Devil on My Heels Read online

  Against the far wall, boards have been stacked on cinder blocks to make bookshelves. Almost every shelf is full. The rest of the wall space is taken up with photographs. Dozens and dozens of photographs stuck on with tape or thumbtacks. I recognize Gus and Jeremiah. The others, I suspect, are Delia’s older children and her grandchildren.

  The smell of fresh coffee perking fills the tiny room.

  Delia comes back a few minutes later, carrying a tray with two cups of coffee, sugar, cream, and a plate of biscuits. She scoops two heaping spoonfuls of sugar into my coffee and goes heavy on the cream. She knows this is how I like it.

  I sit in an old rocker made from tree branches with the bark still on them and take the cup from her. While Delia stirs a little sweetness into her coffee, I look over at the books again.

  “They’re from Jeremiah,” she tells me. “When he’s finished with a course, he sends the books to me. He says they belong to me because I paid for them. I figure if I read ’em all, I’ll practically have myself a college education. Now he’s gone on to graduate school, even thinking about getting himself a Ph.D. Isn’t that something? Dr. Jeremiah Washburn.” She shakes her head. “Never in all my born days did I ever dream . . .” Delia’s voice drifts off. She’s eyeing my duffel.

  “What you got in that bag?”

  “A few things.”

  “You running away again?”

  When I was little, I was always running away from home for one reason or another. Usually Delia would pack me a few jelly sandwiches, and I’d be back in time for dinner. But I haven’t done that in years.

  “Delia,” I say, “I’ve got some upsetting news. Real upsetting. But if I tell you, I’m scared that things are going to change.”

  “Change how?”

  I shake my head and look away. I don’t have an answer for this.

  “If you got something to say, it’s up to you whether you say it or not.”

  When I don’t speak right up, Delia moves forward and sits rigid on the edge of the couch. She is wearing huge fluffy slippers that make it look as if two pink Persian cats are wrapped around her feet. She clamps her hands on her knees. “How’s it gonna change my life?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Things are going to change, but how they change . . . I guess that’ll be up to you.”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “This is about Gus, isn’t it?”

  My hands are shaking. Some of the coffee spills into the saucer.

  “You tell me the truth, girl.” Delia’s eyes burn right through me. “I’ve been waiting six years for it. I got a right to it. Even if it means my whole world comes crashing down in flames.”

  My mouth is so dry I’m not sure I can even get the first word out. Trickles of sweat run along the sides of my face. I try to take a sip of coffee, but it comes right back up and dribbles down my chin. I wipe it away with my hand and set my cup back on the tray.

  Delia is waiting. She doesn’t say a word.

  It takes me a while to get into the story, but the more I talk the faster my mouth goes, words just tumble out, about Chase telling me about Jimmy Wheeler and Travis Waite, and about me telling my dad last night. But I don’t say anything about them being in the Klan.

  This whole time Delia’s expression never changes. Her hands are folded in her lap, like she is praying her way through all this, praying that what she’s hearing is all some terrible mistake.

  When I’m done talking, we both sit there. It’s my turn to wait. The silence in the room is deafening in that way a heavy rain can be, blocking out everything so it feels like the rumbling is coming from inside your head.

  After a few minutes Delia says, “All those years that white trash Travis Waite coming to the back door, wanting me to fetch him this, fetch him that, smiling that ugly sneer of his. All that time, knowing he’d killed my Gus, and never once looking sorry about it.”

  Delia’s eyes are wet, but I know she won’t let herself cry in front of me. “And your daddy, him knowing it, and never letting on, just expecting me to go on cooking his meals, washing his dirty underwear, cleaning his house, like it didn’t matter one bit that his crew boss killed my man.” She chokes out these last few words and covers her mouth with her hand.

  Delia closes her eyes. She crosses her arms over her chest and rocks herself back and forth. Rocking. Rocking. When she finally stops, she opens her eyes and the look in them is a terrible sight. I stare down at my hands, lying there like two dead white fish in my lap.

