Folsom on Fire
Chapter 4 (Excerpt)
The shade from the trees surrounding the wood foundation of the church did little to provide Lar comfort from the heat. There was no breeze to help evaporate sweat that dripped from his forehead and soaked his clothes. There was a mass of black faces gathering before him that was growing by the moment. The buzzing of the crowd was close to driving him insane. Mouths moved, hands waved and wrung . . . women cried . . . men scowled in anger. The same words rose again and again from the growing sea of weary waters . . . Lar . . . Negroe . . . boy . . . lynched . . . murdered . . . Lar . . .again . . . white folk . . . rape . . .Lar . . . killed . . . again!
Lar knew nothing else to do but pray for guidance and comfort. But how could there be?” he wondered. How could he tell his people that things would be all right, when he didn’t believe it himself? He was feeling exactly what they were . . . despair and fear . . . anger and hopelessness—a shade called revenge wiggled its way through his thoughts at times. He felt ashamed that he was all they had as a leader and a man of God. Still, he held up his hand and hushed the crowd.
He was about to speak, but paused. He looked over the crowd and saw something he hadn’t seen since he was a child. Making their way up the dirt road and across the small field were Mary and Maggie Mae . . . almost side-by-side . . . almost. Though sunlight distorted their figures, there was no mistaking Mary . . . tall . . . wide . . . looming—her dark skin glistening next to Maggie Mae’s nearly washed out white skin. Their entrance into the crowd was enough to momentarily distract everyone, including Lar, from the reason all were gathered, for all knew of the love and hate that inextricably bound the two women and the holy man.
Lar waited until both women were settled in front of the crowd. Maggie Mae was blushing. Mary held her head high and smiled at Lar, and then surreptitiously nodded at him. Such a simple gesture of love was enough to strengthen his mouth, his mind, his will, which urged him to thank God for the thousandth time for having given her to him.
Lar raised his right hand once more. He bowed his head and began praying. “Our Father, who art in heaven . . .”
A man’s voice pierced the air. “We don’t need no prayers, Laurence Cole! We need some action . . . hear me! Ya’ll best listen up! Ya’ll hear what . . . ”
Lar continued praying as the man kept ranting, and soon was joined by a chorus of fellow worshipers that drowned out the instigating voice, which had no choice but to diminish to a whisper, and then to nothing at all. When the prayer was ended, silence returned. Death was now the untouchable . . . unseen . . . yet present figure in their midst who struck fear in young and old . . . wise and foolish . . . Destiny, Circumstance and Opportunity stood in the back and waited to make their entrance.
“There ain’t much we know for sure,” Lar said, loud enough for the ones in the back to hear. “We do know a boy from Peak Hills done been lynched if what Picken and Pete Baker say be true.”
A fellow field worker of Lar’s, Jeremiah Lewis spoke up. “White folk been lynchin’ more and more—Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and ya’ll know they done gone crazy here in Mississippi doin’ it. I believe it true, too!” The crowd agreed with boisterous rumbles of ‘amens’.
“Ain’t no way we can be entirely sure what done happened exactly ‘til we hear from more Negroes out from there. We bound to know more sooner as more of them leave,” Lar told them. “Ain’t but a few ways outta Peak Hills, and comin’ through Folsom be one of them.”
