As the house became quiet, I must’ve fallen asleep in the warmth of the closet. I didn’t know how I got to my bed that night until I found one of my grandmother’s hairpins in my bed. Bless her heart, I remember thinking, how did that poor old skinny bag of bones get me up the stairs and how had she found me?
AFTER SCHOOL ON Monday, I ran from the school bus ahead of everyone and told Livvie what Daddy had done to Timmy and what we did to Daddy and how he got twenty-seven stitches in his head. I’d never seen her so angry. She began to iron with a vengeance, pushing the flat bottom of the iron into the clothes with all her strength, her lips set in a straight, hard line.
“Are you angry with me, Livvie?”
“Not one bit. Go on get Timmy in ’eah to me,” she said.
Something in the back of her voice prompted me to drop my books on the table and run for Timmy. I brought him back, she put the iron on the resting plate and stood up from her stool. First, she stared at his black eye and bruised face.
“Pull up your shirt, boy,” she said and he did it at once.
He turned around and she saw the welts.
“Ain’t right. My granddaddy died with whipping scars on he back. This ain’t right.” The sight of his back kindled a powerful feeling down deep inside of her. Her breathing wasn’t regular. Her nostrils flared as she stared at my brother’s back. She let go of an enormous breath and, gently, she reached out and laid her hand across his skin. Her hand traveled each red mark, registering its length and width. Timmy didn’t flinch. She moved her hand on Timmy’s eye and jaw.
“Still hurt, son?” she said to him.
“Not now. It’s alright now, Livvie.”
“Ain’t alright. Ain’t alright nohow.”
The wipe of her beautiful, long, dark fingers had taken away Timmy’s pain. Timmy was healed, but now Livvie carried the wound. She hardened toward my father in a declaration of war.
She was very serious about protecting us. “Chillrun be Gawd’s gift, ain’t no doubt about that, no sir,” she’d say to us over and over. We’d never know for sure, but I thought she would’ve done anything to shield us from Daddy. And, in a karmic twist of fate, within days Daddy needed shielding himself.
Daddy caught the devil from the president of the board of education for Charleston County. I heard Big Hank telling Momma that he’d been called in and told to scratch the cafeteria and heating in the school he was building and that the basketball courts and library were a waste of energy and money.
Daddy was disgusted. He took a lot of pride in his work. He may have been horrible to us, but he believed in education and equal opportunity for everyone. Just because no other black school in the state had those things, did that mean they never should? Daddy said that maybe it was time for them to raise the standard of facilities anyway. And apparently this guy told Daddy to mind his own business and do what he was told. But you couldn’t tell Hank Hamilton something like that. Oh, no.
He and his crew continued the building his way, not altering one thumbtack of the plans. Although I had every reason to despise him, I had to give him some due for having the courage to match his convictions. I wished he cared half as much about us.
Monday of that week, he went to work in the morning and found crosses burned into the grass and equipment smashed to pieces. It was the trademark of the Klan and the worst damage done to his work site so far. He continued anyway. On Tuesday, he was nearly run off the road into the marsh coming home late from work. He seemed to be coming home later and later, but that was of no concern to us. When he wasn’t around, our home was almost a normal home. At least we felt the antics of Sophie and Momma were tolerable.
Unafraid and determined, he returned to work. Two days later, someone fired gunshots from the beach through our front windows in the middle of the night. By the grace of God, we were all asleep or someone could’ve easily been killed. The morning after that, Daddy tried to reassure us by saying that if they had really intended to kill somebody, they would’ve fired the shots at suppertime. That opinion did little to calm Momma’s nerves and, as usual, she went to bed, leaving us to care for Sophie and the twins and leaving Livvie to plan our Thanksgiving meal.
That Friday morning President Kennedy was assassinated in Texas. Sister Angela, my history teacher, was called out of our class by Father O’Brien. When she returned she was crying.
“The president has been shot,” she said.
The janitor rolled in a television and the sixth and seventh graders came in the room to watch the news with us. Then an announcement came over the public-address system for us to pack our things for the day and report to chapel. The whole student body filed in the little church and Father O’Brien led a special Mass for our slain president and his family and for the sins of the world. After that, school was called off for the day. We were put on buses and taken home.
We rode in silence, Miss Fanny leading us in the rosary and for once, we all prayed with her. There was no laughing, teasing or cutting of any kind of fool. We were children who could no longer believe that good always triumphed over evil. Sometimes evil won.
Livvie was in the kitchen when we came in. Her eyes were red and I could see that she’d been crying too. Momma and Grandma Sophie were in bed, overcome with grief. It was a terrible day. The only excitement came from the newspapers and the evening news as we all tried to understand why someone would want to kill our president. We decided it was the Communists.
I heard Uncle Louis and Daddy that night discussing the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis. They were sitting in the kitchen when the lawman of the Island arrived. Fat Albert’s car pulled up in our backyard. I hemmed and hawed, wiping the counters down over and over, hanging around to try to find out why he was there, but no such luck.
