Page 31 of The Reformatory

“How would Robbie know?” Gloria said. Miz Lottie only pursed her lips, not answering, so Gloria went on. “No, it was Old Lady Powell. She said it happened in 1920.”

Miz Lottie nodded. “She can talk sense when she wants to.”

“How would Robbie know, Miz Lottie?”

“You go’n’ and eat too.”

Reluctantly, Gloria spooned food onto her own plate. She took a bite and chewed, but could taste nothing except her waiting.

“Robbie’s still a chile more’n a man,” Miz Lottie said once she was satisfied Gloria was eating. “Chirren always know. It’s a sin to send the little ones to that place. They feel it most.”

“Feel what?”

“We got a sickness here in Gracetown, Gloria. Maybe at the Reformatory worst of all.”

“What kind of sickness?”

“A blood sickness. Too much killing and dying. Too many restless spirits. Angry spirits. You think ghosts walk in the summer in ev’ry town? You think creatures steal children in the swamp down in Miami, or Palm Beach? Or leeches nest inside babies over in Tallahassee? Maybe it’s a curse on us—a town named for Grace that don’t act like no godly place.”

Abruptly, Gloria rose to her feet. Miz Lottie looked at her, surprised. Gloria’s heart was turning flips in her chest, crowding her lungs, so maybe she’d stood up so she could breathe.

“Sit down, girl. You need to hear it, ’specially now.”

Of course Gloria had heard stories. In elementary school, everyone had a story about bumps from the floor, or flickering lights, or hand towels that moved from one place to another, or faucets that turned themselves on and off, Gloria’s own experience every summer. Even Robbie insisted he could see Mama’s ghost. But Mama had always explained Gloria’s stories away, and then Robbie’s after hers. Vivid imagination. Faulty memories. Bad plumbing.

Gloria shook her head. “Mama said—”

“Lemme tell you somethin’ ’bout yo’ mama, Gloria, rest her soul. Now, you know I loved her like my own, but that woman was contrary and a wee bit seditty. She thought book learnin’ could take the place of stories from right under her nose. She didn’t want to see it. So whatever she told you, it ain’t what’s so. Ev’ry child in Gracetown, colored or white, feels it. Some worse than others. You used to feel it too. You used to wake up cryin’ at night. Said you heard hollerin’. I used to say to your mama, ‘Well, tell her the truth and she won’t be scared.’ ”

Gloria didn’t remember waking up crying at night or hearing any noises. Besides the tricky sink faucet, she remembered feelings most—a stronger version of the ones she sometimes felt now. Her intuition had always been strongest in summer. Sometimes Mama used to ask her how long the rain shower would last, or if an item she’d ordered from the Sears catalog would come, or if a sick neighbor would get better. Hadn’t she? The scariest thing Gloria remembered was seeing Mama washing dishes in the sink, and knowing…

“Sit back down,” Miz Lottie said.

Only then did Gloria realize why she’d stood: she didn’t want to hear more. Her mind wanted to know, but her body wanted to flee Miz Lottie’s house and go on not knowing.

But she sat. Robbie needed her to listen.

“I don’t b’lieve in ‘evil’ in most ways,” Miz Lottie said. “I believe in the devil, all right, but man don’t need no help from Satan to do what folks call ‘evil.’ Man do evil ev’ry day and call it doin’ their job. Slave drivers was ‘doin’ their job,’ beatin’ the skin off folks. Slave catchers settin’ dogs to rip out eyes and limbs. Don’t nobody know to this day how many Negro men and boys got kilt on McCormack’s land when Isaiah Timmons faced McCormack with a shotgun looking for his missing sons. Back in ’09, that was. I guess the sheriff was jus’ ‘doin’ his job’ when he rounded up men that had nothin’ to do with Timmons and his gun—and nobody saw ’em again. ’Cuz, see, colored folks fighting for what’s theirs is like a virus to white folks—and they kill a virus so it don’t spread. That killing is the work of man, not the devil. And if there’s any such thing as evil on this earth, Gloria, it’s here in Gracetown. In the soil, hear? Gracetown soil remembers. It’s like a mirror that shines yo’ ugly back at you.”

“And… the fire?”

Miz Lottie sighed. “I can’t hardly think of no evil worse than that ’20 fire.” Miz Lottie’s hand shook when she tried to pour herself cold water from the mason jar she always chilled in her icebox, so Gloria helped her. After a few unsteady sips, Miz Lottie went on.

“Best to start with that Reformatory. That place. Right after the war, Junior got offered good work cleaning there. Most of the work for Negroes there is janitors, in the kitchen, a few dorm masters and the like. They save the best jobs for white folks. So Junior was tickled to death when he got that job. Best salary he’d ever made. But he worked there six months ’fore he had to quit—’fore we made him quit.”

“Why’d he quit?” Uncle June was quiet, especially compared to Waymon. It was easy to imagine him sweeping all day and minding his business. He was big, and stern at times, but he didn’t rile easily or raise his voice.

“It was either quit or lose his soul,” Miz Lottie said. “Junior told me so himself, cryin’ like a baby in my arms. An’ I told him he better quit the very next day—so he did. That place changed him, Gloria. Worse than the war. Day by day, he wasn’t the sweet boy who’d gone to work there. Day by day, you could see somethin’ growin’ behind his eyes that wasn’t him anymore. Nothing like the Christian-raised boy I knowed. He told me about things he saw. Things he did.”

“What did he do?”

“Worst thing was, one night the alarm sounded. Some boys had run. Wasn’t quite dark yet, and he could see three or four boys runnin’ toward the woods. His boss put a rifle in his hand an’ told him to shoot anything that moved—and, God help him, that’s what he did. He fired.”

“He shot at boys?”

Miz Lottie nodded. “Little Negro boys. Like it was wartime again.”

“Did he…?”