by Noelle Kristina Barnes
You couldn’t pay me to swim in Starke Lake. Long before I was murdered there, I knew of feet that lost toes to piranhas in those waters, mothers who lost children because they underestimated Starke’s depths. As many times as I may have imagined losing my own children, even I couldn’t stomach the idea of leaving them unattended anywhere near that lake.
But where Central Floridian families lost legacies, pit vipers found mates. A scorned Lucy Rankin, at the end of her rope, witnessed their passionate orgy during a tearful midnight stroll. Unfortunately for me, the spectacle of dozens of snakes recklessly splashing their sex near Starke’s shoreline somehow salved Lucy’s pummeled heart. Inspired, she stared, storing the memory of pit viper mating season in that dark corner of her mind where the devil held court.
In the fall of 1920, the last drops of October rain under the third quarter moon announced the arrival of pit viper mating season alongside the beginning of harvest season for our Hamlin oranges. Eva Mae was ten, Henry Jr. was eight, and Willie was sixteen months old. My time was mostly spent sewing buttons back onto the work shirts my husband tore working in the citrus grove, stitching up holes in the children’s clothes, switching Willie from hip to hip, canning, salting, and cooking. My nights were largely spent campaigning for a refrigerator and counting down the 1,455 days left before Willie could join his siblings at the schoolhouse.
Daydreaming of freedom was my second favorite pastime. Daydreaming of Clarence Rankin was my first. For over a year, Clarence and I would steal a few minutes away together here, and an hour or so there. After Willie turned fourteen months, we snuck away for an overnight trip. Henry Sr. didn’t mind me taking the train alone to “check on a sick cousin” as long as I had someone lined up to tend to the children while he worked. Clarence was a painter, so I bribed my landscape-loving hairdresser with a new addition to her art collection if she’d be my stand-in.
We took four trains to get to Manhattan Beach in Jacksonville. A drink from the Fountain of Youth in St. Augustine was planned for spring. Clarence inhaled imagination and exhaled adventure. Creativity oozed from his pores and mixed in with his paints to create colors I didn’t expect to see until I got to heaven.
It’s no wonder Lucy Rankin was out for my blood. You might be too if I borrowed your husband as often as I did hers. But if you ask me, evil’s been brewing in her spirit long before I came along. I couldn’t understand why Clarence stayed around.
“Lucy can’t have no kids, and Clarence don’t want none,” Pearl informed me the last Saturday morning in October while hot combing my hair at her kitchen stove. “There’s not a pot too crooked that a lid won’t fit.”
Pearl Carter knew everyone’s secrets. For one, she was a little on the short side. Women tend to confide in ladies under five feet in ways they don’t confide in taller women like myself. But Pearl also deserved credit for just being a good listener. I must have been an even better one though, cause her lips were always loose around me.
“MOMMA! H.J. hit me!” My daughter’s shrill scream came from the front yard. Pearl lay her hot comb on the stove so I could get up.
“Stop yellin’, Eva!” I whispered as loud as I could out the window. “Your lil’ brotha is tryin’ to sleep.” I peered over at Willie on the sofa in the sitting room. Thank God he stirred only slightly. “HJ! Quit bein’ ugly,” I continued. “If I have to come out there, that tree can’t save you!” My mind lingered on Lucy’s luck. Can’t have kids? What must she be doing with all that freedom?
Pearl continued as I settled back into my chair. “Lucy and I spoke after that meetin’ our Women’s Ministry had with Mary Bethune a few weeks ago. ‘Member I tried to getcha to go to that meetin’?”
“Naw, I don’t recall that, Pearl.” I remembered alright. I was on cloud nine after my cousin Henrietta told me she’d watch the children that day. I thrust my hand into my left pocket. Clarence’s latest invitation was still there.
“Did ya know her husband was a painter?” Pearl asked. I detected accusation in her voice.
“Is that a fact?”
“Shole is. Met him this Sunday past. Lucy invited me and Carl over for lunch after church.”
My ears pricked up. Pearl Carter knew everyone’s secrets, but she couldn’t know mine. Could she?
“I convinced Carl to buy one of Clarence’s paintings. You know I loves me a good landscape.” Pearl leaned over to catch my reaction before returning her focus to the next section of hair.
