Standing at the Scratch Line (54 page)

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King was sitting down to an afternoon game of Kotch with a few of his gambling buddies in one of the side rooms at the Hotel Toussant when Sampson came in and signed that there was some news that he should hear. Sampson asked permission to bring someone into the card room. King nodded affirmatively. He hoped the interruption would change his luck for he had already lost several hundred dollars to Jimmy One-Eye and Billy Love. The fourth man at the table, Tank Purvis, had lost even more than King, but he was a professional gambler and took his losses in stride.

Sampson returned with Jack Little, a trumpeter in the Red Rooster’s ragtime band. Ordinarily, King would have had little to do with Jack because the man refused to call himself colored, but instead referred to himself as a Creole. King had little respect for light-skinned men who refused to recognize their heritage and thought themselves better than their dark brothers due to the lightness of their skin. The army had taught King convincingly that if you had Negro blood, you were going to be treated like a second-class citizen by the white world, no matter how light your skin.

“I need a drink,” Jack said breathlessly. “Storyville is going crazy!”

King gestured to a bottle of Irish whiskey sitting on a side table. Jack went over, quickly poured himself two big shots, and gulped them down. He looked appreciatively at the label on the bottle and said, “This is the real stuff! It sure beats corn liquor!”

“You got somethin’ to tell us?” King urged.

“Yeah, man; it’s terrible what’s happening! Lieutenant Kaiser is down at the Red Rooster right now, breakin’ the place up!”

“Why?” Tank demanded. “Them Moses brothers knows how to run a business. They paid protection, didn’t they?”

“I don’t know about all that, but Kaiser is down there bustin’ heads. I think he killed one of the Moses brothers and damned near killed another one. He’s sayin’ that Sheriff Mack is dead and that he’s the new man in town. He’s saying he’s going to go around to all the establishments where he’s been sassed and teach them a lesson about who’s boss.”

“How long ago did you leave the Rooster?” asked King. The Red Rooster was one of the businesses that King was bootlegging alcohol to and to whom he had promised protection if they bought his product.

“I came here once Lieutenant Kaiser started smackin’ folks. He say he ain’t leavin’ the Red Rooster until it’s completely trashed. He say that they ain’t ever gon’ open up for business again. He even slapped Sister Bornais who was readin’ fortunes in the back.”

“He gettin’ pretty bold to be slappin’ Sister Bornais, or my name ain’t Jimmy One-Eye. She gon’ put a curse on him that’ll follow him to his grave.”

If it was true that Corlis Mack was dead, King realized that he no longer held anything over Kaiser. He knew that the Hotel Toussant would be an inevitable stop along Kaiser’s path of rampage. King stood up and signed to Sampson to go get the rifles. Sampson left immediately. King said with nonchalance to his gambling partners, “Deal me out, boys. I don’t want to be sitting here if Kaiser comes here. I donates this bottle to the winner of the hand,” King said, setting the Irish whiskey on the card table. “Good luck, boys.” King then left the card room without another word and met Sampson at the back door of the hotel. Sampson had several rifles bundled in blankets and a bag filled with bandoliers.

“Let’s hit it!” King said as the weapons were dumped in the backseat of the car and Sampson got in behind the wheel. “We want to get on the roof above the Red Rooster before Kaiser leaves.” Sampson pulled the car out of the narrow alley that ran behind the hotel and joined the traffic headed downtown toward Storyville.

Outside the front entrance of the Red Rooster, Sister Bornais squatted down and attempted to stanch the flow of blood that was pouring out of a gash in the side of the head of her assistant, Mooja Turner. “Jes’ hold on there, Mooja. I’m gon’ make you a poultice. You just keep this to yo’ head.” She took Mooja’s hand and put it on the rag she was using to hinder the flow of blood. Her assistant just nodded dazedly, his eyes wandering without ever fixing upon a stationary object. Sister Bornais got up and went over to her mule cart. She was digging through her belongings, searching for her herb charms and fetishes, when Kaiser walked out of the Red Rooster.

When Sister Bornais saw him, she screamed, “I curse you and all yo’ chil’rens. By the power of blood and sacrifice you goin’ straight to hell!”

Kaiser smiled. “Nigger woman, you better shut your mouth, or I’ll slap you down again!” Two of his subordinates walked out of the Red Rooster behind him. Kaiser asked them, “You put the torch to the place?”

“Yes, sirree-bob, and there’ll be more than a few barbecued niggers when it’s over!” answered one of the men.

“Go get the car, Fred,” Kaiser ordered. “We have more business to take care of before this day’s over.” Fred nodded and trotted off down the street.

“I curse all of you, devils!” Sister Bornais screamed again. She cast some red dust in the direction of the two white men. “You won’t forget this day! You gon’ regret this ’til you die!”

“You want me to shut her up, Sergeant?” asked his remaining subordinate.

