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“So they only get to live in part of this big country they helped to build? How the hell is that fair?”
Reeves leaned in and said in a hushed voice, “You have to pick a side, Jack, because there is no middle ground. Just make sure you pick the right one.” She walked off.
After his father returned from the war Jack vividly recalled as a child driving with his parents in their old Ford station wagon when their route took them through one of the Black areas around the county. Their mother instructed her children to lock their doors and “not make eye contact with those people.”
He and his brother had followed their mother’s command, while a smiling, happy teenage Lucy simply gazed out the window at everybody and everything.
Then a curious Jack had decided to have a look of his own. The shirtless Black boy on the sidewalk was lean with every rib and muscle showing. Jack had been blowing bubbles with his gum, and he had used his tongue to get some of the residue off his chin.
The Black boy, obviously thinking that Jack had stuck his tongue out at him, angrily raised a fist at him and yelled out something. The hand and the angry words were only in the air for a second, though, before a man appeared, probably the boy’s father, and grabbed the child’s hand and yanked it down. As Jack craned his neck around to see, the man scolded the boy for his dangerous reaction to the perceived slight from a white person.
Jack had turned back around to see his mother also watching this stark, familial confrontation. Jack thought he saw a tear trembling at the woman’s right eye.
When she saw her son staring, Hilly Lee said in a hoarse voice, “You see, son, even they know.” She didn’t speak for the rest of the trip. And that episode added yet another bewildering element to the puzzling picture that was Hilly Lee.
CHAPTER 23
THE KNOCK ON THE DOOR came right when darkness had overtaken the light.
Jack stared up at the tall, heavily built man with a broken nose that had been badly reset and hung crookedly to the left.
“Can I help you?” Jack said.
“I sure hope so, friend.”
The man pushed his way in and was followed by three other men, nearly as large as he was. They were all dressed in black slacks and white short-sleeved shirts showing off defined muscles. One held a blackjack in his hand. The others just made fists.
Jack backed up to the wall as the men made a fluid and purposeful semicircle around him.
“Y’all need to leave here right now, before I call the cops,” barked Jack.
The first man said, “They know we’re here and they ain’t comin’. We’re here to convince one of our own to be loyal to his kind.”
“And I got your message loud and clear. So y’all can leave now.”
“No, I think you need some persuadin’.”
Jack put up his hands as two of the man charged him. He ducked a wild swing and caught his attacker with a punishing right flush to the jaw that knocked him off his feet. But the other man pinned Jack’s arms to his sides, while a third attacker whaled away at his midsection, driving the air out of Jack’s gut with his rapid punches.
When the man let go of his arms, Jack fell to the floor. When he tried to get back up, the man with the blackjack leveled him with a blow to the jaw.
The first man said, “Okay, now repeat after me: ‘I am no n——’s lawyer.’ Say it now or you’re gonna get some more ass kickin’.”
Jack wiped the blood off his mouth and stood unsteadily.
“Say it!”
When Jack remained silent, one of the men kicked him in the side while another punched him in the face.
Jack staggered over to his desk and toppled against it.
“Okay, now you ready to repeat after me? ‘I am no—’”
The man froze when Jack pulled the revolver out of the drawer, took careful aim, and shot off the top part of the man’s right ear. He screamed and grabbed at the gaping wound, blood streaming down the side of his head.
Jack pointed the gun at the other men and declared, “Who’s next?”
They tumbled over each other to get out the door. After they were gone, Jack limped over and locked it. He used a tissue to scoop the remains of the man’s upper ear off the floor and threw it out the window. He next grabbed some ice from the small fridge, wrapped it in a handkerchief, and held it alternately against his ribs and his face.
