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“Jerome and Pearl Washington? They’re accused of killing the Randolphs. I’m defending them.”
The grin slowly faded. “Then you best keep your money. You gone need it.”
“What do you mean?” said a startled DuBose.
“You gone need a doctor after all is said and done.”
He put the mop in his pail and rolled it off down the hall. DuBose slowly put the money back in her purse.
As DuBose waited for the elevator a man walked around the corner and stopped.
Judge Ambrose said, “I didn’t know you were staying here, Miss DuBose.”
“It’s convenient.”
“Yes, yes it is.”
“Not to speak out of turn, but I was surprised that they removed Judge Bliley from the case and brought you in.”
“Not as surprised as I was. I was retired when I got the call.”
“So how did it happen?”
A moment later Howard Pickett joined them. “You two know each other?” he asked, looking surprised.
“No,” said Ambrose. He glanced at Pickett with what DuBose took to be a mildly disgusted look. “But I understand you and Miss DuBose have a history.”
“That’s one way to refer to it,” said DuBose curtly.
They all climbed into the car and Pickett said, “Which floor, Miss DuBose?”
She hesitated, not really wanting to answer. “Um, five.”
He pushed the button for the fifth floor and then the third, while Ambrose selected the fourth.
Pickett said, “Not too long ago, this hotel would not have catered to Negroes. Sad they had to be forced to do so. I mean, it’s against some folks’ faith.”
DuBose said, “What faith would that be? Ignorance or evil? Or both?”
Pickett said, “Come on, you know Blacks and whites are better off separated.”
Before she could respond Ambrose spoke up. “I would strongly advise you to keep your mouth shut before you find yourself in trouble, sir.”
Pickett slumped against the wall and kept quiet.
He got off on his floor. When they arrived at the fourth floor Ambrose nodded at DuBose as he stepped off.
DuBose shook her head, unable to make sense of what had just happened.
CHAPTER 43
DUBOSE UNDRESSED, WASHED HER FACE, wrapped her hair in the silk scarf, put on her nightgown, and sat on the bed. She opened the drawer of the nightstand and took out the Gideon Bible housed there. Instead of following the more traditional Southern Baptist religion, her mother had been a Catholic, and she had raised her children in that faith. However, unwilling to rely on the priests to interpret the Bible for her, DuBose had studied the scriptures. During her youth they had represented some of the most important lessons in her life, a touchstone that helped guide her through what the world had in store for folks like her. It was no coincidence, she believed, that Dr. King’s undergraduate degree had been in divinity and his doctorate in theology; and he had been an ordained minister as well, preaching with his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Only deep faith could keep one going through times like these, she believed.
She had never known the Deep South as a child, other than driving there with her parents, or taking the train to attend marriages and funerals of relatives there. She would always remember that when the train got near the Mason-Dixon Line it would stop, and all the Black passengers would have to give up the seats they had paid for and move back to the decrepit “Jim Crow” car, as it was known. This was done so that whites could take the Black passengers’ seats and travel the rest of the way without having to endure the sight of someone who looked like her. DuBose’s family also had to pack picnic baskets because the availability of food largely ceased for Blacks on the Southern side of the country.
On the way north the process was reversed, and she and her family would retake their seats that they had paid for. Her parents didn’t really explain any of this to her, but DuBose was smart enough to quickly figure it out on her own. And when they had traveled for the first time back to Louisiana to visit a relative in the late 1930s, her parents had made clear to her and her siblings the rules of the road, as they called them.
She was never to look at, talk to, or touch a white person. She was to move to the other side of the street when a white person was coming along. If the police stopped you, you made no sudden moves. And you never talked back. You never went in a white entrance. DuBose was also taught never to drink from a fountain marked for whites only. She had to use the toilet marked COLORED WOMEN, never the restroom with the sign that read WHITE LADIES. And she would always sit in the back of the bus with her gaze in her lap.
