an iron-gray beard grasped my shoulder and leaned his head down beside mine.
“Broomstick in his craw, heh heh heh,” he said, and gave my shoulder a good
hard squeeze before he moved on.
Mrs. Velvadine and another rotund woman, both of them wearing flowered
dresses bright enough to shame nature, took the stage and shooed the
musicmakers off. Mrs. Velvadine spoke through a microphone, telling everybody
how glad the Lady was that they’d come to share this moment with her. The
museum they’d worked so hard to build was almost ready, Mrs. Velvadine said.
Come the day after Christmas, it would open its doors and tell the story of
not only the people of Bruton but the struggles that had brought them to where
they were. There are struggles ahead! Mrs. Velvadine said. Don’t you think
there aren’t! But though we have a long way to go, she said, we have come a
long way, too, and that’s what the museum was meant to show.
As Mrs. Velvadine spoke, Mr. Damaronde came up beside Mom and me. “She
wants to see you,” he said quietly to my mother. We knew who he meant, and we
went with him.
He led us out of the reception area and through a hallway. One room we
passed was set up for table tennis, and had a dartboard and a pinball machine.
Another room held four shuffleboard courts side by side, and a third contained
gymnasium equipment and a punching bag. Then we came to a white door, the
smell of paint still fresh. He held it open for us as we passed through.
We were in the civil rights museum. The floor was made of varnished
timbers, and the lighting was low. Glass display cases held slave and Civil
War clothes on black mannequins, as well as primitive pottery, needlework, and
lace. A section of bookshelves held maybe a hundred or more thin, leatherbound
volumes. They looked like notebooks or diaries. On the walls were large
blown-up black and white photographs. I recognized Martin Luther King in one,
and in another Governor Wallace blocking the schoolhouse door.
And at the center of this room stood the Lady, dressed in white silk, her
thin arms adorned with elbow-length white gloves. She wore a white,
wide-brimmed hat, and beneath it her beautiful emerald eyes shone with light.
“This,” she said, “is my dream.”
“It’s lovely,” Mom told her.
“It’s necessary,” the Lady corrected her. “Who on this earth can know
where they’re going, unless they have a map of where they’ve been? Your
husband didn’t come?”
“He’s workin’.”
“No longer at the dairy, I understand.”
Mom nodded. I had the impression the Lady knew exactly where Dad was.
“Hello, Cory,” she said. “You’ve had some adventures lately, haven’t
you?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“You wantin’ to be a writer, you ought to be interested in those books.”
She motioned toward the shelves. “Know what those are?” I said I didn’t.
“They’re diaries,” she said. “Voices of people who used to live all around
here. Not just black people, either. Anytime somebody wants to find out what
life was like a hundred years ago, there are the voices waitin’ to be heard.”
She walked to one of the glass display cases and ran her gloved fingers across
the top, checking for dust. She found none, and she grunted with satisfaction.
“Everybody needs to know where they’ve been, it seems to me. Not just
blackskins, but whiteskins, too. Seems to me if a person loses the past, he
can’t find the future either. Which is what this place is all about.”
“You want the people of Bruton to remember their ancestors were slaves?”
Mom asked.
“Yes, I do. I want ’em to remember it not to feel pity for themselves, or
to feel put-upon and deservin’ of what they don’t have, but to say to
themselves, ‘Look where I have come from, and look what I have become.’” The
Lady turned to face us. “Ain’t no way out but up,” she said. “Readin’.
Writin’. Thinkin’. Those are the rungs on the ladder that lead up and out. Not
whinin’ and takin’ and bein’ a mind-chained slave. That’s the used-to-be
world. It ought to be a new world now.” She moved around the room, and stopped
at a picture of a fiery cross. “I want my people,” she said quietly, “to
cherish where they’ve come from. Not sweep it under a rug. Not to dwell on it
either, because that’s nothin’ but givin’ up the future. But to say, ‘My
great-granddaddy pulled a plow by the strength of his back. He worked from
sunup to sundown, heat and cold. Worked for no wages but a master’s food and a
roof over his head. Worked hard, and was sometimes whipped hard. Sweated blood
and kept goin’, when he wanted to drop. Took the brand and answered Yes,
massa, when his heart was breakin’ and his pride was belly-down. Did all this
when he knew his wife and children might go up on the auction block and be
torn away from him in the blink of an eye. Sang in the fields, and wept at
night. He did all this and more, and by God… by God, because he suffered this
I can at least finish school.’” She lifted her chin in defiance of the flames.
