Randy Mix reads his notes, looks at the boys. Ray Stone stands with no expression on his face, his hair soaked; Strickland looks distraught, pacing back and forth, shaking his head and murmuring, “No. God damn.”
Randy glances at the water. “Swear you couldn’t see him, huh? I guess I can understand that; flat in the water.” He looks up toward the hill. “I saw him from the road, but I guess I was higher.”
“Swear to God,” Marshall says. “I didn’t see him till…well, I mean I didn’t see him.”
Matt says to me, “Those guys killed him, Mr. Simet. No other way this happens.”
“Did he tell the cop a second ago that Coach let them out of practice early? Did I hear that right?” Miller nods. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Well, he’s told at least one lie. They were suspended.”
Miller starts toward them, and I grip his shoulder. “Not yet. Let’s see if we can find out what else they lied about. I know this feels bad, Matt. I can hardly breathe myself. But if we make accusations before we can prove them, these guys are going to walk away with a slap on the wrist.”
“But there’s no one else up here,” he says. “Not another boat, nobody in the park. There are no witnesses.”
I hold on to his shoulder, can almost feel the ache coming up from his heart. This kid is the real deal. “I see that. But all I have to do is look through my grade book to see that these guys aren’t the next wave of Mensa. No way they’re smart enough to cover all their tracks.”
“Yeah,” Matt says. “And either way, Marcus James is dead.”
“Uh-huh. Marcus is gone.”
Marcus James is gone. In a little under eight months, he’d have been home free, matching up that big brain of his with the professors at Stanford University, safe with his race and his sexual preference in the warm embrace of the Bay Area in Northern California. I consider the sign in Wallace’s barn. NIGGER DON’T LET THE SUN SET ON YOUR ASS IN CUTTER. 1969. Well within my lifetime. I was nine. How could there be a sign at either end of town as late as that? Brown versus the Board of Education was ruled on in 1954. The Civil Rights Bill was signed in 1963. And still it was 2008 before a black man ran for president on a major-party ticket. And he’s half-black.
“Could I speak with Matt Miller?”
“This is Matt.”
“Hey, Matt. John Simet. How are you doing?”
“Okay, I guess. Nah, I’m not doing okay. I’m going crazy. I can’t think, can’t sleep.” I hear his voice crack.
“Me neither,” I say. “Listen, Mr. Bean asked me a strange question this afternoon, sometime after the meeting you all had in his office with Dr. Nethercutt. He said you called Cutter a sundown town. Is that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What exactly is a sundown town?”
“Uh, it’s usually a small town in the Midwest or the West that had a policy of not letting blacks live there. They had to be out before the sun went down. They had them for other races, too—like Chinese and stuff—but mostly it was blacks.”
“How do you know about them? Is that a formal name?”
“Kind of. I read it in a book called that. Sundown Towns. The author is a sociologist. If I remember right, he wrote it partly because he couldn’t figure out why there were so many all-white small towns spread around the country. Like, African-Americans were mostly slaves in the South, and it seemed to him like they’d go where there was agriculture. But most of them ended up in cities. You know, like, in ghettos. Not a natural place for them to have gravitated. So, like, this guy, the historian—his name is Loewen, I think—starts investigating. Finds out there were a bunch of towns, like hundreds and probably thousands, that had policies not to let blacks live there, or to let just one or two.”
“Wow.” I’m an American history teacher and I’ve never heard of this. I mean, I know blacks ended up in the cities; I know some moved West to do some cowboying right after the war, but this is news to me. “Remind me to get the title and author from you at school tomorrow, when I have a chance of remembering. And you’re sure Cutter was a sundown town?”
“Yeah, he had it listed. He says in most of the towns, law enforcement would escort you right out to the city limits at dusk, if you were black. That is, if you were black and lucky. There were way more lynchings and beatings in the North and West than most people think.”
“Listen, Matt. You going to be okay?”
“I don’t know, sir. I can’t find a place to put this. I tried to eat tonight and I couldn’t.” He laughs, nearly devoid of humor. “I may have to wrestle at one-twenty-one this year.”
“The only thing you can do right now is feel it,” I tell him. “If you want to scream, scream. If you want to cry, cry. I’ll be doing the same. You call if you need to.”
“I don’t know how I feel, Mr. Simet. I mean, I could cry and scream at the same time, and I gotta tell you, I’m so fucking mad I don’t know if I can hold it in. Pardon the language.”
“Don’t pardon it,” I say. “You have to be mad in the language you’re mad in. Remember, call if you need to, whether you’re sad or fucking mad.”
“Thanks, Mr. Simet.”
“Thank you.”
“Yes, sir.”
I snap my cell shut and stare into the dark of my living room. Sundown Towns. That was the sign Wallace showed me today. Interesting coincidence that he and Matt brought it to my attention within hours of each other, and within hours of a time when the sun would no longer set on Marcus James’s ass at all.
Matt Miller
A boat prop coming up your back at thirty-five miles an hour will put three-to-five inch cuts all the way up. If it doesn’t cut your spine in two, you’ll bleed to death before anyone can close you up. I hope Marcus James didn’t feel it. I hope the boat hit him and it was done. I can’t close my eyes, because I keep seeing it, and I keep hearing his grandfather: “Where’s the flag?”
