“Yeah.”
Hallelujah stared at me for what felt like an entire five minutes before he finally said, “Heck, no. I’ll fight, but I ain’t crazy enough to start one.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14
IT WAS LATE, AND WE HAD JUST SETTLED IN FOR THE night after attending church. We were all kind of piddling around before we went to bed. I sat in the front room with Fred Lee, who was reading his history text while I looked at the funny pages from a week-old copy of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger. After reading through several chapters of the book of Jeremiah—?the “weeping prophet”—?during church service, I needed something to give me happy thoughts before going to sleep.
Across from us in the parlor sat Ma Pearl, Papa, and Queen. Ma Pearl and Queen listened to a show on the radio while Papa browsed the pages of a Sears and Roebuck catalog.
When the knock came, it surprised us. No one ever visited that late at night.
We all froze. Except Papa. Springs creaked when he rose from his chair.
He touched his finger to his lips, requesting our silence. As quietly as he could, except for the squeaking floorboards, he crept to his bedroom to retrieve his shotgun.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. The knock came again. My heart pounded so fast I thought it would beat out of my chest.
With his shotgun at his side, Papa called through the door, “Who there?”
“It’s me, Papa,” a weak voice came from the other side. “Open the door.”
“Ruthie?” Papa called.
When he opened the door, Aunt Ruthie and her children flooded inside. The children clung to her like cuckle bugs.
Ma Pearl, with Queen at her heels, stormed from the parlor. “Gal, what the devil is you doin’ with these chi’rens out this time a night?”
Aunt Ruthie stood in the middle of the floor, her face illuminated by the glow of the kerosene lamp. The two younger children, their faces buried in the fabric of her faded plaid dress, hugged her knees; the older ones circled her waist. The baby was cradled in her arms.
“Ruthie,” Papa said, his face puzzled, “what is you doin’ here?” He placed the shotgun against the wall and peered out the door. “How y’all get here?”
“Walked,” Aunt Ruthie muttered, her head hanging, a wide-brimmed straw hat covering her face.
“Walked?” asked Papa. “Seven miles?
Aunt Ruthie nodded.
“In the dark?”
Without raising her head, Aunt Ruthie lifted her arm and mumbled hoarsely, “I had a flashlight.”
Her voice rattled, like she’d been crying.
“What you doin’ walking seven miles in the dark with these babies?” Papa asked.
Before Aunt Ruthie could answer, Ma Pearl yanked the hat off her head. One of the baby’s diapers was wrapped around her head. Blood had soaked through.
“Lawd, Ruthie,” Ma Pearl snapped. “You done let that ol’ drunk fool beat you again?”
“What happened, Ruthie?” Papa asked gently.
Aunt Ruthie choked back a sob. “He hit me in the head with his steel-toe boot.”
“Lawd-a-mercy,” Papa whispered.
Queen went over to Aunt Ruthie and took the baby from her arms. When Aunt Ruthie’s tears crested, so did mine. I wiped them quickly with the back of my hand.
“Rose, you and Fret’Lee make a pallet on the floor in Grandma Mandy’s room for them chi’ren,” Papa said. “Ruthie and the baby can have the bed.” He turned to Aunt Ruthie and said, “Come on back here. Let me clean you up.”
But Ma Pearl wouldn’t let her go without a fight. She planted herself right in front of Aunt Ruthie’s face. “Don’t make no sense how you let that man beat on you, gal,” she said. “And he’n even feed’n you and them chi’ren?” She shook her head. “You shoulda left that fool long time ago.”
Aunt Ruthie, rubbing her arm and still staring at the floor, choked back sobs. “I’m leaving,” she said. “For good. This the last time he go’n hit me.”
As if hearing her voice triggered their memories, the children began to cry. Papa, in a sterner voice this time, said, “Take them chi’ren on to the back, Rose and Fred.”
Fred Lee had already set his book aside, but I was still sitting on the sofa with the funny pages spread in my lap. I felt immobilized. Everybody talked about Slow John beating Aunt Ruthie, but I always hoped it was an exaggeration. Now I was seeing it for myself. Her children huddled around her, crying—?clinging to her, as if at any minute she could be taken away from them—?was a testimony of how frightening it must have been. Aunt Ruthie herself stood there looking equally frightened, as if the boogeyman himself had chased her and the children through the dark night, along those wooded predator-filled roads, to the safety of her parents’ house. And all she received from her own mama was chastisement, blaming it all on her.