  “I thought your daddy was different.” She shakes her head. “All this time, there I was, thinking he cared about me.” Delia looks over at me, and it’s all I can do not to burst out crying myself. My whole body starts to shake from holding in those tears.

  “He does care, Delia. I know he does. He just doesn’t always do the right thing.”

  Delia’s on her feet, carrying the tray back to the kitchen. “You better run along now,” she says. The sound of her slippered feet, scuffing along the worn floorboards, drifts farther away. I follow her down the hall to the kitchen. Sunlight pours through the window over the small porcelain sink and across the checkered oilcloth on the table. It slides down the walls like melted butter, making everything shimmer. It is so bright it hurts my eyes.

  “Delia, let me help.”

  She slams the tray on the table so hard one of the cups topples over, spilling coffee. “Help! How you gonna help?” She throws a dishtowel at the tray. Within seconds it’s a soggy brown.

  “You best be getting on home.”

  “Delia—”

  “And you can tell your daddy I won’t be coming to make his breakfast this morning.” She looks up from the mess on the table. “You tell him I don’t think I’ll bother making him breakfast ever again.”

  The whole time I was walking here, preparing myself to tell her the truth, I knew this is how it would turn out. Knew Delia would quit working for us. Knew she would walk out of our lives as if she’d never been a part of them. I knew it, but I still hoped it wouldn’t happen.

  “Maybe you could get a lawyer,” I tell her.

  She laughs so hard she starts to cry. “Go home,” she says. “Go on, get out of here.” She is close to yelling at me. I back out of the kitchen.

  I stop in the living room to get my duffel bag. For some reason I had it in my head when I left the house this morning that maybe I could stay with Delia for a few days, until I could figure out what to do. I can see now I wasn’t thinking straight. The last person Delia wants hanging around her house is the person who just brought her whole world crashing down in flames.

  Outside, the petunias—red, yellow, dark violet, lavender, white, pink, fuchsia—cascade over the window boxes like rainbow waterfalls in the bright morning sun. I stare at them as all sorts of thoughts rip through my head: Did I do the right thing, telling Delia the truth? Did I do it for the right reason? For Delia? Or did I do it to ease my own conscience?Did I tell her what I did to get back at Travis? Did I do it because I am mad as hell at Dad? Which would have definitely been the wrong reason. Now I’m wondering if maybe my dad was right. Maybe it would have been better to let things be. Telling Delia the truth isn’t going to bring Gus back.

  I want to believe I came here because we owed it to Delia to tell her what happened. Only now she has no job. No way to pay for a lawyer so she can get some sort of justice. And I don’t have her in my life anymore. I can’t help thinking this is an awful price to pay for the truth.

  All the colors of the petunias have started to run together in one watery blur. I don’t even make it to the end of her street before the flood of tears knocks me to my knees. Delia’s isn’t the only world that is crashing down in flames. I slip behind a hedge of honeysuckle, pull myself into a tight ball, and bury my face in my arms.

  It is ten blocks to Luellen Sutter’s place. By the time I get there, the sun is on full blast, baking everything in sight.

  The first thing that catches my eye is a big collage of cardboa
rd taped over the place where Luellen’s shop window used to be. Tiny pieces of shattered glass, tucked in the groove where the sidewalk meets the brick wall, gleam like a row of diamonds. The big pieces have been swept up.

  Luellen stands in the doorway of her apartment in her uniform, holding her white shoes in one hand. She doesn’t bat an eyelash. I suspect she’s getting used to me showing up unannounced.

  Rosemary comes walking down the little hallway from the bathroom. She’s wearing baby-doll pajamas and her hair is still in rollers. She takes in my face, which I know is all puffy and red, and then the duffel bag. “You going somewheres?” she asks.

  “Don’t know yet.” This is the truth. I have no idea where I am going next. I’m not even sure why I came here.

  “What happened to your window?” I ask Luellen. I drop my duffel and sit on the edge of the unmade sofa bed without being invited.

