ON THAT JANUARY DAY IN 1946 AFTER THEY HAD GOTTEN Thelma and George married and moved into their new home, Luther and Johan had climbed into the rented van for the long drive back to Alabama. His sister had stood there on the sidewalk in front of her new home in this new city with her new husband and her baby, Adam, waving as the truck pulled away. And Luther, her protector since childhood, had been stabbed by an ice pick of guilt and reproach, by the fact that he was leaving his little sister to this uncertain life in this unknown place. Only by force of will had he resisted jumping out in the middle of the street, grabbing her, and throwing her in the truck.
Then Johan had rounded a corner and Luther couldn’t see her anymore and it was almost a relief. If he had known how to pray, he would have done so in that moment. Instead, he had simply said, in a soft voice, “I hope she be okay without me.”
Johan had nodded and said, “She’ll be fine. They’ll both be fine.” And Luther knew it for what it was—less an expression of confidence than a pantomime thereof.
He had seen her only once since then. That had been eleven years later, the day he stepped off a Greyhound bus into the cacophony of the New York Port Authority and, after being buffeted about by crosscurrents of people, finally found his way to a crowded, rattling subway car that wove its way through tunnels and between buildings until he arrived at 125th Street in Harlem, where he proceeded to walk for a few blocks, suitcase in hand, fending off a man who walked alongside, trying to sell him a Rolex luxury wristwatch from his coat pocket.
Luther had seen his sister before she saw him. She was pacing outside the office of the Legal Aid Society, smoking and scanning the crowded sidewalk. She had thrown down the cigarette when she spotted him crossing the street toward her and they folded each other in a long embrace before he held her at arm’s length and took an appreciative look. The years, he thought, had been good to her. His sister looked every bit the modern female lawyer in her navy-blue hat and matching waist-length coat, cinched fashionably tight around the middle. They could have put her on the cover of Ebony. She looked like promise and hope, like the very embodiment of Negroes rising. And he knew then that Johan had been right that day the truck pulled away from the brownstone. His sister had turned out just fine.
“Mom and Papa would be proud,” he had told her, as a way of conveying to her that if he himself were any prouder, the buttons of his sports coat would go pinging like shrapnel off signs and windows up and down the street. She had beamed in the light of his praise.
Now, eight years later, on a bright Sunday afternoon, Luther stood with George in a lobby of the Mobile airport, waiting to see his sister again. Her plane taxied to a stop and the ground crew rolled stairs up to the aircraft door. The hatch opened and a smiling stewardess stood aside as a procession of travelers began filing out of the plane. Luther might not have recognized her in her oversized sunglasses and hat, but for a quickening of George’s breath. It amused him that Thelma still had that effect on this man after almost twenty years of marriage.
“There she is,” said George.
And indeed, there she was. To Luther’s critical eye, she seemed smaller. Her face—what he could see of it—was taut, her mouth a thin, humorless line. She seemed almost to stand on tiptoe, like a bird ready to leap into flight at the slightest hint of threat. He knew why, of course. Alabama.
Thelma came down the stairs and into the waiting room. George tried to kiss her cheek, but she averted her face. In his happiness at seeing her—in his whiteness—he had forgotten, but this was not New York City. Hell, it was just three years since a trio of colored soldiers had sued after being denied service at a restaurant in this very airport.
Alabama was still Alabama. Still a kingdom of Jim Crow. Or as Governor George Wallace had vowed just a few years before, “Segregation now, segregation tomorra, segregation forever.”
“Honey,” said Thelma, as she removed her sunglasses. That was the only thing she said, but it was enough. There was an admonition in it that made George take a step back.
“I’m sorry,” he said, flustered. “I forgot. I’m just happy to see you.”
Luther was thankful he had to abide by no such constraints. He took his sister into a long hug. “Hey, baby girl,” he said. “Long time, no see.”
“Too long, big brother,” she murmured against his cheek. “Too long.”
As they went to retrieve her checked baggage, George said, “By the way, we heard from Adam. He called last night.”
This stopped Thelma in the middle of the concourse. “He called?”
“I told you he would,” said Luther. “He a smart boy. Got to figure he come to his senses sooner or later and stop acting like a child.”
“He said he was headed back to Selma,” said George. “Took the bus. Said he wants to rejoin the march.”
“How did he sound, George? What did he say?”
