It looked orange when it went in the air and the sun was on it. It was easy to churn up, too. A gust of wind, a pickup truck taking too sharp a right turn, or when the women flapped their mats and rugs out of windows or off the sides of front porches. Sometimes, if you weren’t paying attention, it got in your eyes and in your throat.

Black folks lived in town and white folks lived outside town. It wasn’t always like that. Before there was a town, white folks made black folks live on and work their property under threat of whip and rifle. Once the town was established though, white folks only went into town out of necessity, and black folks avoided going outside of town.

In June of 1939, a woman who lived in town named Virginia Washington gave birth to a daughter whom she named June after the month in which she was born, because June was the start of the stifling summer. This being the most difficult part of the year to get through in that area of the country, she figured her daughter, being born at that time and having the name to back it up, would be able to withstand anything.

The little girl came out with a few curly hairs sprouting from the top of her head and ovular eyes of a light brown color, like ripe pecans.

When Virginia Washington held her newborn daughter in the rocking chair on her front porch, and the girl sucked at her breast, she would sing to her the songs her own mother had sung and imagine her daughter doing all the things she’d wanted to but couldn’t.

In the fall of that year, Martha Johnston, a woman who lived outside of town, birthed a son she named Samson after the story from the Bible. The name fit well, too, because from the moment he left the womb he had a full head of golden-brown hair. For the first few years of his life, his mother would walk around the house saying to no one in particular that she would destroy any woman who tried to convince him to shave his head, at which her husband just laughed and brushed aside as the natural protectiveness of a mother over her son. By the time he began school, everyone was calling Sam, which his mother didn’t approve of, but at the same time did not prohibit. All through his childhood, Mrs. Johnston warned her son not to associate with people who lived in town, because she did not want him corrupted by that influence.

Similarly, Mrs. Washington warned her daughter, June, not to hang around outside of town, not so much out of fear of corrupting influences, but fear for her safety.

The two children laid eyes on each other for the first time in the spring of 1955. They were fifteen years old. Sam had gone into town to pick up a new window air conditioner as a luxury for the upcoming summer. He spotted June on First Street carrying a bag of peaches she was taking home for her mother’s cobbler.

June saw Sam walking across the street in her direction. She tried not to look at him because her mother had warned her of the dangers in looking a white man in the face. But she thought him handsome, with a full head of golden-brown hair that was strange and exotic to her. Sam at first had no intention of saying anything to June, for he knew very well that when you had to go into town, it was wise to get what you needed and get out; but when June glanced in his direction he was struck by the beauty of the little ripe pecans that were her eyes. After talking casually for a few minutes about air conditioners and peach cobblers they went their separate ways; but they ran into each other several more times while both running errands for their parents, and by the time July came they were seeing each other not by chance but by planned secret rendezvous. They would meet on Saturday afternoons at an abandoned barn a mile outside of town, each telling their mother they were meeting friends and would be home by sunset.

The barn had belonged to an old white couple whom the Lord deemed never to bring a child into the world, though they tried relentlessly, going so far as to bury what was left of the times they came close. But because none came to full term, there were no children to take over the house and property, and all of it, including the barn, fell to ruin following their deaths.

It was the perfect place for Sam and June to meet in secret because no one ever went there. Younger kids were frightened of the four-foot weeds and the bull thistle that surrounded it; teenagers had better places to drink and smoke, like along the riverbank or certain known spots in the woods; and grown-ups had neither the cause nor the time to go there.

Three months after the start of their meetings they decided to be each others’ first, and upon arriving home that evening they were both filled with the same two very different emotions: ecstasy and terror. Ecstasy for the obvious reason, and terror because they at once realized the impossibility of keeping their secret forever, for they knew this was not a temporary infatuation but an earnest love.

When Sam told his mother what was going on she scolded him and asked how her own son could commit such a betrayal and risk the good name that she and her ancestors had worked so hard to gain.

June’s mother also disapproved, and she admonished her daughter’s naivety. When she named her June and gave her the ability to withstand anything, she never thought her daughter would be so foolish as to willfully increase the danger to herself a hundred times over.

Both mothers told their children that the relationship had to stop immediately. The children did not obey, and when the mothers became suspicious of their continued leaving at similar times every Saturday afternoon, Virginia Washington decided to follow her daughter and Martha Johnston came to the conclusion she had to follow her son.

They chose the same day to do so. It was the last Saturday in August and they followed them in secret under the dusty heat until they saw them entering the barn.

Without acknowledging the other, they called to their children from the edge of the road. Sam and June, still respecting their mothers, walked back through the high weeds and bull thistle to join them. The mothers grabbed their children by the hand, Virginia Washington pulling June toward town, Martha Johnston pulling Sam away from town.

But as soon as they felt the pull, the teenagers broke free of their mothers’ hold and embraced each other, both thinking it would be the last time they would do so. The mothers pulled them loose, and again they broke the hold and locked themselves together. But the mothers were determined. They each took their child around the waist and pulled with the force of a mule that refused to be yoked.

Sam reached for June’s face. June, in a final effort of desperation, took hold of Sam’s hair. The mothers had to pull so hard that when they finally got them apart, Sam tumbled head over foot into the ditch. June went the other way—toward the road.

At that very moment, one of those pickup trucks took one of those right turns a little too sharply, with no intention or hope of stopping. The front passenger side struck June in the midsection and sent her ten feet high and twenty feet forward, where, with a handful of Sam’s hair, she fell to the ground amidst a cloud of orange dust.

June bled out in the red clay on the shoulder of the road, and Sam never found the strength to love anyone else.

That was more than sixty years ago.

Still, it looks orange when it’s in the air and the sun’s on it. And it’s still easy to churn up: a gust of wind, when the women flap their mats and rugs out of windows or off the sides of front porches, or when pickup trucks take a right turn too sharply. Still, too, when you aren’t paying attention, it gets in your eyes and down in your throat.

– Jeremy S. Ford