Chapter 24 The Note was Written in a Scrawl

Chapter 24) Joel goes to Blacktown/ The Revenge Card
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Mons woke up late the next day, surprised she’d been asleep.
Top Hat and some of the boys stopped by the night before asking around. She shooed them off the porch, saying, thet got nothin for me.
Top Hat won the fight, but she had enough problems without a bunch of freeloaders.
It was hard to make life without her family.
Her little granddaughter made the house feel big even though it was just two rooms. But now there was no clatter in the kitchen, no slamming door, no walking around, no complaining about the heat and flies. It was soundless and empty.

There was a note on the kitchen table she hadn’t seen before. It was folded in half and she didn’t recognize the writing.
Muttering to herself, dis not from her. She don't write like that.
But somehow it had to be from Abagail.

Mons knew how to read. She was beat one time by a white man because he found her reading a book.
She taught her daughter and her granddaughter how to read and told them that white people didn’t want to see a smart Negro. They needed to hide it.
A very deep part of Moms was happy that her granddaughter escaped to Memphis. She gonna have money and be somebody, except that little face was gone. Her smile, the tears the bellowing and burping perfected to annoy her grandmother.

The note wasn't very long. It said I'm sorry and I'll come soon. I miss you. I love you.
Pausing to wipe the table. Yeah. They won’t come back for me ... they happy now.

There was one more line at the bottom that said, don't be afraid, but when she read it again it said something else. It was hard to make sense of it. Whenever she held the note, a terrible rage filled her. Except she was alone with nobody to soothe the night. Nobody to watch over. Yet she wasn't afraid. She had no fear. She wanted revenge on the people who caused this.
That's when Walter knocked on the door.

Walter was a tall, polite man, but there was a hard fight that came out of his eyes. He lived in a Negro community up next to Abbeyville and came down because he wanted to be with his brother.
His visit caused Mons to think about the note again, but she kept getting interrupted by her visitor.
I came to find Jesse.
Oh dey all up in the woods hiding.
Well yes ma'am I hear the Klan is comin, but I really need to find my brother.
I don't know where they are. Theys lot of problems coming around.
Yes ma'am, but maybe you know where Top Hat is. We hear they killed him.
Oh no, Mons said laughing, he was here last night. That's done.
Yes ma'am.

Mons said, I tell you now, you walk up that hill, maybe you can see where they went.
Yes ma'am I'll do that. Sarah told me that Blacktown has a mayor.
A Mayor?
Yes ma'am. They say he a white boy.
Mons hooted a squeal until her lungs turned out coughing. She said, that's River Boy.
River Boy?
Yeah, he live with his grandpa down the road there.
How long he be Mayor?
Oh quite a while now, still laughing.
Well Sarah say he went to see Mr Churchail.
Mr Churchail? Mons laughed again. That damn boy.
Yes ma'am. Sarah talk with her sister who work the big house. Her sister say he walk in the front door and went straight into Mr Churchail's office.
Really? Did they throw him out?
No. Sarah said Mr Churchail was happy after he gone.
Mons laughed again, well I'll be dang like a june bug, that boy always doing something, in her mind thinking that ol' Top Hat must have gotten River Boy into it.

Another knock at the door, Mons yelled, well whoever ya are come on in. A young Negro girl came in.
Oh hello. This is June. This here Walter, he's looking for Jesse.
He's with us. Uh, we need to borrow the stew pot.
Hell no, Mons said, if I give it to y'all, I never get it back.

Mons interrupted herself and said, y'all sitting up there in the woods like a bunch of foos that can't even cook dinner. Look at chya. Them squito bites on yo arms. Probably got em on yer ass too.
Walter laughed.
Mons said, we done takin it. You get up there and tell them folks to get back here. Dammit, we gonna fight. We done runnin. My daughter run off, and look what we got. Y'all don't even have a stew pot. Whacha gonna to do after the Klan burn everything and kill all ya? Nothin. And you worry about another beating and one more hanging? Hell, maybe we kill some of them this time.

Walter said, yeah. It's time for a fight.
The girl nodded.
That was it. Walter and the girl took off to the woods to bring everybody back to town.

Yes sir, there was some kind of bad in the air going around, and Mons just brought it boil.
Short while later, those hard-working folks stormed back to town howling and cheering, gathering up tools and heavy rakes, ready to make their monument against tyranny, knowing full well they were going to get killed, stabbed, drug around, beat, and some hung, with the whole place burned out to the ground. But it was going to happen either way, so why not?

There’s probably been stupider times that a man could go to Blacktown, but this was about the worst, because that's when Joel showed up.

To think that a white man who understood nothing would seek an answer to a question he knew nothing about from people he didn’t like and professed to own was just white folks being white folks. Careless as they wanted. Stepping on whoever and whenever, terrorizing lives apart with a grin, never knowing how it might feel to walk down that path themselves.
Oh sure, white folks feared the Negroes yet managed to walk safe from the menace enough that they swelled with pride at the Klan's arrival. But then ... they were the Klan.

