Before My Life Began (50 page)

“We'll do that too, boy. Don't you worry none.”

“You could let us both go. Haven't you hurt us enough? I'd like to take her to a doctor.”

Nicky is on her knees and Aaron hears a man talk about dog-fucking her. Nicky rises, eyes glazed. She steps one way and then the other, her hand outstretched as if she is blind. Aaron estimates that there are twelve to fifteen men around them. He tries to find a picture inside his head that he can fix on, a picture that will enable him to restrain himself, to keep from erupting, from trying to kill the bastards.

“I can't find any of your goddamned dark rooms,” Nicky whispers. She stands beside him. “I'm losing everything, Aaron. Oh good Christ Almighty but I'm scared—”

He sees her hand reach toward him.

“Don't,” he commands.

“Bring 'em down to the water,” Ben says. “Let's go now.”

“Oh good Jesus Christ, Aaron—we're all gonna gather by the water, like in the hymn, only—”

“You wanna pray, girl, you get down on your knees the way you know how, like you do for all them coons.”

Aaron eyes the gun barrels, thinks of how beautiful the blue metal is in moonlight. His left eye throbs, but behind the pain there is a picture now, and the picture is very clear. He, Nicky, Holly and Dwayne are driving across the state to attend James Chaney's funeral. Chaney is the black civil rights worker whose body was found, along with Andrew Goodman's and Michael Schwerner's, in Philadelphia, Mississippi. The funeral is in Meridien. Chaney, who was twenty-one, has a twelve-year-old brother, and at the Freedom School in Meridien, the brother plays in a jazz band: piano, washtub bass, cardboard boxes, bongos. Is he pleased, in the midst of grief, to have so much attention paid to him because his older brother has died? There are about 150 marchers, and Aaron walks with them, from the church to the school, in silence. A phalanx of TV personnel and vans move along with them, drawing closer each time they find a pair of eyes in which there are tears.

Walking down to the lake, beside Nicky, he tries to recall what he felt during that other walk, that hour of silence. He sees James Chaney's face, as if in a sketch: brown pencil on beige paper, tints of rose-red. He hears Dave Dennis's voice—Dennis, the Assistant Director of the Mississippi Summer Project—and Dennis is calling out the roll of death: Mack Parker, Medgar Evers, Herbert Lee, Lewis Allen, Emmett Till, four little girls in Birmingham, two boys in the Mississippi River. Dennis says that he is sick and tired of attending funerals. If you cannot go ten blocks to the courthouse, he asks, how will you ever go nine million miles up to heaven? Dennis damns the souls of everyone in the church where James Chaney lies dead. He is angry—sweet Lord, he is angry!—and it is high time others became angry too, angry enough to go to the courthouse and register, angry enough to teach children to read and to write, angry enough to do whatever they have to do to stop the murder and the hate….

Aaron feels a gun barrel jab the small of his back. Nicky's face is twisted, swollen.

“I won't hurt myself,” he says.

“Them neither. You promised.”

“Hey, wait a minute, Dad. Look here what they got hidden away—”

Aaron turns. To his surprise, he and Nicky have walked only a few feet. Aaron remembers James Chaney's mother, in the front pew, weeping. Will what he felt then give him strength now? He recalls believing that Susan was there with him, and he wonders why he never told her so.

Ben's son drags a young, shivering black boy—Aaron does not recognize him—into the circle of light.

“You hold on to him, son.”

The sheriff takes Aaron's wallet, looks through the cards and photos, counts the money.

“What's a nice clean-cut young guy like you want down here with us?” he asks. “I see you got a family. What for you want to go messin' around in other people's yards for?” The softness in his eyes fades. “Now what you got to see, Mr. Levin, is that we heard all about how you roused up them people last week like you was savin' them for Jesus, and what you got to see too is that we know it was some lying son-of-a-bitch Jew like you that cut up them other three so's you could bring the feds in, ain't that right?”

“No. I don't know why you—”

A blow to his right kidney sends Aaron staggering forward. The sheriff sidesteps, lets Aaron fall, kicks him in the stomach.