“No, let her scream, Chad,” Kaiser advised. Much of his anger and indignation had been spent breaking heads and bones inside the Red Rooster. “She’s just another screaming nigger woman. You know you can’t stop niggers from screaming.” There was an explosion from inside the Red Rooster and smoke began billowing out of the door. People began running from the burning building. The sounds of pandemonium filled the street.

Sister Bornais walked fearlessly toward the two white men and pointed to Kaiser. “There is one who ain’t afraid of you! He be King Tremain and he gon’ change yo’ step! He gon’ make you rope like okra and split open like dead fish left on the dock!”

The mention of King’s name reawakened Kaiser’s anger. He handed his baton to Chad. “Shut that nigger bitch up with this!”

As the man came toward her, smacking the baton in his hand, Sister Bornais pointed to him and shouted, “He gon’ change yo’ step too. You best leave the side of this Kaiser man! If you stay, you gon’ go straight to hell with him!”

The man looked back at Kaiser with a smile and then took a step forward. Kaiser could not be sure of what happened next. All he saw was that his subordinate took a little hop and fell to the pavement. He twitched a moment and then lay still. Kaiser went cautiously over to the body, but he didn’t see the bullet holes until it was too late. When he saw blood oozing out of the prone body, he turned to run, but he heard a soft thud and then he noticed he was being driven sideways by a force he was unable to control. Finally, he was able to get his legs beneath him, but he had no balance or sensation. He looked down and saw with surprise that blood was flowing from a hole in his rib cage. When the second shot hit him and knocked him over backward, he was barely conscious. The last thing he saw was Sister Bornais standing over him throwing more dust.

The first drops of rain began to fall as King removed the silencer from his rifle and wrapped the weapon back in its blanket. He stood and walked to the stairs leading down to the street. Sampson was behind the wheel when King reached the car. As they drove off, all King said was, “Good shot.”

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The burial service was held on Pine Knoll about a half mile from the church just outside of Nellum’s Crossing. The family and the well-wishers convened at the church at eleven in the morning and had open-casket until half past one. The clapboard church was small and could not contain all who chose to attend, so people congregated in small groups outside the church, awaiting their turn to view the casket. Brother Jordan was at the piano playing a slow, rocking Baptist hymn as the people filed past the body. The notes and chords of the piano surged and pulsed harmonically with the emotions of the mourners. The music had a hypnotic quality that caused many of the people filing past to move to its swaying beat.

The first three or four center rows of pews were reserved for immediate family and close friends; the side pews were for the elderly or sick. Charles Baddeaux was conspicuously absent and his whereabouts were the subject of many different discussions. Serena and her siblings sat in the first row with two of her aunts on either side. Behind them sat an assortment of other aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Serena, dressed in black, sat stiffly facing the coffin. She did not turn or attempt to make contact with the mourners who passed in front to view the body. Her eyes were focused on the polished wooden coffin in which her mother rested. It had occurred to her that in the time after her mother’s passing, she had not had time to really mourn or say good-bye. The church was not the place to let loose her grief. There were too many eyes and jabbering mouths. Serena kept her back stiff and held herself straight in the pew. She had decided when she nailed Eunice’s braid to the post that she wouldn’t give the people of Nellum’s Crossing anything else to talk about. The girl that Serena had been was gone and in her place was a woman hardened by shame.

It was the custom in semitropical Louisiana to bury the dead as soon as possible. Therefore the service for Serena’s mother was scheduled five days after her death. This delay allowed all the appropriate family members to convene and gave the local mortician ample time to perform his art. The funeral occurred on a Saturday, the first day of sun after the rainstorm. The ground was still wet and muddy, but that didn’t prevent people all around the parish from attending. Rebecca Baddeaux had served for many years as a reliable backup to the parish’s main midwife, Old Mayra Bedford, so she was well known and liked. Interest in the event was heightened further when the news spread through the community like wildfire about Serena nailing Eunice’s braid to the general store’s front porch post. In days the details of the whole affair were common knowledge. And when one added the ominous presence of King to the social mix of events, the funeral became the event to attend.

Serena’s two aunts, Ida and Beulah, Beulah being her father’s sister, had arrived the day after they received Serena’s telegraphed messages. They immediately assumed control of the household and began to see that the younger children ate regularly and were washed and ready for visitors. They were both women in their midforties who had assisted with many funerals, and they knew the track. Death was commonplace in the colored community for there was little medical attention and few people lived past fifty. Without apparent discussion, the two women divided up the tasks and set about doing them.

Serena had her mettle tested two days before the funeral when Charles Baddeaux drove up to the farm in the buggy in an effort to resume residence. It was in the late afternoon, after King had ridden back to Algiers. The sky was overcast with dark gray clouds and the rain fell in sporadic torrents that lasted for twenty minutes, then abated. It was during such a torrential outburst that Charles pulled up to the back of the house. While he was getting down from the buggy, Ida and Beulah stepped out on the back porch.