This is Installment Eleven of the novel Rose and Justice. It includes Chapters III.vii, III.viii, and III.ix. It is 7,332 words long. As installments are posted, links for each will be added under the tab labeled “The Novel” at the top of this page. Enjoy!

III.vii

            The rest of the break was uneventful.  Every now and then, Justice could feel Jared’s eyes on him, would just get the feeling that he was being watched and then turn around to see Jared staring at him from across the way.  Justice knew that every move he made was being measured and weighed.  For four weeks, he performed like a Malone boy would be expected to, but realized more each day that it was exactly that – a performance.  He had grown up with a limited perspective on the world, yet somehow always felt uncomfortable with that perspective, as if he was a stranger in his own family.  He had known nothing except what his family taught him, and yet intrinsically knew there was more to be known.

His mind was becoming free, but the rest of him still somehow remained under the rule of Jared.  Justice began making plans to create more independence for himself.  He decided the first thing he needed was a job.  His first semester away from home quickly taught him that the outside world was run by money.   He wasn’t sure just what that money would be used for, and he knew better than to make any move that would create suspicion in his father, like buying a car, but he had a sure feeling that the money he earned would be of use at some point in the future.

Thus, the first big conversation Justice and Mark had as they drove back to campus from Waycross was purely economical.

“Mark, I need to know how I can get a job.”

“Why?  You got a wife and kids you haven’t told me about?”

“Yeah, right.  I keep them hidden back on the compound.  No, asshole, I need to make some money.   For . . . well, I don’t what for exactly.  I just need to start making some money.”

Mark glanced over at Justice through squinted eyes, understanding more of the situation than Justice had told.  “O.k.  Well, you don’t have a car, so it will need to be close to campus, or maybe even on campus.   I think there’s some kind of campus job center or something like that where they post all the on-campus employment.  We can check that out when we get back.”

“Thanks,” Justice whispered rather sheepishly.

Mark understood the feeling of indebtedness that Justice had toward him, even though he wished Justice wouldn’t feel that way.  “No problem.  Maybe I’ll even get a job.  It would be nice to have more than the peanuts the folks send me.  So, how did everything go?  Any big blow-ups, or did the Malone clan just spend Christmas practicing their target shooting?”

“It was okay.   It was just the normally abnormal compound life.  It is abnormal, isn’t it, Mark?  I mean, most people don’t live the way I did growing up, do they?”

“No . . . and yes.  No is the big answer and the most obvious.  Your family is pretty extreme.  But, on the other hand, I guess we all grow up in families that tell us a certain way to act and a certain way to think.  The biggest difference is that most people have more opportunity to rebel against their families than you do.  But, still, I guess most of us think the way our families taught us, probably more than we even think we do.”

“What did your family teach you to think?”

“I’m so close to it that I may not be able to say exactly, but I guess they mostly taught me that America is the best place in the world – which it might be for all I know – and that Christians are the only people going to heaven.   I suppose they also taught me that white people are superior, although they would deny teaching me that with their dying breath.   Of course, they also taught me that Santa Claus was real when I needed to believe in him, and that he wasn’t when I no longer needed to.   All in all, I have a pretty good family, but I suppose they have their way of seeing things just like every other family does.”

“What’s a good family?  I mean, how would you determine that?”  Justice asked.  “My father has always protected us and provided for us, and my mother has always taught us and fed us and washed our clothes and stuff.   That can’t be all there is to it because getting away from home feels better than anything.”

“For you and everybody else.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think everybody our age is pretty dead set on getting out of their parents’ house.”

“But not everybody our age has to escape their parents’ compound.”

“Okay.  You win that round.  I don’t know, Justice.  I guess a good family is one that raises you up and then lets you go.”

“No.  It’s got to be more than that.  Maybe a good family is one you want to come back to, even after they do let you go.”

Mark grinned.  It was his standard signal for the end of seriousness.  “I think a good family is a rich family, rich enough that their sons don’t have to go get damn campus jobs.”

Justice had already checked on the work-study positions in the biology and math departments.  The jobs had been filled, and he was beginning to get discouraged.  If the last one on his list was gone, he would have to start applying at the various service stations and fast food restaurants within walking distance of the campus.   He walked into the office for the department of English and waited for the secretary to end her phone conversation.

“Yes, Dean Spencer, I’ll let Dr. Williams know as soon as he returns . . . you’re welcome . . . goodbye.”  The secretary hung up the phone, then smiled politely at Justice.    “May I help you?”

“Uh, yes, I was wondering about the, uh, work-study job I saw posted in the campus employment center.”  Justice could feel the sweat start to trickle under his arms.  He had felt the same way in the biology and math departments and the nervousness wasn’t easing at all the third time around.

“Oh, good.  Well, Dr. Williams is not in at the moment and you would probably need to talk to him.”

“Then the position is still open?”

“As far as I know.  Let me check . . .” she riffled through some papers on her desk.  “Hmmm.  That memo was here a minute ago.  Well, maybe you could talk to Dr. Williams’ graduate assistant.  Hold on a minute, will you?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Please, have a seat.”  The secretary got up from behind her desk and disappeared down a hallway.  Justice sat in one of the reception chairs, combed his hair off his forehead with his fingers, and cleared his throat.  He tapped his fingers nervously on the arm of the chair.  He had a chance here, and the thought of having a job for the first time in his life was exciting and just a little scary.  He had waited long enough to start to relax when the secretary came back.

“This is Dr. Williams’ grad assistant.  She can talk to you about the position.”

Justice stood and then froze.  He would know her face anywhere.

The graduate assistant held out her hand.  “Hi, I’m Rose Jackson.”  Justice gained control of his body just enough to shake her hand.  She smiled.  “C’mon back to my office.”

Justice followed her down the hallway and felt every heartbeat along the way.  She ushered him into a small, but cozy space.  There was a window on the far wall and a painting just to its right.  It was an oil, not professionally done, but good nonetheless.  A large full moon dominated the right upper corner, with its dips and craters made three dimensional with the thick paint.  The universe around it was a remarkable study in subtle shades of black and midnight blue.  Stars were flecked throughout, but in the bottom left of the canvas one shooting star arced its tail through the dark night and, just as it was about to fizzle out, another joined it, crossing its path.

“Do you like it?”

“Uh, . . . pardon me?”

“The painting.  You were looking at the painting.”

“Oh, yes .  . . I was.  And, yes, I do like it.  Did you paint it?”

“It was my final project in an art class I took during my undergrad years.  I never thought of myself as much of an artist, but for some reason I always liked this one.”

“It’s very good.”

“Please sit down.”  Rose motioned Justice to a chair and took a seat behind her small desk.  “So, you’re interested in the work study position?”

“Yes.”  Justice took a seat and dropped his books on the floor in the process.  “I’m sorry.  I’m a little clumsy, I guess.”

“Don’t worry about it.  Relax.”  Rose smiled, and Justice felt that smile held a power he had never known.  “So, what’s your name?”

Justice hesitated.  Would she remember him from the south Georgia shore if he said his name?   “Uh, Justice.   Justice Malone.”

“Justice.  What an interesting name.  Your parents must have had an important reason for naming you that.”

The thoughts swirled in his head.  Obviously, she didn’t remember.  But, he did.  He remembered that incredible beauty which had only grown more beautiful.  And he remembered the story his father had told him on many occasions about how he came to be called Justice, how his name represented the Malone family’s stand for justice for the white people of the world against the inferior races that would encroach on their rightful legacy.  “I don’t know.  I’m . . . sure they did.”

Rose looked hard at him for a few seconds.  “Have we met before?”

“I don’t think so.”  Justice responded, a little too quickly.

“Um.  You seem familiar to me.  And that name rings a bell.  Which is odd, because it’s not exactly a common name.   Well, that’s neither here nor there.  What’s your major, Justice?”

“I have a double major – biology and electrical engineering.”

“Biology?  And electrical engineering?  That’s a rather odd combination.”

“Well, I really love biology.  The electrical engineering is just, well, you know, to be safe.”

“Tell me about it.  I have a degree in English.  Maybe I should have double majored in business, huh?”

“Well, it’s never too late.”  Justice began to notice how calm he was becoming.  What had once been anxiety over getting his first job was melting into a comfortable ease.

“I suppose not.”  She smiled again, that devastating smile, that wicked glow, that almost painful perfection.  “So, why do you want to work in the English department?  Looking to try out a third major?”

“No.”  Justice laughed out the word.  “I just . . . need a job.  And I don’t have a car.  So, I was hoping to find something here on campus, and the positions in the math and biology departments were already filled, so . . .”

“Oh, so we’re your third choice, huh?”

“No,” Justice almost shouted the word.  “I mean, no, I just . . .tried those departments first.”

“It’s alright.  I’m glad you made it to our department.”

“Me too.”  Justice smiled this time.  They were caught in the web of each other’s gaze.  It had happened a few minutes before, but Justice began noticing it consciously now for the first time.   Without any effort whatsoever, the most comfortable thing to do in this room was to look into Rose’s eyes.

Rose noticed it too.  She looked away and tried to gather herself.  “I have an application here.  You can fill it out in the outer office and give it to the secretary.   I’ll be sure to put in a good word for you with Dr. Williams.”

Justice took the application and stood up.  “Thank you.  I really appreciate it.  I’ll, uh, . . . I guess I’ll see you around.”

“I hope so.”

Rose Jackson stared at the closed door of her office for a long while.   There was something familiar about him, but it was more than that.   She had not wanted him to leave.   It had been like a reunion with a long lost friend, and she seemed to still feel him in the room.

