The murder of his friend, a retarded black man determines Levi Landry's life course.
PROLOGUE
Innocence sometimes dies quickly. For me, the sound of my childhood fleeing abruptly was heralded by a loud blast followed by the smoke and flash of a revolver. Turtle, Louisiana in the year 1947 was a typical small town the sort of place people referred to as a wide spot in the road, or as a country town. Several small farms were scattered around just north of Turtle. Most of the adult males earned a living by rough necking either on land or off shore on oilrigs. The farms that dotted the landscape were mostly cotton and rice farms. The downtown area of Turtle had a department store that was owned by an elderly Jew named Mr. Horowitz. No one knew how Mr. Horowitz had found his way to the small community consisting mostly of Cajun families.
Next to Mr. Horowitz’s department store sat Debreaux’s Drugs. That, establishment had been owned by the Debreaux family for several generations. Across from the department and drug store were two businesses, a place that sold furniture and a movie theatre. The entire downtown area was about six blocks square. City hall, the fire and police department and utilities, were all in one building at the southern end of downtown. To the rear of this building was a shed used to house prisoners. The sometimes guests of the city were usually locals who had too much to drink on Friday paydays.
West of downtown, on Highway 78, a Piggly Wiggly grocery competed with a small store. The small grocery had been operated by several generations of McGees and had been in the same spot since the town had first been charted. Mr. Clovis McGee and his wife somehow managed to make a living in the small establishment. Many of the local poor Cajuns still shopped there exclusively since Piggly Wiggly didn’t offer credit. Mr. McGee sometimes carried customers on his books for months till someone in the family managed to earn a paycheck.
East of Turtle, past the poor part of town, were the homes of the wealthy. The banker, car dealership owner, funeral director and the Baptist preacher all had large homes on five-acre lots.
Most of the citizens of Turtle were Catholic, but it seemed most of the ones who had money were Baptist. Any Presbyterian or Methodist who came wandering into the area and wanted a church to attend had two choices, start one or move on.
My dad had once been a tenant farmer near a larger town sixty miles west of Turtle but as most men his age had to eventually do in order to feed their families, he now worked for an oil drilling company. We moved to Turtle because it was one of the main areas used by the oil companies to recruit workers. My dad, Joe, my mom, Esther, my older brother, C.J., my little brother Clinton and I all lived in a small shotgun house just north of Turtle. A shotgun house is one where a person can stand in the front door, fire a shotgun, and have the pellets go out the back door. My name, Levi, short for Leviticus, has caused some misunderstandings in my life starting with Mr. Horowitz who got excited when he first heard my name. He assumed he had found another Jewish family when he met me. I was given that name because my mom loved reading the bible even though we were Catholic. Most Catholics never read the bible. They have their missal and assume that is all they need.
While I was part of a protuberance my mom walked around carrying, she found the book of Leviticus and thought that it would be a really pretty name for a girl. I was the second child as well as the second son. I was born in her and dad’s bed on a hot morning in July. Although not the best endowed male around, there was still enough there to allow anyone to see I was definitely not a girl. Still, since she was so enamored with the name, I was christened Leviticus.
School had been out for almost a week before I had a chance to go downtown to hang around and see what sort of trouble my friends and I could get into. I was not looking forward to the next school year when I would become a sixth grader. My brother, C.J., had told me the sixth grade was hell. He informed me things got really tough in that grade. I should have known better because anything to do with school was hell for C.J. He was not a good student. How he had reached the ninth grade, was one of our family’s mysteries. He probably accomplished his rise to that grade by using his charm and good looks. since he had a plentiful supply of both. I was a short, scrawny child unlike my tall well-built brother. My younger sibling, Clinton, who was big for his age and although not yet two, was tall and strong, unlike I had been at that age, I knew he’d soon be catching up with me and perhaps grow to be taller and larger then I ever would.
I would be eighteen before I ever saw any other races besides Negro and white. In the southeast corner of Turtle was an area called Coon Town. I called it by that name because my parents did. In fact the whole town called it that, even the people who lived there called it Coon Town. The citizens of Coon Town were all Negro. Most of the whites in Turtle called dark people Nigger. The word was not meant to be a slur in the least, at least by most whites. Even the Negroes called themselves by that name, I thought nothing of that word, it wasn’t derogatory, at least I didn’t feel it was. The whites were all Cajun, except for Mr. Horowitz, who was a Jew. People with extremely dark complexions were Niggers. The term was no more meant to be a slur than Cajun or Jew. As I went all over the town I spoke to everyone and all the people of the town knew me. I felt comfortable with every one I met. Mr. Horowitz called me his little ‘Cajun Jew’ and the Niggers accepted me as simply another little kid. I ate meals with them, played ball with their children and I didn’t feel any different in their homes than I did in any of the Cajun homes.
