The Sweet By and By

by Todd Johnson

  The summer went slowly into fall like it almost always does here, and then finally winter, mild but not without a few cold snaps. Grandma had a stroke and then a second one, and it affected her walking and talking. Then she got sick with pneumonia, and even though it lingered, it looked like she might get better, but she died right about the time of the first spring dogwoods. I kept on working at Evelyn’s. She’d always been nice to me, and the job had finally paid for me to buy a falling-apart used car. Johnny Greenan gave me a good deal at the Chevrolet place. We’d dated once or twice. I remember feeling like the whole thing was a big joke on me, finally having a way to get out. A car of my own. I could do exactly what my Mama did, leave Grandma, but the hell of it was I didn’t need to because that bitch was dead and out of my life. Sometimes I wish she woulda lived at least a little while longer so I coulda done what I had thought about a thousand times. I would have loved to look in my rearview mirror and see her standing on the porch in a cloud of dirt while I pulled off down the driveway and onto the asphalt with everything I owned. Then I bet I’d know what Mama felt like.

  A lot of people said, “Why don’t you leave now, Rhonda? You can sell that house and do anything you want to.” I thought about it, I even got a Realtor to come and look at it, but that’s as far as it went. I decided that’s not what I wanted. That would have been giving up for good. Grandma wasn’t the only thing in that house. Mama was in there too. And me—I was in that house, in the walls, in the floors, up underneath the porch. Everywhere where air could go in and out had some of me in it, and it was mine now to do exactly as I pleased. Most of the time, I stayed home.

  We were real busy at the shop too. Close to Memorial Day, Evelyn told everybody that came in that she was sorry but she was going to have to close for high school graduation. She said she wanted to tell everybody early so they could have plenty of time to reschedule, even though the graduation wasn’t until June 10.

  “Why don’t you put up a sign,” Twiny Allen asked her, “so you don’t have to think about it?”

  “I don’t know,” Evelyn said, “I never have liked too many signs in a place of business,” but the real reason was that unless she spoke the news personally, she wouldn’t have the chance to tell everybody that her niece Becky had been picked out of the whole ninth grade to sing the graduation solo in front of the school.

  It was fine with me cause I had started doing some work fixing up the house and I could have used a day off, that is until Evelyn asked me to go to graduation with her. I meant to tell her thank you but no, but before I could get it out of my mouth, the look on her face made me say, “That’s sweet, Evelyn, I’d love to go with y’all.” I would have never gone back to a graduation at my own school, I was barely out of there myself. I don’t have nothing against it, I guess a lot of recent graduates go back because they still know other people or whatever, but it seems like they’re usually more of the perfect cheerleader Honor Society I’ve-never-smelled-shit-in-my-life type. Turns out I knew almost everybody walking across the stage in caps and gowns, at least by sight. Hell, a lot of em would end up coming to me to get their hair done in a few years, after they went off somewhere to college and then came back home to where they started from in the first place.

  It was no surprise to me when Wade Stokes stood up to make the valedictorian speech, introduced by the principal, Marty Howell. Mr. Howell and I had our own past because he was the one who had sentenced me to study hall every week until I got into cosmetology, which I think he sort of considered to be its own kind of punishment enough.

  Mr. Howell cleared his throat and said, “Our school and entire community join together to wish Wade all the best as he goes off to Chapel Hill in the fall, but we’re glad to have him around this summer as usual working at the swimming pool. So go on and put on a bathing suit because you might not get to see him again once he gets out there and starts changing the world.”

  Mr. Howell meant it to sound nice, but it was stupid to make a speech that ended with a dumb swimming pool, out of all the things he could have said. I’ll never know for sure, but I coulda sworn by the way Wade had his lower lip pushed out just the tiniest bit that he didn’t want to be up there. Evelyn’s niece stood at the front edge of the stage to sing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” after Wade got through talking. She was nervous at the beginning and her voice quivered. Evelyn started rolling the corners of her program, then clutching onto the armrests, but after a couple of lines, Becky settled down and sounded all right to me. Some people stood up at the end, Evelyn was one of the first ones, so I felt like I had to get up too.

