The Road to Memphis

by Mildred D. Taylor

  “See you got the fan belt,” said Little Willie.

  “Yeah . . . yeah, I did.”

  Stacey took the fan belt and looked it over. “Any trouble?”

  Moe said no. “Gone back up to those men’s place, and like the man said, they had a lotta old parts and things. They told me to just go ahead and look for what I needed. Took me awhile, but I found it.”

  “How much you have to pay?”

  “Not a thing. They said I could have it.”

  “Well, that was nice of them,” Stacey admitted and looked somewhat apprehensively to the woods again.

  “Yeah, nice, all right, but how come?” said Willie. Moe and I didn’t say anything, for we understood their suspicions. It most times paid to be suspicious of white folks, even in good deeds.

  Stacey glanced around, expecting the men to come back. “We’d best get this fan belt on and get out of here.”

  “Yeah, I can sure enough agree with that, son,” said Willie. “Them scounds could come back and maybe not be so nice. Could be they—”

  There was a sudden scream. We turned back toward the car and saw Clarence bursting from it, his hands to his head and hollering like a madman.

  “Clarence!” cried Little Willie, sounding a bit exasperated with him. “What the devil the matter with you, boy, carrying on like some fool—”

  Clarence fell to his knees and screamed again. Then he lowered his head and began pounding it against the ground.

  We ran to him.

  Stacey knelt beside him. “Clarence! Clarence! What is it?”

  Clarence didn’t answer. He continued to beat his head against the ground, and Stacey and Moe tried to hold him. Clarence thrashed his arms about and would not be stilled. “Oh, Lordy, Lordy!” he screamed. “It’s killing me! It’s killing me! Oh, Lordy, it’s killing me!”

  I knelt in front of him and tried to pull his hands from his head. “Clarence?”

  Little Willie looked on irritably. “What’s the matter with you, hoss? You doing all this carrying on like this ’bout a little ole headache? Thought you called yourself a soldier!”

  Clarence was crying openly now, his body writhing on the ground.

  “Damn, man!” Willie snapped. “What kind of headache you got? Where’s that B.C. powder?”

  “I think he took them all,” I said.

  “Then we oughta try and find him some more, then,” said unsympathetic Little Willie. “Keep him from carrying on so.”

  Moe shook his head. “Won’t be anything open, seeing it’s Sunday—”

  “Besides,” said Stacey, “I’m thinking BCs won’t do much good now. Looks like something more than a headache wrong with him.”

  Suddenly Clarence wrenched away from us, leapt up again, hands to his head, and ran across the glade faster than I had thought would have been possible with all his pain. We ran after him. Screaming, he dashed deeper into the woods. We followed, but we couldn’t catch him. He was running like a madman. Finally he tripped and fell down a rocky slope, and we found him sprawled out flat and unconscious with a bloody gash along the side of his head.

  “He out like a light!” exclaimed Willie.

  I knelt on raw knees beside Clarence, then looked frantically up at Stacey. “We’ve got to get him some help. Stacey, we’ve got to get him some help!”

  “But where can we go?” said Moe, looking and sounding bewildered. “We don’t know anybody—”

  “Hospital,” decided Stacey. “We’ll have to try and find a hospital.”

  “A hospital!” exclaimed Willie, staring at Stacey as if he had lost his mind. “Man, you gone mad? You think we gonna find a hospital take colored folks way out here?”

  Stacey ignored him. “Help me get him up.”

  Little Willie ranted on. “White folks ain’t gonna let Clarence in no hospital!”

  “He got on a uniform,” retorted Stacey. “They ought to allow him something!”

  Willie shook his head. “You crazy, man!”

  “Just help us get him in the car, will ya?”

  Little Willie grumbled on as he helped Moe and Stacey carry Clarence back. They put him inside the car, and I tried to stop the bleeding by wrapping his head with the boys’ pocket handkerchiefs. As I sat with Clarence, his head slumped on my shoulder, Stacey, Moe, and Little Willie got the fan belt on and reconnected the loose wires. Then Stacey started the car. There was an awful grinding sound to the engine, but at least the car could move. We left the glade and headed north again.

