“No. It never was.” Delroy looked at the white wooden houses with their red and brown and green roofs. Most of the houses were forty and fifty years old, usually packed with three small bedrooms and a bath and a half. They were houses built for the middle class during an exodus to get out of the growing metropolis back in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Over the years, that middle class had changed, sliding more toward poverty and the same problems that had plagued them in the inner-urban areas they’d come from.
Shackleton Heights had its beginning back when Marbury was young, and the new suburb had never quite recovered from its days of infamy. In the early 1800s, the area had been a separate town, smaller than Marbury, and it had been named Shackle Town. For forty years, till slavery was abolished at the end of the Civil War, Shackle Town had provided auction blocks for slaves and a way of rough living for hard men who preferred that. At the turn of the twentieth century, a riot had broken out and the small town had burned to the ground.
The people who lived in Shackleton Heights now were mostly black, and generally they worked shifts at factories, fast-food restaurants in the metro area, or on construction projects that were usually state sponsored. They were men and women, young and old, who held jobs to make ends meet rather than spending time in careers to keep up with the rest of the world. Those who worked for themselves tended to do so seven days a week and from can-see to cain’t-see.
Trees lined the small, narrow streets. Cars parked at the curb congested traffic. More than a few of those cars sat up on blocks or were in various stages of being cannibalized for parts. Porches that had gone crooked with age and neglect sometimes held defunct washers and dryers and refrigerators, small graveyards of dead appliances that the city wouldn’t take and the inhabitants couldn’t afford to have hauled off.
“Did you live here long?” Walter asked.
“All my life,” Delroy answered, only then realizing that Walter hadn’t wandered into the neighborhood by accident. Delroy had learned there were few things accidental about Deputy Walter Purcell, despite his easygoing manner and abrupt nature. He’d known exactly where he was taking Delroy. “Till I went away to college. If I hadn’t gotten a basketball scholarship to Alabama State, I might never have made it out of town.”
“Well, do you miss it?” As always, Walter was blunt and to the point.
“Surprisingly, I have on occasion. Shipboard life is close like this neighborhood is. Maybe that’s why I fit into the navy so easily.” Delroy wondered what Walter’s objective was for bringing him through the old neighborhood. The chaplain didn’t doubt that the deputy had one, but he didn’t know what it was.
“Was your daddy from here?” Walter paused at a stop sign.
“From farther out of town,” Delroy said. “But from this area, aye. My mother lived in Marbury all her life.”
“Was your wife from here?” Walter made the turn and approached the elementary school where Delroy had attended as a child. The buildings sat empty and forlorn.
“Glenda is from Montgomery.” Delroy had trouble referring to her as his wife since he hadn’t talked to her in so long. “She was born there. We met in college. She was bound and determined to change me and the world.”
Delroy’s heart ached as he saw the empty swings and soccer field at the elementary school. A handful of women, young and middleaged, walked through the empty schoolyards. He didn’t know if they were teachers missing students or mothers missing their sons and daughters. How could anyone live in a world without children?
Walter laughed. “Did she?”
“Change me? Aye. That she did. She took a rough, prideful young boy, turned him into a man, and guided him through the navy, prodded at him till he finished college and rose from the ranks to make officer grade, and backed him every step of the way.”
“It’s surprising that since you been gone she didn’t move back to Montgomery instead of hanging around here as she has.” Walter realized he’d spoken too quickly and held up a hand in apology. “Me and my big mouth.”
“I don’t know why she stayed,” Delroy admitted. “I bought a house here, after Terrence got to be school-age, and Glenda didn’t feel comfortable living on base. She’d always wanted a home in a small town. Both of us felt Montgomery was just too big to raise Terrence in. After Terrence … passed and I didn’t handle things well, I don’t know why she stayed.”
“Well, maybe she just feels at home here. For all its faults and lacks, Marbury is a good town.”
Delroy watched the houses. Few people were outside, but the ones who were in their yards or driveways glanced in the cruiser’s direction with nervous apprehension.
“These people are scared,” Delroy said before he knew he was going to speak.
“Yes, sir,” Walter said, nodding. “They are that. And it might surprise you to know they been scared for a while.” He glanced back at the neighborhood. “This end of town, well, it had fallen on hard times even before these last few days.” He looked at Delroy. “Bet you didn’t have crack cocaine in these streets when you was growing up.”
“No—” Delroy shook his head—“we didn’t.” His daddy had lectured on the evils of marijuana from time to time even back then, though.
“Well, sir, they have it now.” Walter tore open the lid on his Styrofoam cup. “You missed out on the gangbanger shootings too.”
“Here?” Delroy couldn’t believe it. Back when he was a boy, no drugs had been in the streets, and the most violence that was ever done was at the high school basketball courts and football fields when rival schools met. Even when Terrence had been a boy, things hadn’t been truly bad.
“Yes, sir,” Walter replied. “Here. Right in this neighborhood.” He glanced