The feeling was one she had never felt, yet she had no compulsion to try to explain it or understand it.  Nor did she rush to label it.  She spent no time contemplating whether there was a romantic attraction involved, the obvious differences between them such as age and race, or what might come of a friendship with this boy, for at this age, with 5 years between them, she thought of him as a boy.  She simply sat in the feeling.

As the moment was waning, she thought of his interest in her painting.  She looked again at her senior-year attempt to express what had been waiting inside her all her life.  She had held no delusions about her artistic abilities.   She was fully accepting of the fact that her unique gift to the world was not painting.  But, the elective she had taken just for the hell of it had proven to be a conduit.  There was a secret within her, so secret that even she did not know it.  She only knew it was there.  She had read to find it.  She had written to uncover it.  Perhaps a completely different expressive form would expose it.   She still had no idea what the secret was.  She only knew that somehow it had been transported to that painting, those crossing stars, still as mysterious as ever.

Rose had not changed much from the little girl who liked to climb trees in order to be alone with a good book.   She still commanded her father’s attention and devotion.   She still believed that the best part of swinging was jumping out of the swing.   She still felt least alone when walking the Georgia shore with no one else around.  She had made it her habit in high school.  Many times her father came down to breakfast only to find Rose coming in through the back door after watching the sunrise over the Atlantic.  The house she had grown up in was only five blocks from the beach on the southeast corner of St. Simons, just a few minutes walk away.  He would warn her to be careful out there all alone, and she would just say, “Yes, daddy.”  There was no need trying to explain the walks to her father, or anyone for that matter.  They were the most intimate part of her relationship with herself.

Rose would get to the beach while night still ruled.  The sound of the waves was different in the dark, like a loud whisper in church.  The stars shone like jewels on a velvet cloth blacker than black.   Sometimes she would see loggerhead turtles or blue crabs trying to catch the tide as it slowly receded into its daytime borders.  She would walk to the edge of the wave, letting its last landward push lap over her toes.  And there she would stand, waiting, as if the boat carrying her sailor-love was due to arrive any day.  Without slouching, without shifting from one foot to the other, she would stand and watch the black cloth of the night sky soften at the horizon, turn a deep blue, then a dark gray, until finally the edge of the sun sped up the change sending shafts of orange and pink to bounce off the morning clouds and hide the stars.  This had been familiar to her from the first time she remembered seeing it.  No, more than familiar.

Her father had often asked if he could go with her, but she had gently rebuffed him.  This was her time and hers alone.  She would never know that he had followed her, on four or five occasions, and watched from the trees, hoping to catch sight of the mystery of his daughter.

Rose hadn’t been the least bit interested in dating in high school, which made Phillip happy.  He never bemoaned the possibility of Rose not having a “normal” adolescence.  Rose had always been the kind of child who lived outside the norm, yet did so with such precocious confidence and self-acceptance that it seemed simply natural.   She had a few good friends, but seemed content to get close to no one.  Rose was not unpopular; she just made popularity seem overrated without ever even speaking of it.   She seemed to feel no sense of want – except for that deep aching which she and Phillip both knew existed, but neither could name.

They never spoke of this ache.   Somehow they both knew that acknowledging it would make it harder to identify.  Instead, when Phillip would become acutely aware of it, he would say something such as, “Baby, you know you can tell your daddy anything, don’t you?”  To which Rose would smile and say simply, “Yes.”

When Rose went to Spelman, Phillip was immensely proud and deeply saddened.  He had become almost dependent on her daily presence.  He wanted to guide her into a good life, but mostly he wanted what he learned from her.  For two years nothing much changed except that Rose was in Atlanta.   Then in her junior year she began dating Michael Jones, a student at Morehouse.   Rose and Mike were perfect for each other.  Both were straight-A students, determined to go to graduate school, and destined to lead scholarly lives.   They spent most of their dates in the library.  Phillip was happy for her, but struggled with his jealously.  He knew he would get used to Rose having another man in her life, he knew he would have to, but it was going to take some effort on his part.   When Rose graduated and announced her plans to attend graduate school at the University of Georgia in Athens, Phillip asked about Mike’s intentions, assuming they intended to be together.   But Rose told of Mike’s plans to spend a year in Europe before starting grad school, and did so as if passing along the news of a family friend, pleased for him and not the least displeased that he was going away.

At UGA, she was on track to finish her Masters in a year and a half.  She wasn’t certain which school she would attend after that, but knew that she was going to plow through the Ph.D. without taking a break.  She was interested in Georgetown and Boston University.  She was even going to give Harvard a shot.  She hadn’t even considered schools not on the eastern seaboard.   Wherever she went, she wanted to be close to her ocean and its daily show at dawn.

Rose stared at the painting until it was just an unfocused and fuzzy mass of black and blue.  She began to refocus on the room after a time and eventually looked down at the undergrad papers stacked on her desk, waiting for her to cover them in red ink and profound feedback.   She didn’t mind the paper grading, but tonight it seemed far too pedestrian.  She went to her car and drove east.  Hilton Head was only three and a half hours away.  She could get a room for the night in Beaufort, watch the sunrise in the morning, and be back to campus in time for her noon class.

III.viii

Justice didn’t get the job in the English department.  Unbeknownst to Rose, Dr. Williams had already given the position to a senior English major.  Rose had called Justice to let him know, partly because it was the proper thing to do and partly because she wanted to talk with him again.  Their conversation was short.  Neither could find a good enough reason to extend it.  They signed off with “see you around” and both hoped they would.

Justice accidentally caught a glimpse of her one day.  He had been asked to deliver some supplies to the history department in his finally-landed job as general gopher for the acquisition department.  He had unloaded the boxes of copy paper and was pushing his empty dolly through the halls when he glanced through the window of a classroom door and saw her.  He came to a stop three feet beyond the door then backed up slowly until he could see her through the long narrow glass again.

She was teaching a freshman class, standing in front of the room and talking with complete ease.  Even as a graduate teaching assistant, she was already an accomplished lecturer.  He watched her move about the front of the room, write something on the board – he didn’t know what and strained to see which words might have known the singular pleasure of the touch of her hand – and turn the pages of her notes.  She must have said something funny because the class laughed.  Justice saw the side of her mouth turn up in that smile that had so captured him before.  He felt jealous of the students in the class, people who were required to listen to her, to look at her, for a solid 50 minutes three times a week.   He imagined himself as her student, having the courage to ask to speak with her after class, going back to her office with her.

He had no idea how long he stood there and watched her, but suddenly the class was standing and coming toward the door like a wave of humanity.   He regained his senses and hurried down the hall to the stairs.  This was not the way to keep the first job he ever had.

From then on, he would arrive at work as early as possible to sign up for any deliveries to that building between 9:00 and 9:50.  He couldn’t get there every time the class met, but he managed it once a week or so.  He would think of good reasons why that particular trip had taken so long, but they weren’t really needed.  Like most government jobs, it didn’t take too much to please his supervisors and a few lengthy deliveries raised no one’s suspicions.

Justice would always watch from his spot in the hall.   If someone came along, he would calmly turn his attention to the bulletin board on the wall, feigning interest in a poster advertising how wonderful it was to get a graduate degree in political science at Duke.  He thought about waiting after the class was over, timing it so that he could be strolling down the hallway just as she left the room.  He could say, “Hey.  Rose, isn’t it?  Good to see you again.”  He would be ever so cool and she would smile that smile and maybe they would even walk together for a while.

But he never did.  Some days he thought he would, but then he would chicken out at the last minute, almost running down the hallway to keep her from seeing him.

Justice told no one about Rose.  For one thing, what would he tell?  I met this girl and she makes me feel all warm inside and so I stalk her when she’s teaching?   And he felt that if he did tell, even Mark, just admitting it would make something real out of it, something palpable that Jared could sense in the air.

Jared.  That was what kept Justice from waiting for her after class.  He didn’t dare take even the first step down a road that would have dangers he couldn’t begin to imagine.   He knew that one hint of this would send Jared into a rage that would end Justice’s college career and any possibility for Marsh and Hannah.  Of course, there was really no this for Jared to hear about.  But there was something, and Jared would sniff it out like a blue tick hound on the trail of a rabbit.  No, he would have to stand still.  He would have to watch her from his hallway, moving only to finally and regrettably move away.  Whatever he hoped for could never happen.  Whatever he thought might become of standing outside her door and catching stolen glimpses of her must remain potential and not even approach the probable.

Justice felt he was the lone student on a campus of thousands who was sad to see the school year come to an end.  He thought he might have worked up the nerve to talk to Rose, knowing that an entire summer stood in the way of seeing her again.  But he didn’t.

Instead, he reluctantly packed and drove home with Mark, making the same rendezvous with Jared at the same Piggly-Wiggly.

Justice had been plotting out his summer for three weeks.  Before he left Athens, he opened a savings account.  Mark went with him, shaking his head in disbelief when Justice said he had never been inside a bank before.   He had earned $1,436 and spent just $72.  The campus cashier’s office cashed his paychecks and he kept the rolled up bills in an empty peanut butter jar under his bed.  The change jingled in the bottom.  If he ever wanted a soft drink or to go see a movie with Mark, he used the change only.  The paper money was off-limits, except for that one bookstore purchase he had made.

When the teller handed Justice his bankbook, showing a balance of  $1,364, he realized for the first time that he had to find a place to hide it.  His instant agitation was apparent to his best friend.

“Let’s talk over here,” Mark pulled Justice to some chairs in the lobby of the bank after saying thank you to the teller.  “Now, what is it?”

“The bank book.  I can’t take this home, Mark.  I mean, my dad cannot find this.”