“A big boy like you, got a shave and a haircut and a wife and kids, you could be up home doing good works for that family instead of messin' around where you don't belong, makin' trouble for honest folks. I got a mind to cite you for loitering and insurrection and intent to cause a riot and speeding and operating under the influence—” Aaron feels beer splash in his face, drip down. “I got a mind to cite you for all kinds of things. There ain't much I couldn't cite you for. You know that, don't you? I could find things to cite you for would keep you locked up down here till your own kids wouldn't recognize you no more.”

“He'd make a good tight end, Ben, if he don't get all his muscles broke first.”

“Where'd you find the little boy, Horace? You tell your father the truth.”

“He was locked in their trunk, Dad. I think they was fixin' to kidnap him up North, sell him to somebody.”

“Jesus,” Nicky whispers. “Oh sweet Jesus, Aaron—”

Aaron and Nicky are pushed forward. They stumble down toward the lake, hear the men jeer, hear the men ask if they want to go wash the nigger smell off. Will putting them in the lake kill all the fish? The men laugh. Aaron thinks of escape. There are no lights—no houses—on the lake that he can see. No boats. He imagines himself and Nicky holding hands underwater, swimming along the bottom, bullets spraying the lake's surface like pellets of hail. He sees blood burst from their ears, dark streams of it rise through the water like smoke. He thinks of old Jon Hall movies, South Sea natives diving for pearls, staying underwater too long, legs caught by giant clams. When he and Nicky are near the campfire, about fifteen feet from the water, they stop. Aaron sniffs in through swollen sinuses and he can tell that the black boy has lost control of his bowels.

One of the men presses the barrel of a revolver between the boy's eyes.

“You wanna fuck this white girl?” he asks. “Iffen you do, now's your chance.”

The boy gapes. The man cracks the boy across the cheek with the butt of his pistol and Aaron sees the skin peel back at once, as if chiseled. The boy does not lift a hand to protect himself. He does not seem to know that he has been hit.

“They all want it,” the sheriff says, “only when it's been given to 'em free, they're too scared to take it.”

“How ‘bout a kiss for the boy to get him started?” Horace says. “He's so shy, ma'am, you gonna need to help. You come on now and do what I say, hear?”

“Don't,” Aaron whispers. “Don't do it.”

“You keep your lip buttoned.” The sheriff has his service revolver in Aaron's midsection. “You let the girl do what she wants. Freedom now, boy, right? Maybe she's got a thing for little fellas, likes to play games with them.”

A man approaches from behind the campfire's flames, a barber's razor across his raised palm.

“Take the little fucker's pants down, Horace, and we'll take care of his problem right here and now. Then he won't have to worry ‘bout temptation all the rest of his life.”

Aaron sees Nicky sway, as if she may faint. He sees them lift the boy, jerk his pants down. The boy falls face forward toward the campfire, lurches along the ground as if having a seizure. The surface of the lake is absolutely still, a disc of dusty tin. The sheriff's son grabs the razor from the other man and straddles the boy, turns to Aaron.

“You love this nigger so much, mister, whyn't you come fight for his little pecker now? I givin' you a chance to come try and take this razor from me so you can save the boy you love.” He laughs, turns to the other men. “Think the fish gonna bite for it if we put it on a hook after? Looks just like a nice fresh brown earthworm, don't you think? Don't it, Dad?”

“Too small, Horace. Fish is smarter than niggers.”

Aaron's throat is dry. “Please don't,” he says. He tries to recall the words they were taught. “You'll only be sorry later. Can't we talk this over? We won't tell anybody about what you've done, but I think—”

“Who's he gonna tell, Ben? You're the law. Maybe he's gonna tell you.”

“I got to warn you it's against the law in the state of Mississippi for two people to fornicate in public places,” Ben says. “This here is public land, boy.”

“The nigger's out cold, Ben. How about letting her do it with the big white fucker, give us a show—teach us all them tricks they been learnin' the niggers in their schools?”

The men mumble, shuffle. Have they lost interest already? Aaron wonders: when their imaginations run dry—when words and taunts fade—will the need for violence still be there?

“You heard them,” Ben says. “You be a gentleman and you give the pretty girl here a kiss, then maybe we'll let you go.” He grabs Aaron's jaw and squeezes with such terrible pressure that Aaron believes the top of his head may pop off. Ben whispers, his eyes pitiless, his voice low: “You want to get out of here alive, you do what we ask, you hear? I'll handle the rest.”

“She ain't so pretty with all the blood swole up on her mouth, Dad.”

