if it came up often in my thoughts.





Chapter 5



KAYLA


2010

The drive from Bader and Duke Design to my father’s home in Round Hill takes thirty-five minutes and I usually listen to pop music to lift my mood as I drive, but I’m so anxious right now that I forget to turn on the radio. I can’t get “Ann Smith” out of my head. I keep glancing in my rearview mirror to see if I’m being followed. Maybe I returned to work too soon. Took on too much. Maybe the woman is no threat at all and it’s simply that I’ve come to see life itself as a threat. I never feel safe anymore. Worse, I never feel as though the people I love are safe. My dreams, when I can sleep, are filled with blood and death. I know tonight’s dream will be even worse. How am I going to get that bizarre woman out of my head? I shudder when I think of her mentioning Rainie. I can’t bear the thought of anything happening to my daughter.