Fractured

By Ann Bayah

Fractured weaves a tapestry of atypical events in the lives of a precocious African-American girl (Lindie) and her family in a fictional, rural town on Maryland’s Eastern Shore during the 1960s. Lindie’s fervent wish is to escape from her family’s country lifestyle and the trappings associated with owning a beer tavern in a backwoods community. Oddly enough, Lindie’s confidant is her journal—the place where she attempts to keep all of her secrets. Along with everything that defines a poor, rural family—a stabbing that escalates to homicide, mischief, a devastating fire, secrets, regrets, laughter, and sadness spill into their lives and color the threads that bind the family together as they function in a parallel world in the midst of a segregated environment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ann Bayah
• Release date: Sep 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301291717

Book preview

Fractured

Ann Bayah

Smashwords Edition

Copyright (c) 2013 by Ann Bayah

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Prologue

In the Still of the Night

In the Light of Day

Torture by Another Name

Sundays Ain’t Always Easy

Into the Woods

Confessions

A Wish Deferred

Gatherings

Bedlam

The Village

Devastation

Aftermath

The Second Time Around

Misbehaving

Diversion

O Holy Night

Revelation

Meltdown

Long Time Coming

Celebration or Not

The Stage is Set

The Curtain Goes Up

Author Bio

Acknowledgments

Dear Momma,

I don’t think I would have ever written anything beyond requirements for school and day to day obligations, had it not been for you. You were gifted, but *When I was a child, I spake as a child; I understood as a child; I thought as a child, so I was too young and innocent to recognize your talent. However, I did learn to conduct treasure hunts, looking for the snippets of prose you used to write and leave in various places around the house. I then began the same habit. Whenever I was upset or felt that I had no one to talk to, I scribbled little notes, but in doing so, I worded them in such a way to extract reactions from you, once you found them in my strategically selected hiding places. In hindsight and when I became a woman, *I put away childish things and came to appreciate that perhaps those one, two, and three liners were your way of coping with frustrations—your way of venting, just as my scribbles were. So, I thank you for inspiring me to continue my writings beyond those early years.

Ann,

Your headstrong and tenacious daughter

I also want to express deep appreciation to my accidental editor, George. He offered clarity for some things I had overlooked and convinced me to rethink several of my original lines. I was reluctant to hand over my manuscript to George because I thought he would have taken offense to some of the observations and comments made within the manuscript. However, he was nothing short of honest and professional with his reviews. I also thank his wife for letting me steal some of her husband’s time while editing my work.

Last but not least, there have been friends, colleagues, and associates over the years who believed in me even when, at times, I found it hard to believe in myself. They kept saying, You have a voice that needs to be heard, and they repeatedly asked when I was ever going to get my book published. To all of you, thank you for being the wind under my wings. Perhaps together we can soar to heights greater than we could have ever imagined.

*1 Corinthians

Prologue

Lydia was not the person she used to be. A compilation of numerous geographical miles and life experiences separated her from the life she had led as a precocious colored girl on Maryland’s Eastern Shore back in the 1960s. Back then her fervent wish was to somehow escape and become a different and better person. She had tried her best to make it so—even changing her name. But there is always a thread that connects one to their roots.

Albeit invisible and whether weak or strong, there is a thread—a connection that can’t be severed. One can deny or fabricate family history, but the facts don’t lie. Short of experiencing complete amnesia, one is always cognizant of the connection. It was that harsh reality that came to mind as Lydia stood at her mother’s grave. Memories of their contentious relationship were reluctantly tugged from their resting place. But now, with the purpose of her return trip to the Shore completed, it was time to go.

She walked back to her silver Audi, turned the ignition, and shifted into first gear. Chances were no one in the dilapidated house across the road from the cemetery recognized her. All the adults who knew her as a child had likely passed away like her parents, and there were no childhood friends from the Shore whom she had remained in touch with over the years.

