Travelin Songs

A Collection of Imagined Historical Events

by

Janice Franklin Turner

A creative project submitted to Sonoma State University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS in English

Committee Members:

Stefan Kiesbye Anne Goldman

May 14, 2021

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Copyright 2021 By Janice Franklin Turner

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Authorization for Reproduction of Master’s Project

Permission to reproduce this project in its entirety must be obtained from me.

May 14, 2021 Janice Franklin Turner

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Travelin Songs A Collection of Imagined Historical Events

Creative project by Janice Franklin Turner

Abstract

The history of the United States has been fraught with contradictions that challenge the meaning of the values we have always professed. Despite it all, Black and other minoritized people have persevered, making lives within the conditions that they have been forced to exist. Yet, there is little in historical documents that captures the laughter, joy and sorrow that creates the soul of a minoritized people. These tales are historically reimagined gazes into Black lives that portrays that which makes us all human. Through this collection, voice is given to what can’t be found in historical documents in an effort to bridge that gap. When we were growing up my mother always told us, “All that don’t kill you will make you strong.” I spent time thinking about the power that exist behind these words as I created the details for each of the stories in this collection. We never thought about Mama’s statement in the literal sense, thinking to do so was much too morbid. Yet, that is exactly how she meant it. If you don’t die from all that happens in life, the hardship creates the strength needed to prepare you for that next awful thing that you must face. Not dying or persevering is what births what is to come. The connections between what is past and what becomes the future are bridged by moments that give it all meaning. I’m certain Mama never knew anything about the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsch. At least, I don’t think she did. I do know in another time and place; Mama would have likely been a writer.

MA Program: English

Sonoma State University

Date: May 14, 2021

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Acknowledgements

There were many people who allowed me to stand on their shoulders so that I might gain a better view of the universe. Thank you all for pushing me upward and never once letting my feet touch the ground.

I would like to thank my thesis advisors Professor Stefan Kiesbye and Dr. Anne Goldman of the Sonoma State University English Department. You both have patiently waded through the various iterations of my stories, offering advice and counsel.

Thank you, Dr. Chingling Wo, Sonoma State Graduate Coordinator. Each time I doubted myself you have been somewhere in the background insisting that I already had everything I needed to ensure my own success.

I would also like to thank Dr. Kim Hester Williams who gave me the gift of reading deeply the works of Tony Morrison and Herman Melville. What you taught me extends well beyond the ability to look behind the words on the page.

I would like to send heart-felt gratitude to Dr. Peter Blakemore, Professor Susan Nordlof and Professor David Holper at College of the Redwoods in Humboldt County. Thank you all for believing in me, even during periods when I doubted myself.

My husband, Ronald Turner, has faithfully washed the piles of dirty dishes and taken care of our fur baby Moe so that I could write uninterrupted. I thank you and I promise that soon I will be ready to take my turn at the kitchen sink.

One of my most profound gifts was provided by my daughter, Dr. Asilia Franklin-Phipps, who successfully turned the tables on the child/parent relationship to become my sounding board and my rock. I also want to thank my son, Jasiri Franklin-Phipps, who took the time to read my stories despite them not being Science Fiction.

I owe the greatest debt of gratitude to my mother and father who took the time to share their stories, thereby providing me the necessary context to write my own. Take my love in full payment, there is not enough money in the world to give you hard currency.

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Table of Contents

Critical Introduction …...……………………………………………………………… 1

Making Family ………………………………………………………………………. 17

The Relocation .………………………………………………………………………. 31

When Eddie Meets Leslie ……………………………………………………………. 52

The Game .……………………………………………………………………………. 73

Family & Fury ………………………………………………………………………... 85

Gumbo ………………………………………………………………………………. 101

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Certain kinds of trauma visited on peoples are so deep, so cruel, That unlike money, unlike vengeance, even unlike justice, or Rights, or the goodwill of others, only writers can translate and turn sorrow into meaning, sharpening the moral imagination.

Toni Morrison.

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Travelin Songs

A Collection of Imagined Historical Events

A Critical Introduction

Hearing voices has always been considered indicative of a mental health issue, but it’s more likely a writer buried beneath life’s minutia trying desperately to claw her way to sunlight.

Woman and writer, with the exception a few women acknowledged as gifted anomalies, are terms that have not been viewed as appropriately connected. To combine Black woman and writer as a singular identity has been considered ludicrous. Women, and Black women in particular, have been pathologized or worse, we pathologize ourselves by believing the inherent madness in women writing stories. We have been convinced that we are damaged, confused and our mental health has been seriously compromised. What other reasoning is there for voices trying desperately to make their way to a page? I reject these explanations for voices that have soothed me since my early years. I instead define them as ancestral absences that are demanding acknowledgement and remembrance. Not the socially constructed images that come to mind when viewing historical documents or history books written from a particular perspective. No, that is not what my voices speak of when the room is quiet, and the computer screen beams an incandescent light across my face. They speak of love, life’s conflicts and the ways that family connections provide the strength needed to persevere and become historical. There is no viable alternative but to defy expectations and be a writer. It provides a means to end the historical silence of my voices, making them extant and ensuring that the lives that were lived are both tangible and real. The only other alternative is to accept my own pathology. Now that is simply madness. 3

When thinking through the idea of a Creative Writing Culminating Project, I considered what I could write that would be interesting, engaging and important. Rather late in the program,

I thought about the family stories that circulated during holidays and family celebrations. Not complete stories, more like vignettes of family historical events presented from the singular perspective of the person speaking. Some of the story ideas came to me while remembering our rambunctious family dinners. Parts of them are definitely true, other parts are damned lies and drunken song. During all of them, imagined connections are woven between what was and what most certainly could have been. This is why I call it all fiction. It’s undoubtedly the most appropriate classification, with the exception of those times when it’s not. Each of us are free to imagine for ourselves the history behind our own existence. Isn’t that what has always happened in stories?

It’s funny to talk about historical events and imagination with the same breath of air.

There are those who would say that there is no imagination in history and any suggestion otherwise perverts its very meaning. It is my belief that history is actually a series of events seen through the eyes of a particular perspective that bring together imagined connections, purpose and causality. The individual perspective, by its very nature, provides ample room for an element of imagination. The varied history of the Native American people as it existed on these shores for thousands of years before the first White man placed one foot on sandy beach is noticeably absent in much of what we think of as American history. We instead imagine a history of this country that did not begin until the immigration of thousands from the European coast. The mundane history of the people who existed here during those prior thousands of years is devalued and effectively erased. When it comes to the historical existence of ordinary Black 4 folks, a similar concept of erasure is at play. Black history is an addendum that includes a sanitized version of slavery and the civil rights movement, with the truly ugly parts massaged over so it is more palatable. What if history, true history, survives within the telling of stories?

Not the chronological recitation of events, but the sentiments, heart and struggles of a people that lived, breathed and died in the margins of society. These stories live on in a microscopic sense, in family lore. In my family they are served up during holiday and Sunday dinners, along with copious amounts of food. These stories are precious because they fill the gaps left by a historical absence, creating a sense of shared experience and generational continuity. My mama’s table was full most Sundays and holidays. Not the conventional image of people sitting around a long dining room table quietly passing the potato salad and collard greens from one family member to another. No, the table was for all the food that relatives contributed to the meal, piled high on every inch of it. The family would form a line around the table and serve themselves buffet style.

They then took overflowing plates to sit on couches and chairs in the kitchen, living room and depending on the weather, outside on patio tables. It was a loud bunch, with people talking over one another, only getting quiet when there was a particularly good story being told, or when it was time to say grace. When we were very young, we listened to the adults talk and when we got older, would join in with our own version of family events. The noise level only decreased when family members began to file out of the house in the evenings with hands clinching bulging bags filled with leftovers. We might ask, is this history? Perhaps. Do they represent a true reflection of the past? Now that depends on what part of the evening that the stories are told, before or after the wine glasses begin circulating around the various rooms. The important thing to remember about history is that it is much more than a series of dry factual events. It is a testament to endurance. It can collectively define a people through hardship and joy, allowing for 5 ample space to make our own perceptions of who we are as people and family. As members transition in and out of this life, a potential exists for a different kind of erasure, the kind that loses the tenor of these stories as young ones are born and older ones die. This is what gave me the desire to reimagine these shared historical events, or damned lies if you prefer, into this collection. To capture those moments shared while sitting down for a meal with a room full of family, some actually invited, others not, and memorialize them for later when life provides time for contemplation. I’ve come to the realization that the veracity of these retold events is not important, nor are the reimagined details that I have surrounded them with. What does matter is a family’s propensity to make a way out of no way and by virtue of this perseverance, write themselves into a place well beyond history. Maya Angelou says it best with the first stanza of her 1978 poem, Still I Rise.

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise…

When I conceived of this collection, I was most influenced by Toni Morrison’s first novel, Beloved (3). One of my classes at Sonoma State was with Professor Kim Hester Williams who centered her discussions on stories written by Morrison and Herman Melville (16). I took the class because I simply had to know what kind of connection could possibly exist between a whale and stories about identity and race. I’ve already confessed to being moderately nosy, or maybe the more appropriate classification is extremely nosy. I simply had to know. I was captivated by the section in her syllabus titled, “Whiteness, Blackness and Discontents of

American Identity.” It challenged me to consider the underlying realties of race and identity and the ways these realities shape and form life’s possibilities, or lack thereof. In the case of Beloved, 6

I was rivetted by the backstory that became the novel. The story grew from a news account

Morrison had read of Margaret Garner, a slave who attempts to murder her children to prevent their return to slavery (Haselhorst). Morrison does not write a historical account of what happens to Margaret Garner. In fact, what actually happens to her is not relevant to the telling of the tale.

What’s important is the crafting that transforms Margaret Garner from a depraved woman who would murder her own children to a mother faced with unspeakable choices. The story she tells is deep, revealing and perfectly situated to show rather than tell why a mother would brutally murder her own children in an ultimate act of love. The telling of the fictional account is what brings humanity to the woman in the actual news story. We are transformed by this newfound humanity and view the historical record, the newspaper article, as trite and lacking the details necessary to capture the essence of what must have happened. I realized that this is what makes

Beloved a truly exceptional work. Her ability to humanize an unspeakable act and shape it into a true condemnation of the system that creates the desperation that would make a mother contemplate it. I was hooked, interrogating historical times and conditions that challenge our notion of what is moral made me want more. I began to think about how the fictional reimagining of events can humanize and make real the lives of invisible people. The family stories that I had listened to all of my life can be brought to life, creating a sense of the time and conditions that existed during the periods represented by them. Would important context be added if I considered them within the historical times and conditions that existed during the purported times that they occurred? What if I was to reimagine the details surrounding these events, paying particular attention to the contours of gender and race? Would the factual details, long lost in the telling, truly matter if the sentiments, flavor and conditions could be effectively captured? Most importantly, would they make good stories? Finding the answer to these 7 questions began to gather momentum and importance. I had to listen to the voices. They were growing louder the more I contemplated how each event might have unfolded.

As the family voices began to speak, I start to see them from a different, more expanded perspective. These crumbs of the historical would tell a story of family, race, identity and the ways restrictions on the female body can drive actions and effect history. These contextual matters determine the course of the lives of the people I write about and the stories that grew from what is remembered or imagined. It’s what makes the actual truth irrelevant and perhaps, even unknowable. If the voice of the storyteller changes, so does the story. Is the protagonist young or old? Is he male or is she female? We all see things from the chair in which we sit. If we are a young Black Southern girl’s 1950’s era body, what we remember, what we see as cathartic is very different than a pair of male eyes looking backwards in time. When crafting the story When Eddie Meets Leslie, it was very important to remember that. It’s here that I needed to call the young female voice of the 1950’s to tell me the story. The voice that embodies the young female perspective, including the sounds, the smells and the sentiments of that era. The story is loosely based on the teenage years of my mother, but it is not her story. What belongs to her are the emotions that the music brought back from that period when I found the songs on the internet. I held the phone next to my computer so that she could listen. Mama lives miles away and the restrictions of the pandemic denied me an opportunity to see the expression that was undoubtedly on her face as she listened. The drug store is hers, the one she describes that contains a soda fountain and bar stools. Bar stools that she could not sit on because she was born

Black. Her descriptions of the movie theater in her hometown, the one that had the colored section in the balcony. This is the information that was needed to find the voice of the protagonist Leslie. Once found, she spoke to me of her hopes and dreams in a voice of a child 8 filled with the same things that are important to most teenage girls at fifteen. She told me about how a young girl becomes a wife and a mother because during that time, society dictates that she must. An event certain to bring changes to what was possible for her own life and the lives that came after. As this young female protagonist told me her story, I began to see beyond the telling to the hopes and dreams of a teenage girl in the mid-1950s. Hopes and dreams tempered and shaped by race and gender. I listened to her story, then I wrote it down on the page.

Gumbo, the last story, did not require phone calls or internet searches for music. It comes from my own memory of a period in the early 80s when Black women were made to feel that their choices serve to reinforce all that is ingrained in the Black Single Mother construct. It is similar to Leslie’s because historical times have a way of demanding that we yield to them. It is a societal lie, but a damaging one. We learn from her grandmother’s story, Makin Family that conventions are made to be broken. A Black single mother is not inherently inferior; her children are not doomed, and she is not an object to be judged, pathologized or fixed. Societal judgement still creeps into her psyche, causing her to doubt herself and question her decision to make a life with children and no husband. She is accused, much like Mama’s gumbo recipe, of adding ingredients to life that do not belong and by virtue of this addition, changing how she is defined by society. As women, we will destroy ourselves and our children should we allow others to determine how best to see us and how best to envision the future of our children. Gumbo tells a story that reminds us that we choose and as we choose, we define ourselves. These historical times were, and continue to be, tainted by historical documents. One such document, penned by

Daniel Patrick Moynihan and simply known as the Moynihan report, treated single mothers as evidence of a pathology that leads to the destruction of the Black family (United, pp.8-10). A heavy burden to place on the shoulders of women trying desperately to make a way for herself 9 and her children. This story allows us to see past the historical evidence that attempts to define her, to the humanity of a woman who is encouraged to define herself.

In all of these stories, the overarching circumstances of the times is steeped in oppression, racial discrimination and stifling gender roles that are designed to murder the spirit. People existed in these conditions and as a result, were limited in their ability to become all that they were capable of being. A condition that places a proverbial knee on neck, suffocating futures and crippling subsequent generations. Those circumstances; however, are not the point of the stories.

The more worthy tale is one of resilience, an uncanny ability of a people to endure despite all that has been engineered for their destruction. They prevailed, and in that continuity, they become families that disintegrated, reconfigured and reconstituted themselves. Making memories, adding value and thriving within the adversity that life placed at their feet on the day they were born. The ground is made fertile and the missing Marigolds from Morrison’s The

Bluest Eye spring forth in all their glory (3). When life produced separate theater seating, law enforcement that brings fear as opposed to feelings of safety and female roles that constrict, we sometimes forget that beauty is still created in the gardens closest to home. In the historical world, Black women may never fit into the image that life creates for princesses because our foot ain’t never gonna fit into that glass slipper. Rather than despair, we will continue to grow visions of ourselves outside of convention and with our hands, create beauty just beyond the margins.

In keeping with my efforts to emphasize a sense of standing outside of convention, the stories I’ve included in this collection utilizes African American Vernacular English (AAVE). I had no choice. The voices of my creations insisted on it. There was no better way to capture the love that they expressed, the disappointment that they felt and the sorrow that they experienced.

The sounds and spelling were difficult to capture in writing, since AAVE changes depending on 10 whether it is spoken in an urban or rural setting and can be impacted by the age of the speaker.

Language is funny that way. It’s the characteristics that must exist to keep it vibrant and alive.

The early stories echo southern speakers, reflecting my family’s origins in places such as South

Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama. The tone and cadence of later stories reflects the speaker’s migration from the south into Southern California. The south remained on the tongue but was tempered and changed by a more urban environment and a mixture of people from various other places. When I was young, I spoke the variety that was created by this mixing of my southern origins with the urban environment of my new home. The constant trips from south to west and back again meant that I had a good ear for both. As time passed and I moved through college and into a professional life, it grew faint over time. Imagine my joy when my voices appeared, and I began to hear the familiar music. It was beautiful and it made me feel reclaimed.

This pursuit of an identity as writer has been amazingly reflective. Much of what creates a person comes about by drifting with life’s currents and attempting to do what’s expected. We are told to keep feet firmly on the ground, be practical and reap life’s rewards. Those damned voices, however, continue to disrupt all of our efforts. The resulting stories became examples of contradictions between what is said to be impossible but is actually within reach. I’m immensely glad that I listened to them. They set me on the path to become writer because once the thought took hold, it didn’t occur to me that it was impossible. I believe that these voices are the same ones that drove forward the telling of stories at these family dinners. Conventions can’t always be defied outright, but sometimes there is just enough room to maneuver around them. Growing this collection of stories allows me to imagine the personalities, attitudes, and perseverance of generations past and not so past. Most importantly, to see beyond the stories to the endurance and grace that was required to bring forth people who could tell them. This is what lives in the 11 pages created from those bits of family lore. Making human the suffering of any given time and recognizing the perseverance that births the future that makes all things possible.

This collection of stories is my first offering, because like the lives that inspire stories, more are constantly unfolding. While writing, I began to collect other family tidbits, more damn lies and a smidgen of the supernatural. Each person I asked for clarification on an aspect of one family lore whispered of other things previously unknown. “You have to call Great Aunt so and so because she knows all that stuff. Make certain to have lunch handy, she’s gonna talk all day!”

This has made for a truly important journey for me. So much of life is lived without consideration of all that happens in the past to bring a family to the point where this writer sits.

Now that the past is more acutely present, there is a desire to travel to the places that older folks continue to speak about and find the things that they described in our conversations. When I do, I know that other voices will be waiting. Voices that want to be heard. Voices that want to breathe life on page after page. Of course, I must listen and then I must write. Each story will teach me something previously unknown about myself and I will be transformed, yet again. It is how things must be. How else will I avoid a psychiatrist’s couch? Hopefully, these additional voices are just as impactful to my readers who may recognize a familiar sentiment, a moment in time or maybe an echo from their own family stories. I’m hopeful that future information, either historical document or oral storytelling, will inspire an imagined presence during slavery or even much earlier, adding ever more complexity to the human existence.

When I decided to define myself as writer, I was determined to pursue it as I would a lover, singularly focused and madly passionate. It started with taking classes just to be around people who also hear voices. I admit, I often felt out of place because I am generally sitting with people younger than grandchildren would be, had either of my children made me any. I was 12 intimidated, although they were not. These young people were my first lucky break. When my voice was shaky, they encouraged me. It soon became stronger. When we read our work in class, they applauded, even when my voice was almost inaudible. As time went by, I grew louder as my confidence grew. These first encounters with people who wanted to be writers were as important as the Professor who wanted to teach us. I think of these early colleagues often as I work on my revisions. I remember the first day of my poetry writing class at College of the

Redwoods in Humboldt County. I sat behind a young woman barely out of high school. The instructor asked that we share something different about ourselves. For the first time, I admitted the existence of my voices. The young woman twisted almost completely around in her chair and exclaimed, “I hear them too!” It was then that I begin to feel a kinship with writing. I was no longer an imposter, nor an undiagnosed mental patient. In that room full of quirky, wonderful and talented people, I finally felt normal.

I didn’t start seriously writing this collection of stories when I really needed to. In workshops I wrote stories, but not many that actually became a part of this collection. I always thought I had plenty of time. I did not. If I could do this all again, I would begin my focus on my

Creative Project as soon as I began the program. When I first started, I was excited about trying everything. I wanted to write poetry. I wanted to take literature classes and I wanted to teach. It was all new again. All of this joy in doing it all meant that my focus on this final collection was late in coming. Yet, I know that I benefited tremendously from my seasoned time in life. I didn’t have young children to navigate through a pandemic induced on-line learning experience, or a professional career that required I create space in my home at the same time as space for school.

I know that this continues to be the story of many of my cohort and I wonder how they will ever get through this. For me, the lack of an early start was strangely mitigated by the virus that tied 13 us to home. While others in my neighborhood parented, worked and gardened on good days, I wrote stories. The voices of my characters were clear, and I benefited greatly from “a room of my own” as Virginia Woolf would say (Deshaver,16). I continue to write during days after teaching and grading. I wrote on Saturdays and Sundays and during anniversaries and birthdays.

It has been an amazing year, filled with tragedy and strangely, opportunity. Most days, there was simply nothing else inspiring to do but write. I’m not certain if I would have been able to make the progress I did with this collection at any other time. Yet, serious negotiations were required with my voices and I continue to make apologies to them still. “I’m sorry I did not listen when you tried to speak to me earlier. Please speak to me now, I am ready to listen.” Had they not obliged, the silence would have left me in despair. The valuable lesson learned about writing during the Covid-19 pandemic is that my writing will be enhanced if I never forget this period.

