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Enjoy this preview of the first FOUR chapters of WHERE THE GROUND CRIES OUT!

Warning!!! It is highly suggested that you read REACH since this novel is its sequel!

CHAPTER 1

     “Hannah—time to come inside!”
     “Aw, but Mama we just got up here,” Hannah whined from the top of the huge magnolia tree that neighbored the Guiles’ house. The tree was thick with leaves and Hannah knew that her mother couldn’t see her but had probably seen the shaking of the limbs and heard their voices.
     “Hannah, I swear if I have to say it again—,”
     “Alright, alright,” the girl huffed. Her older brother Jordan was up in the tree with her along with his friend Jim and the two began to snicker as she pouted.
     “What about Jo? He’s up here too, with Jim. Want him to come inside now, too?” She gave him an evil-eye as she hollered down.
     Norma’s rhetorical response was quick before she disappeared away from the screen door, “Did I ask for him to come inside?”
     Jordan just gave her an I-told-you-so look, but Jim chuckled loudly this time, closing his eyes tight with laughter just to goad her. Hannah glared at him before swiftly snatching a close magnolia cone and hurling it at his head. He startled from the impact and lost his balance on the limb, falling back and hitting a limb on the way down. The way he hollered, Hannah thought she’d really hurt him, but when he immediately hopped up with a red face, her worry subsided and she smirked as he all but cursed her out in her family’s yard.
     “What are you, crazy?! You coulda killed me,” Jim squawked in his awkward, half-man-half-boy voice that plagued most 16-year-old boys around his age. “I coulda died!”
     Hannah hopped down from the last limb and looked him over, “Yeah, but didja?”
     Because of the height and proximity of the tree to the house, it made the second floor roof accessible and Hannah often entered her room through the window after having climbed the tree and walked the length of the roof to where her room was located. Norma hated it and had asked Ray to cut the limbs numerous times because someone could climb up and break in. But he knew it was because she hated Hannah climbing that tree the way she did, and he never quite got around to cutting any of the limbs.
     Jim sneered at her remark and then shoved her hard, sitting her on her rear.
    “Hey,” Jordan called out from up in the tree and was down in a flash. “Don’t touch her,” he stood angrily before Jim.
     “Yeah, don’t touch me!” Hannah echoed from behind him after getting back up.
     Jordan turned his head, not taking his eyes off of Jim, so that she was just in his peripheral, “Shut-up Hannah and go inside.”
     “She started it,” Jim pointed an accusing finger at her.
     “You can’t be hittin’ girls, Jim—especially not my sister.”
     “Maybe if she acted more like a girl I’d treat her like one.”
     “Yeah well, I don’t care if she acts like a wildebeest, you don’t ever push her like that again.”
     “Whatever, I’m goin’ home,” Jim waved his hand.
   “Yeah, and don’t bother to come back,” Hannah hollered from behind Jordan who turned around and grabbed her arm up. She tried to snatch it out of his grasp, but he had recently put on muscle along with a few hairs on his chin and his grip wasn’t as slack as it used to be.
     “Let go ‘a me,” she fussed.
     “I told you to go inside.”
     “You don’t tell me what to do, Jo!”
     “Well, I do and I said get inside,” Norma said, back in her spot at the kitchen door. Hannah yanked her arm with all her might, but Jordan had already eased his grasp so she ended up flinging herself wildly, though too mad to be embarrassed. He exchanged a look of exasperation with his mother and then shook his head as Hannah headed inside.
     At 16, she was starting to resent her liberties being so restricted. She honestly couldn’t see what the problem was with her being up a tree that was sitting right next to the house, or why Jordan was so mad at her for pelting Jim; he’d asked for it. Besides that, they’d been in more than one tiff over the years, no big deal.
     Entering the house through the side door of the kitchen, she let the screen door slam freely behind her, something she knew her mother hated.
     Norma gave her one look and frowned at her appearance. Hannah had on a pair of over-sized over-all’s, (cut off at the knee and no-doubt one of her brothers old pair), one of her father’s old dress shirts with the sleeves cut all the way off, and the dirtiest set of bare feet Norma had ever seen on a body.
     “What in heaven’s name have you been doin’; why on earth are you dressed like a hillbilly-moonshiner?”
     Hannah shrugged. “Guess it’s in my blood,” she scrunched up her nose and made a face.
     “That’s not funny, Hannah.”
     But Norma couldn’t help but smile despite herself. The girl had a sense of humor like her biological mother, Hayley had had. Norma and her husband Ray had been totally honest with Hannah about both of her parents—for the most part. She knew that her father, Buck-Lee, had been a bootlegger, had died while serving time in prison for a crime spree committed before she was born. Her birthmother was Norma’s best friend, Hayley, who allegedly died hours after birthing Hannah, leaving her to be raised by Norma and Ray.
     What Hannah didn’t know was that the grave she’d visited so many times was actually empty, and that her mother had run off with the man that she’d fallen in love with: Elijah. No one in that family knew that truth except Norma. Not even Ray knew, though it had been Norma’s intention to tell him years ago. The timing was just never right.
     So, no, Norma and Ray weren’t her parents by birth, but all she had ever known them as was, “Mama and Daddy”, and Raymond, Gerald and Jordan were her brothers. There had never been any complication about that, and it was Norma’s constant prayer that there never would be.
     “Well, what am I supposed to wear: a dress to go fishin’ and tree-climbin’, Mama?”
Norma swiped hair off of her brow with her forearm and continued kneading dough on a floured table-top. Hannah went to pinch a piece of dough as she’d done since she was knee-high, but the dirt under her nails made Norma slap her hand away.
     “It’s time for you to cut that stuff out. You’re gettin’ too old to be gallivantin’ around with Jo and his friends.”
     Hannah rolled her eyes discreetly. She’d heard that speech before and wasn’t in the mood for another round, yet she couldn’t resist contrarily stating, “I like gallivantin’.”
She wasn’t quite sure what ‘gallivanting’ was (she made a mental note to look it up), but if it consisted of what all she had done that day, then she liked it. She liked fishing in the lake, splashing in the water with her bare feet, eating wild berries, looking for ancient arrow-heads and civil war musket balls, climbing trees and—just being free to do whatever she liked.
     “How many times have we talked about this, Hannah? You’re a young lady now. You have your—,” Norma lowered her voice, “you know—monthly visitor now.”
     Don’t remind me, Hannah thought to herself. Two weeks to the day before her 14th birthday she’d gotten her period. Norma had been so excited. She’d made this big deal about going out to the salon, and getting dressed up to go eat at a French bistro (that it took over an hour to get to), and having what she had called “the big talk”.
     Hannah had appreciated her effort, but for the life of her she had just wanted to be left alone to mourn the loss of her childhood. Up until then Norma had been giving her the sermons about how getting a period meant putting away childish things and acting “like a lady”.
     From what she could tell, there was nothing appealing about acting like a lady. Ladies always wore uncomfortable shoes, and had to sit with their legs crossed all the time; they always had to wash the dishes and cook and clean, and were never permitted to freely do the things that she loved to do. She always felt awkward in a dress, limited and restricted in her choices of how to conduct herself. She hated it.
     “Don’t you want the boys to like you?” Norma had asked her this during one of their disagreements on what to wear to church one particular morning.
     Truthfully, Hannah had starting to take interest in the opposite sex, but she was too stubborn to compromise herself just to get the attention of some stupid boy. And she said as much.
     “If I hafta put on a dress for some bastard to like me, then he obviously doesn’t like me for the right reasons,” she’d replied.
     Ray had laughed at that when Norma had confided in him about the conversation and punishment that followed. “She kinda has a point though, ya know?”
     “And I suppose you agree with her about ‘bastard’ not being a curse-word because it’s in the Bible, huh?”
     “Well—that and ‘ass’, ‘damned’ and ‘hell’”, Ray had teased. It was amusing for him to watch his wife raise a girl. They’d had three boys before Hannah, and Norma had just known that raising a girl would be such a breeze and such fun. Maybe if Hannah had been the priss that Norma was, but with three big brothers, she had quickly developed a love for all the things her brothers did.
     Norma had to admit, it was cute at first, watching her play and get dirty, catch her first fish and learn how to shoot her father’s guns. But she’d expected Hannah to grow out of those things for the most part and cross over to her domain when she came of age. Well, she was coming of age now and Norma saw no signs of Hannah coming out of this ‘phase’.
