***
Jun 17, 2974
Dear Susie,
Where do I start? First, let me say I love you more than anything and I'm praying you will wait for me. I'll be there as soon as I can, but I'm not sure how long that will be.
The people who followed me and my dad to Jackson must have been surprised when I jumped from the car, because they drove up the road a ways before they found a place to turn around. I relied on the cover of darkness for protection until I could lose them.
I was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, too easy to spot, so I ran across the road and backtracked to a deep ditch in a stand of pine trees, hoping the change of direction would put more time between me and the posse, which is what I called them in my mind. I slid into the ditch, pulled black sweat pants and a long sleeved black T-shirt from my duffle bag and changed clothes, then pulled my black baseball cap low over my eyes. I figured these men would not be tricked easily but I know I can pass for white if I cover my head.
I crept through the trees and jogged to the back of a small shopping strip and made my way to the back of the last store then crossed the street as casually as possible and weaved in and out of small businesses, an open lot, and a warehouse until I reached the train station. I hid behind a big pine tree and counted the men who staked out the parking area. I could make out five of them, spread out, stooped low on the sides of cars and pickup trucks, and peeking around trees. They didn't wear white sheets and dunce hats, but I knew their faces: Toussaint Parish Sheriff Guidry, one of his deputies, and three businessmen from Jean Ville.
Darren Bordelon, who owns the Five and Dime, was chewing tobacco behind a line of tree. I don't know if you remember him, a short squatty man built like a stump, real mean, and ready to fight with whites or coloreds. Always itching for a reason to use his hairy fists on someone's jaw. He'll join any group, the Klan, the White Camellias, or the Dixie Gang when Guidry calls for warriors to seek racial justice. He'll wear any uniform, sheet, or mask and jump in the back of a pickup with his hunting rifle, so it didn't surprise me to see him there.
The Moreau brothers who own the Mobil station on the other side of town hate my dad because he's colored and has a competing gas station. Those two might not join just any vigilante group, but they would certainly agree to ride with the Klan against the Thibault family. None of the Moreaus get along with each other until they have a common cause against some poor Negro who they think has wronged the whites.
Jack Moreau is tall and thin as a reed. From the back, his narrow butt and long thin torso are the opposite of his frontal view, which seems to belong to a different person: a pot belly that hangs over the big, silver cowboy buckle and a huge, wide chest. His brother, Eric, is shorter by a few inches and has no neck. His round shaved head looks like a large ping pong ball sitting on a board, and his squared shoulders give way to short, dangling arms.
The most dangerous of the five men, by far, is Sheriff Guidry. I've never seen his head because it's always covered by a white, felt cowboy hat with a red band around the base and a small feather on one side. I wonder if he sleeps in that hat. Guidry is a big man, not simply in height—you know, he's probably six-feet-five if he's an inch—but also in girth. I'll bet he weighs at least 300 pounds and he always wears starched Levis with sharp creases down the front of the legs and a stiff, white long-sleeved shirt with snaps up the front and on both breast pockets. The pointed toes of his alligator boots peek out from under his jeans that would probably brush the ground in the back if the heels on his boots weren't two inches high. He wasn't wearing his badge that night, I guess because this was personal business, but at home his bright silver "Sheriff" star is always pinned above his left pocket.
I played football against Deputy Keith Rousseau. He was a defensive lineman who sacked me more times than I can count. It was personal for Keith, taking down a colored quarterback in front of an audience. He's a big, hulking, Cajun boy with a beer belly and long brown, shaggy hair that hangs over his eyes. He grins on one side of his mouth and some of his teeth are missing. He's a mean one and he hates coloreds, especially me…
I watched the five of them for a while and wondered how many more there were on this mission. I could almost smell their excitement and perspiration. I wondered who I had not spotted, since they usually travel in pairs. They outnumbered me like a pack of dogs against one rabbit, and had probably planned this attack as thoroughly as a general against the Viet Cong.
How did they know my dad would take me to Jackson? Did they follow me? And if they followed, how did all these men get here ahead of us and take their positions?
I knew none of that mattered; all that mattered was that I outsmart them and stay alive.
I circled around the station and crossed the track, grateful for the tall weeds and the lack of Mississippi pride that would keep the grass down and the trees pruned. One of the few states lower than Louisiana in education, racial progress, and economy is Mississippi. Alabama and Arkansas could probably go toe-to-toe with both states on the racial issue.
I am desperate to get out of the South.
