Liar's Bench (11 page)

“I don't understand, Mudas. What's this got to do with your dad?”

“Everything. This morning, I found the same exact kind of ribbon in his room.” I lifted my wrist and shook the ribbon. “This.”

Bobby took my hand. “Mudas, I'm sure it's just a coincidence.”

“No, everyone knows Nettie sells most things in threes, especially all her hair stuff. The ribbons are from her store—I even found the package in his room. I confronted him about it, but he's not talking. We had this huge fight, Bobby, it was awful. I think he's never really accepted that Mama picked Tommy over him.” I grew quiet for a moment. “His excuses are full of holes. Yeah, he's hiding something from me. Something big.”

Bobby squeezed my hand. “It doesn't make sense, Mudas. Your dad's one of the good guys. There's got to be an explanation for all this.”

I nodded, wanting more than anything to believe him. Toying with the threads of the ribbon wrapped around my wrist, I smelled a faint hint of lemon—Mama's scent—now a sad and heart-rending reminder.

“You know, I saw her the day before she died. Last Thursday. I dropped by her house to show her my new ride and, well, I know you've only been in Peckinpaw a short spell, but do you know who Roy McGee is?”

“I've heard the talk. All bad. Why?”

“He was there, right in her house, trying to get information about some book. Called it the ‘Rooster Run ledger.' He was really mad, Bobby. I could hear them in the next room: He was smacking her around and accusing her of lying and stealing Rooster Run's money—‘his money,' he said. Told her to get to work on his books and get his Rooster Run ledger back to him. When I asked her about it, she said she was helping Tommy keep McGee's books. His accounts and all. But it didn't set right, and I think this ledger has something to do with all this. If I could just find it, maybe I could get a clue. Find out who did this to her. Find the truth.”

Bobby let out a long, low whistle, shaking his head. “This is crazy, Mudas. Did you tell Sheriff about all this: your dad's ribbon, McGee's ledger?” He looked at me curiously.

I shook my head. “Haven't told anyone but you. I need to sort everything out. Come up for air a bit. 'Sides, Jingles is busy dealing with the town and everything else. And I don't know . . . I'm not sure I trust him with this. He's pretty much set on calling it a suicide; I think he'd just pooh-pooh anything I have to say, blame it on my grief.” I wrapped my fingers over my itching thumb. “But I'm not gonna let him tarnish my mama's name. I owe her that much.”

“You know McGee owns the old Anderson mansion now—the Hark Hill Plantation? I've been out there once or twice with the guys,” Bobby said. “Nothing special, just snooping around same as most everybody else.”

“He's meant to be raising thoroughbreds on that plantation, but I heard it's all a front. Really, he does whatever he likes, thumbing his nose at anyone who tries to stop him.” I lowered my voice, making sure nobody was in earshot. “ThommaLyn told me that her brother's friend knows for a fact that McGee holds these exclusive monthlies out there, with private cockfights, gambling—all kinds of bad stuff.”

Bobby wiggled his eyebrows at me. “What kind of ‘stuff'?”

“Oh, you know.” I blushed.

Bobby shrugged, feigning innocence.

“Whores,” I whispered.

“Mudas Elizabeth Summers!” He gave an exaggerated gasp. “How am I ever gonna get that mind of yours out of the gutter?”

“Bobby Wayne Marshall!” I slapped his shoulder playfully. I'd forgotten how easy that boy could make me laugh. Bobby caught my hands and locked them in the air, laughing.

Henrietta Boggs, Peckinpaw's Miss Biggity, waddled past sipping on a Coke float. She stopped, tossed her crumpled napkin onto the sidewalk, and turned to stare at us with her bossy eyes. Raising a prissy penciled brow, she puckered her lips with criticism. I slipped my hands from Bobby's grip and placed them onto my lap. Satisfied, Miss Biggity nodded and continued on, her litter cartwheeling after her in a sudden gust of wind.

Bobby growled at her and rested his hand on my knee. “I really missed you, ya know?” he said, his voice soft, a lazy roll like tufts of cotton clouds drifting in summer winds. A curl tumbled down across his brow.

I waited a minute for Miss Biggity to move a little farther down the sidewalk. “I'm glad you're home,” I whispered, looking straight ahead to the Osage tree standing in front of the courthouse. My heart did a few skips, and I felt a slow crawl of warmth creep across my cheeks, numbing my currents. I turned to him. For the first time, I looked closely, studying, seeing things I'd missed in him since we began hanging out.
Feeling things I am not supposed to.

“I wish I could've been there for you at the funeral,” Bobby said, absently shooing away a fly that had landed on Liar's Bench.

