Out Through the Attic (26 page)

When she was in her teens she wanted nothing more than to marry and have children, but her fever during the great epidemic seemed to have burned the dream right out of her. From that moment on, all she had cared about was teaching children how to read. And yet, in the back of her mind there was a strange sense of waiting for something, and she wondered if Stephenson was it.

Things had gone badly at the end of their third date. The conversation had turned to more personal matters, and Stephenson mentioned with bravado that he was the recently anointed Grand Dragon of Indiana and leader of 250,000 pure, white souls. Her stomach turned, and that’s when she’d told him about the nature of her students. She’d expected him to explode, to scream and curse her, but he hadn’t. He’d looked at her with a wicked little smile, as if he’d known all along, and his eyes sparked like the devil himself was dancing inside his skin. She’d excused herself, boarded a trolley and ignored his calls and messages for almost three months.

And then he’d called, only a few hours ago. Madge had been seated in her small office grading papers and preparing for her next class when the phone rang. She normally didn’t take calls until after her last class. It was as if her hands belonged to someone else. She watched them put down the papers, pull the candlestick phone-stand towards her and lift the small receiver off its hook. The receiver to her ear, she leaned in to the mouthpiece, her mouth shaping words that weren’t hers. “Indiana State literacy program, this is Miss Oberholtzer.”

“Please don’t hang up.”

Recognizing his voice stirred within her a feeling of immediate disgust. His speech was slurred, albeit slightly, as if he had been drinking, which surprised her since prohibition was well respected in Indiana. She felt the urge to simply slam the receiver down, but something stayed her hand.

“What is it you want, Mr. Stephenson?” Her question came through toneless and cold.

“My reasons are professional not personal, I assure you,” he said in his firm, silky-smooth Texas drawl. He’d told her when they first met that he had been raised in Houston.

“What could you possibly have to speak with me about in a professional sense?” Her own curiosity surprised her.

“I’m glad you asked. The truth is I was speaking with Governor Jackson this morning. We both believe that someone of your distinct qualifications and demeanor would be ideally suited to a new position he’s creating.”

“Forgive me if I’m not a little suspicious, Mr. Stephenson. We’re very different people.” She didn’t hide her distaste.

“True enough, to be sure, but that’s the reason the Governor thought of you. This position is something for the good of the State. Would you be disposed to come discuss it this evening? I can send my car to pick you up.”

She wanted to refuse, to tell the wretch that she had no interest in anything he or the Governor—whom she knew was also Klan—had to offer, but she heard herself saying, “Certainly, Mr. Stephenson, as long as your intentions are of a professional nature. You may have your man pick me up at five o’clock.”

“Thank you, Miss Ober—”

She hung up the phone and stared at it as if she’d never seen one before. She wracked her brain for some explanation as to why she would have conceded to his request. It was impossible, and she couldn’t imagine what possessed her.

An image floated up out of her thoughts like cloudy mud when you step into a still pond. Madge had a vision of Stephenson, but it didn’t come from her memories, and it wasn’t in Indiana. The memory was ghostly, faded, smoky, like a dream seen through a dirty mirror. Stephenson wore crimson and screamed into an ocean of pious white hoods spotted with strange patterns of color. His eyes were that of a fiery dragon, and he breathed smoke.

The vision faded, and she found herself standing before the ladies’ room door. She shook her head, trying to clear the frightful vision, and walked in. She stepped up to the sink, turned on the water and stared at her reflection. The face seemed almost foreign to her, and a chill coursed its way through her body. She leaned down, splashed her face with water and lifted her head.

It was not her own face looking back at her, but the face of a teenage colored girl in a plain, thread-bare dress of gray covered with a dingy apron. It should have surprised Madge, but it didn’t. She merely stared at the face and knew the girl’s name was Harriet.

“I’s sorry for what I done to ya,” Harriet said apologetically. “You died of the sickness same as me. But I made a promise, and the good Lord is helping me keep it … through
you
. Don’t you worry though. It’s me that’ll bear what’s coming. I’ll take it all. He can’t hurt me no more than he already has.”

“Why?” Madge asked, not comprehending but knowing deep down this was how things needed to be.

