Catfish Alley (41 page)

"So Ellen wrote about Zero in her diary?" I
ask. I want to pick it up and look at it, find out if there was something she
knew, something to explain what happened, but my hands don't seem to obey my
mind. I can't bring myself to touch that diary.

Roxanne reaches for it and pulls it across the table
toward her. She leafs through the pages until she gets to the one she's looking
for. She smoothes the pages out flat, then hands the diary to me. Now my hands
are the ones shaking as I set it down between Clarence and me. Together, we
read Ellen's entries for December fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth, 1931.

I can't find my voice to respond. Reading young Ellen
Davenport's words about my dear brother has torn that old wound in my heart
wide open. This confirms what I always thought: Ray Tanner was at the center of
this. It had to be him — especially since Ellen got her daddy to fire him over
what happened to Sarah Jane.

Clarence reaches into his pocket and pulls out a
handkerchief to blow his nose. How much pain can a body bear? The four of us
are so quiet I can hear the clock over the refrigerator ticking. That old
saying crosses my mind — time heals all wounds. Not this one. It's been seventy
years since Zero was murdered, and right now, reading this diary, it feels like
yesterday.

Roxanne breaks the silence. "Grace, was I that
blind?" she asks. "Did you tell me Zero died and I just ignored
it?" Roxanne has got such a pained expression on her face, it cuts right
through me.

I finally find my voice. "No, sugar," I say.
"I never told you what happened. When you acted like you believed he left
Clarksville, I just didn't correct you. I didn't have it in me to talk about
his death yet." She nods like she understands.

"I've never seen the point in talking about things
you can't do nothing about," Clarence says, and I can hear that old anger
in his voice. He gets up from the table and walks to the window, looking out
over his little garden. "Talking won't bring him back, or change what
happened."

"Clarence," I say. He still won't look at me.
"I think it's time. You and I both have been holding on to this story for
too long. I don't know about you, but there are some things in that diary that
I didn't know." He turns and looks at me, and I can't read his expression.
Did he know more about Ray Tanner than he let on? I can't bring myself to ask
him right now, and Roxanne and Rita are waiting to hear what happened.

"I
'll
tell y'all what
I
remember about those two days," I say. "Then, maybe Clarence will
fill in some more."

December 1931

A cat's scream wakes me from an
exhausted sleep and I tell myself I'm just being silly for feeling afraid. I
turn over, pull the quilt up close to my chin, and try to go back to sleep, but
I keep replaying yesterday's events over and over in my mind and sleep won't
come. Zero got in last night and Dr. Jackson and I went to pick him up at the
bus station. Before Dr. Jackson brought Zero and me home, we went by the
Jacksons' house and Zero tried to see Adelle. Mrs. Jackson said she was asleep
and that she still refuses to talk to anyone but me. It broke my heart to see
the look on Zero's face when Adelle wouldn't let him visit her. Of course, they
all asked me what she told me about the attack, and I've never been so
miserable as I was telling them the lies Adelle insisted on.

After we got home, Zero and I sat up
and talked for hours. He told me all about Alcorn State and I told him about
Tougaloo. Zero's face lights up when he talks about college. And he's doing so
well. I think we were both bragging a little bit, talking about our good
grades. This was our first chance to talk about Gerald Calhoun's letter. As I
told him the story of what happened to Mama, I watched him closely for his
reaction.

"So you half white, huh?"
he said.

"Yes, I reckon I am," I
answered, looking down at his hands and mine on the table and feeling the same
mixture of anger and shame all over again.

"Grade, look at me."

I looked up to meet his gaze. His
warm brown eyes filled me with reassurance. "I love you anyway," he
said with a sly grin. We both laughed as he reached across the table and took
my hands in his.

"You going to move up to the
big house now?" he asked.

"No, I'm not. I'm staying right
here. The Calhouns have been good to us, but that letter doesn't mean I'm part
of that family." I told him how when the Calhouns found out about Adelle,
they offered to do anything they could to help.

Every now and then as we were
talking, Zero would stop and ask, "Now, are you sure Adelle didn't tell
you anything else about what happened? Maybe something she remembered about the
men who did it — what they looked like, how big they were?"

I've never lied to my brother
before. That's part of what's keeping me awake now. I feel the weight of
Adelle's story like a stone in my chest. I decide to get up and go to the
kitchen for some buttermilk. It always helps me sleep. When I pass Zero's door,
I peer in and he's not there. His bed hasn't even been slept in. The stone in
my chest gets heavier. Where could he be at this time of night? He's not the
kind of man who sits on a barstool at Jones's pool hall. He always says he's
got better things to do than carouse with a bunch of men looking for trouble.

The kitchen clock says four a.m. He
couldn't have gone to see Adelle this early. I realize that sleep will be
impossible now, so I decide to make coffee instead of having buttermilk. I'm
just pouring a cup when the back door opens and Zero comes in, looking weary
and cold. He looks up at me as he's taking off his dirty boots and tries to
smile.

"Morning," he says.

"Morning," I answer,
pouring a second cup of coffee. "Where have you been?"

Zero hangs his coat on the hook by
the door and reaches for the cup I hand him. He sits down heavily in the same chair
where I left him last night when I thought he was going to bed right after me.

"I got to thinking last night
that maybe I could retrace Adelle's steps from the house to the bus stop. I
thought I might find something ... you know, something that would help me
figure out what happened ... maybe some clue. So I walked into town and I
started behind the Jackson house and tried the different streets she might have
taken ..."