“It's okay. You're here now.” His fingertips paused on my wrist, then curled over the length of dangling thread. For a second, he peered down the sidewalk toward Miss Biggity, then twisted around to the diner and finally leaned back. He circled the grain of Liar's Bench. “Ya know, Mudas, my great-great-great grandmother was hanged.” He pointed across to the Town Square courthouse. “There.”

“
R
ight over there near the Osage,” Bobby said again.

My gaze veered to follow his over to the courthouse. Streaks of sunshine slipped through the thick canopy of Osage leaves, announcing the afternoon. I watched a catbird forage in grasses beneath the tree. It flew up to a dead branch, mewing out a string of loud notes, then ended its raspy song in a fading whistle. I wiped the sweat off my brow and rubbed my neck, sticky with August heat. “What, Bobby? One of your grammies was hanged over there? Why?”

“Never mind, it's not important,” Bobby said, shifting his weight on Liar's Bench. “We need to fix on you, on finding answers about your mama.”

“No, tell me. I want to hear about your family and take a break from mine. I hardly know more than your middle name.”

He took a deep breath. “My great-great-great grandmother, Frannie Crow, was hanged. This is the bench made from her gallows. And marked from it. Marked
Liar
.” He massaged the wooden spot between us.

“But you come from Chetburg . . . And I thought all the Crows had left Kentucky.” I couldn't believe what he was saying: Frannie Crow was one of his grammies? I'd been hearing about Frannie all my life and here was her flesh and blood, sitting right next to me, holding my hand. “But how can you be a Crow? Frannie was darker—colored, and you're almost like me, Bobby Marshall,” I fibbed, my sweaty fingers lingering over a tiny knot in the wood.

“Might not look it, but that's the Lord's truth.”

I gave Bobby a quick once-over, searching. His features were exotic, his eyes a rich umber, and his skin darker than mine, but not by much. It didn't matter to me. We'd never really talked about it. Though I knew others had, and I had to tell Daddy that he had a different look than most Kentucky boys. Just didn't know it'd be Crow looks.

I planned on getting Daddy's permission to date him, and once I got it, I'd tell all those elders to kiss my tail. Once you fell into those eyes, nothing much else mattered. I knew he had a different heritage of sorts, though none of us kids seemed to care about that.

And Bobby's skin color had never stopped any of the girls at school from falling all over him, batting their eyes, flirting. The jocks puppy-dogged him, too. Thought he was cool, being from the big city and all.

Most all of us kids were still riding on the coattails of the peace and love movement, trying to find ourselves, to let loose the flower child hidden in our barn-wide bell-bottoms. We were confused about the Vietnam War. It scared us, so lots of kids sought to make sense by protesting it with free love, drugs, and loud rock and roll. This long war seemed so close compared to the other wars our parents and grandparents talked about. The old-timers gave us the notion of romanticism in their wars where the band played festively, while the brave men marched off and came back to a hero's welcome. Not this war. Nuh-huh. Seems like everyone knew someone who came back broken, or in a pine box. There were no bands. We cursed our soldiers, and called them cowards and killers. There seemed to be an insane honor in trying to fight Communism oceans away.

And it splashed out into Any-Small-Town, Kentucky, mud puddles. Peckinpaw's jail overflowed most weekends with pot smokers, noise ordinance criminals, and a few litterbugs who'd covered the historic buildings with their flowery peace signs. We wanted to make real changes, wanted to “teach the world to sing in perfect harmony,” just like the cola jingle said. But deep down we all knew that, hell-bound and determined, the God-fearing people of Peckinpaw, Kentucky, would never let that happen. Which, of course, only made us even more determined to make it happen.

I thought about the Klan's never-ending war. “I don't know what to say, Bobby,” I said. “I, uh . . . didn't know you had Crow blood. It's gotta be hard knowing one of your grammies was hanged for poisoning and thievery, and you having Negro blood and all. Does anybody know?”

“Now, hold on—Frannie Crow wasn't a murderer or a thief! And I'm proud of my family's heritage. Frannie's mama was kidnapped from the Indian nation and sold into slavery to the Andersons of Hark Hill Plantation. So it's not just my Negro blood. I've got some Chickasaw in me, too. I'm a Melungeon. Damnit, Mudas, do you think I care what this hick-ass town's inbreds think of me? Hell's bells, girl! You think it's fair that Peckinpaw built a community of shanty houses over there”—he jerked his thumb behind him—“and confined the coloreds up on a crumbling hillside and marked it Nigger Hill?”

“No, I—”

“I have people up there, for chrissakes! That's where my kin lives, up on that hill.”

“Oh.”

