FREEDOM HOUSE

When we found the main hi-way we found the sun again; it came through the front windshield like it was angry at us for hiding. I saw an old truck that was pulled over to the side of the road some miles down. It was hissing out a cloud of steam, and Daddy slowed up, and then stopped to see if there was anyone nearby who needed help. I could smell the rusty steam cloud as we passed the truck. There was a man walking along the side of the road, about a mile ahead of us, and Maggie called out to Daddy and told him. Daddy said he must be the driver. A car passed by just then, honking its horn as two of the men inside waved their arms and yelled drunkenly through the open windows.

“Those are bad men,” Maggie said, as she watched the car.

“You can’t judge them that quickly,” Daddy said. “In fact, you shouldn’t judge them at all. It says in Luke: ‘Judge not, and ye shall not be judged.’ ”

The car pulled over to the side of the road, and Daddy looked at Maggie as if to prove a point.

“‘Condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned; forgive, and ye shall be forgiven,’” he added in that I-told-you-so voice he sometimes used with us.

Daddy started to drive, and as we approached the car, we could see three men on the side of the road beating a Negro man.

“Daddy, those men are hurting him!”

“Yes dear, they are,” Daddy said, as he pulled the car over to the side of the road. He reached over and took the willow switch from me without saying anything, except for us to stay in the car. I’d never seen Daddy angry before, but there was something about the way he approached those men that made me think he was a different man from the one I knew. He whipped the nearest of the three men across the back, and pulled him away by his hair. When the man threw a punch, Daddy leaned back casually avoiding the wild swing, slicing at the man again with the willow branch.

“The Lord says through Solomon: ‘Doing wickedness is like sport to a fool; And so is wisdom to a man of understanding’--that’d be me,” Daddy said with a grin.    

“‘What the wicked fears will come upon him, And the desire of the righteous will be granted. And when the whirlwind passes, the wicked is no more.’” Daddy quickly pulled the man toward him and brought his knee up into his groin, and knocked him to the ground with a single punch.

He looked at the other two men who turned to face him.

“‘The fear of the Lord prolongs life, But the years of the wicked will be shortened. The hope of the righteous is gladness, but the expectation of the wicked perishes.’”

One of the men ran at Daddy, and Maggie screamed.

“Don’t fret girl: ‘The way of the Lord is a stronghold to the upright.’” Daddy whipped the man in the face.

The Negro man on the ground was slow to get to his feet, and grinned through his bloody mouth. He spat on the ground, and I think maybe a tooth came out in that pulpy lump of blood

“Ya’ll gonna get yerself in a whole heap o’ trouble helpin’ a dumb-ass Nigger, mister,” he said, picking up what was left of his busted guitar.

“‘The way of the Lord is a stronghold to the upright, But ruin to the workers of iniquity.’ Which one are you?”

“Mister, right now I’m be beholdin’ t’ any man what wants me t’ be anythin’,” the man said. “I ain’t one for bein’ beaten on the side of the road just for bein’ a Nigger in the wrong place — which is any place I be’s.”

“I’ll fuckin’ kill ya for this mister!” one of the men said, and he ran at Daddy. Daddy was quick to side step him and then whipped the man using the willow switch again.

“‘Wise men store up knowledge, but with the mouth of the foolish, ruin is at hand,’ or something to that effect. That’s Proverbs, chapter ten, verse fourteen. I’ve always liked that one for some reason. I suggest you go home and study up on it tonight. Can you think why? ‘Hatred stirs up strife, But love covers all transgressions. On the lips of the discerning, wisdom is found, But a rod is for the back of him who lacks understanding.’ Perhaps you should come out to hear my sermon this weekend?” Daddy smiled as he whipped the man across the back again.

“Ain’t no one gonna come out an’ hear no fuckin’ Nigger lovin' Preacher when we’s got other preachers here that know a Nigger’s fuckin’ place. This ain’t no way for a goddamned Preacher to affix hisself to his fuckin’ flock.”

“I suggest you take your friends home before it’s too late for any of you to help yourselves.” Daddy picked up one of the mens’ hats and threw it at them as the three men struggled to their feet. The two men had to help the one man back to their car.

“I’ll see you in Hell, Preacher.”

“That’s not too likely,” Daddy said softly.

That was how we met Root.

Root said he was a musician. Momma said later that Root was an itinerant soul, and she never spoke to me about him again after that--which doesn’t mean that she never spoke to Root, she did--but it was as if she dismissed him from her mind and changed the circumstances of her ever having met him in the first place. It was easier for her to lock him up in that shadowy place in her mind, along with the other memories she tried to hide from, and go on with her life.

Root said he was a Blues man, on his way to Gaines where he had a cousin. The man was a preacher as well, he said, and Daddy looked at us with a warning glance that told us not to say anything.

“Where’s your guitar?” Daddy asked.

“In the ditch. Those bast--those gent’men--were kind ‘nough t’ break it ‘cross the back o’ my head. Mostly hit my shoulders though.”

“Your cousin’s a preacher?” Daddy asked after a moment, during which time Root sat quietly and stared out of the window. He was fingering the inside of his mouth.