  “Hooligans.” She pours a cup of coffee and sets it next to me on the end table. “Sorry I can’t hang around and visit with y’all, but Saturday’s my busiest day. Got to get the shop set up.” She sticks her feet—first one then the other—up on the chair and ties her shoelaces. “And I got me a little extra cleaning up to do this morning.” She turns to Rosemary and gives her a look. “You be downstairs by eight-thirty now, you hear?” she says as she grabs the doorknob.

  We listen to Luellen’s footsteps descending the stairs.

  “Hooligans?” I say to Rosemary.

  “They threw a few rocks through the shop window last night.”

  “Any messages come with those rocks?” I ask.

  Rosemary pulls something out of the trash and hands it to me: a rock the size of a softball with NIGGER LOVER printed in red paint.

  She sits beside me on the sofa bed. I notice little dabs of Clearasil on her face.

  “Why Luellen’s place?”

  “Why do you think?”

  I figure this probably has something to do with her and Gator being friends.

  “But who—”

  Rosemary begins taking the rollers out of her hair and stacking them in a little pile. “I don’t know, but I got a few ideas.”

  So do I. This rock has Willy Podd’s name written all over it.

  She combs her fingers through her hair, loosening the curls. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  This time I don’t hold back. I tell her everything that’s happened, including the part about Chase and my dad being at the Klan meeting. By the time I’m finished, I’m like a balloon that’s had all the air let out of it. I just want to crawl off somewhere and sleep for a year.

  Rosemary gets up and drifts around the kitchen, making toast that neither of us eats. She pours me a cup of coffee, even though I haven’t touched the one Luellen gave me. She shuffles through boxes of cereal in the cabinet above the sink.

  Finally I say, “Sit down, Rosemary. You’re making me nervous.”

  Rosemary does what I ask. She slumps in a kitchen chair and folds her arms across her chest. “I trusted you,” she says. “I took you to the camp.”

  “So I could warn the pickers something was going to happen,” I remind her.

  She leans toward me, arms still folded. “Your daddy and your boyfriend are in the Klan, Dove. The Klan, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Rosemary, what the Klan is doing is wrong. Dad and Chase are wrong. I’m not going to betray you or any of the pickers. I will swear to that on the Bible. I’m trying to help is all.”

  She chews on her lower lip, giving what I’ve said some thought. “Did you know Eli’s sick?” she says. “He wasn’t in the groves yesterday, and Travis—” She stops. Her eyes dart from one corner of the room to another, like she’s afraid Travis Waite might suddenly pop out of the woodwork.

  “What about Travis?” Just the mention of his name sours my stomach.

  “He’s going to think Eli is doing it on purpose. He’ll make things bad for him.”

  “But if Eli’s sick, why would— What’s wrong with him, anyway? Eli, I mean.”

  “Nobody’s sure. He looked poorly the day before yesterday. Had the chills and all. Most everybody thinks he’s got the fever. But a few of the pickers, they’re thinking it might be the new pesticide they’ve been using. Some of them have been getting headaches and sore throats. Eli, he’s old. You know? Maybe it’s worse for him.”

  “Has he seen a doctor?”

  Rosemary stares at me and frowns. “The pickers don’t have money for doctors.”

  “Eli’s not a picker,” I remind her. “I mean, he helps with the picking, sometimes. But he’s not seasonal. He works most of the year in our groves.”

  “Oh, well, then of course he can afford a doctor. He must be rolling in money.”

  Rosemary’s comeback is like Dad’s slap all over again. “Do you know where Eli lives?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  “Can you take me there?”

  “Well, not right now. I gotta go to work, remember?” She stands and points to the unmade sofa bed. “You look about dead on your feet anyway. You should get some sleep.”

  I collapse onto the sofa bed and drift into unconsciousness for the next nine hours. When Rosemary wakes me, it is past five. She has changed into faded plaid Bermuda shorts and a blue sleeveless blouse.

  I doze in Rosemary’s rusted green Ford that she’s named the Green Hornet while she drives us to Eli’s place, even though the noise from the hole in her tailpipe is loud enough to wake the dead.

  Rosemary having her own car came as a complete surprise. Not that it’s much of a car. It’s probably close to twenty years old. When I asked her where she got it, she said that it had been sitting out back of the camp and didn’t belong to anybody. Gator and one of the other pickers found parts in the junkyard and got it up and running for her.

