“What brings you to Dallas, Mr. Phillips?” Bull was writing on his clipboard. Mr. Phillips was watching him carefully.
“I got a couple of days off and just thought I’d come down and look around.”
“You been drinking, Mr. Phillips?” Bull smelled beer on him.
“Just a couple of beers on the way down. I ain’t even hit town yet.”
Bull shined the light into Mr. Phillip’s eyes and decided he was telling the truth. “OK,” he said. “Tell me what you saw.”
“Well, I was just coming down this road here—”
“US Seventy-five.”
“Yessir. And this guy passed me. Real fast. Then he pulled back into the lane in front of me. And then, when he was—oh, I guess about a hundred yards in front of me, well, he just sailed into that bridge.”
“Did he hit his brakes first?”
“Yessir. I seen his brake lights. Then he hit the bridge.”
“Did he skid much?”
“Well, he skidded, but I couldn’t say how much. All I could see was his lights. But he fishtailed, all right, and then he hit the bridge.”
“And what did you do then?”
“Well, I stopped and went over and tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t come open. I tried to peek in the window, but I couldn’t see nothing. And I said, ‘Anybody hurt?’ and I didn’t hear no answer. So I got back in my car and drove to that Texaco station up yonder and called the cops. The police. And they told me to come back down here and talk to the officer at the scene. I ain’t going to get no ticket or nothing, am I?”
“No, you’ve been very cooperative, Mr. Phillips. How long do you plan to be in Dallas? Is there a phone where we could reach you, in case we need more information?”
“Yessir. I’m staying with Bob Timmons.” Bull wrote down Bob Timmons’s number. “I got to be back in Texarkana by Sunday night. I ain’t got no phone there, but the company will know where I am.” Bull wrote down the company’s number. “I bet them suckers is dead. How many was there?”
“We’re not sure yet,” Bull said. “Thank you, Mr. Phillips, and drive carefully. These wet roads can fool you.”
“Don’t I know it. I’m a professional driver.”
Bull stepped out of the car and held his folded slicker over his clipboard. “Much obliged,” he said as he closed the door.
The old Chevy roared into life and moved slowly away, and Bull walked toward the wreck, where the ambulance people were laying a body on a stretcher in the brightness of the fire truck’s spotlights. McDonald stepped out of the light to meet him. “How’s it coming?” Bull asked.
“OK,” McDonald said. “You and your rookie go on in.”
“You need somebody on traffic?”
“We can handle it. Go ahead.”
Bull walked over to the flares and touched Larry on the arm. “Let’s go,” he said.
When they were back into the traffic, Bull turned off the revolving lights and settled himself into the seat. “Nasty night,” he said.
HENRY
“Fuckin’ scotch,” Muffin said.
“You’re particular for a nigger,” Henry said.
“Mother-fuckin’ scotch,” Muffin said.
“If you don’t like it, don’t drink it,” Henry said. He took the bottle away from Muffin and held it up, trying to see how much was left, but it was too dark under the viaduct for him to see. He shook the bottle. There was some left. He drank it. “Listen to them sirens,” he said.
“Fuckin’ sirens,” Muffin said.
“I bet there’s a big wreck somewhere.”
“Fuckin’ wreck,” Muffin said. “Give me that scotch.”
“Ain’t none left,” Henry said.
“Fuckin’ scotch,” Muffin said.
“You’re sure uppity for a nigger,” Henry said. “You know who give me that scotch? The most beautiful lady in Dallas. Sheila Towers. Right outside of Babe’s place. You know Babe’s place. Well, that’s where she give it to me. Right out in front. Just give it to me. Just like that.”
“Fuckin’ Shelia,” Muffin said.
“You know Shelia? Naw, you don’t know Shelia. Shelia wouldn’t know no nigger. Shelia wouldn’t give no nigger no scotch.”
“Fuckin’ Shelia,” Muffin said.
“Ain’t no use thinking about that,” Henry said. “Ain’t no nigger fuckin’ Shelia. Shelia’s got her man for the night, Muffin. He’s the one that give me that scotch out in front of Babe’s place. He just held it out to me and said, ‘Here, Henry, you take this here scotch. I don’t need it no more. Have yourself a good time, Henry.’ ”
“Fuckin’ scotch. Give it to me,” Muffin said.
“Ain’t none left,” Henry said. “You just roll over and pull this viaduct up under your chin and go to sleep, boy. Ain’t no use worryin’ about no scotch. Ain’t no scotch left.”
Muffin started crying. “Fuckin’ rain,” he said.
The Fourth Hour
THOMAS J.
“AIN’T GONNA BE NO DOGS IN HEAVEN. Ain’t gonna be no George Wallace in heaven. Ain’t gonna be no billy clubs in heaven. Ain’t gonna be no bullwhips in heaven. Ain’t gonna be no cotton fields in heaven. Ain’t gonna be no scrubbin’ in heaven. Ain’t gonna be no Kluxers in heaven. Ain’t gonna be no hate in heaven. Ain’t that right, reverend?”
“That’s right, sister. You said it right,” the Reverend Thomas J. Durant said. “You said it exactly right.”
Many of the old ones claimed more years than they had. Sister Emma claimed she was born in slavery. Thomas J. doubted it, but it was possible. The old ones often claimed that, and believed it. They ought to organize the Sons and Daughters of Slavery, Thomas J. thought, like the white women organized the Daughters of the Confederacy. They were proud of it. They liked to say they were born in slave cabins. Maybe this one was. She claimed to be a month past her hundredth birthday. It was possible. She looked like an Egyptian mummy there on the yellowing white sheet in the yellow light from the old lamp beside the bed. Her flannel nightgown, the nap worn off it in spots, was yellow, too, or seemed to be. She could be a hundred. She could be a daughter of slaves. Definitely a daughter of slaves. Maybe a slave herself. Her dark scalp shone through her thin white hair. She couldn’t weigh more than seventy-five pounds.
“You know what heaven’s gonna be like, reverend?”
“Sure, Sister Emma. Like the Zodiac.” Thomas J. smiled. She had gone with them the day they desegregated the restaurant on the sixth floor of Neiman-Marcus. She had said it looked like heaven.
The old woman laughed weakly. “Naw, reverend, not the Zodiac. Ain’t no fried chicken in the Zodiac. Ain’t no watermelon in the Zodiac. Heaven’s gonna be like Juneteenth every day. Lord, Lord, how them white women looked at us in that Zodiac. Naw, heaven ain’t gonna be that. Heaven’s gonna be Juneteenth, reverend.”
It was a tradition in Mount Zion Baptist Tabernacle that on the Sunday before Juneteenth, Sister Emma Rawlins would stand in the pulpit and tell about the Union general coming ashore in Galveston on