Ben's voice is harsh: “You
move
, girl—”

Nicky is in front of him, her hands light on his shoulders, her lips against his. She is on tiptoes, and all the pressure of her wiry body is set against his mouth, a strip of air between them. He does not close his eyes. He hears the men holler, making jokes, urging him to cornpole her. He feels a lash on his cheek and knows it has drawn blood from Nicky too. Still, she does not pull away and the desperation of her passion startles him. Her tongue searches inside his mouth hungrily. Her lips are surprisingly warm, her tongue sweet with the salty taste of blood. Her blood? His own?

Aaron is pulled backwards violently. Somebody says that he is enjoying it too much. Nicky licks her chipped tooth. The sheriff's son passes the razor in front of Nicky's eyes and Aaron does not move.

“You stay where you are, boy,” the sheriff says, a hand on Aaron's arm. He turns. “What you aim to do with that carrot peeler, Horace?”

“Cut me some bait,” Horace says. He jabs at Nicky's waist. “Smells like rotten shrimp down there. Fish gonna like that, I bet.”

“No,” the sheriff says. “You got to be smart, Horace, like I always say. You know how many feds they got in Philadelphia and Meridien now, more coming? You kill a white girl, they gonna be down our necks before the sun comes up. Now, you got business with the poor colored boy, you finish that, none of us around to see. They don't care so much about that.” He turns halfway toward Aaron. “Didn't Jesus himself say, ‘I come not to bring peace but a sword'? Didn't he now? So you tell me, if you're a smart man: who brought the sword down here, who's doing His work best—?”

Horace bends over the boy, razor high, and Aaron is aware of the hush, the sudden silence. He is afraid that he is going to retch, and he doesn't want to give them the satisfaction. He sees a few men turn away, hears the sound of a car engine start up, measures his chances, tries to take into account what they might do afterwards to Nicky, to the boy. Horace hunches over, razor held sideways, as if he will slice backhanded. But he hesitates for a second—his other hand, directly above the boy's groin, twitching a bit, as if afraid to touch the boy's penis—and in that second, the sheriff reaches for the razor and Nicky begins to sing: “‘Amazing grace…how sweet the sound…/That saved a wretch like me—/I once was lost, but now I'm found…/Was blind, but now I see…‘”

Aaron feels his heart stop, then pound harder. A pulse beats in his neck. Nicky's voice is not beautiful, yet it is surprisingly full and lusty, rasping a bit on the low notes, breaking slightly in the falling cadences. He imagines her in a long white robe, walking out into the water, being held by the minister, being dunked backwards. He sees her rise, hair dripping. They sang the song in Ohio, holding hands, and in the church in Meridien. The sheriff has stopped, his hand poised above his son's hand. Does Nicky see him? A dog begins to howl, then another, and Nicky keeps singing, eyes closed. Aaron sees a man, to his right, squat down the way the Polish farmers do where Aaron lives, forearms on thighs for balance. The man removes his orange hunter's cap. Horace's eyes bulge even while his hands relax.

Aaron watches a man ruffle the fur on his dog's neck. Doubtless what they were taught, again and again, in training sessions, is true: the same man who will horsewhip a Negro will be kind to wife and child and dog, and will perceive nothing contradictory in his behavior. Aaron watches Ben take the razor from Horace's hand.

“Well,” Ben says. “All we said we was gonna do, remember, was to put the fear of God into these troublemakers, and I guess we done that. No need to bring trouble down on our necks too.”

Aaron watches his car slide by, pushed by three men. It rolls forward, glides into the lake, stops when the water is just below the level of the front windows.

A minute later they are alone, though Nicky does not seem to realize it.

“We're okay,” Aaron says.

She reaches for his hand, then collapses against his chest, clutching at his back, beginning to sob. He smooths her hair, feels pinpoints of pain explode within his head and chest.

“We need to get the boy to a doctor. Us too.”

“I don't think my jaw is broken—not really.”

Aaron listens to the boy's heart race, feels the cold, damp skin. He takes his own shoes and socks off, rolls up his pants and walks into the lake. He reaches into the back seat, takes out a blanket, holds it above his head, wades back to land. He washes the boy's forehead and face, dries him, then wraps him in the blanket and lifts him in his arms. The moon is gone. In darkness they begin to walk toward the road.