Home In The Morning (17 page)

Now up until that very day, Jackson’d avoided any direct contact with his oldest friend, principally because he was afraid his envy would get the better of him. He did watch from behind a curtain whenever L’il Bokay picked up Katherine Marie and whenever he dropped her
off. One day, he’d chanced to tell Katherine Marie he admired the way sawing wood and frying steaks had built up her man into a near colossus with arms as wide around as Jackson’s own thighs. Sometimes foolish things like that just popped out of his mouth around her. On that occasion, he was trying to make himself look mild enough for her to tolerate a little more intimacy from him. There were times when he burned to clap an arm around her or grip her knee for an instant the way friends did without even thinking about it, but he was afraid how she’d react, so he said stupid things, hoping she might initiate such a gesture herself, which she never did. On that occasion, what she did do was put down the mop she was wringing out, place her hands on her hips, and say: What made you think Bokay was allowed anywhere near the saws at that yard, Jackson? That’s a white man’s job. He sweeps up the shavings and bags ’em, then he’ll go take ’em around to stables and whatnot. He gets thirty percent of what he can sell and has to use his own truck and gasoline to do so. As for fryin’ steaks, don’t we wish it. He washes the dishes, don’t you know. Really, Jackson, really. I think half your mind lives up north already. Must’ve been born there, ‘cause it sure don’t know what’s what around here.

In any event, on the day of his graduation party, Mickey Moe plied him with celebratory bourbon, which lent him the combination of courage and sentiment required to approach the tall, broad Negro with chiseled jaw and eyes much like his granddaddy’s, eyes as old as the earth itself. He wore a hairnet and white gloves along with a rented red jacket that buttoned up high as a priest’s collar under his chin while he served silver trays of Aunt Bernice’s famous stuffed mushrooms and Aunt Beadie’s cheese pies in the God-awful humid air. Drops of sweat beaded his face worse than pox on a lecher.

Why, L’il Bokay, Jackson said, swaying on his feet a little from the bourbon and the heat along with the effort needed to crane his neck and look up at the man, a maneuver made difficult when liquor and
dehydration are added to the mix. It’s good to see you here. I’ve been meaning to catch up with you and congratulate you on finding yourself such an excellent bride. Katherine Marie is the treasure of our household, we all just love her.

Yes, Mr. Jackson, sir. I’m sure you all do.

Except for the eyes, the man’s features were blank, his voice impassive. The eyes, though, the eyes. They bored into him, through him, and out the other side really. He knows, Jackson thought. He knows how I feel about her. Just then, the brand new graduate of Stonewall High suffered a guilt attack. It came to him as clearly as the death cry of an unknown creature in the wilderness. It wasn’t right for him even to imagine poaching on another man’s woman, black, white, or purple. He realized this all in a rush and blurted out: It’s Jackson to you and yours, L’il Bokay.

Then because he was drunk as well as guilt-ridden, he added: Although it just came to me that Katherine Marie never refers to you as L’il, just Bokay, which name I must hear fifty times a day so I don’t know why it took me this long to figure it. Well, it’s understandable because you’ve grown up huge, you know, huge. So you call me Jackson from now on and I’ll call you just Bokay.

Bokay wrinkled his brow then favored him with a gentle laugh no one else could hear.

You always were the strangest child, he said.

Mama lumbered by just then. Jackson, leave the help alone. We’ve got hungry people around here. Go on, L’il Bokay, get on with yourself.

Over that summer, they became friends of a sort again. When Bokay arrived to pick up Katherine Marie and had to wait ‘til she finished this or that, Jackson kept him company out on the back porch. He offered fond reminiscence of Big Bokay and also of Eleanor, who, it turned out, was an auntie of Katherine Marie’s—startling news to Jackson when first he heard of it. He asked Bokay about his work at the church, about
Katherine Marie’s twin sisters, about life at the lumber mill, about the habitués of the Tick Tock Diner just outside of town. He asked his opinion of Charlie Jones’s people’s boycott that Easter of the white shops on Capital Street in the city, even though his heart raced while he did, since never before had he dared to voice a sympathetic word about the civil rights of Negroes from a chair on his own daddy’s back porch. Bokay, for his part, responded politely and with as much candor as he felt wise. Every once in a while one of them said something that struck the other as pretty funny, and Katherine Marie would find them listing back and forth on the porch swing holding their sides and letting raucous guffaws spill out into the night as if the Sassaports were the only family on the street and could make as much noise as they cared to. She’d light into them, telling them to pipe down or Miss Missy was going to sack her for bringing a bad influence into the house. Then she’d plunk down between them, Bokay would whisper in her ear what was tickling them, and she too would start in to giggle and titter until she had to cover her mouth and drag Bokay into the truck to keep the peace.

