Free Freshwater Road by Denise Nicholas Page B

pricks of renewed pain.
    South of Hattiesburg, the rust-red soil changed to orange. Along the road, the gravel shoulders gave way to soft sand, then rolled off into a
shallow depression. For a few miles, the land up-hilled into a forest of longneedled pines that blocked the sun and perfumed the air like a thousand
women wearing fringed-green dresses, laughing. Margo had called it the
Piney Woods.

    Just after Lumberton, with the speedometer marking them at still well
under the limit, they entered Pearl River County as if on tiptoe. Celeste
felt coolness in the air, felt it on her stinging face, prayed it would last. But
within minutes the long-needled pines gave way to hundreds of decaying
stumps, dead logs scattered in the open spaces. The barren expanse screamed
beneath the peacock-blue tropical sky, a sky fit for an island paradise in the
Gulf of Mexico. The sun pounded down on it all. She flinched but there
was no getting away from its rays.
    Before they reached the Pineyville town center, Matt left the blacktop
for a part-sand, part-gravel side road. No alluvial plain, no cotton plantations here. Power lines, but no phone lines. Matt pulled up and stopped
near a stunted water pipe with a spigot that seemed to periscope up out
of a square concrete platform. At the turn-off, Celeste saw a large country mailbox attached to a leaning post, beneath a street sign that read,
"Freshwater Road."

     

5

    Detroit summers pulled thick, water-logged air from the lakes, boiled it
with car and bus exhausts, mixed in smokestack poisons, then asked you to
inhale. At Shuck's house, on an island boulevard lined with red maple, elm,
yellow birch, and hickory, the trees saved the day, so that on the ground you
could breathe in the scent of roses, lilacs, and wet, fresh-cut June grass.
    The first thing a city does when it knows Negroes are moving into a
neighborhood is cut down all the trees. Thank God they'd done little of
that on the West Side except over by the projects. Not a tree in sight there.
Outer Drive, where Shuck lived, had the feel of a rich man's street, lush and
green in summer, vibrant red, orange, and ocher in autumn, and quietly
carpeted with snow in winter. The trees made the difference.
    Whatever went on in those perfect houses stayed neatly behind closed
doors. None of that sitting out front loud-talking. In fact, Shuck barely
knew who his neighbors were; he nodded and greeted the people from those
quiet houses without ever thinking about who lived in which. He preferred
it that way since his life was still the nightlife. His neighbors lived and
worked the nine to five or something close to it, or so he thought. For those
who blue-collared at the plants, they put up such a good front of middle
class respectability, of nine to five instead of shifts at the plants, you missed
the blue of it all together. He appreciated that.
    One night a new customer happened into the Royal Gardens still wearing his work clothes, a familiar face but Shuck knew not from where until
in conversation it came out that the man lived right around the corner from him. The man seemed embarrassed to be seen in his work clothes and
he never came back to the Royal Gardens again. Shuck's regulars worked
blue-collar, too, but they wore sports jackets and slacks to work and at home
and changed into their work clothes at the job. Those blue-collar clothes
were not for the streets.

    Posey gave Wilamena's first phone message to Shuck. Shuck decided,
without telling Posey, that he wasn't of a mind to return the call. She called
a second time and a third. Posey said she was hot on the phone, fussing at
him as if he hadn't given Shuck the message. Posey told him to take care
of it because he didn't want her calling and cussing him out. Shuck knew
Wilamena never used that kind of language, but she could make you feel
like she did.
    He propped the little square of paper with her name and phone number
written in Posey's