The Chamber (Page 62)

"I repeat, it was not something we talked about."

"Well, when he got older, did you try to recruit him?"

"No. He was different."

"You mean, he didn’t hate?"

Sam jerked forward and coughed, the deep, scratchy hacking action of a chain-smoker. His face reddened as he struggled for breath. The coughing grew worse and he spat on the floor. He stood and leaned at the waist with both hands on his hips, coughing and hacking while shuffling around and trying to stop it.

Finally, a break. He stood straight and breathed rapidly. He swallowed and spat again, then relaxed and inhaled slowly. The seizure was over and his red face was suddenly pale again. He took his seat across from Adam, and puffed mightily on the cigarette as if some other device or habit was to blame for the coughing. He took his time, breathing deeply and clearing his throat.

"Eddie was a tender child," he began hoarsely. "He got it from his mother. He wasn’t a sissy. In fact, he was just as tough as other little boys." A long pause, another drag of nicotine. "Not far from our house was a nigger family -"

"Could we just call them blacks, Sam? I’ve asked you this already."

"Forgive me. There was an African family on our place. The Lincolns. Joe Lincoln was his name, and he’d worked for us for many years. Had a common-law wife and a dozen common-law children. One of the boys was the same age as Eddie, and they were inseparable, best of friends. It was not that unusual in those days. You played with whoever lived nearby. I even had little African buddies, believe it or not. When Eddie started school, he got real upset because he rode one bus and his African pal rode another. Kid’s name was Quince. Quince Lincoln. They couldn’t wait to get home from school and go play on the farm. I remember Eddie was always disturbed because they couldn’t go to school together. And Quince couldn’t spend the night in our house, and Eddie couldn’t spend the night with the Lincolns. He was always asking me questions about why the Africans in Ford County were so poor, and lived in run-down houses, and didn’t have nice clothes, and had so many children in each family. He really suffered over it, and that made him different. As he got older, he grew even more sympathetic toward the Africans. I tried to talk to him."

"Of course you did. You tried to straighten him out, didn’t you?"

"I tried to explain things to him."

"Such as?"

"Such as the need to keep the races separate. There’s nothing wrong with separate but equal schools. Nothing wrong with laws prohibiting miscegenation. Nothing wrong with keeping the Africans in their place."

"Where’s their place?"

"Under control. Let ’em run wild, and look at what’s happened. Crime, drugs, AIDS, illegitimate births, general breakdown in the moral fabric of society."

"What about nuclear proliferation and killer bees?"

"You get my point."

"What about basic rights, radical concepts like the right to vote, the right to use public rest rooms, the right to eat in restaurants and stay in hotels, the right not to be discriminated against in housing, employment, and education?"

"You sound like Eddie."

"Good."

"By the time he was finishing high school he was spouting off like that, talking about how badly the Africans were being mistreated. He left home when he was eighteen."

"Did you miss him?"

"Not at first, I guess. We were fighting a lot. He knew I was in the Klan, and he hated the sight of me. At least, he said he did."

"So you thought more of the Klan than you did your own son?"

Sam stared at the floor. Adam scribbled on a legal pad. The air conditioner rattled and faded, and for a moment seemed determined to finally quit. "He was a sweet kid," Sam said quietly. "We used to fish a lot, that was our big thing together. I had an old boat, and we’d spend hours on the lake fishing for crappie and bream, sometimes bass. Then he grew up and didn’t like me. He was ashamed of me, and of course it hurt. He expected me to change, and I expected him to see the light like all the other white kids his age. It never happened. We drifted apart when he was in high school, then it seems like the civil rights crap started, and there was no hope after that."

"Did he participate in the movement?"

"No. He wasn’t stupid. He might have been sympathetic, but he kept his mouth shut. You just didn’t go around talking that trash if you were local. There were enough Northern Jews and radicals to keep things stirred up. They didn’t need any help."

"What did he do after he left home?"

"Joined the Army. It was an easy way out of town, away from Mississippi. He was gone for three years, and when he came back he brought a wife. They lived in Clanton and we barely saw them. He talked to his mother occasionally, but didn’t have much to say to me. It was the early sixties by then, and the African movement was getting cranked up. There were a lot of Klan meetings, a lot of activity, most to the south of us. Eddie kept his distance. He was very quiet, never had much to say anyway."

"Then I was born."

"You were born around the time those three civil rights workers disappeared. Eddie had the nerve to ask me if I was involved in it."

"Were you?"

"Hell no. I didn’t know who did it for almost a year."

"They were Kluckers, weren’t they?"

"They were Klansmen."

"Were you happy when those boys were murdered?"

"How the hell is that relevant to me and the gas chamber in 1990?"

"Did Eddie know it when you got involved with the bombing?"

"No one knew it in Ford County. We had not been too active. As I said, most of it was to the south of us, around Meridian."

"And you couldn’t wait to jump in the middle of it?"

"They needed help. The Fibbies had infiltrated so deep hardly anyone could be trusted. The civil rights movement was snowballing fast. Something had to be done. I’m not ashamed of it."

Adam smiled and shook his head. "Eddie was ashamed, wasn’t he?"

"Eddie didn’t know anything about it until the Kramer bombing."

"Why did you involve him?"

"I didn’t."

"Yes you did. You told your wife to get Eddie ,and drive to Cleveland and pick up your car. He ‘was an accessory after the fact."

"I was in jail, okay. I was scared. And no one !ever knew. It was harmless."

"Perhaps Eddie didn’t think so."

"I don’t know what Eddie thought, okay. By the time I got out of jail, he had disappeared. Y’all were gone. I never saw him again until his mother’s funeral, and then he slipped in and out without a word to anyone." He rubbed the wrinkles on his forehead with his left hand, then ran it through his oily hair. His face was sad, and as he glanced through the slit Adam saw a trace of moisture in the eyes. "The last time I saw Eddie, he was getting in his car outside the church after the funeral service. He was in a hurry. Something told me I’d never see him again. He was there because his mother had died, and I knew that would be his last visit home. There was no other reason for him to come back. I was on the front steps of the church, Lee was with me, and we both watched him drive away. There I was burying my wife, and at the same time watching my son disappear for the last time."

"Did you try to find him?"

"No. Not really. Lee said she had a phone number, but I didn’t feel like begging. It was obvious he didn’t want anything to do with me, so I left him alone. I often wondered about you, and I remember telling your grandmother how nice it would be to see you. But I wasn’t about to spend a lot of time trying to track y’all down."