***
The cabbie drove through Queens and passed through the stately gates at St. John's University onto a green-leafed, tree-lined drive with massive stone buildings on either side. He dropped me in front of the apartment building provided by the university for me and other graduate assistants, where I had lived for the past three years. I loved the spiritual feeling of the campus and the serenity I felt walking across the lawns from one cross-topped building to the next to attend and teach classes.
But I didn't feel serene the day I returned from the train station in DC without Rodney.
Where was he? Why didn't he show up? I just wanted to be near the phone if and when he called.
My tiny unit on the second floor had one bedroom, a small bath, and a combined kitchen and living area. I'd gradually added my own touches and when I opened the door with my key, I looked at my little home with new eyes. What would Rodney think when he got here? The door slammed behind me and I felt a cloak of angst envelop me. If he got here.
I had so many secrets. Would he still love me and want me once he knew?
I had to tell him. We couldn't build a future with the past hanging over our lives. I sat down hard in the pillowed chair near the front door and dropped my overnight bag and purse on the floor next to me. Where would I start? The baby? Merrick? Josh? Gavin?
Then it dawned on me that I may never see Rodney again. It hadn't been that long since the Klan tried to kill his dad and left a warning: "Leave the white girl alone." That's what had ended our relationship three years back. Had it happened again?
The phone rang and I jumped up, scared out of my thoughts.
*
I thought back to ten days before when I'd first arrived back in New York after leaving Rodney at the airport in Baton Rouge. When I had entered my apartment that afternoon, the phone was ringing.
"Hi, beautiful," he said when I answered.
"Please get here, Rod. I'm so afraid something will happen to keep you from me."
"Tell me you love me and I'll make that promise."
"Do I have to say the words?"
"Yes. I need to hear them, so you'd better get used to saying them. Now, practice."
"I, uh, you know I do, Rod."
"Say it, Baby."
"I, uh, love you."
"Good job. I love you, Chére." He called me lots of pet names. Chére, which sounded like sha, and meant dear one in Cajun French, was probably my favorite, but I'd never told him that. "See you in a week."
After we'd hung up, I thought of all of the questions I wanted to ask. Had he talked to Annette? Had he told his parents? Had he quit his job? Then I remembered I'd been with him that morning at the airport in Baton Rouge. How much could he have accomplished in such a short time?
Later he told me everything—that he'd gone straight to New Iberia to see Annette and, hard as it was, he'd broken things off. In the process, he'd broken her heart. I knew it must have been torture for him to hurt her, or anyone, especially someone who loved him.
I had to do the same thing—break up with Merrick, only Merrick was expecting it, wasn't he? After all, he was married and he must have realized that once I finished graduate school it would be over between us, right?
It had been Monday afternoon when we met at a sidewalk cafe close to campus, a few blocks from Merrick's writers' retreat where we had gone once or twice a week for the past three years. He was happy to see me but appalled by my bruises and bandages. I had forgotten how bad I looked until I saw the expression on his face when he sat down across from me at the little table for two.
"What the hell, Susie?"
"Oh, this? It'll heal. No worries."
"What the devil happened to you?"
"I don't want to talk about it, okay?" He was quiet for a minute. He looked at my face and tried to see behind my dark glasses, which didn't totally hide the swollen eye and purple circle that crept under the lenses. He calmed his voice and spoke in a fatherly tone.
"Susie. Please tell me what happened. I've never seen anyone so, well, so, uh…" He was never at a loss for words, so I almost laughed. Instead, I finished his sentence.
"Beat up?"
"Yes."
"The price of going home." How could I tell him that my own dad beat me up? For me it was almost normal, something that my father had done to me since I was little: lose his temper and take it out on me. Once he beat me so badly I spent a month in the hospital and had the last sacraments administered because they thought I was going to die.
This last time had been different, though; I'd fought back. I'd gone home for Catfish's funeral and my dad accused me of humiliating him in front of a hundred voters. We'd been to the Quarters for the burial and a cochon de lait dinner when he saw me speak to Rodney and suggested it embarrassed him to see me speak to a colored boy in public.
He'd slapped me so hard I fell against the footboard of the bed in the room that had once been mine and now belonged to my baby sister, Sissy. I slid to the floor and before I knew what happened he was on top of me, kicking and slapping. On impulse, I caught one of his feet with both my hands and threw his leg in the air with all my might. He staggered backwards, lost his balance and almost fell.
By the time he got his bearings, I was on my feet and he hit me in the face with his fist to keep me from running out the door. I staggered backwards and a strange darkness came over me. All the anger I'd felt for years bubbled up and I sucker-kicked him in the balls, hard. When he bent over to grab himself I reared back like a runner taking off from a starting block and pushed off hard with my foot, my knee cramming him in the face.
