The Road to Memphis

by Mildred D. Taylor

  Nobody left.

  After we ate, the boys and I stood near the well listening to Clarence talk about life in the Army. He hadn’t even mentioned Sissy. He told a story about his sergeant and how he had already gotten on his wrong side by questioning an order he had been given. His punishment had been spending one whole night digging holes, filling them, then digging them up again.

  “Well, I know one thing,” said Little Willie, as Clarence laughed at his own story, “Army sure ain’t for me.”

  “Will be, they call you,” predicted Clarence.

  “They didn’t call you,” I said. “You in the Army because you want to be.”

  “Well . . . they’d’ve called me sooner or later. Sergeant said they getting mighty serious ’bout that war over there in Europe. Said we ain’t in it yet, but we gonna be.”

  “Yeah,” Moe quietly agreed. “What with all this talking war, I been thinking maybe I’ll do like Clarence and go ’head and join up myself.”

  I shot him an incredulous look. “What? Boy, what are you talking about?”

  Clarence laughed. “He wanna get sharp like me! You like these uniforms, too, don’t you, Moe?”

  Moe shrugged. “Be twenty-one my birthday come up, and I’m gonna have to go register anyways. Was just giving thought to when I do, I’d just go ’head, join up, and get it over with.”

  I questioned his sanity. “Are you out of your mind? You may get more than that over with, we ever end up in a war.”

  Moe looked at me but didn’t say anything. Little Willie did, though. “Ah, face it, Cassie. These here white folks want to get in a war, we ain’t got nothing to say ’bout it. We get in that war over in Europe, we all gonna hafta go soldiering, that’s just the way it is, we like it or not. Just the way it is . . . .” He smiled, but the smile just backed up the seriousness of what he had said. Little Willie wasn’t often serious with his joking ways, but there had been no joking in his words now, no laughter in his voice now, and I found that disturbing.

  “Well, I don’t see it that way,” I said.

  “That’s ’cause you don’t want to see it.”

  I cut Little Willie a look but let it be. Maybe he was right. Maybe I just didn’t want to see it that way. Maybe that was because I didn’t give too much thought to a war, despite the fact that accounts about the war in Europe were plastered across the newspapers each day and news about it seemed to be always on the radio. The notion of war to me was far removed. War was something happening in a place called Europe that had nothing much to do with us, nothing much to do with the folks of Great Faith, except for the fact that all the boys reaching twenty-one were having to register for military service, but I didn’t worry about that. I didn’t figure anybody close to me would ever have to go fight, so I preferred not to think about it. The thought was too foreign.

  “Was thinking, I join up,” Moe went on, “maybe I could even get to be an officer . . . maybe a pilot or something.”

  At that, Little Willie let go a rip of a laugh. “An of-fi-cer? Maaaan, don’t you know they ain’t going to let no Negro be no of-fi-cer? Colored regiments got white officers, fool!”

  “Well, anyway, I read ’bout some,” said Moe quietly. “There ain’t many, but there’s some.”

  “Read ’bout ’em in what comic books?” scoffed Little Willie.

  Stacey, having listened in silence to all this, now pulled away from the well. “Well, y’all just go head and join your Army, but I’m telling you now, they get in this war, they can just fight it without me. I got no reason to fight their war.”

  Little Willie laughed again. “Well, they can just fight it without me too, son, they be giving out any choices ’bout the thing!”

  On a sudden Oliver gave Little Willie a nudge. “’Ey, look-a-there,” he said as Jeanette Jones, Georgia Henderson, and Peaches McDonald passed by with some young men from Smellings Creek. Both Oliver and Little Willie smiled their hellos, but not one of those young ladies uttered a word. At the snub Oliver said, “Willie! Peaches talk to you yet?”

  “Naw, nothing except to tell me to go take my talk to Sissy.”

  “Yeah, I been hearing that same thing from Georgia,” commiserated Oliver. “What ’bout you, Stacey? Saw you over there trying to talk to Jeanette. Seen you ain’t talked too long.”

  Stacey conceded that. “Told her I’d talk to her later.”

