Freshwater Road Read online

  "It's against the law to throw trash on the street. Step this way." She hadn't seen the police car U-turn, hadn't seen the officers get out and walk up to her, so busy was she trying to gather up the errant flyers from the pavement.

  She would willingly have gotten down on the pavement to retrieve the remaining flyers, but now the officer had her by the elbow, ushering her toward the open back door of the squad car. She lumbered into the back seat, closed her eyes, praying and stumbling around for the words to a freedom song, something to hold on to, remembering Margo's admonishments. Sing the freedom songs, try to stay alive. When she opened her eyes, she saw nothing but the cold-eyed stares of pedestrians. Now she was a jiggaboo criminal in the back seat of a police car.

  It was a short three blocks to the police station. As they drove into the underground garage, Celeste's mind swirled with a collage of stories she'd heard from Margo and other volunteers who'd been arrested, a couple of them raped or beaten or both before they got to whatever floor they were being taken to. Celeste tried to make herself disappear, to curl up into a tiny ball on the back seat of the car. The garage was dark, dank, and smelled of layered exhaust and cigarette smoke. Police cars parked at angles. Uniforms walked and talked, all with white faces, all giving her hard looks. She was the enemy in her peach summer dress.

  The two officers, young and scrub-faced, sandwiched her between them as they entered the elevator. Celeste drifted to the back wall as the doors closed and the airless box lifted, her eyes focused on the lighting floor numbers above the doors. Margo had walked them through the arrest procedure all week long. She had to stick to what she'd learned. Stay calm. Stay alive. Sweat poured out of her body. On the third floor, the officers again directed her between them as they exited the elevator and strolled ever so quietly into a square interrogation room. They sat her at a small wood table. High windows, too high to see anything but big blue sky and grand puffs of white clouds sailing by. Nothing on the walls. The room was close. She needed air.

  "What's your name?" The taller of the two spoke. He'd removed his hat, which left a red line imprinted across his forehead and whiter skin between the line and his hair. His eyes were blue-gray, his hair black and shiny as a new forty-five record.

  "Celeste Tyree." She trapped his eyes then looked down quickly. "Am I under arrest?"

  "We ask the questions." No cartoon accent drawling across the air. Just straight talk, hard. Clipped. Where was he from? Had he come south, too, just like she had, only on the opposite side of the line?

  The other officer floated to the back of the small room, put his foot up on the seat of a chair. He looked younger; maybe he was a trainee, too.

  Neither officer had on a name tag. Okay, Margo, now what? Just dark blue uniforms with metal buttons, clanking handcuffs, billy clubs sticking up in the back, the gun, all hard, all opaque. She looked at their shoes, black thick-soled things with shoelaces.

  "Where you from?" The questioning officer frowned into her face in a dare. Careful, girl. Miss'sippi ain't nothing to play with.

  She wanted to ask him the same question. Insolence, she knew, would not be tolerated. Survive. Remember the porter at the train station. Take low to keep the peace. Tap dance if you have to. "Detroit." She kept her eyes down, the Negro look. She'd been warned about locking eyes with southern cops. It's cause for a hit, a punch. Margo told her that. Keep your eyes down to camouflage anger. When you look them in the eye, make sure there's no anger, no resentment, no harshness in your eyes.

  "You a communist?" He put his strong hands on the table near her. She could see his hands. Sun-tanned. He was nearly the same color as she, but not quite. He had the golden brown skin, like Momma Bessie's turkey at Thanksgiving. She had already passed that.

  "No, sir." In another place, she'd have laughed at the question. He was standing so close to her she could smell his sweat and soap. Early in the day sweat. Thick sudsy-smelling soap, mixed with salt sweat. By evening he'd be rank.

  "Your parents know you down here stirring up trouble? You could get hurt down here." He moved back a step.

