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A Short Story by Stasia McGehee, May 1996


Easter Morn 1996, Central Mississippi

Running through the cool dark woods on an early April morn, a corner of an old shack peeped out of the vegetation. Surrounded by shrubs that had grown up into a living barricade, I had to force my way through a thicket of green. It was an old sharecropper shack, 100 years old or so, tumbling back into the woods. It was originally a dogtrot house, elevated above the flood line, leaving a 4 foot crawl space on the ground level; but further additions qualified this once humble dwelling as a rambling, multi-generational estate. One whole wall had fallen off the back of the house, exposing a four poster bed, sliding into the earth. The white lace of the curtains and fragments of a crochet bedspread moving in the breezeless air kept me from lingering. As I slipped away from the scene, I saw evidence of fire damage; kkk was hastily spray-painted on the front. Had the place been torched?

My story intrigued my family. The following day, I returned with my sister Heidi. Inspired by each other’s presence, we rooted around the crumbling dwelling for several glorious hours, opening an old chest of drawers, crawling under the disintegrating structure, tentatively tiptoeing all the way to the back bathroom where a toothbrush still hung from a nail in the wall. Hunks of petrified wood graced the front of the house, where the shrubs had grown up into trees. A woman’s navy blue dress suit still hung in a bedroom closet. Did these occupants leave in haste?

We unearthed many "antiques," which even brand new would have been considered junky, but the yard was littered with earthen mounds that yielded beautiful hand blown glass bottles. It was getting dark as I flipped over yet another old metal sign advertising cigarettes, near an open air hearth. As my sister an I pried it up from the soil, we both gasped and leapt backwards. A black face, liberated from the darkness of the earth, stared up at us like a voodoo mask. Recovering ourselves in the descending gloom, we unearthed a squatting cast iron figure, whose African mask-like features provided a disturbing contrast with the stylized tuxedo outfit. "What is this?" we wondered. We took it home. Although not even my grandparents had ever seen anything like it, it was determined to be some sort of hearth ornament, which probably came in a pair. So where was the other figure?

Easter evening my brother and I revisited the scene, hauling along my parents’ big brown recycling container. We had been there not ten minutes when an incessant honking began where we had left our car. Voices and pounding feet soon followed. Ditching the Recycling container, Robert and I dashed through the woods, but with the recent emergence of a new subdivision, my trusty old running trail now ended between two neighbors’ back yards. Both men met us with shotguns, hollering. I looked down at our tennis shoes and sweat pants, explaining that we were both cross-country runners, out on a time trial. "Well, the owner of this land is out there with the sheriff, lookin’ for y’all." Since I knew said owner, Mr. Elliot, I wasn’t too worried about going to jail. When you grow up in a town of 5000 people, it’s hard not to know just about everyone, and I knew 3 of his kids. His daughter used to tease me out on the school track, and Mr. Elliot himself had just recently tried to swindle my mother into investing in an insurance company that was in the process of going under.

The neighbor with the handy shotgun begrudgingly let me cut through his property, so we could meander back to Robert’s Acura via the street. We jogged up to the scene, only to find his car hemmed in by the cars of 2 nosy neighbors, plus two squad cars and a pickup. I reintroduced myself, feigning country joviality, until all misunderstandings were dispelled. Incoherently they apologized, "Well, you know, cars found on the edge of the woods, bodies left behind. Ya never know what maht be happenin’." While we spoke, the deputy returned, his boots a striking contrast of shiny black leather and bright red clay. Only later did I find out that a recent abduction of a white woman by some black youths had evidently left the white residents somewhat overzealous in their neighborhood watch campaign. As Robert and I drove away from the scene, another squad car pulled up carrying a police dog.

Infused with adrenaline, my brother and I suddenly got the urge to do some heavy yard work. My parents returned home soon after we arrived, chattily wanting to visit. "Oh, we’re just planting some trees," we replied. And ever since, an inegmatic African figure from the past keeps a solitary watch over my parents' hearth.

Stasia McGehee May 1996


This page last updated on March 21st, 1998.
Copyright © 1997 Stasia McGehee.