The weeds and bushes on the backside of the tracks provided cover as I worked my way north for about a quarter mile. The train pulled into the station, people got off and got on, and the whistle blew to indicate it was ready to depart for Memphis. When half of the train passed me, I jumped onto the step between two cars and held the side rail until I got my bearings, then I boarded.
Tucker Thevenot was sitting near the window on the right, about halfway down. He's a nasty man from Toussaint Parish who people say does perverted things to children, even his own. He's blond with a thin goatee and mustache that makes his face look dirty. He looked at me as I walked down the aisle as casually and nonchalant as I could with my head down and my cap pulled low to hide my eyes.
I pretended to look for a seat and a place to stash my bags. Just before I reached the back of the car I spotted Antoine Borrel on the last row, sitting near the aisle. You remember Antoine, he was in your graduating class, I think. He's a customer at the Esso station and I've had many conversations with Antoine about football and other sports, both local and national. His dad's a carpenter and they've never treated me like I'm colored so it shocked me that Borrel was part of this witch hunt. I continued down the aisle and stepped out of the back door and into the next car, marked "Colored."
I felt a sense of urgency and went through door that joined the colored car to the caboose. As soon as I emerged between the two cars, the train slowed in a curve and I jumped. I stayed still and quiet in a ravine for ten or fifteen minutes to make sure no one had followed me. A line of trees that ran parallel to the tracks was set back about six yards and I used them for cover as I made my way south to the small town of Richland, about five miles out of Jackson.
I dropped into a convenience store, bought a Coke and asked the colored clerk for directions to the Greyhound bus station. It was only three blocks away. The guys on the train hadn't followed so I felt safe, until I got to the bus station and spotted two familiar faces outside the entrance. Oh, God, I thought, now it's really personal. Your brother James and his friend Earl, "Big Earl" Daigrepont were waiting. James had a pistol tucked inside his belt.
"What?" I screamed and put the letter in my lap. "James? My brother, James was after Rodney with a gun? Oh, God! This is personal." I felt sweat gather in my neck and scalp and had an eerie feeling my dad was behind this whole stakeout that Rodney called a posse.
I picked the letter up and read on…
James started running towards me yelling at Big Earl to cut me off. You know, your brother was a running back in high school and he's still tall, slim, wide-shouldered and fast. Didn't he finish LSU Law School last year? Anyway, James is in great shape and he gained on me. I threw my duffle bag at him as if it was a football and it hit him in the face. My loafers and the two books inside the duffle made it heavy and it stopped him for a minute, but it didn't knock him down. He kept coming, but now I had a lead.
Big Earl is a huge, scary-looking fellow with beady eyes and a shaved head, bigger than a beach ball. He isn't fast, just big—very big and strong.
I zigzagged through the area using some of the buildings for protection in an effort to lose James and Earl. I made my way back to the convenience store, since I knew the layout. I ran through the front door, past the colored clerk who barely looked up from the girlie magazine he had on the counter, towards the back hall, past the restrooms, and through a door with a sign that said "Employees only." I peeked out the back door into the parking lot to make sure no one was waiting, then stepped out and started running.
I tripped and fell on the concrete and looked up to see Big Earl standing over me, laughing. Before Earl could grab me, I kicked him hard in the ankle and caught him off-guard. He tripped and stumbled but didn't fall, but it gave me time to get to my feet and I kicked Earl in the crotch as hard as I could. Earl screamed and bent over, holding himself in agony. James rounded the corner and saw that Earl was hurt, which stopped him long enough to check on his friend; then James took off running after me.
I didn't wait around to see what happened with Earl and James. I had a lead and was out of sight. My only hope was that James would be confused about which direction I went, so I doubled back to the last place I thought James would look—the convenience store. I ran in the front door, down the back hall, and hid in the stockroom. Once I stopped and sat behind a stack of boxes I felt fatigue seep through my bones. I hadn't stopped for days, since I was kidnapped, shot, jailed, and picked up by my dad.
I know James is smart, so I needed a plan if I was going to outsmart him. I tried to think, but it was difficult; I was too tired and afraid that my exhaustion would cause me to make a mistake, one that could cost me my life. So I decided to rest, then think.
The clerk came to the back to see where I had gone. I asked the young guy, who seemed laid back and agreeable, to cover for me and allow me to rest up in his stock room.
"This ain't my store, man. You can stay long as you want."
"Please, can you cover if any of those white men come looking for me?"
"One already come in and axed were you here, I tole him I don't see you since the time you ran through."
"Thanks, man; I appreciate that."