  "My parents know where I am." She'd been told to say no more. If they kept her, Margo would know when she went back to the corner to pick her up. She wasn't supposed to leave that corner. She'd know. She'd come to the police station to get her. They hadn't said she was under arrest. In truth, they didn't have to. They could keep her and tell the world they never picked her up or that they released her and all the while she could be rotting in a cell or worse, released into the hands of the Klan in the middle of the night.

  The two officers left her sitting in the little room. She blessed her sweating body-at least she wouldn't have to go to the bathroom. The officers came back, directed her up and out the door, back into the elevator. Down they went into the garage, into the car, and back to the same corner. The older officer opened the car door for her, careful not to touch her, and told her to have a nice day. Her imagination had scurried to outrun reality. The officers rode away. The box of flyers was gone. Celeste waited for Margo in the brilliant sun. She'd survived her first encounter with the police in Mississippi. Not even a hit. Lucky she was, just like Shuck. She felt proud, standing under the awning of the shoestore waiting for Margo, praying she'd be on time.

  That afternoon, Margo took Celeste and Ramona around Jackson like they were junior high school children on a field trip, showing them the city itself, pointing out the churches that were pro-movement and those that were not. They were the sideshow at a circus as they slow cruised around the city. Celeste, her confidence brimming over, told the story of her trip to the police station, which didn't really compare to the stories being told of real beatings, of terrified runs for one's life, of real arrests. But it was her story to tell.

  That evening, they ate rich southern food at Mercer's, the Negro-owned restaurant near the One Man, One Vote office. They felt free and good even living under such a clear threat from the police and the local whites. They were watched, and they knew it. They were followed, and they were sneered at on the streets. They stood in the pro-movement church and listened to speakers and sang freedom songs until their throats went raw.

  The day after the news hit about the three missing volunteers, mimeographed copies of new check-in procedures were posted on the bulletin board, stuffed into every mail slot, and taped to both sides of the bathroom door. A shrill quiet fell over the bustling One Man, One Vote office. After less than a week of orientation, Margo told Celeste and Ramona they were ready to go to their project cities. They hugged their goodbyes, waved their copies of the new check-in procedures in the air, and tried to ride high over their feelings of dread. With three of their volunteers already missing, the summer camp illusion was completely gone. Ramona left for Indianola in the Delta and Margo for Aberdeen.

  The Mississippi sun pounded Celeste and Matt Higgens as they loaded her suitcase, along with two boxes of children's books for her freedom school, into the trunk of his late model Dodge. Matt told her he was from Kansas City. He had a round face and a stocky build, and was dark as live oak bark. He wore his de rigueur movement overalls over a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Celeste felt her scoop necked tan cotton dress would ignite if she didn't get into the shade. She'd dressed to meet the woman who would be her hostess in Pineyville, and wanted to be spiffy looking when she stepped out of that car.

  They headed out, Matt crawling through Jackson. They picked up Route 49, leaving Hinds County for Rankin. Route 49 would take them south to Hattiesburg, where they'd pick up Route ii to Pineyville. It might have been out of the way, but nobody in their right mind was going to take any shortcuts over the back roads. Celeste had shoved her copy of the new check-in procedures into her book bag along with a postcard from J.D. that she'd taken from her mail slot in the One Man, One Vote office. She pulled out the new rules, which were full of emphatic capitalizations: (1) If you travel away from your project city, call before you leave, call the Jackson office when
you return. (2) Keep vehicles serviced by friendly mechanics. (3) Drive UNDER the speed limit at ALL times. (4) If you blow a tire, ride on the rim until you're in a safe place. (5) NO TRAVELING ALONE. (6) Report any harassment or violence to this office first, the FBI second, and the local authorities third. (7) STICK TO THE MAIN ROADS.

  Celeste shoved the sheet back into her book-bag and turned off the crackling radio, leaving the noise of the engine and the sound of the wind whipping along the sides of the car.

  "You don't look like the kind of girl whose parents would let her be a civil rights worker. You down here looking for something to fill yo' hot pussy, or you here to get these niggers off their asses and out to vote?" Matt dipped his head twice and chuckled. If he'd been walking, it would have been a dipping stroll, the words spoken out of the side of his mouth from a face beneath a greasy do-rag holding the processed hair in place. He either longed to be a thug or he'd already made it.

