FREEDOM HOUSE

Daddy was in his little study when I came running into the house, all out of breath and calling for him. He came out of the room slowly, his notebook in his hand, and a pen in the other that he was chewing the end of. He looked calm, like he was in no hurry, and stared at me with a far away, vacant look, waiting for me to collect myself before questioning me. His suspenders were hanging loose, and his shirt was unbuttoned halfway down the front so I could see the light blond hairs on his chest peaking out under his Tee-shirt. He wasn’t the least bit embarrassed about how he looked, and I wondered why he wasn’t sitting with Momma and the women.

“I think that boy’s broke his arm.”

“He what?” Momma asked, the first signs of panic creeping up on her. “What boy? Leila’s boy?”

“Who?”

“Is it my Roy?” a woman asked, and I assumed this was Leila. She walked to the window, trying to see into the back yard, and turned around to look at me. She had the same eyes Roy had, and I was amazed at how much alike they really looked. I think it was the first time I noticed how a child could resemble a parent so closely.

“Is it my Roy?” I could hear the concern in her voice as she started for the front door.

I started to shake my head. “I don’t believe so ma’am. Louise said his name was Lloyd.”

“That Edgerton boy?” another of the women asked.

“I’m guessin’ that’s him.”

“You don’t know him?” Momma asked.

“He was here when we came home,” Daddy said in my defense as he pulled his suspenders up slowly.

“They live on the other side of that field there,” the second woman said with a tone of contempt in her voice. I suddenly knew how Lloyd was able to watch us as we moved our stuff into the house.

I’d never heard an adult talk about any child like that before--but something told me it had nothing to do with Lloyd, as much as it had to do with his parents. I could almost understand how she might have felt that way about him though, as the thought of him spying on us from the bushes behind the house played in my mind. I wondered how many times he crawled through the bushes over the last two weeks, and tried to picture where my window was compared to the back of the house. I told myself I’d better start drawing my blinds shut. But there was something about him spying on me without a shirt on that made me feel all grown up--I mean, if he was willing to look at me at all. I told myself I’d better keep a closer watch out for him.

“Tell me what happened,” and I snapped out of my pubescent fantasy with a start as I followed Daddy out of the door.

“He fell. He tripped on a root an’ fell on it strangely. I heard it snap when he fell, too,” I added for the sake of the woman.

“Oh please,” Momma said.

“But I did.”

“Well I don’t want to hear that,” she said.

Daddy was on one knee beside Lloyd, talking to him and trying to figure out where it was broken. He was real nice to him, talking real gentle like, as he ran a hand down the length of his arm. I could see Daddy make a bit of a face when Lloyd cried out when he touched the break. He looked up at Lloyd.

“It’s a bad break. It’s going to hurt like this until it gets put back into place.”

“What’s that mean?”

“You see this lump here?”

Lloyd nodded.

“That’s the bone. It’s kind of twisted around. It’s like this,” and Daddy put his two fists together, facing each other, then turned his right hand a quarter turn. “The one is pressed up against the other, but it’s out of line. It has to be put back into place. I can do it for you right now, or you can wait until I bring you to the hospital, and they’ll do it for you there. Either way, it’s going to have to be put back into place.”

“Will it hurt?”

“Does it hurt now?”

“Like the dickens.”

“It’ll hurt for a second, but once it’s back in place, it’ll just be a dull throb. It’s better to do it now than to wait for the doctor to do it.”

“Do I have to go to the hospital?”

“You need to have a cast. Do you want me to call your parents? Do you have a phone?”

Lloyd shook his head. He looked afraid. I didn’t know if it was the pain he felt, or the pain he thought he’d feel once Daddy set his arm back into place--I didn’t know it was something completely different.

“I’ll get the car ready, and take you to the hospital.”

“I don’t wanna go to no hospital.”

“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice. Perhaps one of these women could get a message to your parents? Do you live far?”

"Over there." He nodded his head towards the large open field.

“Darling? Do you think one of these kind women would be able to drive you to his home, so you can tell his parents I’ve taken him to the hospital?”

“I don’t know,” Momma said softly.

“Of course, Reverend,” Louise’s momma said. “I’m sure the girls can take care of themselves while we’re gone.”

“But I thought we’d come with you,” I said to Daddy weakly.

“You did? Why?”

“I feel responsible. I mean, it did happen here. I just wanted to keep him company--so he could be with someone he knew; someone he could feel comfortable with. Like Louise here. He doesn’t know us.”