  The nearest town looked much like the town of Strawberry, sad and red and desolate-looking on this Sunday morning. As we rode slowly over the main road we saw a colored boy of around fourteen or so and asked about a hospital. The boy frowned, then muttered the word as if he had never heard it spoken before. “Hospital?”

  “That’s right,” said Stacey.

  “We ain’t got us no hospital.”

  “Nothing at all? What about a doctor?”

  The boy studied on the matter. “Ain’t got us no doctor neither.”

  “What about the white folks? They got one?”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “Well, where can I find him?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe at they hospital—”

  “And where’s that?” asked Stacey, his patience giving way.

  The boy shook his head. “Y’all can’t go there—”

  “Yeah, we know. Where is it?”

  The boy pointed straight ahead, eyeing us, though, as if we all belonged at the state mental institution. Stacey thanked the boy and drove on. When we reached the hospital, we got Clarence out of the car and to an entrance. A nurse stopped us there. “Y’all can’t come in here,” she said. A few feet away a colored cleaning woman was mopping the hallway floor. She stopped her mopping and stared at us much as the boy had done.

  Stacey glanced at Clarence, whom he and Moe were holding upright between them. “We know . . . but this fella here, he’s a soldier, and he’s sick something awful. Something’s wrong with his head. He was having some terrible headaches, and then he fell, hit his head, and knocked himself out.”

  The woman looked at the blood seeping through the handkerchiefs. “Well, I’m sorry . . . but y’all can’t bring him in here. We don’t treat nigras here.”

  “Well, what’re we supposed to do? You’ve got no colored hospital.”

  The woman looked flustered. “Well, y’all’ll have to go on to Memphis or back to Jackson, where they can take care of y’all.”

  “But we can’t make it that far! He’s hurt bad! Can’t you—”

  “Nurse!” A man in white was coming down the hall. “What’s going on here?”

  The nurse turned to him, waited until he reached her, then looked at us as if we were the cause of some personal embarrassment to her. She seemed chagrined to have to explain the connection. “They . . . they want to bring that boy there in here for treatment, Doctor McClurg. I told them—”

  “Yes,” said the doctor, cutting her off and sparing her from mouthing any further embarrassment. He set cold eyes on us. “Y’all niggers know y’all got no business here.”

  Clarence began to moan again; he was coming to.

  “Now, y’all get from here!”

  “But his head—” said Stacey.

  “Now!”

  Stacey started to say something else, but then the cleaning woman, standing behind the folks in white, shook her head in a warning, and Stacey said no more. After all, it was their hospital, like it was their laws that said they didn’t have to admit colored folks to it, and we couldn’t fight them on it. They ruled the hospitals like they ruled everything else.

  We took Clarence back to the car. As Stacey started the motor the cleaning woman came running out, waving for us to stop. “Y’all come on with me,” she said in a hoarse kind of whisper. “Just drive this car on ’round to the back. There be three doors there. Y’all stop at the first one. I meet y’all!” Then she darted back into the hospital entrance
and disappeared.

  “Well, what we supposed to make of that?” I wondered.

  “Guess we best find out,” said Stacey. He drove to the back of the hospital and stopped at the first door, as the woman had instructed. We waited several minutes before the woman appeared. When she did, she glanced out cautiously, then hurried to the car and peered inside. “Seen y’all inside there talkin’ to that ole Doctor McClurg. Like talkin’ t’ a wall! What’s the matter wit’ the boy?”

  “You know medicine?” I questioned.

  “Knows somebody who do.” She studied Clarence. “What y’all done for him?”

  “He’s been taking B.C. powder since yesterday,” Stacey said. “This morning he ran out, but wasn’t anything open to get him any.”

  “B.C. powder, huh? Y’all wait here a minute. I’ll get ya some.” Then she ran back inside the hospital. She was gone only a few minutes. When she returned, she pulled a thin tissue of paper from her apron. “Give him this,” she said.

  We just looked at the tissue. We didn’t know anything about this powder.

  “Well, give it to him! It’s B.C.!”

  Stacey took the powder from her and handed it back to Moe.