  Celeste stared at him over the top of her black-framed sunglasses, which continually slid down her nose on a river of sweat. Her forehead wrinkled in disbelief, and her neck stiffened like it was being held in a brace. "Jesus. What kind of looks would qualify me to be down here, Matt?" She thought he'd run the car into a ditch the way he kept turning toward her. She remembered Ramona's comment about the " high-yellow first line of defense" at Howard. Was that where he was going with this, too?

  "I been to Detroit, baby, I know. Yo' momma would shit a brick if she knew someone as black as me even sat next to you. You a red-bone. That suntan ain't hiding much." He bumped onto the gravel shoulder, then bumped back onto the pavement. Sweat pebbled across his dark forehead and began to stream.

  Celeste slashed him a look, then rolled her eyes so hard she thought they'd lock into a hateful glare. "If we're fighting for rights, I guess that includes my rights, too, hot pussy, red-bone looks, and all." She'd never said the word pussy in her life, and now she'd said it to a honcho movement guy. "You may be a big time civil rights movement veteran, but you sound like a street thug to me." She gave him one more serious eye-roll and turned to stare out the window, tears burning just behind her eyes. Shuck had taught her well how to back people off of her, but it felt like she'd damaged something of herself in the process. Shuck never wanted her to wear her heart on her sleeve. Don't let 'em see you cry. All she could think now was that she'd been in Mississippi a full week and not called him like she knew she was supposed to do. Didn't matter where she was-she'd promised to call and let him know she was all right.

  On both sides of the highway, flat farmland spread as far as the eye could see, vegetables wilting in the heat of midday. Giant live oaks cornered frame houses with deep porches sitting at least a half-mile back from the highway. Nothing moving but the car. Celeste never felt so alone.

  Another sneaked glance from Matt. "Bet yo' daddy's a doctor, huh?"

  "He's a numbers man. Owns a bar." The blustery air shredded her words, and she didn't care. She mumbled, "If he was here, he'd kick your ass all the way to New Orleans." No way he heard her, and good thing he hadn't.

  Matt's head whipped around. "You jiving?"

  "Why would I be jiving?" Celeste folded her arms across her chest, her hair flying around her head, the ends slapping her in the face curling into her mouth. Forget looking nice for her arrival in Pineyville.

  "Yo'daddy's a gangster? Back-up a minute, let me take another look at you." Matt's disbelief insulted and diminished who she was minus Shuck. "Girl, you hot. You got all kinda shit going on, sitting over there all quiet and fine." Matt patted his hands on the steering wheel in time to some unheard rhythm. "Bet he drives a Cadillac."

  "Yeah, he drives a Cadillac. So what?" She eyed Matt quickly; suddenly she wanted to say that as much as she loved Shuck, he wasn't the one riding down a forlorn highway in the middle of Mississippi, laying his life on the line for the cause. That Cadillac was safe and sound in Detroit. And so was Shuck.

  "Probably been in more gunfights than John Wayne. I love me some gangsters." Matt nodded his head up and down, dropping the corners of his mouth into a fake frown.

  "You don't know what you're talking about." Celeste wanted him to shut up, to get her to Pineyville in one piece and say a quick goodbye.

  "Girl, you probably don't know your own father. He wouldn't tell you everything. Want you to grow up all proper. Go to the right schools, be around the right people." Matt was on a roll. What did his father do, she wondered? Kansas City wasn't that far from Detroit.

  "You gonna sit there and tell me about my own father? You need to quit." She wanted nothing more than to get away from this movement honcho who seemed like he wanted to break her down. Something in it sounded like J.D. telling her he knew more about the blues than she did.

  "All right, now, don't go getting huffy with me. We in Mississippi. I might be the one who saves yo red-bone ass. Know what I mean?"

