Page 30 of The Reformatory

Robert wished he were nowhere and no one. His hands were trembling, and not from the cold. As Robert left the kitchen through the rear door with the other boys and met the humid air outside, he looked over his shoulder to make sure the ghost from the kitchen wasn’t standing behind him.

10

Miz Lottie kept every piece of her life she’d ever touched. Miz Lottie’s house had three bedrooms and was twice as big as Gloria’s, but every inch was filled with clutter, with pathways carved through the mess. Yellowing Pittsburgh Courier newspapers about Jackie Robinson, Jesse Owens, Lena Horne, and Joe Louis lined the hall. Even her bathroom was a home to old Ebony magazines and junk, filling the bathtub: such a waste of indoor plumbing! Miz Lottie bathed standing at her sink. The clutter was another reason Gloria had moved out with Robbie, since he was forever knocking things over. To Gloria, the mess looked like trash, but Miz Lottie had a fit when anyone moved her things. Uncle June and Waymon were almost too big to walk through the maze. Miz Lottie’s house smelled like dust and time.

Only the kitchen looked the way a kitchen should, except for a stack of papers on one corner of the kitchen table, and a collection of milk bottles behind the rear door. Miz Lottie moved less now, spending more and more of her days sitting at the table.

Gloria buttered the rolls while Miz Lottie carved the chicken she’d roasted. Gloria’s stomach growled for the first time all day. She’d had a bite of the stew at Miss Anne’s, but her appetite had died since Robbie was taken away.

Telling the story of her day exhausted Gloria, but she told it.

“A law student, huh?” Miz Lottie said. “Guess that’s almost good as a lawyer.”

“It’s a girl law student. Chandler somebody. Miss Anne says it’s her ‘very good friend.’ ”

Miz Lottie glanced at Gloria over her shoulder, then went back to carving. She started to say something but didn’t. Gloria felt unspoken words floating near them—about how Miss Anne never had a boyfriend and said she would never marry. Miz Lottie herself had never married but as a younger woman had photographed herself often with a woman she always called her dear, dear friend Sadie, who had passed years ago.

“Well, womens is doing so many things they never did before” was all Miz Lottie said. “Too bad she ain’t Negro.”

“A Negro lawyer?” Gloria said, smiling.

“Girl, hush. You ain’t never heard of Thurgood Marshall at the NAACP? He’s fighting those lynching cases. He’s arguin’ in front of the Supreme Court! The world ain’t just what you see. That’s just what these crackers want you to think. I’m surprised your daddy ain’t told you.”

Miz Lottie did not read well because her schooling had not gone far, but she sounded out every word in her newspapers and magazines if the article was about a Negro. Sometimes, when her good eye was tired, she asked Gloria to read to her. Gloria had learned about Thurgood Marshall and other Negro lawyers arguing faraway cases, but it was hard to imagine a Negro lawyer in Gracetown. Would the judge call him a nigger too?

“You think Mr. Marshall would help me with Robbie?”

“I don’t know, but the first thing is to write letters. So write one to him too. You need to send one or two letters every day. And put Zora Neale Hurston on that list.”

“The author?” Mama had read Their Eyes Were Watching God until the cover frayed.

“What other Zora you know? She wrote a story I saw in the Negro Digest. You git a news story, that shames ’em. No one will help at that Gracetown fish wrapper—someone at the Courier or Ebony magazine. A big name. Then just watch these folks scurry to act right.”

Gloria tried three different pens from the crammed mug of pens and pencils on the table before she found one that would write. Since Miz Lottie’s back was turned and she couldn’t complain, Gloria tossed a handful of dried-out pens into the trash can. Then she wrote Thurgood Marshall and Zora Neale Hurston on an old envelope on the table, a bill from the Gracetown Electric Company. The postmark was a year old.

“Where can I get all these addresses?” Gloria said. “Those newspapers?”

“Ain’t a paper worth reading you can’t find in my hallway. They always got the address right inside where you can find it.” She brought a plate of chicken to the table with a victorious smile. “See? Never know what you’ll need. And you always tellin’ me to throw my papers out.”

“Miz Lottie, if there was ever a fire—”

And she stopped mid-sentence. Gloria felt a jolt of electricity when she said the word fire, with Miz Lottie’s good eye staring hard. All her life, especially when she was younger, Gloria had felt an odd, special bond with Miz Lottie, as if sometimes they knew each other’s thoughts. Usually it was a private joke about something Mama or Papa had said, but not tonight.

“Was there a fire at the Reformatory?” Gloria said. She’d tried to hold the thought to herself, but she blurted it out.

Miz Lottie lowered the plate, face morose. She sank into her chair. She’d refused Gloria’s offer to help her serve the food, but she seemed more tired than usual for seven thirty. Her head dangled low on her shoulders. When she reached for Gloria’s hand, the wrinkled folds of her forearm jiggled, muscles long gone. Miz Lottie clasped Gloria’s hand and closed her eyes.

“Dear Lord… make us truly thankful for the food we are about to receive, for the nourishment of our bodies…” Her voice trailed off. Miz Lottie was never one to linger over the blessing, but this time she sighed and shook her head slowly from side to side. “We need your help, Lord,” she said in the scared, humble voice she’d used in her prayers at Mama’s bedside. “We need you tonight. Our Robbie’s in trouble, at the mercy of that place.”

Gloria peeked at her face: raw pain so powerful it snaked around Gloria’s chest.

“Lord, we know you look after the wide world, but please keep Robbie cradled in your arms. Please help his mama’s spirit find him to guide him and keep him. Lord, let no one harm him from this realm or another. Spare him, Lord. Spare him. Amen.”

From this realm or another. “Amen,” Gloria whispered. Her heart pounded a storm.

Miz Lottie slowly fixed her plate: a chicken thigh, rice, greens. Gloria remembered the spare little meals she’d been fixing for Robbie without Miz Lottie and wished, yet again, they had never left the shelter of her home.

“Who told you ’bout a fire?” Miz Lottie said at last. “Did Robbie say something?”