“Go see if your momma wants anything, Susan,” Daddy said.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
I waited until Fat Albert’s patrol car left and went back to the kitchen to make Momma some hot tea. Daddy and Uncle Louis looked up at me and stopped talking.
“She wants hot tea. I’ll be out of here in a moment.”
They looked at each other and then at me.
“Are we in trouble?” I said.
“No, Albert just wanted to warn me again about my building project, that’s all. He’s afraid that there might be more trouble, with the president being shot and all,” Daddy said. “He was just here out of friendly concern.”
I knew Daddy was lying to me about that but I didn’t know why.
IT WAS THE day before Thanksgiving, and we had a half-day of school. At Livvie’s urging, Maggie and I planned to go window-shopping on King Street in Charleston. She said we needed to have some fun. We appreciated time off from the “slice-and-dice club” that preceded an elaborate holiday meal.
Ever since the incident with Timmy, and the death of the president, Livvie had been very quiet. It was as though she preferred to be left alone just to do her work. She had barely spoken to Daddy since then either, just giving him the hairy eyeball if he passed her.
In any case, Maggie and I looked forward to a day of no chores. I took the bus from Mount Pleasant over to the city and met her. We had no homework because of the holiday, so we were able to enjoy the walk without our usual load of books. We passed by all the windows on King Street, pretending to buy whatever we wanted with imaginary money. It was great fun. Maggie had a wonderful innate sense about fashion. She began to choose things for me, and after the first dozen or so dresses she pointed out, I began to see why certain things would flatter my telephone pole figure and others wouldn’t.
“Accentuate what you’ve got going for yourself,” she said. “See that blue sweater? It’s the same color as your eyes.”
“I know you’re right. God, I wish we had some money and could go into a store and buy something.”
“Yeah. I’m gonna start baby-sitting more. You should do that too. I’ve got fifty-seven dollars in my Band-Aid box.”
&
nbsp; “Shoot! You’re rich! Let’s spend it!” I was thrilled.
“I didn’t bring it with me for exactly that reason. I’m gonna save up to one hundred and then spend half.”
“You’re so damn practical, Maggie.”
“Susan, please! That mouth of yours!”
“Forget my mouth, will ya? You’re right! I should start baby-sitting! I’m old enough!”
“Listen to your big sister, sweet pea. If you’re old enough to knock the daylights out of Daddy, you’d have no problem handling a bunch of toddlers.”
We started laughing. It was such a relief to laugh. The first few chortles sounded rusty, but then we got on key.
“Hey, you want to go get an ice-cream cone?”
We had a couple of dollars and decided to go to Woolworth’s lunch counter and give ourselves a small treat. We pushed open the large glass doors and right in front of us was a huge display of hundreds of boxes of Whitman’s Samplers. We stopped in our tracks.
“What do you think?” I asked. “Should we buy a box and eat the whole thing ourselves?”
“Susan Hamilton, we’d be sick as dogs. Hey, you know what?”
“What?”
“We should buy a box for Livvie to have for her Thanksgiving.”
“Boy! She’d love that! Maybe that’ll cheer her up. How much are they?”
We looked at the price stickers. The large box was seven dollars and the small box was three dollars. We calculated that we could buy her the large box, if we skipped the ice cream and used our bus fare. We’d have to walk to Daddy’s office down on Broad Street and ask for a ride home with him. No doubt it would aggravate him if we showed up, but we decided it would be worth it, given all that Livvie had done for us.
“This was a great idea,” I said to Maggie, leaving the store.
“Thanks,” she said. “I guarantee you this will snap Livvie out of that mood of hers. I mean, what if she got so sick of the craziness in our family that she quit? What would happen to us?”
“Don’t even think it.”
We made our way down the street, passing the dozens of small antique stores, the Riviera movie theater and the boarded-up, vacant buildings. We reached the corner of King and Broad Streets and turned left to reach Daddy’s office.
“You know,” Maggie said, “he hasn’t hardly spoken a word to us since the fight. We didn’t call him or anything, Susan. He might not even be there. Then what would we do? We don’t have bus fare!”
“Stop worrying. If he’s not there we can hitchhike home.”
“One of these days you’re gonna get yourself killed.”
“Seriously, we can call Aunt Carol. She’ll come get us.”
“I don’t know.”
We opened the door to Daddy’s office and began to climb the stairs, quietly, listening for his voice. His secretary wasn’t at her desk. The door to his office was closed. Maggie knocked. There was some shuffling and then we heard Daddy shout. “We don’t want any!”
“Daddy? It’s us. Maggie and me,” I said.
“Jesus H. Christ on a crutch! What the hell do you want?”
“We need a ride home.”
It was very strange that he didn’t open the door. I think we knew, big shots that we were, that he and his little secretary, Cheryl Stikes, were in there fooling around. But we didn’t have the nerve to turn the handle to find out. We’d had enough trouble lately. So we waited and listened to the whispering and the shuffling. Sounded like they were getting dressed as shoes clumped the floor and zippers zipped. We’d caught him red-handed. Finally, we heard him coming to the door.
