Page 173 of The End of the World As We Know It

“What folks? White folks? They better not come ’round here. Far as we concerned, this is a Black sundown town, here.” That was what she admired about Hattie, the way her ancestors’ stories pulsed through her veins, strengthened her limbs. “I come from a long line of troublemakers who fought back and rebelled.”

“None o’ that sounds like me.”

“Girls like you stay home to marry. I ran off to teach.”

“I’m too old for schoolin’.”

“You’re never too old to learn, long as you leave your mind open to it. For you, I have a different assignment.”

“What sort of assignment?”

“Some folks would love it if you could favor us with a song,” Hattie said.

“I don’t know…”

“Don’t do that false-modesty thing. Just go do what you was born to do.” Hattie handed her a guitar. “Sing us a song. A real song. Ayousong.”

Abagail thought of her father.

John Freemantle joined the Mystic Tie Grange back in 1902, the first Black man to ever do so. Abagail’s father’s entire life was marked by such “firsts.” There was always a cost to being such a pioneer. The jokes he pretended not to hear. Believing in holding his head up and quoting the Bible, he modeled being a respectable Negro hoping to sway folks’ minds. It worked, as many people came around. But some were never going to be reached.

Abagail had barely been married for three months when she played in the Grange Hall. She was so nervous. A young Black girl in a pretty white dress, scared the crowd would turn on her, at the very least hurl tomatoes. Abagail sang her terrified heart out, starting with several gospel songs, changing things up with a risky little ditty, and closing her encore with “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Oh, how she remembered the applause as if it were yesterday. If she admitted it to herself, a part of her heart basked in their adulation. Seen and validated in their eyes. Her heart swelled with pride. It was the happiest night of her life in a topper year.

Abagail didn’t know if it was a “her” song, but it was the one on her heart. The one from that night, which left her feeling… incomplete. She whispered “Digging My Potatoes” to the piano man. He grinned. When she performed the bawdy little ditty at the Grange Hall, it felt off, wrong somehow. While it spoke to her, wanting toshow her mischievous side, the way they received it, with their leers and howls, made her feel dirty. Like she was expected to sing such coon music. But now, three verses in, her crowd clapped and danced, caught up in the spirit of the moment.

In the corner of the room, she sensed a presence. More of an… absence, like a lonely rustle of dead leaves. She didn’t have to see him. Her mind pictured a man shadowed by the night. A penumbra creeping at the edge of the room waiting for the lights to flick off. A coldness that settled into your marrow, numbing you until you couldn’t move, knowing you might never know true warmth again. His voice the desperate scratch of fingernails against a locked coffin. Even without being conscious of his presence, folks drifted away from the corner.

She came to know the Moon Shadow Man as the Dark Man, the servant of the Devil. His face remained hidden, as if shadowed by a cowl, except for his eyes. They burned red like coals in the night, searching for her. In her most recent dream, he stood on the roof of a building, like a white pharaoh deciding all that he saw was his domain. The sun set behind him, but he stared east. Always east, but there was no love for it. A pharaoh swaddled in blue jeans and a denim jacket. With a white forehead, red cheeks, his leering grin framing white teeth, sharp and neat. His dusty black boots had run-down heels.

“I love it out here. So peaceful. So quaint,” the voice’s overly genteel tone a slick poison in her mind. A voice where a man should have been. The shadows shifted, quiet and devouring. “What’s my name?”

Her floral housedress, worn fabric with its patched seams, draped to her thin ankles with a quiet elegance. Arthritis like shards of glass driven into her hips and knees. The pain of life. Her stomach didn’t grumble, no appetite to betray when she last ate or might eat again. Her hands ran so cold, a chill that drilled down to her core. Her dark skin mottled with blotchy and purple splotches. Her mouth dry. Abagail stumbled over a half-buriedroot. The landscape churned and she grew light-headed. A black wind blew and she was so thin, a reed ready to be uprooted by it.

“Near the cross! I’ll watch and wait, hoping, hoping, hoping.”A frieze of wrinkles enclosed her mouth, her lips fixed and determined. The echoed lyrics turned the hymn into a plea, an infectious chord with jazz inflections, reminding her of another place, a younger self.“And trusting ever. Till I reach the golden strand. Just beyond the river.”

As Abagail ended her song, the crowd burst into applause. The shouts drove the presence away.

Hattie met her at the stage steps, ushering her past the well-wishers and backslappers. “Now that’s what I’m talking about, Abby.”

“I like performing, is all. Give folks a taste of heaven.”

Hattie hugged her tight, drawing Abagail’s ear to her mouth. “You need to be out raising hell.”

“Hattie! I would never…” Abagail pulled away and swatted her arm.

“You should. You still in your prime, got a lot of life left in you.”

“I’ll leave the… raising to you.”

A shout erupted from the front door. A wave rippled through the crowd, a series of discontented murmurs souring the mood. The Broad-Brimmed Hat Man gestured for Hattie.

“Ain’t no point in headin’ Gatlin way. Nothing but a hornet’s nest.” Sweat stains darkened each underarm. “White couple claimed one of us attacked them with a pistol. TheGatlin Beecouldn’t wait to start writing about a ‘Black Beast on the prowl.’?”

Abagail knew the pattern of the gathering storm clouds from every Saturday night at the Grange. The morning might start off calm, but by the afternoon, full of liquid courage, they’d work each other up into a lather. Her father never went by after dark. The right spark might ignite into something horrible.

“Police done arrested a fifteen-year-old. Boy had been in bedall week with the flu, but that didn’t stop them. Said he was acting suspicious by running when he approached. The couple even said he was the assailant.” The Broad-Brimmed Hat Man made his way to the bar. Tapping the counter for a stout pour of moonshine to drown his resignation, he slumped heavily into a chair. “Sheriff done sent half the police home, while some fool trots across the courthouse lawn on a white horse with a rope dangling from the saddle, stirring folks up.”

Even in Hemingford Home, like every other Black person in the United States, Abagail understood the rules for survival among white folks: to smile like they were family when encountered. To “yes, sir” or “no, ma’am” them in every response. To move off the sidewalk to allow them to pass unperturbed. To know what streets to stay clear of, especially after dark. And to always be mindful of their ways, because even a wink could get a boy killed. She thought about the young man who died from the flu before he had the chance to live.