Them (13 page)

Even the business of death could be tended to in “Sweet Auburn.” Barlowe passed a funeral home with a bright red banner out front:

COMPLETE FUNERALS

AS LOW AS $2,795

As he approached the Martin Luther King historic home, a group of tourists stood out front and posed for pictures while they listened to a preacher talking from the top of the steps. Barlowe knew the minister by reputation: His name was Reverend Dr. Owen J. Pickering, Jr. He was a civil rights veteran, part of a cult of old-school preachers who claimed to have marched at the right hand of Martin Luther King. To hear them tell it, they all had been close confidants to “Mah-tin.” They called themselves King's “lieutenants” and insisted on being referred to as Reverend Dr. So-and-so, even if they had never been near a seminary.

The boys at the store said that of the many pretenders, Pickering had come closest to being an authentic King disciple. Back in the '60s, he had begun to make a name for himself as a gifted young preacher.

Now he pastored The Way of the Cross Baptist Church and sometimes led groups of people to the King home, where he regaled them with stories about his old friend.

Standing on the sidewalk, Barlowe paused, waiting to walk past a man aiming a camera for a snapshot of the preacher framed in the forefront of the famous house. When the shot was done, the tourists smiled, satisfied they'd captured a precious piece of living history to show off to friends back home.

Barlowe shuddered. He still shivered sometimes when he passed the two-story, brown-and-yellow frame house. Here was Martin Luther King's birth home, and he, Barlowe Reed, lived only three blocks away. He was connected to important history. He added a bit more bounce to his step.

Treading along, he waved at a man named Sanford, who was traveling in the opposite direction, across the street. Then he headed for the mini-mart to get his lottery tickets. He greeted the boys, who stood around arguing about Lena Horne. Willie claimed to have reliable knowledge that Lena had once shacked up with a white man in Europe. Amos accused Willie of telling a bald-faced lie.

Barlowe left before the debate was settled. He crossed the street and waved at Mr. Smith, who was outdoors working on his old run-down car.

Across the way, near the far side of Randolph Street, a blue Volvo pulled up to the curb. Two white men sprang out and took to the sidewalks. One began jotting notes on a legal pad. The other, a short necktie resting on his round belly, walked two steps ahead. They paraded up and down the block, pointing at this house and that one.

As the two men worked their way toward Edgewood Avenue, people stopped what they were doing and zeroed in: Barlowe paused at the end of his walkway; the elders stood stark still in front of the store; Mr. Smith leaned against the hood of his old car, folding his arms across his chest.

Nobody uttered a word, but their eyes spoke collectively. Collectively, their eyes said:
So this is how it happens
. They had heard of faroff regions where dark natives were driven from their land. They had been told about places where people's homes were taken, then gutted and used as kindling for romantic fires. But in all that hearing they never imagined how the process looked day-to-day.

Now they saw. More and more, they laid wary eyes on pale people riding through the neighborhood, scoping. As change swept through the Old Fourth Ward, the people first looked on with interest, then concern. With each passing month, that concern grew in nervous bits and pieces.

There were those who set out early to defend their ground. They noted the beginnings of the trickle—and pondered ways to plug the leak.

A
quick pass-through. That's all it was supposed to be. A quick pass-through, and now it's home.

Yes, indeed. Life can turn on a dime. A quarter can flip it completely. But life can turn on a single dime.

Sean sat at home, thinking. Sandy had gone to her evening meditation class, which pleased him because it gave him some time alone. Sean loved spending time with his wife, but Sandy was so forceful in her opinions that it was hard sometimes to separate her thinking from his own. Now that she was gone he could be sure his thoughts belonged to him.

He gazed out the front window into the street and pondered the implications of the new address. This wasn't exactly what they had in mind a few years back, when they were lured from Philadelphia by good-paying jobs. When they first arrived, the Gilmores moved out to Forsyth County. They bought a sprawling, four-bedroom, ranch-style house for $120,000, a bargain unheard of in the pricey North. Their new home rested on a swath of land four times the size of the stingy clump of grass in Philly. They settled in, confident they had come upon the fabled New South they'd read so much about; the New South of sweet tea and magnolia trees (minus the beer-bellied boys in Red Man caps); the New South of mild weather and warm hospitality, even toward Yankees like them.

In that first year, the Gilmores thought they'd died and gone to heaven. In time, though, flaws appeared in their New South paradise. The sterile suburban streets were one thing; traffic stress was quite another, especially for Sandy, who commuted some thirty miles from Forsyth to the family services agency in downtown Atlanta, where she worked.