  "I might be the one who saves yours, too." Celeste sucked her teeth. She had wanted with all her heart to say, I might be the one who saves your black ass, but didn't. She was sitting in his car, at his mercy, on a road going to what sounded like hell, with no way to do a thing about it if he put her out of that car.

  This wasn't the movement she'd spent months thinking about in Ann Arbor. The speakers who came to campus talked about the awakening of the south, the drive to register millions of Negro people who hadn't voted since Reconstruction. They spoke of courageous young students, Negro and white, from all over the country putting their lives on the line for what was right and just. Joan of Arc and Harriet Tubman. Now here she was stuck in a car with a guy who wanted to talk about gangsters, red-bones, and her sexuality.

  They drove deeper into trench Mississippi, gutbucket Mississippi, the baking red earth stretching out on all sides, armies of insects slapping into the windshield. At this rate, by the time they got to Pineyville, they'd be driving blind behind a crust of dead bugs. Celeste closed the window half way to soften the beating she was taking in her face and hair. The car butted over the unevenness of the pavement. No smooth expressway here. Keep a good watch on the road, they'd said in Jackson. The three missing boys might have been held captive in some storm shelter or basementmaybe their captors moved them from place to place. Maybe they were free, escaped, trying to flag a friendly soul down. She stared, searching the landscape as if the very act of looking might conjure the missing three. Anything but having to deal with Matt anymore.

  The thumping tires and the press of warm air lulled Celeste, and she rested her head back, strengthening herself with memories of Shuck and summer rides in his Cadillac with the top down, cruising the Detroit streets, stopping at his stops, the men back-slapping and number-writing, always happy to see Shuck. Hey man, how you doing? How them kids? All right now. Starched collars and cuffs, cufflinks like gold nuggets in the sunshine, stocking-capped-slick hair, pinkie rings and wide movie smiles. Smelling like heaven came out of an Old Spice bottle. Smooth. Shuck stepping up on the shoeshine stand, the crack-slap of the rag as one of his cronies gave him the best shine on the west side of Detroit, and Billy and her sitting up on the high seats, feet dangling, watching, listening to every word of the repartee. That was a long time ago, she thought, and opened her eyes. No place to hide in Mississippi.

  Matt was eyeing his rearview mirror. He slowed, though they'd never reached the speed limit. "There's a state trooper behind us. If they stop us, let me do the talking."

  Celeste turned to see the trooper's flashing lights, following so close it seemed it would touch their back fender. Celeste reached for something, anything to hold onto and came up with the mumbled words to a freedom song. She spoke the words as if they were a prayer, pushing the meaning up into her head and down into her stomach just like blonde-haired Margo had taught her. This wasn't Jackson. Out here, things were different. The melody came into her voice and she sang quietly. Ain'tgonna let nobody turn me round, turn me round, turn me round.

  Matt snorted quietly. "That shit works in chu
rch." He pulled onto the gravel shoulder. "It don't do a muthafuckin thing out here." He took a good breath, then sighed deeply. "No strong black woman smart talk cause they'll kick my black ass. You hear?"

  For a fleeting second, she wished they would.

  The trooper's brown uniform was pressed and crisp. He yanked open the door, his steel gray eyes piercing in a slash of sunlight under the brim of his cowboy-style hat. The billy club was in his hand, and she saw the black handle of his holstered gun, the silver handcuffs like Indian jewelry shining on a brown blanket. He pulled Matt out of the car, and Matt's limp body nearly fell to the ground. No resistance. Remember that. Do not resist. The trooper dragged Matt along the side of the car, and Celeste heard his shoes scuffing and grating over the gravel. She lifted out of her seat, twisting around to see, didn't know if she should get out of the car, try to talk to them quietly, plead for Matt. Matt had told her to let him do the talking. She'd heard around the office that he'd been arrested more than half a dozen times.

  "Turn round and face front," the trooper barked.

  He shoved Matt into the hands of the other trooper and came back to the opened door.