This Is My America(75)

I search for articles about a Black man lynched, using the date on the back of the photo. Nothing pops up. I grow frustrated until I find a story about an FBI raid in Crowning Heights, a short article on the second page of the local newspaper. Illegal guns, racketeering. Then I see Richard Brighton’s name as charged but not convicted. Richard was one of the few men who weren’t sentenced.

The thought makes me sick, but I need to see that photo again. The one with Judy Evans as a little girl. I look at the online scan, blow it up on my screen, and cover the body of the man who was lynched, focusing instead on Mrs. Evans looking up at her dad, another girl, slightly older, with her hand on Mrs. Evans’s shoulder.

I go back to my search engine, this time looking for a murder in the weeks following the date of the photo. A shiver runs down my spine when I notice something about a missing Vietnamese shrimp packer. Curious, I click on it. The article says his family had been looking for him for weeks. The last day he was seen was the same day as the lynching photo.



“It can’t be,” I whisper.

“What is it?” Quincy comes up behind me and looks over my shoulder.

I compare the article’s photo with the lynching picture. The man’s white shirt peeks out underneath a work apron. A shrimp-hook design on the corner of the apron, white pants with stains. When I saw the white hoods and people gathered around the body by the cross, I’d assumed the man was Black. Now I see he could be the Vietnamese man, with brown skin darkened by long, hot days outside. The apron isn’t on him, but his clothing is almost exactly the same.

“You see this?” I point at the photo and the image online, then shut my eyes tight.

“Is that…? Can’t be…Is that the same guy?”

The missing man in the article must be the same as in the photo. I search his name, Minh Nguyen. The only thing that comes up is that he went missing, possibly ran away from his family to move to New Orleans or another location near the Gulf for better work conditions. No mention of him being found.

They got away with murder. I count sixteen people who witnessed his death and never said a word.

People who can keep a secret like this are capable of anything.

I go over the details with Quincy. He keeps a calm face, but he’s tapping his foot hard.

“You should stop looking into all this. Give this to Steve Jones! Stay out of it.” The crease in his brow is getting tighter.



I know he’s trying to protect me, but I’m already smack-dab in the middle of it. Somehow, I feel like I’m still chasing my daddy’s secrets. Jamal has Daddy’s case on his back—like father, like son. I know I should focus on helping Jamal, not get lost in old skeletons that, if woken, could be ghosts I’d regret waking up.





KILL TWO BIRDS


WITH ONE STONE


Wednesday afternoon, Mandy steps out of the Pearl Coffee and Tea shop a few blocks from school. Her hair is in a messy bun again, and a black apron’s still tied around her waist. I wait in the parking lot for her.

“I don’t have a lot of time. I’m on a break.” Mandy’s dark circles under her eyes share all too much of her pain.

“We both want the truth,” I say. “I know Angela went out to the Pike, but she went alone. Without Jamal. Why?”

She scans the lot, a nervous look bouncing in her eye.

I lean on the driver’s side of my car until Mandy gets the courage to speak.

“Chris caught her in a lie, and she was trying to backtrack what Scott was saying about her messing with Jamal.”

“But the Pike, alone?”



“The first time Angela went to the Pike, it was back in April. Angela thought Chris was up to something out there because he was saying some real wild stuff and hanging with a new crowd.”

“Like racist things?” I say.

Mandy nods. “Chris kept going out to the Pike all secret-like. Hushed conversations and cryptic texts. She decided to go out there, see for herself what was going on.”

The photos on the SD were back in April; the timeline matches up.

“Angela realized Chris was part of some new hate group. She didn’t know exactly what but called it a bunch of angry white boys.”

A shiver runs down my spine thinking about the flyers in Richard Brighton’s SUV.

“A few weeks later, Chris demanded Scott give back a gun of his. Chris had let him mess around with it after he found it in his uncle’s storage. Scott gave it back, but before Chris could get a chance to return it, it went missing from his truck.”

“What happened to it?” I jump in.

“Angela. I told her to mind her business, but when Angela was determined about something, there was no stopping her. Scott suspected it was her, so he told Chris about the rumors going around that Angela was seeing Jamal. And…and it sounds like you already know Chris confronted her the same day she died at the Pike.” Mandy’s voice cracks, her hands shaking.



“I saw them arguing that morning,” I say.

“She told him she was worried that he was planning on doing something dangerous. That he’d changed since he’d been hanging with a new crowd by the Pike. She’d seen the gun in his glove compartment and took it. Chris wanted to prove to her they were ‘good guys.’ That they were just pushing back on ‘liberal PC bullshit.’ That there was ‘nothing wrong with wanting to protect their own.’?”