       All the other girls were crazy about pop music and famous crushes, shorter skirts and higher heels. Hannah preferred Colored jazz musicians, rhythm and blues, slacks, and nothing on her feet but dirt.
     It wasn’t that she was different, Norma actually admired that about her: her determination not to care what anyone thought. What got to Norma was that nothing about her life interested Hannah. Ray never did a thing without entertaining a million questions from Hannah about what he was doing. If he was fixing something on the truck, she was under there with him or standing there waiting to hand him a tool. If he went into town for something, Hannah never stayed behind with her mother; she hopped in the back of the truck bed with her brothers.
     Maybe it was that her life wasn’t too adventurous. Norma had never gone to college. She and Ray had settled down right after high school, had Raymond aka Lil Ray, and soon thereafter,  Gerald. She had the mind for school though, and there were times that she wished she had been able to go. She didn’t regret her life, but there were moments when she wondered what experiences she missed out on by not going off to a university.
Her hope was in Hannah one day going to college. Not many girls had that opportunity, but Hannah was blessed with two parents that owned their own businesses: Ray, being the only boy in his family, inherited his father’s hardware business upon his death a few years earlier, and Norma had her diner: Hayley Ray’s.
     It had never been her intention or dream to open a restaurant—it just sort of happened. She had always been very good at sewing and had saved every penny she had earned doing tailoring over the years. So when those in the community around her were in need due to the economy, she used what she had to help everyone she could. She made soup and bread every day and people would be lined up outside the house in the heat or cold just to get a bowl of the last bit of broth or loaf end.
     The house was so small that not too many people could sit inside and eat when there was harsh weather, so the Mayor of Holly Woods offered Norma an empty, foreclosed building in town that had formerly been a bakery. Before Norma knew it, people were giving her donations and tips,  and she just kept recycling the money to feed the masses. It was good for her to find something to immerse herself in because if not, she would have worried herself sick over Ray who, at the time, had been over in Europe fighting the Second World War.
     It had broken her heart when her Ray was selected for the draft. They hadn’t been separated since the day they’d met, and the prospect of life without him had seemed both frightening and foreign to Norma. With Raymond off to college for his freshman year, their absence had almost been too much to bear.
     Raymond had been University of Mississippi bound to study Journalism at the time along with a sweet girl, Robin. They’d courted since grade school, and everyone who knew them just knew that they would grow up and get married.  The young couple had reminded Norma of how she and Ray had fallen in love young, and how Ray had written her sweet love letters of which she still possessed most of them.
     Ray also wrote often while he was on tour, his letters filled with sincere emotion and sometimes graphic detail. Norma always read them aloud to the family, careful to edit out what she deemed too explicit for the children.
     In one particular letter, Ray wrote pages about a battle in which he’d lost five other fellow soldiers. The pages were stained and smudged, crumpled and the script was jumbled and hard to read. Not at all like his usual thick, bold hand-writing. Norma could tell he was shaken up when he’d penned it, and it was the only letter that she had never shared with the children.
     Knowing that his letters were more like therapy for him, she encouraged him to keep writing when he returned home. He’d waved away her idea that he keep a diary, said it was “women’s stuff”. So, she searched shops high and low until she found a thick, leather-bound journal with a golden lock and key. It had reminded her of the huge Bible her own father had had in her youth, and she had his initials engraved on it in 24-karat gold leaf just as her father’s had been.
     Every now and again, she would catch him writing, but he never offered to share whatever it was he was penning. Normally, it would nearly kill her to be left in the dark, however, it was pleasing to see him put her thoughtful gift to use, and that kept the peace within her.
     It was when Gerald had willingly signed up the following year that her peace was interrupted. But Gerald had always dreamed of being a pilot. He loved planes—particularly war-planes, and he’d played with and collected models for years. No one was surprised at his decision to enlist, but they all hated that his passion was such a dangerous one.
     For weeks, Norma pestered Ray about making Gerald change his mind. Ray was dead-set against doing any such thing.
     When he had finally had enough, he said, “That boy’s old enough to make a man’s decision. I’m not gonna fight against his dream and have him resent me for the rest of his life.”
     “But—he’s gonna get himself killed and I just couldn’t take it if he did,” she’d cried.
     At first, he was sympathetic to her lamenting, but when she continued to hound him incessantly, he became angry at her and they bickered about it constantly until the time came for him to finally leave, and there was nothing that she could do to stop him. He’d barely celebrated his graduation before he was bidding them goodbye and heading out to training, looking so much like his father that Norma couldn’t stand the sight of him leaving. Three months after his basic training, the Soviet Union along with North Korea, declared war on South Korea. The situation called for the action of the United Nations and American troops were deployed, Gerald being among them.
     Insomnia had plagued her for weeks after that. Every time she went to sleep, she had horrible dreams of war and carnage. She’d begun feeling nauseated at random times during the day and when the feeling graduated to actual vomiting, she finally went to the doctor and found out that she had ulcers in her stomach. She’d literally worried herself sick.
     It was then that she immersed herself into her charity work, although she still dreaded someone unexpectedly knocking. She always had to get Ray or Jordan or Hannah to answer the door for random callers and subconsciously she held her breath until she knew that it wasn’t a soldier with an emotionless death notice and dog tags.
     Meanwhile, there was a vacant lumber mill in Holly Woods that the government had been able to cheaply transform into a weapons-making factory. The town was fortunate to enough to get the much needed work and soon, things were better Holly Woods than they were across much of the nation. People no longer needed the free soup, however they didn’t forget Norma’s kindness and they continued to eat lunch there, only they began paying her for it.
     Pretty soon Norma had enough profit to invest in heartier ingredients. Business boomed from there, and presently, Hayley Ray’s was the place in town to get a good plate of fast, home-cooked food. Norma had named it after her husband and her best friend. She’d never forgotten her Hannah’s birth-mother, Hayley—her sister. There wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t think about her: where she was and how she was. She knew that she would be proud to see a restaurant named after her, especially one so successful.
     Norma and Ray’s banker had commented on having never seen a venture so profitable in only two years of operation. She had never imagined running such a successful business, and it had all been built off of blessings. She hadn’t purchased a single thing to start. Everything down to the paint was donated to her from grateful people in town.
     And yet, she found that she missed sewing with all the time she spent at the restaurant. She purchased the small, empty space above Hayley Ray’s and moved all her sewing items in. She hired a cook, a young Black woman named Thandy, and a few locals to wait and buss tables, and then she was able to focus on her first love of sewing.
Before long, she wasn’t just tailoring; she was making custom dresses for clientele as far as the next county.  She rarely even used store-bought patterns anymore she was so skilled. Even creating a few signature dress designs and she longed for Hannah to join her in her fetish for fashion—to share her love for diverse prints, colors and textures.
Going to Paris had been a dream of hers as a girl, but so far the closest she’d ever come was the owning of a pair of French wine-red, velvet-lined pumps given to her by her friend Vivian before Hannah was even born.
     Yet, to Norma’s dismay, Hannah didn’t take any interest in matching clothing or accessories like she did. The girl could care less if one of her eyes was the same color as the other. It was like she had no idea what a bombshell she would be if she would just make the effort to be more lady-like. Norma saw it, but Hannah seemed oblivious to the beauty that was apparent to everyone else, even with her hair disheveled and her brothers’ overalls on.

CHAPTER 2

     During the last few weekends of her summer vacation, Hannah had been going to help out Norma’s new cook at Hayley Ray’s, Thandy Redfern. Holly Woods boasted big lakes that people flocked to in the spring and summer months, and much of the in-and-out traffic ate at Hayley Ray’s, especially on the weekends.
     Norma had promised to pay Hannah the same wage as Thandy, and though Hannah wasn’t too excited about working her last free days of summer, she was excited about the prospect of earning enough money to purchase her very own record player.
     At the present time she had to listen to her records in the den, and only when there was no one else to complain about her choice of music or its volume. She really wanted her own player for her room. Norma and Ray could afford to buy her one, but they wanted her to learn the value of working hard for something. So Norma agreed to let her work at the diner, but they’d also agreed to match whatever she saved so it wouldn’t take her as long.
     This particular morning, Thandy was already there setting up the grill and heating the grease. Hannah had met her only a handful of times, but she seemed nice enough. There weren’t many Colored folks living within the town line and the schools were segregated of course, so Hannah had never really had any interaction with anyone darker than sand.