Pearl and her husband, Carl, owned fifty acres of land in Ocoee and ran a turpentine distillery. The Carters also owned a refrigerator, a car, and a few properties they rented out. I hoped Clarence got some good money for his work, but I began to sweat a little.
Pearl pointed to the far-left wall in her sitting room. Silver and purple shimmered on the surface of a peaceful river, while the setting sun flaunted a pretty little palette of pink and lavender in the sky. The view through the pine trees framing her new canvas reminded me of someplace Clarence and I had probably made love. Hanging in the hallway outside Pearl’s bathroom was the painting I had given her. Framed in gold, a white ibis preened underneath a stately palm tree on a deserted beach.
“You picked the perfect spot to display it, Pearl. It’s a beauty.” I changed the subject. “I hear the sheriff let Mizzus Milton out.”
Pearl shook her head. “It’s about damn time. Cryin’ shame how they treated her.”
All the old woman wanted to do was register to vote. It was the first time women had been allowed to in her lifetime. Meanwhile, the only reason my name is on the Orange County voter rolls is on account of losing trick after trick against Pearl playing Pinochle the night before she’d planned to register. I lost a bet and was forced to join her and four other ladies from the women’s ministry on their trip to the voter registration tent. That Saturday in September was more humiliating than I could have imagined.
We were each required to write our full name, birthdate, age, and address on the voting certificate. They sent Genie Edwards home when she forgot you spell Ocoee with two Es instead of one. Told her, “Orange County voters must know how to read and spell.”
We watched them turn Mamie Colston away after she “illegally” attempted to register as a member of the Democratic Party. Lily Roundtree was shown the door because she didn’t have the $2 to pay her poll tax. The sheriff threatened to arrest Pearl when she offered to pay for her. Poor old Mizzus Milton. They did her the worst.
“What’s yer full name, gal?” We all cringed at the white registrar’s disrespectful tone after she’d handed him her certificate, but Mizzus Milton didn’t bat an eye.
“Mizzus Lula Daisy Milton,” the widow replied.
“Lula Daisy…” the man scoffed. Disgust scrunched his face and then narrowed his eyes; her certificate was incomplete.
“And just how old are you, Mizzus Milton?”
“I’m 67.”
“Is that right? Well, what year were you born, gal?”
At this, Mizzus Milton froze. Her slim shoulders slumped. Then, the old woman lifted her head towards the sky. I imagined she was praying for the good Lord to sneak into her head the memory of a math lesson she was never taught. All of us there who’d been blessed with the lesson ached to give her some assistance, but we’d seen what happened to Ms. Junie after she offered old man Pritchett similar sympathies; banned from the registration tent for life, the sheriff said.
Mizzus Milton’s silent seconds seemed to stretch on for hours before a surprise olive branch was extended her way.
“If yer 67,” the registrar offered, “that means you were born in 1850, right?” Mizzus Milton seemed to want the ordeal over and done with. “Yes, I reckon I was.” She paid her poll tax and hobbled away from the registration tent looking triumphant.
She didn’t get far before the sheriff approached her with handcuffs; a warrant had been sworn against her for perjury.
Meanwhile, in one of the four whites-only registration lines, I spotted Miss Tessie. The disheveled daughter of a drunken farmhand knee-deep in gambling debts didn’t have the money to pay her $2 poll tax, nor any shoes to cover her feet for that matter, but she had blonde hair and green eyes; assets enough for the supervisor to let her register anyway as a “one-time courtesy.”
If it wasn’t for practicing the registration with Pearl, who learned everything from Ms. Mary McCloud Bethune’s workshops, I would’ve probably left that tent in handcuffs myself. Related troubles ran across my mind as Pearl lay her hot comb on the stove to get more hair grease.
“How Carl been doing since his accident, Pearl?”
“Chile, that wasn’t no bloody accident. Them dirty crackas was followin’ Carl since he left Orlando! I thought being run off the road might sit that man down somewhere, Dee, but he still refuses to take a hint. When Carl got his mind set, all I can do is hope the Lawd stay tuned into my prayers.”
“I heard Carl bragging to anyone who’ll listen that his missus a registered voter now.”
“You think my vote enough for Carl? No. Dis fool have to plot and plan to get every Negro in town to the polls! That white Republican lawyer in Orlando got ‘em all riled up.”