  The woman shook her head, watching to see if Moe would give it to Clarence. “Y’all sho got a nerve, I give ya that. But y’all crazy to come here. They don’t ’low no Negroes in this hospital. Y’all oughta know that! Now, y’all wanna help this boy, take him on up to Ma Dessie’s place. She ’bout the nearest thing we got to a doctor. Y’all take him up there, maybe she can help him.”

  “How we find her?” asked Stacey.

  The woman gave directions. “Tell her Tesda done told y’all to come on up.”

  “We’re much obliged,” Stacey said and pulled off.

  Ma Dessie’s place was on the northern outskirts of the town. The roadway leading to the place was an overgrown wagon trail, and the house at the end of the trail could hardly be called little more than a shack. Barefooted youngsters, some bare bottomed, too, played in the yard, despite the chill. The woman we figured to be Ma Dessie sat rocking on the porch watching them. An old man sat on the steps. As we entered the clearing the children scattered. Some ran to the protection of the old woman; the others just stood aside staring. After all, we were strangers here.

  Stacey got out. “Day, ma’am,” he said, touching his hand to his hat. “Sir. How y’all doing?”

  “We be fine,” said the woman, returning the cordialities folks always exchanged.

  “We looking for Ma Dessie.”

  The old woman gave a slow nod. “That be me.”

  “Well, we just came up from Jackson, and we got us a friend sick in the car. Lady name of Tesda down at the hospital said bring him here. Said maybe you could help him.”

  “What’s the matter with him?”

  Stacey explained.

  The old woman squinted, studying Stacey. She studied us in the car as well, then got up. “Y’all bring him on in here,” she said.

  We did as she ordered. The boys got Clarence into the darkened squalor of the house and laid him on a corn-husk mattress. The old woman then looked him over. Sitting on the side of the bed, she reminded me of Big Ma the way she checked his eyes and his mouth and felt his head with her hands. Then she questioned Clarence. “Tell me what ya feeling, child.”

  “Like something . . . something growing in my head. Oh, Lordy, Lordy, something growing in my head!”

  “Touch the pain. Show me where it at.”

  Clarence gripped the left side of his head. “Oh, Lordy!”

  The woman watched Clarence for several moments as he writhed under the pain, then she nodded as if having made a decision about something and got up. She went over to a table in the darkened corner of the room and pulled two tin cans down from a shelf. She poured powders from the cans into a dish and mixed them together. She took the powder the woman Tesda had sent and mixed it in. Then she took part of the preparation, put it in a glass, poured in water, and stirred. She took the glass to Clarence and told him to drink it. “It’s powerful more stronger than them BCs. Lord willin’, it gonna ease yo’ pain some,” she said.

  Clarence gulped it down and lay back.

  “Y’all go on out now,” said the woman Ma Dessie.

  “What about Clarence?” asked Stacey.

  Ma Dessie looked down at Clarence; there was a frown on her face. “He be all right for now. Just let him rest.”

  “But those headaches—” I said.

  “Lord willin’, they gonna ease up. But I done seen the headache bad like this befo’e. Sometimes they eases on up and don’t come back, then again sometimes they just goes on and on, jus’ bein’ the miseries.” She had kept her eyes on Clarence as she talked; now she suddenly turned. “Y’all younguns hungry?”

  “No, ma’am, we’re fine,” said Stacey.

  “Got some corn hoecakes jus’ come out the stove. Mustard greens there in the pot. Maylene!”

  We were surprised to hear her holler out, but almost as soon as she did a pretty girl of thirteen or so appeared at the back door. “Yeah, Ma?” she said.

  “Get them tin plates from yonder, rinse ’em out good, then you take that messa greens and that corn bread out to the porch and serve these folks.”

  Stacey looked around at all the wide-eyed children standing barefoot on the dirt floor and thanked her for her hospitality but told her we weren’t hungry.

  “Y’all been travelin’ all the way up from Jackson, y’all ain’t had no dinner. We got plenty. Now, y’all go on outside, let this boy rest. I calls y’all when he wakes.”