  “Rhonda, would you look?” Evelyn nudged me. “They could eat her up. I knew that would be a good song for her as soon as she told me.”

  “She did sound real pretty like she always does.”

  Evelyn leaned over into my ear. “I don’t want to jinx anything, I’m afraid to say it, but I think she’s going to be a professional. I’m already looking into getting her some training.”

  “I don’t blame you, Evelyn, I would too.”

  Standing there clapping for the graduation solo, I could see Bernice Stokes way down front. I knew she was Wade’s mama by the way she sat up so straight when he was talking. At the end of the ceremony, the families of the student big shots had to go up on stage for pictures. Wade shook a few hands and went straight to Bernice and gave her a big hug as soon as she reached the top step. He hugged her so hard she almost fell over and they both laughed their heads off. She had on a corsage of three little pink roses in a tight row, pinned right below her left shoulder. I liked that on her, I remember, because most of the mothers wore big old chrysanthemums with little ribbons in the school colors, burgundy and white.

  Wade’s older brother and their father waited at the bottom of the steps like they were impatient for Bernice to get out of the way so they could go up. The brother looked exactly like his father, even then, young as he was. I can see it still, every time he comes into Ridgecrest to visit Bernice. Evelyn’s niece was having her picture made too, so we had to wait around. I don’t know what anybody ever thought was gonna happen to all those pictures, there would only be one that ended up being in the newspaper, and that would prob’ly be of Mr. Howell giving a diploma to a person none of us even knew.

  The day after Wade graduated, he started his summer job at the swimming pool to save up money, even though what I heard was that his scholarship paid for everything. I think he did it more because he wanted to, he got to see a lot of people down there at the pool, but not me. You had to pay to join it, not exactly a country club, but still expensive. I never went swimming anywhere but in the pond at Tammy Moore’s farm, and once they moved, I didn’t go there anymore because it made me sad to think about when we used to ride Wendy. A lot of girls went down to the pool to sit on a lounge chair without any plan of swimming. Wade never showed a whole lot of interest, and Evelyn said he thought he was too good with his big Chapel Hill scholarship to date a local girl.

  I never saw him out with anybody, but I wouldn’t have expected to because we woulda never gone anyplace with the same group of people. Wade was on his way to new things, bigger and better things, and I was trying to make something out of what I was left with here, a house and a job and being on my own. I stopped having my mail brought to the house after Grandma died. Evelyn’s place was right down the street from the post office, and I liked walking down there and picking up my mail in person, even if a lot of it was junk. I always went at the end of the day during the week, and at lunchtime on Saturdays because it was only open a half day, and Evelyn’s was usually packed with women getting their hair fixed for church. I walked into the post office as usual one weekend, dead on my feet from teasing hair, and thinking about going home to a cold beer and a sandwich later on. Wade was carrying a huge cardboard box. “You’re late,” he said, “I was expecting you to pick this up hours ago.” The box was so big that he had to sort of peep around one corner of it to even see me. I didn’t mi
ss a beat. “I’m sorry sir but your secretary must not have told you that your appointment was canceled.”

  “To hell with her then, she’s fired.” He almost dropped the box trying to put it up on the counter.

  “What you got in there, a dead body?”

  “It weighs enough to be.”

  “Well if I hear there’s been a murder, your secret’s safe.”

  “I appreciate it. I need all the corroboration I can get.”

  “Damned if I know what that is, but if I’ve got it, you can have it.”

  The post office clerk interrupted. “That’s going to be ten sixty, do you need a receipt?” Wade reached in his pocket and gave him the exact change. I went to open my mailbox. There were a couple of bills for me, and a Progressive Farmer magazine addressed to Grandma. I didn’t have the energy to spend my time canceling all her mess; I guessed eventually everybody that needed to would figure out that there was no reply and would stop sending her stuff. There was also a thank-you note on pink paper from Evelyn’s niece because I had given her a little bag of makeup and a lipstick as a present after she sang her solo. Evelyn made her write that note, I know it, but there’s something I like about that kind of strictness. It makes a difference to people to be treated nice. When I came back around the corner of the lobby, Wade was standing at one of the desks, fighting with a ballpoint pen chained to the countertop.