“Hmm.  Yeah, I guess you’re right.”  Mark thought for a moment.   “I could keep it for you.   No, that wouldn’t be good.  I wouldn’t do anything with it, but my dad always says you should never do business with friends.  He says it’s the best way to turn a friend into an enemy, and I don’t want us to be enemies.”

“No, I don’t want that either.  But I would trust you to hold my bank book for me.”

Mark grinned.  “Thanks.  But we’ll figure something out.”  And then his grin changed to a smile of a-ha.  “I’ve got it.  Come with me.”

Mark led Justice to one of the desks.  The woman behind the desk looked up from her paperwork, then smiled her best customer service smile.

“May I help you?”

“Yes,” Mark said.  He had a frat boy way of sounding extremely businesslike in situations like these, even in jeans and sneakers.  “We’re interested in a safety deposit box.”

“Do you have an account with us.”

Justice jumped in.  “I certainly do.”  And he proudly displayed his new bankbook, the same bankbook that had a $15 deduction a few minutes later, the same bankbook that would spend the entire summer in the dark environs of safety deposit box #492.

The only problem was that now he had a key to hide.   If there was one thing Jared had taught him, it was how to be resourceful.  He pulled up the insole of his boot, put the key underneath, then glued it back around the edges.  All summer long the key to his ultimate freedom would be right under his left foot, and right under Jared’s nose.

The other plan he made concerned how he would get through the three long months at home.  It wasn’t a plan so much as a resolve.  He decided that he would not just endure the time under his father’s watchful eye, but he would find a way to relate to his father, meet him on his own grounds.  He wanted Jared to not just accept his going to school, but to begin to see it as a truly good idea.  He thought if he could pull it off, then each time home he might become more and more convincing.

Shortly after arriving back at the compound, Justice installed new lighting in the supply building and a security video system around the perimeter of the fence.   His father had bought the system during the spring and must have paid quite a bit for it. Justice never asked where the money had come from.  He wouldn’t have dared.  He just knew it was waiting for him and constituted some kind of test, which he passed with flying colors.  Jared seemed almost happy about his son’s new skills.

Because he had positioned the cameras, Justice knew where the one weak spot in the system was, the one place you could leave or approach the compound without being taped.   He had thought at first that he wouldn’t leave at all.  He didn’t want to risk angering Jared in any way.  But after a couple of weeks, he decided he could safely leave for short periods of time and walk toward the beach.  There was a certain mossy-haired live oak tree calling him.  He went to the spot where he had found Hannah those many years ago and sat in the same low, solid branch where the beautiful stranger rested as she had played clapping games with his cousin.  He stared out to the ocean, thinking about Rose, imagining the woman he saw on his delivery rounds sitting next to him here in South Georgia.  This place where they first met seemed holy ground.  The distance between them seemed as vast as the body of water before him.

At times he would laugh at himself and even question his own sanity.  He wondered if he was obsessed, and then thought that obsession must be a tyrannical sort of passion.   He counted the days until he could return to Athens, to Rose.  Just to be able to watch her through a classroom window was enough for him.

When in the compound, Justice spent more time than he ever had observing his father.  Each day away from Jared wore away the edges of the extreme ideology he had planted in Justice’s head.  After a year, he was beginning to see his father in a perspective he had not possessed before.  Justice began to realize that anger defined his father.  He was a rageful, bitter, hating man.   Justice had heard the stories growing up, how the government had taken their land, how the government was not to be trusted, how the government was slowly being taken over by Jews and nigger lovers.   He could understand being angry about the land, but it was in the past.  There was nothing they could do about that now.   As for the other things his father believed, Justice saw no evidence in the outside world he had come to know.  He didn’t understand how his father could carry so much hate for people just because they were a different color or had a different religion.  From what Justice could see, the rest of the world was doing a pretty decent job of getting along with each other, even appreciating each other.  Slowly it became clear to Justice that his father had stewed in his hate for so long that he no longer had it; it had him.   Jared had taken on the anger of his father like a birthright and, like any good son taking over the family business, had made it grow.   Justice knew just enough about his family’s past to know that his great-grandfather had built the distrust, his grandfather had built the hate, and his father had built the wall.  He wondered what was his to build.   What he wanted to build seemed as impossible as constructing a bridge across the Atlantic.

During his freshman year, Justice had made inquiries in the education department until he found what he wanted.  Among the clothes and books he brought home for himself was a textbook for teaching Braille.  It was his lone $72 purchase.  He was determined to teach Hannah how to read this summer.  He decided that this was one thing he was not going to hide from Jared.

“Dad, can I talk with you for a minute, sir?”  Justice found his father in the east tower the morning after he came home.

Jared eyed him warily, still waiting to see what changes had taken place in his son.  “Yeah.  What is it?”

“While I was at school,” Justice cleared his throat, trying to hold back his nervousness.  It wouldn’t do for Jared to think this was too important.  “While I was at school, I happened to hear about Braille, it’s a way for blind people to be able to read, and I was able to get a hold of this book about it, and I thought, if it’s okay with you, that I would teach Hannah Elizabeth.  How to read.”

“And what would be the purpose of that?”

“Well, Hannah is pretty smart, sir, and there are lots of things that blind people can do.  She might be able to learn enough to maybe go to college some day and . . .”

“Who said I’d let her go to college?”

Justice recognized his mistake.  He had gone too far and needed to backpedal a little.  “Well, maybe not college.  But, you never know what she might be able to learn and do.  Around the compound, I mean.”

Jared studied his son through squinted eyes.  “Well, she is pretty smart.   Aaron bought her that damn guitar last year and she picked it up in no time.  Plays it like she’s been playing it all her life.  And she sings all the damn time.  I don’t know what earthly good it would do to teach a blind girl to read, but as long as it don’t interfere with your chores then I don’t guess there’s no harm in it.”

“Yes, sir.”  Justice started to turn and go, but Jared spoke again.

“You think Marsh would get anything out of that college?  I mean, when he gets older, of course.”

Justice felt his pulse quicken.  He instantly knew that how he handled this one moment in time could have a huge effect on the future.  He spoke as if he wasn’t quite yet convinced.   “Well. . . I don’t know.”  Justice shrugged his shoulders.  “He’s not quite as interested in studying and all like I am.  But, come to think of it, there’s a whole lot of different things he could learn there, and not everybody there is all that smart, to be honest with ya’.  He’s a whole lot smarter than some of them.   I would think it could probably be useful.  Maybe he could learn about mechanical engineering or even biology, you know, pre-med kinda stuff.  Now that would really be useful.”

“Hm.”  Jared mulled it over.  “You’re right.  He’s not always the brightest bulb in the box.”

Justice heard only “you’re right.”  He tried to remember if his father had ever said those words to him before.  “You know, I could maybe teach him too.  Help him brush up on a few things.”

There was a slight pause before Jared said, “Yeah, maybe you oughta’ do that.”  He turned around to look through his binoculars out into the ocean and Justice knew he had just been dismissed.  He went down the ladder two rungs at a time and almost skipped back to the house.  He had something to show Hannah.

 III.ix

            Teaching Hannah to read was one of the easiest chores Justice had ever undertaken.  She had been taught to say the alphabet and even learned basic spelling from her mother.  No one had given her formal instruction beyond that, but they had no idea how much she was absorbing through careful listening and talks with Justice.   By the time Justice showed her the Braille textbook, there wasn’t much to do except familiarize her with this new bumpy writing.  They breezed through the alphabet and numbers in one afternoon.

Hannah was so excited she could hardly contain it.  From that first afternoon, the textbook became her property and Justice was only allowed to use it while they had lessons.  It wasn’t long before Justice knew he had to get his hand on other reading material for his cousin.  The education professor who had suggested this textbook to him had also told him about an organization which would send blind people Braille books or books on tape in the mail for free, like a postal lending library.  Justice had written the address on the flyleaf of the book.  After explaining it to his father, who gruffly agreed, Justice wrote to the company asking for a catalog and other information.  Within a few weeks, Hannah was the proud “borrower” of To Kill A Mockingbird, Jane Eyre, and The Miracle Worker.  She devoured them.  And then she reread each one.  The story of a young Helen Keller she read four times in total.  She couldn’t fathom letting her books go, but when Justice explained that she couldn’t get any more until she had sent these back, she offered to wrap them up herself.   Her books were returned with a request for Life on the Mississippi, Heart of Darkness, and The Awakening.  Justice didn’t know these works any more than she did, although he had read some Mark Twain in his Freshman English class, so he would read her titles out of the catalog and when one sounded interesting she would say, “That one, Justice.  I think I would like that one next.”

Often they would sit under their live-oak tree and Hannah would read out loud to Justice.  They both loved it.  Justice would lie on the ground, his eyes closed or looking at the clouds.  He quickly learned to always bring a dictionary.  The holes in both his and Hannah’s vocabulary were filled by Mr. Webster himself.  Hannah would sit cross-legged at the base of the tree, her book open on her lap, her right hand moving swiftly across the page with a soft sliding sound.  For the rest of his life, whenever he would rub his finger across paper, Justice would hear Hannah reading to him.

One particular afternoon, as Hannah was about to finish the horror of Conrad, she stopped suddenly and said, “Justice, do you remember that girl?”

Justice opened his eyes wide. He instantly knew who Hannah was talking about.  It was the only girl she had ever met.  “Yes,” he said quietly.

“I think about her all the time.  Her name was Rose.  I remember it because it was such a pretty name and I just knew she had to be pretty too.   Was she pretty, Justice?”

“Sure.”

“Sometimes I wish I could see her again.  Just be around her again.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.  She was so nice to me.  Are the people outside nice like her, Justice?”

“Some are, I suppose.  Some aren’t.”

“Well, she was awfully nice.  I really liked her.  I was almost mad when you called my name and said we had to go back.  It would have been nice to stay with her awhile.”