In a bold and calculated move, Lydia first attempted to permanently blaze a trail away from the Shore decades ago. The need to personally finalize the sale of the old homestead was the true reason for her return to a place that time had forgotten—a village too small to be listed on a map. She was shaken to her core when a real estate lawyer tracked her down in New York. As the lawyer had explained, with one sister living abroad in a commune with questionable purpose and the other (who had tended to the property) now institutionalized after having suffered a mental breakdown, it was Lydia who was left in charge. She chose to sell instead of maintaining property that held no sentimental value for her.

While shifting her car into third gear, she glided past homes and buildings she didn’t recognize. Very little looked familiar through the eyes of a stranger as tears welled up and rolled down her cheeks, before dropping onto her sable-brown leather coat. She pushed the play tab on her dashboard, and Mozart’s piano concert No. 21 filled the space around her as tears continued to fall. Remnants of her former life were still etched in her soul. Old memories that had been buried in the recesses of her mind were gradually resurrected as present day slipped into yesteryear. Lydia gripped the steering wheel with her left hand and used her right to wipe away tears, but the memories kept coming just as she had recorded in her journal many years ago. Some of the scenes that began to resurface were rooted in second-hand accounts of things she had learned of, but others were more vivid because she had been personally involved. At first the memories were scrambled, but as she stared straight ahead at the two-lane country road, they settled into a sort of fractured personal diary—mostly events that had influenced her desire to escape, but none were more frightening than her brush with evil on a summer night when she was just ten years old.

Lydia had grown up as Lindie Mitchell in the backwoods community she was now leaving once again. Her family’s social status was largely defined by the fact that they owned and operated the village beer tavern. Many of the clientele who frequented the tavern were migrant workers who caravanned up and down Route 301 from Florida to the Mid-Atlantic region annually.

Her family’s neighbors were mostly relatives, but scattered here and there were abandoned homes that had been allowed to slip into decay before crumpling to the ground and succumbing to coffins of untamed weeds and vines. Living among clusters of first, second, and third cousins kept the insular and myopic community connected. It was the mid-1960s, and the community bore the signs of the time.

While the civil rights movement raged in various southern states and challenged political leaders in Washington, DC, a doctrine of separate and unequal across Maryland’s Eastern Shore was primarily responsible for the bubble in which coloreds lived. It buttressed the steely reserve of whites. Colored people lived along the road where Lindie grew up. Whites lived on a different road where there were no abandoned homes, and as though ordained by God Almighty, they attended a different church. Whites owned the two mom and pop stores where everything from sweet, sticky treats to hardware and gasoline were sold. Within the boundaries of the tiny community, the reality was that whites and coloreds lived in close proximity to one another, but a racial divide steeped in history and ignorance kept them miles apart psychologically.

That was Fullerton then, divided into parallel worlds—one colored and one white. It was a place where even at an early age, Lindie felt her aspirations were hindered. In the mid-1960s coloreds and whites lived a mostly peaceful coexistence on the Shore as long as coloreds didn’t challenge their second-class status. Thus, in order to survive, Lindie’s family was rigidly entrenched in their comfort zone—a flawed version of normalcy in a place where the bells of change were slow to toll.

In the Still of the Night

Lindie was always a little afraid to walk the short distance between her house and the family-owned tavern at night. Without a glowing moon patched in the sky or sprinklings of stars, nighttime in rural areas on Maryland’s Eastern Shore was black as ink. The dark shrouded the evils of the night, so Lindie stepped quickly to avoid the snakes, frogs, and lizards that she imagined to be lurking at her heels as she crossed the graveled section of the yard.

Her family owned 30 acres of land and lived in a colored enclave located about 10 miles from the nearest official town. As a child, Lindie was convinced wild things lived on their mostly wooded acreage. Certainly it was where her father hunted deer, rabbits, and squirrels. From the depths of the woods, odd sounds were sometimes heard in the otherwise quiet watches of the night.