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend, what they say…” I offered.
“You right, Dee, but when white friends help...”
Pearl shook her head as she gently guided the comb, sizzling and crackling as it made contact with the grease. “Lotta times the help turn into the hurt. Where was the Republican when the Democrat tried to run over my husband?” She parted another small section of my hair. “I’m glad Clarence agreed to help ‘em.”
“Clarence helping Carl get folks to the polls?” My mind ran in a million different directions.
“Long as Lucy give him permission to take her car, bless his heart,” Pearl giggled. “Imagine that, givin’ your husband permission to drive your car.”
Didn’t Carl have all the help he needed from the Knights of Pythias? I thought. For Christ’s sake, why was he dragging Clarence into their fight? I wondered if Clarence would’ve been so helpful if Carl hadn’t bought that painting. Damn, Pearl and her highfalutin’ landscape obsessions—
“Ouch!”
“I’m so sorry, Dee, hold your ear down, please.”
I did as instructed, wincing from the burn. My coils surrendered to the heat, but I saw a window, so I played it cool.
“Pearl, you think you could watch the kids for a couple more hours before dinner? I’m fixin’ to drop off some soup to Henrietta in the Southern Quarters. Poor thang got a nasty fever after this mosquito bite—”
Pearl slammed her hot comb down on the stove and came around to face me. I could smell what must have been an expensive perfume.
“Delphine Bulah Collins, I have tried my very best to be a good friend to you. But I’m not as blind as your ol’ man. You can’t expect me to just sit by like I don’t know from nothing. How I’m s’posed to look Lucy in her eyes, aiding and abetting your affair like I am?” Finally, she was out with it.
“Pearl, I God! You think I’m havin’ an affair? Why in the world would you think that?” Pearl grabbed me by the wrist, yanking me up from my seat with a force I didn’t expect from her small frame. Once in the hallway, she pointed to the bottom right corner of the painting which hung outside her bathroom.
“Take a good look at that signature.”
I peered and squinted, but my show did not go on for long before my wrist was again yanked behind me, and I was dragged to the sitting room. We stopped in front of the newest addition to Pearl’s art collection.
“Now, look at this signature, Delphine. Tell me Clarence ain’t paint this one and that one you gave me months ago when you went overnight lookin’ after Henrietta.”
“OK, Pearl, yes, your paintings might be by the same artist, but that don’t mean I’m lettin’ the artist cut a slice!”
“But thennnn—you miss da Woman’s Ministry meetin’. And Clarence happen to be alone cause Lucy at that same meetin’.”
“Pearl, you know I had to watch the kids. Henry was fertilizing the grove. He don’t like how I act after them meetings anyway—”
“Umm hm. You right about that, Dee. That’s why I ain’t think nothin’ on it. Now here you go askin’ me bout watchin’ the chi’ren today, and you know what today happens to be?”
“It’s just any ol’ Saturday, P—”
“Says you! It’s choir practice day at the First African Methodist Church.”
“And what does that have to do with me?”
“Lucy sing in the choir at the First African Methodist Church, Delphine. She gon’ be away from home for hours this afternoon. And I betchu her husband gon’ be gone too!”
Willie Jr. stirred again at the sound of Pearl’s raised voice. I rushed over to softly stroke his eyebrow, a trick my mother taught me.
“Stop it, Pearl Carter, just hush yo’ mouth! OK, you found me out. And I’m mighty shamed for what I did.”
As Willie settled back into dreamland, I plopped myself down on Pearl’s chaise lounge. “I didn’t tell you ‘cause I rather die ‘fore anyone know ‘bout my sin. I know it don’t matter one bit Henry slacking in his husbandly duties and treat me like his fourth child most of the time. That’s my cross to bear, and Lucy shouldn’t be paying that price.”
Pearl nodded her head in agreement. “Everybody got a justification for sin these days,” she sighed.
“You right, Pearl. And I been prayin’ about this long and hard. That’s why I’m endin’ thangs today. I just need you to watch the chi’ren this last time.”
Pearl rolled her eyes and twisted her mouth in disbelief.
“Aw come on now, Pearl. What?”
“Soon as you see Clarence puppy dog eyes, you’ll be beggin’ for your next left-handed honeymoon!”