  Little Willie laughed. “After Miz Noble’s meeting, huh?”

  Stacey smiled, acknowledging that was so.

  “’Ey, Stacey!” yelled Little Man from the church steps. “Grandma Batie and Miz Noble said they want to talk to y’all. Now, they say!”

  Without a word Clarence moved from the well, but not toward the church. “’Ey, Clarence, where you going, man?” Little Willie called after him.

  “Not in that church, that’s for sure.”

  “Man, you the main one s’pose to be in there!”

  “Way I figure,” said Clarence, “maybe you the one s’pose to be in there.”

  “What! Man, you gone crazy?”

  “You said you gone out with her, ’round here behind my back!”

  “Man, that wasn’t nothin’! Only seen her one time when we come down, and that was in October—”

  “One time was enough!”

  “You crazy, man! ’Sides, what you care? You wasn’t seeing her no more. Said you was shed of her and gone off to the Army!”

  “Yeah, and soon’s I was gone, you done made yourself right at home with Sissy, and from the looks of things you done made yourself at home long ’fore October—”

  Little Willie, fists clutched, stepped right up to six-foot-six Clarence. “Man, I oughta knock you out!”

  Stacey stepped in front of Willie and faced Clarence himself. “Now, just hold on, you two. Clarence, you got no call to go blaming Willie here. I went over to talk to Sissy myself to see how she was doing.”

  Clarence’s face, so full of good nature just a few minutes ago, was now clouded in doubt and jealousy. “Well, then . . . maybe it’s you.”

  Stacey fixed his eyes on Clarence. “You know better’n that.”

  Clarence scowled across at his friends and mumbled, “Well, maybe it ain’t you, Stacey. Maybe it ain’t even Willie here. But one of y’all ’sides me been messin’ with Sissy, and that’s the truth of it! She already done said so!” He glowered accusingly at Moe and Oliver. “Sissy got no reason to go lying on herself.”

  Oliver took real offense at that. “Don’t know what kind of thinking Sissy’s doing. Don’t know her reasons for nothing, but don’t you come looking at me to blame, Clarence! I don’t know who Sissy been ’round, but it ain’t been me! Ask me, the girl is an out and out lie, and a girl lie like that could be sleeping ’round with anybody—”

  No sooner than Oliver got that out, Clarence started in for him. Stacey pushed him back. Moe stepped forward as well, put an arm around Clarence, and tried to calm him down. “Look, Clarence,” Stacey said, “it’s not going to help for you to go fighting with Oliver or any of the rest of us.”

  Clarence looked at Stacey and Moe and backed off.

  Little Man again hollered out. “Ma Batie and Miz Noble said y’all coming?”

  Stacey glanced at him, then back at Clarence. “You still not going in?”

  “Naw.”

  “All right, then, it’s up to you. Best the rest of us go on and get this thing straightened out.”

  Little Willie shot Clarence a hostile look. So did Oliver. Then the two of them went with Stacey. Clarence turned to walk away, but I caught his arm. “Since you not going in the church, you going to go talk to Sissy?”

  “Naw . . . what we got to talk about?”

  “What you got to talk about? Boy—”

  “She done told everybody that baby ain’t mine. Seem like to me she done said it all!” With that he pulled away from me and walked off across the church grounds toward his family’s wagon. I watched him go, not liking any of this. Stacey, C
larence, Little Willie, and Moe had been best friends since they had been in short pants, and Oliver had joined that friendship whenever he came down on visits from Jackson. They had gotten themselves into much of the same mischief together, and they had gone through a lot of the same grief as well. Now Sissy with her trouble-making accusations was causing them to argue and almost fight, and I didn’t like that. I didn’t like one bit what Sissy was doing, and I decided I was going to tell her about it, too, all about it, as soon as I caught up with her.

  “Cassie?”

  I turned. Moe was still standing there. “Aren’t you going in for the meeting?” I asked.

  He glanced over his shoulder toward the church. “Yeah . . . in a minute. Just wanted to talk to you first.”

  “Yeah, I want to talk to you too. Want you to tell me how come you got fired.”

