Free Catfish Alley by Lynne Bryant

not serious, are you?"
    She
doesn't answer me. She just chuckles low under her breath. Maybe Zero died that day, right
there in that exam room. We get back to the parlor, where Grace dozes in a
chair by the window. She wakes up when we come into the room.
    "How
did you like the rest of the house?" she asks.
    "It will be a good house for the tour," I
say. "Authentic antiques, interesting history. Now, Miss Jackson, about
those ghosts."
    Adelle and Grace look at each other and smile, but I
can't read them. They seem to share a secret.
    "You wanted to hear what happened to Zero,
remember?" Adelle says.
    These women are maddening! They leave stories
unfinished. They make me wait until the next visit, as if I have endless time
for this. Who would have thought I could ever get so roped into the stories of
old black women?
    We settle into chairs in the sunny parlor.
    "Do you remember how I told you that Zero got a
nickel for his birthday?" Grace asks.
    "Yes, ma'am, I remember. And he was going to start
a savings account at the Penny Savings Bank." I wonder if that bank is
still around. That might be a good place to put on the tour.
    "That's right. Well, he was on his way to the bank
that day, with that shiny new nickel in his pocket, when he was stopped by two
white boys. We found out later it was Ray Tanner and one of his buddies."
    "Tanner? The same Tanners that run the lumberyard?"
    "Yes, Ray Tanner was Delbert Tanner's daddy."
    "And he beat up your brother? Why?"
    Grace shakes her head and sighs. "Zero was
admiring that shiny new nickel and not paying attention to where he was going.
He looked up and those two white boys were standing in front of him blocking
his way. Later that day, when he was able to talk, he told me that Ray Tanner
said, 'What you doing, nigger? Where'd you get that money?' Zero said he was a
little scared, but he thought they would just go on about their business. He
also told me later that he probably could have made it easier on himself if he
had just given them the money without a fight."
    "Given them the money?" I'm appalled.
    "They said to him, 'Don't no nigger need money.
You probably stole it, anyhow. You give that money back so's we can find who it
belongs to.' "
    "That's horrible! You mean they beat him up and
they took his money? All for a nickel?"
    "Well, I reckon mostly they beat him up because
..." Grace pauses and smiles. "He told them that he was saving to be
a doctor and to get out of town so he wouldn't have to
deal with ... excuse my language ... redneck assholes like them."
    Grace and Adelle both laugh. The pride they share for
Zero Clark is obvious.
    Grace continues. "My brother never was very good
at keeping his mouth shut or his head down."
    "Did someone do something? Did you go to the
police?" I ask. They only laugh harder. "Why is that funny?"
    Adelle replies first. "Mrs. Reeves, you'll have to
forgive two old women. Sometimes you learn to laugh or you'll be crying all the
time. There was no point in calling the sheriff. This was a white boy that beat
up a black boy. They wouldn't have done anything. Zero didn't want to call
attention to himself. My papa tried to get him to at least tell the sheriff,
but Zero said he just wanted to forget it."
    "My brother never even told our mama what
happened," Grace adds. "He told her that he got into a fight with
some boys at school and lost the nickel from his pocket. Oh, Lord, she was
angry. She didn't whip him because he was already so beaten up. But she did
make him do extra chores for a month. And she didn't let either one of us go to
school for a week."
    "So she never knew that Zero was in nocent?"
I ask.
    "No. I believe Grandma knew, though. She always
knew those kinds of things without us telling her. She had a way about her.
Don't you know she had Zero load her into the wagon and she went to town with
him herself? Told Mama she had business to attend to. She and Zero went to the
Penny Savings Bank and opened that savings account after