There was a loud crunch when it connected with his forehead and he toppled backwards onto the thick, blue carpet. Blood spurted from above his eye. I grabbed my purse and overnight bag and ran from the room, through the front door, and down the sidewalk while he yelled after me.
Dr. David Switzer, who lived across the street, opened his front door and walked briskly towards the road as he yelled at my dad who, by then, was standing on his front porch. I ran down South Jefferson Street and was only a few blocks from the Quarters.
Later, Rodney had taken me to Dr. Switzer's house and he stitched my face and congratulated me on fighting back. He'd offered to help Rodney and me run away together and to keep the Klan and my dad from hurting Rodney's family once we were gone.
Those were my thoughts as I looked across the table at Merrick, who looked confused, as if trying to understand how I could have been beaten so badly.
"I guess that explains why you didn't go home to Louisiana the entire three years of graduate school—that is, until your grandfather died." Merrick had been my professor, mentor, lover. I'd told him Catfish was my grandfather.
"Sort of. Can we talk about other things?" I couldn't tell Merrick what had happened.
"Let me get adjusted to looking at you like this." We ordered hot tea and sat stirring honey and lemon into the darkening liquid, dipping the tea bags over and over, squeezing the excess out and removing them from the cups, the steam and tea fragrance wafting into the space between us. We each took a sip.
"I have my thesis with me. I'd like to leave it with you and ask when I can take my last final exam?"
"Okay. Tomorrow? Will that work? Are you prepared?"
"Yes. I'll do fine, although I haven't been able to concentrate very much this past week."
"Hmmm. Anything I can do to help?"
"No, I'll be fine." We sipped our tea and I listened to the chatter of the other customers, horns blowing on the street, and the roar of a bus as it barreled down Utopia Parkway. Through it all I spotted a red bird perched in an oak tree in front of the entrance to park. It tweeted, then listened for a reply, and reminded me of sitting in the lush St. Augustine grass with my best friend Marianne, our backs resting against the outside of the old barn in the Quarters, Catfish asleep on his porch. Red birds called to each other—mating calls, love calls.
I thought of Rodney. I thought of what I needed to say to Merrick. My face hurt. I strained to see out of my one fully-opened eye, dark sunglasses masking the space between me and this kind man who had made the past three years bearable.
"Merrick." I talked into my cup. He reached across the table and, with his two forefingers under my chin, lifted my face to make me look at him. I kept my eyes downcast. He lifted my chin higher.
"Susie, you're scaring me."
"Merrick. I'm done with graduate school. I need to move on. You understand, don't you?"
"Move on where?"
"Well, I’m going to look for a job in the city. I have to be out of my apartment by the end of June."
"But us. I mean, we can still see each other, right?"
"I need a clean break, Merrick. You knew this would end."
"No. I didn't. I don't want to lose you. Can't we work things out?"
"I'm not like you, Merrick. I can't handle more than one relationship at a time."
"Oh. Is there someone else?"
"Yes."
"How did that happen so fast? Last week we were fine?"
"An old boyfriend."
"Did he do this to you?"
"NO! Never."
"Then who?"
"I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about us." We bickered but didn't argue. Merrick had too much class for that. When we parted he said he was still hopeful things would work out between us. I knew they wouldn't, but I let him dream on.
*
I was remembering all these things as I walked into my apartment after spending the night at Union Station waiting for Rodney, who never showed up.
I answered the ringing phone.
"Hi. It's Mari." Marianne Massey was not only my best friend, but also my half-sister, thanks to my dad's clandestine relationship with our help, Tootsie, Marianne's mother and Catfish's daughter.
"Mari! Have you heard from Rodney? He didn't show up in DC" I knew she heard the panic in my voice and she tried to calm me before she told me what she knew about Rodney. Marianne and Rodney were as close as brother and sister. They considered themselves cousins since Rodney's Uncle Bo was married to Marianne's Aunt Jesse. Marianne was as worried about him as I was.
Marianne said Rodney's law school graduation went off without a hitch. He was at the train station the next morning, ticket in hand.
"Yes, he called to tell me he'd be in Chicago the next day and would stay with a cousin overnight" I started to cry. "He said he wanted me to meet him in Washington on Wednesday so we could be married. But he never showed up."
Marianne explained that after Rodney hung up the phone with me and headed to the waiting area for the train to Chicago, two men grabbed him from behind.
