Bluebird, Bluebird was written in 2016, when Donald Trump acceded to the White House, before the bewildered eyes of the whole world who still thinks that he is a clown that we will easily manage. In fact, it is Act 1 of a new America. You have to come from East Texas to understand the impact of the billionaire’s victory. You must be called Attika Locke. The region belongs to the Bible Belt. Christian fundamentalists flourished there. At the height of segregation, while serving for Uncle Sam, many former black soldiers flocked from the South to the North to escape Jim Crow laws. Some, owners of their land, did not want to leave their farms. This is the case with the author’s family. “The land, they knew it was power,” she explained in an interview with an American newspaper. So this South Texan, she knows it, well, she lived it in her flesh.
Everything is always a question of color
His hero, Darren belongs to the elite, the Texas Rangers. He is the only black man in an organization that never mentions race. Considering that their members were above all Rangers, and not men, women, whites, blacks … Finally on paper. Because in America everything is always a question of color. Darren is going through a rough patch. Separated from his wife, carried on the Wild Turkey, momentarily suspended, a little haggard faced with the choices of his own life. He also appears in a murder case in which the weapon that was used was not found. Problem, the one who fired is Black, the one who died (an infamous scoundrel) is White. Darren, Rangers though he is, would he dare to defend one of his own? The suspicion, that of treason, hangs in the court. To whom is he faithful, wonders, without saying it out loud, the court and the jurors.
FBI Agent Greg Heglund, who is also a friend, reaches out to him. A double murder has been committed in a town, Lark, on Highway 59. But we don’t want a second Jasper. Ouch, the very mention of that term turns Darren’s stomach upside down. At 23, in his second year of law school, he is buying a sandwich when the news of the atrocious death of James Byrd Jr is looping on all the television channels. 160 kilometers from where Darren was born, as in the good old days of unapologetic racism, a black man had been dragged all over town until his head came off his body. Goodbye law, Darren applies to be a state police officer. His new costume: a Setson, a pair of hand-sewn boots preferably in crocodile or cowhide, a badge, and a Colt 45.
Agent Heglund knows his boyfriend perfectly well, he knows he will start straight away. Especially since this new case is not trivial, the unusual chronology. A young black lawyer, Michael Wright, is fished out in Attoyac bayou then Missy Dale, a local white waitress, 400 meters further, three days later. Curious, Darren thinks. Usually the stories of the South have turned out the opposite way: a white woman is killed or injured, in a real or imagined way, then like moon after sun, a black man is found. dead. “
East Texas is a place of its own
Unity of place. Lark. A town of 178 inhabitants where the racial tensions of America are played out again and again. Not surprisingly, we learn that Lark was a plantation in the past. East Texas is a place of its own. Culturally, we are among the Southerners, that is to say that we are closer to Mississippi, Louisiana than the rest of the state. We sailed in the backwater of the race version tunics and white balaclavas in the fashion of 2020. Even though, hardly. Segregation is not an empty word in this part of the USA. Besides, Agent Heglund wonders: hate crime, FAT (Aryan Brotherhood of Texas)? After all, initiation into FAT required a black corpse. And there it turns out that a certain Keith Dale who had just spent two years in a Texan penitentiary, a pure breeding ground for Aryan recruitment, had returned to a city, where in the space of a week, his wife and a man black had died. But Darren is walking on eggshells. His obsession with the FAT played tricks on him in the past, the hierarchy did not appreciate this relentlessness to see behind each case the hand of his big tattooed Nazis. He also has to manage the local sheriff, a white, caricatural like it should be. But legalistic. A hope? So when he enters Shelby County, he takes off his badge, the five-pointed star, after all he’s still hanging, and prepares to investigate with a low profile. But what does he imagine?
In Lark, Geneva’s Sweet’s Sweet is a must. A cafe, a jukebox, a guitar, somewhere else, another time. Here, we sit down, put our hats on, we serve you without even asking, we know you. The victim was found just behind the facility. Five hundred yards further on, it’s the bad guys. Jeff’s Juice House owned by Wallace Jefferson III, just like the rest of town. There is also a jukebox but it rocks country. Not the John Lee Hooker from Geneva. The Confederate Flag, a busty waitress for whom East Texas reserves a hideous saying: “Fucked to death, no longer good for anything.” The kind of roadstead where blacks do not risk themselves. That the lady translates to Darren as: “Are you lost?”
Lark, open-air prison
Enter another character, the wife of the deceased lawyer: Randie Winston, separated from her husband a year earlier. Fashion photographer, she dresses chic and expensive. The balance of what some are or are not in the eyes of others is upset. It doesn’t match what white people think of black people. Everyone here in Lark is poor. Or almost. Whites and Blacks. Finally the first a little less than the second. Besides, in seven years of marriage, not once had Michael taken him to this damned Texas. So, no, she has no idea why he came back. Just as she doesn’t understand that her wallet was found intact, with her papers, her credit cards and a hundred dollars in cash. Theft is therefore not the motive for the crime. Attica Locke is a keen observer, she is also an insider of the black community, she knows its codes, limits, hopes and frustrations. The Winston couple represented hope, better success. The glossy success, forgot the hazy origins of Michael, forgot, this racist Texas. The urban version couple “trendy black” has no place in this ultra-standardized universe where the division of races is played out inside and outside its community.
In fact, death has always lurked in Lark. A crime, that of Joe Sweet, bluesman and husband of Geneva. He was killed in a break-in at the facility. The case was never resolved. It was a long time ago, it was yesterday. Geneva doesn’t like to talk about it. The Chicago lawyer was very interested in it, however. Why? What relationship with the waitress? Lark, an open-air prison, where racism has not deserted. It still flows through the veins of its inhabitants but nothing is ever white and black with Attica Locke. The complex relationships maintained by the two communities are dissected with gentle coolness. The American novelist knows where to stick the scalpel. But she also speaks of belonging, of loyalty to her race, of her desire to be free from it. To stay upright. Like a human being. Quite simply.
* Bluebird, Bluebird, by Attica Locke, translated by Anne Rabinovitch, Editions Liana Levi, 336 pages, 20 euros.
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