“That's right. Kin.” Bobby stood up and paced. “This is 1972, Mudas, not 1862. What? Are you gonna call a town meeting, cry Negro, and have me sent up there on Nigger Hill?” he barked, his voice hugging an edge that cut across my heart.

A scalding-hot blush crept up and spread across my face, flaming my words. “Stop! Just stop!” I shouted, jumping up from my seat. “That's not fair and you know it, Bobby Marshall. It's not what I mean!” I wiped the heat from my brow. “Bobby, I'm sorry for what your family's been through, real sorry.” I jabbed my fists into my hips and set my chin. “But this ain't the North. It's Peckinpaw—just another pick-any-name small town, USA. Things don't end well in Peckinpaw, Bobby! You have to understand that. Maybe you just haven't been here long enough to feel the slap of the South.” I felt my nostrils flare. And I found myself biting back words best left unspoken.

“You're wrong about that,” Bobby whispered.

Fear took hold. I sat back down and braced my back against the bench, waiting for the worst.

“My first week back in Kentucky,” he began, “my parents took me over to the spring festival in Mallardsburg. My parents met up with some old friends. I got bored with all the chitchat and so I set off to grab a burger and Coke. There were three Klansmen handing out pamphlets and, well, I guess they didn't like my winter tan. They jumped me and dragged me to the back of the concession stand. Two of them pinned me to the wall, while the other tried to put my eye out with a cigarette. He said, ‘The last thing our county needs is another nigger-mutt. But, just in case you decide to stay, here's a reminder that we'll be watching.' The guy took a long drag off his cigarette and put it real close to my eye. But I got blind lucky. A concession stand worker came around to dump out his grease pan just in time, and they startled and ran off.” Bobby paused and pulled his lips back tight. “But not before Kentucky's Welcome Wagon committee could leave their hospitality card.” He twisted sideways and lifted his shirt.

I gasped at the ugly scar that bubbled on his back. “Oh, Bobby.” I gently rubbed my hand across it. “Those sick cone-headed cowards! I'm so sorry this happened to you. I had no idea.”

“The guy used me as an ashtray. Said I was lucky this time, and here was my carny prize to prove it.” Bobby dropped the shirt back down. “When we left New York, I didn't realize I was leaving freedom behind. I do love these hills, Mudas, but I love freedom more.”

My ears torched with a deep shame and sorrow at what this place—my home—had done to Bobby. Though I didn't often have cause to confront it, I knew some of these hills' ugly secrets, and knew there was plenty more in the past.

“
B
obby, I whispered, and stared out to Town Square, “I was twelve years old in the spring of 1968. I remember when I sat on the red stepstool in my kitchen and watched as Grammy Essie helped Daddy knot his tie. Daddy was so wound up, I'd feared Grammy was going to strangle him with it. She kept fussing at him to quit fidgeting, and once she even snapped at me to take off my wrinkly Sunday dress and press it again—and then she added: ‘Church is not the day to show God lazy.' I was getting ready to protest when I caught the look that said it'd be best if I didn't.”

 

“I don't know what's got into Pastor Dugin,” Daddy huffed. “Him, going over to Grove Hill Baptist Church for Colored and inviting the choir . . . There's enough trouble 'round here than folks having to go looking for it . . . Good God, Mama, stop. . . .” He leaned away from Grammy Essie. “Stop. You're choking me!” Daddy raised his brow. “Now, Mama, it's a fine thing, but rooting for trouble on the broken heel of another is—”

Grammy Essie gave another sharp tug to Daddy's tie and horned him “the look.”

I quickly turned away, lest those eyes dagger into mine.

“The troublemakers 'round here will burn the church,” Daddy warned. “Muddy”—he snapped his finger for my attention—“maybe it's best you stay home, baby. Yeah, that would be best and—”

I stopped my thumb from cuckooing over my fingers and carefully folded my hands over my fresh-pressed church dress. I held my breath. Coloreds had never been allowed in our church.

“She'll do no such thing, Adam,” Grammy Essie insisted. “She is going to hear the gospel choir that Pastor has invited to our church.”

“When that black choir strolls in, they'll likely be singing to empty pews,” Daddy worried. “Don't you see . . . Mama, now is not the right time to be doing this. They called out the National Guard to Louisville last week. They've deployed over two thousand guardsmen to the streets. And you're trying to have a social . . . Mama, two kids died last week in the Louisville race riots and—”

“Can you think of a better time?” Grammy Essie shot back as she grabbed her Bible off the kitchen table.

When we arrived at the church parking lot, we found it full.