  Clarence was already asleep. Whatever she had given him was powerful stuff. At least for the moment the pain was gone. I looked at Stacey. He nodded, not wanting to insult her, and went out with Moe and Little Willie. I asked Ma Dessie if I could have some water to wash up. She looked at my muddy coat, my torn stockings, the dried vomit, but didn’t ask questions.

  “There’s a pan out on the back porch. Bucket of water too. Ya help yourself t’ it.”

  “Thank you, ma’ am,” I said and went as far as the door, then turned to give her some explanation. “I fell too.”

  She nodded, as if explanations were unnecessary. “That happens, sho do.” Then she turned back to her powders, and I went out.

  I washed up as best I could. Maylene brought me a towel, but it was sour smelling, and there was no soap. I put the towel aside, splashed water on my face, and tried to clean my hands. Then I checked my knees. They looked a mess. Each of the stockings had ripped open right at the knee, and blood was caked on both my knees and the stockings. Scabs had already begun to form, and I worried about the encrusted dirt. I had badly skinned my knees before, and I was fearful of infection. I thought about taking off the stockings, but with the heater hardly working in the car I needed something on my legs, even the stockings as torn as they were. I looked at the sour towel Maylene had brought me, but I didn’t use it. Instead I wet the bottom of my slip, which was still clean, and gently dabbed at the sores. My knees smarted. I managed to get a little of the dirt off, then left my knees alone.

  There was little I could do about the rest of me. I threw out the water and went around the house to the front porch. The old man who had been sitting on the steps was no longer there. I sat down beside the boys just as the girl Maylene brought out the food—the pot of collards and the corn bread. She also brought water for the boys to wash their hands, then she gave us each a tin plate and told us to dip out a portion. There was no meat. “Y’all go ’head,” said the girl as the children looked on. “We eats later.”

  Stacey hesitated. It was bad manners to refuse what was offered, but there were so many children who had to be fed from that pot. “Why don’t y’all come join us?” he said.

  One of the children stepped forward, but the girl pulled him back. “No, suh, y’all go ’head. We eats later. There’s plenty, now. Help y’allselves.”

  Stacey started to object again, b
ut Maylene insisted, and rather than offend, Stacey dipped out a spoonful of the greens onto the corn bread. He nodded his thanks, and the girl, holding the pot, offered us each a portion. When she had passed around the pot one time, she set it on the porch, then she and all the children stood around to watch us eat.

  Stacey commended her on the meal. “It’s mighty fine,” he announced after one bite, and we all concurred, though the food was somewhat greasy to me.

  The girl smiled widely, pleased by the praise, and offered us more. We declined with thanks, and she accepted that. We finished our eating, the girl collected our plates, then we waited.

  Little Willie leaned back in his chair. “How long that boy gonna sleep?” he asked impatiently.

  Stacey stared out into the broom-swept yard. “Don’t know. That stuff she gave him sure knocked him out.”

  “Hope it knocked out that headache too,” I said.

  Stacey got up and left the porch. He went over to the car and put up the hood. I followed him down. “What you doing?”

  “Figure while we waiting I might as well try and see what’s wrong with this car. Whatever we hit going off into those woods got the engine not running right.”

  “You worried maybe the car won’t get us to Memphis?”

  “Lord, sure hope it gets us there,” said Willie, coming down the steps with Moe, “or we sure are in trouble. Last thing we wanna do is go get stuck in this here town. Reminds me too much of Strawberry!”

  Stacey glanced at Willie as if he had read his mind, then he bent under the hood. After some time he pulled off his jacket and slid under the car. When he pulled out from under it, he was frowning. “Looks like the oil pan’s busted. It’s leaking oil. Transmission could be damaged too.”

  “Is that bad?” I asked, dusting off his back.

  “Couldn’t get much worse,” said Moe despondently, and I knew he was blaming himself for the condition of the car, as he was for everything else that had happened. “It’s not fixed, it’ll damage the engine bad.”

  I glanced from him to Stacey. “Well, what do we do about it?” Stacey looked at me, then put down the hood. “Pray this Ford gets us to Memphis, Cassie . . . pray hard.”