Justice took in a deep breath and put his hands behind his head.  “Yeah,” he whispered.  “That would have been nice.”

Teaching Marsh was another matter.  For one thing, Marsh liked being on the compound now that Justice was out of his way and never once thought that he would follow his brother’s path and go to college.  Justice cornered him when he could, but didn’t push him too aggressively.  That would only pull out Marsh’s own aggressive nature and that was never a pleasant thing to see.   He realized that turning Marsh around would be a long process, that he would have to wear him down like water wears away the beach and changes the shape of the islands, slowly and consistently.

Marsh felt pulled between his position on the compound and his love for his brother, outwardly showing little affection for Justice, but secretly admiring what Justice was doing.  Marsh felt simultaneously drawn to emulate his brother and despise him.  The more he felt love for him, the more he would act out in rage against him, responding to great emotion within him with the only passion he knew.

By the time Justice was ready to return to school in the fall, he had convinced Marsh that learning something, and possibly even going to college one day, might just help him secure an important place in compound life.  And as some extra security, he talked up the football team to the point that Marsh was actually anxious to see a game.

And thus Justice felt his summer had been a great success.  His father seemed easier somehow, Marsh was coming around, and Hannah had been introduced to the world of books.  Not bad for three months’ work.

Returning to Athens felt like a homecoming for Justice.   Once he saw Mark, he felt the residue of the summer at home wash completely away.   He had just two things on his mind – get his job back, and see Rose.

The first part was easy.   His supervisor in the acquisitions department was happy to see him back and offered him his job again on the spot.   During his deliveries the first couple of weeks and sometimes even on his own, he would roam the hallways of the building where the English classes were taught.  He ticked them off in his head – 110, 112, 113, all the way to 144 on the first floor, then four floors up.  Rose was not in any of them.  After four weeks, he gathered the courage to become more assertive in his mission and went to the English department office.

“Good afternoon.  May I help you?”  It was the same secretary, though she didn’t seem to remember him.

“Yes.”  Justice had a story prepared.  “I was looking for the graduate assistant.  She had a painting I liked and I wanted to talk to her about what kind of paints she used.”

“Oh, you must be talking about Rose.”

“Yes, that’s right.  Her name is Rose.”

“The star-crossed lovers painting.”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s what Dr. Williams always called it.  After Shakespeare.  You know, Romeo and Juliet?”

“Oh,” Justice wasn’t familiar with the bard, but had become a little sensitive about some of the gaps in his education.  “Yes, of course.  Shakespeare.  Anyway, is she in?”

“No, I’m sorry.  She finished her degree in August and has gone on to get her Ph.D.  She’s at Harvard.”

Justice stood still, shocked to hear what he hadn’t even thought to expect.

“Are you okay?  Maybe Dr. Williams would know what kind of paint she used.   Should I get him for you?”

“No, no.  I . . . thank you.  Sorry to bother you.”  Justice was out the door before the secretary could even get out the words to tell him that it was quite all right.

He walked down the hallway and into the stairwell where he fell back against the wall, looked at the ceiling and exhaled a deep breath.  Why did it feel like something much bigger had just happened?  She was a woman he hardly knew, who might not even recognize him if she saw him again, but she had been something more, something unnamable, unattainable, unbelievable.

And Harvard.  Where was Harvard anyway?  He knew he could find it on the internet.  He could track her down, maybe even find a way to get to her.  He would hitch or take a bus or do anything he needed to do to be where she was.

He let out another deep breath.  Now he was convinced he might really be going over the edge.  “Forget it,” he muttered.  And that’s exactly what he tried to do.

© Deborah E. Moore – 2011

This is Installment Ten of the novel Rose and Justice. It includes Chapters III.iv, III.v, and III.vi. It is 4,085 words long. As installments are posted, links for each will be added under the tab labeled “The Novel” at the top of this page. Enjoy!

III.iv

            “Over my dead, cold body.”

“But, daddy, you’ve always said it was important to know things, to be well-informed.”

“Everything you need to know you can learn from me.  That’s what tradition is all about, son.  I learned from my father and you learn from me.  The only thing you could possibly learn at the University of Georgia is gonna’ come from those liberal communists who teach at universities.  I won’t have it.”

Justice lowered his head and felt his brain spinning to land on another logical argument.   He had just turned eighteen and had gone about as far in his studies as his mother and aunt could take him.   Colleges had finally realized that home-schooled children were often very intelligent, well-adjusted, and desirable students.  The University of Georgia had developed a special program for evaluating the home-schooled that included a test of math, history, and science, along with a two-page essay.  By the time Justice was 15, his mother had convinced his father that it would be perfectly okay for Justice to periodically visit the public library since he was a much smarter boy than she felt qualified to teach and the library at the St. Simons Welcome Center was only about a mile and a half away, walking distance for an outdoor boy like Justice.  It was in this library that Justice discovered a virtual world of freedom thanks to the computers the nice librarian, Eleanor, had taught him how to use.  He had come across the UGA home-schooled admissions requirements and secretly completed the on-line test and essay.   He never expected to even hear back from the university.  It was just a way to pretend he was a part of the larger world outside the walls of his family’s land.  But then he received a letter from the school.

“Congratulations.  Based upon the test scores and essay you recently submitted, you have been awarded a probationary full academic scholarship to the University of Georgia.”  The letter gave specific details about how to accept and keep his scholarship.  He would have to maintain a 3.5 GPA each semester.  He didn’t even know what a GPA was, but suddenly he was determined to get to Athens somehow.  Before he even approached his father, he had devised a plan for running away.  But he knew his father would find him and there would be no discussion then.  No, his best bet was to try to get his father to approve his plan for school, no matter how disgruntled that approval might be when and if it ever came.

“Dad, you’ve been teaching me for 18 years.  Do you think I’m just going to forget everything you ever told me?  I mean, it’s not off in California somewhere.  It’s the University of Georgia.  I’m sure I’ll meet plenty of good southern boys who are just like us.”

Jared leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms across his chest.  He still felt like a young man, but he was beginning to look exactly like his father before him in these moments of contemplation.  The very act of thinking about it gave Justice more hope than Jared probably wanted him to have.

“What would you study up there?”

“Well, I don’t know.  Business, maybe.  Or history.”  There was no way Justice was going to tell his father that he had every intention of majoring in biology.  Jared hated scientists almost as much as he hated the government.  They perpetuated subversive notions like evolution and abortion and racial equality.  And half of them worked for the government anyway, or at one of those damn liberal universities.  Justice, on the other hand, was fascinated by the world and the way it worked, the way it all seemed to fit together, the way that every cell, atom and subatomic particle had a specific job to do.  He wanted to know, as intimately as possible, the world he had been denied for so long.

“Electrical engineering.   That’s what you’ll major in.  The history they teach is all biased.  And business majors are all the sons of rich men in bed with the government.  No, I think some education about electrical engineering might serve us well here.   I want to make this place as self-sufficient as possible.”

The thought of electrical engineering was disgusting to Justice.  There was still a scientific aspect to it, but it was the science of cold hard machines.  He wanted to study living things.  But, that little glitch seemed like the smallest of anthills to him at the moment.  His father had all but said he could go.   They talked a little while longer without Jared ever giving a truly definitive answer.  He avoided them whenever possible.  When they finished, Justice walked calmly out of the cabin and across the common area where he knew his dad could still watch him from the window if he chose.  He strolled with his hands in his pockets until he was behind the storage shed on the far side of the residential section of the compound.  Then he did the first cartwheel he had done since he was 10 years old.

Jared tried to balk a few times before Justice left, but it was mostly for show.  He seemed accepting of his son going to college, and at times even a little proud, but he remained wary of the influences Justice might be subjected to.   Melinda was about to burst with pride.  Justice would never know just how many times Melinda had saved this chance for him, how many times Jared had changed his mind late at night after a half a bottle of Jack Daniels and Melinda had calmed him down and repeated again all the fine and wonderful things Justice would learn and bring back to their little village.

Jared and Melinda drove him to Athens on the Saturday before registration.  The dorms were chaotic with the moving in of thousands of students.  The chaos worked to Justice’s advantage.  No one paid them much attention or stopped to chat.  It was odd for Justice to see his father in this situation.  The man who ruled an entire kingdom, modest though it was, looked almost scared in this crowd.  He walked carefully and peered around like a rabbit in a den of dogs.

Justice was most concerned about the roommate the university would place with him.  He desperately hoped the roommate was some good old boy from South Georgia.  If he was liberal, long haired, tattooed, disrespectful, or, god forbid, non-white, his father would throw his ass back in the truck so fast he wouldn’t even have time to formulate an argument.

Mark Miller seemed ordered up special just to make this work for Justice.  He was a fourth generation Georgian from Waycross.  He wore Levi’s, work boots, a dirty well-molded Atlanta Braves baseball cap, and, most importantly, a sleeveless t-shirt with a rebel flag emblazoned across the back.   When they first met him, Jared actually smiled.  Mark said all the yes sirs and yes ma’ams needed to impress Jared and Melinda, then excused himself explaining that he had to finish helping a friend of his from Waycross move in on the fourth floor.

When Jared and Melinda left later that afternoon, Justice felt odd.  He had never experienced this kind of freedom before.  It was exhilarating and somewhat scary too.    He pulled the desk chair over to the window and sat for a long time just staring out on the campus.  There were people moving about, freely, yelling hellos to friends and playing catch with a football.  He watched them with envy until he realized that he was no longer trapped behind the wall.   He could walk out of this building and across the lawn as freely as any of them.  He stopped seeing the wall altogether.  Just the window.  The wall had been conquered.