  He looked away, across the field. “Just couldn’t get along with some of the other men down there.”

  “What men?”

  “White men,” he said, as if that explained the matter. “Look Cassie, I just wanted to tell you why I been thinking on joining the Army. I been thinking on my future. You know I want to make something of myself, Cassie.”

  “And you figuring on doing that in the Army?”

  “Figure maybe I can get me some opportunity in the Army. Read about how the Army give schooling and training of folks join up. Figure I could get some of that schooling and training. Cassie, you know how it’s been with me. You know how since Stacey and me quit school I been trying to figure out a way to get a good living and maybe get a place and move my family off that land we been sharecropping all this time. You know that.”

  “I know you’ve been talking about it long as I can recall.”

  Moe nodded. “Know I can’t buy four hundred acres like y’all got. Can’t buy near to that, but if I could just get myself a little place—maybe twenty-five, forty acres, just enough so my daddy can make a living off it ’stead of cropping all his life . . . . It’s important for a man to have land, something of his own, and I want my daddy to have something.” His eyes fixed on mine. “Y’all oughta know how it is, ’bout having something, ’cause y’all got something already. Y’all got land.”

  I could understand his feeling about land; yet I said nothing. Moe looked at me as if I didn’t really know a thing about how he was feeling; then he looked away and bit at his lower lip. “For me to go and get my daddy that land, Cassie, I need me a good job, and I need me some opportunity. I was thinking maybe the Army could give me some opportunity. Like I said, I been reading ’bout programs set up for training colored pilots and colored officers too. Maybe they won’t train me in that, maybe I ain’t got enough schooling for them to train me for something like that, but maybe I can learn me something else. I don’t know ’xactly what, but I’m just figuring, if we get in that war, there’s going to be a whole lot of opportunities for me to get some kind of training.”

  “There’ll be plenty of opportunities, all right,” I agreed. “Opportunities for you to go get yourself killed.”

  Moe didn’t respond to that.

  “‘Sides, Uncle Hammer fought in that last war, and he said about the only opportunity most of the colored soldiers saw was unloading ships and cleaning spittoons.”

  “But don’t ya see, Cassie? Things are already opening up. Just look at Jackson. We could get hired on jobs colored folks used to not be able to get, seeing that white folks are taking them new defense jobs they setting up ’cause-a that fighting overseas. White folks can make more money working in them defense jobs, and we can make more money working them jobs they leaving—”

  “Somehow, that doesn’t seem like a whole lot of opportunity to me—”

  “More’n we had.”

  “Yeah, well, you tell me something, Moe. We got all this opportunity opening up, how come you want to go and join the Army then? Stay in Jackson and get your opportunity.”

  His lips teased into a smile. “I join up, you’d miss me?”

  “Course I’d miss you. Besides that, it doesn’t make a lick of sense to me for colored folks to be going way over to Europe somewhere fighting in somebody’s war and getting killed. Colored folks want to get killed so bad, they can stay right here in Mississippi and do that.”

  Moe glanced at me, started to say something, but then seemed to think better of it. He headed toward the church, then stopped, came back to me, and put his hands on my shoulders. But before he could speak Little Willie hollered, “’Ey, Moe! Son! Ain’t ya heard? Miz Noble said she want every last jack one of us up here? You comin’?”

  I laughed. “You best go on before Miz Noble comes out and get to looking for you.”

  Moe half smiled and reluctantly it seemed, let go of me. He turned, the half-smile still etched on his face, and headed for the church. As he walked away I saw Sissy cross from a truck and head for the road. She was still barefooted. I took one more look after Moe and ran after her. I planned on talking some sense to the girl. I caught up with her and she smiled widely and stopped. “’Ey, Cassie,” she greeted me.

  “Where you think you going?” I said.

  Her answer was simple. “Home.”

  “Home? Girl, don’t you think you best get yourself on up to that church and straighten out your mess?”

  “Mess? What mess?”

  “Girl—”

  “I’m going home,” she repeated and continued on her way.

  It was obvious, if I was going to talk to her, I had to walk with her, so I did, fussing all the while. “Sissy, you know you ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

  “Nothin’ to be ashamed ’bout.”

