Chapter 129

I HELPED MOODY DOWN from the handlebars of the bicycle. She had hollered most of the way into town, threatening bodily harm if I didn’t let her down off that contraption this instant! The noise we made was enough to turn heads all the way up Maple Street, onto Commerce Street, and into the center of town.

Eudora had just begun to settle down again. The last of the photographers and reporters had gone away on the one o’clock train.

I heard the rhythmic clang of iron from the blacksmith shop, and the pop-pop report of a motorcar doing a circuit around the courthouse square.

A few hours ago the eyes of the nation were upon Eudora. Now it was just another sleepy little southern town, happy to go back to living in the past, looking toward the future with nothing but suspicion and fear.

“Shall we?” I asked Moody.

“You’re gonna start a riot,” she said. “You know that, don’t you?”

I clasped her hand tightly in mine. Then we began to walk down the sidewalk of the busiest street in Eudora.

To anyone who didn’t know us, we would seem like lovers out for a romantic stroll on a late-summer afternoon.

But of course there was a complication: I was white, Moody was black. My hair was blond and straight, hers was black and tightly curled.

The citizens of Eudora had never seen anything like the two of us.

They stopped in their tracks. Some got down off the sidewalk to put some distance between us. Others groaned or cried out, as if the sight of us caused them physical pain.

Corinna Cutler and Edwina Booth came out of Miss Ida’s store, a couple of plump old hens cackling to each other-until they laid eyes on our joined hands.

Both their jaws dropped.

“Afternoon, Miz Cutler,” I said. “Afternoon, Miz Booth.”

Their faces darkened and they hurried away.

Ezra Newcomb saw us through the window of his barber-shop. He abandoned his lathered-up customer in the chair and stalked to the door. “Ben Corbett,” he shouted, “I oughta take this razor to your damn throat!”

I relinquished Moody’s hand and wrapped a protective arm around her shoulder. “Nice to see you too, Ezra.”

Word of our coming spread down the street before us. About half the town stepped out onto the sidewalk to see what was causing the commotion.

At the drugstore I held the door for Moody.

Doc Conover stared down at us from his pharmacist’s bench at the rear. “What do you want, Corbett?”

“A bottle of wintergreen oil, please,” I said.

“We’re fresh out,” he said.

“Aw now, come on, Doc,” I said. “It’s for Abraham Cross. He’s dying, and it would bring him relief. You’ve known Abraham all your life.”

“I told you we’re out,” he said. “Now clear out of here.”

“There it is, up there next to the camphor.” I pointed to the row of bottles on the shelf above his head.

“You callin’ me a liar?” said Conover. “Take off, or I’ll have the police throw you out of here.”

Moody pulled at my sleeve. “Let’s go,” she said.

I followed her toward the front door.

There was a crowd waiting outside to point and jeer at us. We turned left and headed down the block. “Let’s go to the Slide Inn and have some iced tea,” I said.

“I can’t go in there,” she said.

“Sure you can. Who’s going to stop you?”

“Get out of here, nigger-lover!” called a man in the crowd.

We came to Jenkins’ Mercantile, passing the bench where Henry North and Marcus had carried my mother after she had had her stroke.

We walked the rest of the way to the Slide Inn, trailing our little mob of catcalling spectators.

Lunch service was over. There were only three customers in the café-two young ladies sipping coffee and an old woman chewing on a cheese sandwich.

I’d hoped Miss Fanny was on duty today, but it was another waitress who approached us. “Can’tcha read?” she said, poking her thumb at a brand-new sign posted above the cash register:

WHITES ONLY

“I’m white,” I said.

Without a pause the waitress said, “You got a nigger with you. Now go on, get outta here.”

“Where’s Miss Fanny?” I said.

“She don’t work here no more,” the woman said. “ ’Cause of you.”

We turned to the door. I felt something hit my sleeve and I glanced down. It was a gob of spit, mixed with what looked like cheese. It could only have come from the little old lady.

When we stepped out the door our audience had swelled to a couple of dozen angry people.

They gawked at us. They yelled. They mocked.

“Kiss me,” I whispered to Moody.

She looked up at me as if I were insane, but she didn’t say no.

I leaned down and brought my lips to hers.

A cry of pain ran through the crowd.

A woman’s voice: “Look, he got what he wanted-a nigger girl to take to his bed.”

A man’s voice from behind me shouted, “Y’all goin’ to hell and burn for all time!”

“Niggers! You’re both niggers!”

“You make me sick in my gut!”

“Get out of here! Just get out!”

I whispered, “You ready to run?”

Moody nodded.

And we ran, and ran, and ran.

Chapter 130

WE WERE HALFWAY to the Quarters before the most persistent of our pursuers gave up. We stopped to catch our breath, but I kept an eye out, in case anyone was still following.

As it dawned on me what we had done, I realized that I was-well, I was delighted. Who would have thought two people holding hands could make so many wrong-minded people so very unhappy? We had put the citizens of Eudora in an uproar, and that realization warmed my heart.

I had abandoned my bicycle downtown. Maybe the mob had strung it up in a noose by now.

As Moody and I walked the muddy boards that passed for a sidewalk, folks began coming out of their houses to have a look at us. As fast as we’d run, news of our public display seemed to have preceded us.

“Y’all damn crazy,” said one old lady.

“Naw, they in love,” said a young man beside her.

“Well, hell, if that ain’t crazy, I don’t know what is!”

“No, ma’am,” I said. “We’re not crazy and we’re not in love, either.”

“You just tryin’ to cause trouble then, white boy?” she demanded.

“All I did was kiss her,” I explained. “But we did cause some trouble.”

The old lady thought about it a moment, then she cracked a smile.

It was like a photographic negative of our march through Eudora. By the time we got to the crossroads by Hemple’s store, we had a crowd of spectators tagging along with us.

One of the old men looked up from his checkerboard, his face grim. “Now see what you done,” he said to me. “You done kicked over the anthill for sure. They comin’ down here tonight, and they gonna lynch you up somethin’ fierce. And some of us, besides.”

“Then we’d better get ready for them,” Moody said.

“Ready?” said the other checkers player. “What you mean ready, girl? You mean we best say our prayers. Best go make the pine box ourselves.”

“You got a gun for shootin’ squirrel, don’t you?” said Moody. “You got a knife to skin it with, don’t you?”

The old man nodded. “Well, sho’, but what does that-”

“They can’t beat all of us,” Moody said. “Not if we’re ready for them.”

The people around us were murmuring to one another. Moody’s words had started a brushfire among them. “Let ’em come!” cried a young man. “Let ’em come on!”

Moody looked at me with soulful eyes. And then she did something I will never forget. I will carry it with me my whole life, the way I have carried Marcus’s kindness to Mama.

She took my hand in hers again. Not for show, because she wanted to. We walked hand in hand to Abraham’s house.