Cast a Road Before Me (20 page)

Lee’s face shimmered in my mind.

A sigh escaped me. I flicked the diagram out of my hand, and it landed askew on the desk. Staring blankly at the wall, I asked my guardian angel to lead me in what to do. Mom had taught me to be a caring person. She’d also taught me to eschew conflict, but that was a laugh now. Lately, my plans had brought me nothing
but
conflict.

With resolve, I picked up an empty box and set it on the edge of my bed. Went to my closet for a couple pair of shoes. Tossed them in from a few feet away. Went back to the closet for more. Tried to throw them into the box without crossing the room. Hit it twice, missed twice. I marched over to grab the shoes from the floor and managed to bang my hip into the box, overturning it onto the carpet. I stared at it stupidly. Then, suddenly, I turned on my heel and yanked open my bedroom door. I didn’t bother to turn out the light.

The school gymnasium was standing-room-only when I arrived, every window and door open for muggy ventilation. The parking lot had been full; I’d walked from down the street. I could hear the sounds from where I’d parked: the roar of voices, the calls of children blithely engaged in tag on the playground, an occasional screech from the old P.A. system. Slipping through the main door, I pressed against a back wall, nodding to a few acquaintances. Uncle Frank had been right; practically the whole town was there.
I could not see Lee or Aunt Eva. My uncle was on the platform, calling for the crowd’s attention.

The atmosphere was both suffocating and surreal. Was it only three weeks ago that these same people pressed against one another to cheer the July Fourth parade? Now anxiety glowed wanly throughout the crowd, reflected in a lined forehead, a handkerchief clutched, the nervous swinging of a crossed leg. The metal folding chairs usually occupied by parents proudly watching children in a school play now were filled with mamas nervously hushing babies, fathers grumbling amongst themselves. My uncle seemed so small on the stage as he called again for order. And then, like a final settling of rocks after a landslide, the room grew dustily quiet.

I saw Lee standing near the stage steps, wearing jeans and a red knit shirt. His large hands were up, fingers spread, as if frozen after hushing people to silence. His expression was dark. My insides turned over. Before I knew it, I was on my way to him, trying my best to be unobtrusive, ducking under ranges of view, winding through knots of people. My uncle began to speak, relating exactly what Riddum had said that day, so “everyone could have the straight story.” I barely heard the words as my feet scuffed across the old wooden floor, eyes fixed on Lee’s back. He had not seen me, the gymnasium stretching between us. For no reason at all my heart began to beat harder, as if some terrible thing would happen if I did not reach him. And then, when I was only five feet away, I vaguely heard my uncle ask Lee to join him. I trotted the last three steps and reached out to empty air. Lee was already up the stairs and striding across the stage. I closed my eyes, feeling like a fool, and wilted back against the wall.

“Everyone who wants to, will get a chance to talk.” Lee’s voice boomed across the gymnasium. From the tone of his voice, I knew he was suppressing his anger. “But we’ll each have to keep it short. And we got to keep things orderly.”

With that invitation began a stream of caustic words against Blair Riddum as one man after another aired his grievances. For
weeks they’d bottled up their frustrations; now they came tumbling out to ricochet off corners and ceiling and the bobbing of mill workers’ heads. “I say we strike, and we do it
tomorrow!”
shouted Zach Bulder, whose son was a few years younger than I. “He said it himself; he ain’t gonna change!”

“Strikin’ ain’t the answer,” Lester Maddock extolled a few minutes later. “Maybe a walk-out for an afternoon, somethin’ to show Riddum our not workin’ could cost him far more than a raise.”

“Then what?” Al Bledger shouted from the crowd. “We go back to workin’ and he still don’t do nothin’!”

“But what if we strike and he goes to Albertsville for more men?” Mr. Maddock shot back.

“We form a line and nobody’ll get through it!”

“We’ll stop ‘em!” someone else cried.

“That ain’t God’s way!” a third voice yelled.

“Yeah, well what if I strike and you don’t?” hurled a fourth. “You gonna take bread from my table?!”

The crowd roared to life, a buzz like angry bees flying toward the rafters. Men were out of their seats, shouting, wives beside them, while Lee and Uncle Frank screamed for quiet. My stomach churned, goose pimples prickling my arms. I wanted to put hands over my ears, run through a side door and escape. I wanted my rented truck at that moment, wanted to drive away from Bradleyville as fast as I could. I turned to thread my way out of the gymnasium and saw Thomas hastening toward the stage steps, face gray. “Thomas!” I wove through bodies to his side, grasping him by the arm.