I followed Grammy Essie up to the Summers' pew and squeezed in alongside Daddy. The packed church sounded like a swarm of bees, angry ones, that is. When Grammy wasn't looking, I peeked over my shoulder. I spied Mrs. Elliot wearing her prettiest hat, a stiff worry fastened to her poppy-red cheeks.

Mr. Edward rested his fingers against his knotted forehead, narrow eyes spitting grease. His wife looked pale-faced and agity.

Rita Bosly was stuck on painting her lips, twisting them cattywampus-like at anyone looking. And Patrick McCall and his pew mates had their heads bowed in feverish prayer. Nearby, Mrs. Moss flashed me a look that meant to do a'hurting.

I whipped my head back around and fired up my worrying hands.

After a few minutes, Pastor Dugin crossed to the pulpit. Everyone quieted.

Daddy stretched his arm around me, and Grammy picked up my nervous hand and squeezed. Then behind us, the church doors creaked opened, and people turned and stretched their necks, me included.

Ten black women in long crimson robes formed two lines to the choir box. They stood in the box and waited, shifting their feet, sneaking glances at us.

Pastor Dugin cleared his throat, and announced, “Let's bow our head in prayer.” After a short lapse, Pastor said, “Thank you, oh Lord, for this glorious day. . . .” When he was through, he said, “We are pleased to have the visiting choir from Grove Hill Baptist Church for Colored here this morning. They'll lead our service with a hymn.”

I looked over at the women and their shiny dark faces wearing jittery smiles. I smiled back. A commotion broke out behind me. I heard Daddy hiss through his teeth, and I turned to see what the rustling was about.

Mrs. Moss stood up with her pocketbook hooked over her arm. Behind her, a red-faced Mr. Cooper stood between his twins. Farther back, I saw three others slowly rise.

Then they spilled out of their pews and hurried out of our church.

After a long hush, a round woman with dark, kind eyes stepped forward from the choir and began to sing “Oh Happy Day.” Soon, the church was filled with a glory that I thought could only be found in Heaven, or at the very least, in the seasons of Christmas and the Fourth of July, all rolled into a beautiful celebration. Never had I'd heard such true harmony. I even enjoyed Pastor Dugin's sermon, especially the lively declarations that the black choir shouted with their spontaneous “Hallelujahs” and multiple “Praise be to God.”

At the end of the service, the choir sang “The Church in the Wildwood.” Daddy teared up and hummed along. Everyone kept repeating “pretty” like it was the new amen.

And although blacks were still turned away from our church doors, most agreed they'd enjoyed the pretty left behind.

“Grammy Essie said it seemed like it would take root, but in the end it wasn't strong enough to strangle the ugly, pushy kudzu.” I sighed to Bobby. “Still . . .”

Bobby picked up my hand and pressed it to his mouth.

“Some people aren't born, they just fall out of the ugly tree and crash into stupidity branches,” I said. I traced a finger lightly over his back, worrying it over the scar.

“And grow bird-shit brains,” Bobby muttered.

I knew that bigotry ran deep here. Confederate flags flew proud, snapping in the Kentucky winds like leather straps against skin. And, on occasion, the KKK kicked up dirt at dusk.

But I'd been taught from a young age that those people—those champions of hatred—were cowards. Daddy had taken on more than a few cases involving racial discord, business that would send him up to Nigger Hill from time to time, looking for witnesses or victims. I loved that about Daddy. The fearless way he took on criminals and sought to bring justice to the underdog. The respect and kindness he gave to all victims. And Mama too. She'd always rush to put together a lil feed sack full of cookies, candies, and some flower seeds, and insist that Daddy give it to the family he was visiting. Then she would give me the nod and I'd run to my bedroom to rummage through my toys, looking to find one to stick inside her package.

Sometimes Daddy'd even let me ride along with him, but I was never allowed to step out of the car, which I didn't understand. And whenever I'd asked, “Why not?” he wouldn't explain, just said those were the rules. So I'd sat dutifully in the car, fascinated by the tiny hill community—the one-room shacks and little shotgun houses tentacling across the hillside like ivy leaves to the vine. The inviting smell of outdoor cookers, the pools of summer shade, and the musical laughter that punctuated front-porch storytelling. I hadn't been up to Nigger Hill in years.

“Bobby, I didn't know you had Crow color in you. I, well,” I shrugged, “I just thought you might have a mix of something from further back and far away. I'm real sorry they hurt you— sorry your home state steals what another gives so freely,” I said, conjuring up those redneck cowards hurting him.

Bobby looked away, trying to unwind his anger. “Yeah, well, one more year of school and then I'm out of here.”