“That’s what I want ’em to think, and to say. This is my dream.”
I left my mother’s side, and walked to one of the blown-up photographs.
It showed a snarling police dog, its teeth full of shirt as a black man tried
to fight away and a policeman lifted a billy club. The next photograph showed
a slim black girl clutching schoolbooks and walking through a crowd as
rage-swollen white faces shouted derision at her. The third showed…
I stopped.
My heart had jumped.
The third picture showed a burned-out church, the stained-glass windows
shattered and firemen picking through the ruins. A few black people were
standing around, their expressions dull with shock. The trees in front of the
church had no leaves on them.
I had seen this picture before, somewhere.
Mom and the Lady were talking, standing over by the slave-spun pottery. I
stared at the picture, and I remembered. I had seen this in the copy of Life
magazine Mom was about to throw out.
I turned my head to the left about six inches.
And there they were.
The four black girls of my recurring dream.
Under individual pictures, their names were etched on brass plaques.
Denise McNair. Carole Robinson. Cynthia Wesley. Addie Mae Collins.
They were smiling, unaware of what the future held.
“Ma’am?” I said. “Ma’am?”
“What is it, Cory?” Mom asked.
I looked at the Lady. “Who are these girls, ma’am?” My voice trembled.
She came over beside me, and she told me about the dynamite time bomb
that had killed those girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham on
September 15, 1963.
“Oh… no,” I whispered.
I heard the voice of Gerald Hargison, muffled behind a mask as he held a
wooden box in his arms: They won’t know what hit ’em until they’re tap-dancin’
in hell.
And Biggun Blaylock, saying: I threw in an extra. For good luck.
I swallowed hard. The eyes of the four dead girls were watching me.
I said, “I think I know.”
Mom and I left the recreation center about an hour later. Dad was joining
us to go to the candlelight service at church tonight. After all, it was
Christmas Eve.
“Hello, Pumpkin! Merry Christmas to you, Sunflower! Come right in, Wild
Bill!”
I heard Dr. Lezander before I saw him. He was standing there in the
church doorway, wearing a red vest with his gray suit and a
red-and-green-striped bow tie. He had a Santa Claus pin on his lapel, and when
he smiled, light sparkled off his silver front tooth.
My heart started beating very hard, and moisture sprang to my palms.
“Merry Christmas, Calico!” he said to my mother for no apparent reason. He
grasped my father’s hand and shook it. “How are you, Midas?” And then his gaze
fell on me, and he put his hand on my shoulder. “And a very happy holiday to
you, too, Six-Guns!”
“Thank you, Birdman,” I said.
I saw it then.
His mouth was very, very smart. It kept smiling. But his eyes flinched,
almost imperceptibly. Something hard and stony came into them, banishing the
Christmas light. And then it was gone again, and the whole thing had been
perhaps two seconds. “What are you trying to do, Cory?” His hand wouldn’t let
me go. “Take my job?”
“No sir,” I answered, my cleverness squeezed away by Dr. Lezander’s
increasing pressure. He held my gaze for a second longer, and in that second I
knew fear. Then his fingers relaxed and left my shoulder and he was looking at
the family who entered behind me. “Come on in, Muffin! Merry Yuletide, Daniel
Boone!”
“Tom! Come on and hurry it up, boy!”
We knew who that was, of course. Granddaddy Jaybird, Grandmomma Sarah,
Grand Austin, and Nana Alice were there in a pew waiting for us. Grand Austin,
as usual, looked thoroughly miserable. The Jaybird was on his feet, waving and
hollering and making the same kind of ass out of himself here at Christmas as
he had at Easter, proving that he was a fool for all seasons. But when he
looked at me he said, “Hello, young man” and I saw in his eyes that I was
growing up.
During the candlelight service, while Miss Blue Glass played “Silent
Night” on the piano and the organ across from her indeed remained silent, I
watched the Lezanders, who were sitting five pews ahead of us. I saw Dr.
Lezander turn his bald head and look around, pretending to be quickly scanning
the congregation. I knew better. Our eyes met, just briefly. He wore an icy
smile. Then he leaned toward his wife and whispered in her ear, but she
remained perfectly motionless.