     “Mornin’,” Hannah mumbled as she entered. The sun had just touched the horizon. It would be a long day.
    “Hey, Hannah. How you doin’?” Thandy smiled brightly. She was about the same size as Hannah, but plump in places where Hannah had only begun to grow. Her pecan skin shone like a new penny and when she smiled, deep dimples sat on both of her full cheeks. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun and covered with a net.
     “I’m makin’ it,” Hannah replied as she hopped over the counter instead of using the swinging door.
     Retrieving an apron from the hook and slipping it over her head, she noted aloud, “You know, I’ve been wonderin’ why’d you come to work in this lunch-box. There’re plenty bigger restaurants over in Clover.”
     “Yeah—folks in Clover ain’t so keen on havin’ people dark as me handle their food for tips for some reason.”
     Hannah instantly felt like an idiot. She hadn’t meant to insult Thandy and her face turned red. Thandy took noticed but didn’t mention it. Instead she explained further.
     “I worked at McMann’s Cafeteria for two years washin’ dishes and when I asked to move up to waitin’ tables, the old man cussed me out like I wasn’t nothin’.”
     “I’m sorry,” Hannah mumbled.
     “No need to be. Ain’t your fault,” Thandy shrugged.
     Hannah looked her in the face, “I’m sorry you had to go through that. You had every reason to quit that place right then and there.”
     Thandy shook her head. “Sad thing is, I didn’t—I didn’t quit right then. I couldn’t. You know I got those two brothers to look after. I come home with nothing left from the cafeteria and tell them I ain’t got a job, they know what’s next: landlord start shuttin’ stuff off on us and then, eventually they kick us out.”
     Hannah couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “But if they kick you out you won’t have anywhere to go.” Thandy nodded matter-of-factly while Hannah seemed horrified.      “But they’re just kids, your brothers, right?”
     Thandy gave her a strange look and asked, “Well what do you consider ‘kids’?
     “You know—no older than 18 I guess.”
     “Yeah they’re all under 16 and if that’s the case, I was a kid just last year!” Thandy laughed at that. “Sure don’t feel like it though.”
     “How old are you?” Hannah had been wanting to ask because she looked so young. Each weekend though, they gotten to know each other more and more, becoming increasingly comfortable around each other.
     “I’m 19.”
     Hannah’s eyes widened, “And you work to take care of your brothers? Where’s your parents?” Hannah blurted the question out before she thought.
     “They’re passed on.”
    This time Hannah stopped herself from asking further about how they died and instead asked, “Who would kick orphans out on the street?”
     “Same kind that would cuss me out for askin’ to wait tables,” Thandy said matter-of-factly.
     Hannah shook her head silently in indignation. She’d lived a sheltered life as far as Jim Crow laws were concerned. She’d heard about the plight of Blacks but it had never been as stark and blatant to her because, for the most part they stayed on their side of the railroad tracks. Their church and schoolhouse were on the very edge of Holly Woods and Hannah had never had a reason to go there.
     Thandy could see the perplexity on the girl’s face. However, ever since she was old enough to remember, she was aware of her race. Now here this White girl was, not even understanding the world she was living in. Yet, she reasoned Hannah had been well-sheltered by Norma and Ray.
     She liked Norma. In fact, meeting Norma had been a miracle of God as far as Thandy was concerned, though she hadn’t thought of it that way when it was happening. Her youngest brother, Beal, had been caught trying to steal out of Ray’s truck while Ray was working. Beal was only seven but he was mischievous, and his older brother, George, had a time trying to keep up with him.
   George, who was 16, had been lucky to score a job for the day at a tobacco warehouse. The prospect of money being too great to pass up, he had left Beal home alone with strict instructions to him not to leave the building.
     Of course, the boy took off the minute his brother’s shadow disappeared, seeing what he could get into. By the time he had been caught and fussed at by an angry Ray, the boy was fighting mad, his little fists balled up when George rounded the corner and found the two. He’d been on his way back to Beal with sandwiches to eat for lunch.
     Ray didn’t believe that they didn’t have parents, and he threatened to call Sheriff Ailey on them both before George told him where to find Thandy.
She had never been so scared in her life. Here her little brothers were in trouble with some angry White man. She didn’t know what she’d do if he tried to hurt her babies.
     After interrogating Thandy at length, Ray had felt a little remorse for being so hard on the kids. He hadn’t realized the situation, and Thandy’s hundred apologies didn’t make him feel any better about how mean and angry he’d gotten. Still, Beal’s fearless demeanor and evil eye made him want to bend him over his knee and spank him good.
     When he explained to Norma what happened, he wasn’t surprised when she headed over to McMann’s that very day to find Thandy and speak to her.
     “You the second person to come askin’ me to pull that gal away from her work. I’mma hafta start dockin’ her pay,” the manager said. Norma held her ground, not budging or saying anything until he turned around and hollered for Thandy to step out back to talk to someone.
     What now, she thought, and when she got out the back door she gave Beal a glare. He and George had been sitting there behind the cafeteria since he’d gotten in trouble with Ray earlier.
     Norma didn’t like having to walk around to the back of the establishment. It was stuffy behind there because McMann’s was flanked by buildings on all sides except the front. The alley smelled of garbage, cigarette smoke and burnt grease.
     “You the person who wanted to see me, Ma’am,” Thandy asked when she saw Norma appear from around the corner of the building.
     “I am. My name’s Mrs. Norma Guiles,” she said as she extended her gloved hand. Thandy admired the softness of the satin glove and refrained from shaking the woman’s hand for fear of ruining them with her stinking, dish-water hands. Norma nodded understandingly as the girl explained, and removed her glove and re-extended her hand.
Thandy had not expected such courtesy on her behalf and she smiled nervously as she shook Norma’s hand.
    “I believe my husband came by here earlier about an incident with your little brother?”
     Thandy nodded, embarrassed. “I tell him all the time that stealin’ ain’t no good. He don’t mean any harm—just lookin’ for a few pennies in the glove box, honest to God.”
Norma nodded sympathetically. “How much they pay you to wash dishes in there—if you don’t mind me asking?” Norma gestured toward the building with her thumb.
     “Twenty-five cents an hour,” Thandy answered.
     Norma nearly gasped. “And you and your brothers survive off of that?” Thandy nodded.
     “My brother George works at the tobacco warehouse on and off when he can get hired for the day. But once school starts, he don’t have time for that. We save half what he makes to get us through when he ain’t workin’. And I clean houses and churches on weekends.”
     “Where do you live?”
     “Why you need to know all that?” Beal asked suspiciously and George thumped his ear.
     “You hush up, Boy, ‘fore I get a switch to your hind-part,” Thandy fussed before she turned and answered Norma in a calmer tone.
     “—Mason Place, on 2nd Street.”
People live there, Norma thought. The building was nearly crumbling and looked like it should have been condemned long ago. She couldn’t imagine raising a family in there.
     “I got a shit-load pilin’ up in here, git back to work!” The manager yelled from the back door.
     “I gotta go Miss Norma,” She turned to rush back.
     “Can you cook?” Norma blurted and Thandy turned back to face her.
     “Is a pig’s tail pork,” the girl answered her without hesitation.
     Norma smiled. “How’d you like to work for me at my diner over in Holly Woods? I can pay you .85 an hour and find you better housing than the Mason place.”
     “You serious?” Thandy asked skeptically. Eighty-five cents was double the nation’s minimum wage pay-rate. There had to be a catch.
     Norma nodded, “I’m serious, Hun.”
     “Take it, Deedee!” Beal squealed from his seat on the ground against the back wall, referring to her by the nickname he’d given her as a baby when he had been too young to pronounce her name in full.
     “Yeah, Dee,” George encouraged.
     Thandy turned around to them, “I told y’all to hush.”
     “But—,” Beal stated to protest.
     “Not another word, Beal!” The boy sucked his teeth and repositioned himself so that his back was to them.
     Norma nearly laughed at his persistence to have his say. She also noticed that the boys respected their sister’s authority.
      “Git your ass back in here, you lazy nigra.” The manager stood now, red-faced in the doorframe.
     “She’s not coming back to work in there,” Norma yelled back at him. Thandy gave her a look that said, I haven’t yet agreed to your offer.
     “You can’t go back to work in there,” she reasoned. “You’ll never be paid or valued enough.”
