Free Darby by Jonathon Scott Fuqua

Beth’s three doll babies. Each one has a smiling porcelain face and fake hair that is strapped back in a hard bun. They look like Miss Burstin, our teacher at school. We played like the one with the worst dress was sick in bed, and we got the other two to treat her nice and undress her so that her daddy could ship her to a hospital that was straight across the bedroom. When she died of coughing, our doll babies got so sad and sorrowful that they threw themselves on the pillows of Beth’s bed. The thing is, while I was mashing my doll’s face into some fringe, I looked back at the little crib where the undressed doll had died from coughing, and I all the sudden thought of the black boy who’d been beaten by Mr. Dunn.
    I stopped making my doll squeal. I let it rest and walked over and sat in one of Beth’s rocking chairs. A slice of sharp, eye-burning sun hit me on my neck and face.
    “What’s wrong now?” Beth asked.
    I didn’t know how to say it. “It’s that this black boy from Mr. Dunn’s farm died yesterday, and I keep imagining him stretched on a table, sorta like that doll there.”
    Beth looked over at the undressed doll. “If you want, we can say that we only thought she was dead.”
    I stared quiet at the polished floor for a while. “That’d be good.”
    Beth went over to the little crib. “Out of nowhere, she can cough real soft and suddenly wake up and everybody will see that she was just deep asleep.”
    I added, “Then she can be better and we can pretend that she’s gonna get married, and we can save her from getting bit by a snake at Crooked Creek.”
    As the sky was changing to darkness, me and Beth walked along Main Street to her daddy’s office. We were hoping he might have some candy in a drawer, which he sometimes does. Streetlights were just starting up, and a few people were packing around the picture show entrance. The Carolina Theater was playing a cowboy movie that had a handsome, tough man on the poster. The Sanitary Café was full up with customers and noise. Griffin’s Barbershop is alongside, and its big window was so steamy that all you could see was the outlines of folks reading newspapers. We turned the corner near the Lewis & Breeden drugstore and saw that Beth’s daddy’s law office had the shades drawn tight, which was strange because he never does that.
    Going in, we found Mr. Fairchild talking to a black man who was squeezing and rolling a dirty hat. “Hello, Darby and Beth,” Mr. Fairchild said.
    “Hello, sir,” we answered.
    Mr. Fairchild indicated the black man. “Girls, this is Jerome Hawkins. Jerome, this here is my daughter and her friend Darby.”
    “Hello, missuses,” the black man mumbled, and his voice sounded real familiar.
    “Hey,” we told him.
    Mr. Fairchild said, “Girls, we’re just finishing up. You mind stepping outside a minute?”
    Beth leaned over his desk. “We just came to see if you have candy.”
    “Candy,” Mr. Fairchild said. Playing shocked, he opened up a desk drawer. “You’re looking for candy, you say? Why . . . why, what a coincidence. I sure do have some,” he told her. He reached into a brown bag and got hold of some butterscotches.
    “Thank you, sir,” I said while I undid a gold wrapper.
    “You’re welcome, Darby.”
    “We’re going over to her daddy’s store,” Beth said.
    We started through the door, but before I could pass, Jerome Hawkins caught my coat sleeve, and said, “Miss Carmichael? Tell your daddy I appreciate what he done.”
    Confused, my eyes glued on his craggled face for a second. Then Beth pushed me outside, and we were on the busy sidewalk. The courthouse was across the street and what people call the Carmichael Block was straight ahead. We laughed and enjoyed our butterscotches, and I forgot to tell my daddy Jerome Hawkins’s message.
    At Carmichael Dry Goods, me and Beth had Russell haul us up and down in the elevator till he said his hands were throbbing. Then we stayed upstairs and