Chapter 2 #2
I lost balance and landed in a heap in the mud.
I was in a stable yard, belonging to one of my neighbors who lived near the forest. There was a horse confined in a wooden
stall, who reared up on her hind legs and whinnied at the sight of me. She’d be my companion. On horseback, I could shift
my weight to make my head harder to strike for anyone pursuing me from behind. I didn’t need to see more to know that the
horror of this day was only getting started.
I approached the horse’s gear, which hung on the stable wall. Pa kept no horses, but my grandparents did, so I knew how to
do this. I placed the saddle on the horse’s back and mounted it in the shade. And then I kicked off, adjusting to my new position
of power, gripping the reins and working up some momentum. When the moment was right, I pulled and we soared, over the fence
and out of the yard, into the forest.
The canopy took me into its shadows. Still, through the gaps in pine, I caught glimpses of the invaders, coming toward our
homes as I rushed away. There were dozens and counting, as more arrived. A mob was upon us.
I had to get to Mr. Wallace. I worried for his safety, and he was about the only person I knew who could protect me.
Deep in the forest a cross burned, and a church burned behind it, so hard that the smoke blocked my airways, even from yards
away. I could’ve sworn I saw bodies dancing in flames. I didn’t recognize their faces in that haze—all I saw were flames,
as the horse galloped through the woods, trampling the underbrush with its manic gallop.
I steered the horse back toward civilization, so we could emerge from the woods and ride into downtown. There was fire here
too, and more invaders, who were only partially visible in the thickening smoke as I approached Main Street.
Men shooting through the windows of a bank, more raiding the grocery store, laughing evilly and loading our food into their
cars.
Our hotel had been set ablaze—all corners of the place targeted somehow. It had become a standing meteor, doomed to collapse.
Our men were trying to stop the invaders, camping out behind cars to return their gunfire. I saw a white man in a cowboy hat
melting down the side of a car, bleeding from a bullet wound and thought, in a moment of triumph, We’re getting hits in too.
But the violence hurt to see. I blinked away from it and kicked forward until I found Mr. Wallace’s porch. I dismounted the
horse and set her free to run off where she may—I had no time to tie her up before running for the door to escape stray gunfire.
Mr. Wallace was already pulling me in before I could knock.
“Almost gotcha self killed, Nick,” he said as he closed the door. “What are you doing back out here?”
I coughed out dust and took in the cold air of the shop. The smell of chair leather was like a hug from someone familiar. A much-needed hug.
“Mr. Wallace,” I muttered. My attempts at thanks came to a halt when he tucked a pistol into the back of his pants and started
ripping up the floorboards to pull out hidden safes.
“Mail train runs through town at six p.m.,” Mr. Wallace said as he twisted a safe open and packed a bag full of money. Then
he went and pulled back the curtain on the door to gaze out the window. Beams of fire reflected in his eyes. “God is outnumbered
here,” he said somberly. “Greenwood will go down.”
“Go down? What? What do you mean?” All I had were questions, but seeing him go back to put more money into bags made me join
in to help without a second thought.
After another few minutes, we were racing toward the back room with five strung up bags. Just as we were leaving, Mr. Wallace
reached up on the shelf, grabbed the tin of grease and threw it into one of the money bags. Then he went to climb out the
back window.
Each of our hands weighed down by the heft of the money, we darted away from town, across open land to where the woods began
in a slope about a football field away. If we were fast, we could escape into the forest and disappear into the hills, but
nothing would stop a bullet from hitting us on our way there.
The day was still here, the sun just tipping beneath the horizon, as we drifted out further.
I noticed in my periphery a white man chasing us from town, raising his rifle. Looking past the barrel, I saw a familiar face.
He fired suddenly and the bullet cracked just above us.
“That’s him!” I screamed. “That’s the man who killed Pa!”
Mr. Wallace spun in front of me, and I crashed into his body. He wrapped me into his coat and fired his gun over my shoulder.
Then he released me, and I turned, shaking and stunned by the sound. My father’s killer was lying still, face up to heaven,
dirt twisting around his dead body like a desert wind trail.
“Come on,” Mr. Wallace said as I stared at the body.
He pulled me by the wrist and toward the woods.
We forged through the underbrush and fell under a canopy, where the ground became steeper. The forest air dewed my mouth like
chilly water as we left behind the fire, the screaming, the gunshots.