“I got to git up there!” he yelled.

“Okay!” I helped clear him a path until we reached the stairs. As he hurried up them I dropped back, glancing toward Lee. He caught sight of Thomas and left the podium to greet him. He saw me on the bottom step. For a split second our eyes locked. Then he caught Thomas’s elbow and turned away.

My heart sank. Clutching my arms, I eased off the step and toward a window, hungry for fresh air.

The crowd’s momentum surged, then waned as folks noticed Thomas standing quietly before the microphone, arms at his sides. Neighbor elbowed neighbor, voices lowered, heads tossed into muffled words. Across the room I saw Jake Lewellyn sitting in an aisle seat next to Hank Jenkins and Mr. Tull. Aunt Eva was there too, perched nervously two rows back, shushing the woman beside her.

Facing the mass, Thomas looked frail. Yet his mere presence seemed to shame the whole gymnasium into silence. The hurt on his face was palpable. My eyes filled with tears.

Thomas ran a hand through his whitened hair and cleared his throat. “Folks,” he began, then faltered. Jake Lewellyn lumbered to his feet and began a purposeful walk toward the stairs at the far side of the stage. “Folks,” Thomas tried again, “I lived here all my life, y’all know that. This is the town my daddy built. And never did I think I’d see the day when the whole a Bradleyville would be yellin’ at one another, neighbor against neighbor.” Mr. Lewellyn had reached the stairs and was beginning to climb. “But we ain’t never faced nothin’ like this before neither. So here we are. And how we gonna act? Like the rest a the world? Or are we gonna stick together, like we always done?” Jake Lewellyn was crossing the stage. Thomas saw him and waited. Mr. Lewellyn reached him, put a supportive, beefy hand on his shoulder. “See who we got here?” Thomas said. “My old friend Jake. Sure, we fight and carry on like a couple a cats in spilt milk. But y’all know that’s just show. You know we love each other like brothers. Right, ol’ man?” Mr. Lewellyn puckered his chin, pretending to think it over. Subdued laughter undulated through the room.

“The both of us span more years in Bradleyville than four or five a y’all put together,” Thomas continued. “We’re united by a love fer this town. Just as y’all are. So here’s what I’m tellin’ ya—beggin’ ya. Let’s face this thing with one mind—together. I say the mill workers take a vote. We’ll do it on paper, if ya like. Y’all got to vote on whether or not to strike; there’s really no in-between. Either you tell Riddum you need your jobs more than his
respect, or you cain’t work without it. And only each a you, with your wives, can decide that for yourself. But here’s the hard part. In stickin’ together, we got to abide by the majority vote, whether we like it or not. Otherwise we got brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor. ‘A house divided against itself falls,’ so the Bible says. And so it goes for our town.”

His words drained away, and Thomas looked tired.

“Let’s do it!” someone cried from the crowd.

“We got to talk things over more first!” another voice answered.

Uncle Frank shook Thomas’s hand and nodded to Mr. Lewellyn. Together, the two elderly men left the podium. “I think he’s right,” my uncle’s voice rang through the microphone. “If you want to have your say, come on up. Then we’ll vote.”

Men began to line up, Lee first. His muscles flexed as he laid both hands on the podium. He had to lean down to speak. He looked at me then; I know he did, even though he pretended to scan the crowd. The ache I felt for him at that moment weighted my feet to the floor. “I been tryin’ real hard to be patient with all this,” he began, his voice tight. “For my family’s sake, I needed a paycheck. And I know I’m not the only one with worries at home. I’ve done the best I can to work with a man that just won’t be worked with. Now he tells us we’re not ‘pulling our weight.’” Disgust dripped from him. “So now what’re we gonna do? Seems to me it comes down to this question: Can we continue with things bein’ this way? A covered pot ain’t gonna just simmer forever. As for me, I’m already close to boilin’ over. And seein’ the way Riddum was today, I don’t doubt he’s gonna turn up the heat.”

He paused as numerous men shouted their agreement.
Lee
, I thought,
look at me
.

