Sarny (13 page)

“Now you go home. I’ve got work to do and I’ll be along presently.” He put his hand on my arm. “Head on home now. I’ll be along after work.”

Wasn’t anything for it but to go and I did. Had the day off because of the party the night before and I spent the day fretting but he
came home that evening and we had supper and I thought he was right. Haggerty he was trash and even the whites knew it.

I was wrong.

They came about middle of the night. I had been so tired I was in dead sleep and didn’t wake up until I felt Stanley moving against me to get up.

“What’s the matter?” Thinking on the children, though they were ’most grown now. Always thinking on them.

“Somebody out front, pounding on the door.”

Cold then, cold cut right through me. “Don’t go. Let them pound.”

“Got to see who it is. Might be a neighbor on fire.”

“Don’t …”

But he was gone. I tumbled out and followed him and he opened the door just as I came. Men on horses wearing white robes, hoods, some carrying torches. Eight, ten, dozen men on horses and as soon as Stanley opened the door a man hidden to the side dropped a rope over his neck. Rope was tied to one of the horses and the rider he turned and stuck spurs to the horse and took off. Snapped Stanley off his feet and dragged him on out by the neck.

I screamed and ran out but another man hit
me in the back of the head with something hard and I saw a bright light in my brain and went down. Didn’t pass out but I couldn’t move, couldn’t make my own self get up. Hung like that on my hands and knees, head spinning. Thought on the children. Had to get up and help the children but the men they didn’t bother the children. Didn’t bother me anymore. Had what they wanted and they turned and rode off dragging Stanley by the neck.

In a few minutes I could stand. Tyler he was there helping me and little Delie, she standing there crying, eyes wide. Tyler he just looked mad.

“Bastards,” he said.

“Don’t swear.” Couldn’t help myself. Though I thought the bad word I didn’t say it. “Swearing won’t help. I have to go now, help me to go.”

“Go?”

“Have to find where they took Stanley. Get me to walking right so I can go. Then you and little Delie stay here. I’ll be back after I fetch Stanley.”

“Why, they could take him anywhere.”

“Then that’s where I’ll go. Get me to walking now.”

Tyler he helped me until I was steady and then he wouldn’t go back but stayed with me
and after a time I was glad because I leaned on him.

They didn’t take Stanley far. Just back to the market. They had thrown the rope over the poles that held the big sign at the gate into the market and pulled him up and he was hanging there dead. I ’spect he was dead before he was out of the yard with a broken neck but something in me hadn’t wanted to believe it. Wanted to think he was still alive. But I knew it now and started in to crying while Tyler he helped me to untie the rope and get him down. They had some trash note written and pinned to his shirt and I tore it off and threw it away.

My poor Stanley, I thought. My poor, poor Stanley. Just wanted to be a man and look what they did to you. He was scuffed up from the dragging and I tried to wipe him off with the hem of my sleeping dress.

People started to come and they helped Tyler and me carry him home. Took a door from one of the stalls and used it to carry him and I cried until I thought my heart would break in two. Couldn’t think of anything but poor Stanley, my poor dear Stanley.

Miss Laura she took care of everything. I couldn’t make my brain work. All I knew was Stanley he was dead and it was my fault and I couldn’t get my thinking past that.

Miss Laura she set the funeral and bought the coffin and found the minister and the hearse and the above-ground burial vault. They can’t bury them in the ground because the water is too high. And I walked behind the coffin with Tyler and little Delie.

Couldn’t think on anything. Minister he said some nice things about Stanley and there must have been two hundred people show up, almost all black but some white too.

“Stanley was well liked,” the minister said. “If it is the measure of a man that God will like him as his neighbors do, then Stanley will be with our heavenly Father waiting for us.…”

Later at Miss Laura’s I thought on quitting and told her so.

“No. You won’t. Not now.” And she had such a fire in her eye that it scared me. “Before all this you might have quit, but now you can’t stop the school.”

“But they’re still there. That Haggerty he’s still around, all of them are. They’ll just come back, they’ll just keep coming back and burning it down.”