III.v

            “Man, you have got to be blowing smoke up my ass.”

Mark Miller’s reaction was pure disbelief.  After two weeks, Justice told Mark the story of his upbringing, about his family and the compound and even the Malone family credo – “I live and would die for God, family and race.”   Justice had never intended to tell Mark, or anyone else for that matter.   But after two weeks of navigating his way tentatively around the university and relying time and again on Mark for help, Justice knew that he was going to have to trust someone.  He needed one person who understood where he had come from and who would cover his backside in this new, strange, and oh-so-wonderful place.

“I wish I was.”

“How did you learn enough to even get accepted to college, let alone get a scholarship?”

“You pick up things here and there.   We were taught at home.  My mom and the other women in the compound were our teachers.  But mostly I read everything I could get my hands on, and listened, and watched.  My dad didn’t care for a lot of books, but he never saw anything wrong with our schoolbooks, so I devoured them.  I could probably recite, word for word, my entire science book from when I was twelve.”

“Shee-it.  And you never left this . . . ‘compound’ except for occasional trips to town?”

“That’s right.  And then my father was always with me.  I mean, we went to town, yeah.  But it was simply to get supplies and then get back to the compound.  When I got older he let me go to the library, but only to the library.  Nowhere else.”

“You never told him you were going to the library and then snuck off to do other stuff?”

Justice opened his eyes wide, as if the thought alone would have gotten him in trouble.  “No.”

“You never hung out with your friends?  You never went to the movies?  You never went to high school, for Chrissakes?  Bo-eh,” Mark sprawled out “boy” in the southern way, “you have got a lot to learn.  And ole’ Mark Miller is just the one to teach you.”

And that was how Justice began the first and best friendship he ever had or would have in his life.   Mark seemed to know just how skewed Justice’s view of the world was, even more than Justice knew himself.   He didn’t laugh as he carefully explained what a GPA was, how it was calculated, and the impact it had on your college career.  He stayed close by when Justice went to his first football game and off-campus party.  He patiently explained what fraternities were and why all the members acted like shit on a stick.  Justice thought they sounded like mini-compounds.  In short, Mark Miller taught Justice much more that first semester than all his professors combined.

It was with Mark that he shared his discontent over the major his father had chosen for him.  Mark had a southern father, too, though nothing like Jared Malone.  He understood that kind of pressure and seemed to know just how to maneuver through it.

“Don’t beat your head against the wall,” Mark suggested.  “Big Daddy wants you to major in electrical engineering, then do it.   And double-major in biology.   You’re smart enough to handle both of them.”

It was an option Justice hadn’t even considered.  And, yes, he was smart enough to do it.  In fact, he was much smarter than he could possibly have known with no one against which to measure himself.  He was the sole reason Mark managed to escape introductory biology and freshman math with a respectable pair of Cs.

Justice loved helping Mark with his homework.  His adoration of his new friend might have bordered on idolatry if he hadn’t been able to pay him back just that little bit.  As it was, they built a friendship wherein each felt immensely grateful for the other’s contributions.  Justice gave Mark a real shot at actually earning a college degree.  Mark gave Justice a whole new world, and a new way of looking at the world he had already known.

As 18-year-olds do, they had a million endless conversations that first semester, often lasting until the sun came up.  Justice had a brilliant mind, but was completely ignorant about the world.  Sometimes it was just in listening to Mark ramble on about girls, politics, girls, religion, and girls that Justice would begin to hear a new way of thinking.  Mark never told him what to think, but more than he would ever know he showed him how to think.

The first semester of college passed as quickly as time had ever passed for Justice.  When final exam week began, he suddenly realized that he would have to go home again in a few days.  The Christmas break was almost four weeks long and Justice knew it would be one of the longest months of his young life.  He talked this over with Mark in a late night confab.

“I know I spent 18 years there and only 16 weeks here, but this feels like home now.  I hate the thought of even stepping foot back in that prison, let alone staying there for a goddamn month.”

“Why don’t you come home with me?  My folks wouldn’t mind.”

“God, I wish I could.  But, you don’t know my father.  He wasn’t sure about me coming here to start with.  I just get the feeling I should be careful.  I mean, if he accepts me going to your house by our junior year then that would be speedy progress for him.   And . . .” Justice had been about to continue, but then abruptly stopped himself.

“And what?  There’s something else, isn’t there.”

Justice moved his gaze to the floor.   His voice softened.  “Actually there are two something elses.”

“’Splain, bubba.”

“Marsh and Hannah.  If they don’t get out of that compound, they’ll be lost forever.  It may already be too late for Marsh, but Hannah, she’s . . . god, Mark, she’s a genius, and far too good to rot away in that hell.”

“So what do they have to do with you?”

“Don’t you see?  I’m the guinea pig.  I’m the test case.  If anything, and I mean anything about this doesn’t set right with daddy, he’ll never even consider letting the others come.”  Justice paused, then put his fingertips to his forehead.  “Even beyond his wall, I’m still in his prison.”

Justice and Mark finished finals, Justice breezing through and Mark gratefully passing, then left Athens behind them.   Waycross was only about 50 miles west of Brunswick, so Justice rode with Mark that far.  Jared had planned to meet them in the parking lot of the Waycross Piggly Wiggly grocery store.  It wouldn’t do for Mark to drive directly to the compound, although Justice knew he would have if he had been asked.  About 15 miles outside of Waycross, Mark did something he never would have thought of doing in any other time or place, or with any other man.  He reached over and took Justice’s hand.

“You keep your chin up, y’hear?”  A slight crack in his voice gave away his emotion.  He pulled his hand away quickly.

They were silent the rest of the way, but when they finally said their goodbyes, Justice saw a slight glistening in Mark’s eyes, the closest to crying a southern boy dared come.

III.vi

            The dread is worse than the doing, so they say.  Justice found the visit at home not as horrible as he had expected.  It was no joyride, but not horrible.   It helped to think of it as a visit.  Seeing his mother brought a happiness he had not anticipated.  In the male-dominated world of the compound, his mother had been only teacher and servant.  Now he saw her with new eyes.  He watched her move through her days, gently living out the life and ideas she had passively accepted, a model of pure grace.  He was determined to tell her he loved her before he left to go back to school.  He had never done that in his life.

Marsh was immersed in compound life.  He had discovered his own brand of freedom when Justice left for college and he was no longer under the shadow of his older brother.  Marsh worked harder than most of the men trying to prove himself to his father.  He seemed to need his daddy’s approval to even survive.  Justice instinctively knew he wouldn’t be able to share his true college experience with his little brother.  Justice loved Marsh, but there was something scary about him too.  When he shot a rabbit there was a gleam in his eye that was more than joy over having provided the family with a meal, but rather a feeling of victory usually accompanied by his own unique war whoop.  Seining the river for shrimp was Marsh’s least favorite job since it didn’t included hooking or putting a bullet into something.  The younger Malone loved to inflict pain, and Justice knew Marsh could make big trouble for him if given half a chance.

It was Hannah that Justice was most happy to see.   Before Mark Miller came along, Hannah been the closest friend Justice had.  Despite their four-year age difference, he felt closer to her than anyone from home.  He had waited four days to meander over to her cabin and then lead her off into the woods, hoping his father wouldn’t see them going off for one of the secret walks and talks they had shared so often.

“Tell me all about college, Justice.  I want to know everything.  Is it just the greatest?”  Hannah walked behind Justice, holding the tail of his shirt.

“Wait ‘til we get to our tree.  Then I’ll tell you all about it.”  There was a giant live oak on the edge of the compound farthest from the cabins.   Moss swung in slow motion from the low curving limbs.   They had spent many hours under that tree together, talking about the world as they knew it, sharing their true feelings with the only other person each felt comfortable doing that with, and singing.  Justice didn’t think he sang too well, but Hannah always wanted to sing and insisted that he sing along.   It took 25 minutes to get to the tree.

“Now, tell me.”

They sat on the ground, facing each other.   “Okay, but you have got to make a solemn promise that everything I tell you will be a secret between you and me.”

Hannah crossed her heart.  “I promise.”

“I mean it, Hannah Elizabeth.  Not one word of this to a soul.  I’m as serious as I have ever been about anything.”

“I promise.”  She emphasized the word as if to say that her promise was all he needed.  And he knew it was.

“College is the best thing that ever happened to me.  Hannah, there is a whole big world out there, and I mean more than just Athens, and it’s filled with all kinds of people with all kinds of ideas.  And those people have fun, and they laugh, and they don’t seem to care if you think something different from what they think.  It’s freedom, Hannah.  It’s freedom.”

Hannah looked as if she were hearing that heaven was real and just a few miles east of Atlanta.   “What kinds of ideas, Justice?  What kinds of things do they think?”

“All kinds of things.  Different ideas about the government and law and religion.  There are about as many different ideas about these things as there are people in the world.  And, Hannah,” he paused, “there is so much music.”

She took a sharp breath in, then whispered.  “Tell me about the music.”

“People come to college to study music.  They play instruments, more instruments than you can imagine.  And they sing, too.  The band plays at the football games – remind me to tell you about the football games – and there are hundreds of them.  Hundreds of people marching around and playing trumpets and drums and clarinets and saxophones and tubas.  Every time I see the band, I think of you, Hannah.  And that’s why this has to be such a secret.”

“Why?”

Justice paused.  “Because I want you to go there some day, Hannah.  I want you to get out of this place and play music and sing all you want.  So all this stuff about all the different ideas people have has to be a secret.  You do understand, don’t you?”

“I understand.”  Hannah was as serious as she had ever been about anything.  “Nobody will ever hear a word from me.  Nobody will ever keep me from going to college and playing music.”  She paused.  “Will they, Justice?”