“Louise? What makes you think Louise’d want to go to the hospital with him?” her momma laughed.

“I thought it’d be the Christian thing to do. Isn’t that what bein’ a good Christian’s all about?”

Daddy laughed. “Of course it is, darling. It’s probably for the best anyway, don’t you think?” Daddy asked Louise’s momma.

“And what about Roy?” his mother asked.

“There’s no need for all of us to go at the same time. Good Christian benevolence only goes so far,” Daddy smiled. I could see Roy’s momma flush at the statement. It was an innocent statement, but even I could see there was more to it than that. If Daddy saw the same thing I saw, he didn’t let it bother him. He sort of tilted his head to the side, squinting an eye up at her because the sun was shining in his face.

“She doan wanna go see my Daddy any more’n anyone else wants to go ‘round t’ see ‘im,” Lloyd said. I looked at how his lip curled as he said it, and I thought how his voice dripped with the same note of contempt the women seemed to have for him.

“Shut up Lloyd,” Louise said.

“There’s no need to talk like that,” Louise’s mother said sharply.

“Come along Lloyd, let me see that arm,” Daddy added, and pulled on it quickly, setting it back into place. I could see the skin move as the bone underneath slid into place. Lloyd gasped at the sudden shock of it, but he seemed to relax almost as soon as it was done, and he looked up at Daddy with a dazed look on his face.

“It’ll still hurt for a bit, but not as much as it did five minutes ago.”

*

I swear, the Hospital wasn’t any bigger than the hotel, but it looked twice as old. It was a three storey building made of dried up wood, and crumbling brick, painted gray, with red trim that looked so weathered, it was almost pink now. There was a bright green ivy that ran up the font of the building like an out of control rash, where it crawled its way over to the other side of the building with the gray paint underneath it flaking off in large patches, like sunburned skin.

Lloyd was able to walk on his own, but he looked sort of faint, and I thought he was going to fall at least a couple of times, the way he stumbled out of the car. But Lloyd managed to keep to his feet until Daddy found him a wheelchair to sit in, while he went ahead to talk to the nurses. Louise and I pushed the old chair up an incline ramp, and she ran ahead to hold the doors open for me as I wheeled Lloyd inside. I saw a sign on the wall inside that said, WHITES ONLY.

“Where do the Negroes go if they have an accident?” I asked Louise.

“Who cares? Good for nothin’ shiftless bastards,” Lloyd said through his teeth. He was in a lot of pain now, and I was secretly glad for it.

“They got themselves a clinic over in Niggertown,” Louise said in a practical voice, like it was common knowledge and I should at least know that much about the town.

“Even that’s too much,” Lloyd said.

“Does it matter?” Louise asked.

“They’re Niggers. They got some in town, old enough to’ve been slaves. Brought ‘em in fresh, right off the boat too, I bet. Shoulda sent ‘em all back t’ Africa where they came from. They’s always sayin’ how they belong there. Well, send ‘em back if they want to go back. Let ‘em go swingin’ through the tress with the other apes.”

“How can you say somethin’ like that?” I asked.

“Like what?”

“He talks like that since his Momma ran off with--“ She stopped suddenly, and looked down at Lloyd. I could see the anger boring through the pain in his face.

“Ran off with who?”

“I’d better not say.”

“A Nigga Preacher!” Lloyd spit on the floor. I didn’t know if he was spitting on the memory of his mother, or the Preacher.

“But we burnt down the Church, din’t we?” Lloyd turned to look up at Louise. “Daddy said we shoulda just kept on burnin’ too, an’ so do I. He says we shoulda burned all of ‘em Niggers outta here. Seg-gree-gation, is what they call it. Daddy said they should seg-gree-gate properly ‘round here."

“An’ what’s proper mean?” I asked.

“Burn ‘em shanty houses they got, down t’ the ground. Tell ‘em t’ go live elsewheres, so good White men can have the jobs they been takin’ from us.”

“What jobs?” Louise asked with a quick laugh. “What jobs are they takin’ that you’d wanna do instead?”

“You don’t think there’s too many of ‘em pickin’ cotton in the fields outside town?”