One day as I was walking down a dusty street that ran through Coon Town, just hanging around with my best friend, Jimmy Joe Joe, a young man I didn’t recognize stood across the street smoking a cigarette. As we walked by, the stranger yelled to Jimmy Joe Joe. “What the hell are you doing with that white son-of-a-bitch?” Turning to Jimmy Joe Joe, I asked why had the fellow called me that? Jimmy Joe Joe answered. “I suspecting he done tink yos a sumobitch.” “That’s not what I mean,” I explained to Jimmy Joe Joe. Why did he use the term, white?” Jimmy Joe Joe looked at me for a while then he shook his head and said, “I’s doon know why, Levi.” Jimmy Joe Joe was a huge black man. He was well over six feet tall with enormous arms and shoulders. Although Jimmy Joe Joe was probably in his late twenties he had the simple mind of a young child. Actually I was a lot smarter and understood most things much better then Jimmy Joe Joe did. My mom had explained to me that Jimmy Joe Joe was retarded. I figured that retarded was a type of a disease I couldn’t catch, so I didn’t care.
It would be some years later before I realized I had encountered my first act of racial prejudice. The young Negro man hadn’t cared if I was a son of a bitch. He was only irate because Jimmy Joe Joe was with a boy of a different race than they were and walking around in a section of town where only Negroes lived. I was not aware of racial bias, prejudice or hatred of another due to the color of their skin. Until that day, to me, people were simply people. I knew there were obvious differences in people. In my young mind, some people were darker than others some were taller and some fatter. Men didn’t have chests that stuck out like women did and women didn’t have to shave. I had never known of anyone being angry at or hating someone because they were different. That was soon to change.
Excerpt
Elvia is a beautiful intelligent lady. I knew she was and one night as we sat talking she turned to Helen and I and said something that reinforced my opinion.
“Do you realize how unusual our two families are? When Helen and I shop I sometimes see the looks people send our way. Many people are pretending to accept blacks. Some young foolish white girls think that when spreading their legs for black men that’s, what they are doing. To me that’s another act of prejudice. Some are talking about being color blind, that’s also stupid. The bottom line is I don’t want people to ignore my color I want them to recognize I’m different. What I want and what we all need is to see we are different but not care. See the difference but not care so then we can get past the outside and get into the inside. I know why God made us different colors and types. Roses are beautiful but how boring would nature be, if all there was were roses.” I agreed. As a small child I hadn’t gotten old enough to be taught prejudice and had never seen it at home. Before I was, able to be indoctrinated slowly by my peers and others, I had witnessed prejudice in a horrible fashion that had wounded me deeply.
In the afternoons we sometimes sit and watch four year old Melinda, our daughter and our son Levi Landry Junior, two years old play with Mike and Elvia’s small son also two years old, Mike Evans Junior and of course Sir L. He herds the children as though they were his private stock of sheep. If one of them wanders more then fifty feet from the front porch, especially toward Highway 13, he will grab them by the seat of their pants and haul them back to us despite their screams of outrage. Then he sits and waits for our approval then back he goes to take care of, his kids. Our, black and white, uncaring of the difference in skin color, children playing together is, so normal and right I have to remind myself of what is out there in the world. I sometimes wish I could wave a wand and utter some magic words that would enable people to see how useless and worthless it is to hate someone because they are different. I heave a sigh of frustration knowing I can’t. I can only hope that someday everyone will, as Elvia so aptly put it, not care.
THE END Lionel LaVergne. Spring, Texas Oct 2, 2002 TURTLE LOUISIANA. All rights reserved by the author. This work in whole or part may not be reproduced without the permission of Lionel A La Vergne.
This, a work of fiction all events and persons are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to any event or persons living or dead is coincidental.
Professional Reviews
Innocence Lost
Innocence Lost
Charlene, Prairie Hill Books
Texas USA (4/28/2005) INNOCENCE LOST by Lionel LaVergne is one of those books you are anxious to recommend to others. There is a well-crafted mystery with interesting characters weaved into an intriguing story. The book begins with prejudice, bigotry, and murder in a small southern town. The young boy, Levi Landry, is deeply affected by these events and learns to protect himself from the world he sees around him. Though this is a serious story of a man’s struggle in a troubled time, there are moments of humor. One of the most entertaining is when Levi bumbles his way through the first few days in the military. But soon the mood shifts, as Levi becomes a skilled, killing agent. The reader is required to look at the concept of justified murders. Mr. LaVergne continues his story with a fast-paced mystery and a message of his desire to be able to live in a world where we don’t care about racial or religious differences. Definitely a book that is not easy to put down once you have started to read.