“Not if I can help it they won’t.”

They talked for as long as they dared stay missing from the cabins.  Hannah kept wanting more.  She wanted to know about even the tiniest details of life outside the compound.

“Are there mud people there, Justice?”  She didn’t use the term the way Jared did, spewing it out with spite and hatred.  She simply used the only term she had ever heard to describe people whose only difference was one she couldn’t see.

“Yes.  And they’re not ‘mud people,’ Hannah.  They are just like you and me except their skin is a different color.  I mean, as far as I can tell, at least.  They’re African-Americans.  And some people are Hispanic and some are Asian – that means they’re from China or Japan or Korea or someplace way on the other side of the world.  There are all kinds of different people in my classes.  There’s a guy in my math class and he’s an African-American, and, Hannah, he is the funniest guy in the world.  He sits right behind me and is always making jokes under his breath about the teacher.  He’s really nice, too.  He even invited me to his church once.”

“Church like we have?”  Sunday morning church was mandatory on the compound.  It consisted of everybody singing some lame old song, out of tune, and Clete Camden reading from the bible and talking about how you should fear God, and then Jared talking about how the bible clearly gave the white man dominion over all other animals, including mud people, and how those animals should fear the white man just as the white man was to fear God.

“Nothing like we have.  I went to his church with him.  It was kinda’ scary because, you know, I hadn’t ever been around a lot of Black people – that’s another name for African-Americans.  But, in nothin’ flat they made me feel like I wasn’t supposed to be anywhere else that Sunday morning.  Everybody shook my hand and the ladies all hugged me.  And then church started.   You talk about music.  Everybody sang for almost an hour.  Then the preacher started shouting about how good God is and then everybody started singing again, and then he would shout, and then everybody would sing again.  It felt like there was electricity in that room, Hannah.”

“Did he shout about the white man having dominion over all the animals?”  Hannah was testing the line she had been fed all her life.

“He never once said that.  But he did say that everybody was an heir to God’s kingdom, and I just assumed he meant white and black people.   He said that God had health and happiness and prosperity and every good thing, and because we are all God’s children we automatically have all those things too.   And then he said that God was everywhere and ‘workin’ in every situation.’  Those are the exact words he used – ‘God is workin’ in every situation.”  I remember that because he said it like 50 times.”

Hannah had a look of deep thought on her face.  She was a natural philosopher and often read into situations what Justice could not see.  Rarely did she have to retract anything she said since she never said anything that she hadn’t thought through and determined to be true.  She took in a deep breath and said, “Well, that sounds like what God oughta’ be.  And if that is so, then God is working in you being at college and us having this talk and me being here at the compound, too.   That would mean that God was even working when he made us cousin’s, huh, Justice?”

Justice smiled through a tear.  “God musta’ been workin’ then most of all.”

© 2011 — Deborah E. Moore

This is Installment Nine of the novel Rose and Justice. It includes Chapters III.i, III.ii, and III.iii. It is 5,818 words long. As installments are posted, links for each will be added under the tab labeled “The Novel” at the top of this page. Enjoy!

III.i

            The Light Council was not elected.  It consisted of beings who had reached complete enlightenment and then returned to earth, not just for love, but for the ultimate love of all beings and the overwhelming desire to assist them in their journey toward the light.  When these beings returned to the Light world, they were automatically accepted as members of the council.  No announcement was made.  No one would come to them and inform them of their position.  It was just automatically known to all in that world, including the being newly admitted to the council.

These beings were never referred to by their last earth names, but rather by the Light title they naturally possessed.  Therefore, Jesus was referred to as Teacher, Mother Teresa was Mother, Gandhi was Mahatma, Buddha was Enlightened One, Martin Luther King, Jr. was Father, and Mohammed was the Prophet.  These six had in some way given their entire lives to elevating the consciousness of the world — some through human death, others through long human life dedicated to teaching the truth and justice of love.  Their word was not questioned in the light world since all knew their spiritual evolution to be so complete that they were incapable of making a wrong decision.  Thus, all of their decisions were unanimous and final.

Hal and Malcolm sat in the circle waiting for the council to complete their morning meditation.  There was no separation from the great six when one was called into their presence; you simply joined their circle around a large white bowl of glowing water.  There was no sense of sitting in judgment when one came to the Light Council.  Judgment was a human invention.  The Light Council needed only truth.

The Enlightened One opened his eyes first and mentally called the others out of their state of nothingness.  “Our guests have arrived.”

“Do you know why you are here?”  Mother asked gently.

“I have no idea.  I am sure there must be some mistake.”  Malcolm piped in.  He knew he would be going back, but he was determined to fight it to the end.  Hal just sat quietly knowing he would have to bear witness to Malcolm’s indiscretions.

Mother spoke gently, “Do not lie to me, my son.  You do know why you have been asked to meet with the council, and there is no good reason to resist the inevitable.”

“You have manipulated the destiny of another being,” Mahatma intoned.  “You have shown resistance to the way of the Light since your last incarnation ended.   You have insisted on remaining in a combative state even on the plane of no conflict. Therefore, you must return again to learn the lessons you have thus far refused to accept in your soul.”

“Please, no.  Give me one more chance.  I promise to love everyone, even if they treat me badly.”

“And in your very words you express the lesson you still have not learned,” Teacher said.  “No one treats you badly, Malcolm.  They simply reflect back to you what you impose on your own existence.  If you would be wise enough to take my advice, then I would suggest that you begin setting your intention now for an incarnation that will be filled with lessons so that you might just get to stay the next time you are fully realized on this plane.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Malcolm muttered.

“Yes?”  Teacher asked.

“Oh, uh, . . . nothing, Teacher.”

“And now for you, Hal,” Mother said.  “It is with some sorrow that we inform you that you, too, must return.”

“Begging your pardon, my Mother, but . . . what??”  Hal was stunned.   There were no secrets on the Light plane.  All knowledge was available to all beings if they simply asked for it.  He could have known he was destined to return if he had inquired of the Light, but it was a possibility so far removed from his thoughts that he hadn’t even considered it.

“You even more clearly manipulated the destiny of others.  Your evolution was so near completion that, frankly, we had you pegged for the council at some point in the future.”  Father spoke.  “But, regardless of your rather benign and certainly well-intentioned misuse of light principles, you would have chosen to return anyway.”

“I would have?”  Hal asked in disbelief.

“Yes,” said the Enlightened One.  “Your soul had already decided even if you were not yet consciously aware.  You were going back to help Juliet — yet another small bending of the rules.”

“Therefore,” Prophet interjected, “you will both be sent back to learn a great lesson from this particular event.  Hal, you will be returning to assist in the muddle you have helped to create for Romeo and Juliet.  And, of course, to learn.  Always to learn. You will see just what it is you have done to two lovers who so desperately want and deserve to find each other after so much time of searching.  You will see that a love destined to be fulfilled on the mortal plane has been given overwhelming obstacles because of the both of you.”

“Oh, my god, no,” Hal felt a greater pain than he had ever known in the Light world.  His pain had nothing to do with his return to the weight and restriction of a physical body.  No, it was based solely upon the way his desire to assist Juliet was going to cause her pain and trouble.  If the council spoke of hardships for her, than they were sure to come.  His heart was breaking for what he had done to Juliet.

Mother reached out her hand and placed it on the back of Hal’s neck.  She stroked his hair and spoke quietly.  “Already you feel the pain of being human.  You acted from a human place, Hal.  You acted from a human place and yet with spiritual wisdom and love.  You knew that the Light would bring all things to their natural and perfect conclusion, yet your love for Juliet was so strong that you felt you knew her needs better than the Light could know them.  Even love has consequences, my child.”

Teacher took Hal’s hand.  “You have a specific mission on this trip, Hal.  If Romeo and Juliet can fulfill their love on earth in spite of the incredible odds against them, then you will have completed it.”

“But, wouldn’t that be manipulating their destiny?”  Hal inquired.

“No.  You have a mandate from the Light.  You are going to provide balance to the predicament they will find themselves in.  If it had not been for your involvement on this plane, their job would have been much easier on the earth plane.  You must do everything you can to make that right.  And, Hal, it won’t be easy.”

“So, what’s my mission?”  Malcolm asked.

Mahatma answered for the council.  “Your mission is to learn to live in the Light.  Hal is going for Juliet and Romeo.  You are going for yourself.   You are going to the same place so that you can learn from Hal, if you choose, and also from Romeo and Juliet. You are going to learn that war in any form is in direct opposition to the Light and the most unloving of all behaviors.  Your war is within yourself, Malcolm.  Thus, you know of no other way to interact with others than through conflict.  War and Light cannot inhabit the same place.  Violence always happens in the dark.  And the Light is simply illuminated love.  To live in the Light, you must learn to love, not fight.  Be certain that you meditate as much as you can before you return so that you will be certain to truly learn that lesson this time, my friend.”

And this was how it came to be that Malcolm returned to the earth as the second son of Jared and Melinda Malone – Marshall Jared — and Hal returned to earth as the first child and daughter of Aaron and Mary Malone — Hannah Elizabeth.

III.ii

            Hannah Elizabeth Malone was three years old and learning to eat on her own.  It was a task replete with problems for the toddler.  For one thing, her mother had to get her to stop humming long enough to make the attempt.  Hannah was born with music in her soul and seemed to sing her first word rather than say it, the first “ma” a pitch-perfect G followed immediately by a second “ma” that slurred up to a C.  The only music available on the Malone compound came from the radio in Uncle Jared’s house, and Hannah would often be found changing the dial from conservative talk radio to a music station any time she could get into the main house undetected.  She had honed in on that device like a needle pointing to magnetic north almost as soon as she could walk.  She wasn’t choosy in her musical tastes — she would listen to rock or classical, country or pop, although Uncle Jared flew into a rage the one time he had caught her singing along with the latest R&B star to hit the airwaves.  Hannah could hear a song once and remember it word for word and beat for beat from then on.