“He is,” Root said, and pulled a rag out of his back pocket. He wiped the blood off his lips, and stopped up his bloodied nose. “Course, I ain’t been in Gaines for more’n eight years now--maybe ten,” he added. He was looking at the rag to see if he was still bleeding. “Who knows how long it’s been since I been back, or where I been? He might’ve moved on.”

“And where have you been all this time?” Daddy looked distracted, and I knew he was wondering how he was going to tell Root about the Negro preacher.

“Where I been? I been t’ Chicago mostly. Spent some time in New York, too. Y’ever been to New York?”

“A few times,” Daddy nodded.

“It’s a hoppin’ city. I was in the army then. It was durin’ the war. It was pretty rough, but it was okay if you minded yerself an’ stayed hid from the po’ White crackers--like them gent’men,” he smiled. “I was in Korea too, after I mean. I guess I sorta been all over the world these last ten years. I been t’ Paris. London. New York. Chicago. Detroit. Tokyo, too. It’s good t’ be home though. It always feels good t’ come home.”

“You grew up here?”

“An’ left soon’s I could.”

“Then why would you think you could come back?”

“A man always wants t’ come home, sooner ‘r later. If not t’ see what’s changed, t’ see how much he’s changed. You need somethin’ t’ gauge yourself against.”

“And has Gaines changed?”

Root grinned softly. “If that was the welcomin’ committee, I’d say not much.”

"So what’s wrong with the truck?"

“Been overheatin’ for the last hunnerd miles. Ain’t really my truck though, so I never cared for it proper like.”

“Did you steal it?” Maggie asked. Daddy looked at her seriously. We were both in the back seat, and Root was looking at us as he dabbed his bloodied lip with his dusty rag.

“No ma’am, I ain’t no thief,” Root said with a laugh. “Though the man I won it from, might say diff’ren’ on that. I won me that truck fair an’ square, in a card game. Nigger done put his full house up against my straight flush.”

“Is there anything in there you need, or does it matter?”

“Well, I got a battered up suitcase, an’ that’s about it. If it’d be no trouble goin’ back to get it, I’d be much obliged. Given a choice of m’ guitar or m’ case, I thought it’d be wiser t’ bring m’ guitar. At least I still got my har.”

“Your what?”

“My harmonica. Blues needs the sound of a good har.”

Root was a talkative man. He told us stories about Paris, and London. He said he liked Tokyo and all them little geisha women with their painted faces and tiny feet best though--you never saw a woman with feet that small, he said. Then he said it was amazing what the city looked like now, considering the war and all, and that it was strange how only ten years ago they were on the brink of disaster. Of course, he added, he hadn’t been back there in almost four years now, and what he’d seen was mostly pictures in magazines.

“I think it might be best if ya’ll just let me off at the end of town here,” Root said as we approached the south side of town.

“Why?”

“Ain’t right t’ be seein’ a Nigger ridin’ in the front seat wit’ a White man. Bound t’ upset a whole pile of folks.”

“I don’t care what they think.”

“Well mister, that’s somethin’ you’d better take into account if you’re plannin’ t’ livin’ here. Those men said you was a preacher?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re new to this part of the country?”

“We come from Illinois--“

“That’s enough please Maggie, you’ve been told not to interrupt when adults are talking.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Illinois, is it?” Root smiled as he turned in the seat and looked at me. His lip had stopped bleeding some time ago, and I could see it wouldn’t be long before it began scabbing up on the outside.

  “Well, I knows what it can be like comin’ from a place like that. People treat other people with a certain kinda dignity up there--not like they do in dem other places, like Paris, an’ Tok’yo--but enough so’s a man can feel like he’s a man of sorts. But a town like dis here,” he said with a slow shake of his head. “A Nigger’s gotta know his place. An’ mister, that ain’t in the front seat wit’ you. It might not matter t’ you what they be sayin’ or doin’, but I gotta say, it matters a bunch t’ me."

“What do you think they’ll do to me?"

“Life can be pertty hard in a town like dis. If ya’ll doan get no one comin’ in for yo’ sermons, it ain’t gonna sit too well with your Church Elders, is it? Man might find hisself bein’ recalled, an’ sent t’ someplace like Montana, or the Dakotas. That ain’t no place ya wanna be.”

“But you don’t have any place to go.”

“Why’s that?”

“The Church burnt down five years ago. The preacher left town. It was a huge scandal. They haven’t had a preacher since, and no Church.”

“I thought I mighta kinda heard somethin’ like that. Din’t know whether t’ believe it or not seein’ what Marvin was like when we were boys. Could make things a might bit tight ‘round here for some, all ‘n all, an’ might even ‘splain what happened out on the road. But as fer not havin’ a place t’ go? Well, a Nigger ain’t ever alone in a town like dis. People reach out an’ help each other in times of need. That’s why they doan need a proper built Church in order for ‘em t’ believe in somethin’. They’ve got all the Church they need--sittin’ right here--inside theirselves.” He tapped his chest. “It’s always been there. That Church weren’t more’n twenty somethin’ years old anyhow. They’ll build theirselves another, doan you fret none ‘bout that mister. I might even help,” he said with a smile. “That might be what my comin’ back here’s all about.”

“That would be a miracle of sorts, considering the times. You just keep in mind that if you need a place to rest your head, the Church yard has more than enough room.”

“I don’t know if I’d go as far as that, but I might drop by, seein’ where I been sleepin’ these last years.”