Hours later, we crossed the state line, and she whispered into the shadows of the day, “I told you that Jed would never allow us to go see Cab Calloway. What I didn’t tell you, chile, was that my girlfriend, Sally Beth, and I snuck into one of his shows back in the thirties.”
“Mrs. Claxton! Why yourascal, you,” I teased, grateful to see she’d recovered.
“Yes, sir, we jived and jitterbugged all night long to Cab’s songs. We were hep cats stepping live. Man, what a hummer he is.” Her spirits had lifted, and she sang some of Cab’s songs, scatting out his lively verses.
“Copper colored gal of mine
I love you ’cause you’re so divine
Say you’ll always be my clinging vine
Copper, copper, copper, copper colored gal of mine!
Just skeep-beep de bop-bop beep bop bo-dope
Skeetle-at-de-op-day.”
Weren’t long before the air cooled and her songs drifted into ol’ church hymnals and grew woeful. She spotted a telephone booth on the side of the road near a small, boarded-up grocery store and pulled up beside it.
Digging for coins, she climbed out. “I need to make some calls. Check on my staff and make sure Jed got hold of them.”
Mrs. Claxton leaned into the window. “The dark is coming. It’s safe to sit up front now.” I got out and slipped inside the passenger seat.
Lifting my hands, I winced as the blue stain crawled across them, then draped a palm over my belly, kneading.
No sign of life.
A few minutes later she came back to the automobile. “Get me that pouch of Yankee Girl ’bacco in the glove. I could use a chaw.”
I found it buried beneath the books and papers, wrapped in tissue. She opened the lid and took a healthy pinch and stuffed it inside her jaw. “Underneath your seat is a small spit cup. Can you reach it, chile?”
I fumbled around and pulled out a tin cup.
She sighed deeply and settled comfortably in her seat. “My mother and Auntie Rhea always kept the chaw around to settle the female nerves.” After a moment, she steered the automobile onto another state road. “Won’t be too much longer till we get there.”
She pointed to the dash at the odd hat resting there. “I’m sorry for my rude outburst back there. I forget you’ve never traveled much past our Kentucky mountains. Now, that cap is what every Negro motorist carries for survival. It’s a chauffeur’s hat. And if a Negro man is traveling, he best have one.Andin full view.”
I listened closely, heartbroken that the elderly couple had to dress in silly costumes out of fear for their lives.
She wagged her head. “Now, if you get stopped by the law ina sundown town, you’ll find yourself in a tricky situation. So, Jed would tell the sheriff that he’s driving his white boss’s automobile. If you’re a Negro who happens to have your wife and child riding along, you can inform the lawman you’re bringing your boss’s maid to work, and that’s her child. Now, in the trunk, I keep a small suitcase with a full maid’s uniform.Myarmor. With everything happening so fast back at the hospital, I let my guard down and didn’t put it on.”
Horrified, I turned to the passing farmlands, haunted with a different anger—a helpless one that knocks late at night, leaving one to bury their anguish into a pillow.
Soon, the sun bedded, pulling on its blanket of darkness. From far away, lightning flashed across the skies as outside breezes curled over my drowsy lids, tossing my stringy hair. I rested my head against the seat, watching the headlights bounce over fog-soaked fields of sweet hay, the light chewing across the summer night.
Weren’t long before I drifted into the tires’ hum, and Mrs. Claxton’s warbled singsongs lulled me to sleep.
I awoke when the automobile bounced across a deep rut in the road. As I straightened, I winced and kneaded my temples where another painful headache gripped and refused to let go.
Again, I poked at my belly, this time a little firmer. Twice. And once more.
The tiny butterfly child did not awaken.
In the darkness, I leaned over the floorboard and fought back the tears as a sharp pain stabbed deep into my gut.
“You awake, Cussy?”
Struggling to breathe, I pulled myself up as the effects from Saturday’s automobile accident set more firmly in, my backside tender and pained. Despite the July night, my teeth chattered. “Wh-what’s the name of that t-town a-gain?” I lifted the tail of my blouse and wiped the cold damp from my face.