When there is a deadline, close the door to every possible thing outside and write like there is absolutely nothing else to do. It is an important lesson that I plan to take forward. I do wish that I could say that I’m naturally disciplined and would have achieved what I have during another time. I acknowledge that I’m not that person, yet. I have improved greatly with this forced period of quiet and loss of activity.

In thinking through how best to classify my work, I’d have to say that it is a means to create an historical rendition of what might have occurred in the past. Our family, like most

African American families, have always discussed our past within the framework of an oral tradition. Someone who remembers something shares it. Other people who may remember it differently vehemently disagrees. In the ensuing shouting back and forth, a picture emerges. As the past is made distant with each subsequent generation, the tenor of the times slowly dies and those who kept our secrets safe no longer loudly argue about which version is most accurate. I 14 wanted to create a means to hold on to parts of this. Not in the historical sense because that is no longer possible. What I’m speaking of is the sentiments, thoughts and experiences of a people learned during shouting matches over dinner. A means to allow an imagining of what might have been. The old slave narratives, such as Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

(DeShaver, 507) and Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

(Gates, 114), may continue to generate debate about their historical accuracy. They capture; however, a wonderful essence of the times in which they both lived and wrote about. This is what this collection is designed to do. To give us a sense of the times when people, such as the ones I write about, may have lived. With current debates raging that minimize the impact of slavery in the United States, these works are critical in cementing experiences into the historical framework that we will continue to argue about. When later generations read my stories, my hope is that it provides a similar feeling of being grounded in a different period. Everyone needs to come from someplace, whether it be real or imagined. It makes me think of Mathew 1:1-17, which details the genealogy of Jesus (649). Where the Bible says he came from is deemed so very important that it took seventeen verses to write it all down. All of us need a sense of the past that adds context to the lives we now live. Sometimes we just want to name the thing that made us. I would like to think that I have taken the pieces of family history provided and imagined my own.

I would like to say that this collection has been difficult to write. It seems so in vogue to imagine me in my cluttered room with discarded earlier drafts of stories tossed about the floor and furniture. Imagine me sitting in my chair in front of my window. I’m being tormented by thousands of angry voices demanding memorialization by fingers pounding relentlessly on the keyboard of my computer. Well, part of that might be true, but the difficult to write part isn’t. 15

Each story literally flew from my head to the keyboard. The only hard part was the procrastination that gave me no time to think more about all of the imagined connections that could possibly have existed and are yet to be made. Maybe in the next revision. There is always one more, right? One more revision...

If I were going to place this collection in the wider market of short stories, I would say it would find it’s home in the historical framework of Morrison’s Beloved and A Mercy. Both of these novels carve out a historical time where African American voices were absent and offers a new, previously unconsidered perspective. Morrison has moved the world beyond the objectified body of slave and property into something much bigger, grander and more meaningful. By virtue of this perspective, she creates humanity where it was once missing. She made her characters real people. She gave them historical significance and a tangible existence. I’m in awe of

Morrison’s talent for storytelling and am just getting to the point where I’m not too intimidated to study the beauty of the writing undergirding the stories. This is what I’m attempting to do with my own stories. Ultimately, my desire is to make connections between then and now. You see, all things are connected, including attitudes, prejudices and the entire construct of the objectified

Black body of the past, as well as how it will manifest itself in the future. Today, the previous understanding of how African Americans are defined as a people is blasting against the perceptions created by historically derived perspectives contributed by people who never knew any. My collection seeks to reimagine the history that is presumed to be true, replacing it with the humanity of the people that lived, worshipped and died during our most shameful historical periods. Hopefully, it helps to make space in the current discourse for a greater appreciation of why it is important to unequivocally say, Black Lives Matter.

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Works Cited

Angelou, Maya. The Complete Poetry. First ed. Random House, New York, 2015. Print. p.159

DeShazer, Mary K, ed. The Longman Anthology of Women’s Literature. New York: Longman, 2001. Print.

Sarah Haselhorst. “It Wasn’t Just Freedom Taken Away from Her.” Cincinnati Enquirer (Cincinnati, Ohio :1872) [Cincinnati, Ohio] 2020: Cincinnati Enquirer (Cincinnati, Ohio :1872), 2020-08-02. Web.

“Holy Bible,” The New King James Bible. Thomas Nelson, Inc. 1979.

Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. Bantam Dell, New York. 2003.

Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1987.

---, The Bluest Eye, First Vintage International Edition, New York. 1970.

---, A Mercy, Alfred A. Knopf, New York. 2008.

---, “Peril.” The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations. Alfred A. Knopf. 2019. (p. ix)

Gates, Henry L. Jr. Smith, Valerie A. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. Third Edition, Vol. 1, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. New York. 2014.

United States Department of Labor, Office of Policy Planning Research, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. [For Sale by the Supt. Of docs., U.S. Govt. Print. Off.] National Capital Technical Report; No. 3

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Makin Family

Squattin partially behind a large barrel of pickles sittin on the porch of the general store in St. Elmo, Alabama, I peek at my babies playin in a Magnolia tree across the street. I can smell the spicy sweetness of the big white flowers dottin the leaves from where I crouch. My boy

James is perched on the outer branch, cocoonin his younger sister Leslie on the part of the tree closest to the trunk. They share a single peach between the two of um, passin it from one dirty hand to another, each takin one bite. I fixate on that peach goin back and forth, back and forth, hopin that it will quiet the heart poundin beneath the buttons of my best yellow dress. James turns his face toward the store, swingin one ashy leg with the same back and forth motion as the peach. I can clearly see his face, but my Leslie, I only see the hem of her dress twisted odd-like around a bony knee and that one hand passin off that peach. My arms ache for them, as tears well up in my eyes and I rummage one hand through my purse for my hankie while leanin against the pickle barrel. I gotta be patient. I gotta wait to get the timin right. Anythin can go wrong. Too much at stake. Ten more minutes. The bus will come in 10 more minutes. Two hours before Noog (James, Sr.) gets home from work. Plenty of time if he don’t come home early. My head turns slowly to look down the street where a clock hangs high on a tower of a big white church at the end of the block. I talk to God. “Please don’t let them white folks get suspicious of me hangin around the side of this here store. I don’t want none of these rakes, brooms and garden buckets stacked against the wall near the colored folk’s entrance. I’m a good

Christian woman. My only aims is to steal them babies hangin on the lower branch of that

Magnolia tree.”

“Das us’es Mama!” the boy shouts, pointin a finger directly at me and ignorin the half- eaten peach that his sister is tryin to pass back to him. My girl drops the peach to the ground and 18 grabs hold of little James’ shirt to steady herself, all whiles leanin over so she can see in the direction of his finger.

“No it ain’t,” she forcefully declares.

“Dat is us’es Mama,” little James says, cuppin one hand over his eyes to block the sun so that he can see me better.

When he lifts up his hand, his hold on that tree gets shaky and Leslie is leanin closer to him, with one hand holdin on to his shirt. I imagine my babies tumblin outta that tree and fallin to the ground, so I rise up and began loudly callin on Jesus. “Lord have mercy! Please don’t let my babies fall out of that tree!”

I drop handbag and hankie to the porch and run right out of my shoes in the direction of the Magnolia, swingin both arms to the heavens and hollerin “oh my God. I can’t get this close to gettin my babies only to have them break they necks while gawkin at they Mama! Lord, have mercy!”

“What was I thinkin? Selfish, just selfish! I didn’t sit on the back of that bus for all them hours just to get here and watch my babies fall to the ground and bust they heads wide open!” I get to the tree and stretch out my arms for the littlest one first,

“Sister, you get down here right now! I mean it girl, you come down here to yo Mama!”

The child drops from the tree into my arms, leavin sticky peach juice and dirt all over the back of my good dress. The boy scampers down next, first danglin by one arm holdin onto the branch and reachin for me, then droppin into my arms just as his sister shimmies down my leg. I kneel down in the grass with the weight of him against me, grab my girl again and hold them tight against my chest. I’m bawlin, he’s bawlin, and little Leslie is curiously lookin from one of us to the other, not really certain about what’s happenin. She was barely four when Poppa 19 dropped them off at they Daddy’s to live with him and his new wife, little James barely six. It’s been two years since I’ve laid eyes on my kids. Of course, she don’t remember me. I’m not gonna let um go now. Ain’t never gonna let um go.

“Ma’am, you don left yo shoes an purse.”

I look-up to see the old gentleman that sat next to me on my way to St. Elmo. He has kind eyes.

Good ears and kind eyes. He didn’t judge me like Poppa did.

“Y’all better hurry. Bus gonna be leavin soon.”

I look up. The bus is indeed at the stop, loadin passengers. I take my shoes from his hand and put them on, grab my purse and take my babies by the hand. I know if James comes willingly, Leslie will follow. He did. She did. He did not forget me. He knowed his Mama was gonna come get him. Always knowed I was comin.

“You get going now gal, hurry on up!” urges the old man from the bus.

“Thank you, kindly Suh,” I say, tippin my head in respect.

I fast walk to the back of the line, holdin one kid wid each hand. There’s some curious white folks lookin on, actin more entertained than interested, pointin and laughin. As we wait our turn to get on the bus, I worry that one of um might try n stop me. Last thing I need is to deal with some small-town sheriff in Alabama! None of um did though, they jus kept pointin and laughin. All right by me, iffn it mean I get outta here with my babies. They soon go back to whatever they was doin when the commotion started. I guess Black folk’s business ain’t worth gettin too concerned about. I ain’t never been this happy bout white folks not havin no concern bout black folk’s business in all the days of my life! 20

We get on the bus when it’s our turn, and I hand the driver the tickets that I bought in

Mobile. Me and the kids, we head toward the colored section behind the sign. I turn toward the children and ask um bout they stepmama.

“Where Doretha at, whiles y’all bout to bust yo head’s open climbin up trees?”

James answers, “she don’t pay us no mind,” and then his face lights up in a wide grin. “She only come lookin for us just fore time for Daddy to get home from work. We play outside till then.”

Leslie is sittin between me and James. James turns to look out the window as the bus pulls off on the first leg of the trip to Mississippi. Leslie slides her hand over and puts it in mine and looks up with wonder,

“You our Mama, huh?”

I shake my head, yeah. “I’m yo Mama. I come to take you back home with me. Is that all right wid you?”

“Guess so,” she whispers.

She lays her head in my lap and puts her dirty bare feet across James’ legs, holdin on to my hand until she falls asleep. I am so thankful that God let me get my children back that I only spend a minute thinkin about slappin that hussy my ex-husband married right upside her head.

Lettin my children wander around town like they stray puppies all day long by theyselves. I do declare!

When I get to the place where I stop lookin back, expectin to see my ex-husband’s truck come barrelin down on us, I relax and think about what just happened. I get on a bus with two barefoot, dirty kids that I ain’t seen in two years, my kids. We’s sight for sore eyes. My dress is dirty, and my good stockins is ripped. I look over at my James, the eldest of these here two, he is starin out the window, excitedly watchin the scenery change. Leslie is still sleepin with her head 21 in my lap. I lightly touch the braids in her hair, one at the top of her head and two in the back. I can’t help but wonder bout the mysterious ways of God. When I went back to Mobile to Poppa’s to get my kids back, he said he took um to somebody with some damn sense. You coulda jus knocked me over with a feather! My kids, jus gone. All three of um. Poppa say,

“What kind of self-respectin woman leave her husband and go traipsin off by herself talkin bout gettin divorced Alee. You think you too good to act like a proper woman? Good

God, girl, whatcha got goin on up in that head of yourn?” Talkin bout walkin off leavin yo babies. Let you husband run off after he git off work to chase tail all over dis here county.

Y’all young people jus don’t know what to do wid yoselfs. Damn fools, all of ya. If you ask me, it’s jus disgraceful!”

“Poppa, I gotta go. It like I can’t breathe up in that house wid him. Noog don’t

love me no more and I ain’t even mad about it. I don’t care what he chase. We ain’t got nothin to say to each other no more. Neither one of us feel like pretendin and he for sho don’t care where I go. Jus let Mama take care of my babies till I get back.” I’m gonna find work an save some money, then come back n git um. Y’all got plenty to eat around here on the farm. Mama say she don’t mind watchin um till I get back. I gotta find a new life for me and my babies. It sho ain’t around here.”

“What the hell do dat mean? You can’t breathe? Ain’t never heard no nonsense like dat in all the days of my life. Wife, what’s wrong wid this here daughter of yourin. You musta not raised her right! Puttin all that crazy shit in her head. I can’t breathe? I’ll jus be damned!”

When he done beratin Mama, he turns back towards me. Drippin spit from the side of his mouth, he looks at me wid disgust, 22

“What kinda shit is dis? What you think women supposed to do? Take care the house, fix the food, take care her babies, help in the fields. Not talkin about some crazy shit like I can’t breathe. You go on back to James (Noug) where you belong now. Y’all was all hot n bothered bout gittin married. Wasn’t thinkin bout that breathin shit then. You just go on back home where you belong! Dirty stankin heifer.”

With that, Poppa stomps out of the side door of the kitchen and heads back to the fields, leavin me standin there with my mouth still open. Poppa always did get the last word in.

That afternoon, I left the kids with Mama. It’s gonna be painfully hard for them to stay with Poppa, but they won’t miss no meals and Mama got plenty of love for the three of um. She never gonna say anythin bad bout Poppa, but I knows she understands that what I was bout to do was something that needed doin. That’s why my little girl name Leslie. She named after her.

She got a good heart. If she thought she could, maybe she woulda left Poppa a long time ago. I wouldn’t blame her if she did, that cantankerous old coot. If it wasn’t for Mama, I woulda given him more than a piece o my mind. Never did learn to treat her right. I swear, the names he calls his daughters, dirty stankin heafer!. Now that’s disgraceful!

That evenin, I take a bus to Mississippi to my older sister’s house to stay wid her and her husband. Never thought for one minute that Poppa would do me dirty and send my kids away. I woulda found another way iffn I knowed that’s what he was gonna do. I swear. I woulda found another way.

It was hard livin in Mississippi, but I save up my money takin in laundry and cleanin up houses. Even met a travelin preacher, whiles I was washin clothes for him and his boys. We married now. He already had a house, so I just moved on in. Then, I tell him that I’m gonna go get my kids and we be one big family. Course, when I get back to Alabama and go to Poppa’s 23 house, they’s all gone and he wouldn’t tell me what he did wid um. I went from house to house in the whole neighborhood askin all the relatives what Poppa did with my kids. Finally, Mama slips out the house to meet me at Aunt Aileen’s place. Told me that Poppa took little James and

Leslie to they Daddy in St. Elmo because he got a new wife that could raise um right. I wonder if she that tail Poppa was talkin bout when I left? If that’s her, how she supposed to be the one with some damn sense, runnin around wid a married man? Mama don’t know where he took my oldest boy Lisco, but she be lookin and listenin for some information. She say he got up early one mornin and took um someplace and came home the next day without um. Won’t tell nobody where he at now.

“He knows, soon as I find out I’m gonna tell yah,” says my Aunt Aileen. “Cause that ain’t right. He just mean. That’s all it is. He just mean and nasty. Been that way for long as I knowed him. Leslie, I still don’t know why you married that man. I swear I don’t! You got some fine kids but can’t say dat it mean you gotta be stuck wid him. Hell, it’s 1946. Stayin together gotta be good for the woman and it gotta be good for the man!”

“Now Aileen,” is alls Mama would say. She just holdin her hands together like she was prayin. She look wore out. That’s what Poppa do to women. Just wears um out. People say she was a real looker in her day. He just sucks the beauty right outta her. He my Daddy in all, but I got nothin good to say bout him. Imma just find my babies and be done wid him.

Aunt Aileen and Mama reach over and give me a big hug. I just about broke down then.

Both of um rock and rock me for what seem like forever. When all I got left is dry heaves,

Mama pulls a knotted hankie that she had pinned to the inside of her blouse and wraps my hand around it. Aunt Aileen slips more money into the pocket of my dress. 24

“Rest for now. In the morning, you go get dem babies,” Mama say. “Don’t you worry.

Soon as we find out where he took Lisco, we gonna let you know. You tell that new husband of yourn that we is good people.”

Aunt Aileen adds, “Except for Poppa. We don’t know what happen to him!”

Mama gives Aunt Aileen a sideways disapprovin glance, and then silently slips out the door throwin one last kiss as the screen door screeches shut.

I spend the night on a pallet on the livin room floor, get up and leave early the next mornin. I want to be at the station fore it open, so I can be the first one in line to get me a ticket to St. Elmo. On my way to the bus station, I seen Poppa workin in the fields nearest to the road.

He is standin there, all satisfied wid hisself. When I get in hearin distance, he shouts out, “bout time you take yo nasty ass on back to where you came from. Comin up here upsettin yo Mama the way you done. I had to slap her silly to make her shut her ass up bout them damn kids last night!”

Don’t know what come over me. He standin there tellin me bout how he slappin my mama around! She finally gets up enough nerve to say somethin bout the awful things he do, an that’s how he acts? I reach down on the side of the road and pick-up the biggest rock I can find, take aim an sling that rock right at his head! Always been good with my throwin. Course liftin up all that wet laundry over the last two years really improved my throwin arm. I hear this thunk and I knows that rock done found it’s mark just fine. I snatch my shoes off my feet and take-off down the road runnin, cause I knows he gonna be powerful mad after gettin hit in the noggin like that. When I get to the fork in the road is when I feel the first bullet whizz past my head. Only thing I can think about is, “O Lord, I knows I’m gonna die now. Ain’t gonna never get my babies back!” That’s when the second bullet whizz past my head, and that one is even closer 25 than the first! I cut across the fields through rows of corn and beans and zigzag my way to the creek. The closest place to get to is some poor white folks livin on the other side. Can’t say that

I’m gonna be safer there but not like I gotta choice. There ain’t no doubt about what Poppa wanna do to me. At least I can deny him the satisfaction of shootin me hisself. I run through the creek, then up to the back door, shove it open and run in.

Sittin at the table in the kitchen is a young white woman, around my age when I had my first young’un. She tryin to breast feed this scrawny screamin baby. She cryin, he cryin. She looks up at me and say, “He ain’t gettin enough milk. He gonna die soon.”

I walk over to the table, drippin water all over her floor. “How you know he gonna die soon?”

“Ain’t that what happen to babies when they can’t get enough milk? Iffn my Mam was here, she’d know what to do.”

“You mean yo mama? Where she at?”

“She dead. Died just before we move here.”

“I’m so sorry,” I say, creepin a little closer. “Y’all all by yoselves then. Why don’t you ask the midwife?”

“We don’t know many peoples around here. We ain’t too long come here to live with my

Uncle. I birth my baby boy all by myself. That weren’t hard. If I can jus make enough milk, then everythin be all right.”

“My Aunt Aileen might know somebody that can help you. She not a midwife, but she knows a lot bout other folk’s business. You got a wagon? We can go there, but I gotta hide in the back.” 26

“You ain’t one a them convicts, are you? Why you gotta hide in the back? Why you all wet girl?”

“You gonna ask me that now? I run in your kitchen drippin wet wid you and yo baby and you jus decide to ask me if I’m one a dem convicts? No, I ain’t. Iffn I was a convict, it probably be too late for you to be askin.”

“Probably not a convict then. Why you runnin in the back door of my house like that?

“Poppa tryin to kill me. I hit um in the head with a rock.”

“You hit your Pappy in the head with a rock?” she started laughin so hard I thought she might drop the baby!

“Quit laughin, it ain’t that funny! You need my help and I need yourn. It ain’t like we got all day to figure this out. Your husband ain’t gonna be mad if you leave, is he?”

“Ain’t got no husband. It’s just me and my Pappy. My beau in the army. Pappy got real mad when he found out about me being in the family way. We moved way back here so my beau can’t find us, I’m sure of it. Wish I could hit my Pappy in the head with a rock!”

“Where yo Pappy at? If he anythin like Poppa, I don’t wanna be here when he gets back.”

“Him and my Uncle gone huntin. Won’t be home till late tonight. Let’s go. Wagon’s out front. I’ll go get the horse; you hold the baby.”

Mary Louise and me get back to Aunt Aileen’s place wid me hidin under some blankets in the back. Aunt Aileen, once she gets over a white girl with a baby showin up at her door, really takes a likin to um both. She help her find a neighbor lady wid a new baby and plenty of milk. Aunt Aileen was really happy to see me too. She was truly glad Poppa didn’t get me. She found a pretty yellow dress and stockings in her closet that fit me just fine. The dress got tiny 27 purple flowers and large buttons down the front. Aunt Aileen always been handy with a needle and thread. She can make just bout anythin. She got a closet full of dresses. More dresses than anybody I ever knowed.

