Song of Susannah

There is an Unfound Door

(O lost)

and memory is the key which opens it.

FIVE

Their names are Cheney, Goodman, Schwerner; these are those who fall beneath the swing of the White Sledgehammer on the 19th of June, 1964.

O Discordia!

SIX

They’re staying at a place called the Blue Moon Motor Hotel, on the Negro side of Oxford, Mississippi. The Blue Moon is owned by Lester Bambry, whose brother John is pastor of the First Afro-American Methodist Church of Oxford, can you give me hallelujah, can you say amen.

It is July 19th of 1964, a month to the day after the disappearance of Cheney, Goodman, and Schwerner. Three days after they disappeared somewhere around Philadelphia there was a meeting at John Bambry’s church and the local Negro activists told the three dozen or so remaining white northeners that in light of what was now happening, they were of course free to go home. And some of them have gone home, praise God, but Odetta Holmes and eighteen others stay. Yes. They stay at the Blue Moon Motor Hotel. And sometimes at night they go out back, and Delbert Anderson brings his guitar and they sing.

“I Shall Be Released, “they sing and

“John Henry,” they sing, gonna whop the steel on down (great Gawd, say Gawd-bomb), and they sing

“Blowin in the Wind “and they sing

“Hesitation Blues” by the Rev. Gary Davis, all of them laughing at the amiably risque verses: a dollar is a dollar and a dime is a dime I got a houseful of chillun ain’t none of em mine, and they sing:

'I Ain’t Marchin Anymore” and they sing in the Land of Memory and the Kingdom of Ago they sing in the blood-heat of their youth, in the strength of their bodies, in the confidence of their minds they sing, to deny Discordia to deny the can toi in affirmation of Gan the Maker, Gan the Evil-taker they don’t know these names they know all these names the heart sings what it must sing the blood knows what the blood knows on the Path of the Beam our hearts know all the secrets and they sing sing

Odetta begins and Delbert Anderson plays; she sings

“I am a maid of constant sorrow… I’ve seen trouble all my days… I bid farewell… to old Kentucky…”

SEVEN

So Mia was ushered through the Unfound Door and into the Land of Memory, transported to the weedy yard behind Lester Bambry’s Blue Moon Motor Hotel, and so she heard-

(hears)

EIGHT

Mia hears the woman who will become Susannah as she sings her song. She hears the others join in, one by one, until they are all singing together in a choir, and overhead is the Mississippi moon, raining its radiance down on their faces-some black, some white-and upon the cold steel rails of the tracks which run behind the hotel, tracks which run south from here, which run out to Longdale, the town where on August 5th of 1964 the badly decomposed bodies of their amigos will be found-James Cheney, twenty-one; Andrew Goodman, twenty-one; Michael Schwerner, twenty- four; O Discordia! And to you who favor darkness, give you joy of the red Eye that shines there.

She hears them sing.

All thro’ this Earth I’m bound to ramble… Thro’ storm and wind, thro’ sleet and rain… I’m bound to ride that Northern railroad…

Nothing opens the eye of memory like a song, and it is Odetta’s memories that lift Mia and carry her as they sing together, Det and her ka-mates under the silvery moon. Mia sees them walking hence from here with their arms linked, singing

(oh deep in my heart… I do believe…)

another song, the one they feel defines them most clearly. The faces lining the street and watching them are twisted with hate. The fists being shaken at them are cal-lused. The mouths of the women who purse their lips to shoot the spit that will clabber their cheeks dirty their hair stain their shirts are paintless and their legs are without stockings and their shoes are nothing but runover lumps. There are men in overalls (Oshkosh-by-gosh, someone say hallelujah). There are teenage boys in clean white sweaters and flattop haircuts and one of them shouts at Odetta, carefully articulating each word: We Will Kill! Every! Goddam! Nigger! Who Steps Foot On The Campus Of Oh Miss!

And the camaraderie in spite of the fear. Because of the fear. The feeling that they are doing something incredibly important: something for the ages. They will change America, and if the price is blood, why then they will pay it. Say true, say hallelujah, praise God, give up your loud amen.

Then comes the white boy named Darryl, and at first he couldn’t, he was limp and he couldn’t, and then later on he could and Odetta’s secret other-the screaming, laughing, ugly other-never came near. Darryl and Det lay together until morning, slept spoons until morning beneath the Mississippi moon. Listening to the crickets. Listening to the owls. Listening to the soft smooth hum of the Earth turning on its gimbals, turning and turning ever further into the twentieth century. They are young, their blood runs hot, and they never doubt their ability to change everything.

It’s fare you well, my own true lover…

This is her song in the weeds behind the Blue Moon Motor Hotel; this is her song beneath the moon.

I’ll never see your face again…

It’s Odetta Holmes at the apotheosis of her life, and Mia is there! She sees it, feels it, is lost in its glorious and some would say stupid hope (ah but I say hallelujah, we all say Gawd-bomb). She understands how being afraid all the time makes one’s friends more precious; how it makes every bite of every meal sweet; how it stretches time until every day seems to last forever, leading on to velvet night, and they know James Cheney is dead

(say true)

they know Andrew Goodman is dead

(say hallelujah)

they know Michael Schwerner-oldest of them and still just a baby at twenty-four-is dead.

(Give up your loudest amen!)

They know that any of them is also eligible to wind up in the mud of Longdale or Philadelphia. At any time. The night after this particular hoot behind the Blue Moon, most of them, Odetta included, will be taken to jail and her time of humiliation will begin. But tonight she’s with her friends, with her lover, and they are one, and Discordia has been banished. Tonight they sing swaying with their arms around each other.

The girls sing maid, the boys sing man.

Mia is overwhelmed by their love for one another; she is exalted by the simplicity of what they believe.

At first, too stunned to laugh or to cry, she can only listen, amazed.

NINE

As the busker began the fourth verse, Susannah joined in, at first tentatively and then-at his encouraging smile-with a will, harmonizing above the young man’s voice:

For breakfast we had bulldog gravy

For supper we had beans and bread

The miners don’t have any dinner

And a tick of straw they call a bed…