“He sounded …” There was a beat as George searched for the right word. Finally, he shrugged and said, “Well, to tell you the truth, honey, he sounded like a stranger. Maybe it’s just that he knows now I’m not, you know, his real father. It felt like when you’re talking to somebody, and you haven’t been properly introduced.”
“You are his real father,” said Thelma in a tone that foreclosed any debate on the subject.
“He’ll be all right,” said Luther. “Just need some time. It’s a lot to take in.” He hoped his confidence did not sound as false as it felt. But George and Thelma seemed not to have heard him anyway.
“I’m scared we might have lost that boy,” she told her husband.
“He’s upset,” said George. “He’ll come around. I just wish my stupid brother had kept his mouth shut.”
“Your brother’s not stupid. He’s mean. He’s wanted to hurt me since 1945 and he finally got his chance.”
“I know,” said George. “You’re right.”
“Come on,” said Luther, “let’s get your bags and get out of here.”
Half an hour later, they left the airport in Luther’s Buick, passing a sign that said, above George Wallace’s name, “Welcome to Historic Alabama—Heart of Dixie.” The words were flanked by an American flag on the left, a Confederate battle flag on the right.
He glanced at his sister, who was sitting across from him. She shook her head as the sign went by. “Them and that damn Dixie flag,” she whispered.
“You a long way from New York,” he told her.
“And believe me, I can’t get back fast enough,” she replied. “Do you have a cigarette?”
“Honey, I thought you quit,” said George, who was sitting in the back seat. It made Luther wince.
“It’s just one cigarette,” Thelma told him, her voice brittle. She accepted the smoke and punched in the lighter on the dashboard. Thelma lit the cigarette, took a deep, appreciative drag, blew a long stream of smoke, then rolled down the window and watched the outskirts of the city fly past.
Luther allowed a silence to intervene. Then he said, “So what you going to do?”
The glance she gave him called the question foolish. “I’m going to Selma,” she said. “I’ll stay here for a day or two. There’s a friend I want to look up. And I want to spend time with you, of course. But obviously, I’m going to Selma.” Another drag on the cigarette. “That’s where my son is.”
She said little more on the drive into town. Half an hour later, Luther pulled into the parking lot behind Youngblood’s. Because George’s ribs were still taped, Luther wrestled both of Thelma’s heavy bags up the stairs to the apartment. It had been decided that the couple would stay with Luther for as long as they were in town. With Thelma here, there could be no thought of moving into a hotel. The Avenue was a lot safer for a salt-and-pepper couple than some downtown hotel, even assuming they could find one that would rent to them—or that his sister would take it.
No, the Avenue was the only place that made sense. It was not safe, but it was safer.
Over Thelma’s objections, Luther stashed her bags in his bedroom, where the linens had been changed, the bed freshly made, and towels washed in anticipation of her arrival. “It ain’t the Ritz,” he told her, standing in the doorway, “but …”
“It’s fine,” she assured him.
“I’m glad to have you here,” he said. “Hate the circumstances, but …”
“I know,” she said.
“You going to be okay?”
She nodded. “I’ll be fine.”
“All right, then,” said Luther, clapping his hands together once. “Well, I’m going to give you two some privacy for a while.” It was obvious to him that his sister and her husband needed to talk.
Thelma protested. “Oh, Luther, don’t let us kick you out of your own place. We haven’t even had a chance to catch up.”
“We’ll talk,” he told her. “It’s just that Sundays and Wednesdays is when I usually go to visit Johan. He’s kind of used to that and I don’t want him thinkin’ I forgot.”
“Why don’t I come with you? It would be nice to see George’s father again.”
Luther, who had been counting on doing this alone, froze. He had no good answer for that. Luckily, George spoke up. “Honey,” he said, “you’ve been traveling all day. Why don’t you get some rest first? I’m going to go see my dad tomorrow and you can come with me then. Besides, he’s more likely to remember who you are if he sees you with me.”
“That’s a good point,” said Luther.
Thelma’s expression was dubious. “Well, all right,” she said. “If you think that’s best.”
