The Fallen Fruit, page 22
Ceci leaned forward and scowled at him. That man was as old as her granddaddy, yet he had the nerve to wink at her.
Reverend Williams stretched out his greeting, and instead of letting the choir sing, he braced against the pulpit to capture their attention. “The Negroes down in Richmond should’ve kept Edwin Randolph on their city council, the only Black man who spoke up for us. Over ten years have passed since he warned us. He told us marches and mobilization are the only way to bring about change. Not locally but as a nation.”
A chorus of amens echoed throughout the pews. Fans shook with renewed vigor. Winnie scooted toward the end of the pew, a smirk dancing on her face.
Meanwhile, the reverend’s voice rose to capture the congregation’s rage. Up in the front, Aunt Hilda’s hand shot up in agreement. Granddaddy gave an approving nod, while Winnie edged toward freedom. She had a clear path to the other end—until her mama glanced over her shoulder. Winnie froze.
Caught like a raccoon at dawn, Ceci thought with a grin.
“We need to act,” Reverend Williams shouted. “Our children should be in those white schools. The Supreme Court already held their vote. It’s unconstitutional for the children to walk past Lane Elementary over to Jefferson.”
Claps erupted.
“It’s unconstitutional for the children to walk past Lane High School over to Burley.”
The fervor rose, and stomps shook the floor.
He paused a moment to make his point. “Inaction is not an option. If not in Richmond,” the reverend said, “then in Birmingham, where they shot that boy. If not in Chicago, then in Atlanta, where those innocent girls were violated. Five of our brothers are heading down to Richmond to have their voices heard.” He beckoned folks forward with a sweep of his hands, and five men shot to their feet. The Rosses had never protested Jim Crow laws, and yet to her surprise Granddaddy Ross followed four spry-looking middle-aged men to the front.
Winnie was on the move again. She tugged on Ceci’s wrist to join her, but Ceci didn’t budge, her eyes locked on her grandfather’s thin figure among his younger peers. A sliver of fear pulsed through her.
“I am a man,” her granddaddy had once said. “I expect a man’s dignity. Wasn’t that what this country was founded on? Equal rights for all men? I gave my body and soul over in Europe, but over here, I ain’t no better than a dog.” His wisdom always came from his rocking chair or by the light of their lamps. Never had Ceci seen his private convictions manifested in public. “I ain’t gonna wait forever to live as a human being. They need to watch out—’cause someday I’m gonna take what I deserve.”
Once the volunteers assembled, the deacons circled the men to cover them in prayer. Another tug at Ceci’s wrist interrupted her thoughts, and she freed herself. There’d be no mischief this morning.
“Why aren’t there more men up there?” a nearby woman asked another. “Sam’s getting up there in years. Ain’t he got a bad leg from the war?”
The sermon, the singing, and the praise kept Ceci rooted to her perch. She didn’t feel like singing or clapping. Half of her was trapped in this world; the other half took flight in imagination. Would her granddaddy stand his ground if fights broke out? And if he did, would he live to tell about it?
After church ended, the congregation seeped out into the cooler air, but Ceci didn’t welcome the breeze against her face. She hurried over to Granddaddy Ross and took his hand. His skin was dry, yet the grip was firm.
“You listen good today?” he asked, his expression assured.
“Yes, sir.”
The Ross family trudged back to the Ford, albeit with stops for prayers for Brother Ross, “to see him on his way to God’s work.” As they made their journey back toward home, her grandfather pulled off to the side of the road—right at the scarcely marked access to Bridge land. He sometimes stopped at this spot each Sunday. The old man ambled out, leaning hard on his good leg.
“What’s he doing?” Ceci whispered to her aunt.
Out here in the woods, only the songs from robins accompanied her grandfather’s soft footfalls. He strode out of the sun and up to the birch trees. Did he need to relieve himself? But he avoided the shelter of a nearby bush and marched up the middle of the overgrown path. Gnat swarms and thickets partially hid what lay beyond. He stared down the road for the longest time.