     Thandy knew that Norma’s deal sounded good, but usually when things were too good to be true, she and the boys suffered. McMann’s certainly wasn’t a dream job, but it was steady work.
     Norma could see her struggling internally. “Please trust me, Thandy. I’ll make sure you have everything you need to start.”
     “C’mon Thandy,” George rejoined the appeal. This time Thandy didn’t fuss.
     “Okay, Miss Norma, I guess I’m workin’ for you.”
     Norma smiled and said, “You won’t regret it.”
     And for the past few months she hadn’t regretted a thing. Norma had found her and the boys a boardinghouse on the edge of Holly Woods run by a nice, Christian Black lady named Louise Barker. Everybody who knew her, called her Ma Lou. And she didn’t put up with any mess. She’d been known to pull her shotgun out on riff-raff quick. Most boardinghouses were full of prostitutes and drunks, but she enforced her house rules with such an iron fist, that even if a prostitute stayed there, she didn’t work there and even if a drunk resided there, he didn’t drink there or loiter around drunk in her presence. Norma privately paid her extra to look closely after the Thandy and her brothers.
     Of course she had asked Ray to just move them in for a while, but Ray knew what that meant and he wasn’t up for another family moving into his castle.
And they’re Negro, at that, he’d silently thought to himself in dismay. He knew better than to say it out loud to Norma.
     To keep the peace he settled for paying Ma Lou and, after agreeing to do it, Ray suspected that it was Norma’s plan in the first place. She knew how to play her cards with him and he was never sure if he got the upper hand or whether she planned her approach to make him feel like he got the upper hand.
     Hannah was startled when the back door opened and George walked in. He gave her a quick once-over and nodded politely.
     “This is my brother, George; Miss Norma lettin’ him work here to earn some money before school starts, too. He’ll be bussin’ tables and doin’ dishes.”
     Norma hadn’t informed Hannah that George would be working there and she felt a little excluded. Nevertheless she shook his hand and told him her name.
     He smiled the same dimpled smile as Thandy. “Nice to meet you, Hannah. Can I tell you a secret?”
     Hannah was surprised at the request being that they had just met, “Sure, I guess.”
     He leaned closer and whispered, “I ain’t never bussed tables before in my life.
    Hannah had no idea why she had needed to see what he smelled like, but she inhaled as soon as he leaned toward her. He smelled like soap and biscuits.
     “Well, I can show you the ropes. It’s not bad ‘til it gets busy. Then things can get a little hard to keep up with.”
     “I think I’ll be able to manage,” George said with confidence. “This is my first job not workin’ in a big, hot warehouse. This place can’t be more hectic than that.”
     Thandy smiled as she watched them converse amiably. She wasn’t sure how they would take to each other, but they seemed to be adjusting well. She’d already given George a speech that basically said, “you better be nice and not mess this up for me.”
     It wasn’t that George was a bad kid, he just didn’t like the way most White people treated his race. He could be outspoken like Beal when he felt wronged, and he’d encountered his share of trouble because of it. It was hard for him, learning how to become a man in a society that didn’t respect Black manhood. Thandy was proud of how responsible he was. He could have easily run with the other young boys who drank and robbed and chased women, but he’d stayed faithful to his family and school. He was determined to be the male influence for his brother that they would never have from their deceased father.
     There were three more servers that worked in Hayley Ray’s: Hannah’s classmates, Stephanie and Tina, and an older woman, Anna, but they weren’t due to come in until lunchtime.
     Anna was an Italian immigrant who had married a Holly Woods soldier-boy, William Housby. Will was killed during a second tour and had left Anna all alone in a country she had never been to before marriage.
     She had attended Holly Woods Methodist a few times with her husband, but after his death she found it easier not go and have to deal with the snubbed noses. Apparently Catholic Italians weren’t favorited in the South too well either.
     It was Norma who had gone to check on Anna when she had stopped attending services almost a year ago and they had formed a timid friendship in which Norma would occasionally come by with cake or pie or some type of sweet refreshment. It was just her nature to reach out to outcasts—had been ever since she and Hayley had befriended each other over three decades ago.
     Anna’s English wasn’t so good beyond the basics so, oftentimes after exchanging pleasantries, they just sat and ate, drank tea. Norma couldn’t imagine the boredom of sitting in that house in the country with no local friends or family. Anna was the first person she thought of when she had needed to hire a new waitress. She figured it would give the young woman something to do and keep her company during the day.
     At first she was hesitant to take Norma up on her offer, not having any experience in serving. But her loneliness got the better of her and she had decided to at least give it a try. So she took the job along with Thandy and the girls and occasionally Al the drunkard, who Norma let bus tables whenever he showed up sober enough to do so.
He usually showed up starving and unkempt, and Norma would first feed him, then clothed him decently and finally set him to work. Al had a bad problem with alcohol, but he was a good man, and Norma had recognized that in him from the first time he’d ever come to get bread and soup from her a few years back.
    Being the only other employee there, Hannah spent the morning tutoring George on how to take orders, split ice, make shakes, wash dishes, and clean tables. Norma popped in a little after 10 to check on them.
     “I’ll be upstairs in the shop for the next few hours if you need me,” she filled them in as she headed up.
     Anna, Tina and Stephanie came onto their shifts not long after Norma had headed up. Immediately, the atmosphere changed: Tina was obviously not comfortable working with George. When he tried to hand her a plate, their fingers slightly touched and she let the dish drop to the floor with disgust. And Stephanie wasn’t much better, avoiding George and barely even greeting him. Hannah realized that they never really had much to say to Thandy either. If it didn’t pertain to the job, they pretty much talked only to each other, Anna and Hannah—and of course the people they waited on.
     Like Hannah, both Tina and Stephanie had never really been around any other race except their own. Regardless, their families had obviously raised them to hate people that they’d never even socialized with.
     Hannah was embarrassed. At first she tried to ignore it but when Tina had dropped the plate, steam rose within her. She started to ask Anna about it, but thought better of it when she remembered how painful her English was within a real conversation. She went to Thandy instead.
     “They always act like that?” Hannah quietly asked as Thandy cooked orders on the grill.
     “Who?” Thandy responded with her eyes still trained on the food.
     “Tina and Steph.”
     “I guess,” Thandy looked a bit confused.
     “I’m talkin’ about the way they ignore George and avoid him like the plague.”
     “Oh that. Honey, that’s just how some folks are. I guess I’m so used to it, I don’t even notice it anymore. I just do my job and as long as they don’t bother me, I don’t bother them.”
     “That’s ridiculous. They have no reason to treat either of you like this. Have you told my mom?”
     Thandy looked up at her from grill with seriousness, “Hannah, I’m grateful for this job. I ain’t come here to make friends, so I’m not tryna start any trouble over those girls’ attitudes. I’ve dealt with worse.”
     Hannah didn’t press her any further about the matter. Yet, she didn’t know how she and George could stand it—how they could work and not say anything about the elephant in the room. It would irk her to no end. She’d always been straight-forward about how she felt and she never missed an opportunity to express herself freely.
     “I’ll handle this,” she said.
     Thandy darted over to her and touched her forearm to halt her, “Hannah, please don’t. Please don’t make any trouble for me and my brother. I need this job and he does too.
     “Look, I can tell you don’t know too much about how things are. Maybe you’ve never seen the stuff that happens to Colored folks who start trouble—but I have.”
     “People can’t blame you for standing up for yourself,” Hannah reasoned as Thandy got right back on the grill.
     “Yes they can—and they will. If you make trouble for us nobody’s gonna come for you in the middle of the night.” Thandy’s eyes widened knowingly.
     “What? Who comes for people in the middle of the night?” Hannah was confused by the girl’s statement.
     Thandy shook her head, “This ain’t the time or place. Just please, don’t start anything on our behalf. We’re fine, I promise.”
     Hannah left it at that. She could tell Thandy was really against her saying something to Stephanie and Tina. She wasn’t letting it slide, though. She motioned both of the girls back into the kitchen.
     “Why are you guys actin’ funny around Thandy and George?” Both of the girls exchanged looks with each other and then glanced at Thandy who pretended to pay them no mind.
     Tina shrugged, “What do you mean?”
     “I mean, why are you treatin’ them like they did you wrong?”
     “I’m just tryna do my job,” Steph frowned. “I didn’t come work here to be around—them.” She said in a hushed tone and indicated who she was talking about by tilting her head in the direction of the grill.