I bent down for an Osage ball and massaged the tough fruit against my forehead to hide the shame of my ancestors. I thought about Grammy Essie, how she'd finally set Frannie's story to pen for history's sake, since nobody else would. And telling me how after
it
happened (the
it
always squeezed out in a tight whisper), nothing would grow in front of the courthouse: every shrub, flower, and tree they'd planted would just shrivel up and die. That is, until the Osage tree took root. It was planted next to the courthouse nearly seventy-five years after Frannie's kin built the bench here, with the seat positioned to face the courthouse commons, as if they knew the tree would be coming and wanted to get a good view. Now those funny little fruits always seemed to make their way across the street from the courthouse, to rest beneath the shade of Liar's Bench.

Bobby took my hands and lowered me down on Liar's Bench, looking at me all serious-like. “Most of my relatives had color, Mudas. They were passed around in wills and deeds, same as the silverware and the mules. Just a piece of property, something to be owned.”

I grimaced. “Bobby, you're the same as me. Look.” I pulled up a lock of my mix of brown hair and put it next to my gray eyes. Pointed to the splay of light and dark freckles across my nose. I smiled, clicked my white teeth, and stuck out my pink tongue. “See. I'm just full of rainbows.”

“So, you don't care that I have color in me? That Frannie Crow was my relative, my blood-kin?”

“No,” I said quietly.

“Then say it.”

“Say what?”

“That you don't care that I'm colored—a nigger Injun.”

“I told you, I don't care. And I don't care what ignorant rednecks think.”

“Say it, Mudas. Say you don't care that I'm a nig—”

“Stop, Bobby.”

“Just say it.”

“I said stop it! I'm not gonna insult you with those words.”

“C'mon, Mudas—”

I looked at him carefully, not sure why he wanted me to blaspheme him like this. His eyes were determined. “Okay, Bobby, okay, you're colored! A half-breed. A nigger! And I don't give a spit! Happy now?” He looked anything but. I sighed. “Bobby, it doesn't matter to me. But, we've got to worry about the Klan and their kin scattered about these parts, always lurking—as you know—waiting to target anyone a split-hair different than their scumbag selves.”

“I'm not afraid of cowardly jerkwads,” Bobby sneered.

“I'm not either,” I whispered, waving the lie off Liar's Bench.

Bobby softened and pulled back. “I'm sorry for upsetting you,” he said, shaking his head. “I know you've got bigger worries than a century-old hanging and my family.” Stretching his long legs outward, he slouched down on Liar's Bench, linked his hands behind his head. “It's just this bench . . . it punches up all these feelings in my bones I can't control. It's like whenever I sit here, I can picture my gramma sitting right next to me. Hell, sometimes it feels like she's trying to tell me something. Hah, how's that for crazy?”

I gave an involuntary shudder. “I can feel something, too. It makes me feel closer to my grammy. And, you know what? I think it's kind of cool that one of your grammies was Frannie Crow.”

“We're cool, then?” He flicked my dangling ribbon.

“Cool,” I replied, slipping into a smile. It felt good to share worries.

“Hmm, that's strange.” Bobby lifted my wrist in the air, twisted, then sniffed the ribbon. He aimed the fabric toward the sun and squinted.

“What is it?”

“I'll be damned.” He whistled. “Looks to me like this ribbon has writing on it. Real faint. Maybe you've got yourself some sort of message here, darlin'.”

“Pfft, you're joshing?”

“Nope.” He grinned. “See right here, on the back of the ribbon? The pink side?” He turned it over. “Not the flowered side. The pink here has turned a bit blue-brown. It's got a scrawl of chicken scratch.”

“Huh.” I inspected the ribbon.

“Maybe it's a secret message,” he said, growing excited. “My gramps Jessum served in the war and he told me all about how army intelligence used invisible ink to send their secrets back and forth. Way cool. He even showed me how to make my own invisible ink out of vinegar or lemon. Even milk. Here, take it off and let me see.”

“Ah, lemon. That's it! Mama told me, too, that her daddy was a soldier and he taught her how to make the ink. We were just talking about it, Bobby. She dug up my old chemistry set last week.” I picked out the knots and handed the ribbon to Bobby. “That was the last time I saw her.”

He held the ribbon up to the sun and examined it closely, twisting his head to get a better look. “I'm guessing an
R
and an
O,
or
P,
it looks like an
S
. . . maybe, hmm, maybe two
O
s and a
T
? That mean anything to you?”

“Really?” I leaned into him. “Roo? Rop? Root, Roos. Aha!” I jumped up from Liar's Bench. “Rooster! ROOSTER RUN! Wow, Bobby! It's got to be Rooster Run, right? Maybe the ribbon is connected to McGee's Rooster Run ledger that Mama was working on. It's got to be.”