Ceci held her breath, her gaze sweeping from one end of the road to the other. Would a ghost appear in the corner of her eye? Just when she thought he’d stood there for too long, Granddaddy marched with purpose to the trees lining the narrow road, then he yanked away the vines.
“Should I go help him?” Ceci asked. Maybe she’d see something.
Her aunt shook her head.
The elderly man revealed what could’ve been a wooden mailbox. Ceci squinted. Dark-green vines were curled around the rotted post and box. Perhaps they clung to the only evidence the Bridges had lived here. Granddaddy reached into his pocket and took out something shiny. Light briefly glinted off the surface before the object disappeared into the mailbox. He returned to the car, and they headed home.
* * *
Ceci never returned to see what her granddaddy left behind that day. Nor did she ever get to ask him why he did it. Samuel Ross got in a car with other volunteers to Richmond and didn’t come back. Her aunt never told her what happened—Ceci had to overhear the news from her bed when Reverend Williams came by the house two days later.
The reverend’s nasal voice bled through the walls. “Our brothers bravely protested at a segregated train station. Brother Ross stepped in to protect the younger folks, but we lost him in the shuffle.”
“How do you lose someone?” Her aunt’s voice rose with pained furor. “God took my husband in ’49 and now my daddy’s gone. What do you think happened to him?”
“I suspect he was killed,” the reverend said. “And we’ll never find him.”
To escape her aunt’s loud sobs, Ceci turned onto her side and faced the wallpapered wall. She counted each nick and notch between the red posies dotting the surface. A single tear slipped down her cheek. Even now, she could still remember every flaw on that wall.
As she drove to Charlottesville, her anguish still trailed after her. The feeling was as real and as vivid as the wall in her mind. Granddaddy Ross wasn’t coming home. His fate would remain a mystery.
Chapter 24
Cecily Bridge-Davis
June 1964
On a crisp Monday morning, Ceci trudged over to McIntire Library. Since arriving in Charlottesville, she’d passed the white-columned brick building every day on the way to the county office, but she’d yet to go inside. Maybe she feared what she’d find. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t buried herself in the research trenches before. She briefly smiled as she climbed the steps, strolling between large clay pots filled with bright flowers. As she entered through the double glass doors, the cool air hit her face and the welcoming scent of weathered pages brought her home.
No matter the location, she’d always loved libraries and what they represented: a galaxy of worlds hidden between the covers. Those worlds had no boundaries, and heroes faced adversity only to persevere in the end.
Ceci weaved her way around the card catalog cabinets. Much had changed. The shelves used to be oak, not these industrial metal ones. The frail wooden chairs were gone. Now comfortable chairs swathed in orange upholstery beckoned the patrons to curl up with an adventure or two. The chairs reminded Ceci of how she’d loved lounging around with the latest science fiction title while Winnie drew in a worn notebook.
Ceci found the crescent-shaped circulation desk at the back of the main hall. A woman manned the special collections counter. The woman glanced up when she approached.
“May I help you?” the woman asked with a thick Spanish accent. The pin on her chest read mabel.
“I’d like to examine issues of The Daily Progress for the years 1938 and 1939. Do you have those?”
The woman’s thin lips quirked. “Indeed we do. And back then, the paper released each issue once per month, so your search shouldn’t take long. Let me get your machine set up.”
Ten minutes later, Ceci sat in front of a microfiche reader. She spotted what she was looking for in the February issue of 1938.
12 SLAIN AT LOCAL FARM, CHILD KIDNAPPED
By Reed Carlson
CHARLOTTESVILLE, V.A., February 26th __ Tragedy struck a farm north of Charlottesville. Twelve Negroes, both men and women, were found dead in their homes. There are no suspects. According to the fourteen survivors, a single man’s rampage swept across the five homes on the farm as he set fire to the structures, then the assailant kidnapped a child by the name of Owen Bridge, 5. The man fled south and took the child with him. The victims include: Ralph Bridge, 28, Douglas Raley, 57, Dennis Bridge, 56, Ernest Bridge, 45, Ernest Bridge Jr., 19, Alexander Bridge, 26, Audrey Freeman, 23, Ursula Bridge, 65 . . .
