Boys Life

information network: the society of women who circled gossip like hawks for the meat of truth. As I ate my breakfast of scrambled eggs and grits, Mom sat with me at the table. “You know what the Ku Klux Klan is, don’t you?” she asked.
    I nodded. I had seen Klansmen on the TV news, dressed in their white robes and conical hoods and walking around a fiery cross while they cradled shotguns and rifles. Their spokesman, a gent who had pulled his hood back to expose a face like a chunk of suet, had been talking about keeping your heart in Dixie or getting your ass out and “not lettin’ no Washington politician say I gotta kiss a colored boy’s shoes.” The rage in the man’s face had swollen his cheeks and puffed his eyelids, and behind him the fire had gnawed at the cross as the white-robed figures continued their grim parade.
    “The Klan burned a cross in the Lady’s yard last night,” Mom said. “They must be warnin’ her to get out of town.”
    “The Lady? Why?”
    “Your father says some people are afraid of her. He says some people think she’s got too much say-so about what goes on in Bruton.”
    “She lives in Bruton,” I said.
    “Yes, but some people are scared she wants to have say-so about what goes on in Zephyr, too. Last summer she asked Mayor Swope to open the swimmin’ pool to the Bruton folks. This year she’s been askin’ him about it again.”
    “Dad’s afraid of her, isn’t he?”
    Mom said, “Yes, but that’s different. He’s not afraid of her because of her skin color. He’s afraid because…” She shrugged. “Because of what he doesn’t understand.”
    I swirled my fork around in my grits, thinking this point over. “How come Mayor Swope won’t open up the pool to them?”
    “They’re black,” Mom answered. “White people don’t like to be in the water with black people.”
    “We were in the flood water with them,” I said.
    “That was river water,” Morn said. “The swimmin’ pool’s never been open to them. The Lady’s gotten a petition up that says she either wants a pool built in Bruton or the Zephyr pool open for black people. That must be why the Klan wants her gone.”
    “She’s always lived there. Where would she go?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t think the people who set that cross on fire care much, either.” Mom frowned, the little lines surfacing around her eyes. “I didn’t know the Klan was even anywhere around Zephyr. Your father says they’re a bunch of scared men who want to turn time backward. He says things are gonna get a lot worse before they get better.”
    “What’ll happen if the Lady won’t leave?” I asked. “Would those men hurt her?”
    “Maybe. They might try, at least.”
    “She won’t go,” I said, remembering the cool green-eyed beauty I’d seen looking back at me from behind the Lady’s wrinkled face. “Those men can’t make her leave.”
    “You’re right about that.” Mom got up from her chair. “I’d hate to get on her wrong side, that’s for sure. You want another glass of orange juice?”
    I told her no. As Mom was pouring one for herself, I finished off my eggs and then said something that caused her to look at me as if I’d just requested money for a trip to the moon. “I want to go hear what Reverend Blessett has to say.” She remained speechless. “About that song,” I continued. “I want to know why he hates it so much.”
    “Angus Blessett hates everything,” Mom said when she had recovered her voice. “He can see the end of the world in a pair of penny loafers.”
    “That’s my favorite song. I want to find out what he can hear in it that I don’t.”
    “That’s easy. He’s got old ears.” She offered a faint smile. “Like me, I guess. I can’t abide that song, either, but I don’t think there’s anythin’ evil about it.”
    “I want to know,” I persisted.
    For me this was a first. I had never been so adamant about attending church before, and it wasn’t even our congregation. When Dad got home, he tried his best to talk me out of it, by saying that Reverend Blessett was so full of hot air he could blow up a blimp, that he wouldn’t even think about crossing the threshold of Reverend Blessett’s church, and so on, but, at last-after a hushed conference with Mom in which I overheard the words “curiosity” and “let him find out for himself”-Dad grudgingly agreed to go with us on Wednesday night.
    And so it was that we found ourselves sitting with