I could understand Pearl’s fears, but she could never understand what life was like for a woman like me. My husband was too broke for paintings and perfumes, and he was too stressed to be charming. When he proposed underneath the camphor tree in my momma’s and daddy’s front yard, he gave me a bigger diamond than my grandmother’s Missus wore (let my momma tell it). He convinced me my beauty burned bright enough to light his passion for a thousand years, and that it would warm the world up to the both of us. Life as the wife of a citrus grower was sweet for some time, but a few years after Eva Mae was born, some white men from Orlando started coming around. Then, rumors began spreading that Henry’s citrus grove was infested with pests. We lost buyers, and Henry was forced to drive down the price of his oranges. More men came around questioning the legitimacy of Henry’s property deed. Can you imagine selling your diamond ring just to hire some lawyer to prove what’s yours is actually yours? After that, the anonymous threats started. Henry didn’t let me read the letters, but the fear now living in his eyes told me all I needed to know.
“Your husband seem to thrive off the fight. Injuries and all. But Henry? Fighting that never-ending war to keep our citrus grove… it’s stolen all the spark from my husband’s spirit. I love my husband, and I didn’t cheat on him for lack of self-control, Pearl. I did it out of starving for some light.”
Pearl shook her head again, but when she looked back up at me, her eyes softened. “The road to hell was paved with good intentions, Delphine. Now, go head on back in that chair so I can finish straight’nin’ you out.”
***
Later that Saturday afternoon, I watched Clarence from my seat on the worn blanket covering the mossy ground, our spot underneath a cabbage palm on the shore of Starke Lake. He was naked, arms akimbo. I was scared shitless he was going to get himself hurt; if I had to choose between Black people voting and him staying alive, my people might never see the inside of a voting booth a day in their life.
“So, what I’m s’posed to do, Dee?” Clarence’s eyes widened as he searched mine for answers I wished I had. His sculpture-perfect penis flailed a bit, punctuating his confusion. “Knocking these crackas out only leads to niggas strung up in a tree. Ducking these crackas and sneaking around like a hunted criminal ain’t no kinda life either. Mr. Leecher swear he’ll have me arrested for quitting his potato fields. But I can earn better wages in the citrus groves. Locked up, Dee! For trying to make a better living?”
He shook his head, grabbed his pants, and began to get dressed. “The man who drive us to the groves gotta pay $2,500 just to get the license he need to stay outta jail hisself. These old-time slavery laws ain’t going away ‘til we vote the devils out who support them!”
“All this time, Carl and his Knights been getting voters registered just fine without you,” I continued. “Now, all-of-a-sudden, they don’t have the manpower to take these same voters to the polls?”
“Dee, everyone got their role to play in all this. All them Knights, you right. But only one or two have cars. Tuesday is important. All us need to be down there.”
I jumped at the sight of a dark figure and the sound of leaves crunching in the distance. Probably just a deer, but I was visibly on edge. Clarence strode towards me and grabbed both my hands; his touch was gentle but firm. He spoke softly.
“You scared them white folks got somethin’ planned?”
I shook my head before wringing my hands free. I turned my back to him and lied to the pine trees.
“Ain’t nobody ‘fraid of no silly ass crackas. I just don’t see the point is all—voting.” I turned back to face him. “The whole thang about who can lie well enough to convince fools life gon’ change once a man like him get behind a big wood desk that my great-great-granddaddy carved, inside a big white house that your great-great-uncles probably built.”
Clarence furrowed his brow. I grabbed his ears and kissed that brow, eager to drop the matter. “Can I come with you to Tampa next weekend when you go sell your paintings?”
He stiffened a bit. “I already promised Lucy, Dee.”
I blinked hard and swallowed my tantrum, kissing his lips and twirling my tongue around his. “I thought it was supposed to be my turn?”
“I know, baby, but Lucy would butter my bread and then slice my throat with the same knife. ‘I’ll cut you in your sleep if you don’t take me!’” he mocked, in what I imagined to be his wife’s raspy, biting tone.
I narrowed my eyes, angry that my kiss couldn’t bend him to my will. Grabbing my blanket from the ground, I folded it with haste. Clarence pulled me back to him and spun me around to face his longing.
“How about we make a deal, little lady.”
***
“Momma, Ms. Greene say class ending early on Tuesday so she can go vote.”