“Cause I made a promise.”

Harriet pulled a postcard out of the pocket of her apron, extended her hand through the glass and placed it on the sink between them. The photograph on the front shocked and appalled Madge, but she’d heard of such things. Through the mirror her eye caught streaks of bright light come down from a window behind Harriet. Madge reached down to pick up the postcard, and for just an instant their fingers touched, sending an icy-cold shock through her. Madge squinted her eyes with the pain of it, and her mind swirled as she pulled her empty hand back. When she looked again, she saw the card on the other side of the mirror in Harriet’s hand.

In an instant Madge understood everything. She turned her head and looked at Heaven’s light streaming down behind her. Without a word, she turned, walked into it and was gone.

Harriet turned away from the mirror and stared down at white hands. They were smooth, soft and nothing like any hand she’d ever touched before. She ran her tongue over someone else’s teeth and breathed air deeply into someone else’s lungs. A sad smile spread across her face, and she steadied herself for what was to come. Without another thought she walked out of the ladies’ room and through the front doors of the building. She slipped the postcard into a postbox just outside and strode towards the waiting Cadillac like a soldier heading off to war.

Stephenson’s man Earl Gentry helped her into the car, and she could smell the whisky on his breath. Gentry was an obese man, his gut spilling over his belt, and the cheap brown suit he wore was threadbare and spotted with food that hadn’t made it to his mouth. He was silent as he drove through the city, but Madge could feel the tension, like heat streaming off of the man, pouring into the back seat and wrapping itself around her. They arrived at Stephenson’s mansion and parked around the side of the house, between the back door and the four-bay garage.

Gentry nearly dragged her out of the car, forcing her through the back door roughly and shoving her into the kitchen. She rubbed her bruised arm as she met the steely gaze of Stephenson and the sidelong glances of two other men. Shorty, the regular chauffer, stood off to the side and looked at the floor when his eyes met Madge’s. He was small, almost puny, with slack shoulders and eyes weary with a lifetime of denigration. Earl Klink, a massive, brutish bodyguard, stood tall and had traces of malice and a brutal hunger in his eyes. Madge’s skin felt almost infected wherever he looked.

They’d all clearly been drinking. There was an empty bottle of illicit whisky lying on its side on the kitchen counter. A full one sat next to it, and a half-full one was in Stephenson’s hand. His eyes were alight with drunken fury.

“Reject me, will you?” Stephenson hissed and took a pull from the bottle. “Do you have any idea who I am?” Stephenson reached out his hand, motioning for Gentry to hand her over. Gentry shoved hard, and Madge stumbled into Stephenson’s iron grasp. “I
AM
Indiana!” He glared down at her with a dragon’s eyes. He set the bottle down and slapped her, his fury carrying a lifetime of senseless rage with it. The force of it pushed her into Klink’s arms, and he slapped her across the other side of her face. She stumbled into Shorty who refused to meet her gaze and pushed her back towards Stephenson. Her face ached, and stars danced before her eyes.

“Please …” she whispered.

Stephenson’s face split into an evil sneer. “What you need is to loosen up a little.” He tightened his grip on her arm, forcing a yelp from her, and then thrust the open whisky bottle into her mouth. It burned like nothing else she’d ever tasted before. Over and over he repeated it—slaps and burning whisky poured down a raw throat. Finally, she simply blacked out.

When Madge came to, she was lying on a bed somewhere in Stephenson’s house. Her body was numb from the alcohol, but she could feel his presence, as if she were sitting too close to a pot-bellied stove. She opened her eyes to see the dragon staring down at her, framed in a moonlit window. Its eyes glowed with a hatred that seemed boundless as they burned into her. She knew what was coming and would have dreaded it, but she’d been waiting for a long time, resolved to endure it all.

With Madge’s voice, Harriet Truth uttered a prophecy to the evil that prepared to inflict itself upon her. “The law will get their hands on you,” she said with an easy and stoic confidence.

Stephenson laughed mercilessly and boasted, “I
am
the law in Indiana.” And then it began. The dragon loosed its rage upon the lamb. It beat her first then bit into her again and again like a rabid animal. The rape lasted hours and was as filthy and bestial as a dog tearing into carrion. She never cried out, never gave the dragon any satisfaction, which only seemed to spur it on into further atrocities. Hours later, after it had been quiet, Stephenson’s men came in and found them both passed out.