  Rosemary pulls up in front of Eli’s place. There is no garage or driveway. A single lemon tree stands in the front yard.

  Eli’s house is a tiny white cinder-block building in a little cluster of similar buildings, some painted blue, others green. The road is dirt with no curb, like the colored quarters in Benevolence. The houses are just off the main highway, across from a Texaco station and a Winn-Dixie. The place isn’t all that far from the turnoff to the migrant camp—maybe a few hundred yards.

  No one answers our knock. The door is unlocked. Rosemary pokes her head inside and calls Eli’s name.

  We step into the semidark living room. The shades are drawn. The floors are covered in worn linoleum that is supposed to resemble wood but isn’t even close. There are only a few sticks of furniture—a lumpy-looking sofa and one overstuffed chair with tape x’ed over a large tear on the arm, but the place is real tidy. Faded plastic roses are parked in a vase on the kitchen table.

  Photographs are taped to the wall, which makes me think of Delia. I swallow back my tears as Rosemary knocks on a door across the narrow hall from the kitchen. Inside we find Eli, tangled in gray sheets and still in his work clothes, except for his boots, which lie on the floor by his bed.

  His lips are crusted white; his eyes are glassy. I can’t be sure he even sees us. I put my hand on his forehead. He is burning up.

  I grab Rosemary’s arm. “We have to get him to a hospital.” I can tell by the expression on her face that she had no idea Eli was this sick.

  She loosens my grip and signals me to follow her back into the kitchen. “I don’t think we should try to move him, Dove.”

  “We can find a doctor, maybe get him to come here.”

  “You know a doctor who treats black folks?”

  “Some around here do. They got separate entrances into their office. One for whites, one for coloreds.”

  “Yeah, but will they come all the way out here to treat a black man who isn’t going to be able to pay them one red cent?” The whole time Rosemary is talking, she’s rummaging through the kitchen cabinets until she finds a glass. She works the pump at the sink until the stream of rusty water begins to look reasonably cle
ar. She fills the glass and hands it to me. “Try to get him to drink some of this,” she says.

  I hold Eli’s head up and put the glass to his lips. His eyes roll back in his head. He lets out a soft groan.

  Rosemary comes in with a pot filled with cool water. She sits on the edge of the bed and unbuttons Eli’s shirt partway. Then she dips a threadbare hand towel in the pot, wrings it out, and sponges Eli’s face and chest. All the while she whispers comforting words, telling him things are going to be all right.

  I smooth out the tangled sheets and tuck them in. I take Eli’s coarse old hand in mine and tell him that we are going to take care of him.

  Sweat is pouring off all three of us. It’s like an oven in this house.

  “You think he’s got a fan?” I ask Rosemary.

  She shrugs. We look in all the closets and cabinets until we find a small fan. It scrapes and clatters when we turn it on and put it by the only window in the bedroom. But at least now the air is moving.

  “How come no one’s here looking after him? Where are his boys?” I know for a fact that Eli raised four sons on his own after his wife died.

  “Gone up north,” Rosemary says. “Gator told me they went looking for factory work in Ohio and Michigan years ago. They probably don’t even know Eli’s sick.”

  I leave Rosemary with Eli and wander through his house, which doesn’t take long. Living room, kitchen, bedroom, no bathroom—just an outhouse—and one other tiny bedroom, with only a single bed and a wooden crate for a nightstand. The bed is nothing more than an old stained box spring and mattress on the floor. No sheets or blankets.

  All that I find in the cabinet are half a box of Rice Krispies cereal, a can of tomato soup, and some stale saltines. The milk in the refrigerator smells sour. I dump it into the sink. It is the only thing I can think to do. If Delia were here, she’d know what to do. She’d take good care of Eli.

  I try not to think about what my life is going to be like without Delia in it, but the tears come anyway. I stand there holding the empty milk carton, swatting the tears away with my free hand. I’m scared to death for Eli. And I don’t know who to turn to for help.