Once, when Uncle Jared had allowed the children to go into town for the weekly supply trip, Hannah disappeared from the small pack.  Aaron and Jared took all the children back to the truck and left Clete, Jr. in charge while they began a sweep of downtown Brunswick looking for her.  They had searched several businesses on the Gloucester Street when they came across the small girl in Manley’s Music Store.  She was sitting at a piano, with every employee of the store gathered around her, and playing the melody line of Mozart’s Andante from Piano Concerto 21 in C flawlessly.

Jared had jerked her by the arm without a word.  The manager of the store followed him out, trying to reason with him the entire way.

“Is this your child?  She’s . . ., well, she’s a prodigy.  There’s no other word for it.  Please consider getting some lessons for her . . . or a piano.  I don’t even care if you buy it from me, just get this child a piano.  Talent like hers is one in a million.  Sir!  Please, sir.”  As Jared began walking down the sidewalk with a smiling Hannah in tow and her father, Aaron, walking three paces behind as if he had done something wrong, the store manager shouted after him, “She can come back anytime!  She can just sit in the store and play anytime she likes!”

Jared did not buy a piano.  Even if he had believed it was a worthwhile investment, he would never spend so much money on a worthless child like Hannah.  He inwardly blamed her blindness on Aaron’s weakness.  He believed that Hannah’s visual impairment was some kind of genetic reproach against his brother and his brother’s wife.  He was incapable of understanding that Hannah’s blindness was the very reason for her musical prowess and her ability to see things Jared would never see.

“Now, Hannah Elizabeth, settle down and focus on your plate.  Here, touch it.  Your pork chop is on the left side, the peas are on the top of the right side, and your mashed potatoes are at the bottom.”  Mary Malone struggled with her child for well over 30 minutes until she had the idea that would work.  She assigned each section of the plate a song.  From then on Hannah fed herself, humming between bites according to where she had retrieved that bite from the plate.

Mary struggled with opposing feelings where Hannah was concerned.  She loved her child more than she would have dreamed possible.  Even with her blindness, Hannah seemed perfect to her.  Yet she felt a sense of shame around the others, knowing they either pitied her or blamed her for her child’s seeming handicap.  Thus, Hannah grew up believing that love was something that must be hidden.   Yet, she felt it so purely that even with the lessons of her environment, she could hardly help but express love to those around her.  From the beginning, Hannah’s most prominent personality trait was a gentle kindness that endeared her to even the most closed hearts.  All except Jared, who refused to see any good in her at all and continued to believe that she was an indictment against her parents.  The only way it would have been worse would have been if she were a boy — a blind boy, all that wasted maleness.

Jared had at first refused to allow his sons to play with their cousin.  This had little to do with her blindness.  He simply believed that young boys should have no interest in girls until puberty at least.  But he couldn’t police everyone on the compound 24 hours a day and so Hannah spent quite a bit of time with Justice and Marsh.  Justice was four when Hannah was born and he watched over her like she was his little sister.  He was learning the ways of his father, yet adored his little cousin in a way he couldn’t begin to understand, yet alone explain.  Justice’s brother, Marsh, was exactly three days younger than Hannah, right down to the minute, and this was a source of constant irritation for the youngest Malone boy.  Whenever he was difficult to deal with, which was often, Hannah would remind him that she was the oldest and he should listen to her.  She never did this haughtily, but rather as a kind reminder.  His reply was often an echo of his father’s beliefs, “Well, I’m a boy, so you should listen to me.”

Justice learned his father’s ways and followed them because that was all he knew.  Jared allowed the boys very little exposure to life outside the compound, so they could hardly be held responsible for the rigid beliefs they inherited.  Had Jared known the true heart of Justice, he would have been very disappointed.  Justice did what was expected and said all the right things, but he felt no passion about life on the compound as his father did.  Mostly he felt that something must be happening beyond the fence that he was missing.  From the time he could walk, he was in constant search of a way to sneak away, if only for a little while.  As a very young boy, his escapes were limited to Saturdays in town with his father.  As he grew, his excursions would become increasingly more daring and more secretive.

Marsh, on the other hand, believed everything his father told him, held it like a precious gem, and produced it again, verbatim, at every opportunity.  He lived under the heavy shadow of being the second born in a family that followed the right of succession almost as religiously as the English monarchy.  His adoration of his father was a subconscious begging, a repressed plea for attention and love clouded by the belief that it was nothing more than a strict adherence to the chain of command.  Marsh needed love more than anything, but hid that need under an aggressiveness he thought his father would admire.  He detested Justice’s status as the heir apparent, yet held an unexplained attraction to his big brother.  There was a part of him that would have plotted Justice’s demise had it not been for the mysterious fact that Justice was the closest friend he had.  It was Justice who seemed to understand Marsh with an intuition that was almost psychic.  Marsh felt immense love for Justice, yet despised the firstborn Malone.  It was a paradox that would haunt him for years.

III.iii

           Hannah Elizabeth was missing.  It was two days after her 10th birthday and the day before Marsh’s.  She had been playing in the sandbox with Marsh when a rabbit had grabbed Marsh’s attention and he took off in chase, wishing he had the .22 rifle he knew he would get as a present tomorrow.

Every Malone boy got a toy gun at birth, a pellet gun at the age of five, and his first real gun, a .22 rifle, on his 10th birthday.  Once he had received his gift at the noon party, his father would spend a good hour teaching him how to handle, clean, load, unload, and, finally, shoot his gun.  Then father and son would go hunting until the sun went down.   On this excursion of male bonding, Jared would give his son the same talk his father had given him on his 10th birthday.   Over the course of the afternoon, he would explain how the younger Malone was now a young man and that he had been given a proud legacy which it was his duty to preserve and protect.  Marsh would be told how the government had stolen his family’s land and that the laws of society were designed to benefit Jews and mud people, not real Americans like the Malones.  And it would be explained how it was the mission of his young life to counteract to the best of his ability every attempt to bring down the superior white race.  Finally, he would be given the mantra of the Malone clan in an almost ceremonial procedure that included him kneeling before his father and repeating the words he already knew so well, but would say for the first time aloud tomorrow.  “I live and I would die for God, family, and race.”  Marsh couldn’t wait for this twisted Malone version of a bar mitzvah.

But, for now, he was in deep trouble.  He had not been directly told to keep an eye on Hannah, but it was always understood that she was less capable and therefore needed the protection of the boys.  That would have been understood in the compound even if she wasn’t blind.  She was a girl, and that was enough to determine her need for protection.

“Damn it, son.  You’re gonna’ be ten tomorrow and not even man enough to watch out for your cousin.  I don’t know if you’re ready for a rifle or not.”

“I am, papa.  I really am.  I was only gone for a sec.  She jes’ scooted out like a greased pig.  You know how she is, papa.”

“I know, boy,” Jared eased up on his son.  He was determined to find the little girl and protect all Malones, but Marsh was much more valuable to him, and he couldn’t quite find it in his heart to be too hard on the boy for losing a little blind girl.

Jared gathered the men on his front porch.  Mary Malone was close to hysterical with worry.  Aaron was worried, too, but never showed too much concern for Hannah in front of Jared.  He knew what his older brother thought of his imperfect daughter.  Jared had even hinted to Aaron several years back that he ought to consider having Hannah’s tubes tied when she got older, “so she won’t have more blind babies.”  Aaron inwardly refused and vowed to never do as his brother suggested, but he couldn’t quite defy Jared to his face.

The men, including Clete Camden, Jr, who was now 20 and considered a full-fledged man of the compound, and Justice, who was 14, set off to methodically sweep the 48-acre compound.   It stirred Marsh’s blood that he was not allowed to go along.  In 24 measly hours, he would have passed the first mark of Malone manhood and probably would have been one of the search party.  But, partly because of his current status as being officially still nine years old, and partly because he was held responsible for this crisis, he was left at the cabins with the women and the growing cadre of smaller children which had begun to populate the Malone village.

A thorough search of the 48 acres, including each of the 12 buildings, took the party of eight an hour.  This was a procedure they practiced routinely so they could determine any breach of security within a short time.  It was done quickly, but without any chance of an oversight.  Hannah had truly disappeared, a seemingly impossible task, and in a relatively short time — it had only been an hour and 25 minutes since her absence was discovered.  It would have been difficult for a sighted child of 10 to get on the other side of an almost impenetrable fence that was quite a distance from the circle of cabins in such a short period.  How Hannah had accomplished it was beyond Jared Malone’s comprehension.  The only other possibility was that she had waded into the marsh and drowned, an option they had each thought of but no one had yet voiced.

The men met back at Jared’s front porch within minutes of each other with the same report: no sign of her.  They fancied themselves all expert trackers, so this was an exasperating situation.  After they had discussed their options, or lack thereof, for almost 15 minutes, Justice finally spoke up in a quivering voice.  As the youngest, he was not expected to even voice an opinion.  His words now grabbed the others’ attention.

“I . . . I think I might have an idea.”

“What?  What did you say, boy?”  Jared asked in a rough manner.

Justice swallowed hard and spoke with a little more conviction.  “I said, I think I might have an idea.  About how Hannah might have gotten out, I mean.”

Jared’s eyes narrowed to slits.  He lived in constant suspicion of everyone and everything.  “Out with it, boy.”

Justice looked at the ground.  “There’s a spot.  In the fence.”  Justice gulped hard and labored on.  “It’s near the, . . . near the east watchtower.  You can get out if you know where it is.”