  “These things never write,” he said. “I don’t know why they put em out here.”

  “I’ve prob’ly got one in my pocketbook.”

  “That’s all right. I was just trying to write something down so I wouldn’t forget.”

  “I can’t remember anything either,” I said, and I don’t know why I said it, because I’ve got one of the best memories of anybody I know. I remember birthdays, wedding anniversaries, hell, I remember what I ate for dinner a week ago. It’s just what comes out of your mouth when you’re young. You don’t know why you say a lot of things, it seems like the way to keep the ball in the air, stay a part of something, interacting with another person, like floating a balloon, and when you’re that age, it feels like the balloon could pop at any second. It’s not until later that you realize that there ain’t a balloon, there’s only people trying to get through and feel like they’re not all alone.

  Wade held open the door. He almost knocked me down to get in front of me and then motioned me through with a sweep of his arm, like he was paving the way for royalty. That was the first time in my whole life anybody had done that. I’d been on a plenty of dates with guys my age, some older too, a couple soldiers from Fort Bragg. You would think with all that military discipline that they would know how to act but, at least with me, they forgot every bit of it when they had a few beers inside em. The only thing on their minds was how much trouble they could get into before their curfew at the base. Hey, I’m not complaining. I loved every minute that I was the center of attention, even if it didn’t last but a few hours. If somebody had a car, and an idea of something fun, I was ready. But I remember thinking that day, “What are you up to, Wade Stokes?” He wasn’t trying to flirt with me. I felt like he was being the most natural thing he could be, like he wasn’t trying to do anything, just feeling good in his skin and not afraid to show it. We walked out on the sidewalk into the sun, a hot July Saturday. I was still fiddling inside my pocketbook for the pen that he had already said he didn’t want. He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder, like a big brother.

  “Come say ‘hey’ sometime if you’re down by the pool. I’m there every day saving people from drowning. My secretary knows my schedule.”

  “I thought she was fired.”

  He started to walk away towards his car. “Guess I don’t have the heart.” He smiled.

  “Good. Give her another chance.” I wanted to think of something else to say, but nothing came out.

  I feel like asking Bernice to show me that picture again sometime. I don’t want to upset her though. She’s real tenderhearted, that’s what they say, Margaret does anyway. I don’t talk to too many people here. I do my thing and leave, one day a week. Ada Everett don’t give me the time of day unless she has to. She thinks I don’t do nothing but hair and that I don’t know anything else. That’s all right with me, I don’t have nothing to prove to her. I see plenty on my own. I see things the doctors don’t. Some of the ones they send over here ain’t worth two cents anyway. They treat coming to see these folks like going to the bathroom, that’s how much time and attention they give to what they’re doing. That’s why I take my time doing hair, even if it takes all day and throws off the schedule. If it makes theses ladies feel like somebody’s got some time they’re not afraid to spend, then that’s me trying to treat them as good as I can. I think Bernice knows it.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  LORRAINE

  My first husband was a Palmer. Edward Gerard was his given name but I never knew him to be called anything but Scrape, and I don’t have no idea why. He left three months after we were married. He had got me on the rebound, and when the first woman from Macon, Georgia, decided to show up again, that was the end of the time he had for me. My mama said she could have seen it all coming, and I reckon she could. Sometimes it’s a lot easier to see something coming when it ain’t coming at you. It’s like this: when you’re drivin the car, you can’t be lookin at the map at the same time. First you’ve got to stop, look at where you want to go, then start up the engine again and head in that direction. I did not stop. I did not look.

