Chapter Twelve
When I woke up on Thursday morning, it was the twentyªsecond of June and Coralee was banging on the front
door, asking to be let in. I swung my feet over the edge of the pullout bed and crossed the rug to the front door. I opened the steel door and saw Coralee through the screen. We had never met before, but my grandmother had told her plenty about me, so she knew me right away. She stood about five feet, one inch tall, and she looked to me to be in the neighborhood of fifty years old, though I admit I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn she was more than sixty.
I let her in and we exchanged greetings. She put her bag on the TV set and looked around. She had very dark skin and her hair was hidden under a bandanna. She wore big, round glasses that made her eyes look larger, and she moved about the room like a hummingbird, cocking her head sideways like an owl and regarding the unmade sofa bed in the middle of the room with disdain.
My grandmother was already up and busy in the kitchen. She greeted Coralee with a teasing remark: “’Bout time you got here, you old woman.” I laughed nervously, but Coralee wasn’t fazed.
“Don’t know how I’ll get any work done with the two of you standing around here in my way. I have to wash the windows today, you know.”
I went into the bathroom to shower and to get out of the way. When I came out, dressed for another hot day, Coralee had made the bed and put the couch together. She was dusting with a quick, determined swipe. I sat on the arm of the living room sofa and watched her. “Coralee,” I asked, “can I ask you a question?”
“Sho’,” she replied, not missing a beat from her work.
“What’s Juneteenth?”
“Juneteenth? It’s a holiday for us folks. You see the parade?”
“No, but I heard about it.”
“Um hum,” she said, and kept to her work.
“Coralee,” I said, “what happened on Juneteenth? Not this year, but a long time ago?”
“That’s when we was set free,” she told me. She stopped dusting and looked at me curiously. “Why do you want to know?”
“’Cause I’ve heard different stories,” I said. From her bedroom, my grandmother added: “Tell him your story, Coralee. Stop wastin’ time.”
“Alright, Miss Mary.” She looked out of the front window at the street. “My great-granddaddy tol’ me about it when I was jes’ a little girl.” She chuckled. “He was a slave, you know, in Powell. He said that during the Civil War, times were bad for the niggers, ‘specially in the south. Everyone blamed them for everything that was going on.
“Well, the war was just ending, as I recall, and the men from up north were starting to show up, and they looked at the niggers kind of funny. So finally, my great-granddaddy’s master looked him up and down and said the words he never thought he’d hear.”
“What did he say?” I asked.
“I’ll never forget my great-granddaddy’s face screwing up like that white man, looking about ready to spit. ‘You dumb black bastard, they set you free.’ That’s what they told him. And right around that time, the other slaves all around Texas were getting the same news. It was about the middle of June, and somehow over the years they settled on June 19th as the date to remember it.”
“And you have a parade every year?” I asked.
“Long as I can remember,” she told me, and resumed her cleaning. I heard my grandmother’s laugh from the next room become another cough.
I plopped down onto the sofa cushion from my perch on the arm and thought about what she had told me. Another point of view to add to the two I had already heard! I got up and followed Coralee into the kitchen.
“Coralee,” I began.
“Mm hm?” she replied, again not looking up from her work.
“Do you know the Mackenzie family?”
“You mean the girl who got shot at the parade? Sho’ do. Her mother goes to meetin’ every Sunday and I see her there. Talk to her sometimes, too. Shame what happened to the girl.” She shook her head and wiped down the kitchen sink.
“Did you know the girl?” I asked.
“Mm,” she said, with a shake of her head to indicate no.
“How about her brother?”
She stopped wiping and turned to face me. “Why you want to know so much about those people?” she asked, cocking her head like an owl.
“I’m just interested, that’s all. Not a lot happens around here that I can see. Not like that, at least.”
“There’s more going on than you think,” she laughed. “Where there’s people together, there’s things goin’ on, whether you know about it or not. That’s the truth.” She agreed with her own statement, and the brief moment of tension was gone. She resumed her cleaning.
“What about the boy?” I pressed.
“My boy Horace run around with him from time to time,” she said. “Ask him. You wastin’ your time asking me.”
“Where is he?” I asked her.
“Home, most of the time, I reckon,” she replied.
“Were you at the parade?” I asked her.
“Me?” She cackled. “I don’t got time for that sort of thing. You see me working?” And she was.
I left Coralee alone for the rest of the morning. I knew that Sally Ann was working, too, and I wasn’t ready to see her just yet, so I decided to seek out Horace, Coralee’s son.
