Distant+Whispers

Chapter 24
HORN STORMED INTO THE SHOP like a sudden, dark summer storm. “And who left the damn door open?
Y’all gonna let every fly between Myrtle Beach and Charleston enter mah place!” he shouted.
Mikell’s heart sunk. He began to rise slowly out of the angry man’s chair but JT stopped him,
placing a calming hand on top of Mikell’s and motioning for him to stay where he was.
Horn caught the motion and directed the rage in his eyes towards his partner. JT met Horn’s eyes
and sucked his teeth loudly. Mikell made another attempt to leave. This time JT firmly gripped his
arm, frowned and nearly pushed Mikell back into his seat.
“Horn done let a lot of people sit in that seat when business was slow,” JT said defiantly. “He
even let a white man sit in that chair. He ain’t got no cause to be acting so particular right now.”
Horn humphed and tromped around the both of them as if they weren’t there. He busied himself
with the supply cabinet and counted the bottles of almond oil spray, cocoa butter and aloe shaving
lather. Next he grabbed the stack of mail that JT had placed in a wooden knick-knack file next to the
photos of the Kennedy boys. Horn went through each one slowly, like he was looking through a set of
photographs. He took out the junk mail, replaced the rest in the wooden file, then strode across the
floor and slammed the unwanted solicitations into the shop’s trash can, situated near the front door.
The tat-ta-tat-tat of drums and fifes from Front Street began to fill the air. His face twisted in disgust.
He glared through the huge window at the number of businesses on King Street that hadn’t opened that
day. “Runnin’!” he muttered, “Negroes always runnin’!”
“Everybody ain’t closed their shop, Horn,” said JT. “Look across the street. Jake Luke is open. So
is Bootsie. And you know Audrey wasn’t gonna close her beauty shop. All of her chairs are full. Even
Miz Charlotte dragged herself down here and opened up her candy shop. And she can’t be less than
what? Seventy? Eighty years old?”
Horn smacked his teeth. “I told everybody not to close their shops.”
“You can’t be tellin nobody nothin, Horn. You can ask ‘em. But you can’t tell ‘em.”
Horn glared at JT. “I ain’t got time to play no word games with you JT. Why should colored folks
lose business just because some white folks, whose great-grandpappies owned slaves, wants to
celebrate that fact?”
JT shook his head. “You gots to look at who showed up, Horn. Not who didn’t. You gots to look at
the good. Can’t do nothin about the bad.”
Horn didn’t pay JT any mind. He glowered at the virtually empty King Street.
“These Negroes in this town bettah wake up. If they can humiliate us on King Street, then they can
do in all of Georgetown. All of South Carolina. The whole damn South! These cullid folks ain’t never
gonna stand up to nothing. We ain’t going to accomplish nothing, unless we stays unified.”