Jackson worked that summer before Yale at the post office, selling stamps and weighing packages. It was a good job, paid well. He had one of Daddy’s Council brothers to thank for it. He worked from eight a.m. to three p.m., pretty much the same hours he’d kept at school. During the month of August, it got stifling hot. Mama felt poorly and took to her bed again. To help out, Jackson did the food shopping on his way home from work, but one day, one very hot day, a day when the air was so thick the packages at the post office sealed themselves, he couldn’t tolerate the idea of stopping anywhere on the way home. He decided he’d wait until after he’d had a chance to cool off some over a nice tall glass of Katherine Marie’s sweet tea before he did. He walked home feeling he walked through a wall of water. The scent of jasmine and honeysuckle hung in the air heavy as a shroud, which
made him yearn for all he was leaving at the start of the fall term before he even left it. The intimation of future loneliness surprised him, and he pondered whether Daddy had been right for once. He arrived home early, when no one was expecting him, which was why he figured no one greeted him when he strolled through the back door. He was about to call out to Katherine Marie to see where she was when he realized, why the cellar, of course, the cellar, where it’s cool. And quietly, to surprise her, he opened the cellar door and crept down the steps. He heard something odd, something—he wasn’t sure what it was—a tiny scratching sound like mice or rats or squirrels, only there was a grunting sound too, and the sound of feet shuffling against a floor. It was all odd enough that he stopped short and held his breath the better to listen, the better to judge. His eyes got used to the light, and then he saw them.

Bubba Ray and Katherine Marie. Bubba Ray and Katherine Marie locked in a mortal struggle. Bubba Ray had Katherine Marie up against the wall so hard the right side of her face and half her nose was squished against it. He had one raised knee and all of his great belly jammed against her kidneys. Her mouth was open, but his left hand choked her, and she could not scream. His other hand traveled from up high underneath her dress down her thigh heading toward the inside of his pants. He was getting ready to further violate the girl. Katherine Marie saw Jackson, and her eyes widened pleading with him to save her, as if he needed a plea, a cue, a signal with hot blood pounding through his ears. He bolted forward and knocked his brother down. At the time, he felt he’d not had to use much force, that Bubba Ray was imbalanced and the might of his own weight toppled him over himself. Years later Katherine told him he’d called out and charged at Bubba Ray like a goddamn champion bull.

Meanwhile, the adolescent would-be rapist was knocked unconscious and bled from his forehead on the concrete floor. Jackson
nudged him with his foot, but the boy lay still. Jackson wondered if he’d killed him. He croaked to Katherine: Get out of here! Quick! Get outta here! And she ran. Ran up the stairs and out the house. He waited ‘til he heard the screen door slam and he knew she was safe. Then, still croaking but loudly this time, croaking in fresh shock at the sight of the widening puddle of blood at his feet, he yelled for Mama.

Mama! Mama! Something’s gone wrong with Bubba Ray! he yelled.

Hearing emergency in his tone, Missy Fine Sassaport hauled herself out of her nap and rushed to the cellar as fast as her gouty foot allowed. Seeing Bubba Ray sprawled there, spouting blood, frenzied her. She screamed, and Jackson ran upstairs to telephone his father, who told him to wrap up his brother’s head and put pressure on the wound. He’d be there directly. What happened? O Lordy, what happened? Mama demanded, never taking her red and weeping eyes off her youngest son, while Jackson blotted his wounds with a dishrag, and Bubba Ray moaned and moaned. He fell, Mama, Jackson said, as it was all he could command his throat to commit to. Daddy got home before fifteen minutes passed, stitched up Bubba Ray’s scalp, brought him to full consciousness with smelling salts, and together he and Jackson got him up two flights of stairs and into bed.