George assured her he did, and Luther agreed. He kissed her cheek on his way out the door, promising to return in time to take her to dinner. Luther trotted down the stairs but didn’t go immediately to his car. Instead, he unlocked the back door of the barbershop. It was dark and quiet inside, the floors freshly swept and mopped, the room smelling faintly of Glo-Coat, lemon Pledge, and hair. Ordinarily, he liked being in here by himself. The stillness carried the memory—and the foreknowledge—of Negro men laughing, playing checkers, and shooting the shit as they awaited their turn in the chair, free, if only for that hour or so, to be just men among men, no more and no less. It always brought him a measure of peace to pause in the doorway of the empty shop—his empty shop—simultaneously anticipating and remembering.
Today, he did neither. Instead, he went straight to the room that served as his office—a grand name for a space not much bigger than a janitor’s closet—pulled open his bottom desk drawer and retrieved the bottle of whiskey he had lately taken to squirreling away there. He plucked a shot glass from the same drawer, blew in it to dislodge any dust or small creature that might be sleeping there, and poured himself one finger. Luther drank it in a gulp. He felt centered by the jolt that followed. It felt so good, in fact, that he decided to take the bottle with him.
Retracing his steps through the pregnant stillness of the empty shop, Luther slid behind the wheel of the Buick. It was, he knew, illegal to drive with an open container of alcohol. But, thanks to Alabama’s blue laws, it was also impossible to find a liquor store or bar open on a Sunday, so as far as he was concerned, he had no choice. Because he needed whiskey for this.
It wasn’t that he was worried about running into George’s mouthy brother. He thought he might actually enjoy popping Nick Simon in the chops after what he had said to Adam and the pain it had caused Thelma. It might even be worth spending the night in jail for.
But the fact that Floyd Bitters slept in a room just down the hall from Johan, that shook him. He hated to admit it, but it did. And he needed something to steady himself.
Luther started the engine and backed out, guided it down the alley along the side of the building. He inserted the car into a break in traffic, then flipped the radio on. Dizzy Gillespie’s trumpet filled the car, tracing the frenetic melody of “Salt Peanuts.”
In a sense, Luther had lied to Thelma when he told her he didn’t want the old man missing the regular Sunday visit. Most of the time, after all, Johan Simek barely knew what day it was. So that wasn’t the real reason for this trip. No, the real reason was that Luther didn’t want it to be said—if only by himself, in the private corners of his own mind—that Floyd Bitters had made him chicken out, kept him from doing something he otherwise would have done. That man had already taken so much away. Hell, he had taken everything. Luther could not abide the idea that he would take everything, plus this: a regular visit with an old friend on a Sunday afternoon. Yet at the same time, Luther could not face that visit—face that proximity—sober.
So he drank his way across town. He knew it was a reckless thing to do, knew how abruptly the flashing lights of a prowl car could appear behind him, a risk that grew exponentially greater as he transgressed the invisible line separating poor and black from wealthy and white. He dreaded the thought of the field sobriety test, the pinch of handcuffs, the hard, reverberating clang of metal bars closing him in.
Yet, he still sneaked sips from the bottle, glancing surreptitiously about for any hint of a black-and-white Ford parked at a curb or lurking in some inconspicuous alleyway. He drove with exaggerated caution, keeping well below the speed limit, not allowing the grille of the car to intrude even an inch into the crosswalk. When, at last, West Haven Rest Home appeared in his windshield, Luther wanted to congratulate himself on his cleverness. But he was embarrassed by it, too.
He remembered all too well how it was back when he drank every day in search of oblivion and, in the process, made himself an embarrassment to his sister and their grandfather. He had come so far from the man he once had been, yet somehow, it seemed he had ended up right back where he started.
Suddenly disgusted by himself, Luther pulled into a parking space in a far corner of the lot. He left the engine running, took one last sip from the bottle, patted his breast pocket, and brought out a package of spearmint gum. He folded two sticks into his mouth, then screwed the top back on the bottle and reached across to pop open the glove box, intending to stash the liquor away. He was surprised to see that his pistol was still sitting there, waiting to be returned to his bedside. He stared at it for a long time, stared at it as if he had never seen a pistol before.
He stared until the bleating of car horns made him jump. Out on the street, he saw, someone had been slow in taking advantage of the green light. It broke the spell. Luther threw the bottle into the glove box, pushed it closed. But he still didn’t turn off the engine. Cannonball Adderley and Miles Davis were performing “Autumn Leaves,” the bass and piano cool and portentous before Adderley’s saxophone resolved their tension into sweet lyricism.