After two years of fighting traffic jams, the Gilmores agreed a change was in order. Some urban ambience might do them some good. They signed on with Joe Folkes, who promised to find them the house they were looking for. Now Sean recalled Joe's description of the Old Fourth Ward.

“Awesome potential!”

If it had been up to Sean alone, he and Sandy would never have entertained the idea of moving there. He had nothing against
them
, mind you. He measured himself far more tolerant than the average man. But as for Joe's proposal, there were too many risks involved. That near-robbery in Sean's backyard had proven that.

He had agreed to visit the neighborhood, mainly to appease his strong-willed wife. He'd felt confident in the logical outcome of that exercise: As he'd figured, they would visit the ward and Sandy would see for herself that it was not a sensible option. She'd come away pleased with herself for even considering such a thing. Then they would get on in earnest with the housing search; they'd look someplace that made more sense.

As far as the decision to buy the house, Sean had actually surprised himself. He had been shocked to come upon such a lovely place, and one so affordable, too. It was far more appealing than the overpriced dumps they'd explored in the Yuppie havens.

Now, sitting alone, Sean acknowledged his decision to buy also was influenced by other factors; namely a weekend trip he and Sandy had taken around that time to visit her family in Connecticut. One evening, while they were all having dinner at the estate (Sean called it the Big House), he began lamenting the hassles of house-hunting in Atlanta. When he mentioned in passing that they planned next to explore an in-town black area, Sandy's father furrowed his thick eyebrows and began to yell.

“Insane!” He insisted that no child of Fulton Peterson's should be “forced” to even consider such a thing. He ranted on, endlessly it seemed, about how his daughter didn't need to live “desperate.”

Mrs. Peterson, a doting appendage if there ever was one, ignored Sandy's protests and echoed her husband's concerns.

“Sandy, you weren't raised that way. You just weren't brought up like that.”

The old man directed his assault mostly at Sean, as if the house-hunting thing was all his fault.

What a scene! Sean was thrilled when, finally, they got away from there.

He would never tell Sandy, but he actually hated her father. The man was a boorish egomaniac! That was apparent from the very start, beginning with their wedding. They had planned a modest ceremony in the courtyard of a bed-and-breakfast. Sandy's father refused to attend unless the ceremony was relocated to a place more “suitable.” The wedding date was changed and the location shifted, all to satisfy
him
.

Everything in that family was done to accommodate the old man. Sean had privately nicknamed him “The Captain.”

And then there was the time his father-in-law offered Sean a job working at his big financial management firm. He presented the offer under the guise of being supportive of the young newlyweds.

Sean knew what that was really about. It was about the little problem her daddy seemed to have with Sean's blue-collar bloodlines; the fact that both his father and grandfather had worked in the Pittsburgh steel mills.

Sean also suspected the job offer sprang from some private fear of the old man's that, as a computer repairman, his son-in-law wouldn't earn enough bread to support Sandy in the lavish manner she was accustomed to.

In the end, Sean turned down the offer. He didn't need the old man's money. Ever since he and Sandy began dating in college she'd made it clear that she didn't need it, either.

In the years they'd been together, Sean came close, many times, to telling The Captain what he thought of him. And he would have, too, if not for fear it would cause Sandy undue stress. So Sean usually zipped his lips to keep her happy, even during those times when the old man took maddening potshots, clearly meant to humiliate him.

Sean couldn't tolerate humiliation. Humiliation sometimes sent him into a trembling rage.

During the weekend visit to Connecticut, though, he'd felt empowered by something he discovered. He stumbled upon the one weapon that could be used to counter, and even preempt, his father-in-law's stinging jabs.

The weapon was this: The very mention of
them
made the tiny little hairs on Fulton Peterson's big, bald head stand on end. Hearing the dinner talk about his daughter's considering moving into an urban area, the veins in The Captain's neck bulged so thick it looked like he might treat Sean to an aneurysm.

Now Sean got up to get a drink of water, glancing at the clock. Sandy would be coming home soon.
Yeah
, he thought.
The Captain is a flaming bigot
.

He had to admit, he got a real rush in knowing he had finally hit upon a way to yank the old man's chain. As role reversals went it was downright exhilarating. Standing at the refrigerator, a smile crept across Sean's face. He could hardly wait to invite the Petersons to visit their new home.

He thought again about the recent backyard encounter with that drunken man near the old oak tree. It left him unsettled still. He would hate more than anything than to be forced to admit what he was already beginning to suspect: that The Captain's ominous predictions about their new neighborhood just might come true.

T
he Old Fourth Ward Beautification Committee gathered only once every three months. And it was a good thing, too, because that was about all its members could stand. The group gathered in the community's shining jewel, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.