“So I’m ready to strike. Now the question is, what would I do if things don’t go peacefully. Well, I don’t know for sure. Right now I can only say if things go that route, we’ll deal with it then. Personally I don’t think it’ll get that far. Yeah, Riddum’s mean as a snake, but one day’s shut-down’s gonna cost him hundreds a
dollars. He’s also a good business man, and I’m bettin’ his greed’ll get the better a his stubbornness.”

Applause erupted when Lee was finished. He walked off stage on the far side and remained standing by the wall, arms folded. He would not look at me, but through the remaining speeches, I know he felt me, and I felt him.

Not everyone wanted to strike. Men closer to retirement were less willing to take the chance. I wasn’t sure what Uncle Frank wanted. And not all who took the podium worked at the mill. Mr. and Mrs. Clangerlee declared they’d keep grocery prices as low as possible. Neighbors said they’d share food if money got tight, and the Baptist and Methodist pastors both said their churches’ offerings would go to a common fund. The sincerity of folks was both heartwarming and chilling, for it assumed not only a strike, but a drawn-out one.

It was as though Bradleyville were preparing for a siege.

By the time votes were taken, written on torn slips of paper provided by a teacher from her classroom, the atmosphere was funereal. Women exchanged consoling whispers, absentmindedly rocking sleeping children. Aunt Eva was crying quietly in her seat. Lee collected votes on his side of the room. I found my way to Thomas and hugged him, seeking solace when I should have been giving it. He gripped me tightly, then looked into my soul with over-bright eyes. “Sometimes,” he said, “you got to fight.”

The results were three to one for a strike.

With grim determination the mill workers gathered down front to count off one through five for “sit-down duty” one day a week. There was no need for signs or picketing, only a silent watch in case new workers began to show. Uncle Frank and Lee announced they’d be there the next morning to tell Riddum and would stay throughout the days. Pastor Frasier said a fervent prayer for the town, and we all went home to wait.

T
he next morning, Uncle Frank was out of the house by eight o’clock as usual, but it was only to sit with the “1s” at the mill and wait for Riddum’s reaction. By noon we’d heard little, other than Riddum had been furious, which anyone could have predicted. Around 3:00, I was finishing my final working hour with Miss Alice. I hugged her good-bye and gave her sewing machine a final pat.

“You saved the day for me,” she declared, clinging to my hand. “You decide anytime to come back here, you just let me know. I can’t keep this shop goin’ much longer myself, ya know.”

Her unsurprising offer held not the slightest temptation. I was on the straight and narrow to leave. I couldn’t wait till Saturday. My plans were still on schedule, strike or no. Meanwhile, the atmosphere around town was nothing but gloom and doom. No one was downtown making purchases; folks were already clutching their life savings like Midases. And I vacillated between hurting over Lee’s snubs at the meeting and feeling almost relieved by them. Maybe there’d be no need for long good-byes. I was on my
road and he was clearly on his, and they would not converge. Fine then; if he wanted to lead a strike, whatever the cost—let him. But I’d had a good talk with Uncle Frank after we’d arrived home Wednesday night. A terrified Aunt Eva and I had made him swear on his life that if violence erupted, he’d stay far away from it.

I was supposed to have a final visit with Connie after work. Driving to the Hardings’ house, I steadied myself, even though I knew Lee would be at the mill site. Just seeing his house wove bands around my chest. I drove up Maple, praying his truck would not be there. Wanting it to be there.

It wasn’t.

Connie and Miss Wilma wore the same furrowed brow. Connie looked miserable, as usual. “Oh, I want to show you something,” she said, hoisting herself off the couch despite my protestations. “Martha Plott came over this mornin’—that sweet ol’ lady—and gave me the cutest lamp. Said she was sorry she was sick for my shower. I got the lamp on that little table in the nursery.”

Martha Plott was one of the most generous, loving women in Bradleyville. As far as the Methodist congregation was concerned, the Baptists had no one to match her. She was the first to set up for potluck dinners, the last to leave after clean-up. She seemed to be always taking food to the sick or running their errands or cleaning their houses. Her husband had died young, and she’d often declared that Christ had called her to help others instead of feeling sorry for herself.

“Yes, she is sweet. I’ll go look at the lamp; you stay here.”

“No, no.” Her smile was firm. “I want to show you everything for one last time.”

“Goodness, Connie,” I laughed self-consciously, “you’d think I was moving to another planet.” I took her arm.