The Game Changer

by A. G. Lafley

  Mama got four girls to help her with the laundry. Sometimes she got as much as a dollar for a big load after scrubbing and ironing all day.

  Papa and I would go around with the horse and wagon and pick up those white people’s clothes for Mama. Then deliver them back later. On the days we wouldn’t be delivering, we go out for a wagonload of vegetables, muskmelons, and corn to sell in the levee camps all around Palmerville. They were building a power dam, and all the French people from Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut came there looking for work. Just pitched their tents any place and some even put up old one-room shacks. The owners also brought in a lot of Italian immigrants for the real heavy work. Couldn’t even speak English.

  Those levee camps was everywhere. So was money. Pretty soon the gamblers came in. Then the fast women. It was such a rough area, people started getting killed. Especially in the Hardaway Levee Camp that was building the big power dam across the Yadkin River.

  That camp was run by a tough giant called Kid Heavy. Without a doubt, he was the meanest, roughest man in the whole state of North Carolina. Stood almost seven feet tall, weighed at least three hundred pounds, wore a big western hat, and always had a .44 pistol in a belt holster and a .38 in his waistband. But the worst was his long, leather bullwhip. Anybody make trouble or try to leave the camp without paying his debts got that whip across his back. Men and women. Black and white. Beat them right to the ground. Maybe stomp them a few times because he felt like it. Back talk him and the guy liable to shoot you dead. No questions asked. I once saw a well-known white man cuss Kid Heavy’s horse in the presence of Heavy’s wife. That white man needed doctoring for three weeks after that.

  I met Kid Heavy many times when I delivered his laundry, and he usually gave me double what Mama charged. He was good to us, but I always kept my eye on that whip.

  When the First World War broke out in 1914, everybody started going back north, and by the following year the boom was over. Nothing left but empty tents. Cook stoves all tossed about. Beds, tables, chairs, everything just laying out in the sun for anybody that wanted them. It was like a ghost town.

  I took my first automobile ride in 1914. A red-front, T-model Ford owned by a local white man. I was thrilled even though the ride was only around the corner. But it sure impressed my friends.

  We moved to Grandpaps’ place in New London in May of 1915. That’s a few miles back toward Richfield. Grandpaps Cad Mauney had this big old six-room house which was built for him after slavery. Had three great oak trees around it and fruit trees in the back. His oldest son, Jonse, had died, and then Grandmother Mauney died after taking fever.

  It was hard for Mama, taking care of old Grandpaps, her own family, and keeping up with the day work. Papa was feeling poorly too and couldn’t go out very often. Some of Mama’s sisters and brothers sent money, and the white people Mama worked for was sympathetic and helped out also.

  Then Grandpaps died in August. Three deaths within six months in the same house. It was a sad time for everybody.

  But it didn’t stop Mama from whipping me when she felt like it. She found I been playing with a local white boy, Wallace Ivey, and took a strap to my behind.

  “You got enough toys here to play with, Clyde. You don’t have to go looking for more.”

  Papa started having real bad trouble by summertime. The doctor called it dropsy—all I knew was he couldn’t catch his breath and had to keep sitting straight up in a chair, even when he slept. Mama tried to take care of him, but I’m not lying if I say I was scared. Never saw him look so bad.

  I helped Mama take the bags of wash over to the white people’s places by train, a fifteen-cent fare for her, a dime for me. Along with the rent we got for our house in Richfield, we struggled along.

  One time I had a white neighbor, Mr. Crowell, make me a little shoeshine box, and I walked seven miles into Albemarle, bought some polish, a old brush, and a rag and made myself over two dollars. When I got back I handed the money to Papa.

  “Where you get this money, boy?” he breathed heavily.

  “Made it shining shoes in Albemarle, Papa.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, Papa. I wanna help you out.”

  “Clyde, you sure a special boy. Got this job all on your own just for your old sick Papa. You my little man.”

  “I love you, Papa.”

  He was resting late one October night when Mama and me returned from Albemarle after delivering. When we walked in the house, I heard this old hoot owl screeching in the big oak tree next to the back kitchen window. Screeeeech! Screeeeech! Screeeeech! Never heard any there before.

  Now, everybody know that a screech owl hollering outside your window at night is a bad omen. Yes sir.