     “What’s the big deal,” Hannah shrugged. “Everybody needs a job.”
    “It’s just—” Tina began, but she hesitated.
    “They can work on their side of town; I don’t see why your mom had to hire them. There’s plenty enough White folks that can do the work here, too.” Steph crossed her arms and her expression read like that of someone who had been dying to say something about the situation. Hannah wasn’t sure how to feel. Steph and Tina were her classmates and not just her coworkers.
     “Can you both just please not be mean to them?”
     The girls looked at each other with incredulity.
     “It’s just bad for business when you go droppin’ plates and makin’ faces every time George comes out to bus a table,” Hannah tried to appeal to common sense.
     “Whatever,” Tina rolled her eyes before cutting them at Thandy who was doing her best to act like she wasn’t paying their conversation any attention.
     Hannah would speak to Norma about it too, and ask her to talk to them. If they didn’t like the people that Norma had hired, then they could go work somewhere else as far as Hannah was concerned. She had heard the saying once that “business and friends don’t mix”, but only right then did she understand the truth of that quote.
     It was evident that George was a topic for more than just his new coworkers, though; he had garnered a few looks as he cleared tables, although no one said anything as he worked. It was when he sat down to eat his lunch with Hannah that his dark skin began to infuriate some of the patrons there.
     He had known to take his sandwich out back to eat. It was almost second nature to him to go to the back. Hannah had asked him why he was going to eat out back by the dumpsters, and invited him to eat with her at the counter.
     “You sure,” he’d asked skeptically.
     “Of course. This is my family’s place, we make the rules in here. The rule is: if you work in here, you get to eat in here. I’ll make us some shakes—what kind you want?”
     “Chocolate of course,” George teased and they both laughed. Hannah was intrigued by his cool demeanor. Whereas Thandy was more reserved and acquiescent of the way things were, George was outgoing and anxious to see change, unafraid to be himself no matter who he was around.
     He felt all eyes on him as he made his way to the counter. There were about nine other people in there, but the way his hair stood up on the back of his neck, it felt like hundreds. As he sat his food on the counter, Hannah stood on the other side making their shakes. He took a deep breath and eased onto a seat trying to look casual: half-way on, half-way off. He and Hannah chatted as she served the shakes and then joined him at the counter.
     He politely waited for her to be seated and then tasted his milk shake.
    “Hey, what the hell,” one of the older male patrons yelled. “Y’all let them eat and drink offa these dishes?”
     “What about it?” Hannah challenged without a millisecond of hesitation.
     The man was Edmundson Pool, he had a slew of sons who often caused trouble in Holly Woods. He stood abruptly, picked up his plate of food and glass of tea and dropped them to the floor. “That’s what I think about it,” he said and walked out.
     “Good riddens,” Hannah proclaimed.
     “This wasn’t a good idea,” George whispered and started to get up.
     “No, it isn’t right,” Hannah replied. “Anyone else feel the same way as him, you can leave too.” Hannah emphatically pointed after the man who had just left. She felt great about standing up and she wanted to show Thandy and George how easy and liberating it was.
     She wasn’t expecting for everyone to leave—maybe a few, but not everyone. However, one by one, people started getting up and abandoning their lunches, until the place was empty. Tina and Stephanie stood back shaking their heads with dismay at Hannah causing them to lose precious tips.
     “You tell your Mama, we’ll be back when she gets some new dishes—and staff,” one man had told her before glaring at George and then storming out.
     “Happy now?” Tina finally blurted when the last potential tip had exited.
   Hannah felt the blood rushing to her cheeks. She had not anticipated what had happened. She thought that some folks would leave and then the rest of the crowd would uncaringly go back to their lunches because, what’s the big deal about a Colored kid eating lunch at the counter like every other person? That had been what she thought. She realized instantly how foolish she was to assume that she could single-handedly solve the issue of racism by just showing everyone how it’s done. No one had cared for her demonstration—including Thandy.
     “What in the world—where’s all the folks?” Thandy asked with bewilderment as she peeked from the kitchen into the dining area. She’d become curious when the last two orders she’d placed in the window hadn’t been picked up to be served.
     Steph rolled her eyes at her and responded, “Ask Hannah. Let’s split Tina.” The two of them started removing their aprons.
     “Hannah?” Thandy looked at her with confusion as she came out from the kitchen and from behind the counter.
     “I shouldn’t have listened to her; I don’t know what I was thinkin’,” George mumbled and shook his head. “It’s my fault. I knew better, Thandy—I’m sorry.”
     “What are you talkin’ about, George Rudolph?” Thandy narrowed her eyes at him and placed her hands on her hips.
     “Hannah invited me to eat my lunch at the counter and said that she would make us some shakes.”
     Thandy sighed and dropped her head. “George, you didn’t?” She pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. Their mother, Faith, used to do it, and whenever Thandy did it, it reminded George of her. It also was a tell-tale sign that either of the two was angry.
     “Don’t be mad, Dee. Please, I’m sorry,” he pleaded.
Hannah finally found her voice. “I asked him to—practically insisted that he join me. I—I didn’t know that people would just leave like that.”
     Thandy rolled her eyes at George as she spoke to Hannah. “Maybe you didn’t know what would happen, but he sure should have.”
     “Sis, I just thought that—”
    “Thought what, George—that you woke up White today—or that congress passed a new law on racial equality last night while you were asleep?”
     “Forget it,” he muttered and shook his head.
     His sister pressed him further, infuriated.
     “No, please, tell me what you were thinkin’ when you decided to sit your Black-self down at a White lunch counter.” Hannah felt like she was in the line of fire as she stood semi-between the two. George started to speak but paused as if he couldn’t think of the right words to use.
     “Exactly,” Thandy said after a few moments. “You don’t even know what you were thinkin’. That’s ‘cause you weren’t thinkin’.” She turned and headed towards the back door. She needed to calm down before she went and explained to Norma what had just happened.
     “I was thinkin’ how nice it is to be treated like a normal person,” George angrily blurted after her. She paused and stood there for a second, with her back to him.  “You know I woulda never just went and sat down at this counter—you know that,” he added in a calmer tone as she turned back around to face him.
     “I was about to take my lunch out back and Hannah invited me to eat at the counter,” he gestured toward Hannah and she vigorously nodded her head to confirm. “She offered to make me a shake. That’s never happened to me before. No White establishment ever invited or offered for me to do nothin’ but serve them; I wanted to see what it felt like—to be treated like a regular guy.”
     Thandy sighed and shook her head, about to say something but Norma’s entrance interrupted her.
     “Hey, what’s the problem down here? Tina and Steph just stormed up to my office threatening to quit.”
     “Ma, I can explain everything,” Hannah said immediately and Thandy and George remained silent as she elaborated on what happened.
     Norma rolled her eyes up and right then, Thandy internally accepted the fact that she was fired. She braced herself for the words so that her dignity wouldn’t be stolen in a moment of surprised reaction to losing the best-paying job anyone that she knew had ever had.
     “Thandy and George,” Norma started, and looked each of them in the eye, “I hope you don’t think that any of this is your fault.”
     That had not been the words Thandy had been expecting to hear. She didn’t know what to say. Quite frankly she had already reserved a bit of blame for her brother. He wasn’t new to being Colored and he should have known better than to let some sheltered White girl talk him into doing something so irrational.
     “To tell you the truth, a few folks have stopped coming to eat here since I hired you Thandy. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to feel afraid or guilty over their stupidity.”
     “What!?” Hannah exclaimed. “That’s ridiculous; people are just shameful.”
    “I know,” Norma sighed as she took a seat at the counter. She gazed at the melting chocolate shake, sweating in hot abandonment before her, and then took her forefinger and sliced a clear path through the foggy condensation on the glass.
     “Miss Norma, me and my brothers are so thankful for everything that you’ve done for us but, I don’t know how safe it is for us to keep workin’ here. White folks might think we mean trouble.”
     “Honestly, Thandy, no one in this town would hurt a fly, trust me. And Hayley Ray’s is the closest place to get a quick bite to eat. McMann’s is an hour away by foot; people don’t have that much time on their lunch to travel to Clover to eat every day. This whole thing’ll blow over before we know it,” Norma said with certainty, but actually she wasn’t as sure as she sounded.