“You can’t go showin up to get yo babies all wet and dirty,” she says. Go on get cleaned up whiles Mary Louise gets the baby fed. When she get back, have her drop you off at the bus station on her way home. Don’t let Poppa see you! You know how he is.”

“What bout Mama? He say he had to slap her around last night? He better not have hurt my mama!”

“Don’t you worry bout yo mama. Poppa might huff and puff, but he ain’t gonna get too crazy. He hurt yo mama, he won’t be able to close dem eyes at night. I knows my sister. She be all right. It’s them quiet ones you really gotta watch. They get all riled up, ain’t no tellin what might happen when the sun go down.”

Mary Louise drops me off at the bus station on her way back home. We laugh all the way, wid me under the blanket in the back of the wagon and she in the front. That baby jus as fat and happy as he wanna be. She want me to tell her over and over how I throwed that rock and hit Poppa in the head. I tell her, “don’t be makin no plans to see if it gonna work wid yo Pappy.

It ain’t easy for a woman to run and harder still when she got a baby to worry bout. Don’t go off n leave yo baby nowheres,” I tell her. “You might not be able to get him back. I knows I ain’t leavin St Elmo without my babies, but my Lisco, I just don’t know how I’m gonna find him. If I thought I was gonna lose any of my babies, I wouldn’t have left um wid Mama. I think I woulda found another way. Promise me Mary Louise, don’t do nothin foolish.”

“I ain’t gonna hit my Pappy in the head with a rock. He deserves it though. I got no family with enough to take us in. Got no choice right now but to be where I am. I know that.” 28

“You keep tryin to get word to your Beau. You gonna find him. Iffn I come back this way, I’m gonna to see if you still here. Bet you and the baby be gone, sittin pretty wid somebody glad to see you comin. Appreciate what all you done for me, gettin me to the bus station an all.”

“I’m more thankful than you can ever be. Now I knows some women folk around these parts. I feel like me and my baby boy gonna be all right for now. We women gotta stick together an help each other. Lord knows we can’t depend on men folk to do it.

Sometime when they supposed to love us, they just don’t. You go on now. Go get your kids back.”

I hop out the back of the wagon and head into the bus station, keepin one eye out for

Poppa. I buy one ticket to St. Elmo, Alabama, and three tickets back to Mississippi. I don’t know how yet, but one thing I’m certain of, I’m gonna get my babies back.

When me and the kids get to the next long stop, I buy some food from the back of a roadside café, and we sit outside on the bus station steps to eat. I tell um they got another Daddy name Daddy Ben and he gonna help take good care of them. Tell um that they got two new brothers. They’ll be four boys when we find our Lisco. “Just think Sister, you got four brothers now.”

“Dat don’t sound fun to me. Got James. Don’t need no mo brothers. Don’t member

Lisco. He ain’t mean, is he? Don’t like mean boys.”

I watch the two of um. Leslie ignores the plate of macaroni and cheese I sit in front of her and takes her fork to eat from James’ plate. When they both finish the one plate, they reach for the other and both eat from that one. I knowed then that Ben and me, we gonna have to work real hard to make this one family. Real hard. Ben is a good man. He loves God and he loves me 29 and say he gonna love my kids like I love his. When I’m with him, I can breathe. It just feels like love. These kids though, made a tight circle around each other. We gonna have to find a way to get them to let the rest of us in. When we find Lisco, we gonna have to bring him in too.

I wipe they’re faces best I can, and we get back on the bus. By and by, we get back to

Pascagoula, Mississippi and Ben is there waitin at the station. I can see him even before the bus come to a stop. He real easy to pick outta the crowd cause he tall and he got that patch of grey hair in the front of his head, and of course, a grin a mile wide. When we pile out of the bus, he grabs me and swings me around, then bends down to the level of the kids,

“So, these is ours too? My, my, look what the Lord has brought us!” That’s my Ben.

Not one word about dirty faces, bare feet and nothin in the way of cloths but what is on they backs. The question is in the way his head tilts slightly to the side when he looks back up at me.

Hopefully, he won’t be askin right away. It’s gonna take me awhile to put all what happened into some words.

When Noog find out that the kids is gone, he gets real mad for a while. Madder than a wet hen. He knows that Doretha ain’t gonna take care of our babies like they mama is. Hell, she didn’t even know I had got um till she went lookin for um later that day. Me and Noog, we don’t love each other no more, but we both got some powerful love for these here kids. Say if he knowed where Lisco is, he’d tell me. I believe that he would. He works on the trains, so when he got finished being awfully mad, he come to visit every couple of weeks. That’s fine, as long as he leaves that Doretha in St. Elmo. He don’t want me to forget bout being a good Christian woman. He can see how happy these kids is since they got here with me and Ben. When he come, they always be clean, and I knows where they at all day long. 30

Aunt Aileen and Mama sent me a letter a few months after I got back with Leslie and

James with a dollar in the envelope. They say Lisco in New Orleans with some of my Poppa’s people, helpin out on they farm. I told my Ben, time to go get our boy. He say I should go, cause one of us needs to stay with the rest of our kids and I got more practice gettin babies back.

Besides, Cousin won’t shoot me. I can’t say I’m all that certain bout that. People get kinda sensitive when you takin away good help. My boy Lisco always been hard workin. I’m gonna be real watchful tryin to get him back. Can’t be too careful around folks with guns.

“Sweets,” he say when we get to the bus station, “don’t pick up no rocks.” We bought one ticket to Louisiana, and two tickets back.

31

The Relocation

Lookin in the review mirror of my sky-blue van, my eyes sweep over my four kids in the backseat. They look bored. I guess it’s not special no more, these trips down south to see they people. We go every summer and now that they gettin older, it’s gettin harder and harder to get um to wanna come. They need to know they people cause that’s where our help come from.

That’s why we go every summer, so they know. Lord knows, nobody else gonna be there for um.

My girls will be the first to stop comin. Faye’s gettin to be a teenager and Janice is right behind her. They already complainin bout not bein able to hang out wid they friends during the summer. The boys, me and they mama got a little while longer fore they wanna stop. It all goes by so fast. We shoulda taken more time to tell um stuff about they family. Stuff about me and they mama when we was their age. It’s almost too late now. Soon they won’t wanna listen to no old stories. Let me see if I could get something goin. They can’t go nowheres right now. Best time for a story!

“Y’all ever hear about how me and Grandpa almost walked from Alabama to

Mississippi? We goin through Texas now, it’s gonna be a long time fore we get to yo Grandma

Alee’s house.”

“Daddy, you and Grandpa didn’t walk from Alabama to Mississippi, that’s too far.”

That’s my girl. She don’t believe nothin nobody tell her. Look like we raisin her right!

“What you mean Faye? Think I’m lyin bout that? We did. Me and Grandpa walked almost all the way from Alabama to Mississippi.”

“Mama, did Daddy do that?” 32

“I don’t know Faye. We did do a lot of walkin back then. I don’t member him tellin me anything like that.”

“I’m gonna tell you bout it now. Then you gonna know that me and you Grandpa did just what I said.”

When I was bout nine, we was sharecroppin on a farm in Alabama. We was poor, like everybody else around them parts, we was really poor. Your Grandpa made hooch in a tumblin down wooden shed behind rows and rows of snap beans on our old place in Tunnel Springs. It had one of them pot belly stove that sat on a concrete floor streaked with red paint, rust and dried pools of some oily shit that would put you on your ass if the floor got wet.

“Eddie, you stop that cussin around the kids? You know you gonna be mad if they start repeatin some of them words!”

Lord have mercy, she still pretty! Sittin there holdin our baby boy and hollerin at me.

That’s number five. Wonder if this is it? Is this as good as it’s gonna get? No wonder I said, I do.

“OK Leslie Mae, you keep on interruptin me, I ain’t gonna be able to tell the story. I gotta tell it like I tell it or it’ ain’t gonna be right. We gonna be on the road for a while now, and the kids wanna hear a good story bout when we was growin up.”

“Lord have mercy. Go ahead then, tell your story. I’m just gonna sit over here in the passenger seat and pray for all y’all. All that cussin around the kids just gonna turn um into heathens, just like they daddy. You gonna be real sorry when they turn into heathens.”

“OK y’all, your mama gonna let me tell this story. Don’t grow up to be heathens. It’s gonna be my fault if you grow up to be heathens and she ain’t never gonna forgive me for that.

Now, everybody know that they can’t be no heathen, let me go on a tell this story.” 33

The roof was made of tin and was shiny like the new nails my papa used to buy to mend the porch with. When it rained, you could hear this thump, thump, thump on the roof, like the sound of somebody beatin on drums. Nobody ever told us kids what my papa was really doin in that shed when he slipped away from the dinner table and made his way out the back door of the house. Mama always said that he had to check on our mule Sadie, cause she was always slippin out of the barn door and goin on her own self walk through to the neighbor’s place. She liked to eat his corn right off the stalks. Me and Junior wanted to know how Sadie managed to unlatch the door of the barn, but Mama would tell us to go wash up and don’t forget to say our prayers. I guess we were supposed to ask God how Sadie managed them nighttime trips when the latch was on the outside of the damn door. Junior and me would whisper all night bout it, whiles lying there in the dark in the bed that we shared.

“Daddy, both of you guys slept in the same bed?”

“Yeah Faye, we didn’t have it good like y’all, complainin all the time bout havin to sleep in the same room. We was glad to sleep in the same bed. That mean you didn’t have yo ass on the hard floor. My sisters slept across the room in another bed, and it was four of them. Two at the bottom and two at the top. Member that next time you and Faye go to fightin about havin to sleep in the same room. Now, you wanna hear the story or not?

“Yeah Daddy. we wanna hear the story.”

“That’s my boy. Fred always wanna hear a good story!”

Junior got to sleep on the outside cause he was the oldest and I was always stuck on the inside against the wall. We was always shovin each other back and forth during the night, cause when I had to go to the bathroom and he didn’t wanna move to let me out. After a while your

Aunts, Irma Lee, Jannie Mae, Zeola, and Lula Mae would yell from the big bed across the room 34 for us to shut-up or they was gonna tell Mama that neither of us would go to sleep and how we didn’t really wash up neither. Boy, them girls was really bossy back then. Junior and I would be quiet anyways and go right to sleep, so we can keep them girls from botherin Mama wid unimportant stuff.

You know your Grandma Lizzie Kate would whoop some ass if we didn’t do what we was suppose to. Nope, she wasn’t gonna have none of that foolishness!”

Anyways, it was in the summer of 1948 and hot and as the Dickins, when the Tunnel

Springs sheriff showed up at our door demandin to speak to Papa. Mama had the window open, and the curtains tied back to catch a breeze that none of us kids thought was out there anywheres.

Sheriff Luddie walked up to the front door wearin a big wide hat that he pushed back with a giant handkerchief so that we could wipe sweat from the biggest forehead y’all ever done seen.

He was a big man with really white skin and red blotches that peeled in the sun. He had this big ole belly that was tight up against the front of his shirt buttons, makin his pants slide underneath his belt buckle, like it was hidin from his belly button or somethin.

“Tony, whatchu boys laughin at? That was funny huh? Me and your Uncle Junior thought so too.”

Anyways, Junior and me made a bet on whether them buttons was gonna pop, until we felt that hard smack Mama laid on the most tenderest part of our rear-ends. I’m tellin y’all, your

Grandma did not play! Papa went on outside, closin the door behind him and all of us kids crowded in between Mama’s yellow curtains to get a good view through the window. There we could see the Sheriff wavin his hands in the air all wild like, whiles Papa leans against the post near the road lookin like he was listenin real good. Mama slides on over from the sink in the kitchen and sent us runnin to the field with the snap of her dish towel. We all agreed that she 35 kept it a little damp just for poppin us on the ass when she wanted us to move fast. We grabbed our sacks on our way out the back door and in bare-feet and straw hats went runnin towards the fields, all whiles wonderin why the sheriff wanted to talk to Papa? We worked until the sun rose high above our heads up and down each row movin our hands across them beanstalks. It was my job to get the bucket and draw water from the pump so that everybody got a cool drink. I liked that job cause it was an excuse for why my sack was always half empty. When the sun was high n hot, we headed to the pump to fight over the bar of soap we used to wash up with, and then through the back door into the kitchen. Mama was puttin heapin spoonfuls of beans and rice into bowls on the table for lunch, but she didn’t set no place for Papa. Actin as if we hadn’t been speculatin all morning about what went on between Papa and the sheriff, Junior got brave and asked Mama,

“Ain’t Papa gonna eat?”

“Papa had to go to town,” was alls Mama would say. We tried to figure out what she was feelin, but her face was like a stone or somethin. No siree, she wasn’t gonna give up nothin.

Mama just turns around to face Irma Lee and say, “It’s your turn to say grace.”

The girls gave Mama one of them looks, you know, one that said, “we ain’t buyin none of this, cause we already know what happened.” Irma Lee put her hands on her skinny hips to better make her point, but not too much of a point, cause she most certainly didn’t wanna provoke Mama,

“When you gonna tell us that Papa in jail?”

It seemed clear to the girls, considerin Papa never came out to help us pick the beans, but me and

Junior were the two youngest and it didn’t occur to either of us that Papa mighta gone to jail.

We just didn’t connect the dots. 36

“Why would your papa be in jail?” Mama said, makin her right eyebrow go up questionin like, tryin to see just how much them girls knew.

“Mama, everybody knows Papa make the best moonshine in Monroe County,” snapped

Zeola in a matter-of-fact tone. “Why wouldn’t he be in jail? With the sheriff here and all, we just thought that he got caught.”

“He makes what?” shouted me and junior, cause we was that clueless. We looked at each other, then back at Mama with our mouths hangin open, our faces lookin like two big zeros.

I turn around and make a funny face for the kids, so they can see what our faces looked like back then.

“I guess that’s why Papa always leavin after dinner to check on the mule,” Junior said. I don’t know if he was mad cause we didn’t know what was goin on, or cause we was gonna have to find something else to talk about at night.

I got all bent out of shape and started bawlin like a big ole baby. I was thinkin bout all the time me and Junior wasted tryin to figure out how Sadie kept escapin from the barn. He musta been lettin that mule out jus in case he needed an excuse for bein out there in the pitch black of night. My heart felt like it was jus poundin in my chest cause I was worryin bout what was gonna happen to Papa and what was gonna happen to us without Papa. Wasn’t like it is now.

Back then poor folks could starve to death if things didn’t go good on the farm. Mama dried my face with her towel and looked into my eyes and said, “Boy, God works in mysterious ways.

Don’t you worry yoself sick now.” She then turned to Irma Lee, cause she hadn’t started sayin grace yet. After grace, she told us to eat-up and be quick about it.

“What you don’t eat now, you will be seein again at dinner,” Mama said. “We don’t waste no food in this house.” She wasn’t kiddin neither. Them was some hard times back then. 37

Not at all like it is now. What we didn’t grow or couldn’t afford to buy, we didn’t eat. I got really good at fishin when we got tired of eatn the same thing all the time.

After lunch was done, Mama sent us back outside to the fields to pick some more beans til evenin. Mama didn’t appear particularly worried about what was happinin, which meant that we kids was particularly worried bout why she wasn’t particularly worried. All afternoon we talked about which one of us was gonna get the courage to ask Mama bout what happened to

Papa, but by the time the sun started goin down, we was dog-tired and didn’t nobody have enough gumption to ask Mama anythin. Instead, we stumble through the back door of the house, ate our dinner and pretended nothin was strange about Papa not bein there. After dinner, Junior washed the dishes and I stood on a box next to him and did the dryin. When we was done, we both went off to bed. Mama had gone into the other bedroom, doin whatever she did in there, which mean she didn’t notice that me and Junior, went to bed again without washin-up.

Before daylight the next mornin, Papa came home. All us kids woke up when he walked through the back door and slipped into the other bedroom where him and Mama sleep.

Afterwards, we could hear them in there whisperin until it got light outside. Junior went over to the girl’s bed, tryin to be quiet about it, but he was so excited he was talkin way too loud. “Papa done escaped from jail!” he said. Your Aunt Lula Mae, the goody two-shoes child, told him to get back in bed and be quiet. “You don’t know nothin and we shouldn’t be tryin to listen.

Besides, we ain’t gonna hear nothin noways cause you always talkin too loud!”

“Sound like Janice to me. Maybe that’s where she get it from.”

“OK now Faye, leave your sister be!” Go on Eddie. This is gettin good,” my wife is sayin. This is good. Everybody wanna hear a good story. 38

When we all got up in the next mornin, sleepy-eyed from tryin so hard to eavesdrop, Papa was sittin at the table havin his coffee and readin his Bible. Me and Junior washed-up, for real this time, cause Papa might notice if we didn’t. I gotta admit, we was beginnin to smell pretty bad. When we was done, we hurried to our places for breakfast. We was all hopin to find out how Papa got hisself busted out of jail. After a while, it got real obvious that he wasn’t gonna tell us nothin. He didn’t say one word during the entire time we ate breakfast. When we all got finished, Papa sent us kids out to the fields to pick beans, but he turned to me and said, “Not you

Eddie.” The other children looked back curious-like but wasn’t gonna be slow bout doin what he told them. Papa didn’t abide by dallyin. When the others went out into the field, I sat at the table with Papa, wonderin how I got outta pickin beans. I didn’t say nothin, since pickin beans wasn’t my most favorite thing to do and I didn’t wanna bring no attention to what looked like a mistake.

The others would be expectin us both to come out and help, so I sat there burnin with curiosity. I knowed my brother and sisters was on the other side of that back door tryin to figure out what was goin on, just like me. They was actually in a better place than me cause I felt like I was about to explode trying to be quiet about not bein with um. It was then I notice Mama comin out of the bedroom with a suitcase and sittin it down on the floor next to the front door. Papa got up and handed Mama his Bible, hugged her tight and whispered that he would send for her and the other kids soon. He reached down, picked up the suitcase and took me by the hand. We headed out the front door and down the road away from town. Mama had propped my Sunday hat on my head as I was on the way out and tied the shoelaces of my shoes together so that I could carry them on my shoulder. As we walked barefoot down to the road, I glanced back toward our neighbor’s field. There was Sadie strollin along the neighbor’s fields bout to chomp down on a big fat ear of tender yellow corn. I looked back over my shoulder many times to see Mama 39 standin at the front door, gettin smaller and smaller. I held on tight to my Papa’s hand wonderin how many days was soon?

“Leslie, you think we need to stop? We probably need to stop so we can get some gas fore it get too late. It’s not like last time we drove to Mississippi with a caravan of folks, it’s just us on the road. The kids look like they need a break, either from the car or from the story, hard to tell.”

“Yeah, it’s a good time to stop,” said Leslie. “Once it get dark, it’s gonna be too hard to find someplace open. We can find a rest stop after we get gas so we can eat. The kids is probably pretty hungry by now.”

“What y’all got to say? Is it time to eat?” I look in the rear-view mirror and notice my two girls look like they really into the story, but the boys, look kinda hungry. In fact, they look like that all the time. Hungry.

“Mama, we got fried chicken?” Tony asks.

“We always got fried chicken,” I say. “When do we not have fried chicken, boy? If we on the road, we got fried chicken. It’s a rule or somethin.”

“Looks like we gonna stop and get gas and eat,” I say to the pretty woman in the passenger seat. “I can tell y’all the rest of the story when he get back on the road.”

After we gas up and find a rest stop to eat and relax awhile, we get all the kids corralled- up and back in the car. They settle down pretty quick, cause they want to hear some more of the story. That makes me feel real good, them wantin to know bout when I was a boy. When we get back on the freeway, I start from where I left off.

All morning and most of the afternoon we walked with the risin sun against our backs.

When we saw black people workin in they fields, Papa would stop and get some water for us to 40 drink. At lunchtime, we sat on the edge of a creek and ate the cornbread and beans Mama packed for us. Papa let me play in the water to cool off whilst he watched for snakes.

“Yuck. I wouldn’t be out there wid no snakes,” said Fred.

“We was country folks. Snakes was just somethin you deal wid. Besides, it was hot out there that day!”

Soon we was back on the road, Papa with one hand carryin the suitcase and the other holdin tight to my hand. Late that afternoon a brand-new red Ford pick-up truck pulled over on the road in front of us and honked the horn. The sheriff stuck his head out of the window and yelled “Y’all come on over here and be quick about it.” I took a nervous look around to see if only me and Papa was the only folks on the road. I stole a glance at Papa for a hint of how much trouble we was in. I was powerfully worried and more than a little afraid. I begin to back-up toward the trees near the road, just in case we needed to make a run for it. Things don’t go right most of the time, when the sheriff stops Black folks on one of them empty roads.

When I reached the length of Papa’s arm, I stayed right there, arm’s length-like. I thought we might need to haul-ass through them trees. and I wanted to be ready, just in case.

“Luddy,” Papa said, tippin his head. “What can we do you?”

“Your wife said you be headin down through here. Thought I’d come and see how you makin out. You know, things gettin kinda crowded in town. A lot of folks askn questions that ain’t none of their business.”

