Circa
1933
They
met at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas on the first day of Air
Force basic training. Two 18-yr-old girls, with so little in common, at first
glance at least. Becky, a white girl from Catherine, Alabama, and Starla Posey,
a black girl from the mid-west, by way of Selma, Alabama, a mere 37 miles away,
but she didn’t mention that, she never did. Maybe, because she loved claiming
to be a big city girl from the Chi, or maybe it was the blanket of discomfort
that dropped over her family like a blanket, any time the South was mentioned.
Despite
that small omission, they became fast friends, sisters from another mother,
they would tell anyone who would listen. Even the drill sergeants grew so
accustomed to seeing them together, that when Becky received news of her
father’s tragic death back in Catherine, they brought Starla along to break the
news. When Becky had to leave basic training the night before graduation to be
there for her daddy’s funeral, Starla asked, and was granted leave to go be by
her new sister’s side.
For
many years after the day that she stepped into the double-wide trailer, where her friend had been born and raised, Starla played the what if game in
her head. But no matter how many scenarios she tried on, she always ended up
back at, the picture. Every second of that memory unfolding in her head like a
movie on an old fashioned movie projector.
The
heat, so hot you could smell it. The dust in the front yard seeming to coat her
tongue, the sound of the screen door slamming behind them as they stepped
inside the add-on porch. And then, the old man, sitting in a tattered pair of
grayish boxing shorts, too thin to cover much, his back bent into a hump, skin
falling around him in loose folds. Every part of him looking as if it was well
on the path from this world into the next. Except his eyes. She had nightmares
about his eyes, dull and uninterested until they fell on her face. Then
flooding with a sharp ferociousness, the unexpectedness of it, taking her breath
away, causing her to stumble over her own feet.
Even
as Becky crossed the short distance from the door to where he sat, wrapping him
tenderly in her arms, calling him Pop Pop, the name from her childhood, he
stared at Starla, drool starting to pool at the corners of his lips as his
mouth began to work, though no words would come. It was when Starla took a step
towards him, holding out her hand in greeting, that he screamed. A deep rumble
that started in his chest and seemed to get caught in his throat, like a
wounded bear caught in a trap.
Starla
had stumbled backwards, slamming into the door as Becky leapt up in surprise. A
woman, slightly younger but far sturdier than the man rushed into the room her
eyes jumping from his face, to where Starla stood flattened against the door. A
younger man, followed behind her, and without hesitation lifted the old man
from the chair and carried him out of the room, leaving the echo of his
guttural screams ringing in Starla ears.
The
woman asked, and Starla told her, her name, explaining how it had been passed
down for generations in her family. The woman hadn’t bothered to introduce
herself, merely nodded as if she had known all along, before turning and
disappearing back down the hall, Becky, following closely behind, leaving
Starla sitting alone in the stifling living room on the edge of the plastic
covered couch.
Curiosity
killed the cat. That’s what her granny used to say. What everybody’s granny
said. But as she reached for the heavy old leather photo album sitting on the
coffee table right at her fingertips, that was the last thing on Starla’s mind.
In fact, the only thing she was thinking about was the old man’s face, twisted
in a mask of rage and hate, as they carried away. She had begun to wonder if
she should go back to the hotel in Selma to give Becky time alone to be with
her family, when she flipped to the last picture in the book.
The
scene was of a picnic. Kids played; food was spread out on the ground on
blankets. One little boy stared directly in the camera his snaggle-toothed
smile full of mischief. Behind him a crowd had gathered, forming a circle
around a tree, their backs, mostly to the camera.
Starla
blinked, cold seeming to form in the pit of her stomach, spreading throughout
her entire body until her body began to shiver and goosebumps covered her
flesh. Starla leaned in, barely breathing as her mind made sense of what she
was seeing. Beside the picture someone had written words, she could barely read
through the tears gathering in her eyes, Starla
Point, circa 1933.
Fumbling
inside her purse she pulled out her phone, and opened the hidden folder,
bringing up the single picture. A picnic scene, kids playing, food spread out
on the ground on blankets, the snaggle-toothed boy grinning into the camera.
Behind
the boy’s head, the crowd surrounded the tree, their eyes trained on the black
man swinging from a rope tied to one of the tree’s thick limbs, blood running
from deep gashes cut into his face like tears, his mouth stretched wide in his
death scream.
Swiping
away the tears streaming down her own face, Starla read the words written on
the picture.
Starla
Point, circa 1933. Thomas Posey
