Dark Don't Catch Me (23 page)
Read Dark Don't Catch Me Online
Authors: Vin Packer
She lets him talk, knowing his need to think himself out, watching his profile as he stares out beyond them, where the night's light sharply defines the palmetto clumps, pine and oak trees. His cigarette dangles loosely from his mouth, the blue smoke drifting off lazily in the still air.
He says, “She was a drunk, and I don't believe she ever loved him. He would have stuck by her no matter what. That's his flaw.”
Only a pressure of her hand.
“That's where I'm different, Barbara. If a thing's wrong, I won't stand by it. I think that's phony loyalty. What do you think?”
He turns to her, looking down at her hand, a light smudge against his black trousers.
“Yes, Dixon,” she says. “Yes, baby.”
“God, I'm tired, Barbara!” He sighs suddenly.
She draws his head down to her lap; letting him settle against her body. His eyes close. Softly her fingers press his temples and move along the nerve back of his ears, down into his neck.
“That feels good ⦠Everything you do; everything about you feels good to me. Sometimes, particularly after I've had you, sometimes I'd look at Colonel and wonder to myself, how does he live without this tenderness? How does he keep going? I couldn't, I swear. I thought today I'd never last the day if the night didn't promise us what we have now ⦠God, Barbara, I can't do without you. I have to find a way we can â ”
“Hush, baby. Just relax, Dixon.” She leans over and kisses him; as she moves her breast touches his throat; he moves closer to its warm softness.
“We're going to have each other a long, long, time, aren't we?” he says softly. “Hmm?”
“Yes, we are Dixon. We are.”
“I love you so much. I love
you”
“Oh, baby. Dixon.”
She holds his head to her breast, cradling him gently there like that, and they do not try to talk. He tamps out the smoked-down cigarette he clutches in his fingers, lets his lips rub against the silk of her blouse at her breast, and they stay quiet.
After a while he says, “What's that?” leaning up on his elbows slightly.
“I don't know, baby. I was trying to make it out.”
“Looks like a car pulling up down there. No lights.”
“It is.”
“More lovers, maybe.”
“Uh-huh,” she laughs lightly; her fingers following the path along his temples. “It's nice to be here with you, Dixon. I want to tell you that. It's so nice, baby.”
“They getting out of the car?” he asks, hearing the slight sound of a car door slamming down at the bottom of the hill. He sits up abruptly. “They are! Who are they?”
“Can't make out. Looks like two men and a kid.”
“They coming up here?”
“Can't tell, Dixon.”
“My God, they
are,
Barbara. They're heading up.” Dixon Pirkle jumps to his feet. “Hey, honey, we got to get. C'mon!”
Quickly they scramble to their feet, grabbing the auto robe, then running back near the Naked Hag, where Dix has parked his car.
“Wish there was a back road out of here,” he says. “Jesus!”
He tosses the robe through the open window into the back seat and climbs in the front beside her. He says, “We'll just gun it and pass them fast.”
“Wonder who it is. Oh, Gawd, Dix, I hope it's not â ”
“Not who?” he says, turning the ignition on; lights, throwing the gear in reverse.
“Not my dad.”
“Who'd be with him?”
“I don't know. No, it isn't.”
“You sure? Couldn't you tell the car if it was.”
“I can't be positive.”
“Well, duck down. I'll go as fast as I can by them, honey. Hold on.”
After he has turned the automobile around, Dix steps on the gas pedal, and the car tears down the winding dirt road, its headlights glaring ahead, momentarily illuminating the three figures trudging up the hill they're rushing down.
“Wonder what the hell all that is?” Dix murmurs. “Okay, baby.”
She draws herself back up; glances over her shoulder. “Did you see who it was, Dixon?” “Yeah. It was Thad Hooper and Doc Sell with some colored boy.”
“Huh? You kidding?”
“No. Hooper and Sell, and some Negro.”
“What Negro?”
“I couldn't make out. He had his head down. They had him by the arms.”
“Dixon, that don't sound good at all.”
“Oh, hell, they didn't see us. They might have made me out, but they didn't see you. You were out of sight.”
“No, I don't mean that. I mean â what would they be doing with a colored boy? You know Doc Sell.”
