The Last Ballad(90)

Gerald looked around as if waiting for more people to exit the train, or perhaps he was looking to see who would enter the car.

“Hampton,” Gerald whispered, “there’s some white men on the platform. They’re asking for you.”

It felt as if the ceiling had come down around Hampton and the sky on top of it. Gerald said something else, but Hampton either could not hear him or his mind was panicked, unable to register the words he heard. He turned his head one way and then the other, hoping that one of his ears could pick up the sounds and understand what they meant, but neither ear seemed to be working.

“What?” Hampton asked. The words crossed his lips like a whisper. He considered placing his hand over his heart to keep it inside his chest.

Gerald looked from Hampton to the windows on the other side of the car. He lowered his head as if searching for a specific face out on the dark platform.

“White men,” Gerald said, looking from the window back to Hampton, “out there. They told me to get you off the train.”

Hampton looked out the window beside him. He didn’t see anyone, but he was afraid of standing and trying to get a better look. He remembered the two policemen who took his father off a train not much different than this one. “Is it the police?”

“No,” Gerald said, and in that answer Hampton understood that perhaps a fate worse than his father’s awaited him.

“What do they want?” Hampton asked.

“I don’t know,” Gerald said. The man’s forehead glistened. He was nervous, perhaps just as scared as Hampton. “I don’t want any trouble, Hamp.”

A few people sitting close to Hampton seemed to understand what was happening. They turned their faces away from Hampton as if not witnessing what could happen would keep it from happening.

“What do they want, Gerry?” he asked. “Please, ask them. Please.”

Gerald looked to the window again, nodded his head, left the car.

Hampton sat and watched him go. His mind ran through the possibilities of who could be asking for him out on the platform. Had the Loray Mill sent men to Salisbury to pull him off the train? Had they heard that it was Sophia, a white woman, who’d invited him down?

And then he remembered the white girl on the train from D.C. just a few weeks ago: What was her name? Donna. She was from Salisbury. There’d been a man with her that night in the dining car. Perhaps it had been her father. Perhaps she’d told her father about him. Even then, even before he’d spoken to her, something had told Hampton that it would be stupid and careless of him to do so, to think for one moment that she’d want him to talk to her. He’d even told her his name. She must have told someone back home that Hampton had harassed her, been inappropriate, too familiar. He should have remembered that this wasn’t Harlem, where a girl like Sophia could speak to you on the street, invite you to meetings, address you by your first name, call you brother. This was the South, after all, where buckshot blew through doors and lives were abandoned in the night and lost forever.

Gerald walked back into the colored car. Hampton saw that his face hadn’t changed. Everyone in the car watched him, waited. They all leaned closer when he spoke.

“They say they know you,” Gerald said. “They want you to get off the train, or they’re coming on.” The train had already been at the station for a few minutes. Hampton knew the platform was emptying. The train would leave soon. Would they really come aboard after him?

“Who are they?” Hampton asked.

“I don’t know,” Gerald said. “They said they know you. Said some girl sent them.”

Terror closed around Hampton’s heart like a fist.

“Who?” he asked. “What girl? I don’t know any girls down here.”

“Sophia,” Gerald said. “They say you know some girl named Sophia.”

The fist around his heart loosened its grip. Hampton found himself cupping his hands around the glass, peering out onto the darkened platform. A cluster of bodies waited beneath one of the lamps at the far end. A man turned toward the train as if looking for something, pushed the hair away from his eyes.

It was Fred Beal.



Hampton pulled his duffel bag free of the overhead compartment and exited the train just as the whistle blew and steam rolled down the platform. Beal and a man Hampton had never seen before remained at the far end of the platform, beneath one of the lights. Beal looked up and saw Hampton. His face registered a moment of recognition. He nodded, said something to the man standing with him. They both turned, and Hampton watched as they walked into the station. Hampton put on his hat and hurried to catch them.

The empty station hummed with silence. Hampton scanned the brightly lit room, but didn’t see them. He walked to a window and looked out into the night. The two men walked across the parking lot. Hampton opened the door and stepped outside, called Beal’s name. The other man stopped walking, looked back at Hampton where he stood just outside the station’s door. Beal continued on toward a Model A coupe that waited in the shadows on the far side of the gravel lot.

Hampton called Beal’s name again, and then he threw the strap on his duffel over his shoulder and ran down the stairs. He wondered if Beal planned to leave him behind here in Salisbury. He didn’t know what to think.

The man Hampton didn’t know stopped at the driver’s side and pulled a set of keys from his pocket. Beal faced Hampton as he grew closer to the automobile.