  “Don’t you figure all of this is your fault? You got everybody in an uproar around here. These girls Stacey and them been courting, they’re mad, families mad, the boys are mad—”

  Sissy laughed. “Won’t be for long. I got Clarence paying some attention now.”

  I looked at her suspiciously. “Sissy, just what are you up to?”

  “Getting my man.”

  “Well, it seems like a mighty funny way to get him, you ask me.”

  “Well, I’m not asking you, Cassie. I’m not asking anybody. I know what I’m doing.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  She rendered me a smart grin and turned away. I grabbed hold of her wrist. “Clarence is the daddy of that baby you’re carrying, and you know it!”

  She jerked away, but the grin remained. She was pretty sure of herself. “You promise me you won’t tell Clarence what I tell ya?”

  “That’s what you want.”

  “Well, it couldn’t be nobody else’s baby but Clarence’s. Wouldn’t never let nobody else touch me.”

  “Well, why didn’t you just tell Clarence that in the first place and be done with the thing?”

  “And have him grumbling the rest of his life ’bout me hooking him into marrying me? When he gone off into that Army, he told me he wasn’t thinking ’bout no marrying, and I told him he couldn’t think ’bout marrying me, then what we fooling ’round for? Told him there was other boys got marrying on their minds could be courting me. Clarence wanna marry me now, he gonna just hafta decide that for himself. I want him to come to me on his own ’cause he wants to and do right by me and this baby. He don’t want me, I ain’t gonna force him into nothin’.”

  I had to laugh. “Well, then, all I can say is I sure am glad I’m not in love. Makes a person stop thinking straight.”

  She had to laugh herself. “I suppose so.” Then she walked on, and I walked with her.

  When we reached Sissy’s house, we found Harris sitting in the battered Model T truck that for the most part was seldom out of the yard. Harris was forever tinkering with it, even though he wasn’t allowed to drive it; there was no money to spare for gasoline. Today he wasn’t working on the truck. He was just sitting there behind the steering wheel, the door wide open, his bad leg, the one that had been so severely broken, hanging out. It was wrapped only from the kn
ee down, allowing him to bend it. He was staring straight ahead. His crutch lay on the ground.

  “’Ey, Harris,” I said.

  “’Ey,” he muttered.

  “What you doing sitting in that truck, boy?” snapped Sissy. “You been messin’ with it again?”

  “Naw.”

  “You know Ma said she ain’t wantin’ you messin’ with it!”

  “Ain’t messin’, Sissy,” he said. “Just sitting here.”

  “Doin’ what?”

  “Just sittin’.”

  “Well, that better be all you doing and not messing with that truck again. You know Ma said she don’t want that bit of gas in it gettin’ used up with you just startin’ and stoppin’ it in the yard.”

  “Yeah, I know, I know,” he said sullenly. Then Harris got out of the truck, favoring his bad leg. Picking up his crutch, he said, “Guess I’ll be heading on back up to the church. You going back now, Cassie?”

  “You go on. I got a few more words for Sissy.”

  “You watch yourself, now, Harris,” instructed Sissy. “Don’t you get to talking too much to Clarence, you hear me? I’ll take care of him.”

  Harris pushed his hands into his pockets. “I got nothin’ to tell Clarence.”

  “Well, just see that you don’t. And stay off that leg so much!”

  He looked at Sissy, at me, nodded, and limped on down the trail. Sissy sat on the porch steps. “Now, what you got to say to me?”

  “I want you to go talk to Clarence and stop making a fool of yourself.”

  Sissy was quiet a moment, then she said: “You just think you know it all, don’t you, Cassie? Well, one day you gonna fall in love yourself, and then you’ll see how it feels. You’ll see how it is to be a fool too.”

  “Not me,” I said with utmost certainty. “Because if love makes you go around acting this way, I don’t much want anything to do with it. Besides, I don’t figure I could be as foolish about anybody the way you are about Clarence.”

  “Oh, yeah, you could, Cassie. Right man come into your life, you will.”

  “Right man like Clarence, huh?”