“Yeah, yeah â but Hooper's not like him.”
“It don't sound good at all, Dixon. Not at all.”
“Naw, I don't think they're up to much.”
“Much?”
“Or anything.”
“Aw, baby, look â you know something's in the air.” Dixon stares at the road ahead of him, as he swings off the dirt and onto the pavement. “I'm worried, Dixon.”
“Barbara, for Christ's sake, what can
we
do!” “We could go to the sheriff! Something!” “You and me go?” “You could go, Dixon.”
“We don't know what it's all about. Hell, honey, we got our own troubles. What do we know about it?”
“It's trouble, Dixon. Don't need to know much to know that.”
“You're building it up, honey. I'm not even sure they had him by the arms.” He glances over at her. “We just had a narrow escape, is all, honey. It's made us tense.”
“I hope so, baby â but still, we ought to â ”
“Aw, look, darling.” Dixon smiles at her, taking his eyes from the road momentarily, putting a hand in her lap. “We haven't had any trouble like that in years around here. We're just tense.”
“Maybe you're right, Dixon.”
“Sure. Sure, I am.”
“Pray God,” Barbara James says, placing her hand over his.
I
NSIDE
the Naked Hag they tie him to the chair, the big man and the runty one.
“Know where you are, nigger?” the runty one asks him.
“Please, mister, let me go. Please!”
“You're in a school, nigger. You're gonna git educated, nigger. Ain't that what you city niggers like?”
“I'll do anything, mister. Please!”
The big man says, “You done enough already, you black ape! What'd you do to her?” He kicks his shins Jesus-hard!
“I
want to know all you did to her.”
“Nothing, sir. Please. I didn't do anything. I didn't!”
“You
tell
me!” the big man says. “You put your black hands on her, didn't you?”
“Naw, aw, naw. I told you! Naw.”
âTell me again!”
“Mister, sir, I just â just clucked my tongue. I didn't even say anything, I â ” He gets a knee in his belly. “Ow!”
“You felt her, you nigger! Say it! Say it!” The big man grabs his collar. “Say what I say to say! Say it!”
“I â I â f-felt her.”
Hands slap his jaw like a rock crushing it. “You black bastard! You feel up a white woman, you black ugly-skinned ape!”
“Naw, aw â please! I didn't!”
“You heard him say he did,” the big man says to the runty one.
“You're goddam right,” says the runty one. “We'll learn you a lesson, nigger. You're in school, nigger! We'll learn your nigger brain to think like a nigger.”
“You heard him say he did!”
“You're goddam right.” “Felt her body!”
“Filthy nigger with your goddam dirty black brain,” yells the runty one.
“You heard him say he did!”
“Aw, naw, mis â ” He gets a kick in the stomach.
“I heard him plain as anything,” says the runty one.
“Trash. Black trash!” the big man mutters.
“Ought to burn him like trash,” the runty one says.
“Please, please, please, please â ”
“Shut up!” The runty man puts his fist in his groin.
“Yeah, burn him for it! Nervy black ape! Doing his dirty things to a pure, pure white woman.”
“Burn him and all the schools that give him and his black monkey brothers thoughts. Monkeys ought to stay in trees and outa schools.”
The big man says, “What'd you do to her? Felt her, didn't you?” He pulls him up by the collar, still tied to the chair; pulling him up and the chair under him. “Put your black ape hands on her till she said uncle, huh? Vile, vile!” He socks him back down. “Vile!”
“Burn him and burn this nigger school,” the runty one says.
“That's right,” says the big one. “Get the matches out.”
“Burn everything nigger in sight. Smelly nigger books smell from niggers reading them!”
The big one grabs him, his big hands on his neck, blood oozing from his nose onto the big man's hands. The big one says, “You felt her up, didn't you, nigger? Nigger felt up a white woman. Vile black ape put his hands on a pure white body. Didn't you? You felt her?”
“I got matches. I got them,” says the runty one.
“Say it. You felt her,” the big man says. “Say it.”
“Pl-pl â please, God â n-naw â ” He gets a punch in the groin.
“Say it! You felt her.”
“N-naw, n â ” He gets a second punch there. “Say it! Say it!”
