THE MYSTERY OF THE LOCKED CABINET
When I was about 10 years old, there was a tall, white handmade cabinet back in one of our storage sheds (a converted chicken house from back in the 30's, when my grandparents raised chickens in the Great Depression). Affixed to its door, there was a big padlock on the cabinet. I asked what was inside and was politely informed, it was none of my business. Oh--okay.
One day, rummaging around in boxes and crates, I found a large ring of keys (like a custodian carries on his belt) containing maybe a hundred different kinds of keys. I decided or speculated one of those keys simply MUST be the key to the mysterious white enamel cabinet in the shed. A boy's mind is quick to conspire toward mischief; especially the forbidden kind.
The temperature was well over a hundred the day I sneaked in and began eliminating possibilities.
I lasted about half an hour and almost fainted before giving up.
The next day and the one after, I doggedly returned and went at it again and again.
Then, about the time my grandfather was due to pull in the driveway, I hit paydirt!
The lock opened with a smart snap! Boy, was I excited!
The sun was about to set behind the pecan trees and few dozen mosquitoes and spiders cut loose in disarray to discourage my illicit enterprise. I opened the door to that cabinet and it swung smartly on well-oiled hinges without a squeak.
Like the timing in a soap opera, no sooner had the doors opened wide when my grandfather, who had ordered me to stay out of that shed, drove up and parked right outside. (Jiggers, the cops!)
My heart was thumping like Gene Krupa's snares and I struggled to breathe in the incinerating heat. I was fighting off panic and the animal urge to bolt and save my bacon.
My grandfather came from Old School discipline tempered by Old Testament injunctions.
I would probably be stoned to death or beheaded if apprehended in my malfeasance.
As luck would have it, my grandfather headed straight for the main residence and I was left alone in the semi-darkness. I stared and waited.
My eyes grew wide with wonderment as I fought off the imponderable importance of my discovery. I mean, I knew what I was looking at but I didn't know why it was there so beautifully and reverentially preserved in that hand-crafted white cabinet.
As my eye adjusted to the creeping curtain of darkness, there could be no mistake about the revelation of the cabinet's contents.
An incredible frisson of excitement and shame filled my emotions as I beheld what surely must have been white silk, hand tailored into an overgarment consisting of something like a choirmaster might wear with draped sleeves. Then it became obvious. The hood with the eye holes carefully sewn in and impeccably tailored bright red letters affixed to the breast of the garment: K K K.
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A decade later, when alone with my grandfather, out for a Sunday drive, I flat out dropped the question on him.
"Why was there a KKK robe preserved in that white cabinet in the shed, Paw Paw?"
His head sort of jerked a bit like a bee had stung him. He recovered quickly.
"Back during the Depression, down the street here, there's the Katy railroad which you've heard every day and night of your life with rumbling railcars and sharp whistles sounded at the crossings. Those freight trains brought more than clatter and whistles. They dumped dangerous men, too. Men road the rails to escape the consequences of crimes they committed to keep their body and soul alive. There was no work anywhere to be had and desperate men do desperate deeds."
I cut my eyes to the side and watched him slightly askance. He was a shy man. He never looked anybody in the eye when he spoke to them. He was forthright and not one to mince words, however. I'd get the true truth and no food coloring added for cosmetic purposes.
"Those bums, tramps, and tattered desperadoes would stay put in Hobo towns where there would be drinking, gambling, fighting, and conspiracies hatched toward burglary and mischief. So, local neighborhoods formed local chapters of Ku Klux Klan to surprise and terrorize them into flight out of our town."
I had to ask and I did--"What about Black people?"
"Bad men can be any color. Same with good. But a bum can be dangerous if he ends up living at the end of your street next to the railroad. We got rid of everybody."
I didn't like the sound of that very much. I asked, "How did you get rid of everybody?"
He didn't bat an eye when he answered.
We surrounded them and suddenly appeared with shotguns, army sabers, barbed wire, and we told them exactly what kinds of torture they were in for if they weren't out of town by morning. We cursed them, threatened and bullied them because these were very very hardened men accustomed to the worst life has to offer. The idea was to demonstrate we were capable of atrocities IF they didn't listen. It was all showboat and greasepaint acting. We never hurt but one guy who tried to attack. I shot down at his feet and the bullet ricocheted into his calf. We hauled him away like we were going to hang him but we drove him to Peter Smith charity hospital.
Nobody was ever a problem after one of our demonstrations. The Ku Klux Klan was as good or as bad as the men in each chapter. We used the horrible fear of it for own purposes in keeping our neighborhood free of criminals. That's all there was to it."
I paused to ruminate on his words for a while. I let it all sink in. I only asked one last question.
"Why did you preserve that robe so carefully and tenderly in that shed. The shed looks like you must have built it special by hand and painted with white enamel. Why?"
He snorted with a kind of silly laugh of his. He glanced at me with a flicker in his eye.
"That's because my mother sewed it for me with her own hands and it was the finest robe in the whole Klan."
Well, what could I say to that? A Mother's Love and the KKK, what a remarkable collaboration!
The year I opened that cabinet must have been about 1956.
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Terry Walstrom