Fear gripped them when they saw what the dragon had done.

O O O

Madge woke up to morning sunlight in a hotel room she didn’t recognize. Someone had dressed her in her torn, bloody clothes, and her whole body was alight with pain from the bruises and bites and rape. Stephenson wasn’t around, but the other three men were. It occurred to her that they couldn’t have gotten her into a hotel without someone saying something unless the Klan owned it.

She was utterly alone.

Klink, seeing that she was awake, turned to Shorty. “Watch her, runt,” he said with obvious venom. At first Madge thought the big man’s disdain was meant for her, but Shorty winced at the word
runt
. “We have to figure out what to do next.” Klink opened the door and passed through it with Gentry close behind. The door closed quietly, and Madge looked into Shorty’s eyes.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, desperate pleading in her voice. Shorty remained silent, but she watched an internal conflict wax and wane upon his face. “Are you going to kill me?” Her tone was flat, fatalistic.

Shorty was silent for a few seconds, clearly pondering the question. “I’m not,” he said with a stoicism that kindled within Madge a glimmer of hope.

“So why are you doing this? They clearly despise you. Why work for such despicable men?”

“The Klan,” he started, and he closed his eyes and shook his head. “They took me in … made me one of …
them
.” She thought she saw moisture welling in his eyes. “Sometimes being part of something terrible is better than being alone.” Shorty turned to the mirror above the dresser and stared at his own face, a deadpan face except for eyes full of fear and a lifetime of regrets. “At least, that’s what you tell yourself.” Shorty wiped his eyes, sniffed once and then turned to stare at Madge. His eyes were now empty, caverns full of a cold distance that filled her with a twinge of pity for the man.

“Can I at least clean myself up? I need bandages and some … things … feminine things.”

The bedroom door opened and Klink stared in. Shorty turned towards the door and straightened his shoulders. “She needs bandages … and
lady
stuff….”

Klink gave him a dirty look and cast his eyes to where Madge lay. Perhaps for the first time he realized what his master had done. There was no trace of sympathy, not a shred of decency, but he seemed to realize that one of two courses lay before him: kill her or let her go. He grunted an affirmation and glared at Shorty with the same loathing as before.

“Fine. But I’m going with you. We don’t want her getting away before we figure out how to handle this.” He turned his gaze back to Madge and narrowed his eyes as he stared at her. “You try to run and you’ll think what Stephenson did was a waltz compared to what I do to you. This whole area is Klan. They won’t lift a finger to help you. Understand me?”

Madge nodded.

“Then move your ass. Let’s get this over with.”

Klink followed them closely, like a vulture circling a wounded animal in the desert. Shorty ushered her out of the hotel to a Klan drugstore just around the corner. Bandages, alcohol, cotton balls, she gathered what she needed to clean herself up. As they drifted from one aisle to the next, she deftly snatched a box of mercury chloride tablets when Shorty was looking the other way. She paid for the goods, staring into the face of a clerk who wouldn’t meet her gaze.

Back at the hotel she retreated to the bathroom, cleaned herself up as best she could and stared into the mirror. It was Harriet’s face there in the glass, and none of the marks showed on her shining, dark skin. The time had come. She poured six of the mercury tablets into her hand, cupped her other hand under a running faucet and downed them, chasing them with cold water. All three men had stayed in the other room while she cleaned herself up. She went to the bed, laid down and waited.

The mercury didn’t take long to send her into agonized contortions. It burned, and every ten or fifteen minutes another wave of pain doubled her over. At first the men thought she was faking it, trying to draw attention, but they knew they were safe in a Klan-owned hotel. She begged them to take her to a doctor, but it wasn’t until she started coughing up blood that their faces went pale, realizing they’d run out of time. Madge curled up into a ball, lying half in and out of consciousness, her eyes closed and her breathing short.

“We ain’t got no choice now,” Gentry said fearfully but with deadly resolve. All three men stood around the bed where Madge lay in agony. “Shorty, you’re gonna have to do it.”