Burning Crosses - Part 12 - Someone's crying

The beating and baptism was bad enough, but the rules Jack imposed upon me were enough to make my head spin. Serve penance?! Wash his stinking feet every morning?! Don't talk to black people? What kind of circus was this freak running anyway? I was more than tempted to go upstairs, pull on my motorhuckle boots, then come back down here to shove him square in the mouth with my foot.

After dinner, during the nighttime prayer services, Jack told me how God would love me because of how much he adored sinners. Yeah, God loved sinners like me. He could forgive me for being who and what I was. He might hold me in church for a little longer than he would a normal person, but Jack was someone who God would want nailed down to the church for life.

Tomorrow, supposedly, I would be able to get away from Jack. He mentioned something or another about his buddies stopping by - Zebb and Algie McCabe with Zebb's fiance, Cora Lee Stennet. Algie was a few years older than me, and had offered to take me around Heaven for the day.

Ben snorted. "Be careful, Rune, so he doesn't preach his Klan ideals onto you," he warned.

Jack pointed a thick forefinger in Ben's face. "Shut up, Ben. Had it not been fer th'Klan, ya would've been out on the streets."

"How?" He glared at his uncle. "You're talking out of your butt."

"Ya've seen Birth of a Nation, Benny. That's a true story, too. Had it not been fer th'great Ku Klux Klan, ya would've been at th'mercy of those people."

My cousin merely rolled his eyes.

After services and hymns, Ben followed me to my bedroom, chattering on about this or that concerning the theater and how good he thought I was at the piano. I had to shake my head with a smile, thinking, Don't get your hopes up, Benny. I have a feeling that, somehow, Jack and Cookie are going to make it so I never join that theater.

My cousin lingered in the doorway, keeping me company while I proceeded to unpack my suitcases. I left some of my most precious belongings inside the gigantic carpetbag, save for some of my toiletries. I had a stack of pictures depicting some of my best friends, good times with Dad and Mom, and even some really old pictures of them when they were first courting and some of my step-grandparents. I kept them bound together with a ribbon I'd stolen from Phoebe's sewing basket. So many little things inside the carpetbag were precious; I wouldn't even allow Ben to take a peek inside. I did set one framed picture of my stepfather and mother on one of my end tables.

I shook out a shirt and refolded it before sticking it inside a drawer. "You looked awfully disgusted when Jack mentioned his friends. Why's that?" I questioned.

Ben laughed uneasily. "Algie is…well, Algie's something else."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I personally don't get along with him, but you might. He's an idiot."

I shrugged and rifled through my suitcase for a sleeveless undershirt. I'd been so busy packing regular clothes that I hadn't even thought to bring along a pair of pajamas. It was so darn hot anyway in this room that I'd be better off wearing just my underwear and an undershirt. "If he's anything like Jack or Cookie, I probably won't like him either."

Ben faced me squarely, his face stern. He folded his arms together over his chest. "All right, Rune. What did Jack do to you earlier?" he demanded. He had an eyebrow raised and his mouth was wry.

I paused, my hands beginning to tremble. I didn't know what to tell him – that I was terrified of water and Jack forced me into a deep bathtub with scalding water? What would he do if he found out about my intense fear of water anyway? Laugh at me, no doubt, just like the other boys in my grade did when I wouldn't go swimming in the pool. But Ben was a man, no longer a stupid, awkward school-goer. Why would someone twenty-one years of age act immature any longer?

Fearing his mocking, I left out the fact that I was terrified of water, so I merely just told him that I was scared to be burned from the hot, boiling water. Ben understood and said, "Sometimes, he just makes me so sick, I could puke."

"You really don't like him, do you?" I didn't look at him as I picked at a hangnail on my thumb.

"It's not that I don't like him. He's fine most of the time, but he goes through these periods where he just acts like a complete donkey. I've had to deal with worse than that, so he doesn't bother me at all." My cousin spoke so nonchalantly I had to wonder just what sort of things he's had to deal with in the past. Perhaps he had a worse life than I ever could imagine – for all I knew, he was physically abused by Jack.

When I stared at my cousin I saw a sort of anger burning in his brown eyes like fire. He kept his face turned away from me. He had a secret…a dreadful secret, I could tell, that he would most likely take to the grave with him when he died. He crossed his arms firmly together and leaned against the desk.

"Does he say hurtful things to you?" I asked, almost afraid to hit his secret dead on the mark.

"He just thinks I'm promiscuous all because I've been with a few women. He hasn't said anything real hurtful to me except, maybe, that I'm a paramour. But other than that, he usually isn't mean to me because I do what's expected of me on the farm and make sure everything's in the order he likes," Ben told me. He frowned. "Why…did he say mean things to you in the bathroom?"

"Not really."

Ben dug his hand into the back pocket of his pants. From it, he pulled out a jackknife. "See this?" He flipped it open. I drew closer to my cousin, staring with admiration at the shining, pure blade, the intricate carvings on the handle. I had a switchblade inside my carpetbag, but I'd never really used it save for cutting open boxes or something.