Joel got up early that morning, waiting for Dr Mason to arrive.
Dr Mason left Latchy's house before the houseladies arrived and stopped at the Winston's a few minutes before heading to his office.
He discovered Joddie in pain, but no fever or infection. She was a strong girl, her color was still good, and some of the smaller wounds appeared to be healing.

After the doctor left, Joel talked to Joddie again. She still refused to talk.
Maggie heard her father talking to Joddie, and snuck downstairs to avoid him. Ruth had eggs and bacon ready for the family, so Maggie ate fast then lept out the back door, and headed downtown to get away.

Joel was mad and frustrated. That's why he drove the dirt road down to Blacktown that morning. But he didn't understand anger.
The street at Blacktown was empty except for a large dark-skinned Negro standing in the way holding an axe handle that dangled to his foot.
Joel got out in the middle of a dusty street between the cluster of shotgun houses with broken porches and leaking roofs.
Men and boys started coming out the doors and from around back carrying boards and shovels. Whatever they could hold in their hand.
Joel looked around and said, I'm looking for River Boy.
A big man on the porch said, hey not here and you not neither.

Joel said, uh, well, ah ... a Negro brought my daughter home yesterday. He was wearing a gold ring. And driving an Oldsmobile.
I ... I ... I, well ... I wanted to thank the man that's all ... that's all. I thought maybe River Boy could help.
Joel hardly got the words out before starting to cry, looking down muttering, I'm sorry.
He didn't even know what he was sorry about or why he was there at all. He was mad a minute ago, but now his tiny stick legs wouldn't hold his weight and he was leaning on the car door.

It was ridiculous this white man standing on someone else's soil pleading for his own self, thinking of no one but himself.
His tears couldn't remove a life of wrong on either side of an argument, as if there is a negotiation over what is right. Nobody cared that he stopped a beating at his store one time ... the wrong that caused the beating was on him.

The big man from the porch came down the steps and yelled out, you tell the Klan we gonna fight this time. The people began to clatter the tools in a drum as they started moving toward the car.
Joel said, the Klan? What? Why would they come? They're not coming. I've haven't heard anyth .... then stopped himself.
Yeah, he was in the Klan. They knew it.
That sucked him deeper into the whirl of angry people gathering up, not trusting this white man or knowing if he was lying about the Klan, or if it was true.

Different sparks let different fires burn all across the south.
It was greed from men like the Upstate Boys and Crackling Green that kept re-lighting this seething hatred.
And Spade's murderous action accelerated the explosion that was about to happen.
Negroes fought back for centuries and were beat down every time. But what do you do? How do you live inside a world that hates you at the sight of your skin?

Joel stood there, unaware of the reasons. He only wanted to know why his daughter, and only his daughter could be violated and pregnant by a Negro.

Mons pushed up front between the people and out in front of Joel.
She carried the revenge card in her hand that wielded the power to settle Joel's problem at the end the hay fork .... but she chose to shake the note in his face, yelling out, I lost my daughter and grandbaby cause of yo kind mister. My son run away fo you white people. I got no family cause of you. You think you a man? Yo evil. And yo come here askin help? I hate your kind same as yo hate mine and nothing ever be different.

The big Negro pulled Mons back but she whipped around on him. Tis my show. I got pain all the way through. You not touch me why I talkin to da cracker here crying like a baby. I lost my baby, and I don't care ifa Klan kill me all day, it won't bring em back. nothin can stop my hate.

For some reason Joel wanted to touch Mons, poor dear broken-hearted Mons. He'd never touched a Negro. It never occurred to him that Negros were people, or they felt pain.

Top Hat showed up from around back. He measured what he knew, things had changed ... people knew he was part of the murders that attracted the Klan.
Top Hat had a choice. Force his leadership or give it to a younger more violent man.
Spade would've been that man if he managed to kill Top Hat.
The big Negro from the porch was standing tall. Top Hat couldn't match him but it was Top Hat's moment, not that he trusted what Joel said, but why would this lone white man, a family man, a man full of hate and fear of Negros, come to Blacktown if he wasn't telling the truth? Why would he be standing there stupid?

Top Hat bumped up real loud and said, that man tell the truth.
Few turned around. They heard him, but his words were short. People were angry and afraid with wicked revenge.
Until Mons spoke.
The note turned soft in her hand. She took a step away, and said, let him go. We see what he know.
She turned back to face Joel and said, they always be a Negro da'll help a white man fo money.
An yo always gonna kill us for money. An itz not cause this man this way or that man that way.
It's just how things are.
You leave and done come back, but you remember who we are, ya hear? You remember us. We people. We jus people.
Joel looked up and nodded. He crawled back in the car and the crowd let him drive away.
Mons said real low, now we see if the Mayor save us this time.
The big Negro said, Mayor? What you talking bout crazy lady?
Na, you a fool, go ask Top Hat.

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