I imagined he might have been answering the question: Who Knows? What he
whispered to horse-faced Veronica, there between the “darkness flies” and the
“all is light,” might well have been: Cory Mackenson knows.
Who are you? I thought as I watched him during Reverend Lovoy’s Christmas
prayer. Who are you really, behind that mask you wear?
We lit our candles, and the church was bathed in flickering light. Then
Reverend Lovoy wished us a happy and healthy holiday season, said for us to
keep the spirit of Christmas first and foremost in our hearts, and the service
came to a close. Dad, Mom, and I went home; tomorrow belonged to the
grandparents, but Christmas Eve was ours.
Our dinner this year wasn’t as grand as in the past, but I did like
eggnog and we had plenty of that, courtesy of Big Paul’s Pantry. Then came the
gift-opening time. As Mom found carols on a radio station, I unwrapped my
presents beneath the Yule pine tree.
From Dad I received a paperback book. It was titled The Golden Apples of
the Sun, by a writer named Ray Bradbury. “You know, they sell books at Big
Paul’s, too,” Dad told me. “Got a whole rack of ’em. This fella who works in
the produce department says that Bradbury is a good writer. Says he’s got that
book himself and there’re some fine stories in it.”
I paged to the first story. “The Fog Horn,” it was called. Skimming it, I
saw it was about a sea monster rising to a foghorn’s lament. This story had a
boy’s touch. “Thanks, Dad!” I said. “This is neat!”
As Dad and Mom opened their own presents, I unwrapped my second package.
A photograph in a silver frame slid out. I held it up to the hearth’s light.
It was a picture of a face I knew well. This was the face of one of my
best friends, though he didn’t know it. Across the bottom of the photograph
was written: To Cory Mackenson, With Best Wishes. Vincent Price. I was
thrilled beyond words. He actually knew my name!
“I knew you liked his movies,” Mom said. “I just wrote the movie studio
and asked ’em for a picture, and they sent one right off.”
Ah, Christmas Eve! Was there ever a finer night?
When the presents had been opened and the wrappings swept away, the fire
fed another log, and a third cup of eggnog warm in our bellies, Mom told Dad
what had happened at the Hall of Civil Rights. He watched the fire crack and
sparkle, but he was listening. When Mom was finished, Dad said, “I’ll be. I
never thought such a thing could happen here.” He frowned, and I knew what he
was thinking. He’d never thought a lot of things that had happened in Zephyr
could ever happen here, starting with the incident at Saxon’s Lake. Maybe it
was the age that was beginning to take shape around us. The news talked more
frequently about a place called Vietnam. Civil strifes broke out in the cities
like skirmishes in an undeclared war. A vague sense of foreboding was
spreading across the land, as we neared the plastic, disposable, commercial
age. The world was changing; Zephyr was changing, too, and there was no going
back to the world that used to be.
But: tonight was Christmas Eve and tomorrow was Christmas, and for now we
had peace on earth.
It lasted about ten minutes.
We heard the shrieking of a jet plane over Zephyr. This in itself wasn’t
unusual, since we often heard jets at night either taking off from or landing
at Robbins. But we knew the sound of those planes as we knew the freight
train’s whistle, and this plane…
“Sounds awfully low, doesn’t it?” Mom asked.
Dad said it sounded to him like it was skimming the rooftops. He got up
to go to the porch, and suddenly we heard a noise like somebody whacking a
barrel with a fifty-pound mallet. The sound echoed over Zephyr, and in another
moment dogs started barking from Temple Street to Bruton and the roving bands
of carolers were forced to give up the holy ghost. We stood out on the porch,
listening to the commotion. I thought at first that the jet had crashed, but
then I heard it again. It circled Zephyr a couple of times, its wingtip lights
blinking, and then it veered toward Robbins Air Force Base and sped away.
The dogs kept barking and howling. People were coming out of their houses
to see what was going on. “Somethin’s up,” Dad said. “I think I’ll give Jack a
call.”
Sheriff Marchette had stepped ably into the job J. T. Amory had vacated.
Of course, with the Blaylocks behind bars, Zephyr’s crime wave was over. The
most serious task that lay before Sheriff Marchette was finding the beast from