“I â f-felt â ” He slumps limply, held by the rope around his boy's body.
“You heard him say he did,” the big man says.
“You're goddam right,” says the runty one, scratching a match.
THE NEW YORK BULLETIN
CLUCK-TONGUE CASE GOES TO JURY
Paradise, Georgia: Emotions are running high in this little county seat town in the heart of the red hill region of Georgia, as an all-white jury sits down to deliberate the fate of Thad Hooper, 38, whose wife was involved in the cluck-tongue case, and Doctor Warren Sell, county coroner â both on trial for the lynching of Millard Post, 15.
The New York schoolboy, who was spending a three-day vacation at the home of an uncle, was “taken for a ride” by the two white men, after he clucked his tongue at Hooper's wife. Hooper and Sell claim they drove him only as far as Hooper's Place, a gas and pop stand on Route 109, just to scare him, then let him out of the car to go on back to his uncle's home by himself.
That same evening the Negro school was burned to the ground, and a charred body, discovered amid the debris, was identified as that of young Post.
Witness for the defense, Tink Twiddy, 17, testified that shortly after midnight that evening, as he was hunting bait for fishing, he saw a boy answering Millard Post's description, walking up the hill toward the school, unaccompanied. The defense maintained that Millard Post, too ashamed to return to his uncle's after his impudence to Vivian Hooper, 28, went up to the school to stay there overnight and ran into foul play. It was suggested further that many of the local colored boys were displeased with the Naked Hag because it was old and run down, and had perhaps planned to burn it to the ground on the same night young Post had supposedly gone up there to spend the night.
The most dramatic witness for the prosecution was a light-skinned Negro teacher, Barbara James, 28, daughter of Doctor Edward James, who claimed she had seen two men and a boy approach the Negro school shortly after midnight. Miss James testified that she was on top of the hill, in the company of Dixon Pirkle, 19, son of Paradise's newspaper editor, when
both of them saw a car without headlights stop at the bottom of the hill. She testified they saw two men and a boy emerge from the car, and as they hurriedly drove down the hill past them, Dixon Pirkle identified the men as Hooper and Sell.
Young Pirkle subsequently declared under oath that he was not with Miss James, nor anywhere near the Negro school that evening. While he was on the stand, an uproar broke out in the courtroom when Hollis Jordan, a citizen of Paradise, began shouting “Liar!” Jordan was rushed out of the courtroom and order was restored while Pirkle continued. Pirkle stated that he was at home mourning the death of his mother, Mrs. Ada Pirkle, who had died only that day.
Sobbing as she spoke to reporters, Miss James refused to comment on her relationship with Pirkle, but insisted that: “I have told the truth. It was the only thing I could do and still live with myself.”
Miss James said that since giving her testimony before the grand jury, she has been threatened numerous times by anonymous people, as has her father been. A job has been offered her in Cincinnati, but she declined to say whether or not she would accept this teaching position.
While ostensibly the citizens of Paradise are carrying on as calmly as can be expected under the circumstances, there is a considerable undercurrent of violent feeling. Rumors have gone so far as to suggest that Mrs. Hooper was actually molested by the Post boy, and an unidentified woman, wife of a professor, told this reporter there nas “no doubt in anyone's mind that it was rape.”
Mr. Hollis Jordan has been accused by many as “being linked to the N.A.A.C.P. and Russia,” and the evening of the day of his outburst in the courtroom, his house was stones. Jordan has left Paradise for an undisclosed place.
The following is a reprint, in part, from an editorial appearing in the
Paradise Herald,
yesterday's edition, written by Dixon Pirkle's father, the editor:
⦠The fact remains that Thad Hooper and Doc Sell have been two of our leading citizens, family men who have broken bread at our family tables, men who have knelt with us to pray, fought for us and with us in war and in peace for the ideals we hold to be godly; men whose children play and laugh and learn and grow along-side our own children, men whose hands we have gripped countless times in the clasp of brotherhood, and men wtih whom we have become men under one sky and upon a common ground. They are our own. They have stood before us, and before God, and given us their testimony, and we will, under God, humbly judge them with all the wisdom human beings possess ⦔