"They slipped their arms under Rodney's armpits and practically lifted him off the floor and carried him down the hall and out the front doors." She was talking fast and I had to hold the phone close to my ear to catch every word. "A pickup truck was at the door of the train station, and the men threw Rodney into the cab, squeezing him between two burly guys with baseball caps and sunglasses." Marianne said that the driver of the truck took off while the man sitting shotgun tied a bandana through Rodney's mouth, gagging him. Then the guy slipped a dark sack, like a pillow case, over Rodney's head, secured it around his neck, and tied his wrists together in his lap.
"They were almost out of Baton Rouge when Rodney heard a siren and the driver of the pickup said, 'Oh, shit.' They pulled over and the driver got out. The man next to Rodney pushed a gun into his side and pulled Rodney's head down."
Marianne said that two state troopers met the driver on the side of the truck. One of the troopers argued with the driver and told him to get back in the vehicle while the other trooper started towards the passenger side. Two men in the bed of the truck stood up with guns.
"The cop yelled at them to get on their stomachs and when he reached the window on the passenger's side, the man with the gun on Rodney turned and shot at the cop, but missed. From what Rodney's dad told me, there was a gun fight—two cops, four armed outlaws, and Rodney, with a sack over his head and his hands tied together, lying across the bench seat of the truck."
She said the newspaper report told how the cop on the street shot the two guys in the bed of the truck when they came up shooting. The truck driver didn't have time to get his gun out of the cab in time, so the trooper trapped him against the truck and handcuffed him while he held the two wounded men at gunpoint. The other trooper returned fire and killed the man who held Rodney captive and a bullet hit Rodney's shoulder.
"At some point, two ambulances arrived followed by back-up police officers." Marianne said. "They took Rodney to the hospital against his pleas to drop him at the train station. The men in the back of the truck were also taken to the hospital and I don't know what ever happened to them.”
Marianne said Ray Thibault told her that Rod told him the story when they drove to Jackson, Mississippi.
"Mississippi?"
"Wait; there's more," Marianne said.
She told me that the Klan had gotten Jeffrey. Confused about which brother was Rodney, the group of eight men from Jean Ville decided to split up and get them both. After all, they were Mulattoes and Senator Burton, my dad, said one of them had been fooling around with his daughter.
Rodney's dad, Ray, owned the Esso gas station in Jean Ville and Rodney and Jeffrey helped him out whenever they were home. Ray told Marianne that the Klan picked Jeffrey up Saturday night in Jean Ville after he closed the station.
"The men pulled a sack over Jeffrey's head, tied his ankles together and his arms behind his back, then hog-tied him by looping the tied hands and feet through a rope around his neck while he lay on his stomach in the back of a pickup," Mari told me. "He fought to keep his limbs in the 'up' position so the weight wouldn't pull on the noose and strangle him." Marianne said the men drove Jeffrey to First Bridge, a wooded area near the Indian reservation in Jean Ville, where they put him in a wheelbarrow and pushed him deep into the thicket, threw the rope that held his arms, legs and neck together over a tree and left him there.
"If they'd taken him anywhere else, he'd be dead, but he was close to the St. Matthew Quarters and Joe Edgars was walking home from the grocery store. He saw the Klan leaving First Bridge in a truck," Marianne told me. "Joe said he ran through the woods so they wouldn't see him and ran directly into the tree where Jeffrey was hanging."
Rodney's dad told Marianne that, for once, he was glad Joe Edgars was a hoodlum, because he had a knife on his belt and cut Jeffrey down. He said his son was barely breathing and that Joe left Jeffrey on the ground and ran to the first house in the St. Matthew Quarter for help. The preacher's wife, Miss Camellia, called the sheriff and then she called Ray.
"I got there first," Ray told Marianne. "I still don't know whether the sheriff ever arrived. I took Jeffrey straight to Dr. David's house because it was only a few blocks away. Jeffrey wasn't breathing by the time we got there, so Dr. David did mouth-to-mouth and my boy finally took a breath."
"They aren't sure how long he'd gone without oxygen, and that's the big problem," Marianne sighed and finally paused. Then she started to cry because Jeffrey had not regained consciousness since he'd arrived at Jean Ville General Hospital Saturday night. "Five days."
I didn't know what to say. Marianne was spent from telling me the story and she still had not given me any information about Rodney, except to say, "Jackson, Mississippi?" Did he know about Jeffrey? Was he alive?
"How's Rodney? Is he still in the hospital in Baton Rouge? Where is he?" I was frantic, but Marianne said she'd told me everything she knew, that Ray didn't know what happened to Rodney after he jumped out of the car in Jackson, which confused me even more.