     The next few days proved otherwise as other businesses started putting signs up in their windows: “NO COLOREDS SERVED HERE”, or “NEGROES SERVED IN BACK”.  When Norma refused to put a sign in the window at Hayley-Ray’s, tourist patronage died down and then, over the next few weeks as the children returned to school, business ceased to be. Only the vagrants that Norma fed bothered to and come there to eat. She was infuriated and had threatened to stop attending church on more than one occasion.
     “I refuse to worship beside a bunch of hate-filled hypocrites,” she huffed to Ray one Wednesday evening after wrestling with herself to get up and go to mid-week Bible study as she had done faithfully for the past 15 plus years.
    “They’re not hatred-filled, Norma. They just think differently than you do. Not everybody is as liberal as you are.”
     “Really, Ray? Treating human beings with equal doses of humanity and respect is a matter of how liberal a person is? Feel free to share the scripture where you found that : ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you—if you’re liberal enough’.” Norma waited sarcastically with her arms crossed.
     “Say whatever you want—I’m going to church and so are you,” Ray said matter-of-factly and Norma gave him a look that questioned his surety.
    “You don’t like the way they treat Colored’s. I get that, Norma. On the flip side though, they feel the same way about you. If you stop going to church just like they stopped coming to Hayley Ray’s, it makes you just as hypocritical as you accuse them of being.
     “You have to love ‘em even if you don’t like ‘em; now get up and get ready so that we aren’t late.”
     “I can love people from a distance,” Norma defied.
    “But you would be hating them,” Ray added as he tucked the tails of a freshly-adorned shirt into his trousers.
     She wanted to protest, but she knew that her husband was right. She also wasn’t going to be fake. She wasn’t going to smile in their faces like they were all such good friends. She knew what a good friend was and they didn’t fit the criteria. They hadn’t stood by her after all she had done to serve the community with nothing to gain. Serving a Colored boy at the lunch counter had made them alienate her establishment without shame or apology.
     “Look,” Ray said after a moment of silence, “we’ve been here before; remember?”
He was talking about her best friend Hayley and how ugly the town had treated her because of the sins of her father—how Norma had been able to check them and rally them around the cause. This wasn’t the same thing to Norma, though. While they just simply ignored Hayley, there existed a deep-rooted hatred for Black people in this town.
Norma had never realized how strong the racial tension was in Holly Woods, maybe because she wasn’t Black. It was rare to run up on a discussion about race there and since the Black people stayed on their side of the tracks, in their own little sub community at the edge of town. There weren’t many interactions between the races at all and it seemed that the peace had been kept that way. Hannah’s actions had disrupted this balance and people were quick to establish where they stood: Coloreds were not to be treated as equals.
     She had known people felt that way, her own best friend’s father had been in the Klan, but it bothered her to see their personal beliefs enacted in such a vividly-harsh way. As far as she was concerned, people were people and if anyone asked for her two cents, that’s what she decided she would tell them.


CHAPTER 3

   Hannah had known that things were different when the conversation noise lowered as soon as she appeared. In church service, all the youth sat together as a class after Sunday school, but although they sat together, no one spoke a word to Hannah. They alienated her like they didn’t even know who she was.
     With her love of hunting and jazz, and barefoot adventures, Hannah had never been popular. But now, people who used to ignore her were giving her dirty stares as they mouthed their opinions of her to their friends.
    Hannah was sure that word had spread about what she had done, and that was the reason. A couple of weeks later, on the first day of school, it was no different.
     When she and Jordan boarded, all that was left were seats at the back, far from where the rest of the girls sat, up front. She didn’t even bother to question it. Jordan, completely oblivious to the fact that she was being excommunicated, squeezed into a seat with his usual group of friends as she made her way to the back.
     She also ate lunch alone, and after school no one waited for her in the corridor before heading out to the bus lot like so many friends did for each other. She wanted to call them out, plead her case of just doing what she thought was right, but her pride wouldn’t let her. Instead, she acted like she didn’t care, pulling out her copy of Orwell’s Animal  Farm, and immersing herself within its pages as she rode the bus.
     Hey, Hannah,” a boy called, and she looked up in surprise; no one except teachers had aid her name all day. It was Melvin Pool.
     Once he knew he had her attention he said, “I heard you like niggers; is that true?”
Snickers broke out as Hannah rolled her eyes and refocused on her book. She wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of a response.
     “Alright, leave her be,” she heard Jordan address Melvin.
     “Aw, I’m just teasin’,” he grinned.
    “Aye, you have a seat while this bus is movin’, boy,” Mr. Kilman, their bus driver, warned. To Hannah’s relief, Melvin slid back down in his seat.
     As soon as she and Jordan were off the bus, she let him have it. “Why didn’t you take up for me?” She punched his arm hard. “You should’ve knocked his block off!”
     Jordan glowered, “I did take up for you!”
     “No you did not!”
    “Didn’t you hear me tell Melvin to back off,” Jordan defended, but Hannah was already walking away from him toward the house. He sighed, knowing this wouldn’t be the end of it. She was like a thorn in his side sometimes and part of him was glad that he was graduating in the spring and wouldn’t have to deal with being in the same school as her anymore.
     He knew their classmates weren’t happy with what Hannah had done at the diner, and to be honest, neither was he. Black people had their own side of town and, as far as he was concerned, they needed to stay there.
     When the news of what Hannah had done had reached him he’d quickly made his sentiments known. To do what she did by inviting George to the lunch counter was akin to treason by the logic of his companions.
     Hannah let the screened door slam in his face behind her. Neither of their parents were home, and it was during these times that they fussed and, sometimes cussed, freely.
     “You know what, Hannah? Maybe you shoulda thought about how people would feel about you servin’ some Colored boy at the counter. Now you wanna blame me for not handling your mess—yeah right,” Jordan was right on her heels as she ascended the stairs. She turned around to face him on the middle of the stairwell.
     “You are an ass!”
     “Better that than a nigger-lover,” Jordan spewed.
     Shaking her head in exasperation she said, “You know, Mama didn’t have a problem with what I did,” she pointed out.
     He laughed facetiously. “Yeah, well, I guess she’ll be the only friend you have then—her and the darkies.”
    “What’s any Colored person ever done to you to make you hate them so much? I mean, you’ve never even met George or Thandy.”
     Jordan waved his hand and turned to go back down to the kitchen. “I don’t hafta meet them to know what their race is like: stupid, lazy and good for nothin’ but cotton pickin’ and fryin’ chicken.” This time, Hannah followed him back down the stairs and into the kitchen.
     “That’s not true and you know it!”
    “It is true. Why else would things be segregated? Our White forefathers knew we needed laws to keep them from destroying this country.”
     “‘White forefathers’?” Hannah repeated him. “Where do you get this stuff?”
     He raised a finger, “You need to listen to me. I know what I’m talkin’ about.”
     “You don’t know anything more than the man in the moon,” Hannah replied.
   “I know that no one’s gonna take up your lost cause with you,” he said matter-of-factly.
    “Well, then we’ll just have a difference of opinion on some things, I guess.” She removed the milk from the refrigerator and took a long drink straight from the carton.
     “This is more than just a difference of opinion, Hannah. This is a way of life, and you can’t just up and think that everybody’s just gonna go along with the way you think when things have been the way that they are since before either of us was born.”
     “So, that makes it right? Just because something has been going on a long time, makes it right? I mean—the Israelites were slaves in Egypt for 400 years. Was that right? According to God, no!”
     Jordan shook his head, “You just don’t understand.”
   “You got that right, because it doesn’t make any sense to treat someone differently based on the color of their skin. I will never understand that.” She put the milk back in the refrigerator and grabbed a Tupperware bowl containing a few leftover pieces of fried chicken from dinner the night before.
     Jordan snatched a piece as soon as she removed the lid, and immediately bit into it. She grimaced. She couldn’t see how he could eat the chicken cold like that. She turned on the oven to heat and crisp her own piece. To her, it was the next best thing to having it fresh out of the grease.
     “Look, sis,” Jordan appealed softly after a moment, “I’m sorry that I didn’t ‘knock Melvin’s block off’.” He elbowed her lightly in the ribs, and she half-smiled. “But at the same time, you gotta learn to pick your battles or it’s only gonna get worse. Take my advice and let things be. Sometimes you gotta go along to get along; understand?” He didn’t wait for a response, leaving her in the kitchen to her own thoughts.
