Between Mississippi and Paris
People say tattoos tell stories. For Jimmy, some of his were about family—like the ones for his two great-grandfathers, who escaped slavery to join the Union Army during the Civil War. Others covered scars from the many fights he'd been in, including the one on his neck. That one came from the day a group tried to lynch him.
But he got lucky that day. The clouds went gray, the winds blew hard, and the hail came large and fast. "We'll be back," they yelled, their voices nearly drowned out by the thunder.
Jimmy didn't stay to let them. Hail was rare, and this was Mississippi; that kind of luck meant the time had come to leave. He kissed his mother and father that night and gave each a brief, tight hug that meant more than words. There was no time for long goodbyes. "I'll write from Boston," he told them. Then he walked to the bus station and left. He had just turned seventeen.
Jimmy didn't like to fight. But he had a knack for it. Part may have been genetic, one could say, as his father was a local boxing champion in youth. Part certainly had to be practice. Pop and Jimmy spent most nights training on the dirt patch in front of their home. They had been doing so from before Jimmy could even remember. "You have to know how to defend yourself," Pop would say. And then there was his size. Jimmy grew into a teenager of nearly six foot five and a muscular two twenty. He looked like someone born to fight.
As a result, people always called on Jimmy when trouble brewed. Friends and those in the community alike. And he always obliged. That's what led to many scars and the attempted lynching. He had defended a friend's brother in a part of town where a black man wasn't supposed to. Not in 1926 Mississippi.
In Mississippi, boxing earned him a reputation and some awards. In Boston, his fighting ability paid the bills. He boxed in underground matches, earning enough to pay rent for a small apartment in Dorchester and free time during the day to do what he loved most, reading and writing. But when he broke his left hand in a fight, the money dried up, and his home became a small tent on a side alley of town.
Maria had her own tattoos, though hers told a different story. She was born in London, and at eight years old, she became an orphan when a Zeppelin bomb hit her family's home during the Great War. Her relatives took her in, but they had no patience for a child like Maria—independent, wild, and unwilling to follow the rules. After many arguments, she walked out of the house late one evening and began learning how to survive living in the streets, sleeping in doorways and parks. All at just ten years old.
Ten years later, after bouncing between homelessness, a brief marriage, and living with a friend's family, she left England behind. Wearing her only dress and carrying a small suitcase of books, she boarded a ship to the U.S. for a fresh start. After arriving at Ellis Island, she made her way to Boston because her favorite writer had once lived nearby. There, she found work at a small restaurant.
It was literature that brought Jimmy and Maria together. On a splendid, sun-drenched Boston summer day, they lay a few feet apart on a grassy knoll in the commons, and as fate would have it, each engrossed in the same Ralph Waldo Emerson book.
"How are you liking it?" Jimmy asked, his deep voice breaking the quiet between them.
They spent the rest of the day talking about Emerson, philosophy, and life. When night fell, they walked together to her apartment in Allston—a small, ground-level unit that smelled of old wood and fresh paint. The space was cluttered with canvases, books, and scattered sketches of nature on the walls. It was rat-infested and, in the winter, cold. But it was hers.
Over bowls of hot soup and buttered bread, they shared stories until the sun began to rise. Soon, Jimmy was asleep on the floor while Maria curled up in bed. It was the first of many nights spent that way. Slowly, her home became his too.
"Will you marry me?" Jimmy asked one evening, his voice barely louder than a whisper.
Maria looked at him, eyes wide, a soft smile pulling at her lips. "Of course, Jimmy. But how?" she asked, her tone more serious now. "You know we can't marry here." Her eyes flickered with the weight of the truth—he was a black man from Mississippi and she was a white woman, and in Massachusetts, that meant they couldn’t marry.
"I hear Paris is nice," he said, a grin forming. "We could go there. Make it official."
She laughed, the sound light but tinged with surprise. "Paris? Sure, it's magical… but are you serious?"
"I am," he said, squeezing her hand gently.
She paused, her smile growing wider as the thought of Paris, of being married to Jimmy, settled in. Paris. The idea of leaving America behind had never crossed her mind, but now it felt like a door opening. “Yes, Jimmy. Let’s do it.”
Note:
“Between Mississippi and Paris” is a historical fiction snapshot. While based on real events, the story, characters, and incidents are fictitious.
Sources:
“Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-miscegenation_laws_in_the_United_States
That’s a good opening sentence. You write well, just sorry I can’t afford to financially support your writing. Keep on keeping on.