Where the ground leveled out, I dropped to my hands and knees, dizzied by the smell of wet soil. “Th-th-they killed—” I said,
breath hitching, my eyes squeezed shut. The world was this dreary carousel around me. “Everyone,” I panted. “They’re killing everyone.”
“Come on now. Get up,” Mr. Wallace ordered, his voice steady.
But what motivation did I have for that? Why not just melt into the mud?
“GET UP!” Mr. Wallace screamed, giving me a great scooping, which lifted me one hundred feet into the air.
For a moment the world shrank in perspective beneath me, and I was floating above the trees, as a universe unfolded behind
my eyelids. I saw my grandparents seated in the sky, wearing necklaces of stars. Mama was there too, watching to see what
I’d do—if I’d press on.
“Get up!”
Mr. Wallace’s voice pumped another rush of adrenaline through me. And I stood, and got to moving, like a puppet, as if someone
else was controlling me.
It was strange to forge through the woods. I’d had nightmares of dying in a quiet forest for many years—Pa had always warned
me about it, having my throat strung up by a Klansman where no one could hear my screams.
But now the forest was peaceful. The forest was safe.
As the trees thinned out again, a train whistled toward us. An engine groaned and a light came out, slowly at first. Then
it burst through our bones with its speed, size, and strength. Big bucket cars rattled like giants were trapped inside them.
Mr. Wallace watched the train pass. He dizzily shook his head, as blood trickled down one side of his face. He’d been grazed
by a bullet. He tucked his pistol away and handed me the two money bags he was carrying.
Gesturing to the train, which had come close to passing us, he said, “Go.” And when I didn’t move, he screamed, “I can’t jump
a moving train! Go!”
I couldn’t go on without him though. What would I do without his wisdom to lead me?
I grabbed his forearm just before jumping up on a railing. We flew forward with the speed of the train, Mr. Wallace hanging
off my arm, his body a loose limb. I stepped inside a train car and hoisted him in behind me. He clawed at the door handle
until finally he found a grip to get inside.
We fell on a bed of newspaper and caught our breath. Mr. Wallace moaned like a whining hinge, rubbing his shoulder, which looked dislocated. The bone jutted forward like an awkward wing.
“I told you not to do that,” he rebuked.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said.
But I couldn’t leave him. I was not brave enough for the world yet. Not independent enough for adulthood. Barely sure of who
I even was.
Normally, Mr. Wallace would tell me I apologized too much, but this time he accepted it. And we lay there, quietly, as the
train chugged on, mechanical and uncaring.
The night crept in quickly, as if throwing a blanket over the day to hide it from memory. I scrunched in the corner with my
knees to my chest. “Why would they do this?” I asked.
“They’re afraid,” Mr. Wallace said. “That if we rise, we’ll do to them what they do to us.”
White folks thought us competition. So, any time we did well, they’d take it as a threat.
“You got family in Harlem,” Mr. Wallace said, half asleep. He was upright with his eyes closed, and in the sparing moonlight,
the train rocked his skinny body back and forth.
The train hit a bump, and he fell over, blood from his head smearing the newspapers. But he got back up again and sat up,
wincing, as his eyes closed. This was not a small graze. A piece of the bullet had embedded itself into the side of his head.
“Sir?” I started ripping open packages to find something that could save him, but all this cart had was mail. “Mr. Wallace? Please don’t—” Please don’t die.
I didn’t want to be the last person he would ever see.
“Your uncle migrated that way—Beet, Lorraine, Daisy, and them,” he said, opening his eyes again, looking woozy and out of
it.
“Oh . . .” I balled up some paper and held it against his head.
I hadn’t seen my extended family in years, not since they moved.
Mr. Wallace fell over again and didn’t get back up. He fell asleep in the fetal position. I took his hand in mine—a hand that
carried years of experience in the calluses.
How could I be so stupid as to complain about working with Mr. Wallace, who made his way through life with integrity and persistence?
He ran a shoe shop that made people feel good and sharp about themselves. And he ran it with pride! Now here he was, and all
the man had for years of struggle was a whiny brat to die beside.
Somewhere along the way, he stopped breathing. I knew it because the car started to feel lonelier.
I slid back the train door as we coasted over a lake—a stretch of trees, night and stars above us. I hung my legs out and
let them swing and waited, as if God would rapture me next, as if that were the only possible turn things could take.
But nothing happened. So I tucked back inside, curled up on the newspapers, and fell asleep.