“We’ll do it differently. We’ll move around. Not give them a place to burn. But you can’t stop now, not after what they’ve done. As to Haggerty, he won’t be there long.”

“What do you mean?”

“Even though there were other men involved, he was clearly responsible for Stanley’s death. We’ll have him arrested and punished for it.”

“You mean the police?”

“Of course. It’s a lynching—a murder. He’s a criminal and must be punished.”

“The police don’t help us—”

“You forget who I am. Among other things I am a very close friend of the chief of police, and most of the judges. I think we won’t be seeing much of Haggerty for a time.”

Was as good as her word. I don’t know what she had on men, what kind of hold, but the police they came to the market and arrested Haggerty right in front of everybody and took him to jail. Gave him a trial and had it fixed
some way because the jury they came back with guilty for manslaughter and he went to prison. Whole thing didn’t take but two weeks.

Wasn’t as good as hanging him and it didn’t bring Stanley back but it was something and after it was over Miss Laura she had a party for the judge and the attorneys for both sides and I helped Bartlett to serve. I knew who they were but they didn’t know me and Miss Laura she didn’t tell them I was Stanley’s wife until after they’d had some to drink. Then she introduced me, told them I was Stanley’s widow and that they had done a wonderful job of “upholding justice.”

They all puffed up and clapped for me and then went right back to drinking and watching Miss Laura talk and move. When she was there men couldn’t see much else and I worked until the party was over and then went home and for a week slept in the same room as little Delie and Tyler. Just couldn’t be alone.

There for a space, time didn’t matter. I know it passed and I know I lived and I know we did things but I can’t remember on them. Everything was in a blue fog and I didn’t care for much.

The school took care of itself. Enough knew
how to read and figure numbers that they could pass it on and they went to people’s homes to hold class. Went to different places each week, sometimes more than one at the same time, and just kept it going like Miss Laura said, moving it around. I didn’t have much to do with it and no matter what they did they couldn’t stop it now. Delie cried some and grieved after Stanley but not as bad as Tyler. It like to broke him at first and then made him hard, like he had a place inside where he could never be hurt again.

Worked at Miss Laura’s, went home, back to work, but everything seemed flat and it must have been eight months or more like that. Just living, not caring much. One morning I went to Miss Laura’s and brought her coffee and breakfast and her face it was all gray. Only color to match it. Just gray.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m not feeling well. Not well at all. Would you send Bartlett for Dr. Hyram, please? And you can take the breakfast away. I won’t be eating this morning. I’m sorry for the bother.”

Bartlett must have run all the way because the doctor was there in fifteen minutes. I had never, not once, seen Miss Laura sick. Even her monthlies didn’t seem to bother her. For her to send for a doctor I knew it was bad and
he was in her bedroom a long time. When he came out he looked at me. “She wants you.” And I thought, didn’t look good. Voice too short. Face too serious.
She wants you
.

I went in and she was sitting up in bed. Face still gray, voice weak. Tired but more, sunken. Her voice had gone down inside her.

“Sarny, I need you to do more than you’re accustomed to doing for a time.”

“What’s the matter?”

“My heart has failed. The doctor says I am going to die.”

No. Didn’t say it but thought it hard. No. You can’t die. You can’t. I won’t let you. “You’re too young to have a bad heart.”

“I am fifty-one years old.” She sighed, spoke even weaker. “Apparently that is old enough. The doctor assured me there is no hope.”

She couldn’t be that old. I thought maybe thirty and eight. Less. I started in crying. Been crying a lot lately and this just made it worse. “Can’t be. You were just fine yesterday. You can’t be fine one day and dying the next. Has to be some time there. More time. We need more time.”

“Sarny, I need you to be strong. There is a lot that needs doing, and there isn’t much time. I must depend on you to do it.”

“How long does the doctor say?”

She took a breath. “Days. Not over a week. And there is much to do.”

“Bartlett can help.”

“Bartlett won’t be able to handle this. He will fall apart. You have always been the strong one, and I need your strength now. Will you help me?”

“Anything.” Meant it too. Would have died for this woman. Right now, instead of her I’d die. Take me, not her. “Just tell me what to do.”