  When my second husband, Samuel Bullock, asked me to marry him, I threw the map away again and didn’t look at the road signs. And there were lots of signs. Empty bottles, late nights with no explanation of where he was, then him coming in staggering and reeking. If I said something, and I usually did, we either started screaming at each other or he’d turn around and walk out, maybe not come back ’til morning, maybe not for two or three days. Mama asked if he hit me and I told her no, which was the truth. Whatever I have suffered in my life, that has not been part of it, and I thank the Lord for that because I don’t know what I would have done, not then. I see how somebody well-meaning can say, “He hit you? You leave now, girl, and don’t look back.” But I understand why when a woman is in the middle of it, the choice don’t seem that clear, not right off anyway. I know there’s shelters and numbers to call now, probably not enough, but they’re there. But let a black woman call the police in North Carolina in the 1960s and tell em that her husband was about to beat her or already had. Well that’s just niggers fightin and that’s what niggers do, and if they came at all, it would only be cause they had to, and they wouldn’t do nothing, everybody knew that, no use to even call, they wouldn’t do a damn thing. Maybe it’s different now, it seems like it is, but I don’t know. I think people do the same things to each other they’ve always done.

  A week after we got married, Samuel and me moved into a house that belonged to a Mr. Turlington, on a piece of his farm, in exchange for Samuel helping him in tobacco and cotton and whatever else needed doing. Mr. Turlington hired all the blacks he could and poor whites too to work in the fields come barning or picking time, but he needed one strong man to be his helper all the time. The tenant house was little. From the outside, it looked like it couldn’t be but one room, but inside there was a little bedroom in the back, no hall, only a door connecting it to the main room, with a kitchen in one corner and a table with four chairs. The only other furniture was a flower patterned couch that Mr. Turlington’s wife had told him to get out of her house or she was gon throw it away once she bought something new.

  Mama came the day we moved in. “Your daddy would be sick if he was alive to see this. Living in a shack with a dirt farmer who ain’t even farming his own land, and in the shape you’re in? Are you happy with yourself now?” And I answered her, “I’m gon try to be,” and I meant it. Three weeks later, I had myself a baby, a little boy, Thomas. Samuel was drunk the day he was born. I didn’t see any road sign telling me
which way I needed to go. I didn’t see what I didn’t look for.

  It was a late August afternoon, Thomas wasn’t but a few weeks old, and it had come a big rain. The air was so heavy with wet that you had to plow your way through it to walk around. We had us some flooding in places. Samuel was at home because it was too wet to go in the fields, and I told him I was gon take the truck and go to the store, and Mama said she would come help look after the baby.

  Samuel said, “I don’t need nobody’s help to sit up in here and watch a baby sleep.”

  “Well she’s comin anyway, so watch him ’til she gets here,” I told him, and I went on to the Winn-Dixie.

  I remember that store like it was this morning. I had already loaded up most of what I came for, but I was lookin real hard at the meat. We couldn’t afford most of it, so I picked us out a big old broiler chicken. I had decided I was gon make us some chicken and rice cause I loved it ever since I was a little girl. In the next row over, I heard a woman’s voice say, “Stop it now, Spencer, I’m not going to tell you again,” and a little boy about three come runnin around the corner towards me fast as he could and fell down right beside my feet. He yelled out, cryin like he was about to die, so I picked him up, and his mother, a suntanned white woman in a short dress with blond hair in a ponytail came flying after him to where I was, next to the meat. “Thank you so much,” she said, real polite. It surprised me how nice she was, and she took him out of my arms and put him up in the seat of her grocery cart. She smiled and shook her head. “You’ve got to watch them every minute, don’t you?” I was thinking again wasn’t she nice, when something hard rammed me in the stomach, hauled off and hit me like a log, that big and heavy. I put the chicken down. I knew something, a sudden dark thing. I left the cart in the middle of the aisle full of food and everything else and ran out to the parking lot, to the pickup. The white woman with the ponytail called, “Are you all right?” but I had done gone. One of the cashiers at the front looked at me like she thought I was stealin, but I reckon she saw my hands empty and didn’t say nothing.