“Me and my boy, we doin all right,” Papa said, lettin go of my hand. Course, I move even closer to them trees, thinkin maybe Papa tryin to give me a head start. 41

“You know, it wouldn’t be unusual if I was to catch one of them jailbreakers tryin to get out of town after bustin out of my jail. Be real logical thing to happin in these here parts.

Wouldn’t be strange at all. Nope, folks wouldn’t give it a second thought.”

“Yeah, I suppose it wouldn’t,” Papa said. “I was thinkin last night while sittin in yo jail how hard it might be to explain this here new truck on what you make, though? You know, them

Revenuers will come hangin around soon after they get wind of some moonshine sales.”

“Boy, don’t you be threatinin me,” he said. “Sound like you threatinin me.”

“No suh, not threatinin you at all, my Papa said. “Just thinkin, somethin happen to me, all them revenuers got to concentrate on is you and this here new shiny red truck. Jus thinkin how bad that might look for you, that’s all. Billy Martin over at the store, he said you paid cash for it.

I ain’t bought no new truck. Nobody talkin bout what I been spendin money on. Hell, I’m walkin and that there farm, ain’t even mine. Seem to me, it’s best for everybody if that man that done escape from your jail, stay gone. Nobody know his name anyways, right?”

If y’all coulda seen Sheriff Luddie at that moment. He had his hat pushed far back on his head and he was thinkin so hard, it looked like it hurt! Papa really began to lay it on thick then.

“We really gotta go Sherriff. Iffn I don’t meet my brother on time, he might get a little worried and start askin a lot of questions bout what mighta happened to me. Heaven knows what he might say to all them Feds that’s gonna be hangin around town polkin they nose in all kindsa stuff. That’s alls I’m sayin suh, not meanin no disrespect. My brother, he been the nervous type ever since he got back from the war. You know how that can be. Them boys, they sometimes they don’t come back right.”

Luddy looked at Papa, like he was still thinkin real hard bout what he was sayin. Me, I’m all up in the trees by now, stayin just close enough to hear Papa say run. Then Luddy start talkin 42 real slow like, “Look to me, like y’all gonna need to get to the state line so you don’t miss your brother. Y’all get on in the back.” Papa call me to come on back then, but I was movin kinda slow cause of not wantin to trust Luddy. We climbed into the bed of the truck and rode for what seemed like hours, windin past fields of crops close enough to almost touch from the road. When we got to the sign that said, ‘Welcome to Mississippi,’ the truck pulled over to the side of the road and me and Papa climbed out. Papa went to the window of the truck and after a few minutes, backs-up to where he had left me standin. The sheriff waved his hand, turned around and went back the way we had come. I ain’t never been so happy to see a man headin in the opposite direction of where we was goin in all the days of my life! Lord have mercy.

So, when the sheriff pulled off, we kept headin down what was now a very dark highway.

I begin imaginin jowls and teeth everywhere on both sides of the road. I didn’t let on to Papa that

I was scared again, but I did hold on to his hand a little bit tighter than usual. We walked and walked for what seemed like forever through dark so thick you could reach out and grab it which yo hand. I was wonderin how Papa could see anythin. He was real quiet, thinkin hard and lookin at each farm carefully to see which one was a safe place for Black people to stay. Finally, he settles on an old, white-washed house with a beat-up rockin chair on a porch that was as long as the house. Papa knocked firmly on the door and after a while, a pair of watery eyes look out from behind a curtained window. Papa took off his hat, nodded his head in greetin and then said to the old woman, “we come a long way ma’am and my boy here is tired. How much you charge for us to stay the night?” An old woman with a toothless grin opened the door a little wider, looked down at me and smiled. “I’m full in the house honey, she said in a voice that sounded like birds singin. You welcome to stay in the barn though. Ain’t much, but it will get y’all out of the night.” Papa said, “Thank you ma’am. Night in the barn would be fine.” She left the door 43 slightly open and went back into the house for a while, returnin with a lamp, some blankets, cold chicken and biscuits and a mason jar of cool water. She pointed to the rear of the house. Papa said a polite, “thank you ma’am, appreciate your kindness.” He took the light and handed me the food, leadin the way around back to the barn. Papa moved me over hard packed dirt to a space at the far end of the room. There was piles of scattered hay over the dirt floor. The barn was empty, although I could still smell the animals that usta be there. Papa placed the blankets over the thickest bale of hay and we sat down to eat the food. It was only then that I realized how tired I was, managin a wide-opened mouth yawn directly after a loud burp. Papa placed the suitcase under his head and started chewin on a piece of straw. I climbed over him closest to the wall and laid down. The wall made me think of Junior and my sisters in our bedroom at home. I missed them. Mama too. I was especially jealous that Junior had the bed all to hisself. I could imagine him wide-legged under the covers, hoggin the blankets and taking up space that was rightfully mine. Before I could think of anything else to be mad at Junior bout, I had fallin asleep and Papa was shakin me awake at the first light of day.

In the mornin, Papa stopped by the old, white-washed farmhouse where to thank the wet- eyed lady and pay for our stay. He returned the lamp, and she traded it for some boiled eggs, peaches and some more biscuits. I tried not to look too excited about gettin more biscuits but could feel my mouth gettin watery just thinkin bout um. Damn, them was some good biscuits.

Biscuit lady gave us both a hug and wished us safe travels. Papa paid her and we set off down the road again. By early afternoon, we had made more stops for water and Papa would hang back to talk with people about what work was available in Mississippi and what crops grew good. I still don’t know how he knew what houses Black folks lived in. By and by, another pick-up truck pulled-up in front of us on the road. This one was beat up and old, but unlike the 44 first time, Papa seemed happy to see it. Out jumped my Papa’s brother, Uncle Robert, who ran up and grabbed me in a bear hug all whiles giving a loud whoop and slappin Papa on the back.

They was smilin and slappin each other around for a while alongside that road and talkin so loud,

I couldn’t hear myself think. I was sure that neither of them could hear one word that the other had to say. We climbed into the cab of the truck this time and headed to Pascagoula, where

Uncle Robert lives. I sat between Papa and Uncle Robert and was glad I had ears on both sides of my head because by that time I was totally confused and thought I was gonna hear some stuff.

Why did the sheriff take us to the state line? How did Uncle Robert know to come and meet us?

I sat on top of the suitcase that Papa brought with us, overflowing with questions that I knew better not to ask. Every time that I would look into the mirror at Papa, I got one of those kids are to be seen, but not heard looks. The only thing the two of them talked about was how Uncle so and so was doing on the hog farm, when Uncle Robert was gonna marry that pretty widow lady that sang in the church choir and what kind of work they had in the area. Man, o man! If a kid could bust, there would have been a thousand pieces of me all over the windshield of that truck!

When we finally got to Uncle Robert’s house, we all piled out of the truck. I stomp through the door behind Papa and Uncle Robert, really tired from all the stress from the trip. I laid down on the couch with the suitcase beside me and fell asleep right there. When I woke up,

Uncle was fryin fresh catfish in a skillet and cold potato salad that Uncle Robert said he bought from a lady down the road. I stood up hungrier than a hound dog back from a hunt and sat down between Papa and Uncle Robert at the table. Neither of them made me go wash my hands and I hadn’t washed behind my ears in days. The dirt didn’t affect my hearing though and lips were finally bout to get loose. In between mouthfuls of food, I listened in as Papa finally told his brother all about his moonshine escapades. Papa loudly claimed that he did indeed make the best 45 damn moonshine in Alabama. My ears lit up, hot with excitement at finally getting to know what set me and Papa a walkin down that country road on our way from Alabama to Mississippi.

“Brother Robert, you know how hard me and Lizzie Kate worked that damn farm. Sunup to sundown and at the end of the day, most of the money go to the man that owns it,” Papa said sadly, “How long we supposed to do that Robert? How long? We got six little mouths to feed and those numbers ain’t gonna ever add up.”

“Man, I hear you. Not judgin you at all brother. I just got to know how you was able to pull that off right under the nose of the Tunnel Springs sheriff?” Uncle Robert had cocked his head to the side and lifted his left eyebrow to heights I didn’t know was possible. His brown eyes flickered with gold light and he leaned back in his chair with a hard gaze comin from his copper-colored face.

“Well, I didn’t, said Papa. Sheriff Luddie caught me runnin a wagon load to a jig joint in the backwoods, Papa paused for effect, “On a Sunday, no less.”

“You shittin me. How come you ain’t in jail then,” said Uncle Robert. “If that’s really true, you would be workin in a chain gang someplace. Either that, or in some mine deep underground. You lyin to me, right?”

“Nope. Luddie pulled the blanket cover off the back of the wagon, opened up one of them bottles and took a big swig. I looked down at Sadie’s reins in my hands and he looked up at sky as if he was prayin, then he looked back at me and then started grinning from ear to ear.”

Papa started smirkin, leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest.

It was then he caught me eyin the fish that was still on his plate. He scooped up the biggest piece and laid it on in my now empty plate and added a large second helpin of that potato 46 salad. I immediately went to work on the food. Even with my split attention, I didn’t miss a bite or a word.

“Luddie then made me an offer that I couldn’t refuse,” Papa continued. “Every Sunday he would meet me on the back road on my way to the jig joint and take most of my load. He would sell it to the white folks all over town. Course, he would give me less than a quarter of what he was sellin it for. Still, it wasn’t a bad deal, considerin that I got to stay off the chain gang.” Papa got a sober look on his face and was quiet for a minute, and then said, “things coulda turned out really bad,” to no one in particular.

After a couple of minutes, Papa stop bein so serious and he looked at Uncle Robert and busted up laughin again. Uncle Robert joined in and started laughin too. Papa went over to the suitcase and pulled out a bottle of hooch and opened it. Uncle Robert jumped from the table to grab two glasses. They went to celebratin all the rest of that night. Papa kept going from drinkin to playin his harmonica. Me, I couldn’t eat anythin else. It was a good thing too, cause neither

Papa nor Uncle Robert paid me no mind after that bottle was opened. I went back to the sofa, ignorin the dirty plates piled on the table, and went back to sleep. Like the dishes, I didn’t wash me either.

By the next mornin, I could smell myself, which means that things had gotten pretty ripe.

Papa and Uncle Robert was still sleepin across the bed in the next room and I was thinkin bout what Mama would say if she was here. Feelin like a repented heathen, I heated up some water and cleaned the dishes. Then I heated more water and cleaned myself up really good. When I was done, I opened the suitcase to find some clean cloths and that’s when I saw um. Dollar bills.

Lots and lots of dollar bills. They was wrap around shirts, hidden beneath spare pants and stuffed in the linin of the suitcase, dollar bills everywhere. I stood there, naked, wet and dumb. 47

That’s where Papa found me, standing buck-naked in the middle of Uncle Robert’s living room, fingerin dollar bills with eyes the size of craters.

“Boy, what you doin standin there naked like that?” Papa asked. It wasn’t a negative type question. More of an inquirin kind of thing.

I looked up startled, as if I was comin out of some kinda trance. “Nothin Papa. Just lookin for some clean cloths. Where we get all this money?” I asked, droppin the bills back into the suitcase.

Uncle Robert had peeked in when me and Papa were talkin and saw me drop the money back into the suitcase. “Looks like there some more story that we ain’t heard yet,” he said laughin. “Wait. Let me go outside and gets some eggs for breakfast. Stories and breakfast go real good together.”

Papa walked over the suitcase, reachin over me for a clean shirt and pair of coveralls, motionin for me to go to the bedroom to get dressed. When I was done, I returned to Uncle

Robert busyin himself with eggs, bread and jam. I took a seat at the table and waited for more food…twisting from side to side. Dinner had worn-off and I was hungry again.

Breakfast was fillin, in many ways. Papa told us what happened when the sheriff came to the house two days ago, and Uncle Robert kept pilin eggs and bread on my plate each time it got empty. Papa said that the sheriff was very concerned about the law from neighborin counties askin too many questions about moonshine showin up all over the county. He said they were complainin about hooch turnin ‘God-fearin men into damned fools.’ Uncle Robert offered his opinion, sayin “the hooch didn’t have very much work to do.” Papa told us what was said between him and the sheriff in front of the house that day, making certain that he added plenty of entertainment for me and Uncle Robert, 48

Boy, I’m gonna have to lock you up, he said to me. He had a real serious look on his face, as if he wasn’t in on it, Papa added.

“Yes, Suh,” Papa said he responded respectfully. “Can’t be too careful when talkin to white folks wid guns, things can get bad really quick.”

Uncle Robert nodded in agreement, “Yeah, you got that right! Mighty bad, indeed.”

“You know that you can’t sell moonshine around here, said Luddie,” Papa continued.

“What’s wrong with you people? Imagine that. Didn’t take that sheriff long at all to get to the

“you people” part of the conversation.”

“I knowed that was coming. It always comes,” added in Uncle Robert.

“Don’t know Suh,” I answered. “Calm as a cucumber, I was. I wasn’t gonna provoke the man. Lizzie Kate and the kids was right on the other side of the door. Never bait a man with a gun,” says Papa, turning to face me so that I could have full benefit of the lesson! “The sheriff then handcuffed me and took me to the Tunnel Springs jail.”

When they arrived at the jail, Papa said the sheriff called in one of his deputies and told him to notify the sheriffs in the next towns over that a moonshine suspect had been caught and would be available for questionin the next day. After the deputy was gone, the sheriff asked Papa what he had to say for hisself. Papa says he responded. “I know I done wrong. Of course, I got to tell the truth. The whole truth. I ain’t gonna lie to no Revenuers, iffn they come around.”

“It was only then,” said Papa, “that Luddie started thinkin about the revenuers that always show-up anytime they get wind of moonshine sales. He looked out the window at that new red truck that he had bought two-weeks before. He then sat at his desk to think on the matter for a while. By nightfall, he seemed to be done with his thinkin and come over to cell door and explained the virtues of a post-haste relocation.” 49

“I told him,” Papa said, “that I had been thinkin lately about makin my way to

Mississippi. I heard that it was a good place to raise a family. The sheriff told me he was gonna go get his dinner. Fore he left, he unlocked the cell door and told me that there is no time like the present to move forward with a good plan.”

“It’s a damn shame I ain’t gonna be able to get the name of that drifter I caught selling moonshine all over this here county, Luddie said on his way out the door.”

After he was gone, Papa said he made his way out the door and hightailed it back to the farm to make his move. Later, when me and Papa was walkin, the sheriff was gettin nervous about all the folks comin round from other counties wonderin what happen to the moonshine suspect and was havin second thoughts bout lettin Papa go. He drove up and told Papa that he had to do somethin bout him escapin from his jail. After Papa started talkin bout the suspicion gettin back on him, he thought it was a better idea to help us move along, cause we wasn’t post- hastin fast enough.

“You never know when those other sheriffs might get the idea that the escapee had gone west, instead of east,” he said shakin his head all serious like,” Papa added.

When he dropped us at the state line, Luddie reminded Popa about the gravity of the situation and the importance of not returnin, and to remember not to be spreadin round wild rumors that besmirched the reputation of well-regarded citizens!

After completin the story, he looked at Uncle Robert who had one hand on his chin deep in thought. He looked back at Papa and said, “Welcome to Mississippi. Luck don’t visit the same people too often. Find yourself another way little brother.”

50

Papa got a telegram from Mama, a few months after we got to Mississippi sayin she would be comin by the end of the week. When he brought the news home, he looked like he was about to cry, he was so happy. I was happy too. I really missed your Grandma Lizzie Kate and

Junior too, I missed Junior. Heck, I even missed them girls! Mama and my brother and sisters had to finished getting the beans picked and sold so that the owner of the farm could get his share. Papa said that everybody had to do what was expected, or folks would get suspicious, especially if people up and left crops almost ready to harvest in the fields. That would jus make people ask too many questions.

Since nobody could positively identify the out-of-town moonshiner, best to keep up appearances.

Me and Papa found us a new place to live, while my brother and sisters were workin hard back on the farm. We bought a nice old house with the moonshine money that had a bedroom for me and junior, the girls and Mama and Papa. Them girls had they own room and couldn’t bother me and junior no more. And the best part of all was there was no room in the back to grow beans! Mama gave Sadie to the neighbor before she left. We didn’t need her no more and it was the fair thing to do, since he had been feedin her for years anyways.

That’s how me and your Grandpa Mack and Grandma Lizzie Kate wound-up livin in

Mississippi. Mama and my brother and sisters got there by bus, but me and Papa walked. Well, we almost walked from Alabama to Mississippi.

“Daddy, why Grandpa take you with him walkin?”

“Well Tony, Papa said that it was safer for a Big Black man to be walkin down country roads with a small boy. People not as suspicious. A lot of people walked where they needed to go back then, so a man and his boy would fit in good.” 51

“Did you wanna go? Wouldn’t you wanna stay on the farm and come on the bus later, if you could?”

“Son, walkin with my Papa was something I ain’t never gonna forget. It was really special. Even though I was scared a lot of the time, it was one of the best things that coulda happened between me and him.”

“Daddy.”

“What son?”

“I would go walkin with you if you wanted me to. All the way from Alabama to

Mississippi. I would.”

“Son, if I ever have to walk from Alabama to Mississippi again, you gonna be the first person I’mma think about.”

“Daddy.”

“Yes son.”

“Let’s leave Tony at home.”

52

When Eddie Meets Leslie

He’s cute. That boy in my English class. Me and Ora Lee was talkin bout him during lunch. About how cute he is. We don’t know anythin about him, but Ora Lee say she can find out. All day I been thinkin about him. During Math class, I could hardly hear what Mr. Watson was sayin bout them numbers he had on the board. I wonder if he gonna ask me out. Don’t matter no way. Mama ain’t gonna let me go out with no boy. He still cute.

“Pay attention girl. You supposed to be helpin me with this here laundry. What you thinkin bout so hard that you gotta stand around with your head in the clouds and your hands in your pockets?”

“Nothin Mama.”

“You gettin to be a young lady now girl. You need to start thinkin bout what you gonna do when you get out of school, not that mess you got in your brain now. You fifteen. Don’t look like to me you plannin at all what you gonna do with yoself. No, hang that upside down. You gonna mess up the collar like that. Iffn you don’t get that head of yours outta the clouds, you gonna be workin at the school cafeteria wid me, that’s what’s gonna happen.”

“Yes Mama.”

“Well?”

“Well, what Mama?”

“I said, you gonna be workin at the school cafeteria wid me iffn you don’t start thinkin on what you wanna do wid your life!

“Yes ma’am.” 53

“What’s the matter with you? You ain’t even listenin to me when I’m tryin to tell you somethin important. I ain’t gonna be botherin to talk to you if you ain’t gonna hear a word I’m sayin. I don’t know what’s wrong wid young people these days. It’s like they in another world.

Here, finish hangin the laundry. I gotta get some dinner started. When you done wid that, come on back in the house and Imma find some ironin for you to do! Iffn you keep busy with the white folks laundry, maybe you think about all the other ways they got to make a livin.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I don’t know why she always mad at me. I ain’t said nothin to make her mad. She just goin on and on about stuff that ain’t even important. I gotta figure out if that cute boy gonna come to the dance on Friday. Then, I gotta figure out how to get Mama and Daddy Ben to let me go wid Ora Lee. If they make me go wid my brothers, I ain’t never gonna meet nobody. How can girl meet cute boys with big brothers hangin around lookin all mean?

“Leslie. What you doin over there talkin to yourself for?” I look up and see my best friend Ora Lee walkin across the road. She got some of them girl pants on. I was gonna get my

Auntie Aileen to make me some, but Daddy Ben ain’t never gonna let me wear um. He say it ain’t proper, him bein a preacher and all.

“Hey, I’m just tryin to figure out how Imma get to the dance without my brothers. If that cute boy comes, how am I suppose to meet him wid my brothers hangin around lookin like they the Calvary or somethin?”

“You mean Eddie? His name Eddie. He got a girlfriend though.”

“I don’t care. I still wanna meet him.”

“What you gonna do if she wanna fight?” 54

“I ain’t even worried bout that. All these brothers I got hangin around here, you don’t think I can fight? Girl, please. She ain’t gonna wanna fight noways. Why you always think people wanna fight?”

“I would fight you if I thought you was tryin to take my boyfriend. That’s why I think she gonna wanna fight. If I was her, I’d pull all your hair out.”

“That’s cause you crazy. Ain’t nobody else gonna be crazy like that. Besides, he ain’t married, is he?”

“Nope.”

“Then he don’t belong to nobody. I can meet him if I want to. All you gotta do is ask my mama if I can spend the night wid you. That way, we can go to the dance together.”

“I know what you tryin to do. You tryin to use me to get away from all them brothers you got. I don’t care if you do go wid me, your brothers still gonna be at the dance. Not like we got anythin else to do in this here place. Besides, your brother James is kinda cute.”