Here we go with this again. It was only Monday, and already Ms. Greene was sending my child home stirring up trouble.
“Ok, baby, thanks for letting me know.” I turned back to the greens simmering on the stove.
“Are you voting on Tuesday, momma?”
“No, chile.”
“Why? ‘Cause the white folks don’t want us to?”
***
Tuesday morning’s sky was gray, filled with clouds waiting to release their loads. Henry and his workers prepped bags, ladders, and clippers to start picking the Hamlins, and my eldest children were off at the schoolhouse. I calmed my nerves with a shot of moonshine instead of cream in my coffee and slipped well-worn-in Louis heels on my feet. With Willie strapped into his stroller, I set out to tackle a new responsibility.
When we finally got inside the polling tent, I opened my handbag and felt inside the fabric enclosure to find my voter registration certificate. It was still there, just as it was two hours ago when I first secured my place in line. I straightened out the pleats in my skirt and wiped the sweat from my face. They found any and every reason to turn us away. Looking disheveled was bound to fit one of these white inspectors’ criteria for showing me to the exit.
“They said we’d neglect our children when we got the vote,” came a young woman’s voice. I looked over and did a double take. Standing directly across from me in the line reserved for whites was a clean-faced, hair-coiffed Miss Tessie. Her filthy overalls had been swapped for a respectable skirt, and she even wore matching heels.
“They was wrong,” she continued. “We bring ‘em with us.”
She held her five-year-old son’s hand while she smiled at Willie and me. Those nearest Miss Tessie in line watched her, appalled at with whom she’d chosen to strike up a conversation. “Yes, ma’am,” I smiled back, picking Willie up to wave hello as more heads turned. “Train up a child in the way he should go.”
I finally approached the polling clerk. To my surprise, I saw another recognizable face. “Well, I declare! Mizzus Collins?” Mr. Benjamin Harold looked down his cheaters, then quickly toward the door behind me.
“Good mornin’, Mr. Harold. Didn’t expect to find you sitting behind that desk.”
“Didn’t expect to find you in front of it.” His eyes darted behind me again as if he was urgently expecting someone else. The last I saw of him, Henry had given Mr. Harold a steal of a deal on a bushel of navel oranges the man planned to ship up north. I wasn’t too keen on Mr. Harold: it was strong-arming that secured him that deal.
“Yer husband know you came down here?”
“Why wouldn’t he?” was my quick reply. I smiled wide to smooth over my sass.
“Let’s getchu in-an-out, Mizzus Collins. You don’t wanna be lingerin’ round here. Lotta folks don’t want ya’ll anywhere near this place. I couldn’t look yer husband in the eye if somethin’ were to happen to you.”
“I don’ intend to linger. Just tell me what you need from me so I can make my vote. Here go my registration.”
“To yer right, second row center, there’s an empty booth. There’s a pen you can use in the booth, but make sure you put it back now, or the next voter won’t have one.”
“I have my own pen, so—”
“And you have your own husband too.”
I’d never heard her speak, but the raspy rage in her voice struck a familiar chord. “Leave mine alone, or I’ll cut ya every way but loose.”
I dropped my pen and turned around to face one of the prettiest women I’d ever seen. Chocolate skin without a mark. Hourglass figure. Almond-shaped eyes. She was almost my height, but I relished looking down at her, nonetheless.
“You must have me mistaken, Auntie. I don’t know your husband from Adam.” I whipped my head back around to face Mr. Harold.
“Oh, you know my husband sure as I know the devil,” she hissed, grabbing my left shoulder to twist me back around. Lucy shot a glance at Mr. Harold to make sure he too was listening before she turned back to face me. “I’m not gonna tell you again. Leave Clarence alone or leave this earth.”
She narrowed her eyes and gave me a final once-over before striding haughtily towards the clerk at the next table. I suddenly felt smaller than a flea as she unclasped her leather handbag to retrieve her certificate. I looked around that polling tent and felt all the confidence I’d practiced seep out of my pores like sweat. I looked for Clarence under that tent, but he was nowhere to be found. Instead, I found Miss Tessie’s eyes, and everyone else’s, on me like white on rice. The inspectors snickered, victorious without having to lift a finger. Too embarrassed to stay, I turned around to leave.
