A Garden of Earthly Delights by Joyce Carol Oates
Except: the woman from the cabin next door running up. She was holding a newspaper over her head to keep off the rain and her face looked twisted and rubbery with excitement. “They're right here now—they just come in! They been trying to burn a cross, and the rain keeps putting it out.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Nancy got to her feet stumbling and scared.
“It's the Klan. Like people said. They're here.”
“Jesus help us, I heard of them torching a whole camp—”
The woman stood barefoot in the mud, toes curling. She was shivering with excitement and her face had gone crafty. “They ain't gonna do that. They can't. There's men from the camp gonna protect him. The camp owners, they ain't gonna let the place get burnt down. This cross, it's taller'n a man, it's ten feet, it's soaked in gasoline and that burns but it don't burn for long, then—”
“Is Carleton down there?”
“He's there.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Nancy moaned with fear. “Can't somebody call the sheriff ?”
“It's all the Klan. All of 'em. Out of Tom's River, like people been saying. Half the sheriff 's deputies, people say.”
Clara came up behind Nancy, shoving fingers into her mouth.
“Who's comin? What's wrong? Where's Pa?”
She saw the women exchanging a quick, secret look. They were frightened yet suddenly both laughed, the way a dog barks out of nervousness. Clara said, scared, “Where's Pa?”
“None of your business, Clara. This ain't business for a young girl, you get back inside.”
Nancy tried to push Clara back but Clara squirmed free of her hands. There was a brief struggle then Nancy gave up, cursing.
“Go to hell, then. Like you're goin to go, miss. I ain't your pulin old ma.”
Nancy and the woman hurried away in the rain. The newspaper flapped out of the woman's hand. Clara jumped down and ran after them. A cross? A burning cross? A torch? Something had been going to happen that night, people were saying. Everybody knew, but nobody would tell Clara. Now older kids were running in the mud, kids she knew and was a little afraid of, but she ran after them not minding the rain or the mud. “Where's it? What is it?”—Clara asked but nobody bothered to hear her.
Clara saw men in the rain, in front of Rosalie's house.
Maybe it was a sickness? Some bad sickness like they'd had in one of the camps: meningitis. It was just sounds to her she'd memorized: bacterial meningitis. And there was chicken pox they'd been inoculated against, a nurse-looking woman giving you shots in the upper arm from a needle. Nancy hadn't wanted to be inoculated, Nancy near-to fainted like a big baby, but Clara thought the hurt hadn't been so bad. And clothes and things from the camp had been burnt in a big fire, and everybody stood around watching. And it had been fun, kind of. Except it wasn't like that now. What they'd tried to burn was two wooden planks nailed together to make a cross like a cross on a church. Maybe why Nancy said Oh Jesus.
There was Carleton, you could see him he was so tall. With some of the other pickers. But they were standing at the edge of some louder men, angry men you could see weren't from the camp. It was like Hallowe'en—some of the men were wearing white sacks over their heads, with holes for eyes. White robes that, when they walked fast, kicked open to show their pant legs. Something to do with the cross? Like priests? Except they were carrying shotguns and rifles and were angry-looking, and yelling. Clara shrank from men yelling, it wasn't like women and kids yelling. At such times you are made to know Something bad will happen now.
The men in the white hoods were dragging Rosalie's father Bert out of his cabin. The man was pleading, crying. Hanging on to the doorframe so one of the men with a shotgun rammed the butt against Bert's fingers and Bert screamed with pain and let go. All this while Clara was whimpering, “Pa! Pa …” She could see Carleton at the side grimacing, clenching his fists, but he couldn't do a thing, couldn't push free to help his friend. Clara saw the gang of white-hooded men how they'd taken over, so many of them, there was nothing you could do except stand aside, and watch.
Clara tried to push through men's legs but people just pushed her back. Somebody leaned down to shake her—“Little girl, get the hell back home.” There was a surge in the crowd and Clara slipped or was pushed and fell into the mud bawling, “Pa! Pa! Rosie!” A man's booted foot came down on her hand, but the mud was soft, it didn't smash her fingers.
