Faith's Reckoning, page 30
I look forward to meeting you in the near future, at your earliest convenience. In the last week of her life, my aunt recounted her fond memories of you as a child. I am honored to fulfill her wish that you receive the inheritance she left to you.
Sincerely,
Sylvia Barbarino, JD
McLeod placed the letter back in the folder and put it on top of the desk. He picked up his other papers stacked there and tucked them into a filing cabinet, then set the briefcase on the floor next to his feet. Although the memory of Faith Wiggins had been rendered apparitional by the passage of fifty-seven years, her effect on him remained indelible. She was the one who had given him his Stella, the instrument of his music and the most faithful of friends. He had wondered about Faith at times, usually in the still moments after hours of practice as he put the old guitar back in its case. But there had never been a strong enough pull to follow his curiosity. They lived in vastly different worlds.
He heard the purr of the engine at the same time he saw the blue Miata pull into the parking spot in front of the Center. He watched as the lanky figure of a woman with auburn hair unfolded herself from the low-lying driver’s seat. He rose to greet her as she entered the door, meeting her halfway across the open room.
“Sylvia Barbarino,” she said extending her hand. “I am so glad to finally meet you, Mr. Walker.”
“Please, call me McLeod,” he said, shaking her hand. “I am happy to meet you, too, but I must say this whole situation has caught me by surprise.”
“Understandably,” she replied, “My aunt told me that though she kept up a correspondence with your mother, she never told her about the Will.”
“Yes. Frankly, I’m a bit puzzled.”
He picked up a chair from one of the other desks and motioned toward his small workspace in the corner.
“How about we sit at my desk,” he said, “unless you think we need the conference table.”
“Oh no, this will be fine,” she said, taking a seat in the chair opposite him. “Do you think I can get some water?”
“Please excuse my manners,” he said reaching to open a small beverage refrigerator behind his desk. He handed her a chilled bottle of water.
“Thank you,” Sylvia said after taking a long drink.
She handed him two envelopes, one embossed with the large black letters “Last Will and Testament” and the other displaying his name in handwritten script.
McLeod opened the Will first and scanned it. The language was familiar, following a standard format. Faith had simplified her assets, consolidating most of her investments into bonds and keeping a single cash account. The total amounted to approximately $200,000. That, and the Florence property, comprised her entire estate.
“The administration of the Will should be quite simple,” Sylvia said as she watched McLeod read the document. “She had no debts or liens and the house and furnishings are valued at approximately $100,000, so there should be no estate taxes.”
McLeod nodded an acknowledgment of her statement but remained wordless as he opened the other letter. It was not dated.
Dear McLeod,
I hardly know how to begin. It may come as a shock to you to be named my heir, yet part of you must know the debt we Wiggins owe the Walkers. Your dear mother, Delsey, was as generous a soul as God ever breathed into a life. She made my father’s business run like clockwork from her office hidden in the back of his store, keeping track of all the goods that passed his threshold, organizing receipts and expenses. But it was the way she treated us Wiggins kids, McLeod, that was so memorable. Many a morning, if Mama was down with a cold, she’d come by to brush my hair or straighten my collar as I readied for school. She wiped more than one tear from my young face after a scraped knee or a bruised ego. As you must know, she could soothe the sting out of the worst bite.
I kept up with her after y’all moved to Washington, DC; first, through her correspondence with Mama, then on my own after Mama died. I even got a chance to make my apologies to her when she came for a visit about twenty years ago.
McLeod, Delsey’s gift to our family is reason enough for me to leave my estate to you, especially since I have no children. But it is more complicated than that. I grew up knowing that my father gave shelter to the man that injured Plessy on that dreadful night some sixty years ago. Our neighbor, Fletcher Moody, came knocking at the door, clothes bloody, crying that he thought the sheriff caught sight of him leaving Doc Tatum’s where he had left Plessy. My father cleaned Fletcher up and got rid of the evidence. I have lived my whole life regretting that we never reported the crime. I finally talked to Delsey about it during that visit. I am sorry, McLeod, for the injury to your father and our silence about it.
I never told Delsey of my decision to leave my estate to her. When her mail was returned ‘unclaimed’ two years ago, I suspected she had died. I had my Will revised making you the heir to my estate. This is my stumbling attempt at reparations, way too late and impossible after all. I pray it doesn’t strike you as blood money. I don’t seek absolution and am ready to face my God. Hopefully, you can put the money to good use. Trusting that you are your mother’s son, your father’s son, I know you will.
Respectfully,
Faith Wiggins
He felt seasick, his mind swirling with a mix of emotions. He had only the vaguest recollection of his father lifting him up with both hands, to pluck an apple from a tree when he was three years old. Instead, the image that endured was of Plessy, his lifeless left arm tucked into the pocket of his pants, playing baseball with him after they moved in Washington, DC. Plessy would pitch the ball to him and then quickly pick up the glove from the ground to catch the fly ball or grounder that jumped from McLeod’s bat, cheering his son’s success with every hit. McLeod had taken it for granted that his father had only one good arm, but he didn’t dwell on how that came to be. He had no memory of the day the injury occurred. The letter stirred a horror in him that he had effectively buried.