A man had murdered her daddy, Alexander Bridge. Ceci brushed her fingers across the name.
She reread the final paragraph not once but three times. A man had murdered not only her daddy, but her uncle, her cousins, her grandfather. She sucked in a razor-sharp breath. Ceci imagined a far grander man than two simple words in an article with an attention-grabbing headline, without photos, and with few details.
Her neck cracked as she twisted in the seat away from the machine. From the other side of the room, Mabel took a step toward her. Ceci’s hand rose. She’d be fine, and now she knew how the Bridges had died.
For the next hour, she scoured The Daily Progress into 1939 for more details, but nothing popped up. The lack of news left a bitter taste in her mouth. The man who’d murdered twelve innocent souls had vanished. She read the names again. Other than her father, one of the other names stood out. She’d seen it on one of the pieces of paper she’d retrieved from the Bridge family Bible. The 1955 receipt was for the purchase of a suit by a man named Owen Bridge.
* * *
The yellowed piece of paper had never stood out among the Bridge memorabilia Cecily had collected. For all she knew, it could’ve been used as a bookmark. The receipt was four by six inches in size. The gothic black-and-white print framing the text in the middle drew her eye, reminding her of advertisements from the late 1800s. Someone had penned in cursive the company’s name, Stallworth’s, and the establishment’s founding date at the top. The upper-right corner was frayed, as if someone had folded it back and forth many times—perhaps to hide the bloody fingerprint underneath.
Back in May, she’d glanced at it a couple of times, then shoved the document aside to browse far more intriguing research materials. But now she flipped the receipt over to read the handwritten text she hadn’t scrutinized before: “Found where Owen was taken in Ralph’s house in ’38. A man left this.”
So the kidnapper had left evidence behind. The word “this” had three sharp strokes underneath. There was something familiar about the swoop of the cursive O and the precision to the F. She’d glanced over her granddaddy’s shoulder as he’d written notes as a gardener for one of the professors at the university.
The article didn’t mention the Stallworth’s receipt. No surprise there. Back in those days, Black folks had to handle things on their own. Not only that, a ludicrous name and date at the bottom of the receipt listed the customer as Owen Bridge, an address in Charlottesville that hadn’t existed yet, and a purchase date of October 1955. That would’ve gotten a laugh back in ’38.
It made Ceci laugh too. First, that ancient mailman’s tote, found with survival tools in it, which would be a clear help to any traveler coming across it, in any era. Then there were those peculiar family rules on a paper found inside the bag, including “Never interfere with past events.” Plus the far-fetched family legends from her childhood, like the mysterious figures in tattered clothes who would slip in and out of sight in heavy fog. Now she dealt with a paradox so stale it could’ve inspired an episode of Captain Video and His Video Rangers. She didn’t believe those time-travel TV shows either.
Madness. All of it.
She had other things to do. Spending the day tracing every line and curve on a scrap of paper wasn’t a good use of her time when the farm still needed to be put up for sale. If she kept dragging out returning home, she’d have to deal with Winston showing up and hauling her away himself.
The next morning, Ceci headed over to The Daily Progress off Main Street to put in an ad for the property. She tried to keep her eyes on the road, but she couldn’t resist peeking at the Stallworth’s storefront.
I’m not going to stop in there today, she thought. She wasn’t about to stir up a hornet’s nest over what was likely a mistake. One of the Bridges might have left the receipt in the Bible by accident. She was better off doing what she needed to do. Order the newspaper ad, get the land sold, and get the hell out of here.
Ceci managed to get the ad into next week’s paper. She added a skip to her step, pleased she could check off a task from her endless list. But Stallworth’s waited down the street. The glass door even swung open, and two customers departed, chatting among themselves. All she had to do was go in there, present the receipt, then have a good laugh when she learned the Bridges were nothing more than pranksters.