It’s too late in the year for there to have been anyone at the lake at that time of day. No witnesses will show; I know they won’t. There are a few cabins along the shore, but most are summer homes; maybe two or three are year-round. Nobody came out of those two or three to watch when the ambulance came. If anyone had seen anything, they’d have come forth.
Man, what do you do when you know the truth, when it’s stretched out in front of you, silent? I’ve been here in my room with my Bible all night long, reading passages, trying to find the answer. Saying the truth, searching for the truth, finding the truth are all over in this book. But I can’t find anything that tells me what to do for myself when the truth taunts me. Here I am in plain sight, and no one will (or wants to) see me.
I’m sure this will end up in the “strange and mysterious ways” category where unanswerable questions go, but I can’t accept that. If Mr. Simet is right, if those guys were suspended from the team because Coach Steensland thought they hung the noose, then they ran over Marcus to get even. Simple as that. Marshall’s grandfather and his great-grandfather were both mayors of this town back in the sundown town days. They still have that stupid rebel flag on their barn. There is no one in their family who has even the slightest chance of stopping that nasty shit from rolling through their generations.
Roger Marshall is smart; he knew there were no other boats on the lake, so his had to be the one that hit Marcus, but he claimed it was an accident. Jesus, what was Marcus doing swimming without that flag? Wait a minute…
Mr. S
This is one of those days no teacher wants to live through. A school of nine hundred kids, and one of them is gone. Everyone feels mortal on this day. No way to explain it. A morning assembly. Bean and Nethercutt talk to the students; don’t say anything more than that it happened. Tragic accident. A promising life cut short. Moment of silence. A couple of counselors from town have made themselves available in the office if anyone wants to stop by. After that, business as usual.
I went out to the James place late last night, after I talked with Ma
tt, and sat with Wallace till morning; didn’t see an ounce of bitterness toward the guys who did it. He was willing to accept they didn’t see Marcus. Take them at their word. No point in ruining more lives than have already been ruined. “Don’t know what to do,” he said over and over. “Don’t know if I can stay in this house without him coming home. I was preparin’ myself for when he went to college, but then, see, he’d be comin’ for Thanksgivin’ and Christmas. I’d look forward to seein’ him. Knew I was gonna be sad, but my grandson would be at Stanford. I got through eighth grade, Mr. Simet. Eighth grade, and my grandson was goin’ to Stanford.” Then he just slowly shook his head and stared.
“I know, Wallace. He was going to set the world on fire.”
“Them cuts went deep, teacher man. Shoulda seen ’em. Damned boat sliced my boy open.”
“I know, Wallace. I can’t imagine.”
“I seen it an’ I can’t imagine,” he said back.
We must have gone through that conversation ten times. It all ended in the same place. He fell asleep on the tattered couch just before sunrise. I covered him with a blanket and came to school.
“Hey, Mr. Simet.”
“Matthew Miller. Come in. Sit.”
He sits at the desk directly in front of mine.
“Hear anything on the grapevine?”
He says, “Strickland found out Marcus and his brother were, like, boyfriends.”
“What?”
“Yeah, when little bro got the news about the ‘accident,’ he broke down and spilled the beans. I guess he went psycho on Aaron, accused him of killing Marcus on purpose. Ended up in the psych ward.”
“Maybe some information will come out of that. Keep your ears open. Most people who commit a crime don’t think of half the ways they can get caught. Bottom line will come when one or the other of them feels safer and starts talking.”
“I don’t even know if that would do it,” Matt says. “I stopped by city hall on my way to school this morning. I know I shouldn’t have, but I did. That Randy dude, the cop that questioned those guys at the lake, was just coming on duty. I flat told him I thought they ran over Marcus intentionally. He looked at me like I’d slept with his daughter and told me I’d best keep thoughts like that to myself. I asked him what would happen if I had proof. He grabs both my shoulders and stares me down; says, “Even if you think you have proof, you stay healthy keeping it to yourself.”
“He said that?”
“Exact words.”
“Sundown town, huh?”
Matt shakes his head. “You can take down the sign, but it’s not as easy to take down the attitude.”
Man, I wish I had this kid in my class. He’s sharper than half the faculty, present company included. Sundown towns. Who’d a thought it?
The ache in my chest for Marcus won’t go away. That kid was loaded with talent and personality. How far could he have gone? And how is Wallace going to survive? How do you put everything into your kid—or your kid’s kid—and then watch it all bleed out through the cuts in his back? I’ve been a teacher all my adult life; a teacher and a coach. I’ve taught kids I’ve loved and I’ve taught kids I couldn’t stand, but I’ve always been fair, I think, and I’ve always believed I treated them such that they got the benefit of the doubt from me. But that ended yesterday. I believe Marshall and Strickland and Stone ran over Marcus James intentionally, and I can’t find any doubt to give them the benefit of. I want them caught, and I want them punished. We are coming to a place in this world where there is simply no more room for bigotry. We don’t get any more chances, where we learn the lesson or we fail. No more retakes. No extra credit. It’s one thing for a family like the Marshalls or the Stricklands to be ignorant and hold on to hate that goes back generations for whatever reason. But when Matt said the cop told him to shut up; well, that institutionalizes the bigotry. Sundown towns be damned, it ain’t gonna happen on my watch.