“Yeah, but they won’t be wid us. You don’t wanna hang around James anyways. He a hound dog. He got too many girlfriends already. I would stay away from him if I was you.”

“What you gonna do for me, if I ask Ms. Alee if you can spend the night? Can I borrow that new purse you got for your birthday?”

“No girl, I gotta have my new purse for when I meet Eddie. What if I bring you some of them cookies that Mama be makin. You know you like them cookies.”

“Alright, bring me some cookies, but you still gonna owe me if you get to meet Eddie.

You gonna owe me big-time. I gotta get back home cause my mama waitin on me to get back from the store. I’ll come back tomorrow and ask your mama bout spendin the night, OK?”

“Yeah, OK. See you tomorrow.” 55

When Ora Lee leaves, I start to get kinda excited. I gotta make certain that Mama not mad at me no more, or else she ain’t gonna let me spend the night. We got three days fore the dance. I’m not so worried now, cause I got a plan. Imma finish hangin the laundry and go see what else Mama want me to do. Iffn I do everythin she want, maybe she say yes when Ora Lee ask her if I can spend the night. I’m gonna help my little sister Brenda with her homework and help Mama with the laundry. Maybe, I can even get Daddy Ben to buy me a new dress. That yellow dress they got in that store window on Main Street is really pretty. I need to look especially good when I meet this boy Eddie.

On Thursday, Ora Lee and me walk home together after school. I have to hurry her up by not lettin her talk to all the other kids after class. That girl can’t go nowheres without stoppin to talk to everybody she see. After a while, I just grab her by the arm and drag her outta there. I want Mama to see how responsible I am bout comin right home after school. I been so good since yesterday, I’m bone tired! It’s exhaustin tryin to do everythin to keep her happy! When we get to my house, Mama is outside hangin up clean laundry. She ain’t even bother to take her work cloths off before she startin up with that laundry again. She ought to be tired of doin other folks laundry. I know I’m tired of helpin her.

“Mama, Ora Lee got something to ask you?”

“Chile, what you want? Your mama all right?”

“Yeah, she fine. We was just wondering Miss Alee, if Leslie can spend the night on

Friday. That way, she can come to the dance wid me. You know, the dance at the school.”

“Well, I don’t know bout that. Last time she spent the night, you girls was way on the other side of town. Y’all wind-up in places that you ain’t got no business bein when the two of you get together. I ain’t gonna let that happen again. Made me wanna whoop both y’all asses 56 that night. Leslie wanna go to that dance, she gonna have to go wid James and Norman. She don’t wanna do that, she can just stay home.”

“Mama, I was tryin to tell you what happened that night, but you kept hollerin at me. We didn’t do nothin wrong. We just went to get Ora Lee’s scarf back. That Lewis girl, she took it by mistake and Ora didn’t wanna tell her mama that she lost it.” I give Ora Lee a sideways glance to kinda warn her not to go too deep into what happened. If she don’t say nothin, I might can keep Mama from getting all riled-up again.

“Don’t you start with that foolishness. You two followed that Lewis girl all the way home and was outside her mama’s house threatinin to beat her up. I was so shame when I heard about that! How y’all was carryin on out there in the streets in front of all the good folks in dis town. Y’all know how people around here talk. How you two gonna get one of them fancy jobs or get to be schoolteachers iffn you got a bad reputation? Y’all know better.”

“Miss Alee, that only happened cause she didn’t take my scarf by mistake. She stole it and she ought to have given it back! We was gonna leave, soon after she gave my scarf back.

We wasn’t gonna fight her iffn I got my scarf back!” I looked down and start worryin a scratch on the floor with my foot. It’s like she didn’t even see me tryin to get her to shut up. She can’t even see the smoke startin to come outta Mama’s ears.

“What did I say? If Leslie wanna go to the dance, she goin with James and Norman. She don’t wanna do that, she can stay her ass at home. I ain’t gonna be hearin nothin bout my daughter in the street actin like she ain’t got no home trainin. Y’all hear me on that?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Now you go and take yourself on home. Y’all can see each other at the dance and when the dance is over, Leslie comin home wid James and Norman. Just like I said.” 57

“Yes ma’am,” Ora Lee replied. She didn’t look at me, cause she knowed that she messed up. Mama don’t care too much about what people think about her, but she cared a whole lot about what folks think about me. That’s a funny thing about her. I don’t understand it.

After Ora Lee left, I went into the house and sat down at the kitchen table to do my homework. After I do that, I get dinner started. Seem to me, my brothers ought to help with dinner sometimes. They don’t though. Boys ain’t got to think about stuff like that. Then I start thinkin bout the dance again. Well, guess I won’t be meetin that boy Eddie. If I gotta go to the dance wid James and Norman, they gonna be all up in my business. At least, Daddy Ben is buyin me that yellow dress. Mama said it’s a waste of good money. I think he feels bad bout

Mama bein so mean to me. Always makin me help with the white folk’s laundry and not lettin me go to the dance with Ora Lee. My daddy understands me more than she do. Imma good girl and he knows that. I was the only daughter in the house for a long-time fore Brenda came. He knows how hard it is for me to live in a house with all of these big brothers.

On the night of the dance, I scrub up real good and put on my new dress. I tightened the black belt around my waist and twist around in front of the mirror to see how it looks from behind. Mama walks in when I start doin my hair.

“Leslie.”

“Yes Mama.”

“You look good girl. You gonna be the prettiest girl at that dance. The way that yellow dress swishes around your legs like that, make you look like a princess or somethin.”

“Thanks Mama. Could you tell Norman and James not to be followin me around durin the whole time? I’m fifteen. I don’t need no babysitters. They always followin me around, scarin away all the boys. Nobody gonna even wanna dance with me wid them actin like that.” 58

“They not gonna be followin you around. I’m certain they wanna dance too. Y’all try to get along and maybe everybody can have a good time. Here, let me fix your hair in the back.”

“I ain’t mad at you. I just want you to grow up and be important. You know, like them white girls in the magazine. Colored girls can do some of them things too? Maybe not all of them, but some of them. Like schoolteacher, or nurse at the colored hospital. That would be really nice. Not like me. None of my family finished high school. You gonna be special.

Things gonna be so much better for you.”

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do when I finish school Mama. I’m gonna be thinkin on it. I promise.”

“OK girl. You go on to that dance. Have some fun for yo old Mama. I ain’t been out dancin in so long. Probably still got it though.” I smile, as Mama pushes me away from the mirror and starts to dance. “I used to be able to really cut a rug in my day!”

Norman hurries past the door on his way outside. James stops at the door, sticks his head in and looks over at me. “Come on girl. Daddy gonna let us use the car tonight! I don’t wanna miss none of the action.” He looks over at Mama in front of the mirror and covers his mouth to hide a sneaker, then heads toward the door.

“I’m comin,” I yell after him.

“Bye Mama,” I said. “I’m gonna tell you all about the dance when I get back home.” I pick-up my purse from the bed and follow James out the door. I’m getting excited now, even though I gotta go with Norman and James. It’s my first high-school dance. I’m beginnin to feel like it’s gonna be fun! Hopefully, I’ll see Ora Lee at the dance. It’s Ok, even if I can’t meet

Eddie tonight. Shame though. Mama said I’m gonna be the prettiest girl at the dance!

59

When we walk into the door of the gym, I look around to see it all fixed up. Pretty colored lights is strung from the ceilin in the shape of a giant star. The school colors, purple and gold, is on this big banner across the back wall. Chuck Berry’s Tutti Fruitti is playin on the phonograph and the music is so loud that the walls are vibratin right in time with the music.

Dancin couples take up the middle of the gym floor and people waitin along the side to ask or get asked to dance. We standin near the door takin all this in. “Boy, ain’t this excitin,” I turn around to say to my brother James, but he ain’t standin next to me no more. He’s makin his way to the dance floor, draggin Daisy Winter from my English class, behind him. Norman gives me one of them, that’s James, looks and motions for me to follow him toward the punch bowl on the other side of the room. When we get there, Ora Lee is waitin for me. Norman starts grinin and says,

“Ok, I did it. Now you gotta do what you said Ora. You gotta introduce me to that cousin of yours. You know, Candy. That sweet Candy.”

“Didn’t I say I promise already? Told you she gonna be visitin this weekend. All you gotta do is meet us at the Woolworths. You gonna need to buy her some ice cream. She like Ice

Cream. She ain’t gonna wanna talk to you if you got no money for ice cream.”

“I’m gonna be there. I got money. Been sweepin floors at the barber shop on the weekends. I’ll be there.”

“Go on now. Me and Leslie got business to take care of. You just keep that James away.

That’s part of the deal too. We can’t have him followin us around.” She looks at me, “You know your brother is crazy, right?”

“What did you do?”

“What I always do. Help you out. Now come on, I got somebody for you to meet.” 60

“Where we goin?”

“Outside. He gonna be outside at the lunch benches.”

“How did you?”

“Girl, be quiet. You always be askin too many questions. If you get too much information you gonna tell your mama. Then, she gonna tell my mama and before you know it, we both be in trouble. You do know that girls don’t tell they mamas everythin, right?” Ora Lee is the only girl I know that can talk without stoppin to breath air. All whiles she’s talkin, she draggin me by my gloved hand toward the lunch area.

“See, look over there.”

Eddie is standin near the benches in a short sleeve shirt and pants wid a cuff on the bottom. He got one foot on the bench, leanin toward another boy, talkin excited like bout somethin. He’s even cuter up close. He’s older than us. I think he in the eleventh grade, like

James. Tall, wid some pretty brown eyes. Ora Lee’s got me by the hand, almost draggin me toward the two of them. I hold back a little. What am I supposed to say? He one of the popular boys. He ain’t gonna be interested in me.”

“Hey y’all,” yells out Ora. “Leslie, you member my cousin Ray, right?” I’m thinkin no, didn’t know you had a Cousin Ray. Fact is, I’m sure you don’t have a Cousin Ray. Ora don’t miss a beat, sashayin up to the two of them. Cousin Ray, standin up and smilin as we get closer.

Ora continues talkin, “This my best friend Leslie. Isn’t this dance really nice? They playin some really good music in there. Leslie just got here. She ain’t had a chance to dance wid nobody yet,” she says. 61

I’m really embarrassed. Cousin Ray turns to Eddie and introduces me and Ora. He then says, “I got family stuff to talk to my little cousin about. Why don’t you ask Leslie to dance?

We won’t be long.”

The next thing I know, I’m being led back to the gym by the cutest boy in the whole world and I can’t think of nothin smart to say. When we get back in the gym, the Drifters is crooning Adorable and I’m in the arms of the boy that I been starin at from across the room all year long.

“I been wantin to talk to you since you got to this here school Leslie. When my buddy

Ray say he some kin to your friend Ora, I thought I was finally gonna get a chance to meet you.

Don’t know what he had to promise Ora to convince her to bring you wid her to the dance, but

I’m really glad she did!”

Ora huh, I’m thinkin. I wonder how many favors she’s been stackin up lately. I gotta bring her some of Mama’s cookies, Norman had to promise her somethin to get a date with her cousin Candy, and Cousin Ray, who ain’t no cousin I ever heard of, introduces me and Eddie for what? What game is she playin?

“That dress you got on is real pretty on you. You oughta wear yellow all the time. I gotta be lucky, to get to dance wid a pretty girl like you.”

I start thinkin on what people is sayin about Eddie goin out with another girl.

“Don’t you got a girlfriend? You not one them boys that like to have a lot of girlfriends, are you? I don’t like mean boys.”

“We just broke up. I mean, we will break up if you can be my girlfriend. I mean, I rather have you as a girlfriend. She nice and all, but I been had my eye on you ever since the beginnin 62 of the semester. I been askin everybody bout you. I even asked your brother James. He just say to stay away from his sister.”

“That sounds like my brother James. Iffn it be up to him; I would never meet no boys.”

“He ain’t one of them crazy brothers, is he? I don’t want any trouble.”

“Naw, when we was little, he took care of me is all. Sometimes he don’t notice that I’m all grown up now.” I start gettin afraid that somebody might mention my four other older brothers tonight and ruin everythin for me. This Eddie don’t seem to mind me havin James for a big brother. What if he knowed about all the rest of um?

“So Leslie, you gonna let me take you out? Or is this here dance the only time I’m gonna see you all prettied up?”

“I can’t be goin out wid you Eddie. Not while you got a girlfriend. Where she at anyways?”

“Her mama wouldn’t let her come to the dance. I don’t think she like me very much. Her mama I mean. If I don’t quit her, she probably gonna quit me on account of her mama. That’s all right. All I can think about is you anyways. So, Leslie, you gonna let me take you out, right?”

“You gonna have to ask me again after you done wid the quittin. I ain’t gonna be “one” of your girlfriends. It don’t work like that wid me. What you laughin at? That’s not funny.”

I don’t know where Ora went, cause we dance and talk through almost every song they played. He dances really good. I still ain’t agreed to go out wid him though. Not till he done quittin his girlfriend. Wouldn’t let him kiss me neither, cause people gonna already be talkin. At midnight, they turn all the lights on in the gym and that’s when I find Ora.

“Did you get to dance,” I ask her. 63

“Yeah, I got to dance with a lot of boys. Not like you. Only dancin wid one boy all night. Look like you and that Eddie really like each other. I did good, right? I know I did good.” She stood there, grinning, twisting from side to side in front of me.

“Yeah, you did good. He really nice and I do like him a lot.”

“Come on, we gotta wait out front. My Pops is probably already waitin to pick me up and I don’t think James is back yet.”

“Ora, what you mean James ain’t back yet? He here, ain’t he?”

“Well, maybe not. Norman took him to eat some BBQ at that new place behind the barber shop. Don’t look at me like that, I didn’t give him the money, Eddie did. How else did you think you could dance wid one boy all night and nobody said nothin? James likes girls and

James likes food. I’m not certain which one he like better. I told Norman that I would wait here with you if they didn’t get back before the dance is over. He say, y’all gotta come home together or there’s gonna be hell to pay.”

“Yeah, maybe we got enough time for you to tell me how you found Cousin Ray. Girl, I know all your cousins. Ain’t none of them name Ray.”

Eddie did quit his girlfriend. We would meet each other after school until Mama started suspectin somethin was goin on, on account of me always comin home late. After she start askin question, I told Eddie he gotta ask Daddy Ben and Mama if he could come a courtin. Daddy Ben said OK, but him and Mama had some conditions. They agree that James and Norman gonna have to go wid us every time we went out. Everythin is workin out fine, except we don’t never get no time to really be together.

64

This afternoon Eddie and me got a date for the movies. Eddie drivin, with Norman and

James in the back seat. We get to the movie theater and we get our tickets for a double feature and go up the back stairs to the colored section. Eddie buys popcorn and we settle down to watch the first feature, which is one of them Alfred Hitchcock movies. We chose this one cause

Norman and James is real partial to scary movies and Eddie say that if mama and Daddy Ben gonna make um come, theys might as well enjoy it. When the movie starts, me and Eddie slip down the stairs out the back of the theater, leavin James and Norman still watchin the movie.

“Where we goin?” I whisper.

“We just goin for a drive down by the river. It’s a nice day and we never have no time together cause we always gotta bring your brothers. We be back fore the movie get over. Come on Leslie, it’s gonna be fun!”

Me and Eddie drive down the main highway, then up an old dirt road that runs along the river and find a nice spot to sit on the grass to eat our popcorn. Eddie gets the blanket out of the trunk that his Daddy keeps in there on account of the heat don’t work. We talk and talk. I tell him bout how Mama stole me and James from my real daddy’s house when we was little. He tell me about how when he was nine, him and his daddy walked from Alabama to Mississippi on account of his daddy sellin the best moonshine in all of Monroe County. When it gets a little chilly, Eddie wraps his arms around me to keep me warm. I ain’t tellin what happin next, but I will say I ain’t never done nothin like that before. It was scary and wonderful all at the same time. I can’t wait to tell Ora Lee, but she gonna have to promise not to tell Mama! Ooh, I don’t think Mama ought to know bout this. It starts gettin a little late and I think it might be time for us to start headin back to the movie theater. I turn around and say,

“We best get goin. Movie gonna be over soon.” 65

“I guess. I hate to go back. We’s been havin such a nice time together, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, but what gonna happen if the movie get done and my brothers can’t find us? We be in big trouble then.”

“Okay you right, best be headin back. We gotta figure out how we can spend more time together, time without your brothers. I’m runnin out of ideas and money.”

“We have to figure all that out later, but now we gotta go.” I stand up and brush the leaves off my dress and Eddie starts foldin the blanket. We get back to the car and he puts the key in the ignition to start the engine. It makes this awful noise, like cats screechin or somethin.

We drive real slow, tryin to get back to where we was supposed to be without breakin down, but only get as far as the main highway when the car just stops. Eddie trys and trys again, but we can’t get that damn thing to start back. I ain’t never prayed so hard to hear that screechin sound again. When he had the screechin, at least we was movin. Iffn we could just start the car back up; we still might get to the theater in time! As it get later and later, I knows I’m in trouble. I knows

I’m in really, really big trouble. Worst trouble I ever been in before.

We walk and walk, until we find a telephone booth just outside of town. We don’t have no phone at our house, but Eddie’s parents do. Eddie calls his brother Junior. He also got lot of older sisters, but he don’t tell them bout our little problem on account of them likin his old girlfriend better. His brother comes and pick us up in the neighbor’s car, but then it’s too late and I know my brothers already done walked home. Junior takes himself home first, and then hands the keys to Eddie. “I don’t wanna be nowhere near this girl’s house when you takes her back home.” I’m not mad at him for thinkin like that. I don’t wanna be nowhere nears my house neither. 66

When we get to my house, we walk up to the front door, but we didn’t need to knock cause the door just opens. Daddy Ben is standin there, lookin real disappointed. I’m so ashamed

I start to cry. Daddy Ben has always been good to me. Never even raise his voice when I make him mad. Mama, though, looks downright scary. She just sittin in the livin room, legs crossed and a bottle of beer in her hand. That’s my first clue. Mama don’t drink beer in the house, on account of Daddy Ben bein a travelin preacher. She always say God called him, not her. That makes it okay if she has a beer ever once in a while. She never drinks in the house though, outta respect. Things is really bad if she sittin inside the house wid a beer in her hand. Really bad.

“So, what you got to say for yourself chile,” Mama say in a really low voice.

“Mama, we didn’t mean to leave Norman and James at the move theater, but the car broke down.”

“Seem to me, if the car broke down, Norman and James woulda been broke down in the car witcha. All y’all shoulda been broke down together. But naw, they sittin in the theater watchin a damn movie, instead of what they shoulda been watchin.”

“Boy, you best be gettin on home now,” says Daddy Ben.

“Mr. Ben Suh, It’s not Leslie’s fault. She didn’t wanna go on a drive. I talked her into comin. It was such a nice day in all for a drive. It’s all my fault.”

“Boy, I think I said you best be gettin on home now.”

I don’t want him to go. Mama sittin in the chair with that beer in her hand. Her left leg swingin back and forth, things just didn’t look good for me. Don’t look good at all. She’s glarin at me wilst I stand there cryin and every once in a while, she take a sip of that beer. It just don’t feel right for Eddie to go and leave me alone wid her like this. But he did leave. I hear the door close softly behind him, like he slippin outta church or somethin like that. When he gone, I 67 could hear the lightnin bugs buzzin around the screen tryin to get past to the lamp light. I could hear the clock tickin on the living room shelf. Nobody said nothin for what seem like forever.

Then Daddy Ben stands up and says,

“Now Alee...,” one look from Mama stops him from talkin in the middle of his sentence.

Daddy Ben just shakes his head like he some kinda worn-out lion. Mama snatches her head back around and starts starin at me again. She’s just sittin there in that chair, swingin that leg, sippin that beer and starin at me. Finally, Daddy Ben walks outside, takes a seat on the porch to have him a smoke on his pipe. He always did that when he needs to think really hard about somethin or write a big sermon for church. I decide to walk past Mama and go to the bedroom to get outta my good dress cause she look like she was gonna be sittin there all night. I can feel her eyes followin me as I walk across the room. I guess my skirt musta brushed against that swingin leg cause all hell broke loose. She let out a scream so loud, you woulda thought the devil was ridin her. She grabs Daddy Ben’s strap, the one he uses to keep my older brothers in line and starts wallopin on me. I fold up on the floor tryin to protect my face and start screamin for somebody come help me fore she kill me. I don’t know how long I lay on the floor screamin while Mama is beatin the daylight outta me. I feel, rather than see, Daddy Ben and my brothers pile into the room and grab that strap outta Mama’s hand. Another hand picks me up and carries me to the bedroom away from Mama. That’s all I can member bout the most beautiful and the most awful day in all the fifteen years of my life.

