Page 20 of The Reformatory

Losing Papa’s work shirt brought a stone to Robert’s throat. The name STEPHENS was embroidered across the pocket. When the warden let him keep the shirt, he thought that was the end of it. Still, Robert did not cry. He held his sore chin high.

“Yessir,” he said. “I don’t need ’em.”

Boone pointed, and Robert saw his blue tie hiding in the grass like a corn snake. “Get yo’ damn tie ’fore I take you to the Funhouse.”

Robert didn’t know what the Funhouse was, but the dead silence from even the mean boys ahead of him in line told him he didn’t ever want to learn.

8

“Gloria Stephens, I’ll be—”

Miss Anne was so flustered when she met Gloria at the rear screen door that her cheeks splotched with red pinpricks. “Do you know what time it is, missy? Yesterday you’re twenty minutes late, today it’s lunchtime—”

Gloria’s eyes alone hushed Miss Anne mid-complaint. She was only five years older than Gloria, and sometimes she knew when to give Gloria room for a breath here and there, not just treating her like hired help. Gloria had known Miss Anne since she was little—Miz Lottie used to bring her and Robbie to the white Powells’ when she was their cook, and Mama often had played their piano to lead Christmas carols—but they were mostly strangers even though Gloria had cleaned and cooked for her almost a year. Miss Anne kept the habit of asking after a missing silver salt shaker or a favorite hand mirror, and then just as casually tell her a day or two later, Don’t worry, I found it in the drawer, as if it didn’t matter that she had just called Gloria a thief. Gloria prided herself on honesty, but she remembered how Miss Anne was ready to accuse her of wrongdoing at the first opportunity. Gloria lowered her eyes to hide their boiling sadness. And shame—an emotion she had just discovered. She’d never felt shame after the lies on Papa.

“I’m sorry, Miss Anne. Robbie got locked up at the Reformatory today.”

Gloria hadn’t planned to tell her, but Miss Anne would have heard from someone. “My goodness, what—”

Gloria politely squeezed past Miss Anne toward the hall. “ ’Scuse me, Miss Anne, but how many for lunch?” Gloria would choke on the words if she tried to tell the story now—with her last hug with Robert so freshly stolen.

“Nell and Fred will both be here. And Ma-Ma upstairs. Maybe do something with the leftover beef stew in the refrigerator? I don’t want it to spoil.” Miss Anne waited to see if Gloria would tell more about Robbie.

Gloria didn’t, and Miss Anne did not follow her past the laundry room to the kitchen.

Good. The electric washing machine’s basin was splashing. Miss Anne must have been desperate; Gloria had never seen Miss Anne wash her own clothes except to rinse out a stain, and she seemed afraid of the machine, especially the wringer. Gloria did not know any Negro families with a washing machine, and Miss Anne’s washer was still so novel that neighborhood children hid in the gardenia bushes and peeked in at it through the screen door. Gloria wondered how she would get used to washing her own clothes in a washtub again if she wasn’t working at Miss Anne’s. There was no colored Laundromat in Gracetown, and how would she afford it? That thought calmed her anger. Miss Anne wasn’t the one who’d touched her on McCormack Road.

Giving her anger somewhere else to go helped Gloria start planning. She would have to see the McCormacks. As soon as she finished at work. This idea gnawed at Gloria as she stirred the thick beef stew heating on the stove, cleaned the coffee grinds out of the coffeemaker’s bin, wiped the counter, swept the floor, and scrubbed the breakfast dishes Miss Anne had left for her in the sink. What was Robbie doing at that exact moment? Was he cleaning too? He’s getting the beating of his life, her own voice whispered to her. And it won’t be his last one, not even his last one today. Gloria knew that voice, the one that had told her that day Mama was at the sink: Look at her cheek and how the bone jumps out. She’s sick and doesn’t even know it. That voice brought only bad news; her future self who already knew the worst.