“Mizzus Collins!” Mr. Harold’s voice stopped me in my tracks. “Your pen.”
I slowly about-faced and stepped cautiously towards him. My head lowered; I reached out for the pen. It was placed in my hand along with a ballot. I looked up.
“The Klan marched round here on Saturday,” Mr. Harold recounted. “I know they ran Mr. Carl off the road last week. None of that mattered, and you came down here anyway. Now, some jealous woman lyin’ on yer virtue got you all set to turn back and run home with yer tail between yer legs?”
I grabbed the ballot from Mr. Harold before Willie and I made our way over to an empty voting booth closest to the exit just in case a quick escape was required.
***
I made it back home, put Willie down for a nap, and started fixing dinner. A quick choke on his rooster would be both Henry’s dessert and his lullaby, but after I’d gotten the children fed and into bed hours later, Henry still hadn’t made it back to the house. This was typical if the packing house had a big shipment to prepare for up North, and the timing couldn’t be more perfect. I could put Eva Mae in charge and have a legitimate excuse for leaving the house: searching for my husband. I tucked Bessie in my left pocket since it was near sundown and locked the door behind me.
I thought briefly of bloody, buttered bread as I walked down to our meeting spot near Starke Lake. Would Clarence even be there after what happened at the polls? He promised me that if I worked up the nerve to go cast my vote, he’d take me down to the jook joint near the tracks in Lakeville.
Had I been in my right mind, I might have smelled the smoke, turned my gaze up Orange Avenue, and spotted the flames rising from the First African Methodist Church. But my thoughts were locked down on Clarence and the run-in with Lucy. I only came back to earth on account of a sudden wave of water that drenched my feet at the shoreline.
“You shole is built like a mule. Always ready for a ride, huh?”
I jumped at the unexpected sound of her raspy voice and turned around to face a wild-eyed Lucy Rankin careening toward me in the dark. I dodged swiftly to my left, reached into my pocket, and pulled out Bessie. Lucy leaped backward as I swiped my 9-inch blade in the air. Then, from the same leather handbag I’d admired earlier that day, she pulled out a revolver.
“What is it? Huh?” she tossed out, as I put my hands up in surrender, never dropping the knife. “What you got that man think I don’t have?”
Funny enough, I’d often wondered the same thing. Without kids to tie him down, why couldn’t he just leave Lucy? What kind of spell had she spun? I’d pondered, plotted, and spent so much time picking me and her apart, I wasn’t thinking about what needed thought.
“I told you earlier to leave Clarence alone or leave this earth,” Lucy continued. “You made your choice. You thought you were meeting him here tonight. But he ain’t coming for you. Now, I’m going to give you another choice. I can shoot you in that pretty face of yours, or you can cool off in the lake.”
I didn’t want to take my eyes off her, but I knew something bad was happening in the lake of which I should make myself aware. I slowly turned towards the water and couldn’t believe what I saw: dozens of slithering serpents entangled, thrashing about on the surface of the water.
“What you look so scared for, Delphine? They’s yo’ own. How can a snake be afraid to swim with snakes?” Her laughter was throaty—maniacal.
I’d like to tell you I was able to reason my way out of that last meeting with Lucy. I’d also like to tell you I was right in figuring the snakes might have more sympathy for my misplaced passions than she did. But I can’t. What I can tell you is if I’d stayed home that violent fall night, I would have faced similar choices: burning or a bullet. Same as Henry and our beautiful children. Same as Pearl and Carl. Much like dozens of other Black people in Ocoee who hadn’t already fled the desperate mob of broken white men hiding behind soiled sheets and sullied crosses; men above the law who’d grown tired of the impotence of their lies, threats, and intimidation. If I could go back and make different choices, I’d spend less time trying to steal what was Lucy’s and more time fighting to hold on to what was ours.
Noelle Kristina Barnes was born and raised in the historically Black communities of Opa-Locka, Miami Gardens, and Brownsville, Florida, where she continues to reside. The daughter of lifelong public servants and a graduate of New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, Noelle writes with a deep commitment to empowerment and enlightenment, often through the voices of resilient Black women in Florida. An award-winning marketing entrepreneur, public affairs specialist, film producer, and community organizer, she draws storytelling inspiration from New Thought principles and timeless wisdom. Burning or a Bullet marks her debut in published short fiction.
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