They were beating Rosalie's father. Clara couldn't see but she could hear him pleading with his assailants, and she could hear the whacks of the blows. Up at the cabin there was Rosalie's mother in the doorway, she'd been screaming and screaming and in the rain her clothes were soaked through, and her face and hair were streaming wet. “His property! His property! You got no right!”— over and over she was screaming this, till one of the white-hooded men slapped her, hard.
Some of the men in white hoods, they'd pushed them back now so you could see their wet glistening heads. They were like any other men you'd see in Jersey, Clara thought. Like her own pa, not that different. It was surprising to her, and confusing. Clara was calling, “Pa—” and there came Nancy to grab her by the arm and yank her free of the crowd. “You, Clara! Oh what did I tell you!” Nancy's face was white and twisted-looking like a rag. She made Clara run with her out of the crowd, panting and stumbling, and told Clara not to look back, though the men's shouts were heightened, and something seemed to be happening. Clara whimpered, “Where's Pa—” but Nancy paid no heed. Nancy had slung her arm tight around Clara's thin shoulders. So Nancy didn't hate her! Clara was thinking she would forgive Nancy speaking so cruel of Pearl. Pulin old ma Nancy had said but maybe she hadn't meant it.
Farther back into the camp, near where the Walpoles' cabin was, people stood in front of their cabins in the rain, worried-looking but just watching. Somebody asked Nancy what was happening, had they got the man they'd come for, was it that man that his daughter was having a baby, and Nancy shook her head wordlessly and pulled Clara on. And now Clara knew: Rosalie was having a baby. A baby! It was a stunning fact and yet it didn't stay with her, there wasn't time. Like rain falling, running down her face and arms. Like the men's shouts. You were so scared hearing them, when the shouts stopped you wanted to forget right away.
There wasn't going to be any cross burnt. The camp wasn't going to be torched. They'd got who they came for.
“Roosevelt! Get in here. Your pa's coming in a minute.”
Nancy gave a swipe at Roosevelt who was squatting in the mud. Clara's brother's head had been shaved, for lice, and that gave him a retard look; he was twitchy and nervous all the time, and now so scared when Nancy went to grab him he flinched like a dog fearful of being kicked, which pissed Nancy so she cuffed him, and hauled him into the cabin. “You damn kids! Goddamn you kids! —Where's Rodwell?” Nobody knew where Rodwell was.
Inside, Roosevelt hunched himself in a corner, bawling. Nancy was saying in a voice trying to be calm, “Now we're just goin to shut this door. We're goin to shut this door.” She shut it, and dragged a chair in front of it but was too nervous to know what to do, to secure the door from being shoved open. Clara tried to help her but they were both too nervous. Out the window you couldn't see much that was happening. Clara's teeth were chattering bad and she had to pee. Nancy said, “Goddamn, Roosevelt, I'm gonna warm your ass if you keep bawling. Drivin me crazy.” The boy crawled into the next-door room and lay on the mattress he shared with his brother, like he wanted to burrow into it and hide. Nancy said loudly, “Look, they ain't comin here. That's the Klan you saw. Klansmen. They punish people need to be punished. They don't hurt innocent people. See, it's to protect us. Like against niggers, and bad people. We ain't done a thing wrong in this house. No daddy ever touched his daughter in this house. You kids, your pa is a good man, a Christian.”
Clara thought of her father, and why he was different from Rosalie's father. And how the Klansmen would know.
She was seeing Rosalie's father when they tore his fingers from the doorfra
“No gun went off,” Nancy said. “I never heard no gun.”
Clara asked, when her teeth weren't chattering so bad, if maybe they'd shoot Carleton, if they mixed him up with somebody else; and Nancy said vehemently no they would not, no. Clara persisted, what if they shoot Pa, what if they beat him bad like they were beating Rosalie's father, and Nancy said No! “Nobody's goin to shoot Carleton Walpole.”
But Clara had to wonder, did any of those men in the white hoods even know her father's name.
The cabin was darkening. They huddled in the dark. Whatever was happening, it was passing them by. Clara crawled over to crouch beside Roosevelt, where he was huddled on the mattress, and would fall asleep. Drew her bare legs up to her chest and hugged them tight and in the morning she would see mud marks everywhere, not just hers but prints made by the others, too. She would see, and she would know. Whatever it was, it passed us by.