On paper the Beautification Committee membership numbered thirty-three. But only about nine people could be counted on as regulars. Others had signed up, not so much because they were thrilled about the prospect of Saturday morning cleanup campaigns and the patient planting of marigolds. They signed up because at one time or another they'd been cornered, collared and asked to join. One year, the committee launched an aggressive door-to-door recruitment drive.

On this Saturday morning, Barlowe was one of two relative newcomers to the group. He'd recently joined out of concern for the improving, but still-patchy appearance of the neighborhood.

The meeting started slowly. They discussed the horticultural implications of the changing season. They debated the need to plant more begonias and tulips in the center of the triangular cobblestone public space at Auburn Avenue and Randolph Street.

The final item to be considered, curiously titled “Selection,” promised to be a more delicate matter. It concerned the racial persuasion of two people chosen as finalists for the annual Old Fourth Ward Green Thumb Prize. In the past decade, the award had rotated almost solely among three old women—all retirees with nothing but time on their hands to make their yards look like full-page glossies in
House & Garden
magazine.

But this year, there were two new finalists, both young white couples that had only recently moved to the ward.

“I ain't doin it!” Wendell Mabry bellowed, his arms folded defiantly across a pumpkin gut. “I don't kere if they the last people left on Gawd's urth. I ain't givin no white folks the Green Thumb prize.”

Wendell, a stocky stub of a man who always kept a toothpick dangling from his mouth, was born and raised in the Old Fourth Ward. He'd moved away to Indiana some years ago. When his parents died, he returned to look after the family home. The family home meant everything to him.

“I'm afraid, Mr. Mabry, that you have no choice.” Lula Simmons spoke crisply, enunciating every word. “Everybody can see as plain as day that those people won. It's only fitting and fair to give them the prize.”

“Fair?! Fair?!” That word set Barlowe off. “Don't talk to us about
fair
!”

The committee members nodded in collective agreement. That word had lost meaning centuries ago.

Not content to argue on the basis of history alone, Wendell sought to frame his protest in technical terms: Was it fair, he asked, in so many words, for lay gardeners in the ward, who learned by painstaking toil and error, to compete against the studied skills of trained professionals?

“Them white folks didn't perty up they yards theyselves! They went and hired a archatet!”

“
Landscape
architect,” Lula interjected.

“Whatever. The pernt is, them people cheated!”

Lula regretted that her unpolished neighbors failed to grasp the many benefits that could accrue from having
them
in the community. She understood, if no one else did, that the very presence of whites added prestige and value to a place.

“I'll tell you what,” she said, determined to move the process along. “Let's just do the proper thing. And if anyone feels they have a legitimate grievance, invite them to Irwin Street to inspect those people's yards for themselves. If they're forthright they'll have to admit that we did the right and proper thing.”

When she spoke, Lula held her nose turned up, as if she had always done the right and proper thing. And it was true, to the best of her knowledge. Even as a teenager she was never one to be caught like other girls, smooching in cars with her clothes all askew and legs flung about. It wasn't right. It wasn't proper.

Studying her tied-back hair and huge eyeglasses, Barlowe guessed Lula had probably always seemed old, even when she was young.

“We must be ethical.” She rolled her eyes at him. “Above all, we must be fair.”

“Well,” said Wendell, “it don't seem fair to let
them
come in and start winnin prizes right away.”

That said, Miss Carol Lilly jumped in. As committee chair, she felt obligated to mediate.

“Somebody show me where it says in the rule book that folks gotta do the yard work theyselves.”

Wendell drew a spare toothpick from his breast pocket and aimed it at her like a bayonet. “There ain't no rule book, which means there ain't no rules.”

“There are
implicit
guidelines,” noted Lula. “Implicit guidelines are always useful.”

Wendell snorted like an angry bull. “Whasa matter wit y'all!? Dontcha unnerstand? We can make up some daggone rules!”

“No we cain't,” Miss Carol Lilly grunted. “Everbody know all we ever jerdged people on is how perty they yards and gardens were. We ain't never axed nobody how they yards got that way.

“And you can see well as anybody that some a
them
got some perty yards. They got 'xotic flowers and plants that I ain't even seen befoe.”

She was right. With all the hemming and hawing about the perils of “whitey” coming in, there was no denying that the neighborhood was slowly flowering into a more attractive place. One couple had installed a Chinese water garden, complete with marble sculptures. Out front they'd planted stocky shrubs and elephant ears, and lined each side of their walk with monkey grass.