The Mitchell’s house and tavern were a stone’s throw from Back Creek Road, the one-lane passage that zigzagged like a black serpent through their section of Fullerton, the segregated village they lived in. The short distance between the house and tavern was a trek Lindie didn’t enjoy making by herself, especially during the summer, in the absolute blackness of night, when all things wild were free to scurry about.

Music from the jukebox seeped through the walls of the tavern. Lindie usually hummed along with the songs in order to drown out the rhythmic croaking of the frogs in the pond across the road. Sometimes the croaking was so loud; she feared some of the critters had made their way out of the pond and were perched somewhere under the cover of darkness, peering at her with their bulging marble eyes. Despite her apprehensions, the Friday and Saturday night walks between the house and the tavern were generally uneventful. However, the unexpected occurred on a muggy Friday night during the early half of summer in 1964.

Another Saturday Night, by Sam Cooke, was pumping from the jukebox. Lindie knew the words to the song although the lack of rear windows on the tavern prevented her from hearing the lyrics clearly that night; she had heard them many times before. Lindie was bopping to the beat as her pigtails bounced against her shoulders. Dressed in a sleeveless red blouse and yellow shorts, she hummed along with the song. At ten years old, she was pretty good at memorizing the words to the songs most frequently played on the jukebox. Focusing on the lyrics took her mind off the lizard she had seen dart across the driveway earlier that day.

A few customers had parked their cars on the driveway. As Lindie weaved around the cars, she was barely whispering some of the lyrics to the Sam Cooke tune, I got some money cause . . . when she heard voices. Lindie stopped in her tracks for a split second and listened. The voices sounded angry. She hustled to the side of the tavern instead of making a dash for the rear door and pressed her back against the rough, wooden planks that framed the building. Then she tried to quiet her breathing in order to hear what was happening while standing on the tips of her toes, poised to run if she needed to. Sweat began to drip down the sides of her face as mosquitoes buzzed about her ears. There was no way to escape without bringing attention to herself, so she tossed her head from side to side, trying to fend off the pesky mosquitoes that seemed determined to feast upon her ears. She looked up at the sky where a few stars twinkled, but it was still very dark. She was confident the angry people had not seen her.

Lindie’s fear of what might be lurking at her heels was now outweighed by a desire to find out who the disgruntled people were. When the voices became clearer, she mustered the nerve to peep around the corner just as three dark silhouettes appeared. Her mouth flew open, but she couldn’t scream. Her heart was thumping like never before as the people with quarreling voices made their way past the outhouse (toilet) just a few feet from the other side of the tavern.

It was too dark to see their faces. The jukebox made it difficult to hear their every word, but the sense of discord was clear enough for a blind person to detect. The silhouettes were those of three men, and one was clearly being tormented by the other two.

I warned you, didn’t I? But did you listen? No . . . Hell no . . . You didn’t listen. said the first voice.

What we gonna do with him, Charlie? asked the second person who spoke.

We gonna throw this one-armed piece of trash down the well, clearly the first voice again.

Let go of me, you sons of . . . The victim finally spoke, but the end of his sentence was muffled.

Shut up cause ain’t nothing you gonna say gonna change my mind. You just couldn’t leave Maggie alone could you?

Lindie’s body stiffened, and she almost gasped aloud when she heard the name Maggie; immediately she recognized the voices of all three men—Mr. Charlie and Mr. Sammie (Pinkett (brothers who occasionally helped her father with odd jobs) and Mason Jones, a one-armed man who was known for loading himself with liquid courage every weekend. Since Mason was a drunk, nobody ever addressed him as Mister. Lindie had not seen any of the three in the tavern for a while, but she was sure she knew the voices after hearing the names Maggie and Charlie. Throwing Mason down the well—she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. All she could see in the darkness were three images moving about in the weeds near the well behind the tavern. Her family drew water from the well for washing clothes and scalding chickens. Lindie’s fear heightened and her mind couldn’t conceive of a body in the family’s well. She also wondered what the Pinkett brothers would do if they knew she was listening. She was extra careful not to move anything but her head and neck as she continued to stare in the direction of the figures covered by the night. It didn’t seem to her that Mason was putting up much of a fight, but after all, he only had one good arm.