     Once she was finished warming her chicken, Hannah took her snack outside and to her favorite spot: her mother’s grave.
     It had been Hayley’s favorite place while she had been pregnant with Hannah and living with Norma and Ray: down by Pleasant Lake. It was peaceful there, and Hannah could see why it was beloved by her birth mother. Sometimes she’d lie there and imagine what her mother was like. She’d talk to her like she could hear her, even though she knew that she couldn’t.
     Today, she sat with her back against the cool limestone. It was a warm enough day, however, in the shade of pine trees was where the headstone sat and it was always cool to the touch. Hannah ran her fingers over the familiar engraved letters, still eating the gristle of her chicken bone.
     “I wish I knew what you were like,” she whispered. “Mama said you were fair. I wanna be fair, too.”
     She tried to imagine a voice that should have been familiar to her. There were lots of things that she wondered about Hayley: how she laughed, what she smelled like, how she sounded when she sang. Hannah had a pretty singing voice (though she never let anyone hear her), and she pondered where she’d gotten it from. She wanted to ask Norma so much more about Hayley, but she was hesitant to do so, because she didn’t want to offend Norma. She gladly listened to Norma’s stories about Hayley, and as far as she could tell, she’d gotten much of her personality from her : her curious nature, introverted ways, and free spirit. Hannah had also been influenced by Norma as well: outspoken, creative, and caring.
     She loved Norma, as much as any daughter could love their mother. However, she was content not to spend as much time with her lately. It wasn’t a conscious effort, but rather a defense mechanism against Norma’s constant nagging pressure for Hannah to be more like her. But, she wasn’t like Norma in the ways that Norma wanted her to be, and she knew that disappointed the woman who’d raised her. It also disappointed her that she just could be how she wanted to be.
     According to Hannah, being a younger kid was so much less complicated when it came to identity; you didn’t have to make yourself be a certain way. You just acted however you felt. Now, she was expected to be less of what she felt and more of what was orthodox. That seemed to be the story of her life presently. Her mother wanted her to be more ladylike and her brother and peers wanted her to be racist and prejudice. What was so wrong about who she was and how she felt? That was the question that plagued her, and the answer was evasive no matter how much she thought about it.


Chapter 4

It was the first time that Hannah had ever seen a dead body. She had been to a couple of funerals, but they were all old people—not young like the boy in the picture was. She studied the grotesque black and white photo, disgusted, yet unable to look away. It would be a sight that she would be hard-pressed to forget: Emmett Till, a 14 year-old boy, kidnapped, beaten beyond recognition, and then shot in the head, his body submerged underwater for days while his family worried in fear for his life.
     As she read the article in Jet Magazine, she immediately thought about what Thandy had said to her weeks ago about people coming in the middle of the night. Until now, she’d had no idea the magnitude of the threat that Thandy had spoken of.
     Hannah had never seen an issue of Jet before, marveling that the whole magazine was full of Black people, from the articles to the advertisements. Being compelled to see what all the fuss at school had been about, she had walked to the edge of Holly Woods, across the tracks near the neighboring town of Clover (where no one knew her well enough to tell her parents), and purchased a Jet magazine from Ralph’s Newsstand, a small wooden stall that provided the Black people of Holly Woods and Clover with Black American literature and news that otherwise wouldn’t have been provided through the other paper stands and stores in the area. 
     She was grateful that the stand was just past the bus stop and not all the way into the Black community. There had never been a need for her to ever go to that side of town, but the kids at school couldn’t stop talking about it. She’d overheard that there were pictures of the murdered boy in a “Negro magazine called ‘Jet”. Of course there wasn’t a place in the heart of Holly Woods who would dare sell a magazine catered to Blacks. She knew the only way she’d get her hands on a Jet was from a Black merchant, so that’s where she headed after the final bell, ducking off before the post school crowd cleared enough for Jordan to spot her.
     She’d tucked the media into her satchel immediately after purchasing it from a man who’d met her eyes with an intense gaze that made Hannah self-conscious. She turned and quickened her pace, inwardly cursing at herself for being so ignorant. Once she’d made it back across the tracks to the bus stop, she sat on the bench and perused the magazine as she waited for the Number Two bus to make its rounds.
     When she got home, her parents were gone to Bible study and Jordan was there to meet her in the yard, indignant at her for disappearing after school without telling him anything.
     “Where in the hell you been, huh?” He stood before her, glowering.
     “I went for a walk, geez,” she brushed past him.
     He grabbed her arm to halt her. “Yeah, well next time how bout you give me a heads up so I don’t have to figure out what to tell Mama and Daddy.”
     “I didn’t ask you to do me any favors, Jo, and I don’t need a baby sitter.” She so violently wrenched her arm within his grasp that she dropped her satchel and the Jet magazine slipped out. Jordan picked it up and flipped through the pages.
     “Gimme it.” She reached to take it but he held it out of her reach.
     “Why’re you readin’ this; it’s for niggers.”
     “It’s for whoever can read English you dolt, now give it back,” Hannah made another lunge to retrieve it and he let her.
     “You shouldn’t read that stuff, Hannah; it’s propaganda that only gets folks riled up to start trouble”
     “There’s nothing like that in here—just an article about a boy who got kidnapped and murdered.”
     “I know what’s in there and it ain’t the whole truth,” Jordan continued. “I heard he raped a White woman. If that were you or Ma, Daddy woulda done the same thing.”
     “The article didn’t say anything about that kid raping anyone.”
     “Exactly why you shouldn’t be reading that stuff: it’s not the truth.”
     “Yeah, well I don’t see any papers around here with these pictures in ‘em.”
  “Cause people don’t need to see that,” Jordan pointed toward the magazine emphatically.
     “Maybe they do,” she countered. “Maybe if people see this then they can’t ignore how wrong it is to treat people the way Coloreds are treated in this country.”
     “Oh, so you read one article in some Colored news and now you’re an expert on race relations? Did you ever think that maybe they like things the way they are, too. Stuff like that doesn’t happen here—.maybe it’s because we don’t mingle with them.”
     Hannah paused and studied him for a moment. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard! Things like that don’t happen around here because Colored people are afraid—afraid of us coming and kidnapping them in the night like that boy. They don’t make trouble or stir up anything because they fear for their lives and they know their word against ours means nothing to a racist White Sheriff or judge.”
     Jordan shook his head as if he couldn’t understand what language she was speaking. “Things are the way they are for a reason; people need to stop rockin’ boats and makin’ waves in calm water. Look at what you’ve done to Mama’s diner.”
     Hannah couldn’t believe her ears. “What I’ve done?!”
   “Yes, what ‘you’ did. Nobody wants to eat there anymore because you served that Black busboy.”
    “Nobody wants to eat there because they’re all a buncha red-neck, hypocritical racists. And if you think that any of this is my fault, you’re just as ignorant and hateful as they are.” She narrowed her eyes at him.
     He stood his ground and countered, “Say what you want, but I keep tellin’ ya, you’re the one who doesn’t understand.”
     Hannah chuckled facetiously, “Oh, I understand things well enough. I understand that it doesn’t make sense to treat people differently just because of what color they are. If I’m not mistaken the Bible says to love everyone and doesn’t mention being White as a prerequisite.”
     “A pre-what?” Jordan cocked his head.
     Hannah shook her head in exasperation, “Ah, never mind.” 
     She continued on her way to house, wondering if her parents would have anything to say about Emmett Till. She surmised that they would probably not even mention it to her—they treated her like such a baby sometimes and she couldn’t stand it. She decided that she would confront them with what she knew and demand to know where they stood on the subject of whether Black people were equal to Whites. She had an idea that she and Norma were on the same page, however her father was a hard on to read at times and as head of their house, it was his opinion that mattered to most because he represented their family in the community.


****************************************


     “This is more than horrible,” Pastor Kinston Barclay proclaimed to the congregation, his statement followed by several “amens”. 
     “This is an unspeakable, unimaginable travesty committed against a young man—a child—still a baby in the eyes of his mama!” Another round of, “amens” and “Lord-have-mercy’s” went forth and Thandy’s voice was in the number. Since she and the boys had moved into Ma Lou’s boarding house, the old woman had insisted that attend church with her at Mt. Springs Missionary Baptist Church where Reverend Barclay presided as pastor.