Horace Monroe (I finally learned Coralee’s last name that day, though it was Dickson, not Monroe) lived with Coralee in Powell, about five miles outside of Ransom. I got directions from my grandmother, who was definitely not interested in going with me, and hopped into my Chevy for the ride. It was about eleven in the morning, another sunny day in Texas, with the temperature just passing 90 degrees on its steady climb.
I drove out of the old folks’ development and made a left on North 14th, following it out to the interstate. I took the interstate north toward Dallas for a mile or so and then got off on the old highway that ran parallel to it. That led me to a country road, which I followed past fields and farmhouses set way back from the road.
After a couple of miles, ramshackle houses began to dot the side of the road, many only a few feet off the pavement. An old gas station was my landmark; three houses beyond it I turned down a dirt driveway and parked behind an ancient pickup that was up on blocks.
I realized that I had not seen any white people for a while, and a black man, who I estimated was in his late thirties, sat on the porch in an aluminum chair.
The paint on the house was peeling, as was the paint on the chair. He was watching me as I got out of the Chevy and approached him across the worthless patch of dirt in front of the porch. I stood on the ground in front of the porch railing and looked back at him.
“Are you Horace Monroe?” I asked him.
“Might be. Who wants to know?”
I smiled, trying to break the tension. “My name’s Carey Lovett. I think you know my grandmother? Mary Lovett?”
A smile crossed his face. “You Miss Mary’s boy?” he said, getting up from his chair. “Come on up here!” He held out his hand and I bounded up the steps to take it.
“Come on up here out of the sun. How you doin’?”
I told him I was fine. “Your mom told me to come by and see you.”
“I know,” he said. “She called me a while ago. I thought it was you, but I was just making sure.”
It was my turn to laugh. I sat down in the other aluminum chair, and he took his seat. “She told me you knew Raymond Mackenzie.”
“You mean Tootsie?” I looked at him but didn’t get his meaning. “That’s what we call him. You know, kind of a nickname. I don’t rightly know how it started, but he sure is a real Tootsie Roll!” He laughed. “Brown and soft.” He coughed and laughed some more. “Yeah, I know him.”
“Have you seen him recently?” I asked.
“No, can’t say as I have. He wasn’t around last Saturday night, best I can recall--we were all down to the roadhouse, you know.”
“And you didn’t see him?”
“That’s not so unusual, though. People come and go as they please, and him not being there one time don’t amount to much.”
He stopped talking for a moment and seemed to collect his thoughts.
“Now that you mention it, there was something strange about Tootsie.”
“What was that?” I prodded.
“He was talking a couple of weeks ago about making a killing. I remember now, it was at the roadhouse two, maybe three Saturday nights back. “We was all drinking and havin’ a fine time, and he got to tellin’ stories. Guess some might say braggin’. There was some women around, you know how it is. Tootsie was saying he had somethin’ on--”
He stopped talking and smiled at me.
“On what?” I asked.
“I was about to say, but I’m not sure if I should.”
“Why?” I asked him.
“Well . . . what I was about to say was that he had something on Whitey, or so he said.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or not, so I spoke instead.
“What do you think he meant?” I asked.
“Don’t know for sure, but he was sure braggin’ about it. He wouldn’t say just what he had goin’ down, but I could tell he thought he had something big and a lot of money would be comin’ his way soon.” He nodded his head to reaffirm the truth of what he had said.
“I wonder what he meant?” I said out loud, half to myself.
“Can’t say,” Horace replied, looking out across the road. “But I haven’t seen him since. Haven’t heard
nothin’, either. Did you try askin’ ‘round his street?”
“No, not yet. You think that would be a good idea?” I asked him.
“Good as any. Hey, why you so interested, anyway?” he asked me.
I turned in my chair to face him. “Because I don’t think I like the way this town is ignoring his sister’s death, that’s why.”
“Who cares when a nigger gets shot?” he asked me, half in jest.
“I do, and I know you do, too. And I think it’s kind of funny that Raymond would disappear right before his little sister got killed.”
“You think they have something to do with each other?” he asked me.
“I’m beginning to wonder, and I mean to find out,” I replied.
“Well, good luck to you, my friend,” he told me, getting up from my chair. “You come on back out here if
there’s anything else I can do.” We shook hands, and I walked down the steps, over to the Chevy, and drove back
through the empty farm roads toward the interstate.
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