Page 8 of The Reformatory

“Grab that gas can out the carport,” Miz Lottie said. “We got enough.”

Until that moment, Gloria had only seen Miz Lottie’s deficiencies: her weak joints and bad eyesight, her inability to stand Robert’s constant motion, her too-meager meals she could barely afford to share. Gloria saw no weakness in Miz Lottie now. Her good eye was clear and alert. She moved slowly but with purpose as she retrieved her cane from the side of the porch steps. She gathered the oversized pocketbook she always carried when she left her house, as big as a carpetbag. While Gloria fumbled with the heavy, rusted red gas can, spilling a few drops when she stumbled over a box in the carport, she caught Miz Lottie glancing at herself in her compact mirror, vain even now.

And Miz Lottie had called her pumpkin. Only Mama called her pumpkin. Gloria could barely see through her tears as she tried to fit the can’s nozzle into the rusted gas tank of Miz Lottie’s truck. A gasoline droplet on her hand stung her right eye like fire when she rubbed it.

“Chile, gimme that ’fore you spill all my gas,” Miz Lottie said, so Gloria stood aside for the old woman, who angled the gas can with a practiced hand. “Eighteen cents a gallon—you better treat this here like gold.”

On Miz Lottie’s street of houses with small yards, her neighbors were behaving as if it were a regular day. Someone’s gas lawn mower burred, and Ivory Joe Hunter’s “I Almost Lost My Mind” played through an open window with a flapping curtain. Miz Lottie’s neighbor, Clyde Frazier, was plucking ripe mangoes from his tree, not noticing her—maybe on purpose. Minding his business.

Gloria wanted to scream her story to them. Papa would have rushed out in the middle of the night to help any of them.

“Come on,” Miz Lottie said. “We’ll get there faster if we cut through the woods.”

4

For thirty minutes, Robert stood under the midday sun with his arms chained to the hot iron banister by the rear courthouse door. The deputy watched him from the shade under the awning, out of the sun’s glare. Robert’s knees shook the way Mama had trembled with fever. He counted every minute on the courthouse clock tower between a V of live oak branches above. At eleven o’clock, he counted thirteen strikes of the bell—a bad sign for sure.

Where was Gloria? All the time he’d waited, he’d expected her to round the corner with the good news that she’d phoned Papa somehow. It couldn’t be that he was about to be sent to live somewhere without Gloria or the Philco radio Papa had bought him or his last Easter snapshot with Mama, their white clothes matching. Or anything at all.

A green Ford Woodie approached the driveway behind the courthouse, low undercarriage scraping against a dip in the road. The deputy ground out his cigarette with his heel. “ ’Bout damn time,” he muttered.

Robert had not cried since he’d left the courtroom, but he wanted to cry now. The station wagon was so long, it looked like Mr. Kendrick’s hearse. “For me?” he asked the deputy.

“Ain’t a milk truck.”

The station wagon stopped a few feet from him, and the curly-haired white man driving opened his car door and fixed on his hat to block the sun. His shoes shone like a starry night. He stood, his legs unfolding until he was as tall and thin as a pine tree. He made the deputy look like a little boy beside him. But no gun. Whenever the deputy was near him, all Robert noticed was his holstered blue-black gun.

“Transport isn’t exactly my purview,” the tall man said. He had a flat, dull accent Robert had only heard on the radio. He sounded like private detective Johnny Dollar. Papa loved that program.

“Wouldn’t know about all that,” the deputy said. “Sheriff Posey said to wait on you, so…” He shrugged. Gloria was right: shrugging was an ugly gesture, especially when it was meant for you. Your situation. Your life.

For the first time, the tall man looked down at Robert from eyes a mile high. Irritation deepened creases across the man’s forehead and jawline. Robert had never spent so much time with white men. The man’s linen suit smelled like womanly soap. His fingernails were like a woman’s too, clipped and smooth and clean. His teacher Mr. Harris was fussy, but even Mr. Harris’s hands weren’t so smooth and unblemished. Robert wondered how shabby he must look to this giant white man.

“Where’s his admit form?” the tall man said.

“Judge Morris just said carry him over to Haddock.”

The name Haddock soured the tall man’s face. “No paperwork. Guess that’s how you know you’re in Gracetown municipal. Get those cuffs off, would you? This boy’s not gonna give me trouble. Are you?” He tapped Robert’s shoulder lightly.

Robert shook his head. “No, suh.” Gloria had told him it was best to sound dumb when talking to white men. If he was dumb and young enough, a white man might leave him be the way he might walk past a dog. He’d tried to sound dumb to the judge but not dumb enough to make him mad. Robbie cast his eyes down, staring at his too-big boots from Papa.

“What’s your name?”

“Robert Stephens Junior.”

“Look me in my eye when you speak. I’m Mr. Loehmann.”

The tall man outstretched his smooth hand, expecting a handshake. Robert tried, but he could not meet his eyes, his head too heavy to move.

The deputy sucked his teeth, but he reached to his belt for his keys and unsnapped the handcuffs. Only then did Robert realize how tight the hot metal had been, grinding against the lower bone of his thumb anytime he moved.

His hands free, Robert reached to shake Mr. Loehmann’s hand. He first reached with his left hand but quickly corrected himself. Mr. Loehmann gripped tightly, not letting Robert pull away as quickly as he tried to. The tall man leaned down to stare in Robert’s eyes. Dark brown eyes matched his own.

“We’ll have no trouble on the ride to the Reformatory. Is that understood?”

Robert nodded. “No trouble,” he said. “I swear on my mama.”

A miracle: Mr. Loehmann smiled! He gestured toward his open car door. “Slide in. Passenger side’s yours.”