Waking later to hear Carleton's low voice in the other room. Saying, “We couldn't do nothin. One of them hit me with his gun and—I couldn't do nothin for him. They about broke his face in with their gun butts. They dragged him out to this pickup they had waiting. Some of them was sheriff 's deputies, not wearing their uniforms but you could tell. Where they took him, I don't know.” Clara had not heard her father speak in such a way, almost quiet, and wondering; Nancy was asking questions, but Carleton talked slow and solemn like a man trying to explain something to himself he knew he could not, but had to try. Clara snuck to the doorway to see her father hunched over in a chair like an old tired man. His hair was wet, in strands on his face, and you could see the bald patches, and parts of his scalp showing through. Clara was shocked to see how beaten-looking Carleton's face was, blood and sweaty dirt like a mask. Nancy kept saying, “He ain't killed. They wouldn't do that. I just don't believe they would do that.”
Carleton laughed harshly. In that low flat dead voice saying, “He'd wish he was killed, then. When they're done with him.”
“Look here, Carleton: they're Christian men. They swear by the cross. My folks in Alabama, some of them are Klansmen. They only punish people who need punishing.”
Carleton laughed again. It was a sound like ashes being shaken in a woodstove.
In a softer voice Nancy said for him to come to the sink so she could wash where he'd been cut, it looked dirty. This shirt was ruined, nothing to do but throw it away. Carleton muttered to leave him alone but Nancy persisted and finally he heaved himself to his feet like it was a heavy task, and he was swaying so Nancy had to help him and there was Clara crouching unseen in the doorway telling herself My daddy is safe. My daddy.
8
Island Grove, Florida. It was a hot afternoon in late summer, Clara was alone minding Nancy's baby. Thinking how, goddamn, if it'd been some other time, and a thousand miles to the north, she'd be with her friend Rosalie. Even picking oranges together, warding off flies, she'd like better than this.
A knock at the door! Kind of hesitant, soft. Nobody knocked, ever. Just called your name or barged right in.
In this Island Grove they were living in an actual building long and low and flat-roofed. Fifteen units in each building and concrete floors that could be hosed down; each unit had two rooms and two windows, one in front and one in back, and the buildings were sided in beige asphalt that was rough like sandpaper, and there were roofs that leaked only in heavy rain. At the far end of the camp the outhouses had concrete floors, too. Clara had never seen anything like it.
Except there was a harsh chemical smell here. Like lye Carleton said, made him cough and wheeze. Clara had gotten used to the smells of the other camps, that were mostly garbage and outhouse smells; but this was worse, not a natural smell but one to burn your nostrils and mouth and make your eyes water. When they'd first moved in they'd been amazed at the way the garbage and trash were hauled off to be burned in a big dump pile at the edge of the camp, and at how women could wash laundry for free in a big roofed place like a barn; there were showers, and sometimes hot water. And soap you squirted onto yourself out of a big jar. Even Carleton was impressed, there was an actual doctor and a nurse from the county who came to examine the workers, it was “mandated” that everybody be examined including blood tests but some refused, or just didn't show up; including Carleton who said he didn't want any damn doctor poking at him and taking his blood and next thing you know they're telling you you have blood-cancer or TB and have to be quarantined; but for sure Carleton wanted his kids examined, and of his kids Clara especially. Pa, why? Clara asked, and Carleton said Because I say so. In fact, Clara had liked being examined. Strangers touching her, caring about her. It made her feel happy. The nice youngish doctor said, “ ‘Clara Walpole'—your teeth! Don't you ever brush your teeth?” He was shaking his head, but smiling. Out of a big box of toothbrushes Clara was given one, with a red handle; she was proud of having it but didn't use it much, the bristles either tickled her sensitive gums, or made them bleed.
And there was a grocery store they could go to with special tickets so you didn't need actual money. And, with the strong smell, there weren't so many insects, though always a few palmetto bugs for as Carleton said, This is the fuckin Sunshine State. The burning smell stayed with them, though, even out in the orange groves amid the sweet pungent smell of oranges.
