Red Summers in the South

The sun rose over a small neighborhood in Elaine, Arkansas. Clivious Johnson had laid out his finest suit—the one that had survived the fire. The wool was stiff with smoke, the lining darkened where blood had once soaked through and dried. He buttoned it slowly, smoothing the lapels as if the fabric still obeyed him.

At the mirror, he lifted a straight razor to what remained of his face. The right side had been taken by a shotgun blast; the skin there was a pale ruin of scar. Still, he drew the blade carefully across his brown skin, scraping over tissue that could no longer grow hair. He wiped the razor clean on a handkerchief already stained brown.

Death was no excuse for sloppiness.

Bessy Johnson rose just as early. She shook out the dress she’d worn the night the house burned, its hem charred into a dark lace. She pinned what she could, smoothed what she couldn’t. Before the mirror, she arranged her hair with deliberate fingers, coaxing shape and order from what had once been hacked away with farm shears. She stood back to inspect herself, chin lifted. She looked like the dancers she’d seen on stage in Harlem.

The Rutherfords did not greet them. They arrived and began unpacking. No Florida water. Just business.

The two sat on the Rutherfords’ new couch.

“Look at this joker,” Clivious muttered. “Got wax in his hair like he’s headed to Wall Street. What kind of Black man does that?”

The father, Arvel Rutherford, wears his Army dress blues.

“What about her?” Bessy said. “Who does she think she is? Lady Day?”

Before they tarred and feathered Bessy, they’d taken farm shears and cut her hair clean off; the same shears they used to emasculate Clivious.

Arvel and Mark Rutherford entered through the front door carrying a wooden desk between them. Once inside, Mark stepped back out, leaving Arvel alone to maneuver it. Instead of lifting, he shoved. The desk legs dragged across the pristine oak floors, carving pale scratches into the finish.

In the four short years they had owned the house, Clivious had endured hours of Bessy’s lectures about preserving the sanctity of those floors—no shoes inside, felt pads under every chair, immediate clean-up for even the smallest spill. Now the wood shrieked beneath the weight of the desk.

“Jesus Christ,” she said. “They might as well burn it again.”

When the desk finally settled into what must have been an acceptable position, Arvel sat on top of it instead of the chair behind it. He pulled a cigarette from the pocket of his pressed dress shirt, struck a match against the desk’s edge, and inhaled.

Clivious lunged. His hand passed through fabric, skin, bone—air. For the first time since his death, Clivious hated being dead.

“You Uncle Tom wax-headed—”

“Clivious,” Bessy snapped. “All that name calling ain’t gon’ stop him from smoking.”

Bessy rose from her place on the couch and crossed the room to Clivious. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tight, swaying gently as if steadying a child after a fall. Together they drifted backward, and jolted when Dorothy walked straight through them and dropped onto the couch.

“I told Mark to grab groceries,” she said, kicking off her shoes. “We’re getting steak and wine.”

Arvel laughed. “This moving mess is no joke.”

He slid closer, massaging her shoulders, fingers drifting into her hair with easy intimacy. Bessy and Clivious watched, rigid. Within minutes, Arvel and Dorothy were tangled together, laughter dissolving into breath.

Clivious turned first, Bessy shortly after. They passed through the wall onto the porch.

“These new age Black folk don’t know what it cost,” he spat. “Fucking up my floors. Smoking in my house.”

“What you want to do?” Bessy asked. “Ain’t like we can make ’em leave.”

“We can lead ’em to it. Leave the stove running. Let the gas build. He light another cigarette, I’ll watch it burn again. They gon’ learn.”

Before Clivious could say another word, a white Ford truck rolled into the driveway. The engine cut. Mark exited the truck and went inside.

“What this joker got to say?” Clivious muttered, already phasing through the porch wall and back into the house.

Dorothy turned to Mark with excitement, “How’d you make out?”

“Store closes at five, Ma. Ain’t like the city out here.”

“Goddamn it," Arvel uttered, "I’m tired of eating that canned mess."

“Now Arvel…”

Mark didn’t respond right away. His gaze shifted toward the windows, scanning the yard as if he’d sensed movement in the glass.

“Who you done wronged in the two seconds we been in this town, son?” Arvel asked Mark.

Mark hesitated. “They tell you what happened to the people who lived in this house before us, Dad?”

Arvel laughed. “You try and find a house this cheap at this size. Couple of fools in hoods don’t scare me.”

“Yeah, but Mister at the store—”

“His name Mister?” Arvel cut in.

“No.”

“Then don’t call him that. You ain’t nobody’s servant. What’s the man’s name?”

“Damn”, muttered Clivious.

“Bobby,” Mark said. “Bobby said the last Black family who lived here died in a house fire… but he made it sound like there was more to it than that.”

“Well, if you feel so obliged,” Arvel said, voice low and steady, “you can take that truck right back to Bobby’s store and tell him if there’s any more to it than that, me and a couple boys fresh out of Okinawa can make it deeper than that. Otherwise, I think we’re gon’ be just fine. Now come on. We got boxes to unpack.”

Arvel patted Mark on the shoulder and moved towards the hallway.

Clivious and Bessy stood frozen. Clivious turned slowly to Bessy. “You know what,” he said after a long pause. “Wax head got chops.”

Bessy raised an eyebrow. “I like these folks.”

The two went outside and watched Arvel unload boxes from the truck bed into Mark's hand. The sun sets over their backs. The Rutherfords, with the Johnsons' blessing, will see another day.