The Weight of Blood (11)

“But Papa,” she cried. “They made fun of my hair, they threw things at me, and they—”

“Go to your closet,” he hissed, gripping the belt in one hand.

“But it wasn’t my fault!”

He pulled his arm back and swung it down, the belt slapping her arm. She yowled. “I said to your prayer closet, now!”

Maddy stumbled back, tripping over a half-empty bottle of sunblock. “Please, no!”

He brought the belt down again and again. Words pushing out with each blow through clenched teeth. “Get. In. Your. Closet. Now.”

Maddy scrambled to her feet, prepared to run, but Papa grabbed her by the back of her collar. He yanked her up the creaking stairs, splintering wood ripping her stockings, her cries falling on deaf ears. Papa dragged her into her room, toward the closet door. Maddy desperately reached for anything to hold on to.

“Papa, No. No, Papa, please!”

Papa swung the closet door open, threw her inside, and locked it shut. Maddy slapped her hands against the wall and yanked on the doorknob. “No, Papa, pleeeeeeease!”

The old radio in the living room screeched to life, an ear-piercing sound, lights flickering, then stopped.

Papa paused but said nothing before stomping downstairs.

Maddy slid to the floor, sobbing. She didn’t want to turn on the light. She didn’t want to see. But Papa would know she was sitting in the dark and would leave her there for hours. He had done it before. So she reached up, swatting the air, grabbed the hanging chain, and pulled. A dull cobweb-covered lightbulb illuminated the cramped closet with a slanted ceiling. Every inch of the walls in her tight quarters was covered with cut-out pictures of women. White women, in various shades of blond, brunette, and red. In tea-length dresses at cocktail parties. In aprons serving roasted chicken to their husbands. In old Hollywood movie posters. Papa had even gone so far as to paste eyes in the collage. Blue eyes, all staring down at Maddy and her frizzy mane. Real beauties, their hair styled perfectly, milky skin immaculate . . . everything she could never be.

Maddy felt sick. The silent judgment from thin pieces of magazine paper seemed to hurt more than anything that had happened that day.

But she sat on her knees and prayed to be like those women.

Just like Papa had taught her.

From David Portman’s Springville Massacre: The Legend of Maddy Washington (pg. 12)

Ask anyone from Springville about Prom Night: jaws go slack, eyes hollow with regret before muttering the same excuses—they never saw it coming; they were blindsided. It’s what they tell themselves at night. Searching for the comfort of self-soothing lies when all along it was right in front of them—a sleeping volcano, waiting to erupt.

Weeks after that fateful night, people started putting the story together. Looking back, Maddy had the worst attendance record of any student in her class, her absences all aligning with huge thunderstorms or high sun days. Never went to camp or swimming in the lake like the rest of the kids in town. She wore long sleeves, even in the dead of summer, with wide-brimmed hats and stockings. When questioned about Maddy’s absences, Mr. Washington reported that she had lupus and the weather gave her severe migraines. No one questioned it. No one questioned a thing.

A little over an hour outside of Atlanta, at the butt of the Chattahoochee National Forest, sits Springville, population during its glory days upward of 1,100. You pass miles of farmland, truck stops, and fast-food chains before reaching its center, a quaint Main Street of mom-and-pop-owned businesses. Storefronts, family practices, and a popular pizza parlor. Springville was once a thriving industrial hub, true to its Bible Belt roots. Friday night lights during football season. Thanksgiving Day parades, Christmas carolers, Easter egg hunts, and debutante balls. The all-American dream. But hidden away from progressive cities, Springville was also the type of town where racism was passed down like family jewels. The kind with value. The kind auctioned on TV shows.

The CDX freight line runs diagonally through the town, splitting it in two—East and West: the East Side, the predominately Black and Hispanic population; the West side, mostly white (with the exception of a few Black families), along with a division for the upper crust and old southern money. When the power plant was still operational, trains made frequent stops. Now the arm at the railroad crossings only comes down twice a day. Train operators call it a dead zone.

No one stops in Springville except ghosts.

May 1, 2014

Maddy had fallen asleep on the floor, overpowered by exhaustion. The jarring cuckoo clock rang six, waking her. Papa’s heavy strides approached the door, and she shot up, scooting into a corner. The lock clicked, and his footsteps slowly retreated. Maddy waited, then emerged from the closet, her clothes disheveled, face puffy and red from tears. She slumped downstairs and stepped into the kitchen to find a familiar scene.

Papa had set a chair next to the stove. On the vintage red Formica kitchen table sat a jar of blue grease, a smock, clamps, and a metal hot comb with a chipped black wooden handle.

Papa tied on his workman apron. Maddy gulped, wrapped the smock around her neck, and sat in the matching red leather chair, heat from the gas burner warming her.

Over the years, Thomas Washington had tried many things to keep his daughter’s hair bone straight. Various chemical relaxers, texturizers, and money-back-guaranteed products. But Maddy’s sensitive scalp rejected them all, leaving painful blisters too large to hide or explain. So he settled for the old-fashioned way, what he read about in Negro magazines: a classic hot comb. He picked up one at a Goodwill store far from town. Grease, hair spray, and other hair supplies he ordered over the phone.