"I use it for protection," Ben said when I didn't say anything. "People know that if they mess with me and get violent, I'm not going to hesitate to use this thing." His expression turned dark, menacing. My blood pounded loud and hard in my ears. A crimson film covered my eyes, making everything as red as blood. "That looks extremely sharp," was my pitiful comment.

That made my cousin grin. "Keeps people from bothering me." He waggled his eyebrows. I watched him fold the blade back into the handle and shove it into his pocket. "You ought to think of getting yourself one…just in case."

"I've got a switchblade, but I highly doubt I'll ever need to pull it on someone."

"You never know. There are people in this town that I try to keep as far from as possible, for I'm not sure if they're crazy or not," he said with a shrug. "In this town, everyone is scared of the other race, be they white or black. You can't just be a nice person who accepts people of different races. If you do, it's likely that you have people hate your guts all because of your…Christian Charity," he explained. He dropped his hand upon the desk and looked hard at me. "This town is just a bunch of conformists. Everyone is afraid to speak out against the Klan in fear they might be the next victims of hatred. We're all just rubber-bands in this town. If we stretch too far, we usually snap back in place just in time. But those who stretch too far are always broken."

"So nobody's an individual?" "I guess you could say that. People are afraid, especially since people are questioning the Jim Crowe laws – namely the blacks – and are worried about a Ku Klux Klan power gain. They were very, very powerful here in Alabama back in 1927. Took people from their homes, beat them, killed them, threatened them…all in the dead of the night," he whispered. "And knowing the ignorance and hate in this town, the Klan reviving is highly likely." My fingers and toes turned numb. "That's terrible. Is there any way to prevent that?" He shook his head. "Not that I know of."

I fingered the tag on my shirt, worried that the Klan might go after me if they ever gained power, all because I was a quarter black. But I vowed I would never, ever admit it to anybody. It wasn't anybody's business, after all. I tried to smile, for my cousin's sake. "Well, I think I'm going to be getting ready for bed."

"Yeah." Ben held up his watch. "Jack wants you up around six anyway, just so you can serve that dumb penance." He twisted around slowly, that shy smile never leaving his face. "Well, goodnight." He ambled to the door. Pausing, he laid one hand on the frame. "Oh, and Rune, before I forget to tell you…tomorrow, when you wash everyone's feet, remember to wear a clothespin over your nose when you wash Jack's feet."

"Why's that?" I giggled.

"Let's just say he has a penchant for not changing his socks too often, mainly because he hates making loads of wash for Kelly Sue." He squinted his eyes.

"That's disgusting. I thought he wanted everything to be so clean."

Ben gritted his teeth. "I guess not."

I laughed again. "All right. Good night again, Ben. See you tomorrow."

He left and shut the door softly behind him, leaving me alone in this huge, all-white room. I noticed there were hardly any pictures on the wall save for a few more frightening depictions of the underworld – almost the same replicas of the paintings downstairs in the living room. I shuddered, making a mental note to myself to take those down and stuff them in the spare bedroom in the morning.

I changed into my sleeveless shirt and yanked off my pants, throwing all my soiled clothes in a wicker hamper inside the closet. I did not look forward to tomorrow morning, when I'd have to serve my first day of penance. The ouija board was resting upon the desk – if Jack saw that, surely he'd go into one of his stupid rants. I bit my lip and shoved it in the small space separating the bookshelf and the desk.

I gathered up my face wash, toothbrush, and headed out the door to wash up for bed. The upstairs bathroom, like the one downstairs, was completely done up in white as well, though there wasn't a showerhead installed up here quite yet. I trembled as I washed up, remembering that awful list of rules. Ten to one I'd likely slip on one of those rules and do what Jack had warned me not to do. How he would punish me would be enough to keep me awake all night.

I made sure everything was put away neatly before I stepped out of the bathroom and shut off the light. In the master bedroom, I heard Mammy and Jack squabbling over something stupid. But along with that, I could hear crying.

Someone crying in deep, gasping sobs. Terrible, wrenching cries that jerked abruptly. I stopped dead in my footsteps. Who in the hell was crying, and why? I tiptoed down the hall, in the direction of the cries. They grew louder as I approached Ben's bedroom – in fact, they sounded as if they were my cousin! Imagine that, I thought to myself, pausing outside his door, a twenty-one year old college student crying!

I laid my hand on the doorknob. Maybe I should get Jack or Mammy, someone who might actually be able to comfort my sobbing cousin. I twisted the knob gently and pushed open the door.

Immediately, I gasped.

Ben was curled up tight in bed, the moonlight from the skylight shining gently on his soft face. His was already asleep. His form lifted and fell with a soft breath underneath the thin sheet. I frowned and pulled the door shut.

Who had been crying?

And for what reason?

I scratched my scalp, confusion a swirling mass inside my belly. I wanted to go down the hall and talk to Jack or Mammy about this, but invisible hands ferried me toward my bedroom, making my feet move in a different direction. A wind whipped down the dim, white corridor, rushing from the open windows at the end of the hall. I shivered and rubbed my arms on the way to my room. I slammed the door.

Slammed it on my former life, shutting me inside my reluctant new one.

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