Miss Anne peeked in on her, and Gloria turned her face away. When her brother, Fred, got caught brawling after a football game six months before, the deputy had brought him home with a warning. His only punishment, as far as Gloria could tell, was an earful from Miss Anne, mostly about their father’s legacy and how he must not ruin his good name with low behavior. She’d been shut behind a door with him, but Gloria had heard her say he was “acting just like a nigger.” It was the only time she’d heard Miss Anne use the word, but Gloria didn’t have to wonder what she would think of Robbie’s troubles.

“So you’re just going to stand there and say nothing about it?” Miss Anne said.

“I’ll fix it, Miss Anne. The trouble’s mine.”

“Well—the Reformatory! That’s very serious, Gloria. It’s one step away from prison.”

“That wire looks like prison to me.”

“You’re only making my point.”

“What do you expect me to do, Miss Anne?” She held off from pointing out that her papa had never been a town councilman who went hunting with the now-retired sheriff. And she, unlike Miss Anne, did not have a fat insurance check from her dead father’s car crash sitting at the First Bank of Gracetown she might use to hire a lawyer. Unkind words stewed in Gloria’s thoughts, making her mouth burn. Girl, you’re gonna get yourself fired today for sure. Gloria tried to breathe the bricks out of her chest. Inhale. Exhale.

“Learn from Fred, Gloria. Once they start getting in trouble, they can hardly keep out. I was only twenty-one when I had to finish rearing Fred. But you! We both know Auntie Lottie has no business raising children and no business behind the wheel of that truck. She almost ran down my mailbox when she dropped you here.”

With that slap of truth, Miss Anne left the doorway. Gloria had hoped Miss Anne hadn’t seen the truck bump against the mailbox, but Miss Anne must have been waiting at the window.

Nothing was worse than a scolding that couldn’t be argued with. Gloria’s anger bubbled until a thought screamed at her: this is Papa’s fault. He should be here.

The judge had said it. Miz Lottie had said it. Miss Anne had said it, in an indirect way. Even Mama had said it, back in the days she had the strength for arguing with Papa, when she said, “Count the cost.” Now Robbie was the cost. If Papa could have stayed quiet and done his work without complaining, he would still be in Gracetown. Robbie’s temper had quickened since Papa was gone. Lyle shouldn’t have pushed Robbie, but the old Robbie would never have kicked him.

Gloria felt herself floating toward a great open space where her anger at Papa could free her. But she would not, could not, take another step toward that void. Papa was a good man—an important man, Reverend Jenkins and the rest of the back-porch men said—and all important people made sacrifices. The Bible had taught her that, even if too many of the stories sounded like fairy tales. Freedom was Papa’s calling, the same as God to a preacher. Hadn’t Abraham been willing to sacrifice Isaac on God’s word? And then God had saved Isaac in the end? No, it wasn’t Papa’s fault. She should have seen Lyle McCormack from a mile away. She should have taken Robert by the arm and walked as fast as she could. Papa was breaking his back in Chicago to send for them. Wasn’t he?

Lunchtime came before Gloria had figured out how to smile, so she suffered through inquiries and remarks from Fred (“Dang, gal, that frown’s ugly as a possum’s ass”); his wife, Nell, voice low (“I’d be frowning too if I had to spend all morning cooped up with Anne and the old lady”); and Old Lady Powell, Miss Anne’s great-grandmother, who rarely left her room upstairs (“You think I don’t know an evil eye when I see one?”). Old Lady Powell was nearly ninety and old enough to remember slavery, said she’d known Miz Lottie when she was a “li’l nigger gal” who used to warm her mother’s feet at the edge of her bed on cold nights, although Miz Lottie insisted she remembered no such thing and said she’d slap Gloria silly if she kept telling that foolish story.

“You used to warm my mama’s feet,” Old Lady Powell said again as Gloria set down her bowl of stew and tea at her bedside table. The mattress smelled of urine no matter how often Gloria washed the sheets and helped her walk to the bathroom down the hall. No one had yet opened Old Lady Powell’s curtains in the dim little room, so Gloria yanked open the heavy felt curtains and hoisted the window up to let fresh air in.

“That wasn’t me, Missus Powell,” Gloria said. “It was Miz Lottie. And she says that never happened.”