“I’m not sure how to respond,” he stammered.
Sylvia squirmed. The room suddenly felt too small.
“Well, as the letter was sealed, I have no knowledge of its content so I’m not sure what you are referring to. I had assumed it would be welcome news.”
McLeod handed the letter to her, feeling no need to conceal the truth that was being unearthed before them.
“If you’ll excuse me, I think I need to use the men’s room,” he said, turning and walking to a door just past the conference room.
Sylvia read the message, trying to divine the reason for McLeod’s distress. She and Faith had discussed the story of Plessy’s injury when Sylvia had first come to visit almost a year before. They had talked about it again just before Faith died. It suddenly occurred to Sylvia that for McLeod this might be entirely new information. Rereading the letter, Sylvia saw that however imperfect the attempt, Faith was trying to make reparations for Hardee’s complicity in the crime against Plessy. But she now also saw that Faith’s attempt to make amends may have been a need to unburden herself before she died. That burden had been handed off to Sylvia and McLeod. She drank the rest of her bottled water and considered getting another from the small refrigerator but decided to keep her seat until he returned.
In the bathroom, McLeod turned on the cold water and splashed it on his face. He soaked a paper towel and placed it on the back of his neck, forcing down a wave of nausea. He leaned up against the wall and surrendered to the sorrow and joy of his mother’s memory. The second anniversary of her death loomed, and today’s events had amplified the loss. Delsey had died peacefully, without regrets, after a heart attack at age ninety. McLeod had been at her side.
“God, Mama, I miss you. What am I to think of all this?” he said out loud. He was answered only by the stir of a breeze through the bathroom window. He wiped his hands and returned to the office.
Sylvia stood up when she saw him emerge from the bathroom, her legs getting tangled beneath the chair and almost upending it. She caught the back of it in time to keep it from crashing to the floor.
“Are you OK?” she asked, “Do you need some water?”
“No, no. I’m fine, but feel free to help yourself,” McLeod replied waving his arm in the direction of the small refrigerator.
Sylvia retrieved more water and returned to her chair. She waited for McLeod to take his seat before she spoke.
“I can see that the letter from my aunt upset you,” she said, nervously twisting the cap of the bottle.
“Well, yes, it did Ms. Barbarino,” he said. “I understand…”
“It’s Sylvia, please call me Sylvia.”
“OK, Sylvia, I understand that your aunt Faith is trying to make amends, but...”
“But?” she could feel her face becoming flushed.
“Well, it’s that…. uhh.”
“Yes?”
She immediately regretted the urgency in her voice.
“I’m sorry,” she said, pausing. “I hope this is something we can talk about.”
He pondered how honest he wanted to be.
“Sylvia, with all due respect, this money is not reparations. It can’t change what happened. And honestly, I didn’t know the details of the circumstances of my father’s injury. Or have any idea of your grandfather’s attempt to obstruct justice.”
There, he had said it. He did not know how he felt about all this and was not even sure he could accept the inheritance. Nonetheless, he had unlocked the door to a conversation. He hesitated whether to open it further.
Sylvia sat frozen, caught between her duty to fulfill Faith’s dying request and her desire to honor McLeod’s response to the news he had just received. Her pulse quickened. She remembered to breathe. As she relaxed, she heard a voice inside her. ‘Just listen to him’.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize….” Sylvia said, then paused. “You’re right, McLeod, about the money and what happened. You’ve opened the door to a conversation and I would like to listen if you have more to say.”
She seemed genuinely open. He wondered if he had the energy for this. He could dispatch her right now; tell her he needed time to think and would call in a couple of weeks. He thought about what Delsey might tell him. McLeod looked his watch. It was just past two o’clock.
“It may be a little early, but do you want to get a beer? Maizie’s is usually closed at this time, but I know the owner, Mike. He’ll let us in.”
The invitation eased the tension between them.
“Yes, thank you. I love Maizie’s. Do you want me to drive?”
McLeod looked outside at the Miata, visible through the office window.
“In that little thing?” McLeod said, nodding toward the car and offering a faint smile.
“Yeah. She’s more fun with the top down. You’re welcome to drive if you want,” she said.
“OK, top down but you drive.”
Sylvia asked questions about the Delta Center for Justice and Opportunity on the short drive to Maizie’s. She was impressed by the Center’s accomplishments at community development and especially interested in the mentorship program. He turned the conversation back to Sylvia. She talked about the frustrations of working in the juvenile justice system and her hope for programs like Last Chance House, with its community mentors. It soon became apparent that the spheres of their work overlapped. By the time they reached Maizie’s their conversation had turned collegial. They parked in the nearly empty dirt lot and got out of the car.
“I still want to hear how you came to live in Clarksdale,” Sylvia said, reaching behind the back seat to raise the top to the convertible.
McLeod helped her unfold the cover from the other side of the car.