“They pick it by hand, Lloyd. Do you know what it’s like to pick cotton by hand? They do it ‘cause ain’t no White man ‘round here wanna do it. Fergus is too cheap to go out an’ buy one of ‘em fancy ten thousand dollar machines some of ‘em other places have--an’ those places don’t hardly hire no Niggers, ‘cept maybe three or four. Fergus don’t wanna pay what a White man expects--somethin’ a man can make a livin’ on--an’ that just leaves the Niggers here to do it. Your own Daddy won’t pick cotton for Fergus.”

“An’ work side by each with a Nigger?”

She laughed again, turning away from him in disbelief this time. “You ain’t nothin’ but White trash Lloyd, an’ you know it. Your Daddy ain’t done an’ honest day’s work in his life--an’ I don’t ‘spect you have either. The apple don’t fall far from the tree ‘round here, do it?” she said to me.

“I don’t think I should say anythin’.”

“You can say it, can’t she Lloyd? Ever’one knows it. Ain’t no one in town don’t know the Edgerton clan, do they Lloyd? If your Daddy ain’t drunk, he’s most likely sleepin’ one off."

“You shut up, Louise.” Lloyd was angry, and I could see the hatred build up in his eyes as he leveled a look at her.

“Shut up? Or what? You gonna hit me, Lloyd, like you hit your poor sisters when they don’t listen to you? I bet your Daddy’d still be hittin’ your momma if she was there. She never quite learned herself how to listen while she was there, did she?”

“Best thing a man could do is slap a bitch like you around some.”

“That’s their answer to ever’thin’,” Louise said to me. “They just slap their women about, an’ lay ‘round drunk all day long, wonderin’ why a woman’d want to leave ‘em--‘specially for a Nigger Preacher, eh Lloyd? Can ya beat that? An’ there’s six of ‘em, too."

“Five,” Lloyd said.

“Five?” There was a note of curiosity in her voice.

“Jerry died in Korea four years ago.”

“Died? We all just thought he left an’, ended up in prison somewhere."

“He died fightin’ a fool war we had no business bein’ in.” Lloyd was looking up at us both. Maybe he was looking at us because he was expecting one of us to say something? All I knew was that I wasn’t going to say anything about someone’s brother I’d never met before. “Who the Hell cares about a bunch of Chinamen blowin’ each other t’ Hell an’ back?”

“But what about the Communists?”

“The Commies? Whadda they have t’ do with anythin’?”

“The Chinese are Communists. Wasn’t that what it was all about? The whole war I mean? Do you want the Free World to be over run by Commies? Next thing you know, they’ll be takin’ over Canada, an’ usin’ it as a base before invadin’ us.”

“That’ll give us good reason to walk in there an’ take it over. What the Hell do them dumb bastards up there know ‘bout anythin’ anyway?”

“Have you ever met a Canadian?” I asked.

“Nope. An’ I don’t care if I ever do.”

“Then how can you say anythin’ against ‘em? If you’ve never met any of ‘em before, I mean?”

“That’s how they all think. They hate ever’one.”

Daddy came back with the doctor, and the man knelt down in front of Lloyd to look at his arm.

“You’re lucky this time, Lloyd.”

“This time?” Daddy asked.

“He’s been in here before. If not him, his brothers or sisters--even his mother once or twice. But it’s a nice, clean break. We can cast it up, an’ you'll be out of here in half an hour."

“Do you have to put a cast on it?”

The doctor looked down at Lloyd strangely. “Are you thinking maybe it doesn’t need one? You’d be wrong thinking that, Lloyd. If it isn’t set properly, it might get infected. You might lose the whole arm. We’d have to cut it off. I don’t think you want that, do you?"

“How can it get infected if it ain’t cut open?”

“The bone’s broken. If there are any viruses running through your body, and they brush up against the exposed bone--Bingo--infection. You could get gangrene.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“That’s too bad. But I’m the doctor, not you, and if I say it needs a cast, well then, I guess I win. Besides, I need the practice. I don’t get too many of you kids coming in here with broken bones, anymore. I guess you must be learning to duck a little quicker? Or is your Daddy just getting too slow? No matter. You just sit back and relax. We’ll have to X-ray it first, of course. But that won’t hurt too much. You’re not afraid of a little pain, are you?” He asked it like it was something that had just occurred to him.

“What?”

“Pain? You’re not afraid of it, are you?”

“What sorta pain are we talkin’ about?”

“That’s what I like to hear, Lloyd, someone who knows the difference.”

“That’s ‘cause his Daddy beats him,” Louise said under her breath.

“I kinda figured that out.”