I ain’t been doing nothing with Maggie. If she says different, she’s a lie, argued Mason.

Lindie heard a loud slap immediately followed by a groan. She had to suppress the urge to cry out and take off running to her parents with another tale they wouldn’t believe. She had a history of making up stories—things too far-fetched to occur in a village less significant than a one-horse town, her mother said once.

Charlie, I don’t know ‘bout throwing him down no well. What if somebody comes out to the toilet and sees us?

Ain’t nobody gonna see nothing. It’s as black as you out here. Grab his legs.

Get off me, you sons-of-bitches.

"Wait, Charlie. Why don’t we just beat him up real good and leave his ass in the weeds?

Man, I ain’t trying to go back to jail."

Is you my brother or ain’t you? I’m tired of playing ‘round with this sucker. He ain’t never gonna leave Maggie alone. You got a knife on you?

Ya’ll ain’t cutting me.

Come on Charlie; we ain’t got to do this.

So now you’re being a chicken-shit. Give me the goddamn knife.

Seconds later Lindie heard another but deeper groan from Mason. She was too far away to hear the rustling of the high weeds as Charlie and Sammie ran away from the tavern. She waited and waited to hear more conversation, but aside from the muffled bass sounds of the jukebox and the familiar sounds of critters in the pond across the road, an eerie silence hung in the air. Lindie stood with her back still firmly pressed against the tavern and she thought, the groan meant the Pinkett brothers had not thrown Mason down the well. She looked to her left and right hoping no patrons from the tavern would appear. By then she was dripping with sweat from both the humidity that coated the air and her elevated case of nerves. She looked back at the weather-beaten, wood-framed house she had left minutes earlier. The only light on in the house was a lamp with a dim, 40-watt bulb that shone through open-weaved curtains at an upstairs window in her parent’s bedroom. At that moment she wished she had never come outside. Lindie wanted to be back in her bedroom with her two younger sisters, safe in her bed with the lumpy mattress. However, her mother had called and needed her help. Such was the case on most weekends in the tavern where dinners were served to customers who washed down fried chicken, pigs’ feet, and potato salad with Pabst Blue Ribbon, Black Label, or one of the other varieties of beer sold in the tavern.

Lindie’s eyes shifted left to right again. She thought the humidity and the dark were going to smother her as her breathing remained rapid. She waited to see if any patrons would come outside. Sometimes customers with bladders full of beer couldn’t make it to the toilet and chose to relieve themselves around the corner in the dark, thus the putrid smell of urine on the ground. Women threw up their dresses and squatted, and men fumbled with their zippers before hosing down whatever stood before them. Lindie had witnessed such time and again on nights when the moon was full. But that night, there was no moon. She grabbed her head with both hands and bent over in anguish. She tried to convince herself that what she had just overheard had not been real. Perhaps it had once again been her very creative imagination stretched to the brink in developing something for her journal where she recorded all important events. But the croaking of the frogs in the pond across the road was proof that she had not imagined anything. The croaking was real, and the fight had been real. There was one other thing—Lindie thought she smelled cigarette smoke, but given that she had not heard or seen anyone else, she dismissed the thought.

Although she was afraid, she couldn’t stand against the tavern for the rest of the night dodging hungry mosquitoes. She finally felt it was safe to move her sandaled feet from where her toes seemed stuck to the ground. One step then two. She turned the corner and eased up the three squeaky steps at the back door of the tavern, almost falling in the process because she was not paying attention to where she was stepping, looking behind instead. As she placed her hand on the doorknob, Mason cried out in a weakened voice.

Help me . . . I been stabbed.