That day, Nancy wasn't picking but sorting oranges in the big sorting shed at the edge of the camp, and Carleton had gotten lucky with a county crew doing emergency roadwork on some highway. They'd been living here for five weeks now and Clara had decorated some of the walls, cut pictures out of magazines and flower shapes out of oilcloth and tacked them up to make the place pretty. You could always find something to make a place prettier than it was, like covering up places where people'd squashed bugs on the walls.
When Clara heard the knocking she was nervous thinking it was maybe these older guys, seventeen, eighteen, who'd been hanging around and bothering her, who knew that Carleton was away. She wasn't sure she wanted to see them, Nancy warned her what guys were after, still she put the baby down in his crib and glanced at herself in Nancy's mirror, propped up on the windowsill.
“Y'all come in”—Clara saw it wasn't the boys, and it was nobody she knew: two ladies outside, standing awkwardly on planks that had been placed in the muddy walks.
“Hello!” The ladies' voices were bright and hopeful and you could see they were nervous. Town ladies, wearing hats and boxy shapeless knit suits—the one an ugly bone-color, the other a puke-pale green—that must have been expensive because there was no other reason to wear such clothes. Their faces were soft and powdered and their mouths had been reddened with lipstick that gave them a frantic look in these surroundings where no women or girls wore makeup during the day, and only on rare occasions at night. One of the ladies wore tortoiseshell glasses like a teacher, so Clara looked at her.
“I'm Mrs. Foster,” she said, “and my friend here is Mrs. Wylie, we're from the First Methodist Church over in Florence. We came out for a little visit—”
“Y'all want to come inside?” Clara said again, because she knew this was the polite thing to ask; but the ladies seemed nervous of stepping up the cinder blocks and into the building, like there might be something inside they would not wish to see. “Nobody's home right now but me and this baby I'm minding.”
The lady who'd called herself Mrs. Foster was saying how they'd been made welcome here by the orange grove owner who was a Christian and a good citizen and how they'd seen Clara's flag hanging out—“Brought us here right away.” Clara had mostly forgotten about the flag, it was just one of her decorations, hanging out the window on a two-foot pole. Nancy liked it fine and Carleton said it “added class” (maybe Pa was joking, twisting his mouth in that way of his) to their quarters. This flag was so small, and now so faded and limp, it wasn't much like flags Clara saw sometimes at the tops of tall build
“Yes, it shows such a … an interest—”
“Brought us here right away,” Mrs. Foster said in an earnest, happy voice. “There is nothing so important as—loving your country.”
Clara was glowing with pleasure. “I'm real glad you like it,” she said, hoping the ladies would take the burden of talk from her. Smiling so hard! It was like that strange excited feeling she'd had pushed up against the man in the car driving her and Rosalie into town in New Jersey—that she had to hook onto the other person, she had to make him like her, had to make these smiling ladies like her, and fast. But she couldn't think of much to say to them, who were looking at her with that mixed look you get from mother-types—like they can see things to improve in you. Clara felt a stab of shame, her hair was likely snarled, and her clothes were likely not too clean. And she was barefoot.
The ladies were clean of course. And they wore stockings and dress-up shoes. And white gloves.
Gloves! Clara smiled happily to think that she had been singled out by ladies wearing white gloves. She hoped everybody in the units was watching her, who was home. For these were women who lived in real houses and went to church and had all the money they wished to spend, and nobody ever yelled at them, or cuffed them.
Such a cordial voice inquiring of Clara, “What is your name, dear?”
Clara saw some kids gathering to watch a short distance away. Goddamn if those brats ruined this.
“My name is Clara Walpole.” Like at school, Clara spoke clearly.
“And where did you say your family is, dear?”
“Oh, they're—out. My stepma is down at the sorting shed, and my pa is—away somewhere.” Clara began to speak more rapidly, out of a fear of running out of words. “Like I said, I'm minding the baby. Roosevelt is picking oranges I guess, and Rodwell is—” Clara pointed toward the kids hanging out across the way, one of whom was her brother, and when the women shaded their eyes to look around, the kids waved with exaggerated enthusiasm and made animal noises. So mortified! Clara shook her fist. “Damn you, shut up!” It occurred to her immediately that she shouldn't have yelled, she surely shouldn't have shaken her fist—she saw how the ladies exchanged startled glances. “They don't mean nothin,” she said weakly.