She said she would call me when she had more information. I was hysterical when I hung up the phone. I could picture Jeffrey and Sarah from only a week ago—so alive, so in love, so full of hope and promise. Just like me… and Rodney. I tried not to think of Rodney with a bullet through his shoulder, bleeding, maybe dying.
*
I waited another week for Marianne to call me with news, any news. Finally, unable to hold onto my patience any longer I picked up the phone and called her. Tootsie answered.
"Hi, Toot. I need to talk to Marianne." I was curt and short, nervous, not in the mood for small talk.
"Susie. How you doing?" Tootsie drawled on in her southern-Negro cadence, slow as honey dripping from a cone.
"Tootsie, I really need to talk to Marianne. It's important."
"She's at work, Susie. Want me to tell her to call you back?" Marianne was a nurse at Jean Ville General Hospital. I didn't know what shift she was working.
"Please." I hung up before I burst out crying.
By the time Marianne called me back that night I was into my second glass of wine, pacing my small apartment, crying and scratching the welts that had broken out on my arms.
"Hi, it's me. Look. I saw Ray at the hospital tonight. Jeffrey is still in a coma and it doesn't look good. They aren't sure how much swelling he has on the brain. Only time will tell." She was crying and I could tell she was more worried about Jeffrey than about Rodney. I didn't speak, just let her cry it out and get hold of her thoughts.
"So, Ray told me what happened to Rodney last week. He picked Rodney up at the Baton Rouge jail and drove him to Jackson. Ray said he had a plan to get Rodney out of the South before the Klan got to him like they'd gotten to Jeffrey."
Marianne said Ray banged his car up with a hammer and, somehow, got a black eye. He would go to the sheriff of Hinds County in Jackson and say they'd been attacked by Klan members and that they beat him and took Rodney.
“That way the sheriff would be looking for Rodney, even though Rodney would be long gone.” Marianne said.
"Ray said they didn't talk much during the four-hour drive to Jackson from Baton Rouge that night but that Rodney asked Ray about Jeffrey's condition. Rod asked his dad to call your apartment and give you any news, and you would relay it to Rodney when he calls you every day." Marianne took a deep breath and paused.
"Only he hasn't called me once, and it's been almost two weeks." I tried to hear what Marianne said through her sobs.
"About an hour out of Jackson, Ray said they realized they were being followed. Rodney watched a black Ford Fairlane trail Ray's grey Buick on Highway 64," Marianne said. "When Ray slowed to turn off the main highway onto the farm road that led into the west end of Jackson, Rodney jumped out with his backpack strapped on his back, holding his duffle bag to soften the blow. He landed in a ditch, and that's the last time Ray or anyone has seen or heard from him."
"Did Ray go through with his plan with the sheriff in Jackson?" I was confused and scared.
"Yes, but he said it hasn't gone anywhere. The authorities in Mississippi are worse than the ones in Louisiana." Marianne stopped talking and I could hear her inhale sharply, as though trying to catch her breath. We were both quiet for the longest time while I thought of questions to ask her, but couldn't come up with any.
*
The next day, I picked up my mail at the university post office. Rodney's familiar handwriting stretched across a long, white envelope. I ripped it open and read it standing near my post box.
June 12, 1974
Dear Susie,
I'm safe for now, with a friend, but I can't tell anyone where I am because I'm being followed and threatened, and the phone where I’m staying is tapped, so no phone calls, either.
After I last spoke with you, some guys grabbed me and I was shot, not seriously, and put in jail. Dad bailed me out. I don't know if you’ve talked to anyone and know what happened to Jeffrey. He's in bad shape… in a coma, the last I heard. I'm really worried. I wanted to go to Jean Ville to see him but Dad said the Klan and a posse your dad organized had the hospital staked out.
I asked my dad how anyone found out about us and he told me your dad knew. I questioned dad about that and he said, "Bob Burton is not the saint everyone thinks he is," and that he's a dangerous man. Dad told me that even though they were supposed to be friends, that friendship had been based on ulterior motives of your dad. My dad said your dad was anti-Klan until he found out about us.
That made me think.
What happened next is a story movies are made from. I'll try to write you again to tell you about it but I want to get this letter in the mail now, while I have someone who can take it to the post office.
I love you more than anything. Don't give up on me.
Yours forever,
Rod
I held the letter with both hands against my chest. At least he was safe, for now, or at least he was when he wrote the letter.
I looked at the postmark on the envelope. It had been mailed from Jackson a week before. If the phones were tapped and he couldn't go out in public to mail a letter, was he really in a safe place?