One of his favorite songs. Luther lit a cigarette and sat there smoking and listening. After a moment, he reached back into the glove box, took out the bottle, took another last sip. Warmth rushed over him in a wave. He eyed the doors of West Haven as he recapped the bottle.
Some white man came walking out, lending his arm to an old lady who tottered as if just learning to walk. He watched their slow progress across the parking lot, watched the man—he had a Clark Gable mustache and wavy black hair—open the door of a late-model Ford and seat the old woman inside, then go around and get in on the driver’s side.
There was the sound of an engine coming to life, the car’s taillights glowed red and white, and the vehicle backed out. Luther tapped a fingernail on the whiskey bottle. It made a hollow plinking sound. Clark Gable finished backing out and the car turned toward the street. Luther flicked away his cigarette. He put the bottle back in the glove box and turned the ignition off. Miles Davis fell silent. It felt as if the whole world had fallen silent.
He got out of the car. The parking lot seemed to sway beneath him. He waited for it to settle, then walked toward the door. He felt like Wyatt Earp striding toward the O.K. Corral. A foolish image, he knew, but this was a showdown of sorts, wasn’t it? Him, facing off against the great terror of his life, him proving that he was no longer afraid.
Luther pulled open the door and stepped into the muted light. The teenage girl behind the reception desk glanced up from a paperback novel—Return to Peyton Place—ignored him with a glance, went back to her reading. Had she kept her gaze on him, she would have seen Luther walking with slow caution across the swaying floor.
On the television in the day room, William Holden had lit the tip of Lucy Ricardo’s putty nose on fire with a cigarette lighter. Ricky Ricardo’s eyes looked like they were about to pop right out of his head. Garish shrieks of laughter exploded from the speakers.
Luther ignored them, concentrating instead on the careful placement of his steps. One or two of the residents gazed up from the television, preferring to watch him instead. Apparently, he was the better show. After what felt like an hour, he stood finally at Johan’s door. He lifted his hand to knock, then let it hang there as he glanced down the hallway to where the source of all his loss and fear lay ensconced behind a door just like this one. It didn’t seem fair.
But, he reminded himself, he was drunk, so he didn’t care. That was the whole point of getting drunk.
Luther knocked on Johan’s door and when the voice inside invited him in, he pushed it open gratefully. He found the old man alone, sitting on the edge of his bed, spooning up grapefruit. Johan, magnificently dressed, as usual, in a gray pinstriped suit with matching homburg, glanced up at his visitor, eyes wide.
“Luther? What are you doing in Budapest?”
It took a moment to register and when it did, Luther couldn’t help himself. He laughed. Regret overtook him immediately as he saw his friend’s face collapse in confusion. But Lord, the laughter felt like relief, felt like a favor from the great beyond. In a word, it felt good. He hated that.
“I’m sorry,” he told the befuddled old man as he took one of the visitor chairs and tried to bring the laughter under control. He touched Johan’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’m drunk. I ain’t meant no harm.”
“You are not in Budapest?”
“Afraid not,” said Luther. “I’m just here in Mobile. We both here in Mobile.”
Johan looked around as if seeing the room for the first time. “Ach,” he said, “so we are.” Then his eyes narrowed. “But you say you are drunk?”
“I’m drunk,” repeated Luther. “Snockered.”
“But it’s”—Johan lifted his eyes to an institutional clock on the wall above the door—“not yet four in the afternoon. And this is Sunday. Isn’t this Sunday?”
“Yeah,” said Luther, “it’s Sunday.”
“Then, why are you drunk?”
The question carried no accusation that Luther could hear, only honest confusion. Somehow, that made it worse. An accusation would have given him an excuse to be angry and defensive. But the guileless bewilderment in Johan’s voice seemed to require guileless truth in response. So Luther gave it to him.
“If I’m drunk,” he heard himself say, “I don’t have to think.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You remember what you told me last week?” said Luther, and immediately regretted the question because Johan likely didn’t remember last week, much less anything he had said then.
But the old man responded without hesitation. “I told you I saw him. I saw Floyd Bitters.”
“Yeah,” said Luther, surprised, “that’s what you told me.”
“He lynched your parents,” said Johan.
“Yeah,” he did, said Luther, suddenly realizing that, while he was very drunk, he wasn’t nearly drunk enough.