The next day is Sunday and Daddy Ben wakes me up early. I get dressed and climb in the car to go to the church he preachin at for that day. He turns on the radio real loud, fillin the car wid hallelujahs and amens. He don’t say a word the whole trip down the dirt road we was 68 on, headin to a small clapboard church in the backwoods of Alabama. When we get there, he climbs up on the pulpit and preaches a powerful sermon from Ephesians 6:1. When he gets done, we sit down to eat the food that the church ladies brought for Sunday dinner. I keep pullin my sweater down over my arms to hide the big welts Mama left on me. We say our goodbyes and get back to the car. Instead of headin home, Daddy Ben begin to drive further into the backwoods. The old farmhouses out my window look worn, and the people look poor. Not like we is poor, but the not enough food to eat kinda poor. The old worn cloths and barefoot kinda poor. The water pump in the front yard and the outhouse in the backyard kinda poor. Finally,

Daddy Ben starts talkin,

“This where your Mama was raised. She was lucky. Her Daddy owned the land on his farm, so they had it better than these here people. Your Mama married your Daddy when she was bout your age and they started off workin a piece of land back behind her Daddy’s place.

Then your Daddy got a job with the railroads and he was gone a lot, leavin your brothers and your Mama to keep the land up. She never did want that kinda life for herself. Never did want that kinda life for you neither. It’s too hard to live wid a man you don’t love no more.”

“Daddy Ben, it don’t be like that for me. I love Eddie.”

“Baby Girl, you fifteen. Plenty of time to fall out of love, soon after the babies start comin. Then whatcha gonna do? Work in somebody else’s kitchen? Do white folk’s laundry?

What Eddie gonna do. Y’all still in high school. Babies gotta eat. Your Mama wants better for you. That’s what broke her. She don’t want no hard livin for you.”

“Why you think that’s gonna be me? I ain’t pregnant!”

“I don’t know that Baby Girl. I’m bettin you don’t neither.” 69

I get quiet. Don’t make no sense to lie to Daddy Ben cause he be talkin to God, and God knows when I’m lyin. I need to think. Harder than I ever thought before. Then I need to pray.

To promise God that Imma listen to Mama better. That Imma pay more attention in school.

That I won’t go fightin other girls with Ora Lee. If he could just fix Mama. I’m sorry I broke her.

A couple of weeks went by and me and Mama been gettin along better. I still jump when she get too close and she still get too quiet when we in a room together. I guess it’s gonna take time fore things go back the way they was. She still watchin me all the time, trying to see if I’m in the family way. I don’t know what she supposed to see. Nobody explained that part to me yet.

I’ve been really good though. I do my homework, help clean the house and don’t complain about helpin with the laundry. Maybe, she gonna forgive me and let me see Eddie again. When

I’m done foldin these clothes, I’m supposed to take the car and drive them cross town and leave them with the folks that owns um. They gonna pay me what they owe Mama, then I gotta pick- up Daddy Ben after he get off work. I’ll be glad when things go back to the way they usta be.

It’s hard doin all this work and not bein able to complain about it.

I drop off the clothes, then stop at the gas station to get a bottle of pop. It’s hot as the blazes out here and it ain’t even summer yet! I open the door to climb back into the car so that I could get back on the highway. The man who pumps the gas grabbed the door and wouldn’t let me close it. He snatches me by the arm and pulls me away from the car and say,

“You don’t got no license, I bet. You don’t even look sixteen.”

I try to think of what to say cause I don’t got no license. Nobody cares about that kinda stuff around here. Everybody old enough to reach the peddle drives. 70

“It’s OK. I’m jus goin to pick-up my Daddy from work. I’ll be sixteen this year, anyways. I best be goin now. He gonna be mad iffn I’m late.”

“No, you gonna wait right here until the Sheriff come. He normally stops by round this time a day. People is gettin sick and tired of y’all law breakers causin all kinds of problems in this here town. You people ain’t never gonna learn to respect the law.”

I look around for the Sheriff, but I don’t see him nowheres. I try to pull my arm away, but he yanks it hard and starts dragin me inside. I’m scared now. Really scared. I don’t want to go to jail. Mama gonna be mad all over again! Not wantin her to be mad was all I could think about, until he shoves me hard against the counter and starts pullin up my dress. I push his hand away, so he slaps me in my face. I push his hand away again and he hits me with his fist, over and over. I pass out.

When I wake-up again, I’m lyin in the dirt behind the gas station drippin water. He standin there, holdin a bucket and laughin. He throws the keys to the car on the ground and shuts and locks the door. I hear him back behind the door, still laughin. I limp slowly around the buildin and get back to the car. My dress is ripped and dirty, but I don’t cry. I drive to Main street to pick-up Daddy Ben, park the car, then I don’t member anythin after that.

When I open my eyes again, I’m lyin across my bed and Mama is standin there with a warm towel, wipin the blood off my face. The house is real quiet. I push Mama’s hand away and sit-up. My head feel like somebody bangin on it like a tambourine on Sunday.

“No baby. Let me get the filth offa you. You feel better when you all clean.”

“Mama, let me tell you what happened. I didn’t do nothin bad. The boy, the one at the gas station, he..” 71

“I know. You told yo Daddy, just before you passed out. It was Willie’s boy that done this. Willie owns the gas station over in town and his dumb-ass son works there. I’m not mad at you.”

“What we gonna do Mama? He hurt me really bad.”

“Yo Daddy is torn to pieces bout this. All yo brothers is upset. Daddy Ben done already told them not to go near that man’s place. A whole lotta Black boys gonna die in this town iffn they don’t calm down. Ain’t nothin we can do. Them white folks don’t care nothin bout what that boy done to you. It’s gonna be all right though.” Mama put a cup of hot tea to my lips and told me to drink. Then she dipped the towel in the bucket of water at her feet and kept wipin the dirt away.

When I wake up early the next morning, I still hurt all over. I did feel a little better.

Whatever Mama put in the tea was workin. I walk outside to see her washing laundry in a big tin wash tub. She looks up at me, but she don’t smile.

“Best hurry up child. You gonna need to pack some things.”

“Where I’m goin Mama? You said you not mad at me?”

“No, I’m not mad at you. But if you don’t leave here, that boy gonna keep using you.

You can’t stay here. It’s not safe for you no more here. He touch you again, yo brothers gonna get all riled up and some folks gonna die.”

“But Mama, where you sendin me?”

“Daddy Ben and me, we talk to Eddie’s Mama and Daddy last night. His oldest sister lives in California wid her husband. They say y’all can stay there till you find work and get on yo feet. That boy Eddie say he loves you. He promise us he gonna be good to you and he gonna 72 stay away from Willie’s boy. Y’all can get married at the courthouse this mornin, then y’all gotta go. Willie’s boy can’t get you iffn you go to California.”

“Mama, what about school? Whose gonna help you with the laundry?”

“They say California is gonna be better for you. They got palm trees and good jobs. It’s not like here. Don’t make it hard Leslie. It be hard enough already. Just go get some things together and get dressed. Eddie gonna be here soon.”

“I stand up and wipe the tears from my eyes with the back of my hand. I turn toward the door of the house and just as I’m about to go in, she calls out,

“Leslie.”

“Yes Mama. Wear that yellow dress you wore to the dance. You gonna be the prettiest girl at the courthouse.”

I turn and run back, kneel down on my knees and put my head in her lap and my arms around her waist. She runs her fingers through my hair. “You always been special chile. Been special since the day you was born.”

73

The Game

It’s summer and today it’s hot and sticky. The heat is oozin up from the sidewalk and burnin through the bottoms of my tennis shoes. Walkin around the corner to my friend Karen’s house, I stop and step on the grass to cool off my feet. Not the grass near the house, but the strip near the street. People don’t get so mad when you step on the grass near the street. Except, of course, the Mean Lady. She gets mad no matter what part of her lawn you step on. I don’t go near her lawn. Why can’t they make sidewalks that don’t get so hot in the summer? Me and

Karen are suppose to go down the alleys to get fruit from people’s backyard trees. The trees are sometimes close enough to the fence to grab the fruit from the alley, but we still gotta climb the fence to get the best stuff. There’s a blue house with white trim that’s good for plums, but they got a new dog that’s big and ugly. We gotta stick with the oranges in Mr. Cooper’s backyard now and next door to him they got lemons. Them plums at the blue house is the best though.

They big, purple and sweet with the kinda juice that runs down your arm when you chomp down on one. I guess we gonna hafta miss out on them lip-smackin plums. That dog is big. We don’t like that dog.

When my feet cool off, I’m on my way again. Karen lives one block over and three blocks up the street from my family. Right near Avalon. We both jus finished 6th grade and when school starts, we gonna go to Bret Harte Junior High school. We nervous in all, bout goin to school with the big kids. People say they got some pretty mean girls that like to fight that go there. Say we gotta be careful walkin home from school to keep from gettin beat-up. Faye goes there now, but she pretty popular. The boys like her cause they say she real cute. Me, not so much. I don’t care. Boys are dumb. Besides, Faye spends way too much time lookin at herself in the bathroom mirror. Yuck! We ain’t sharin no oranges with her. She think she too cute to 74 haul her behind over a fence to help get um. I walk up to the door at Karen’s house and call inside through the screen,

“Hey Karen, you still wanna go, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I jus gotta take the trash out for my mama. We gonna still go,”

“Hurry up then. Imma wait for you on the porch.” I turn away from the door and take a seat on the steps, pick up a stick and start pokin around in the flower bed. I look up when I hear the screen door open.

“What you doin in the flower bed? Girl, don’t mess with them flowers. You know my mama gonna make us get out here and plant her some more tomorrow if we mess um up.”

“Nope, she gonna make you come out here plant her some more tomorrow!”

“Oh yeah, when y’all leavin for your trip to Mississippi?”

“But-crack a dawn. You know how my daddy is. He don’t know no other time to leave on a trip.”

“What you gonna be doin while we gone?” I ask, hidin the stick behind a pick rose bush.”

“Daddy an Ivy comin to pick me up on the weekend. We gonna go campin up north in the

RV. Look at my face. See how excited I am. Hangin out with family is not gonna be fun. Most of the time, I gotta take care of my stepbrothers.

“Let’s not think about all of that right now. We gonna go steal us some oranges. We ain’t got no time to be sittin round here feelin sorry for you.”

“That’s not stealin. Every year them people let them oranges fall on the ground and rot. We are helpin him not to waste stuff that would be better off in our stomachs! Too bad about that dog at the blue house though. If it wasn’t for him, we would be eatin some juicy plums.” 75

Three days later, I’m knee deep in relatives in the great state of Mississippi. We got all kinds of aunts, uncles and cousins in our family. There so darn many of um, it’s hard to keep all the names straight. We come here every summer, so we know what to do when we can’t tell

Aunt Sadie from Aunt Donna Jean. We suppose to say “Yes Ma’am” or “Yes Sir” if any one of them ask us anythin. I learned that a few summers ago when I made a mistake and said, “What?” when some woman I ain’t never seen before ast me to help her carry some stuff from her car.

I’m tellin you, I ain’t gonna never make that mistake again. Southern folks think it’s they God given duty to smack anybody’s kid on the backside when they disrespectin. I didn’t even know that’s what I did, till my Aunt Brenda told me. When we at home, we don’t say “Yes Sir” or

“Yes Ma’am” when we talkin to grown folks. You think that lady cared anythin bout me not knowin that? No, not one bit. I spent the rest of the day stayin as far away from her as I could, just in case I said somethin else I wasn’t suppose to say. Most of time we have fun when visitin relatives, but they got some real funny ways.

We stay with Grandma Alee and Granddaddy Ben when we come to Mississippi. They got one of them long back yards with a chicken coop with some real chickens in it. That year, they had the biggest hog I ever seen tied up at the far end. My Granddaddy Ben say she a Sow. Don’t know what that is but I ain’t gonna ast him. I’m tired of folks laughin at the poor ignorant city kids who don’t know nothin. My parents and brothers are stayin at my daddy’s parent’s house, comin over after breakfast every day and stayin until late in the evenin every night. My southern family, when they find out we comin, bring tasty deep-dish pans of peach cobbler oozin with sugar and butter and coconut cake stacked three levels high. We ain’t sure who owns that hog at far end of the backyard but the food on the table is plentiful. Every mornin and evenin me and my little brothers, take ourselves to the end of the yard to make certain that hog ain’t gonna be on 76 the table wid all the other food. Grandma Alee once ast us if we wanted some fried chicken for dinner and me and Faye shouted, yes! We was real excited, until she went right into the chicken coop, grabbed one of them birds by the neck and start swingin it around until the neck snapped.

Then she starts pullin off feathers right there in the yard. When she went for the ax, I was outta there. I’m tellin you, that was the first time I didn’t want no fried chicken for dinner. Grandma

Alee say, where you think chicken come from silly girls?” I told her it come from the store. She started really laughin then. Say, “where you think the store get it from?” Then she went and told everybody else what I said so they could laugh too. Like I said, them people in the South got some funny ways.

On this trip, the days lasts forever; from the grits, bacon and eggs mornins until fried fish cooked in a huge vat in the yard evenins. We kids from Los Angeles couldn’t figure out why anybody would leave food heaven for our little kitchen at home. Mama only allows us to eat durin breakfast, lunch and dinner. We gotta ask for anythin else we want and we only get a lot of choices on Sundays and holidays. There’s food on the table here all the time and nobody cares if you eat till you puke. If you don’t like what’s on the table, alls you gotta do is wait for a little while and another relative comes and bring somethin else good to eat. A coupla times, relatives walked into the house and go into the kitchen and start cookin up somethin like they live there.

Like a said, it’s like a food heaven.

This evenin, Aunt Brenda, Faye and my two cousins Jackie and Vette are all sittin on the porch at the side of the house starin into the thick black of the empty lot next door. The heat feels warm on our skinny legs stickin out from cut-off shorts and sleeveless t-shirts. The air got this damp and musty smell, like wet moldy dish towels somebody left too close to the stove. The night is noisy with insects that suck the blood of clueless kids with not enough common sense to 77 come indoors when the sun goes down. Aunt Brenda, just a few years older than me and Faye, ast us if we wanna walk to the school gym to watch midnight basketball. None of the adults seem too concerned about three teenagers and one almost-teen with a sixteen-year-old guardian wanderin off several blocks away from the house to watch a basketball game at midnight. Mama wouldn’t ever let us do that at home. I’d be too afraid to even ast. But all the grown folk say go on, just stay together and watch out for each other.

We stroll through the yard of the church next door, past the graveyard that’s on the opposite side of the road that leads to the school gym. There ain’t no sidewalks, so we walk single file along the left side of the road to avoid the car that comes by ever so often. There ain’t no streetlights neither; only the moon moving back and forth behind the clouds to light our way.

Aunt Brenda is in especially good spirits as we loud talk over the insects that follow us all the way to the high school. I’m excited and so happy, thinkin bout how grown-up the other girls must think I am to want me to come along. Everybody thinks my sister is so much older than me, even though she not even two whole years more. She easily talks with our two cousins and she knows what to say to make um like her. I’m the skinny kid with elbows, hips and knees stickin out all over the place and lips that always say the wrong things when boys are around.

My glasses are always slidin down my big shiny nose, a nose that’s more at home in a book than a midnight basketball game. At twelve, I don’t need to wear no bra and accordin to my sister

Faye, probably never gonna need one in all the days of my life. Most of the older kids just leave me alone cause they think I’m a baby. I’m not though. I don’t know why they think that. Faye always say I’m that invisible kid voted most likely to be forgotten in the parkin lot of a grocery store. You know, like my own mama would forget me. I didn’t get mad cause I know that ain’t 78 true. On this night though, I’m special cause the big kids ast me to come wid um! Me. They ast me to come.

When we get to the school, I see bright lights and kids everywhere shoutin over the few grown folks tryin to keep things in order. The game is in full swing with the scoreboard pingin with each new basket and basketball shoes hittin hard against the glossy gym floor as the players run back and forth across the court. There is an amazin amount of racket in that big room and the sight and smell of it got me feelin drunk with excitement. Sneakers squeakin against floors so shiny they remind me of new nickels that Daddy brings home from the bank. Best of all, there is a giant purple and gold banner on the back wall wid the high-school name across it. I’m so happy, that is until the other girls sit me down on a bench near the back door of the gym with a large vanilla ice cream cone. They leave me to sit alone in that big room of sweaty bodies, loud whistles and kids yellin everywhere! My crew is dumpin me and is now all standin just outside the open door in deep conversation with four boys. Looks like to me that they been waitin there to meet them. Then it hit me. They didn’t really want me to come with them cause they think I’m just as grown as they are. They probably brought me with them only cause

Grandma Alee made them do it. She musta told them that they couldn’t come unless they brought me. The real game is goin on just outside the door of this gym and I ain’t even invited to sit sideline on the court!

I sit on that bench blowin steam from my nose, whilst my vanilla ice cream cone melts down the side of my hand. I’m thinkin hard about all the ways to make them pay for what they done to me. Then it hit me, and the plan comes together like magic. I peek around the corner of the open door and see the four of um, gigglin and leanin towards the boys like they all hard of hearin and stuff. I stand up and begin a loud howl at the top of my lungs. I hafta really yell cause 79 it’s so loud in the gym, “I wanna go hoooooome now,” I wail. It’s a real beauty of a hissy fit!

I’ll teach them to treat me like a baby. Faye comes runnin back through the door of the gym and snatches me up by the arm, “What’s the matter with you? Can’t you see we talkin to some friends? Grandma Alee shouldna made us bring you. I told her you were gonna be a baby? You are ruinin everythin! Look how you, makin a fool outta yourself!”

I slyly look around at a gatherin crowd. Look like to me things workin out just fine. Either they gonna take home or murder me and leave my body on the side of the road. The murder part is not a good plan. Right here, where we standin at now, is a gym full of witnesses. They got no choice. They gotta take me back home and ruin they perfectly planned boy dates. Perfect time for me to really ham it up. I summon up the free-flowin snot-balls, throw my head back and wail even louder, yellin out “you hurtin my arm!” I run the back of my hand across my face to wipe away the tears, droppin ice cream all over that shiny gym floor. That’s when a worried older lady with a whistle started headin over in our direction, I could tell that it was a done deal. Game over, and I’m not talkin about the one on the basketball court neither.

The walk home is real quiet, and steamy and not only from the heat still bakin the road that leads to grandma’s house. The other girls keep fallin behind and huddlin together whisperin to each other. I don’t care. They not gonna be dumpin me off someplace whiles they go off and talk to some stinky boys. A cloud forms overhead that hides the moon and makes the sky kinda dark when we get right-up next to the graveyard. We have to walk on the cemetery side of the road on the way home so that we can face the traffic, just in case a car come through. I ain’t seen not one car on that street since we left the gym, but it’s too dark to take any chances. My Aunt

Brenda breaks the line to walk in the front of the group, turnin around and walkin backwards so that she could face us. She begins to talk in a low, quiet-like voice, 80

“We need to really watch out right here near the cemetery. One night a coupla years ago, a man disappeared right along this here street. He went into the graveyard cause he had to pee and never came back out alive. Everybody was lookin for him for days and days, his people, the sheriff, everybody. She looks at each of us with a grave look on her face and glances over her shoulder worried like into the graveyard.

Jackie said, “yeah. I member that. They looked for days but couldn’t find him nowheres.

I stare at the two of them in bug-eyed silence.

“They say, he floats above the gravestones some nights callin out for his daughter, hopin that she come and find him,” adds Vette matter of fact like. It was all just so sad. Everybody cryin and stuff. It was a mess, a real mess.”

It seem like to me it’s gettin so much darker than it was before. I could barely see my hand in front of my face good. I begin to notice the sounds of our flip-flops on the road and the ghost- like shadows we make when the moon peeks out from behind the cloud. Worst of all, my wonderful performance at the gym had not allow me time to go to the bathroom before my victory was realized. Now, I really gotta pee. I wasn’t about to suggest they wait while I take a squat next to one of them headstones! You know, considerin what already done happened.

Brenda starts up the story again, “After a coupla weeks, they find parts of his stinkin, wormy body layin below one of them old headstones nearest the road. Except the legs. They didn’t find his legs. Nobody knows what happen to them legs. Now, when it gets real dark and quiet, they say he floats around the graveyard lookin for his missin parts.”

I try and walk closer to Faye, who makes sure that she keeps herself a few steps ahead of me. When the cloud passes over the moon again, I hear a blood curdlin scream and my Aunt

Brenda, my sister and my cousins run past me at break-neck speed, leavin me standin near the 81 gates of the cemetery all by myself! I start to run, but I trip over one of my flip-flops, fallin face first in the road. I lose my glasses and spill the change that’s been rattlin around in the pocket of my shorts in the street. I stand-up in a full-on panic, wet my pants and run like the dickens, leavin both my flip flops on the side of the road. I can almost feel that ghost on my heels bearin down on me whiles I dash through the churchyard screamin at the top of my lungs. When I get to the side porch of the house, my cousins, my sister and Aunt were sittin on the porch innocent- like restin their backs against the outside wall of the house. They all look-up as if confused by my wet shorts, my missing glasses and this time, honest to God snot-balls rollin down my nose and drippin off my chin.

