Alex Cross’s Trial

There was a crowd waiting outside to point and jeer at us. We turned left and headed down the block. “Let’s go to the Slide Inn and have some iced tea,” I said.

“I can’t go in there,” she said.

“Sure you can. Who’s going to stop you?”

“Get out of here, nigger-lover!” called a man in the crowd.

We came to Jenkins’ Mercantile, passing the bench where Henry North and Marcus had carried my mother after she had had her stroke.

We walked the rest of the way to the Slide Inn, trailing our little mob of catcalling spectators.

Lunch service was over. There were only three customers in the café-two young ladies sipping coffee and an old woman chewing on a cheese sandwich.

I’d hoped Miss Fanny was on duty today, but it was another waitress who approached us. “Can’tcha read?” she said, poking her thumb at a brand-new sign posted above the cash register:

WHITES ONLY

“I’m white,” I said.

Without a pause the waitress said, “You got a nigger with you. Now go on, get outta here.”

“Where’s Miss Fanny?” I said.

“She don’t work here no more,” the woman said. “ ’Cause of you.”

We turned to the door. I felt something hit my sleeve and I glanced down. It was a gob of spit, mixed with what looked like cheese. It could only have come from the little old lady.

When we stepped out the door our audience had swelled to a couple of dozen angry people.

They gawked at us. They yelled. They mocked.

“Kiss me,” I whispered to Moody.

She looked up at me as if I were insane, but she didn’t say no.

I leaned down and brought my lips to hers.

A cry of pain ran through the crowd.

A woman’s voice: “Look, he got what he wanted-a nigger girl to take to his bed.”

A man’s voice from behind me shouted, “Y’all goin’ to hell and burn for all time!”

“Niggers! You’re both niggers!”

“You make me sick in my gut!”

“Get out of here! Just get out!”

I whispered, “You ready to run?”

Moody nodded.

And we ran, and ran, and ran.

Chapter 130

WE WERE HALFWAY to the Quarters before the most persistent of our pursuers gave up. We stopped to catch our breath, but I kept an eye out, in case anyone was still following.

As it dawned on me what we had done, I realized that I was-well, I was delighted. Who would have thought two people holding hands could make so many wrong-minded people so very unhappy? We had put the citizens of Eudora in an uproar, and that realization warmed my heart.

I had abandoned my bicycle downtown. Maybe the mob had strung it up in a noose by now.

As Moody and I walked the muddy boards that passed for a sidewalk, folks began coming out of their houses to have a look at us. As fast as we’d run, news of our public display seemed to have preceded us.

“Y’all damn crazy,” said one old lady.

“Naw, they in love,” said a young man beside her.

“Well, hell, if that ain’t crazy, I don’t know what is!”

“No, ma’am,” I said. “We’re not crazy and we’re not in love, either.”

“You just tryin’ to cause trouble then, white boy?” she demanded.

“All I did was kiss her,” I explained. “But we did cause some trouble.”

The old lady thought about it a moment, then she cracked a smile.

It was like a photographic negative of our march through Eudora. By the time we got to the crossroads by Hemple’s store, we had a crowd of spectators tagging along with us.

One of the old men looked up from his checkerboard, his face grim. “Now see what you done,” he said to me. “You done kicked over the anthill for sure. They comin’ down here tonight, and they gonna lynch you up somethin’ fierce. And some of us, besides.”

“Then we’d better get ready for them,” Moody said.

“Ready?” said the other checkers player. “What you mean ready, girl? You mean we best say our prayers. Best go make the pine box ourselves.”

“You got a gun for shootin’ squirrel, don’t you?” said Moody. “You got a knife to skin it with, don’t you?”

The old man nodded. “Well, sho’, but what does that-”

“They can’t beat all of us,” Moody said. “Not if we’re ready for them.”

The people around us were murmuring to one another. Moody’s words had started a brushfire among them. “Let ’em come!” cried a young man. “Let ’em come on!”

Moody looked at me with soulful eyes. And then she did something I will never forget. I will carry it with me my whole life, the way I have carried Marcus’s kindness to Mama.

She took my hand in hers again. Not for show, because she wanted to. We walked hand in hand to Abraham’s house.

Chapter 131

I THOUGHT I would be standing guard alone on the porch that evening, but at midnight Moody appeared-wearing a clean white jumper, of course.

“I couldn’t sleep, thinking how you hadn’t had nothing to eat the whole day long.” She set before me a plate of butter beans, field peas, and shortening bread.

The minute I smelled it, I was starving. “Thank you kindly,” I said.

“You’re welcome kindly,” she said, easing down to the chair beside me.

I dove in. “There was this old colored lady who raised me,” I said, “and she always sang, ‘Mammy’s little baby loves short’nin’-’ ”

“Hush up, fool!” Moody said.