"What you think, I not take care of a brother. I just soon kill them white boys as look at them, if I thought I could get away with it." He was younger than me by a few years and much smaller—short, in fact, and very thin. He had a wad of tobacco in his cheek and talked slowly. His baseball cap said "Mustangs," and was pushed back on his forehead so you could see his hairline and brought attention to his wide-set eyes, big as walnuts with pupils as dark as ink wells. He picked up a box, put it on his shoulder, and left the storeroom. I began to relax.
I wondered how many Klan members were after me. James and Earl and the guys who were staking out the train station—oh, and the ones on the train to Memphis. So far I'd counted nine. They seemed to anticipate places I would be before I got there, something that confused me, still does, because even I didn't know I would go to the bus station in Richland. Did they have men positioned at every transportation hub in every town and city between Baton Rouge and Memphis, and all the way to Illinois?
I questioned why I was so important. Then I remembered that I am trying to marry the daughter of a senator, the former mayor of Jean Ville, and that he's the type who had to save face.
I figured the men trailing me would expect me to keep moving and probably head north, so I decided to do the opposite. While the posse staked out all the modes of transportation I might take to go north, I took a nap in the convenience store in Richland. At about three-thirty in the morning the clerk, Devon—he later told me he pronounced it Dah-VON—came into the storeroom and pulled on the waist of his jeans to hike them up over his flat butt.
"Hey, man. They gonna start making deliveries around four," he said. "You'd better scoot." I woke with a start and was disoriented for a few minutes. I shook my head and opened and closed my eyes a few times, trying to focus.
"Are they gone?" I stood, stretched, and looked side-to-side as if waiting for someone to jump out from behind one of the boxes where I'd been hiding.
"Yep. Haven't seen any of them since midnight. Doesn't mean they won't be back after they get rested up," Devon said. I was still disoriented and tried to think of my next move when he surprised me.
"Look, man. I have an old pickup out behind the store. Why don't you lay low in the cab and I'll take you where you want to go when I get off at five."
"Yeah. Uhm, thanks. I'll take you up on that." I said. I went out the back door and got into the rusted Chevy pickup. The door squealed when I opened it and I looked around the mud-dark night to see if I'd awakened a nemesis. Unsure, but without options, I climbed into the cab and folded myself in half on the bench seat. I must have fallen asleep again because I was startled by the squeal of metal when Devon climbed into the cab.
"You musta been pretty tired," Devon said. "You done nothing but sleep since I saw you last night."
"Yeah. I've been on the run. Didn't have much rest till now. Thanks, man."
"No problem."
I had been thinking about where to go since I'd stashed myself in the storeroom. I asked Devon if he could take me to Pearl and he said, no problem, it was only about five or ten miles away.
I knew about a faction of the National Urban League that had a chapter in Pearl, Mississippi. One of their organizers had been to Jean Ville to try to start a league chapter a few years back. I remembered him because a friend I played football with at Adams High School got a scholarship to play for Mississippi State. He had settled in Pearl. We'd kept in touch and my friend, I don't want to tell you his name in case someone gets hold of this letter, got a job coaching at a middle school in Pearl. I had asked the Deacon representative, Jason, if he knew my friend and Jason said he did and told me that my friend was a member of the League in Pearl.
"You know anyone in the League?" I asked Devon.
"Sure. I go to meetings."
"Do you know (I said his name to Devon)? We went to high school together."
"Sure. Everyone in Pearl knows him. He coaches over at the colored middle school. Straight-up guy." Just as the sun began to peek over the horizon, I showed up at my old friend's back door. The look on my face must have alarmed him because he opened the door and ushered me into his kitchen without a word. Devon waved at us from his truck and backed out onto the side street, tucked in a cul-de-sac, and backed up to the woods.
And that's where I am now, with my friend.
He called a few members of the League to meet with us on Friday, to come up with a plan. My friend says all League members' phones are tapped so I can't call you.
Susie, I'm worried about you. The guys here believe there could be people watching you, staking you out in case I show up. Please be careful. I'm glad all I have is a post office box for your address. I hope no one knows your physical address.
I miss you more than anything. I don't know what's going to happen but trust me when I say I'm doing everything I can to get to New York so we can be married.
Forever yours,
Rod
The meeting must have taken place last Friday, I thought as I turned the pages over and started reading the letter again from the beginning. At least he's alive. If anything happened to him or to anyone in his family, it would be all my fault.
I needed to start looking over my shoulder because I was probably being followed and watched. It felt spooky.