Stacey was not with us, but Moe and I had witnessed all that was happening to Clarence and had felt the shame of it. Only the appearance of Mr. Wade Jamison stopped the Aames brothers from further humiliating Clarence. Mr. Wade Jamison was a white man, a lawyer, a powerful figure in the county, and could be a formidable foe. Mr. Wade Jamison had befriended us on more than one occasion. He was the one white man we called our friend. But Mr. Jamison was not present a little while later when Statler and the other Aames boys tried to do the same thing to Moe as they had done to Clarence.
Moe chose not to bow his head.
When they approached, Moe was in the process of using a tire iron to remove a flat tire from Stacey’s car. The Aames brothers seemed to take no note of the crowbar or that Moe might use it. They took no note that Moe might not submit to their taunting as Clarence had done. They took no note that Moe might strike back. They attempted to touch Moe’s head and Moe had lashed out with the tire iron. He struck Statler first, knocking him to the ground, then the other two brothers, Leon and Troy, as they came at him. Moe had seriously injured Troy, whom he had smashed in the head, and Troy had been bedridden ever since. He lashed out at all of them for what they were attempting to do to him, for what they had done to Clarence, for what they had done along the Rosa Lee. He had lashed out for all of us; then he had run for his life.
Moe escaped the county in the tarp-covered bed of a truck driven by Jeremy Simms. Jeremy drove him as far as Jackson. From Jackson, Stacey had taken Moe out of Mississippi up to the train station in Memphis. I was with them, along with our friend Little Willie Wiggins. On that day we all feared we might never see Moe again as he fled far away from us, but we knew he had to go. There was no way he could stay in Mississippi and live. Moe, of course, was feeling all this too, and it was even more frightening for him. He was leaving everyone he knew, everyone he loved. He was leaving his widowed father and all his family. He was leaving with the laws of Mississippi against him. He was leaving and knew he could never return. He was leaving me, and that is why he kissed me. He was leaving me, and that is why he said he loved me.
That was the first time Moe had ever kissed me, the first time I had ever realized he thought of me as more than a friend, more than just Stacey’s little sister. It was the first time and the last. In the years since, he had not attempted to kiss me again, and that was just as well for I had felt nothing when Moe kissed me. Moe was my friend, my close and special friend, but that was all and that was all I wanted him to be.
“Moe, I think you know it’s best if you don’t come down here for a while,” said Stacey when we were in the car and heading back to the house. “You best stay in Detroit.”
Moe was silent.
Stacey glanced over. “We’ll come see you there.”
“I don’t want to put y’all in trouble.”
“I think we’ll be all right. White folks always known about our families, how close we are. I’m sure a lot of them know I’m up here, and Cassie too. The law in Mississippi’s not interested in us—”
“Just me,” said Moe.
Stacey nodded. “I think so. That’s why I say you shouldn’t come for a while.”
Moe sighed and looked out the window. I was sitting between Stacey and Moe. I looked first at my brother, his eyes straight ahead, then at Moe. I knew how much Moe’s weekend trips to Toledo meant to him. When he came on Fridays, he stayed until Sunday evening. He slept on the sofa bed in the living room. He ate all that good food Dee cooked, and for him it was almost like being back home. We were his family now. He went to church with us, played baseball down at the vacant corner lot near the school, listened to the radio in the evenings, enjoyed everything we enjoyed together. It was an escape from the loneliness of his own life living in a rooming house up in Detroit. It was an escape from being Moe McKlellan. With us, he could again be Moe Turner.
When Moe had first arrived in Detroit, he had gone to our people living there, extended family who had come up to Detroit from Canton, Mississippi, and who had never lived down around Great Faith. Moe told them nothing about what had caused him to come so suddenly, just that he was looking for work to help out his family, but he knew he could not stay long with them. There were many in the family and he was just one more body to take care of in their small space, so as soon as he got some work, Moe moved out and took a room in a boarding house. He took the room under the name of Moe McKlellan, just as he had taken his job under that name. When Stacey and Dee bought the house on Dorr Street, they asked Moe about coming to stay with us, but Moe had said no. He already had a good job working at the Ford factory and, besides that, he didn’t want to bring any trouble to them in case Mississippi tracked him down. Despite all that, I knew what Moe was feeling now, and I knew also he did not want to stop coming to Toledo. Once we were at the house and Stacey had gone back to the kitchen to greet Dee, Moe sat next to me on the living room sofa and said, “I don’t know if I can stay away. I know I oughta, but the truth is . . . I want to see you, Cassie.”
“Ah, Moe . . .”
“I know. I know how you want things to be. You want us being friends—”
“That’s important—”
“Sure, it is . . . but you know I want more, Cassie.”
“Well, I’m not going there, Moe. We’ve been friends too long for us to go there.”
Moe smiled. “You never know,” he said.
“Well, I do. You best stay in Detroit and keep yourself safe. And don’t worry. I’ll be coming to see you along with Stacey. You’ll always be my friend.”
Moe smiled again. “Yeah . . . that’s what I’m afraid of.”
That next week Attorney Tate called. The detective who had approached him about Moe wanted to talk to us. Stacey and I met the detective at Lawyer Tate’s office. He questioned us briefly about the incident in Strawberry and asked us about Moe. We told him we didn’t know where Moe was.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
During the war years there had been no new cars. All the car factories had turned full attention to manufacturing for the war. In 1946, for the first time in five years, new cars began to roll off the assembly lines in Detroit, and Stacey was among the first to buy one. His purchase was even published in the newspaper. It was a 1946 Mercury, burgundy in color, with white-walled tires. It was a beauty. As soon as he had driven the Mercury from the showroom floor and brought it back to Dorr Street, people began to gather and marvel at the new car. Everyone, it seemed, wanted a ride in the Mercury, even if it was just around the block and—after a first ride with Dee, the girls, and me—Stacey obliged. He even let some of his most trusted friends drive it.
Stacey loved cars, always had. Part of his love for cars had come from Uncle Hammer, who always drove fine cars, even a Packard. Uncle Hammer had even driven the Packard down into Mississippi. But it was Stacey who had bought our family’s first car in Mississippi, a Ford that had belonged to Mrs. Wade Jamison, and like his new Mercury it too had been burgundy. Stacey had driven that car north and had kept it throughout the war years. Now, with the enticement of the new models, he had traded in the Ford for the Mercury. He had a good income at the factory, the union was strong, and even though there was some concern that there could be layoffs, Stacey bought the car.