Lindie quickly turned the doorknob and went inside where the music filled the tavern with a thumping energy. She felt the vibration of the music at her feet. The dance floor was packed with patrons hand dancing to Jackie Wilson’s Workout. Arms and legs were flying in all directions. There was no way anyone inside could have overhead the fight. Lindie wiped the sweat from her face with the tail of her blouse. Then she leaned back against the door allowing her heavy breathing to slowly ease. She was uncertain about what to do next, but since she knew Mason was still alive, she decided he would probably drag himself to the road and wave down somebody for help. He would not seek help from anybody inside the tavern because he was not a favorite among the customers. Lindie had seen a woman slap him once behind the tavern when he was rubbing his private parts against her hips and making a nuisance of himself. She would not have to say a word to her parents who had long ago become fed up with the bizarre stories she made up just for witnessing their reactions so she could record it all in her journal.

Nothing but lies, her mother once said about the journal entries. The fact was, Lindie’s journal was her best friend. It was the hiding place for secrets and fantasies she couldn’t talk about, but it was true that sometimes what she recorded went beyond the boundaries of truth. However, she would not write about the fight in any fashion, nor would she tell her parents because her father would run outside to investigate, and she didn’t know if the Pinkett brothers would return to their victim. One of them had already stabbed Mason, and Lindie didn’t want her father to be harmed. She wondered if her parents knew that Sammie Pinkett had spent time in jail. Lindie hated her life in Fullerton. Now armed with the knowledge that her parents associated with a former jailbird served to support her determination to one day escape the place she called home. Even at ten years of age, she believed a better life could be found elsewhere. Television and magazines had convinced her of that.

The tavern, named after her father and better known as Theo’s Place, had provided many juicy stories for Lindie to write about in her journal. Her momentary respite from the crime scene ended when her mother, Ruby, discovered her leaning against the door.

What took you so long to get over here, Lindie? I called for you a half hour ago!

A fast lie had to be offered as Lindie stood to attention, staring at her mother who was dressed in a green pants suit and snow-white sandals—the type of shoes that should have carried the label must be old to wear.

"I had to make sure Vinnie and Francine were in bed first. They wanted to stay up and watch Gunsmoke."

Your sisters should ‘a been in bed an hour ago. Come on up in the kitchen. Watch this chicken in the fryer, and don’t let it burn. I can’t sell customers burned chicken sandwiches.

Yes, Momma. Lindie followed her mother into the dingy yellow kitchen where the walls were stained with cooking grease. A lopsided butcher-block table, aged by wear and tear, stood in the middle of the room surrounded by four chairs that had also seen better days. Ruby picked up the knife that Theo used for skinning rabbits and squirrels. She began to cut up another chicken, preparing it for the fryer. A stack of used brown paper bags— packaging for carry-out dinners, was positioned between a stand-alone freezer and a white monitor-top GE refrigerator. The deep fryer, a gas griddle, and a cot were the other large items in the kitchen. A single light bulb hung from the center of the ceiling next to a silver chain that switched it on and off.

Lindie turned around and looked out at the crowd of customers—all colored. At that moment she remembered that only once had a stray white man come into the tavern for a six-pack of beer. He had seemed nervous for the entire two minutes it took her father to wait on him. At that time, she also remembered hearing her parents speak about something called the Civil Rights Act and how that white man must have been a stranger to the Shore, because whites on the Eastern Shore did not frequent colored owned establishments.

The Civil Rights Act was intended to end Jim Crow laws, but most whites on the Eastern Shore ignored the passage of the Civil Rights Act. They had been nurtured on Jim Crow laws. The Eastern Shore of Maryland could have been dropped in the middle of Mississippi during Freedom Summer (1964) and nobody, colored or white would have known the difference.

Still scanning the crowd, Lindie didn’t see the Pinkett brothers. An electric sign for Black Label beer was blinking over the inside of the front door, but competing with it were at least two other non-blinking signs for Ballantine and Schlitz beers. A dusty pink horse, made of glazed pottery, with its front hoofs raised, was positioned on a shelf high above the customers’ heads. The words Rolling Rock were etched on the base upon which the horse rested. The floating smoke from far too many cigarettes drifted throughout the tavern like a thick haze giving everyone a grayish tint from where Lindie stood. Slow dragging couples glued themselves together after Jackie Wilson faded, and James Brown belted out, Pleeze, pleeze, darlin’ pleeze on the jukebox.