Daddy then sent Jackson to the pharmacy, as he’d fled his office so abruptly he’d not taken a full black bag. They needed more bandages, more antiseptics. Jackson hadn’t run four blocks down the street when Katherine Marie popped out of some hedges and grabbed his sleeve. Her hair was wild, her eyes were wild, one of them scraped underneath. Her dress was torn at the shoulder, there was dirt and a raw, red mark on her cheek, another broad mark coming out on her neck, and her nose ran.

Do they know? Do they know what happened?

He pulled her back through the hedgerow and put his hands on her shoulders to calm her down. She flinched and shivered at his touch. He
released her, put his palms a foot and a half away from her face, patting the air to make what he thought a soothing gesture, up and down, up and down. She batted at them with furious motions and asked again.

Do they know? Do they know what happened?

No. I told them he fell. But I have to tell the truth as soon as everything simmers down, Katherine Marie. It’s the right thing to do. He needs correction, and you need justice.

She took his two hands in hers and held them tight: No, no, no. Listen to me. You can’t tell. You can’t. You don’t understand what would happen to me if this came to light.

I’m not so sure, he murmured while his mind spun with about a dozen scenarios she might be referring to. He started to turn his back on her when Katherine Marie grabbed his shoulder and forced him to face her square. Her proud eyes filled up with tears.

Please, you can’t. Swear to me, please swear to me. I’ll be done in this town if anyone finds out. And Bokay, oh Jackson, I don’t know if I could keep Bokay from killing him.

Jackson relented.

Alright, he said. I swear I won’t tell. I won’t tell a living soul. But I’m going to have to do something. I don’t know what it is, but something.

He didn’t have the chance right away. The day after Jackson split his brother’s head open, Bubba Ray had a seizure. In the middle of the afternoon, he rolled off the television couch where he sprawled milking his convalescence and went klunk on the hardwood floor. His eyes rolled back in his head, his whole body shook, he nearly choked on his own tongue. Not two minutes later it was all over. He was just fine. He never had another seizure in his long, miserable life, but once was enough for Mama, who witnessed the whole episode and never got over the idea that, big as he was, Bubba Ray was fragile and couldn’t quite do for himself. Katherine Marie was no help. She never got back to work. Mama decided the girl must have spilled something slick down
there in the basement and didn’t clean it up, which made Bubba Ray’s accident all her fault. The reason she never came back to work was the guilt hung hard over her head. That left Mama to do for her young son.

At first, it looked like Bubba Ray was going to get away with his crime. He certainly thought so, anyway, and took to strolling around the house in his bathrobe casting smug, cynical looks at his brother as if he had something on him instead of the other way around. This was pure torture for Jackson. He spent his daylight hours avoiding home. He spent as many nights as he could sleeping over at Mickey Moe’s or the house of whatever school friend’s mama would have him. When he had to be home, he avoided his parents’ conversation. His behavior did not go unnoticed. To explain it, his parents decided Jackson must be anxious about leaving Guilford for school in another week. For all the boy’s bravado, Daddy suggested, Yankeetown prob’ly scares him as well it should, Mama, as well it should. He’s never been far away before. He prob’ly doesn’t want us to know how scared he is.

The nights he spent at home he spent tossing, turning, clenching his fists and resisting the urge to get out of bed and finish the job he’d started by crossing the hall to Bubba Ray’s room and pummeling the pig to absolute death. When that idea got too tempting, he switched over to obsessing about the welfare of Katherine Marie. How was she holding up? he wondered. When would it be reasonable to stop by the village to find out? Five everlasting nights post-incident, he went over there and tracked her down working at a sewing machine at Annie Althea’s place, which he knew well because Annie Althea did all Mama’s dress alterations. Katherine Marie’d told her family swarms of lies in explanation for her injuries and reasons why she couldn’t return to work. She told Jackson that the incident with Bubba Ray was just one of those things that happens to Negro girls. She was strong, she’d get over it as long as he kept his mouth shut, that was the only thing to worry about, anyone finding out. She was very grateful to him for saving her from worse
harm, but if he didn’t keep quiet everything would have to change. Her whole life depended on things staying the same, as much the same as they could since his brother lay hands on her. While he disagreed, and despite the torment it caused him to dissemble in front of Mama and Daddy and, worst of all, Bubba Ray, Jackson felt he had to respect her wishes. He kept his mouth shut.