My Sister says to the others in disgust, “I asked Granddaddy Ben to let us leave the baby at home. She already ruined the whole night. Now look what she done. Went and wet her pants.”

I stand there, burnin. I want to stop cryin. I really do, but the hiccups just keep comin. I got no control over it. I’m really mad. When I start to calm myself down, I turn and head for the side door of the house to where Grandma Alee leaves the door unlocked. At that point, my demon kin must have started to think about how it will look to Grandma if I walk in the house lookin like I did. Granddaddy Ben always goes to bed early, but Grandma will not go to sleep until we all got back home. Jackie slips in the door in front of me, while Faye grabs me by the shirt to keep me from goin inside. Jackie comes back with a wet towel and starts washin my face and brushin off the dirt from my shirt and shorts. Brenda runs back to the street next to the cemetery and grabs my glasses, bendin them back best she can and placin them back on my nose and shovin my flip flops into my hand. The change I dropped never was found, at least nobody mentions findin it. Aunt Brenda starts to explain to me how bad it would get if I told anybody about what happened. I was especially not to mention one word about them boys at the high 82 school. If I did, there would be more for me to worry about than a ghost in the graveyard! I’m finally allowed to stagger into the house, shower and fall into the bed I share with Faye. I’m dog-tired, and don’t wake up in the mornin til late. Grandma Alee is up cookin grits, bacon and mounds of hot buttered toast for when my parents get there. Granddaddy Ben looks over the cup of coffee he just poured himself and ast, “Chile, why is there skin missin off both them knees?”

Faye starts talkin real fast then, “Granddaddy, you know how clumsy she is. Even with them glasses she can’t see half the time where she be goin. She fell in the street last night.”

“About them glasses, he says. They look kinda bent to me. Y’all sure that’s all that happened here Daffy?” He always calls Faye Daffy. Don’t know where that nickname came from. Don’t know why nobody don’t ask me what happened. They all ack like a can’t talk.

“Yeah, Granddaddy. She just fell, is all. I’m gonna keep a better eye on her next time,” Faye smiles and looks at me as if I’m her most favorite person. She turns her face towards me just enough so I don’t miss the threat in her eyes.

“I’m so sorry you didn’t have no fun last night,” he says. He reaches into the pocket of his coveralls and pushes across the table a large Sugar Daddy. He always did seem to think that a

Sugar Daddy fixed anythin wrong with his granddaughters. Alls it did for me is to make me feel like a bigger sucker. I give him a weak smile and finish my breakfast so that I can head outside to stake out the front porch.

My Aunt, Sister and Cousins occupy the side porch far enough away to give me some space, but close enough for me to hear them laughin and jokin with each other. They probably plottin their next meetin with them boys at the gym. I got a much better plan in the works.

Relatives are comin from Alabama this weekend. They will have sweet potato pie, fish to fry, mounds of cold potato salad and six rowdy kids all around my age. They live on a street where 83 everybody is kin. My great grandfather, they call him Poppa, once owned all the land in them parts and he doled it out to the family members he liked. My Grandma Alee didn’t get any for some reason. These kids are experts in the sufferin of teenage girls, masters of plots of revenge, they ate and drank it every day where they live. I have a Sugar Daddy for a prize that would go to the best game strategy. I sit quietly waitin for the weekend. There will be plenty of food and family fury. Game on.

On our final night in Mississippi, my sister, my Aunt Brenda and the two cousins are talkin truce. Them Alabama kids had done their job well. There was the spoons of potato salad flicked like slingshots into Faye’s freshly washed hair, syrup poured in a pair of Brenda’s favorite sandals and left on the porch to attract the most perfect horde of fire ants. The best part was when they collected up some of them ants and dropped them down the back of Jackie and Vette’s t- shirts. It was a wonderful weekend! The sun was shinin, and the air was filled with the screams of teen-age girls. Of course, the payback came after my Alabama cousins went home. I was kicked, by accident of course, shoved into the bushes next to where the old outhouse used to sit and chased by an angry chicken. I don’t know how that got that bird so riled up or what they did to get it mad at me. I do know that I need to make-up, at least with Faye, or else it’s gonna be a long miserable ride home. The other girls will get over the past few days by next summer. At least I think they will.

We make our peace as best we can, then we sit there in the dark watchin the lightin bugs flicker in the night. Out of the corner of my eye, I see it. A ghostly figure floatin just past the church yard next door. I turn around and stare into the night, tryin to see if I really see somethin or what. I turn to look the other girls, thinkin they were just foolin when they said that we should make up. I find myself stairin back into terrified faces. We all turn toward the side door at the 84 same time, yank it open and all try in squeeze through at once. When we all get inside, we have to untangle our arms and legs enough to slam the door behind us. We turn to look at each to see the panic on each other’s faces. Then we fall into each other’s arms laughin so loud and pretendin what we saw wasn’t real and that none of us was really scared. The noise brought

Grandma Alee to the door of the living room, yelling,

“Y’all cut all that racket out!” You know your Grandaddy tryin to sleep.” As she is leavin the room, she glances back over her shoulder, turns towards us and tilts her head to one side.

She then starts chucklin, turns back around and closes the door.

Grandma Alee has always been a pretty spiritual woman. She is a powerful believer of

God and ghosts. While sittin in the back of Mama and Daddy’s blue Van travelin back to LA, I begin to wonder if Grandma prayed up a ghost to teach us a lesson. I betcha she did. I really do believe she did. That makes her one game up on all of us.

A couple of weeks later, me and Karen are sittin on my front porch watchin the kids play in the neighborhood. We been talkin about what we gonna wear the first day of school and how not to look like seventh graders when we get there. We spent some time talkin bout our trips, me bout Mississippi and her bout campin in the RV. I didn’t tell her about the ghost though. We gonna be in junior high soon and need to start learnin how not to act like babies. I look at Karen and say, “we ain’t gonna start likin boys, are we?”

“Naw,” she says. Boys are dumb…sometimes.”

I say, “Good. Let’s go down the alley and gets some oranges from Mr. Cooper’s yard fore school starts. We be too cute next year.”

85

Family & Fury

Mama always makes fried chicken when we go to Mississippi in the summertime. She starts cookin the night before we leave, heatin up the skillet until it’s bubblin hot and washin each piece of chicken in the sink. Me and my sister Faye is peekin around the corner from the hallway with eyes like saucers, trying to get a better view of Mama takin care of business in the kitchen. It’s the summer of 1965 and we is done wid school! We already took our baths and

Mama had sent us to bed hours before now. We too excited to sleep, after spendin a tirin day gettin in the way while Mama was tryin her best to get the packin done. From our hallway hidin place, we watch her seasonin the chicken, rolling it in flour, then steadily puttin hot chicken into a wide Tupperware dish. Mama don’t pay us no mind for a little while, pretendin like she don’t see us pushin and shovin just outside the kitchen door. People say we like stairsteps, my sister and me, she is eight and I am seven. That smell of fried chicken floatin above our heads in our steamy yellow kitchen make it too darn hard to mind Mama! She abides us for a little while,

Mama I mean, ignorin Faye’s loud whispers as we inch closer n closer to the openin to the kitchen. I try hard to keep from trippin over my own feet and to keep from gettin my legs all tangled up wid Faye’s. What really gets us busted is the pepper. When Mama was seasonin another batch of chicken, Fay sneezes, gettin spit all over the back of my neck. That’s it. It just gotta to be the pepper’s fault. Mama spins her head around and gives both of us the evil eye.

“Y’all ain’t gone to bed yet? I thought I told you to go to bed. What’s wrong wid you girls? We gotta get up early in da mornin. Do y’all want me get my switch?”

“No ma’am. We jus needs some water,” we sing out our most favorite nighttime excuse.

Mama stabs a flour covered hand in our direction, still clutching a raw chicken leg with her thumb and finger, “I gave you some water bout an hour ago. You don’t want nothin, an you 86 don’t need nothin. If I gotta tell you one—more—time to go to bed,” she says, deliverin each word a little louder than the one before.

Course, she didn’t need do nothin. We shot down that hall like we was being chased by the devil herself, jumpin into bed, all whiles arguin bout whose fault it is for us gettin busted. I don’t care what Faye say, it’s the pepper! Just thinkin about Mama’s switch though, is more than a powerful notion. We mighta moved a little slower if she hada grabbed the shoe from her left foot and took aim with that instead of threatenin us with that switch. Now, she gotta real good aim, but gettin hit on the backside with a fluffy pink slipper wid bunny ears couldn’t be takin too serious. That switch though is somethin most entirely different! In fact, she don’t even gotta have it in her hand. Jus the thought of it makes me wanna rub on my backside!

The next thing I knowed, Daddy is standing at our bedroom door yellin, “up and at um.

We not gonna keep everybody waitn, so get up and get movin!” It felt like I hadn’t been to sleep at all. I pull back the curtain and look out the window into total darkness. “Faye, it still look like night outside. Why we gotta get up so early?”

“Cause daddy said so. Go on in there and tell um we goin back to bed and he need to wait til we finish gettn our beauty rest.” She is standin by the dresser in her nightgown, one drawer open and lookin back at me with a sly smile on her lips and a double dare ya look in her eyes.

I move away from the dresser to wait until she got her cloths out, knowin full well that we ain’t gonna tell daddy nothin. She’s just tryin to get me in trouble, like she always do. I wanna say something really mean, like call her a cow or somethin, but she can hit really hard and

I know that she just gonna beat me up. She almost a head taller than me and is already beatin up all the boys in school. The kids laugh at me an call me Olive Oyl, like the Popeye cartoon. Faye 87 say I’m all bony, with feet that turn in like a duck’s. “You ain’t found nothin yet that you can’t trip over,” she always sayn. Imma just keep my mouth shut so we don’t gotta worry about her whoopin-up on me this mornin. I’m awake now anyways.

“We gotta get on the road now. I ain’t gonna be waitin on y’all all day,” Daddy is yellin from the front door. He’s loadin up our Black and White 1957 Chevy and tryin to get my squirmy little brothers into the car’s ginormous back seat.

I pull on a pair of blue shorts, a white t-shirt and a pair of white bobby socks, then grab my navy-blue tennis shoes from underneath the bed. I then head to the bathroom to do battle with the braids in my hair. Mama always put the braids too tight and the only thing I do is to get them all tangled up in knots. “Don’t battle with the hair,” I whisper under my breath. “The hair always wins.” When the silent tears start rollin, Faye peeks in the door and stares at me for minute, tryin to decide if she’s gonna tease me or help me out. She makes up her mind and walks over to the sink and run water over both of her hands. She spreads her wet hands over each tangled and mangled braid, then takes a big tooth comb and calmly combs out the knots I put in.

She then puts the braids back, neatly on each side of my head and loose enough for me to undo myself. She wraps the end of each braid with one blue and one white barrette that she digs out of a drawer underneath the sink. I step back and take a look in the mirror and smile, wiping the tears away with the back of my hand. My big sister is mean and nasty most of the time, but today she’s my shero!

“Come on. You know Daddy gets really mad when we make him late.” She takes my hand, and we walk through front of the house to the back door of the car to find our places among the boys and of course, Mama’s giant basket of food. I take the seat next to the basket and Faye gets the window. When we are both sittin down, Mama hands each of us a fried egg 88 sandwich and a Tupperware cup filled with orange juice from the front passenger seat. “Now don’t spill it,” she says. “I started to let you two go hungry, since you can’t seem to get to the breakfast table like proper young ladies. I seen Faye helpin you with your hair. I like it when my girls act like they some kin. When you gonna learn to comb your own hair?” she asks. I don’t answer. Mama knows I don’t care about my hair. If I thought I could get away with it, the knotted braids would still be stickin out all over my head, lookin more like the spokes on the wheel of my bicycle.

By afternoon, we are traveling down Interstate 10 headin east, the lead car in a line of four others. Carloads of uncles, aunts and cousins are waitin by the entrance to the freeway when we get there, pullin in behind us when Daddy makes the right-turn onto the onramp. My sister and I turn in our seats to look behind us and get a lazy wave and a crooked smile from our

Uncle Snook. He is in the car behind us with Aunt Mary in the passenger seat and Cousin

Clarence sittin in the middle of the back seat. We can only see the very top of his head cause he’s so little.

“Daddy, who’s in the car behind Uncle Snook?” I ask.

“Well, let see now, there’s Zeola, Alphonso and your four cousins. Then you got Irma

Lee, Alice, Niecy and Junior in the car behind them. I don’t know who that is in the last car.

They’s some of Mary’s people, I think. Ain’t never met none of them.”

I turn back around in my seat and slide into a comfortable position, pullin my glasses from my sweater pocket and immediately droppin my nose into my worn copy of The

Borrowers. It’s gonna be a long ride. Might as well get lost in the problems of a world of funny lookin little people. 89

By evenin, Mama has switched to the driver seat and Daddy is asleep on the passenger side, lettin out quiet-like snores. Faye and me is gettin more and more irritated bout havin to share the backseat with two squirmy little boys, and we is gettin madder and madder by the minute. It’s not that we don’t like our little brothers; we just like um better if they not so close!

Frederick is 5 and Tony is almost 4. When Frederick gets bored, he entertains himself by rockin back and forth and hittin his head against the backseat of the car, all whiles singin loudly three made-up words over and over and over. “Ahaima Taima Maima!” Tony don’t pay him no mind.

He’s really focused on coverin the pages of his colorin book with big strokes of green and purple crayon, page after page, after page. He ack like he don’t see that cigarette box on the seat next to him full of every color crayons you can think of. I slam my book on the floor of the car and cover my ears with both hands and think about what happens to kids who murder their brothers.

You know, normal stuff like, how young kids gotta be before the police can put them in the electric chair, and if I escape from the back seat of the car and head for the hills, could I find a canyon and hide out for like, forever? Faye looks out into the miles of passin freeway and I’m certain, kicks me on purpose every few miles. Mama, who I knows got eyes in the back of her head, is seein the bomb bout to go off in the backseat, so gets off the freeway at a rest stop with some trees, picnic tables and bathrooms. She pulls the humongous car into a parkin space and we pile out like we escapin prison or somethin, runnin in all kindsa directions. Gettin outta that car is alls I can think of! As if on cue, kids pile out of the other cars behind us as soon as they stop, runnin, jumpin, turnin flips and of course, screamin like banshees. Uncle Snook finds a couple of picnic tables and food begin to magically appear from the backseat and trunks of all of the cars. After everythin is set up, Mama yells for us to go wash our hands and come and get ready to eat. I got chicken on my mind and I’m dancin towards the picnic tables! 90

“Imma say grace,” Aunt Irma Lee quickly volunteers as soon as everybody is standin around the tables. Faye lets out a low groan and gets a “don’t you dare say nothin” look from

Mama.

“Now Irma Lee, we don’t need no long church sermon,” Daddy says. Just thank the Lord and let us eat. These kids is hungry and they need to run some more before we can get um all back into them cars.”

Aunt Irma Lee gives him one of them, ‘don’t you dare interrupt me when I’m bout to start my prayin’ looks. She stands up, ignorin Daddy, and raises both hands to the heavens and begin to rock from side to side. The little ones, especially Tony, looks up at her wide-eyed. The longer Auntie prays, the louder she gets and the louder she gets, the more her arms move around like she swattin flies outta the air. Before long, the Amen corner at each end of the table begin to chime in like we in the middle of church on Sunday.

“Yes lord, preach it sister,” rains down from the back-up choir made up of Mama, Aunt

Zeola’s and the lady from the last car. Faye whispers in my ear, “we ain’t never gonna eat now.”

Daddy must’a felt the same way, cause he stands-up and shouts over the prayin ladies,

“Amen!” He then begins scoping cold fruit and potato salad from the open Tupperware containers and piling pieces of Mama’s chicken high onto an already overflowin paper plate. It was like a dam broke or somethin, cause hands begin reachin from all directions grabbin food and makin noisy eatin sounds all over the place. Auntie looks really mad for a while, but she soon joins in and looks like she might forgive daddy. He’s her youngest brother, and he takes advantage of that whenever he feels like he ought to get his way. 91

By the time the Sweet Potato Pie and pound cake gets to the table, my mood is greatly improved. I even volunteer to take my little brothers to wash their hands and faces after they is finished eatin. I can’t do nothin about the food splattered all over Tony’s t-shirt, lookin like his crayon pictures, but hands and faces are my specialty! When we get back, the little kids run off to play with Clarence and Junior nearby and I join my cousins at the next table who are in the middle of playin a game of Go Fish. It’s Niecy’s turn, but she ain’t payin attention. Alice elbows her and she turns around straddlin the bench and shushes the rest of us with a finger to her lips, pointin a thumb slyly at the adult table. We get real quite so that we can hear what the grown folks is sayin that got Niecy all interested. Our parents is talkin to the lady with the kids that is in the last car.

“This here’s Francis, my friend from church and those over there are her kids,” my Aunt

Mary is sayin. We all turn around to glance at the two boys and two girls kickin a ball around by the water fountain, bowin our heads as if we ourselves are being introduced.

“She gonna need our help with some gas. She tryin to get home to Alabama where her peoples at and she don’t got nuff money to make it all the way.” Alphonso looks-up at her,

Francis I mean, and ask,

“Why you get on the road with dis many kids without nuff money to get where you goin?

Don’t mean to pry, but dat jus don’t make no sense to me.”

Francis is a big-boned woman with wide hips and lips that look like they ain’t never had a smile on um. She got on a raggedy blue sweater over a polka dot cotton dress that looks old, but clean and freshly ironed, except in the back part where she been sittin. She looks around the table and gives the grown-ups a tired look then looks down and starts pickin lint from her sweater. 92

“My Raymond, he a good man. He jus can’t take all the bad talkin on his construction job. We lived in a small town in Alabama fore we came to Los Angeles. It’s a good place, but we heard we can make do much better out west.” The adults, all southern transplants from

Alabama or Mississippi nod their heads in agreement.

“Lately, when dem white folks call him names, he come home an wanna fight wid me.

When they short his pay, he come home an wanna fight. When he gotta work late, police hassle him for bein in the white folks neighborhood after dark and when he get home he wanna fight.

Last time, the fightn got real bad. He knock me upside my head, n I clock him right back! The kids cryin and the neighbors bangin on the walls. I swear, I got no fight left in me. Not like I ain’t got nuff to deal wid myself. Drivin dem freeways to clean up for white folks houses day n and day out. I’m tired of fightn. I jus wanna go home!”

Francis wipes a tear from her face with the back of her hand. “If we get back home, things be alright. We got family back home.”

Cousin Alice whispers, “Who gonna wanna fight wid her. She look like she can give as good as she can get? Look at them big hands n arms on her. Man o man, she can choke a horse if she wants to!”

“Shut-up” says Niecy. “They gonna know we listinin and make us move to another table.

Jus take your turn and act like we still playin.”

Mama reaches into her purse and presses a perfectly ironed white hankie into Francis’ hand. The aunties and uncles looked on like they understand what she talkin bout, bobbin their heads in agreement about life in the city. Mama repeats quietly, “Sometimes you jus got no fight left and you wanna go home.” 93

“Where he at now?” Alphonso is askin. “You just waltz yoself out of the house with these babies and hit the road?” Francis laughs loudly and scrunches her eyes a bit an sayin,

“naw, it was a little more to it than that.”

Alice kicks me under the table, “she can smile! She a real pretty lady when she smiles.

Look at them pretty white teeth an the way her eyes twinkle like stars!”

“Well, I’ll tell yah,” Francis continues. “When Sister Mary say y’all goin on a summer trip to Mississippi, I thought, they’s people ain’t that far from mine in Alabama. I toll her, if I had enough money, me and the kids can jus go on back home wid y’all.”

“Yeah, says Mary. I told her if she could get to the meetin place fore day, that she welcome to come wid us. We gonna help her get back home.”

“Well, every day for a week, I drop the kids off at Vacation Bible School, like I was goin to work. But I wasn’t. I quit them damn jobs the week before. Now ain’t that one thing to get happy about? After his buddy pick him up for work in the mornin, I double back and start packin. I wash and iron the kid’s cloths and pack. Hide the boxes in my neighbors livin room, and pack some more. Cook food for the trip and put it in the back of the refrigerator and pack.

On the day we sposed to leave, I drop the kids off like I always do, then double back when he gone, I come back home an load the boxes in the car. I clean the house and leave Raymond part of my money, then I go and pick up the kids at the church. When I seen Mary, I pull behind the last car, and here we is.”

Alphonso, always keen on details ask, “Why you leave um money when you ain’t got nuff to get where you wanna go, woman? Uncle always held on tight to his dollars and sharin don’t come naturally to him. 94

“Like I said, he a good man. Sometimes life take too much. He jus thought he could get it back by beatin it outta me. When he find out we gone, he gonna follow us back home, I just knows it. We only got dis car. He gonna need to buy a bus ticket.”