“First, we must discuss business. I do not have a family, and I have amassed a considerable sum. I wish to leave some of it to Bartlett so he’ll be comfortable the remainder of his life. The rest I’m leaving to you.”

“Me? I’ve got my own money. More than I’ll ever need.”

“We will do as I say.” Strength there. Weak voice but strong inside and I shut my mouth.

“Good. Now, get paper and a pen and I will tell you whom to contact. You must get busy right away. Bartlett can run errands for you, take messages. Oh, let’s not tell him just yet, all right? Now get the paper.”

I went to the table in the corner and took a pen and dipped it in the ink. “Ready.”

She listed names of men and names of companies, three different lawyers to contact and bring immediately, and I wrote as fast as I
could, putting the notes in envelopes and addressing them by name when they were done. Sometimes she had to stop so I’d catch up but then we’d go again. After an hour she stopped. “All right, get Bartlett busy and let me rest for a few minutes. I’d like a cup of beef broth if you have some extract. And some hot tea.”

I sent Bartlett off on the errands without telling him about Miss Laura. He didn’t ask about the doctor, and the errands just seemed normal to him and he left. Made a tray up with flowers stolen from the courtyard below, hot tea and beef broth both and some cold vegetable soup in case she wanted a bit more.

She was sleeping when I came back in the room and I started to close the door but her eyes opened. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I will get more sleep than I want soon enough. Now, on to the next thing. My final party.”

“You’re going to have a party feeling like this?”

“Not exactly. I mean my funeral. I want it to be a wake. I want to be there and I want to be wearing that deep purple dress that makes my hair look so nice. You tell the undertaker to dress me in that. And not too much makeup—I hate that pancake-batter look they often do on bodies.”

I was writing again. Didn’t want to miss anything, do anything wrong.

“You call Williams Mortuary for the body.”

Couldn’t believe she’s talking about her own self that way. Just as calm and cool as the river. The body. Not me, or I, but the body.

“I want that Clarion orchestra to play music at the party, and I want to be near the piano with the top half of the coffin open.” She took a sip of the broth. “They say the dead can still hear music for a time, and I want to see if that’s so. Now, to the guest list …”

“How are you going to know if they come?” Couldn’t help it. Thought of just the three of us sitting alone, nobody there.

“Oh, they’ll come, don’t worry. Most of them owe me money. They’ll owe you now. They’ll want to keep me and, hence, you happy. They’ll all come.”

She listed over forty names. All men. Some I knew, most I knew, some I did not.

“Bartlett has all their addresses. Just tell him that we’re having a party.”

“What day?” Hated to ask but had to say something.

“Ahh yes, there is that, isn’t there?” She frowned. “It’s so hard to know. Let’s make it a week from today, and if it happens sooner …”

Don’t say it, I thought. Don’t talk about saving
the body for the party. Can’t stand that. Just don’t talk on it.

“Make it a week,” she said again. “That should do it. Oh, I want an old-fashioned New Orleans funeral. I want a band in front of a parade procession leading me to the cemetery and playing while I am interred. All right?”

“Whatever you want, that’s what it will be.”

“Good. Now get started while I consider the menu for the party. Oh, and you may want to run home and tell little Delie and Tyler you’ll need to sleep here for a time. If that’s all right.”

“I’ll send Bartlett.” Didn’t say it but I didn’t want to leave. “He can tell them I have to work.”

We didn’t have long to wait before the lawyers started coming. All three came at the same time and I had to wait while she spoke to them one at a time in her bedroom. They all said they were sad and I think they meant it. One of them cried. The third one she talked to was the man that did her will. Man name of Brune. She had already put me in it without telling me so there wasn’t anything to change but she wanted to make certain Bartlett was settled right.

“He will receive one hundred dollars a month for life,” Brune told her. I thought, a hundred a month. Twice what a man made
working. Almost three times. Must have more money than me and I had a pile. What with not spending wages and tips I’d saved exactly two thousand four hundred and nine dollars and sixty-five cents. Enough to live for six, seven years without working should I get old. Couldn’t think on more money than that. What would you do with it?