"Did you find anything?"

"Not at first, but then I
remembered that she wasn't attacked right out in the open on the street, so I
started looking in the alleys. That's when I found this." Zero holds up a
small red pocketknife. It looks like one of those Swiss Army knives.

I take the knife in my hands. When
we were kids, every boy in school whose parents could afford it had one of
these. It could be anybody's. It has no name on it, of course. "You don't
think this is the knife that cut Adelle, do you?"

"No. From what Dr. Jackson
said, this one doesn't have the right kind of blade. But maybe, if I can figure
out who it belongs to, it will help me find out who did this to Adelle."

I stop myself from telling Zero he's
grasping at straws. I'm suddenly panicked. I've been so focused on Adelle that
I haven't thought about what Zero's reaction would be. Now I'm realizing he's
going to do everything he can to find her attackers. Adelle was right: This
could be dangerous for him. What if Ray Tanner
finds out he's back in town?

"Zero, why don't you take that
to the sheriff? Maybe they could use it
to ...
to . . ."

Zero turns on me like a rabid dog.
"To what, Grace? Do you think they've done anything? Dr. Jackson reported
the attack right away. He called Buford Culpepper at home and woke him up to
tell him what happened. Do you know what our fat white sheriff said?" Zero
is standing now, looking down at me. His eyes are bloodshot and fierce.
"Do you?"

"No," I say in a small
voice.

"He told Dr. Jackson that he'd
have to look into it in the morning. There was nothing he could do in the dark.
He didn't even take a report. He still hasn't taken a report!" Zero throws
his remaining coffee in the sink and stands looking out the window.
"They're not going to do anything, Grace. This is up to me."

I'm even more afraid now. I can't
stop myself from shaking as I walk over to Zero and put my arms around his
waist. He turns to hug me, but I can tell he's preoccupied with his thoughts.

"Zero, swear to me you'll be
careful!" I plead, stepping back and making him look at me. "I
couldn't stand it if something happened to you, too."

"Don't you worry about
me," he says, kiss
ing me on top of the head. "I'm
going to be fine."

"I didn't see Zero at all that day after he left
and he didn't come home that night. I sat with Adelle all afternoon; then Dr.
Jackson brought me home to my house to sleep. Early in the morning on December
sixteenth, Mr. Calhoun came knocking on the door. He was crying like a baby
when he told me they'd found Zero." I have to stop my story and settle
myself before I go on.

Clarence has been standing at the window the whole time
I
've been talking.
Now he comes back to the table and sits down heavily, as if he's got the
world's weight on his shoulders. He looks at me and starts to say something,
and then he looks down again, as if he's having trouble looking me in the eye.

"What is it, Clarence?" I ask. Roxanne and
Rita are both leaning forward, watching the two of us.

Clarence shakes his head and sighs raggedly.
"Grade, I ain't never wanted to cause you more pain than you already
had."

"Go on," I say, wondering what could possibly
hurt more.

"I never told you before, but I saw Zero the night
it happened," he says.

December 1931

Clarence

Zero and I step out of Jones's Cafe,
and he's talking about how much he's missed Miss Mabel's catfish. He says he's
headed back over to the Jacksons' house to see if Adelle will see him tonight,
when we hear a noise. At first neither one of us recognizes the sound. It's a
sort of hissing coming from the side of the building. I think maybe it's an
alley cat. As we walk closer, we realize it's somebody trying to get our
attention.

I see a small black close-shaved
head peeking around the garbage cans Jones keeps in the alley. The little boy
motions toward himself like he's in a big hurry. I look around and over my
shoulder as Zero points to his chest. The small black head bobbles like it's on
a spring and he waves his arm again for us to come into the alley. As we walk
toward the boy, I recognize it's Malcolm Jones, Miss Mabel's son. The Joneses'
house is next door to the cafe, and Malcolm is always hanging around, talking
to customers.

"What's going on,
Malcolm?" Zero asks. "Why you being all secret-like?"

"You Miss Adelle's fella,
right?" he says.

Now Malcolm has got all Zero's
attention. "That's right. Why you want to know?"

"My mama said Miss Adelle got
hurt." He looks past us, like he's making sure no one's coming. "I
heard something the other night," he whispers. "I think it was the
men who hurt Miss Adelle."

Zero grabs Malcolm's jacket, and
he's so light that before Zero knows it he's got him pulled up off the ground,
his feet dangling in the air. "What'd you hear?" Zero asks, and,
seeing Malcolm's eyes about to bug out of his head, he sets him back down.

"Don't tell Mama," the boy
says, looking around all nervous.

"I ain't going to tell your
mama nothing. Now what did you hear?" I think Zero's trying his best to
stay calm so Malcolm won't run off.

"I woke up in the night and I's
powerful hungry. So I sneaked the key and went in the back door of the cafe to
get me some of them fried apple pies Mama made for next day's dinner. I's just
opening the pantry when I heard voices out in the alley. I didn't dare open the
door to look on account of they might see me. But I crouched down up under the
window on the alley and listened."

"You recognize the
voices?" Zero asks, sounding hopeful. "Them colored men from around
here?"

"Nosir, and they weren't no
colored men, Mr. Zero. They's white men."

"White men?" Zero looks at
me. This don't make no sense to either one of us. Surely Adelle could tell it
was white men who robbed her, not colored?
Unless
...
A sick feeling starts down in my belly and I can tell Zero's feeling it, too.