Alligator Bayou - Donna Jo Napoli [41]
Cirone lies good. How much practice has he had?
Francesco looks over Carlo’s shoulder to inspect my wounds. “How old? What did they say?”
“My age, maybe. They said all dagoes are stupid.”
“Oh yeah? Did they say what we do that makes us so stupid?”
“Something about deals with dagoes in New Orleans.”
Francesco gives a harumph. “Is that everything?”
I’m working on keeping my eyes steady.
“Come on, Calo. What else did they say?”
“That we’re ruining the company stores,” I mumble.
“Enough!” growls Giuseppe. “They’ve got to be stopped.”
“Sit!” Francesco points to the benches. “Everyone but Carlo and Calogero.”
Giuseppe shakes his head, but he drops onto a bench. The others do, too.
Francesco crosses his arms on the table and leans onto them. “We have to talk this over. Make sure we do the right thing.”
“We do nothing,” says Rosario. “They’re just kids.”
I’m with Rosario; this has to end here. If Giuseppe makes a fuss with those boys, they’ll torment Cirone and me every time they catch one of us alone.
“Kids.” Giuseppe shakes his head. “Kids don’t talk about business. This is coming from their fathers. We all know the price of cotton keeps dropping. They’re hurting, and they need their company stores to make a profit. But everyone’s buying from us instead. This is a warning. And if we let it go, if we don’t stop them cold, it’ll be New Orleans all over again.”
Everyone hushes.
My skin tightens. “What are you talking about?”
Carlo holds me by the ear. “Don’t move your jaw while I’m cleaning your chin.”
I put up my hand to block Carlo’s wash cloth. “Tell me,” I say to Giuseppe. “What happened in New Orleans?”
Rosario looks sideways at Cirone. “It’s not worth talking about.”
“Is it about lynching?”
The men gape at me. Cirone’s face changes. He looks as if he might vomit.
“So you know about it?” asks Francesco.
“No. Tell us. Tell Cirone and me.”
“They need to know,” says Giuseppe to Rosario. His voice sounds sadder than I’ve ever heard it. “It’s starting all over again. They need to know.”
“Don’t be absurd,” says Rosario. “In New Orleans it started because of a gun. We don’t carry guns.”
I look at Francesco. He carried a shotgun that day he was mad at Willy Rogers. But he doesn’t speak up, and neither does Carlo. The others saw that gun in the corner before Francesco put it away—but they don’t know the story behind it. It’s our secret. That’s so odd. Probably everyone else in Tallulah knows why Francesco had a shotgun that day, but Rosario and Giuseppe and Cirone don’t—and no one’s going to tell them.
“They should know,” says Francesco at last. “They’re Sicilian.”
“No,” says Rosario. “Cirone was only five when it happened. He had nightmares. He didn’t stop till we moved up here. It’s behind us now. He’s forgotten.”
“Right,” says Carlo. He comes over, put both hands on the table, and slowly lowers himself to the bench as though he’s become ancient in a second. “We got away from all that. It doesn’t help anyone to bring it up again.”
I look at Cirone sitting on the bench near Rosario. “Do you want to know about New Orleans, Cirone?”
His eyes lock on mine. “Yes.”
“Tell us,” I say to Francesco.
“They lynched eleven men,” says Francesco.
“Hold it,” says Giuseppe. “Let me tell it. From the beginning. Rosario and I were there. You and Carlo weren’t.”
“I thought you all came over together,” I say.
“Carlo and I followed,” says Francesco. “We were supposed to come a couple of months later—but then there was all that trouble and we waited to see what would happen. We waited so long, it was the next summer before we got on a ship.”
Giuseppe points to the spot on the bench beside Cirone. “Sit down, Calogero.”
This is going to be awful. Numbness creeps up the sides of my head, making my ears ring. I sit on the edge of the bench.
“These are the facts,” says Giuseppe. “First, just the facts. Six days after Rosario and Cirone and I got off the boat, on the night of the fifteenth of October, 1890, David Hennessy, the big chief—”
“The police commissioner,” says Francesco.
“The police commissioner of New