“When you were only nine years old,” said Johan.
“Yeah,” said Luther. “Only nine.”
“He beat me up once, you know.” Johan spoke this in a confiding tone. “He hurt me badly.”
“I know,” said Luther. “You told me last week.”
“We were never able to get justice,” said Johan. “We were never able to hold him accountable.”
“No,” said Luther, “we never did.”
“All the evil he did,” said Johan, a whisper of wonder rising in his voice, “and he never paid for any of it.”
“Not a bit,” said Luther.
“Why is that?” asked Johan. His eyes radiated a soft perplexity. An innocent bafflement.
Again, Luther found he could not lie or evade. “He white,” he said. “When you white, you can do whatever you want to Negroes. You don’t have to pay for it.”
“He’s white?”
“Yeah.”
“So he gets away with it?”
“Afraid so.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No, it ain’t,” said Luther.
“It’s not fair,” repeated Johan. “Not after what he did.” His voice shivered slightly, like tree leaves under the caress of a passing breeze, and his eyes glittered.
“It’s a fucked-up world,” said Luther. “Fucked-up country.”
He expected Johan, who bore himself with such starchy propriety, to say something like, “I could do without the crude language.” Instead, Johan just faced him with his watery eyes. “Yes,” he said, simply. “It certainly is.”
And what could he say to that? Luther didn’t even try. Instead, he turned on the television and they watched the news together. The announcer told them that South Vietnam had bombed a naval base off Tiger Island in North Vietnam. Former Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev had appeared in public for the first time since losing power. And there were protests across the country in support of the Negroes who had been brutalized one week ago while fighting in Selma for the right to vote.
“That settles it,” said Johan, pointing at the screen. “Wallace cannot hold out against the whole country. Negroes will win their rights.”
“I’ll believe when I see it,” said Luther.
“You are such a cynic, my friend.”
“Maybe,” said Luther. “Cynics don’t get they hearts broken, though.”
“Leave room for hope, always,” said Johan.
Luther shrugged. “Near as I can tell, world don’t care if Negroes hope or not. World gon’ do what the world gon’ do. Don’t matter too much what we think about it.”
“You’re bitter,” said Johan.
Luther shot him a look. “I got a right to be, don’t I?”
After a moment, Johan gave a resigned nod. “I suppose you do,” he admitted.
When an attendant came in wheeling a cart full of trays to present Johan with his evening meal options, Luther took his leave. In the hallway, he paused as he had when he arrived, gazing down toward the room where Floyd Bitters lived, remembering Johan’s honest indignation at learning that white men are not held accountable for the things they do to Negroes.
“That’s not fair.”
It was a reflection of how decimated Johan’s mind had become that he said it like that, like a child in kindergarten denied use of the sandbox, but in a way, it also made perfect sense. It did not take a genius to understand that it was wrong for a man to kill two innocent people in the most brutal way imaginable, then get to live out his life unmolested as if it never happened. No, it was a wrong so obvious and so simple even a child in kindergarten could grasp it. Yet the sovereign state of Alabama could not. More to the point, he thought, Alabama simply didn’t give a damn.
Luther returned through the dayroom, through the lobby, and opened the door to the parking lot. There, he paused. Nick and Cora were climbing out of her Cadillac, coming toward him. Luther’s body tensed, his fists clenching in anticipation of the standoff.
It did not happen. Lost in conversation, George’s sister and brother glanced at him, then brushed past on the way to see their father.
Luther stood there with his mouth agape, feeling the tension recede like a tide going out.
He hadn’t even registered on them. That’s how little he mattered. That’s what being a Negro meant. Suddenly, Luther simply felt tired. He felt drained.
He got in the Buick and turned the ignition key. Charlie Parker came up, his saxophone weaving poetry out of thin air. But Luther was in no mood for poetry. He turned the radio off and wheeled the big car to the lip of the parking lot. He had no idea where he was going. He didn’t really care. The going itself was the point. He waited for a break in traffic, gave the car some gas, and, with a sickening crunch, ran smack into the rear bumper of a Ford sitting at the light. The collision drove Luther’s head into the steering wheel and he rocked back into his seat, pain galloping through his skull.
God, he thought, could this day possibly get any worse?
Which is when a bubble on the roof of the car he had hit began to flash red and blue, and the doors came open on both sides.