     It was the only Black church in the area and had been for as long as anyone could remember. The history behind the house of worship was that the first congregation consisted of newly-freed slaves who had all served the same man as master during enslavement, a man named Henry Bivens. As their master he had allowed and encouraged them to gather for worship on Sundays, and as an emancipation gift to those who had been his former loyal slaves, he’d had a tiny, Whitewashed church-house erected on the edge of his property for them to continue to meet in for service. 
     Over the years, as the body grew in number, they had collected enough in tithes and offerings to purchase the small plot of land that the church rested on from the Bivens family. And from then on the parishioners began to build onto the original frame to enlarge space to fit its expanding congregation. 
     Now the land boasted not only a church but an elementary and high school as well. It was something that the Black community in Holly Woods was proud of. They didn’t have to expose themselves to daily discrimination in every facet because they had their own.
     Thandy hadn’t been to church since her mother had passed away, but she instantly fell in love with the kind people who had welcomed her and her brothers into their fold like family. They had seemed to genuinely care about their well-being and she felt safe within the flock.
     Wednesday night Bible study was usually full enough however, tonight the whole of the community had come out. People who usually only attended sporadically on Christmas, Easter or Revival, were present, and after a rather tense Bible study session, Rev. Barclay had asked everyone who could, to stay behind for a “special meeting”.
Everyone knew what the meeting would be about: Emmett Till. News of his brutal murder had rocked the local Black community and many were anxious about what this could mean for their own safety in Holly Woods. 
     “Some of you may be a little unnerved right now. That’s understandable. But I call any of those who may be feelin’ fearful to turn to Proverbs 3:25 where the good Lord instructs not to be afraid of the ‘trouble from the wicked when it comes’. Notice that it doesn’t say ‘if‘ trouble comes, but ‘when’. Trouble has been upon our people for a long time and now ain’t no time to be gettin’ fearful.”
     Pastor Barclay restated with even more zeal, “I said, now ain’t the time to be gettin’ afraid!” The congregation loudly agreed and encouraged him with the same verve. 
A young and wayward member, Charles Lease, stood and spoke up at this, “Well I, for one, ain’t scared. I tell you what I am though, and that’s sick and tired. I’m tired of turning the other cheek. I don’t run outta cheeks to turn, Rev.”
     At this a few members grunted their sentiments. Many of them were tired of the Jim Crow laws that governed much of the nation, including Holly Woods.
“Amen to that, brother,” another man cosigned. “If slavery is over then this half-way slavery ain’t gonna cut it neither. The way I see it is, if we don’t speak up and act out, they gonna continue to treat us like second class people.”
     “I know many of you are angry, as am I.” The reverend scanned the sea of brown faces, trying to reign in their zeal and keep it under control. The last thing he wanted to see in this town was chaos. 
     “I direct those of you who are angry to turn in your Bibles to Psalms 4:4 where the Word tells us to, ‘be angry but sin not’. You see, brothers and sisters, it isn’t a sin to be angry at what White folks are doing to our people! It ain’t nothing wrong with getting mad at how the devil uses folks. But we must not act out of that anger; doing so will only make things worse for each and every one of us.
     “Now I don’t encourage you to provoke the enemy, but those of you who have rifles and pistols, you’d best keep them oiled up and loaded these next few days. This nation is at odds and it would be foolish to think that this town will be any different. We need protect ourselves, that’s for sure.
     “I know that we have been a peaceful community for the most part here in Holly Woods, but recently with this mess at that diner, and now this—the Lord is telling me that peace is gonna be hard to find here in the near future. I predict that times will get worse before they get better and we have to be benevolent but proactive as well.
     “Now, what that means is that we ain’t gonna leave here and act a fool on account of what happened to our young brother, Emmett. But we also are not going to let anybody come into our homes and take nobody from their beds!”
     A round of loud consents went up from the people and Ma Lou, who was seated next to Thandy, shook her fist vigorously. Thandy knew that the woman meant business too, because she had seen the small barrage of weaponry that Ma kept in her locked closet. She had been the first to teach Thandy anything about handling a firearm. She wasn’t much of a sharp-shooter, but thanks to the lessons from her elder, the young girl now knew how to operate a gun should she ever need to.
     “And most of all, we need to pray! We need to pray for this boy’s family as well as our nation. We need to pray for Dr. King and every one of our people out here fighting the good fight for our equality. We need to pray that hearts are changed and that people will begin to see us human beings and not animals.
     “Now we can’t ask for people not to treat us like animals if we’re just gonna go out here and act like animals. I stress to you again, brothers and sisters—especially my young brothers: don’t act-out on account of what has happened to this young man or what is happening to our people. Whatever we do in retaliation must be in peace, like Dr. King says.”
     Charles spoke up again, “So we supposed to march down Main Street?”
     “Young man sit down and quit interruptin’ the reverend. You wanna preach so bad, go start your own church,” Ma Lou chastised him.
     “With all due respect, Ma, this ain’t no Sunday mornin’ service and we can all speak freely.”
     “Oh no you don’t—don’t go callin’ me no ‘ma’. Any child of mine was raised to know better than to disrespect the reverend—especially in the house of the Lord.”
     Charles raised up his palms, “Ms. Louise, I don’t mean no disrespect. I’m just tryna figure out when enough is enough. Dr. King been marchin’ for years and we still ain’t got a fair vote. That’s all I’m sayin’. Makin’ peace ain’t makin’ changes—at least not that I can see.”
     “Change takes time, Charles,” the pastor said softly.
    “Yeah, tell that to my ancestors who died as slaves on this very land that we’re standin’ on. Change didn’t come soon enough for them, and maybe it’s because they waited for it instead of forcing it.
     “Now, I say we go up to that diner and sit down and demand to be served or else. If we good enough to wait tables and cook in the kitchen, we should be good enough to get served at the counter too!”
     The congregation was evenly divided: the older ones siding with the reverend and the younger generation siding with Charles.
     “And if your demands aren’t met—then what?” Pastor Barclay calmly inquired.
     “Then we tear it up, that’s what. If we can’t eat there, can’t nobody eat there!”
     “Now wait a minute,” Thandy stood up, forgetting that Beal was asleep with his head in her lap. George pulled him against his shoulder, barely rousing the boy who had always been a hard sleeper and difficult to wake.
     “Ain’t nobody gonna go up there tearin’ up Miss Norma’s place! That woman has been too good to me and my brothers for me not to speak up for her.”
     “You willin’ to take her side and keep workin’ there when she won’t even serve you at her counter?” Charles seemed astounded by her loyalty. “You ain’t no better than a house negro.”
     “Excuse me?” Thandy felt the heat rising within her. How dare he judge her?! “Have you ever even been to Hayley Ray’s?”
     “For what? It’s owned by White folks and on the White side of town—so obviously White folks is the only ones gettin’ served. I spend my money at The Shack, where everybody is Colored and I can eat at the table like a man.” 
     He was speaking of the bar on their side of town that converted to a club at night and sold liquor. The food was usually greasy and hardly what Thandy would call ‘good’, but most people came there to drink, not to eat.
     Again the young crowd backed Charles up with ‘yeahs’ and ‘sho-nuffs’.
“For your information, Miss Norma don’t have one sign hangin’ up that says that she only serves White people. She don’t have no problem with us—it’s the customers that raised cane over George sitting the counter to eat. You need to get your facts straight before you go makin’ assumptions ‘bout folks.”
     “Well if that’s the case, then Miss Norma won’t mind the business when we come sit down to eat.”
     Thandy didn’t know what to say to that. She knew that Norma was a fair woman, but she didn’t know exactly how she’d feel about her place being full of angry Black people demanding to be served.
     She thought a moment then said, “If you come in there where I work, you best be respectable and don’t make trouble for me and my brothers. This is the best job I’ve had and I don’t intend to let you and a buncha angry Black folks mess that up for me.”
     “Point taken; as long as we get treated fairly there won’t be anything for you to worry about.”
     She didn’t protest any further, but she was worried. It had never been her intention to bring trouble to Norma’s business but it seemed to be all that she had done. Now this sit-in was going to happen and the White folks in Holly Woods surely wouldn’t like that. However, no one had been eating there much of lately, so she wasn’t really clear about who could be offended if they weren’t eating there anymore anyway. Norma would have to appreciate the business picking up and Black money was the same as White money: green. The bright side was what she chose to imagine but, in the back of her mind, she knew that scenario wasn’t the only reality that she could be facing.


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