The Bernice L. McFadden Collection. Bernice L. McFadden
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kitchen removing the bacon from the frying pan, Tass was curled under the blankets, wrapped in slumber, searching for the night boy with the water voice.
This time, when he appeared, the sun was up and she could see him quite clearly. Young, dark, fullbellied, and smiling. From the porch, she raised her hand in greeting and did not suppress the urge to run to him. It took forever—the space between them seemed to stretch for miles—and when she finally reached him, she was fifteen-and-a-quarter years old and the gown she wore was too long and too big for her.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” he responded, and extended his hand.
Tass took it and they started down the street.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see,” he said.
Tass gathered the skirt of her gown and began to skip. The boy laughed and joined in. They skipped all the way to Bryant’s grocery store. Tass stopped and the hem of her gown slipped from her hands.
The boy turned to her. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t go in there.”
“Why?”
Tass couldn’t remember why and so she said, “I don’t know, I just know I can’t.”
The boy said, “Okay. Wait here.” And strolled up to the door, pulled it open, and stepped in. He returned carrying two grape ice pops and handed her one.
“For me?” Tass gushed.
“There’s a gobstopper in it.”
“I bet you I can beat you to the middle,” Tass said as she peeled the paper away from the pop.
“No bites, just licks,” the boy declared.
“What’s the prize?”
He glanced down the road and then bashfully back to Tass. “A kiss?”
Tass blushed. “Do I know you?”’
“Yes, you do,” he said, and took her hand again.
“What’s your name?”
“My friends call me Bobo.”
“Bobo?” Tass rolled the name around her mouth. “I think I do remember you,” she said, and took a lick of her ice pop.
Padagonia walked to the front door and pulled it open. She spied a calico streaking down the middle of the street ahead of her litter. The trees were silent—which meant the birds had fled. Other than the cats, there didn’t seem to be a speck of life around.
She began to feel unsettled and unsure. Her eyes rolled up to the sky and then over to her Pacer. Perhaps, she thought as she gently shut the door, we should leave. Just to be safe.
“Tass,” Padagonia called as she made her way to the bedroom. “I’m thinking it might be a good idea to head someplace other than here.”
In the bedroom the curtains were flapping and billowing like sails against the open window.
“What in the world?” Padagonia cried as she reached to close the window. The sky cracked open and rain fell in hard, clear drops.
Tass’s cell phone began to chime. Padagonia looked and saw that it was Sonny calling.
“Tass, wake up, your phone is ringing.”
She was about to walk over to the bed to shake her friend awake when she spotted two young people coming up the road. The girl was dressed in what looked to be a nightgown; the boy wore a pair of cutoff shorts and a T-shirt. They were holding hands, licking ice pops, and strolling as if the day was dry, clear, and bright.
When they reached the lot, Padagonia pushed her head out into the downpour and yelled, “Hey, you two, watch out now, there are snakes in that grass!”
The couple turned around and Padagonia strained to make out their faces. They beckoned with their hands, “Come on, come with us!”
“Go home and get out of this rain!” Padagonia closed the window and went to Tass. “Get up, I think we need to leave.”
Tass did not move. Padagonia pulled back the blanket and gave her shoulder a good, firm shake.
“Tass?”
Before Tass and Emmett skipped off into forever, she had started to form over the Bahamas, a tropical depression— an annoyance at best. Cunning and slick, careful to appear unthreatening, she slipped into Florida without raising an eyebrow. The meteorologist didn’t think enough of her to even give her a pretty name.
In the Gulf of Mexico, she suddenly turned furious. Draped in black clouds, blowing wind, and driving rain, she charged into Louisiana like a bull and fanned her billowing dark skirts over Mississippi.
They named her Katrina, but I looked into the eye of that storm and recognized her for who she really was: Esther the whore, cackling and clapping her hands with glee.
Whether you have embraced this tale as truth or fantasy, I hope you will take something away from having read it. I pray that you will become more sensitive to the world around you, the seen and unseen. As you go about your lives, keep in mind that an evil act can ruin generations, and gestures of love and kindness will survive and thrive forever.
Choose wisely, dearest …
Light,
Money Mississippi
Gratitude …
I am grateful to God, my guides, ancestors, family, and friends.
A special thanks to: Carlo and Quovardis Lawrence and family, who opened their home and hearts for me to climb the steepest part of the mountain which ultimately became this book; Mrs. Anita Abbott, who is mother and friend to me; my sister, Misty McFadden, who encouraged me forward and continued to believe in me when I found it difficult to believe in myself; Terry McMillan—for too many reasons to list; new friends Amy Moore, Alicia McMillan, and Joyce McMillan, who keep me thinking and laughing.
Special thanks to my spiritual siblings: Andrea Knight, Darlene Harden, and Eric Payne, who have loved and supported me over the years; and to my publisher Johnny Temple and the fabulous staff at Akashic Books, who allow me to publish with dignity.
And you readers—I am especially grateful to have you in my life.
Emmett Till—you did not die in vain!
Love there,
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published by Akashic Books
©2010 by Bernice L. McFadden
ePUB ISBN-13: 978-1-936-07078-7
ISBN-13: 978-1-936070-11-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009938474
Akashic Books
PO Box 1456
New York, NY 10009
… and the end of all of our exploringwill be to arrive where we startedand know the place for the first time.
—T.S. Eliot
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