…(Jerald’s) great-grandfather’s farm, behind its hulking barn and parked hay wagon. A couple of milking cows wandered around, their tails swishing about with mild impatience. The yard a mess of chicken wire and half-built coops, the occasional yardbird squawked at his approach. A story had been passed down—the kind of family lore that became fact after enough retellings—about how Pap joined a group of fellow freed slaves, packing his family’s furniture, smoked meat, and all their worldly possessions that could fit in the back of the wagon. Anger fueled him. He’d been a slave on a farm, picking cotton alongside sharecroppers. He dreamt of none of his children—or children’s children—ever being tied to a white man’s plantation ever again.
“Come on. Just one game,” a young boy pleaded with (Rashad).
“I can’t play basketball. I have to go home and haul manure.” (Rashad) attempted to stretch out his hands, but they didn’t respond. His spirit simply hitched a ride in the corner of Jerald’s ancestor’s mind. The soles sloughed away from his shoes, a casualty of his chores. His toes were too loose in them, so he wore an extra set of socks.
“You’d rather do that?”
“No one would rather do that. But Pap would tan my hide if I didn’t come home and do my chores first.” (Rashad)’s body reflexively tugged at the sleeve of his shirt, desperate to not draw attention to it despite the overwhelming need to scratch at it.
“Boy, get in here!” (Jerald)’s great-grandfather bellowed. The way he yelled it, (Rashad) nearly believed “Boy” was his given name. He ran into the oak-and-brick cabin his grandfather had built with his own hands. By the time he reached the front room, Pap was already mid-rant, his Sunday lesson voice booming a bit of wisdom to his captive audience, Mamaw. “…nothing is free.”
“Calm down, you make seventy-five cents a week.” Mamaw’s voice was comforting as a gospel melody.
“And it’s all mine. Earned by my work.” Fear was never in Pap; hewasn’t raised with it. Walking with his head high and shoulders back when he spoke, it was with his full chest, nothing kowtowing or deferential. Pap whirled to face (Rashad) with a suddenness meant to catch him off guard. “Show me.”
“Show you what?” (Rashad) lifted his cap to wipe away the sweat pooling underneath it.
“Ain’t no point in pretending. Mr.Lucas done let me know.”
(Rashad) rolled back his shirtsleeve to reveal a red, scaly patch on his arm, a round wound whose center appeared clear compared to its inflamed edges. “What is it?”
Pap turned his arm one way then the next, inspecting the affected area closely with the care of one of his prize hens having taken sick. “Looks like tetters.”
“Ringworm? Let me see that. I heard tell there was an outbreak.” Mamaw took his arm, her touch gentle yet firm. Her forefinger tapped her chin three times before she prescribed him to “take a penny, dip it in vinegar, and put it on the infection.”
(Rashad) couldn’t help but breathe a long sigh of relief. He had feared a home remedy involving lye soap or some other strange, foul-smelling concoction since they couldn’t afford iodine.
“Mr.Lucas said they’re going to have to do something about it down at the school before the epidemic gets out of control,” Pap said.
(Rashad) ran his hand through his hair…
…suppressing a shudder. His friend’s presence was a whisper in the dark recesses of his mind. “I’m not sure what’s real and what’s, I don’t know, some weird fever dream from the past.”
“My family’s past.” Jerald shifted in his seat, avoiding his eyes, almost as if ashamed. He wrung his hands, working through a pain. A deep family trauma. “I can’t control it. I’m trying to…show you my story. I just…can you trust me, in me, a little longer?”
Rashad shivered as a distant chill wrapped about his spine. The sun slowly set as he swung his SUV into the gravel parking lot.Lyles Consolidated School—Est. 1917,the painted sign read in bold white script against a green backdrop. “Consolidated” meant students of various ages shared the same classroom. The grounds were manicured like a royal estate. On the opposite side, an American flag flapped in the stiff breeze. At the heart of the sculpted greenery was a stout two-story building with tall windows. The structure itself wasn’t imposing, but it had a presence. A solemnity from surviving. Now it was a museum and cultural center committed to remembering its past. Jerald’s family name still rang out in these parts as Rashad had been given the code to the lockbox to let himself in.
The foyer was large, the size of two living rooms pressed together as an entryway. The school hallways echoed with each footfall, a soft click-clack of his hard soles against the linoleum. Haints filled its corridors. Framed photographs hung along most of the walls. Images of school leaders facing down the Klan. Rashad recognized the portrait of the school’s disciplinarian principal from an identical photograph of him in the Crispus Attucks Museum back in Indianapolis.
Next to a door emblazoned with the wordsNurse’s Office, an enlarged photo of the nurses’ faces shone silvery and spectral as if trapped in moonlight. Rashad skirted it, fearing that any of them might reach out to drag him away. He crossed the classroom’s threshold, the air redolent with wood and chalk. Vintage wooden desks filled the room. A chalkboard listed the families: Bells, Cantrells, Nash, Lucas, Freeman, Lyles, Harris, and Blufton.
“I know you’re trying to reveal what happened.” Rashad studied a picture. Several boys wore caps; some wore beanies, perhapsthe latest fashion. Even in the photos of them as adults, they wore either hats or far-too-obvious hairpieces. “Show me.”
Jerald led them to an anteroom, little more than a nook near the front of the class that doubled as a kind of stage. Rashad closed his eyes, and Jerald’s voice swept his spirit along. There was no tunnel, no light, only the fury of his friend’s emotion guiding him to the proper time. “It happened one day in 1927. Ten…
…students lined up along the wall like they were ready to play red rover. School was a sacred space to (Rashad), even though he and his country self often kicked off his shoes under his desk. Tardiness, punishable by a paddling in front of the class, rarely occurred, not from fear of the sting but of the titters and stares of their friends. In his inattentive rush to be on time, (Rashad) plowed right into their principal, Mr.Joseph Lucas. He was a tall tree in an old-growth forest, majestic and proud, and his sheltering limbs kept his students safe. Mr.Lucas made no attempt to dodge him. (Rashad) shook himself as if he’d run full speed into a brick wall.
“You’re cutting it close, Mr.Blufton.” Mr.Lucas checked his pocket watch.
“I made it though, Mr.Lucas.” (Rashad) attempted a crooked smile, but the principal remained stoic and unimpressed.
“Our ancestors set goals for us, Mr.Blufton. We have the responsibility to do them proud.”
Mr.Lucas led the way to class, coming to collect the students to be taken to the Gibson County Hospital, the local sanitarium in Princeton. Marching them to the waiting bus, his face slowly collapsed like he chewed a bite of spoiled lemon meringue pie he was forced to swallow. His eyes glazed with a tincture of uncertainty. And regret.
(Rashad) and his classmates waited outside under the noonday sun for someone to meet them. His arm itched. His knees trembled. Unsure what exactly terrified him beyond the idea of being at ahospital, he hoped for a salve or a pill, praying that if it came down to a shot, he wouldn’t cry. Rubbing his arm—careful not to scratch the ravenous wound—he counted off the minutes in his head.
The metal doors clanged open, and a woman came out. The name “Monteleone” stitched in red thread on her uniform. Tufts of brown hair sprouted from her cap. Her face had a pinched quality to it, made worse by the absurdly bright red smear of her lipstick. A mole dotted the side of her chin; three black hairs budded from it. (Rashad) couldn’t stop staring. Her lips twitched with irritation.