You can’t stare at the customers and watch my chicken at the same time. Sides, it’s rude to stare at people. Are you all right . . . you acting funny? Ruby snapped.

I’m fine, Momma. Can I have a Ginger Ale and a Tastykake while I’m watching the chicken?

I’ll bring you a Ginger Ale, but you don’t need no Tastykake this late at night.

Ruby! Theo was yelling over the music of the jukebox. I need some help! This joint sho’ is hopp’in tonight!

I gotta go help your father. Be back with the soda, and don’t let my chicken burn. Ruby walked away quickly, wiping her hands on her apron and leaving the trailing scent of her most recent Avon purchase behind. Her heavy-handed application of Occur mingled with the smell of fried chicken in the kitchen as Lindie sat down at the table and released a loud sigh. A few minutes later, she expertly jiggled the baskets of chicken in the deep fryer where the hot brown oil bubbled over the tops of the baskets. Then she walked over to the one window in the kitchen and raised the Venetian blinds that were also stained with cooking grease. She eased open the window before sticking her head into the muggy darkness to listen for any signs of life from Mason. She hoisted herself onto a couple of faded-red, Coca Cola soda cartons so she could lean out farther into the darkness, but she only heard frogs croaking and a dog howling from somewhere down the road, ‘howling like somebody dead,’ is what the old folks always said. Once again, Lindie thought she smelled cigarette smoke.

What’re you looking for?

The sound of her mother’s voice startled Lindie so badly she fell from the cartons onto the scuffed linoleum floor. As she scrambled to recover, Ruby started another stream of reproach.

You can see through the dark like a cat all of a sudden? You been acting strange since you got over here. If you don’t want to help me out in the kitchen, you can go back to the house.

No, Momma, I don’t want to go back to the house. Please, I can . . . I can help do anything. There was a split second of silence as Lindie’s eyes locked with her mother’s. A cluster of shiny black curls accented Ruby’s round, cinnamon face—a face that appeared to puff up when she was angered, so Lindie broke eye contact and stared at her mother’s lips that were slathered with bright pink lipstick, different from the fire engine-red she usually wore.

Here’s your soda. Grab me a bag of French fries while I take this chicken out. If something’s wrong, you better tell me before I find out from your sisters. Did you do something to them?

I didn’t do anything. Lindie yanked a bag of fries from the freezer and placed it on the table where her mother could easily reach it. Then she leaned against the refrigerator, knowing that her mother’s rant would continue.

Then straighten up and fly right. And you can start by closing that window and locking it. I don’t want no flies on my chicken.

Lindie walked back to the window to lock it as ordered, wondering if Mason was still out there. From the reflection in the window, she saw her mother drop the French fries into one of the empty baskets and plunge it into the hot oil. Lindie wanted the Nehi ginger ale to help settle the battle that was raging in her belly, so she sat down on the soda cartons to finish her drink while watching her mother who was working at a rapid pace, putting a new batch of flour and paprika coated chicken into the fryer. Perhaps because of stress or maybe sheer hunger, a pain settled at Lindie’s left temple as she looked around the kitchen. The place was cluttered with partially used bags of flour, cans of cooking oil, bottles of hot sauce, jars of pickled pigs’ feet, paper plates, and everything else needed for selling tavern cuisine at Theo’s Place.

Can I have a piece of chicken, Momma? Lindie was glaring at the mound of golden-fried chicken already prepared. Her last meal had been hominy and toast for breakfast. Since a Tastykake was out of the question, she thought asking for a piece of chicken would be okay.

No, you can’t eat up the food before the customers start thinning out.

"One piece of chicken ain’t gonna make no difference. Let