Its gleaming gold metal contrasted with the cocoa-dark skin of his hands. Faye was intrigued. This was not the mannerism of a man who had spent his life in politics. It was as if coming home had transported him back in time and returned a shy boy to life.
“I guess I’ll come out and say this: I’m not here to talk politics. I’m more than sixty years old, and I’m looking old age in the face. My blood pressure and my cholesterol are high and heading higher, and I’m going gray. It is time to exorcise my past. When I was nineteen years old, I nearly died. Because I was a black man.”
It was as if everyone seated in the Pavilion expelled their breath simultaneously, stirring a breeze that had been absent from this sweltering day. Faye heard more than one person whisper, “Not again.”
“I was kidnapped from my own front yard by a man who threw a hood over my head and held a knife to my throat. He drove me so far into the woods that I thought my corpse might never be found. I was tied to a tree. Beaten. As the blows fell, I did my damndest to figure out what I’d done. Had I been so intoxicated by the speed of my souped-up car that I passed a white man who was driving a little too slow? Had I said hello to a white girl with the wrong light in my eye? I could hear my daddy’s voice telling me I needed to get right with God, just like he did every Sunday from the pulpit, God rest his soul, but I couldn’t concentrate on my salvation. I just desperately wanted to know what I’d done to earn an early death.”
Faye looked around and was gratified to see tears on cheeks of every color. Sheriff Rutland had clapped her hands over her father’s ears, as if he were a child who shouldn’t hear such things. The man sitting beside her grasped the wheelchair’s handles to help her, and the crowd parted to let the three of them escape. Faye’s heart went out to the young sheriff. She had shown such courage in the face of yesterday’s racial conflict. Somebody had taught her right from wrong, and Neely’s solicitude toward her father made Faye think it had been him. He deserved peace in his declining years.
“As the violence escalated,” Judd continued, “I heard footsteps approaching, fast and hard. If it was a lynching party, I dearly hoped they would do their work quickly. Then the voice of my rescuer rose up like the terrible and beautiful voice of Jehovah, and he shouted, ‘Are you out of your mind? Stop that right now!’” Faye could hear the ministerial tones of the Congressman’s father echoing in the man’s words. “As the two men struggled, like Jacob and the mighty angel who gave him a new name and a new life, I took the opportunity to yank myself free.”
Standing in silence before a crowd listening rapt to his story, he raised an arm clad in an impeccably tailored shirt and rolled back the cuff to display the scars where he had flayed his own skin with the confining ropes. “I ran away, still ripping at the hood tied to my head, running headlong into trees, just getting away any way I could. I didn’t get a look at my attacker or my rescuer. I hid in a cave for a night and a day, like a beaten animal afraid to raise its head. There was a spring in the cave and I might have stayed there a week before I got hungry enough to crawl out into the light, but something in my gut told me it was time to be a man again. I found my way out of the woods and to my Mama. She gave me all the money she had, enough to get me on a bus to Detroit. I haven’t been home since.”
He rolled down his sleeve and fastened the cufflink. “Here’s what I know. My attacker took me far into the country, down miles of dirt road. Then he walked me deep into the woods. My savior came from even deeper in the woods, in the opposite direction from the way we came. I have no idea how he knew what was going on. There was a creek nearby, and a cave. I never knew about any caves around here, except for the one in the mound by
“I guess I’ll come out and say this: I’m not here to talk politics. I’m more than sixty years old, and I’m looking old age in the face. My blood pressure and my cholesterol are high and heading higher, and I’m going gray. It is time to exorcise my past. When I was nineteen years old, I nearly died. Because I was a black man.”
It was as if everyone seated in the Pavilion expelled their breath simultaneously, stirring a breeze that had been absent from this sweltering day. Faye heard more than one person whisper, “Not again.”
“I was kidnapped from my own front yard by a man who threw a hood over my head and held a knife to my throat. He drove me so far into the woods that I thought my corpse might never be found. I was tied to a tree. Beaten. As the blows fell, I did my damndest to figure out what I’d done. Had I been so intoxicated by the speed of my souped-up car that I passed a white man who was driving a little too slow? Had I said hello to a white girl with the wrong light in my eye? I could hear my daddy’s voice telling me I needed to get right with God, just like he did every Sunday from the pulpit, God rest his soul, but I couldn’t concentrate on my salvation. I just desperately wanted to know what I’d done to earn an early death.”
Faye looked around and was gratified to see tears on cheeks of every color. Sheriff Rutland had clapped her hands over her father’s ears, as if he were a child who shouldn’t hear such things. The man sitting beside her grasped the wheelchair’s handles to help her, and the crowd parted to let the three of them escape. Faye’s heart went out to the young sheriff. She had shown such courage in the face of yesterday’s racial conflict. Somebody had taught her right from wrong, and Neely’s solicitude toward her father made Faye think it had been him. He deserved peace in his declining years.
“As the violence escalated,” Judd continued, “I heard footsteps approaching, fast and hard. If it was a lynching party, I dearly hoped they would do their work quickly. Then the voice of my rescuer rose up like the terrible and beautiful voice of Jehovah, and he shouted, ‘Are you out of your mind? Stop that right now!’” Faye could hear the ministerial tones of the Congressman’s father echoing in the man’s words. “As the two men struggled, like Jacob and the mighty angel who gave him a new name and a new life, I took the opportunity to yank myself free.”
Standing in silence before a crowd listening rapt to his story, he raised an arm clad in an impeccably tailored shirt and rolled back the cuff to display the scars where he had flayed his own skin with the confining ropes. “I ran away, still ripping at the hood tied to my head, running headlong into trees, just getting away any way I could. I didn’t get a look at my attacker or my rescuer. I hid in a cave for a night and a day, like a beaten animal afraid to raise its head. There was a spring in the cave and I might have stayed there a week before I got hungry enough to crawl out into the light, but something in my gut told me it was time to be a man again. I found my way out of the woods and to my Mama. She gave me all the money she had, enough to get me on a bus to Detroit. I haven’t been home since.”
He rolled down his sleeve and fastened the cufflink. “Here’s what I know. My attacker took me far into the country, down miles of dirt road. Then he walked me deep into the woods. My savior came from even deeper in the woods, in the opposite direction from the way we came. I have no idea how he knew what was going on. There was a creek nearby, and a cave. I never knew about any caves around here, except for the one in the mound by
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