Jared Malone walked slowly to his son as the rest of the men held their collective breath.  They had all seen his temper and waited for the firestorm certain to land on the boy’s head.  But, Jared spoke with a quiet and controlled voice, almost a whisper.  “And how do you know about this ’spot’ in the fence?”

“ I . . . I just know, that’s all.”

Jared stared at the top of his son’s head for a long tense moment.  “Take me to the spot.”

“Yes, sir,” the reply was inaudible, but no one questioned Justice’s answer.

“The rest of you men get the four-wheelers and start searching outside the compound.  Two teams.  One leaves from the south gate and sweeps around to the east side.  The other head to the north side and sweep east.  Take the dogs and be sure to check the marsh.  We’ll meet up at the east wall by the watchtower.”

“S-s-sir?”

Jared turned around slowly.  “This had better be good, boy.”

“The spot.  It’s too small for you to get through.  You’d be stuck inside the fence, sir.”

Jared quickly calculated the amount of time it would take to enlarge the hole in the hard timbers fencing in the east side and considered the increased effort in patching up the hole.  He hesitated, then decided.  “I’ll go with the south team.  Justice, you go through your spot.”  He said the words “your spot” with such venom that Justice knew he was going to pay dearly for his secret once Hannah was found.

It was about half a mile from the east side of the Malone compound to the Atlantic Ocean.  The first stretch of land was a marsh little visited by any other than biologists and the most hardcore fishermen.  Once you crossed Ocean Road, the ground was more solid and a narrow residential community was all that separated you from the dunes spotted with wild sea oats and occasionally loggerhead turtle tracks.  The marsh was federal property and it was against the law for anyone to have a gun on this tract of land.  All the men knew this.  And all knew better than to ask about leaving their guns at home.  Jared cared little for the law and would probably shoot a federal agent before handing over his weapon.  But this particular marsh was rarely visited by anyone.  On the off chance that a St. Simons police cruiser was poking down Ocean Road, the men were quite capable of evading an officer’s eyes.  Jared had grown up as a regular marsh rat and had trained the men to be the same, such that they would be aware of any other human long before the other human was aware of them.

Justice paused at the small hole in the fence.  He didn’t use his secret passageway to freedom often — he mostly just felt better knowing it was there — but when he did, he always left his gun leaning against the fence inside the compound.  He didn’t relish getting into trouble and hated his gun besides.  He often wondered why his father measured manhood by an instrument of killing.  They shot wildlife for food and even while eating the deer or rabbit Justice could only think of how one-sided the fight for life had been.  He secretly believed that if his father were a real man, he’d catch the rabbit by hand and even the playing field a little.    But this time, Justice knew his father would ask about his gun once they met up outside, and he was already in for the tanning of his life.

Justice scooted the gun through, then flattened out on his belly to inch through the hole.  Within the year he would have had to enlarge it to keep up with his own growth, but he knew plans for that project were futile now.  The hole was almost directly underneath the east watchtower.  Jared had taught his son too well.  Justice knew that the men in the tower always looked out, away, beyond.  By making his escape 30 feet directly beneath them, they never saw a thing.

Justice didn’t really care for the marsh much.  It seemed so big once you were in it and he felt so alone here.  From the watchtower, there was a clear view of the grass and water, the high spots and low spots.  Justice could easily determine a trail to Ocean Road that would only include a little wading.  But, from the ground, the marsh stretched out like a wet grassy puzzle.  Once he had snuck out at night and about wet his pants at the sight of marsh grasses swaying in the moonlight.   What drew him to this place was a mixture of variations on the same theme.  He was away from his father.  He was on property that any other citizen could be on if he or she so chose.  He was able to look in the direction of Brunswick and Savannah and Atlanta and, though not seeing them, not see a wall either.  That one short wiggle on the ground brought him freedom.  His father talked a lot about freedom.  Justice always felt it ironic that his father was the barrier which kept that feeling of liberty so elusive, more so even than the fence.

On the few rare occasions when Justice had dared to use his secret door to freedom during the day, he usually stayed close by the fence, hating it and somehow needing it at the same time.  It was his prison and his shield of security.  Everything beyond it was unknown and a little scary.   Twice he had dared to venture as far as the shore.  Both times had been of equal magnitude.  The persistent waves and salty air were like the sound and taste of a kind of freedom with no borders at all.  He could just barely make out the northern tip of Jekyll Island on his right, but other than that there was only ocean, an ocean that seemed to go on forever.  He had paid enough attention when his mom gave him geography lessons to know that if he could see far enough and if his vision was subject to gravity then he would see the western coast of Africa.  But it was the idea of infinity that was real to him as he watched the sea meet nothing but sky in the distance.  He had been lucky enough to spot a school of porpoises on one of his two trips to the ocean.  He had seen them before in Postell Creek, the north border of their property.  They often swam up the tidal rivers, but seeing them in the ocean was different somehow.  They seemed to be playing as they leapt from the surf effortlessly and then slid back into the depths.  Justice had remembered feeling jealous of the way they so easily accepted their freedom.

The day Hannah disappeared was a beautiful day in early April and Justice wished that he was out on his own under other circumstances.  He couldn’t even enjoy his freedom today, proving it was his father and not the fence that kept him imprisoned.  This trip out of the compound was a sweet sorrow, a blessed excursion through the wetlands and a mournful goodbye.

Why had he told Hannah about the hole in the fence?  And how had she gotten to it so quickly?  He had known she would never tell, but now she had inadvertently caused the truth to come out.  He wouldn’t blame her for this; finding fault wouldn’t erase the tape of the past few hours.  He hadn’t really needed to tell his father about the fence.  The men would have begun a search outside the compound eventually anyway, and he knew his father wouldn’t stop until he had discovered just how she could escape the fence and marsh that held them all in so well.  He also knew that a secret his father uncovered would bring twice the fury as a secret he willingly told.

Justice moved through the marsh with his thoughts on his father, but his awareness on the water.  He needed to find Hannah.  It was the only possible way to reduce his punishment at this point.  And, besides, he loved his cousin dearly.  He was worried about what his father would do to him later.  But, he was much more worried about Hannah.  Finding a safe walkway through the marsh was difficult enough for him, a trained young man with all of his faculties.  He knew one thing about Hannah, however, that his father didn’t.  Blind though she was, she was also extremely savvy and capable.

Justice moved swiftly and methodically for twenty minutes.  He didn’t call out for Hannah.   He knew that if she was out here, he could find her.  He got to Ocean Road and wondered if it was possible that she could have gotten this far.  He crossed the street knowing that Hannah would not have known to listen for cars and the thought made him shudder.   A small park separated the houses on his left from those on his right.  To his right, in the middle of a development of rental cottages, was the old Coast Guard station.   The park was the route he had taken to the ocean on his other trips and the most direct, although he was uncertain just how directly Hannah would have traveled.  The land had changed when he crossed the road and the park was heavy with live-oaks, the Spanish moss draping off of them like it had rained on God’s canvas before the paint was dry.  He got momentarily detained by a copperhead in his path and wondered if Hannah was capable enough to avoid a poisonous snake she couldn’t see or hear.   But his concern about this ended quickly when he saw the back of her dress.  She was standing, the front half of her hidden by a large oak, and she appeared to be playing a hand-clapping game with an imaginary friend.   When Justice got within 20 feet of her, he propped his gun against a sego palm and called her name so she wouldn’t be frightened about someone approaching her.

“Hannah Elizabeth!  It’s Justice.”

“Justice!   I knew you’d come.”

“Hannah, what are you doing?  You’ve got the whole com –”

“This is my new friend, Rose.”

Justice stopped, stunned, speechless.  The first thing that struck him about Rose was the last thing Hannah could possibly have noticed.  She was black.  The second thing that struck him about Rose was that she was as beautiful as her name.  No, more beautiful.  By any name, she would have been as beautiful and perfect as a rose.  The third thing that struck him about Rose was that she carried a copy of Gone With The Wind under her arm.  It struck him as odd because it was the only novel his father had ever read.

“Hi.  I’m Rose.  You must be Justice.  Hannah has told me about you.”  Rose stuck her hand out to shake.

Justice closed his gaping mouth and looked at her hand.  It was slender and graceful.   He reached out slowly and took her hand in his.  Hers was the softest skin he had ever felt.

“Hannah didn’t tell me you were so quiet.”

“I, . . . uh, Hannah, we better go.  Everybody’s looking for you.  We’re both in a heap of trouble.”

“I just wanted to see the rest of the world, Justice.  You’re not mad at me, are ya’?”

“No, I’m not mad.  I don’t blame you a bit.  But, we really gotta’ scoot now.”

“It was nice to meet you, Justice.  I always hoped there would be justice somewhere in the world, and now I’ve found you.” Rose smiled.

Justice smiled quickly, then grabbed Hannah’s hand and led her away as she hollered her goodbyes to Rose.  Justice fought the incredible impulse to turn around.  He felt as if he had never seen beauty until today.

Rose watched the pair until they disappeared across the road and into the marsh, a strange place to be walking she thought.  The boy, Justice, somehow compelled her.  Was that a gun she saw him stoop to pick up?  He was just a boy of 14 or so, and she was 19, a sophomore at Spelman.   Yet, she felt an odd urge to call him back, to be in his presence again.  She felt almost embarrassed at her internal reaction to this boy, and a white boy at that.  Surely, she must have been reading too long in the sun.  Maybe it was her subconscious urging her to put down her book and interact with people, like her mother was always harping.  Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to leave for hours, and over the years she occasionally would think of the boy by the seashore.

© Deborah E. Moore – 2011