We figured he’d just go ahead and kill us when he opened the door. He was surprisingly nice. He just asked, “Okay. What’s the problem?”
He looked at us with no guilt on his face. Cheryl stood behind him, running her hand through her hair, trying to restore order to her nasty teased hair.
“We need a ride home,” I said. “When are you coming home?”
“I have to work late. Gotta go back out to the country to secure the equipment for the night. Could be eight, nine o’clock before I get free. I can’t take you out there with me, it’s not safe right now.”
“Right. Shoot. Now what?” Maggie said.
“Daddy, will you lend us the money to take the bus?” I asked as sweetly as I could under the circumstances.
“Sure.” He opened his wallet and gave us each ten dollars.
“You think we’ll keep our mouths shut, don’t you?” I couldn’t help it, it just flew off my tongue like a plane leaving an aircraft carrier. Ten dollars was a stunning amount of money.
“Susan! Shut up!” Maggie said.
“I know my girls are mature enough to understand that some things are better left unsaid, that’s all.”
I took the ten dollars and stuffed it in my pocket and gave Daddy the worst look of hate I’d ever given anybody.
“Hey, Cheryl!” I said.
She looked up from Daddy’s desk, where she was now making herself busy stacking papers. She had this fake innocent smile that made me want to puke.
“Why don’t you sit on this and spin!” I gave her the finger, turned on my heels and ran down the stairs to the street. I heard Maggie’s feet behind me, and Daddy’s burst of laughter, booming laughter when there should have been shame.
“God almighty, Susan!” Maggie gasped. “Have you lost your mind?”
“What does he care? He’s laughing like a damn idiot!”
“You’re right, but he’s crazy and you never know when he’ll turn on us.”
“He’s done with us,” I said and it was true.
We waited for the bus as the weather turned raw and damp. Winter was coming, a Lowcountry winter. We got on the bus and rarely spoke the whole way home, over one and a half hours.
Even though there was a change in the law, Maggie and I sat in the front of the slow, rattling bus and all the colored people sat in the back. This embarrassed me. These were the people who had given the world the woman who cherished us. I wanted to tell them that the box of chocolates we carried was for Livvie. Instead I stared out the window and thought about how much I hated my father. I swore to myself that I’d never have a husband like him, if I ever got one.
Finally, the bus stopped at our corner. Dr. Duggan’s car was in the driveway. We walked through our backyard to the house.
“Dose-’em’s car,” Maggie remarked.
“Yup. Big shock.”
“Maybe Daddy wasn’t really doing anything,” she said suddenly.
“Maggie, you know I love you, don’t you?” I said, feeling older.
“Of course I do.”
“Maggie, I’ll bet that lots of families have screwed-up parents like we do.”
“Probably, but that doesn’t make me feel better.”
I put my arm around her shoulder. It was cold enough now for our breath to blow frost.
“No, I guess not,” I said. “But look on the bright side. In three years you’ll be in college, and I’ll be out of here in four. We need to plan our escape, and make sure nothing happens to mess it up. For my part, I plan to study my butt off and pray to skip my senior year. Then we can share a dorm room at some learned institution and you can tell me what to do all the time.”
In the pale light of early night I could see her smile. “Let’s go inside. It’s cold.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
The golden light of the kitchen shone through the windows. We climbed the steps as coconspirators. We would say nothing about what happened at Daddy’s office. Our faces would reveal nothing. There was no reason to ruin everyone’s holiday and no reason to give Livvie another reason to dislike Big Hank. We opened the door and faced Livvie. Henry was at the table with Timmy, both of them sitting there staring at the sugar bowl again. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
“Get on in ’eah.” She closed the door behind us. “It’s y’all’s grand
momma. She done had sheself a stroke not ten minutes ago, or something terrible. Timmy find she on the floor when he go to take she supper and Miss MC call the doctor. They is in there now. Your uncle is on the way.”
“Oh, God. Did anybody call Daddy?” Maggie asked.
“He ain’t there. We done call him.”
“Probably out in the country at the construction site,” I said.
We heard Uncle Louis’s car door slam and the running of his shoes up the back steps.
“Where’s my momma?” he asked, nearly out of breath.
“In she room,” Livvie said quietly.
All at once I realized that this could mean Sophie was going to die. Shoot, we had just buried Tipa. I wasn’t sure what a stroke was, but I knew they killed people all the time or, worse, left them alive in very bad shape.
“Can we go in?” I asked, not really wanting to see anything.
“Y’all bess be waiting ’eah with me for now. Go wash your hands and help me chop celery for the stuffing tomorrow. No matter what happen, still gotta eat. I don’t think she gone tonight. I don’t feel like that’s so.”
“Anything from the guy in the mirror?” I asked flippantly. This was going to be some holiday.
“Nothing, but I check on him directly. Maybe he got a ticket for Mizz Asalit to board the train to glory, but I don’t think so. Not tonight, nohow.”
“How do you know this stuff, Livvie?” Timmy asked.
“In my bones, son, in my bones.”
We heard the doctor on the hall phone ordering an ambulance. I crept out and stood by him. He ignored me until he’d made the call.