“Well that is a very long story, though an interesting one if I do say so.”
“I want to hear it.”
“Alright. It will cost you a beer. We’ll need to go around to the back door to get Mike’s attention. They’ll be in the kitchen about now.”
“Lead the way.”
Mike was glad to see McLeod and welcomed him in. He remembered Sylvia from her recent visit.
“You two want something to eat?” he asked. “I can throw some steaks on the grill.”
“No, thanks man. We’re just finishing up some business and thought a couple of beers sounded good.”
“Coming up,” he said. He pulled them each a cold draft and returned to help his wife prep the food for the evening’s opening.
Sylvia placed a ten-dollar bill on the bar.
“OK, this round is on me, for the price of that story.”
McLeod meant to start from the time when he went to work for CORE, just after finishing law school. But in the way that life stories tend to meander after one reaches a certain age, he soon found himself traveling all the way back to the earliest memories: the scratchy feel of his father’s wool uniform against his cheek, men speaking in spirited tones across plates of food at a large table. He later learned that these were union meetings and realized his parents had engaged in important, and dangerous, work in Mississippi. He talked about how different it was living in Mississippi, then and now, compared to Washington, D.C. He skipped over his confusion about what had happened to Plessy and why they had to leave Mississippi in the first place. Washington, D.C. was like a wild dance compared to the lazy shuffle of the South. It pulsed with the vibrancy of new jazz and a growing activism for racial equality. It had formed him, nurtured by the likes of A. Philip Randolph and James Farmer. McLeod beamed as he spoke about crossing the stage at Howard University to receive his law degree.
“I was twenty-six years old and fresh out of Howard University Law School. It was 1960. I took a job at CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality, started by James Farmer. He was steeped in the traditions of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the teachings of Mohandas Gandhi, and he took me under his wing. We were hopeful that President Kennedy’s election meant the entrenched segregation of the South would finally be addressed. You probably don’t remember those days.”
“No, not really,” Sylvia replied, “I was only six years old.”
“Yeah, I do have a few years on you. Well, looking back, it was the idealism of youth that guided me. As you surely know, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1946, Morgan vs. the Commonwealth of Virginia, that segregation on any interstate travel was illegal. Eight years later, Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, did the same for public schools. But without federal enforcement it didn’t mean shit.”
McLeod looked up from his beer, his jaw clenched.
“Pardon my language.”
“No need. Couldn’t agree more,” Sylvia said.
“It took the financial sting of a yearlong boycott of buses and retail shops in Montgomery in 1955 to get the attention of White business owners. E.D. Nixon and Rosa Parks put their bodies on the line to secure that early civil rights victory and launch Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. onto the national stage. But progress only intensified resistance in the South. The level of violence unleashed by the first attempts to integrate schools was like war, barely stifled by the mobilization of the National Guard and U.S. Marshalls. The movement faltered.”
“But it didn’t die,” Sylvia said.
“No, it didn’t. I think it was the urgency of youth that spurred it on. CORE started trainings just after I got there. College students in Greensboro, North Carolina and Nashville, Tennessee learned the techniques of nonviolent direct action. Then they staged sit-ins at segregated lunch counters across the South. Reverend King joined them in Atlanta. Despite beatings and arrests, they persevered. Formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC, and started recruiting support in the North. It was our passion at SNCC and CORE that resurrected the movement. Before long, there was a nationwide boycott of the Five and Dimes practicing segregation at lunch counters. It worked! Slowly the department stores began serving Black people. That was when James Farmer got the idea for the Freedom Rides. He had been hounding JFK to end discrimination in public housing, as promised, and to enforce desegregation in interstate travel. Farmer figured the Freedom Rides would compel federal action.”
Sylvia was riveted, transported to the streets that McLeod spoke about, wishing she could have known that world. McLeod had been at the center of history being made. He had mattered! When Mike came to check on them, she smiled and pushed the ten-dollar bill on the counter towards him. He poured two more beers without a word, respecting the conversation in which they were absorbed. He pointed to the spigot indicating to Sylvia that she could help them both to another whenever they were ready.
The afternoon disappeared into the narrative that unfolded. When McLeod told her about his work at CORE, Sylvia was curious.
“So why did you leave D.C.?” she asked, “It seems that you were in the very cradle of the civil rights movement.”
“You might think so, and I thought the same until I joined the Freedom Riders.”
“You were a Freedom Rider?” She could not hide her admiration.
“Yes, although I wasn’t in the first wave of the riders or even the second or third. After the first bus was firebombed outside of Anniston, Alabama on May 14, 1961, and the second group of riders attacked in Birmingham, it looked like the Freedom Rides had been stopped. Not for want of courage on the riders’ parts. They were ready to continue, but there was not a bus driver to be found in Birmingham. That’s when the Nashville chapter of SNCC stepped up. Three days after the firebombing in Anniston, a group of ten students boarded the morning bus from Nashville to Birmingham. They had signed their Last Will and Testaments the night before. That’s how much they resolved to keep the ride alive.”