Another white family had settled on a funky southwestern motif, with cacti imported all the way from the Nevada desert. No question; it was beautiful.

Barlowe had noticed that the people next door to him did their own yard work. But what consolation was that? They were still
there
, weren't they? For weeks after the Gilmores moved in, he would wake up mornings and look outdoors, hoping they had somehow disappeared.

Clarence Sykes, Wendell's friend and poker buddy, had remained quiet throughout most of the debate. Now he weighed in, prompted mostly by a simmering resentment that the women on the committee seemed to be running things.

“What it gon look like if you give
them
that award wit all these black people livin out chere?”

“Hush, Clance,” said Miss Carol Lilly. “Ain't nobody stopped other folks out chere from competin. They coulda got out in they yards and planted, just like them white folks done.”

Wendell yanked the toothpick from his mouth and snapped it in two. “You know well as me, folks ain't got spare change to be puttin down fertlizer every time the dang seasons change.”

“Oh,
reaallly
?” An exasperated Lula clucked her tongue. “Then how much does it cost to bend your posterior down and pick up trash?”

Other committee members kept quiet on that point. They recalled the many Saturdays they'd spent in that very room, wracking their brains to find ways to persuade neighbors to show more community pride. Some people maintained their yards quite nicely, while others seemed not to care at all.

“I don't know why we keep having the dang competition in the first place,” Clarence complained. “The same three people win alla time, anyway. We should let somebody else win.”

“Mr. Sykes.” Lula sounded very weary now. “What part of this conversation don't you comprehend? That's exactly what we're proposing to do—allow someone else to win.”

He waved her off. “Oh, woman, you know what I mean.”

The debate raged on like that for another ten minutes until other committee members spoke up. After his initial outburst, Barlowe kept quiet and listened. He had definite views, and more to say, but being a renter, he felt less entitled to force debate with people who owned their homes.

Meanwhile, somebody in the middle row raised a hand. “Maybe we need to brainstorm ways of doing a better job getting the word out about the competition.”

It was a fine-boned young woman named Marvetta Green. Smart, pretty and confident, Marvetta was one of several single black women to recently buy homes in the ward. Barlowe had met her before, and they'd chatted briefly. He looked upon her with new interest now.

“Clearly, we need to do more to expand the pool of people who compete for the award.”

“Been there, done that.” Miss Carol Lilly's gruff tone suggested she doubted a woman with a waistline trim as Marvetta's had anything of use or substance to say. Some years back, Miss Carol Lilly had lost her husband to a trim-hipped woman. The only thing she had to show for her ceaseless pain was the house she was awarded in the divorce.

“It—jus—ain't—gonna—work.” She uttered each word slowly, as if Marvetta was dim-witted or hard of hearing.

Marvetta shot back. “Have you put flyers on people's doors? Have you offered better prizes than the plaques you normally hand out to winners?”

“Prizes like what?”

“Instead of a plaque we could offer cash prizes or free grass and flower seeds.”

“I think thas a good idea!” Wendell was interested to hear what else the pretty gal had to say.

Miss Carol Lilly shot him a look that carried the force of a backhand.

“We ain't got a
dime
in the budget as it is. How we gonna offer somethin we ain't got?”

“Maybe we on the committee could all pitch in somethin extra.” When he spoke, Barlowe glanced at Marvetta, but she had turned her attention to Lula Simmons, who raised her hand.

“You can do anything you want to attract more people, but don't be surprised or offended when our Caucasian neighbors start showing up. A few have already approached me and inquired about the committee. So we must be right and proper in our positions. We must be fair in how we conduct our—”

Marvetta broke in. “As the committee that oversees the selection process, we're well within our rights to dictate the criteria for the award. Let's reexamine the wording. Maybe it's time to update the language.”

Except for Lula, whose pursed lips signaled she was quite displeased, the committee veterans looked sideways at each other, wondering why they hadn't thought of that.

“Thas right!” barked Wendell. “We'll review the daggone guidelines!”

Lula pouted, acutely aware that she was outnumbered.

With Marvetta's guidance the wording was doctored so expertly that it appeared the award criteria had been left the same.

The original document said:
Winners are awarded the Green Thumb Prize based on the overall beauty of their yards, shrubs and flower beds.

The committee simply tacked on extra language:
Winners are awarded the Green Thumb Prize based on the overall beauty of their yards, shrubs and flower beds, as a result of work wrought by their own hands.

For good measure, committee members cast anonymous ballots to select a winner.

In the final vote, one of the old retirees—a black woman who had lived in the Old Fourth Ward for twenty years—won the Green Thumb Prize.

For the time being, all was right again with the world.