Five Miles to Paradise

19

My name is Leah.

I came to live with Sheriff Heck in his small, neat white-frame house on Bouveay Street after being attacked on a lonesome, country back road. 

If not for the kindness of strangers, I do not know where I would be today.

I was sleeping in my employer's car, a fine Cadillac convertible. I had been ordered to drive the automobile home after my employer fell ill and was rushed to the hospital. 

It was late in the day when I got started, but I did as I was told.

Along the way, I became hopelessly lost. Dead-tired and falling asleep at the wheel, I decided to park the car by the side of the road to grab a short nap. Two young thugs pulled me out of the car and hit me over the head. They stole my employer's car, leaving me for dead on the side of the road.

Although automobile theft is a crime, and thieves are usually prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, it seemed that these lawbreakers would escape without penalty. The case was going nowhere.

My employer, a wealthy white lady, refused to press charges. Her name is Neldia Corine, but everyone calls her, Miss Nell. 

It seems my former employer, who lives some miles away, cannot be inconvenienced. She would have to travel down to the LeFayettahCounty courthouse to testify in the trial.

At least, that is the reason she gives anyone who asks her why she refused to testify.

I think she has other reasons.

Miss Nell, who is fiercely proud, could not bear to have her photograph in the local newspaper. 

Like our president, polio forces her to wear leg braces. She is able to get around, but she is nothing like the beautiful, lithe creature she once was before the disease ravaged her. I believe that this is the reason she refuses to go forward with the case. But I can never say for sure.

Instead, Miss Nell insists that what happened was a prank gone awry.

"Boys will be boys," Miss Nell says. "They were just off on a joyride, and since Leah has fully recovered from the conk on the noggin," as she so eloquently describes my injury from that night, "no harm was really done."

It is here she laughs as if nothing of consequence has occurred.

"Let bygones be bygones. I'd rather put the whole ordeal behind me. Leah," she told me over the phone, "your good sheriff recovered my vehicle, and I am so grateful. There's not even a scratch on it! I was amazed. And very relieved. Please give him my regards. Good day."

That was it.

I hung up the telephone wearing a sick, half-smile on my face.

The whole affair was closed as tight as the coffin lid in her mama's grave.

And not even one word asking me if I liked my position as housecleaner for the sheriff, how I was doing, or bean-kiss-your-foot.

Not that I expected her to be concerned about me. 

I am only Leah, after all, the maid, chief cook, bottle washer, and colored.

Could she still be angry with me for not coming back to work for her? No, I decided. White people have too many other matters of far more importance to occupy their minds. If anything, I am just a hazy shadow on the outskirts of Miss Nell's memory. I am lucky you even remembered my name.

I was employed by her family for a number of years, nursed Miss Nell through her sickness, and kept her house immaculate. I worked hard, knew my place, and stayed within the strict boundaries set up for my kind.

"How could you do this to me, Leah?" she had heatedly asked the day she came to pick up her car from the sheriff. "After all I've done for you! You have to come back home with me! You have to! I simply refuse to take 'no' for an answer! Do you hear me?"

But my mind was made up. I was ready for a new start.

Miss Nell was livid, to say the least.

"How can you want to stay in this backwater Hicksville," Miss Nell asked. "They tried to kill you, for godsakes! Leah! Leah, think what you are doing to me!"

"I'm sorry, ma'am," I had said softly, "but I want to stay here."

The thought never crossed Miss Nell's mind that I would do anything but follow her back home and resume my old life. I was deserting her, and I had refused a direct order.

She would never forgive me. I had decided to stay put and keep house for Sheriff Heck Waterstim.

Unlike my former employer, I really wanted to pursue the case against those two ruffians who had been in and out of trouble since they could walk. No one would consider what I wanted. 

Here in LeFayettah County, Mississippi, it was a fact. 

I would never be allowed to testify against two young men who were white.