She drew closer and peered inside. Every surface in the store had seen better days. The chipped paint on the window distorted the advertising for a flannel suit. Cigarette burns marred the doorframe. And no one had swept the space under the awning in a long time. Ceci hesitated twice, but the unanswered questions pushed her through the door. She’d never have another opportunity like this one. Might as well figure out what it all meant.
Once inside, she approached a man who looked no older than herself. He appeared to fumble through sets of small drawers against the far wall.
“Will be just a moment, ma’am,” the man said. “I can’t seem to find those fabric shears. Mrs. Booth won’t be none too pleased if she shows up for her husband’s slacks and they ain’t ready.”
“I had a quick question, but if you’re busy I can come back another time.” By “another time,” Ceci meant not at all.
“Not a problem.” He turned to face her. “I’ll find it and get the slacks done just fine. A customer is a customer.”
Ceci fished the receipt out of her purse and presented it.
“Well, look at this.” He examined the proof of purchase, even turning it around to the other side with her grandfather’s note. “Where did you get this?”
“I inherited my daddy’s land. While I was looking around, I found this receipt.” She feigned a grin, trying to play it cool. “Do your receipts go back that far?”
“Definitely not. How is it so old? And it’s got Stallworth’s name on it too. Are you sure this was found in 1938?”
“Not really. My granddaddy wrote that note. He died in ’53.”
“Strange.” He scratched the scruff on his cheek. “Did it take a ride in a time machine? Maybe visit them creepy blue people like in that movie from a couple years ago?”
“Sounds about right.” She snorted—she’d fallen in love with Rod Taylor after seeing The Time Machine. “Your store didn’t open until 1951, right?”
“Yeah, my uncle opened the place over ten years ago. The date on the receipt is right, but there’s no way this could’ve been found back in ’38. Someone’s playing quite the prank on you.”
Finally some semblance of the truth. “Yeah, it’s probably a prank.” She slipped the receipt back in her purse. Time to leave before she embarrassed herself further. “I will take my leave so you may finish those slacks.”
They said their goodbyes and she managed a hasty escape.
On the way back to the motel, she couldn’t stop thinking about the receipt. Once she returned to the room, she opened the family Bible. Instead of tucking the receipt inside, she examined the roster of her ancestors’ births and deaths. Some people, in particular a James Bridge, had a birth date and no death recorded. Instead, the word “gone” was used and repeated elsewhere. At first, she’d thought they died or perhaps moved away, but after talking to the clerk, an ominous idea came to mind. Something horrific had happened to the Bridges, and it bordered on fiction instead of science.
Chapter 25
Cecily Bridge-Davis
June 1964
Ceci was drowning in revelations. The slain Bridges, the mysterious receipt, and now her cousin might’ve time traveled. The errant thoughts left her lightheaded and curled up on the hotel bed’s orange-and-brown blankets. A noisy fan tucked in the window opening blew the tepid afternoon breeze across the room and ruffled the papers on the table she was using as her desk. Sounds of Preston Avenue, and the memories they triggered, filtered through. Two blocks down, over on the Fourth Street corner, she’d held Winston’s hand for the first time. A week before that, they’d crossed paths at Trinity Episcopal Church’s annual street carnival. Ceci had glimpsed him from behind—his wide shoulders and the profile of his turned head as he walked with his friends. The Ferris wheel’s flashing lights and the twirling merry-go-round nearly concealed him, but she’d stared, enamored.
Winston always had bragged to others that he’d seen her first from afar. He’d fallen in love before they spoke. But no, she’d strolled around the ride in his direction, telling herself he wouldn’t be as handsome from the front. They’d come face-to-face and he’d be like any other boy in town. Her anticipation rose with each footstep. Can’t look too eager, she thought. But her smile quickly surfaced when his smooth voice bled through the brassy merry-go-round music.
“The Dodgers need to move Jackie back to left field,” he’d said to one of the three boys. “He’s wasted at third base—”
The other boys from her high school kept walking, but the new boy had spotted her. Unsure what to say, she blurted, “That man is good enough to play any position.”