Matt Miller
It’s after eight o’clock. Dark. The time of day I like best to run. I’ll have to start dropping major poundage soon, and I want to be in the best shape I can when the time comes. Plus, these runs are where I get right with the world. Something about the rhythm of my running shoes on the pavement or the hard dirt, the breathing in and breathing out, that sends power to my legs, makes me feel closer to my God. I talk to Him here. No church; no middleman. There’s a time and place for that, a time for celebration in a crowd; but if I’m going to get it right, I get it right here, with the cold bright moon lighting my way.
I’m looking for some capacity for forgiveness that I can’t find. Maybe I don’t even know what it is. I have to find a way to forgive Marshall and his buddies. It’s easy to want revenge, easy to go for it. It’s easy to hate their stupidity and ignorance, their arrogance. See, forgiveness is easy when someone has wronged you by accident, when you’re accommodating a mistake. That’s no sweat, no test. The test comes when you find no redeeming qualities, when you know you’re looking into the face of malice and in the end there will be nothing returned by the forgiven. You do it because it cleanses your heart. I have to forgive them so I can be clean in bringing them down.
I know what Mr. Simet said has to be right, that if you commit a crime a thousand things you never think of can go wrong. Smart guys might think of a third of these. That means the Marshall gang won’t think of any. I run and let the pictures float through my head, like snapshots from the moment I crested the hill by the lake: the ambulance, the boat, Marshall and Strickland and Stone talking to the cop. Strickland pacing, looking all distraught, and maybe he was. He was pretty good at it. Stone’s expression living up to his name. Something was off. It was Stone’s wet hair. What was that about? His clothes weren’t wet, but his hair was. Almost dripping.
“I remember that, I think,” Mr. Simet says in the library before school. He’s recording grades. “I’m not sure I put it together with anything, but you’re right, it doesn’t make sense.
“Yeah, he would have had to stick his head overboard, or get on his stomach and get it wet from the dock. What would be the point?”
“Keep asking yourself that until you get an answer,” Mr. Simet says.
“I’ve got a detective’s brain,” I tell him. “When you read the Bible as much as I do, you have to ask yourself how some of that stuff got in there; like who put it, and what was the reason. If you don’t get that down, you lose every argument with every nonbeliever, and that’s a lot of arguments.”
“Well, we’re not dealing with intelligence of biblical proportions,” he says. “So I’ll give you a day to figure it out. And keep your head down.”
In the hall, Darcy catches me by the arm. “I heard you were up at the lake when they brought Marcus James out.”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“We’re having a vigil out on the lawn to pray for him,” she says. “It would be nice if you came.”
I’m hesitant. From what I know of Marcus James, he probably wasn’t all that religious, but I guess there’s less need to pray for someone who is; they’ve prayed plenty for themselves. The idea of a prayer vigil for him feels good, even though I’m not on message with these guys. Very possibly the fact that Darcy asked is the reason I’m going.
Just off the lawn at the side of the street, nearly twenty of us stand in a circle and join hands. Walt Johns leads the prayer. “Dear Lord, please take Marcus James into Your wondrous care. Most of us didn’t know him that well, but he was on the precipice of his life, and it seems so surreal, so unjust that he’s gone. But we know You work in ways we weren’t meant to understand, and that his death has meaning, though it may not be clear to us. Forgive him, Lord, for his choice to go to the dark side with his sexual preferences, and forgive us for not being strong enough to help him find his way back. Had he stayed, we’d have found a way.”
“And forgive Walt, Lord, for being left-handed,” I say. “And forgive his parents for not tying his left hand behind his back, when he was making the dec
ision to favor that evil hand.” Everyone looks up as I drop the hand of the people on either side. “And forgive Darcy for her blue eyes, Lord. There has to be some way she could have made them brown.” I turn to walk away.
Darcy says, “Matt, wait.”
I raise my hands and keep walking, then turn. “One of you idiots go find a dictionary,” I say through clenched teeth, “and look up the definition of bigotry. You all are giving this Christian thing a bad, bad name.”
Christ. A kid eats it for seventeen years, gets mowed down by a motorboat full of thugs, then gets blamed. I just hope those people don’t turn eighteen and vote.
But, it wasn’t the rhythm of the road under my running shoes that I needed to kick my detection attributes into gear. It was temper. In the middle of my anger at those jerks, it came clear. Stone’s hair was wet because he was in the water. His clothes weren’t wet because he took them off. But why? I suppose Marcus could have still been thrashing around and he got in to finish him off, but that sounds way out there even for one of those guys. It’s one thing to run over a guy; it’s another to deliver the final blow. That can’t be it.
“Come in, Matt.” Bean signals me into his office. “What can I do for you?”
“I need to go home.”
He looks at me sympathetically. “I understand,” he says. “It has to be tough. I hope you’re not blaming yourself.”