“What gonna happen if he come all the way back to Alabama an still wanna knock you upside the head?” Daddy quickly gets in a question before Alphonso’s can keep talkin. It’s hard to get a word in when Alphonso gets goin.

“We both gotta a whole lot of family in Hobson City. They ain’t gonna have none of that foolishness. If we can’t pray it out of um, I got six brothers n sisters and a woodshed in the back.

No neighbors back there to bang on the walls. He ain’t even gonna think about fightn when he come home!”

“They got white folks in Alabama too and they ain’t no better than the one’s we got in

Los Angeles! Hell, sometime they a lot worse. What you gonna do bout dat,” Alphonso gets back in with another question, then eyes Daddy in triumph.

“Not where we at.” Francis breaks out in a full-on belly laugh. “We alls Black folks in

Hobson. The mayor is Black. The Police Chief is Black. The whole county run by Black folks.

Been that way fore I was born.”

“You shitten me,” says Alphonso. “In Alabama?”

“Yeah, in Alabama.”

Alphonso thought for a long while, then says “why y’all leave then?” Francis looks down at her hands, before lookin back at Alphonso. “Work got scarce. We heard everybody workin in Los Angeles. We thought things be better. All we heard about from folks who left was how good LA is and how much money they be makin. I guess it ain’t good for everybody. 95

Sho ain’t good for me. Show ain’t good for Raymond neither. Things ain’t perfect back home, but better than what we got goin on in LA.”

Uncle Snook and Mama stand up and move towards each other in solidarity to put an end to all the foolish talk. “Our Mama Alee and Daddy Ben raised us right! We gonna help this lady get home to her people and y’all gonna help us. Don’t you worry about nothin Francis, we gonna get you home. They jus goin on and on about it, but the answer was yes when you pulled behind the last car!” Mama sternly looks around the grown folk’s table, “can I get an Amen!”

Then she turns around and start packin up the food. I guess she wasn’t gonna wait for anybody to answer.

With Mama’s last statement, the excitement is over. We gather up all the cards and head back to the cars. Daddy climbs behind the driver seat and prepares himself to drive all night.

Uncle Snook heads back to Francis’ car to take over drivin for her for a while. The longest part of the trip is through Texas, which means that we ain’t gonna be doing much stoppin. Every year everybody dreads goin thru Texas. Mama always say it’s best not to lollygag too long when drivin through Texas.

Early the next mornin, the rest of us is sleep and Daddy is still drivin. I wake up when I hear the siren and see the red lights of a police car pull around us to the front. My stomach gets tight, an I feel like I need to go to the bathroom. I nudge Faye to see if she awake and she puts a hand in mine and whispers, “we need to be quite now.” Daddy pulls over to the side of the road behind the police car. The sheriff gets out and waves at the other cars behind us to keep goin.

He then walks over to the driver side of the car as daddy rolls the window down.

“Where y’all folks going this mornin?

“We jus passin through. We goin to Mississippi to see family,” says Daddy. 96

“Y’all moving through town mighty fast now. In a hurry are you?”

“No suh. We ain’t inna hurry. Like I said. We jus passin through on our way to our family.”

The sheriff looks past Daddy over to the passenger side of the car. Mama looks down at the dashboard. He then looks into the backseat, where Faye is still holding my hand. The boys are still sleepin, Tony wid his head in Frederick’s lap with his two favorite crayons on the seat near his feet.

“Watch y’all got in that basket?”

“Jus food for the kids, dat’s all,” answers Daddy. “Jus food for the kids.”

The Sheriff motions for Faye to unlock the back door. He opens it and reaches over Faye and me and shoves his hand in the basket and start movin stuff around. I see Mama reach over and grab Daddy’s hand and begin the rub it, but it don’t seem to make him look any less angry.

Satisfied with his attack on the basket, he motions for Daddy to open the trunk of the car. Daddy gets out and heads to the back of the car, while Mama begins to whisper to Jesus. After a time, the trunk closes and Daddy comes back and gets into the driver seat, the Sheriff is standing jus outside the door.

“Well, OK. Y’all get movin. Makes folks nervous when a bunch of you people come rolling through our town. I better not hear bout no trouble from any of y’all, you hear?”

“We don’t want no trouble Sur. We jus passin through.” The Sheriff walks back to his police car, gets in and drives away.

“Sonofabitch,” growls Daddy, as he puts the key in the ignition and pulls the car back on the freeway.

“Now Eddie, how much did it cost us this time?” 97

“Jus the $20 I had in my pocket. I put the rest inna envelope and taped it to the the bottom of the boy’s crayon box. He only likes some of the colors, so he ain’t gonna bother nothin.”

“Well, praise God,” whispers Mama. Coulda been a lot worse. You know that. It coulda been a lot worse.”

“Daddy, shouldn’t we tell somebody,” I ask.

“Who we gonna tell Baby Girl? The police? Ain’t nobody gonna believe us. Even if they do, nobody’s gonna care.”

I don’t say nothin. I don’t know what to say anyways. Besides, I can’t figure out what to do with this knot in my stomach. Why Mama say things coulda been worse? What do that mean? I’m not gonna ask. It feel like if I do, imma start cryin like a big baby. I’m not a baby!

We drive for bout another hour. I wanna ask about the rest of the cars, but the car got real quiet after the sheriff left. Nobody sayn nothin now. I turn my head n look at Faye. She still starin out the window, but it don’t look like she actually lookin at anythin. Soon daddy gets off the freeway at a busy gas station to fill up the car. Mama says, “y’all go on and use the bathroom. If it still say white only, go around the back and look for the one that say colored.

We don’t want no mo trouble. We ain’t gonna press our luck.”

When Daddy’s done gettin the gas, he pulls around the back of the station and heads toward the freeway onramp. Parked alongside the road are the four cars full of relatives. They pull behind us and we all get back on the freeway. He looks over at Mama, “Leslie, you can take over when we get across the state line. We gonna throw the rest of that shit in the basket out. My kids ain’t gonna be eatn any of that. I don’t know where that man’s hands been.” 98

After what seem like forever, we finally get to Mississippi and all pile out of the car at

Grandma Alee’s house. Our Southern relatives got tables and chairs set-up in the backyard piled high with the biggest potluck I ever seen. There are people everywhere in that house, people sittin and talkin on the front porch and more people in the backyard. Music playin and people dancin. It’s like a big party. Pretty soon, we in the middle of it all and it’s like everybody forgot what happened in Texas. When it starts gettin late, the last car with Francis and her four kids, slowly backs down the driveway. Aunt Mary and Uncle Snook was followin behind in they car.

I guess they gonna make sure that she get all the way back to her people. After what happened in Texas, I can’t stop thinkin about what Francis said about where her people live. A whole

Black town run by Black people in Alabama. Imagine that. I wonder what that feel like?

When we head back to Los Angeles two weeks later, there’s only four cars on the road back home. I’m not excited to be back in the car. It don’t feel the same as it did when we started the trip. Everythin mostly the same. Grandma Alee and Mama fill the basket back up with food and Tony got a new colorin book. As we go along, thick trees get scarcer and there is more open road. My mind wanders back to Francis’ and her kids. I wonder if Raymond bought a bus ticket and went back to that all-black town. I thought about the family prayin the fight out of him and wonder if that look like what Aunt Irma Lee do when she starts with her celebratin God. We wait for the adults to mention something more about Francis, knowin full well that if we ask, they gone know that we was listenin. They don’t say nothin though. Not a word the whole darn trip back. It almost like Francis an her kids was never wid us.

A few weeks after we get back to our house, we finally back to our old summer routine.

Durin the day, we ride our bikes with the other neighborhood kids to Green Meadows park to go swimmin in the public pool. Daddy goes to work at his construction job and Mama works the 99 swing shift at the factory. I don’t know what she does there. Every Sunday, Mama makes a big dinner, sometimes pilin plates high with pipin hot fried chicken, collard greens and cold potato salad. Like usual, there’s always lots of dessert. Things don’t feel the same though, not like it did before we left. I wonder if Daddy’s boss do mean things to him, or if the police stop him on his way home from work? What about Mama? She don’t get home till dark. Do police bother her for bein in the wrong neighborhood at night? Where we live is all black people too, but not like what Francis said. Everybody who run things here is white. The police drivin around the neighborhood in their cars is white, the people behind the counter at the bank is white and the people who own the grocery store on Avalon is white. At night, all the white people go home. I guess, I never really paid much attention to the way things is fore now. Never knowed things can be different in other places and now I can’t stop thinkin bout it. I wonder if things don’t feel right because I was rememberin what Francis said about Raymond wantin to fight cause of what life was doin to um. What’s life doin to Mama and Daddy? What’s life doin to Uncle Alphonso and Aunt Zeola and the rest of my uncles and aunts? Is that why mama and daddy sometimes fight, cause of what life’s doin? I hardly ever think about black and white people till now. I don’t know any white people up close and personal like. You know like they here, but not here.

Kinda like the white people on the TV, but not that far away.

It seem like the police are ridin around our neighborhood like they wanna fight all the time, as it get later n later in the summer. Make me wonder what life is doin to all of them to make um so mad? Fight is hangin in the air like the thick smoke from the BBQ place down the street. I don’t know how to ask mama and daddy bout what it feel like in this place right now.

Don’t even wanna walk down to the bookmobile to get more books by myself. I’m jus scared all the time. All the time. 100

The big fight starts early in August. Word go round the neighborhood bout the police beatin up on a pregnant woman. Black people get mad and make big crowds around the police to help the lady out. More police came to fight, and more black people come to fight back. Police say some nasty things about black people and then they burn down the Muslim’s church. Pretty soon, everythin on fire. After the fightin start, we can’t ride our bikes to the park to go swimmin.

Mama and Daddy can’t go to work. All we can do is stand on the porch of our house and watch stuff burn-up. Smoke in the air and siren noises all night long. Soon, more men with guns and uniforms come and stand on the roof of Fat Burgers on Avalon. The liquor store gets all burned up and Daddy and Mama is talkin wid the next-door neighbor one-night bout the black people killed dead the night before. Make me think a lot about Francis and Raymond. Maybe, things would be better if everybody jus go back home to they own family. That way, they’s people can pray all the fight out of um. That’s gotta work. We ain’t got no woodsheds in South Central Los

Angeles. What people gonna do if the prayin don’t work?

101

Gumbo

When Aunt Margery and Grandma Alee came to visit Los Angeles from Mississippi,

Mama went down to the garage and retrieved a giant stock pot that she kept in a box. This is a special box, containing all manner of cooking things that surface only during certain occasions.

When she busted open that box, we all knew that good things were about to happen. I don’t know how Faye knew, but when that pot made its way to the kitchen, my sister was on the phone spreading the good news. She didn’t yet know the specifics of the feast, but something good was about to jump off in Mama’s kitchen. She advised that I grab the kids and get over there in a hurry, preferably before dinner was served.

After I hung up the phone, I looked around my sparsely furnished apartment; the undersized blue couch in the living room salvaged from a local retailer about to go out of business, the unstained wooden table with two little chairs purchased for the children as a

Christmas present, and the scared dining room set newly acquired from a recent garage sale that I happened by one day after work. Bits and pieces of odds and ends thrown together to make a home for a newly divorced mother of two. To the outside observer, it looked like the mess that comprises a life falling apart. To me, it was the welcomed beginnings of a life finally coming together. I smile, then perk-up my ears for the sounds of chaos that would lead me to the exact location of my three-year-old daughter and two-year-old son. They are a rambunctious twosome, incessantly curious and skillful in devising interesting ways of asserting themselves.

Nothing and everything in my life up to this moment has prepared me to be their mother, even if it meant that I was no longer a wife. 102

I get the kids scrubbed and shackled in their car seats, put the key in the ignition of my little brown Buick, said a silent prayer, and smiled when rewarded with the sound of the engine sputtering to life. It’s an old car, with front seats so threadbare that the floor on the driver side is visible through the springs. It has a distinct personality that dictates when or if we were going to actually go places on any given day and often, if we were going to return home. I engage the clutch, pull away from the curb, and we were on the way to Mama’s house to see what we are going to eat from her kitchen.

When we enter the house, Mama is busy in the kitchen standing amongst piles of crab, freshly cleaned shrimp, chicken wings and andouille sausage, all being fed into a simmering broth. The entire concoction is emitting an aroma that makes the eyes water with pure joy.

Grandma Alee is sitting on a stool watching Mama’s progress and Great Aunt Margery is standing nearby. Much to the annoyance of Mama, my sister Faye is loudly providing suggestions for improving the spice mix simmering in the pot and trying to convince Mama to add more okra to the mix. Grandma quietly observes the activities taking place in Mama’s stock pot for a time, then proclaims loudly in a matter-of-fact voice,

“That ain’t gumbo!”

The room got very quiet, even Faye stopped talking about that damn okra, and all eyes turned to Grandma.

“Gumbo only got seafood in it, no chicken and no sausage. Whatever you got goin on in that pot might look good, but it ain’t gumbo.”

“Grandma, can’t it be gumbo, just not like you make it?” Faye asked curiously.

“Naw, gumbo got seafood, no chicken, no sausage.” Grandma is adamant and shows no inclination to budge on the matter. 103

In a fervent attempt to change the subject, Aunt Margery, grandma’s sister, looks over and notices me sitting on the floor wrestling my son’s flaying arms from his jacket. After providing the appropriate level of silly child directed conversation, she turns to me and says,

“where your man at?”

“Aunt Margery, I’m not married anymore” I say. “Things didn’t work out for us. It’s just me and the kids now.”

Aunt Margery, directing a long-confused look at me, begins again, “The man you had, did he beat cha?”

“No ma’am. Things just didn’t work out. We just went our separate ways.”

“Well, can’t you go back and get him? It ain’t too late, is it?”

“No ma’am, I’m not interested in having him back. It was too late before I left him.”

Faye, pulls up a chair to face Aunt Margery and me and sits down, leans forward, no longer interested in what additional seasonings are needed in Mama’s pot.

Aunt Margery cocks her head to one side and continues where she had left off. “I don’t understand why your man would leave you. Y’all got these here babies and if I have to say so myself, you ain’t ugly.”

Faye slaps her knee, throws her had back and lets out an ear-splitting laugh that rocks the room. This loud disruption immediately brings Mama’s attention from the kitchen, with

Grandma looking over from her chair. Aunt Margery is looking more confused by the minute, not seeing the humor in her questions, nor my answers. I remain seated on the floor, looking up at Aunt Margery with a dumbfounded look on my face wondering what would make her believe that my ex-husband had chosen to leave me? The path that directs my Single Mother status is freshly broken, not well trodden and still a bit muddy. I’m only certain that I made the right 104 decision sometimes and wonder what it will do to my children all the time. I’m also painfully aware that I have positioned myself in the center of the stereotypical Black women with children and no husband troupe. Grandma Alee, looks past the gumbo controversy she is having with her daughter, to see the uncertainty clouding the eyes of her granddaughter. I didn’t want to be that mother of fatherless children destined to fail at everything important in life.

“Margery, what you all up in her business for?”

“I’m just concerned about my kin Alee, kids gotta have a daddy.”

“Seems to me, dey got a daddy. Not like he dead. All kids got a daddy. Iffn he starts actin like he don’t wanna be daddy no more, she smart enough to find dem another daddy! You know she graduated from college, don’t cha? I don’t see no problem in it myself. Women don’t need to stay up under no man if she don’t wanna be there no more. Life too short for all dat madness.”

“Grandma,” Faye inquires, “what you mean stayin up under a man? Do you mean what I think you mean? You talkin about sex, ain’t you?”

“If you got a brain, you know what I mean. Don’t you go ackin all innocent like. You know what I’m talkin bout girl. We’s all grown here. At least the one’s listenin to dis conversation is grown.”

“Alee, I’m just talkin bout what a “proper” woman ought to do when she got babies. She need to stay with the daddy,” declares Aunt Margery.

“Now you soundin like Poppa. Don’t you make me start cussin!” Looking at me earnestly, Grandma asks, “Girl, could you breathe when you was up under that man?” 105

“No ma’am. I say quietly. Then pick your face up off the floor. Don’t you let nobody tell you what a “proper” woman need to ack like. A proper woman need to figure out what she wanna be for herself. She don’t need nobody tryin to tell her dat.”

“What she suppose to do then, hit somebody in the head with a rock?” demands Aunt

Margery, folding her arms across her chest.

“If dat what it takes to get somebody with a thick skull’s attention, den dat’s what she gotta do. That’s all I got to say bout dat.” shoots back Grandma.

Faye and I look curiously at Mama, who never lifts her head from her pot. At the corner of her lips, she has a barely noticeable hint of a smile.

“I jus don’t understand you Alee, you leave yo man, now yo granddaughter leave her man. Is the first time y’all get married, supposed to be for practice?”

“Well Auntee, when Safeway’s shelves is empty, best go to Vons,” says Mama in a quiet voice. “At least, that what the preacher said in church last Sunday.”

“Mama,” Faye interrupts, “I don’t think the preacher meant it like that.”

“Well, that’s the way I heard it! She keep shoppin, she gonna find what she need, or decide she don’t need nothin and take her ass on home by herself. A woman gotta be left to figure that stuff out.”

“Amen,” says Grandma Alee. Aunt Margery moves over to the other side of the living room and sits in a corner at the end of the sofa, frowning at what had to be for her, the ultimate depiction of generational wantonness.

Lucky for me, the front door opens, and in piles my three brothers with their wives and four more kids, all boys under five. I was so happy to see the flood of pandemonium that washed through the door that I grabbed one of my nephews and planted a kiss in the middle of 106 his dirty little face. Soon we were gathered around the table stacked high with a steaming platter of rice, hot bowls of gumbo, a bottle of Louisiana hot sauce, and a side of steaming black-eyed peas. To our delight, a glass domed platter of red velvet cake sat on the counter behind the table.

Aunt Margery had temporarily forgiven our sinful ways and completely enjoyed her meal.

When we had our fill of food and conversation, Grandma’s quietly pipes-up again,

“Dat was good, but it ain’t gumbo. Come back tomorrow and Imma fix y’all some real gumbo. Dat way, y’all have the right taste in ya mouth when ya think bout gumbo.”

We eyed each other with curious looks. Gumbo requires expensive ingredients, and an abundant amount of time. At most, it’s a once-a-year treat. We were certain that stock pot would find its way back to the garage after tonight, and we wouldn’t see it again for a long while. Was it possible that we were gonna eat some more gumbo tomorrow? Grandma was going to make a “real” gumbo? This was one generational fight that we aren’t gonna mind, at all!

Later that evening, I stand by Mama’s side helping with the last of the dishes. I asked her how she felt about Grandma’s pronouncement that she didn’t know how to make Gumbo. She smiles and says,

“There are many ways to make Gumbo. Some people add sausage and chicken and some just the crab and shrimp. Don’t matter much what you put in it. It’s a real individual kinda thing. You get to eat it twice in one week. Don’t overthink it.”

“What about Grandma and Aunt Margery,” I ask. “How long will they be mad at each other.” 107

Mama laughed, “not long. They been fightin for longer than any of us will ever know.

Your grandma don’t hold no grudges and Aunt Margery can’t carry one by herself. By tomorrow, they gonna be workin hard on making us that “real gumbo” together.

That night my sister helps me load the sleeping kids into the backseat of my car. I insert the key into ignition, and surprisingly the engine roars to life again. On the way home I continue to think about the ways my life is different than the life of my grandma and the more ways it’s the same. We both have to figure out societal expectations, and the ways that might differ from our own. We consider the societal realties of the times, but only to a degree. Grandma found happiness with Grandpa Ben, her second husband. I never met my biological grandfather because he died well before I was born. I do know I was well into my teens before I realized that my mother, aunt and uncles were products of a blended family. To this day, I defy anyone to see them together in a room and successfully discern who is biologically linked and to what degree.

Aunt Margery’s view of what constitutes family is constricting and certain to separate airflow from lungs. If we are to live, that air must flow freely. I can’t live any other way. There will always be enough in life that suffocates. Things well beyond our ability to control. Tonight, my grandmother became closer to me than she had ever been before. I needed her reassurance that my children and I remain legitimate, despite my new marital status. She provided that reassurance, along with her adamant assertion that my claim to legitimacy had never been lost, despite her unyielding definition of gumbo.

I don’t know the backstory of what makes Grandma Alee so accepting of women making choices about their own lives and Aunt Margery so static about the life she believes women ought to live. After leaving Mama’s house, I thought more about her gumbo wisdom. “It doesn’t really matter if you add a little sausage and chicken to your gumbo, or maybe you only want a 108 little shrimp and crab, it’s still all gumbo.” We each define our own recipe for both gumbo and life. The end result is always legitimate.