  “Papa,” I cried, running over to him. “You gonna die?”

  “Now Clyde, don’t pay that owl no mind. I’m not gonna die.” He sat me down at his feet. “You a good boy, Clyde, always have been. I’ll never leave you. You may not see me, but my spirit will be near. I might be in the body of a old colored man. Or Indian. Maybe even a white man. I’m gonna see they treat you good. You listen to your mother and the good Lord will bless you all your life. And your Papa always be watching over you, Clyde—don’t you worry none.”

  I used to shine shoes on the streets of Albemarle, N.C., 1915. (Photo courtesy of Fred T. Morgan, Stanly News and Press.)

  I wasn’t sure what he meant but felt comforted.

  Sometimes I went out in the woods and found him some dittany leaves everybody used for healing. Or I walk to town and get Papa the red peach soda he liked so much. Buy it with the pennies I saved from shining shoes every weekend.

  Papa took to sitting under the big oak tree out front in a old rocking chair. Day and night. Then he started talking to people, only there was no people there. I heard him talking to Grandpaps. And Jonse. Said he saw his brother, saw his father. But they all dead, we knew that.

  “Mama,” I would ask, looking out the window at him, “you think he sees all those people he talking to?”

  “Hush up, boy,” was her reply. And I cry quietly.

  I woke the morning of October 27, 1915, to the tolling of a faraway church bell. Way back in the woods.

  Bong. . . . Bong. . . . Bong. . . .

  It was very slow.

  I knew what that meant. I jumped out of bed and ran over to the front window. People all standing about. I dashed out in the cold morning air and ran as fast as I could up to Papa. He was still sitting in his rocking chair under the big oak tree, but a blanket was pulled over his head.

  “Papa! Papa!” I cried. A neighbor man came over and held me back, but I tore away. “I ain’t got no Papa no more,” I screamed. “My Papa’s gone. My Papa’s gone.”

  I ran back in the house and broke down completely. It was the end of the world for me.

  This is the tree that my Papa died under while sitting in a rocking chair, New London, N.C., Oct. 27, 1915. (Photo courtesy of Henry W. Culp.)

  2. Troubled Times

  For many months after Papa died, I suffered terribly. The days were without joy and the nights so very dark and frightening. Stayed in my room and had no feeling to come out. Stopped talking, cried to myself almost all the time, and when Mama would holler, I cry some more, only quieter. Even her beatings didn’t stop me.

  At night I lay in my dark room and be afraid to sleep. Perhaps I dreamed all this, I thought, maybe Papa was still out there sitting under the oak tree and it was only a bad mistake.

  When I did fall asleep, I seen him standing in my room, open arms, calling me. “Come on, Clyde, come with me.” Then I wake up screaming for Papa, but he wasn’t there. Many times Mama come in to see if I was fevering. But I couldn’t tell her what I saw.

  When her friends came over I hear them talking.

  “Liz, I always knew that boy was in for trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Being born in the old Hannah Shaver place, that’s what. About the worst h
ouse around here for hants.”

  She meant the mysterious, unexplained happenings. Nobody lived in that old house for long, black or white. Strange noises got everybody out.

  “You got some of that Hannah Shaver place in you, Clyde,” Mama often said.

  And she could have been right. Always telling of how she was scared while carrying me. Chairs falling over and loud groaning under that house, and when somebody looked, nothing was there. At least nothing nobody could see. Even the Bible in the house didn’t help.

  Told me one time she was sitting out on the porch talking to her friend and started to hearing all the dishes, pots, and pans crashing to the floor. Thought one of the local goats or donkeys got in and rushing inside, found everything in place. That’s when the neighbor lady picked up her long skirts and scooted all the way home. Mama sometimes heard voices moaning and crying at night. Still didn’t see nothing.

  I kept thinking of all the other strange things she used to tell me. Once when Mama was twelve, she and her sisters toted a big burlap bag out to collect pine knots for firewood. Up around New London, near Stokes Ferry. On the way back they heard this herd of horses come running down the road. They knew there was no herds of horses around those parts, especially running down this old dirt road. But as hard as they looked, they see nothing. As the beating hoofs got louder and louder, everybody ran and jumped in the drainage ditch by the side of the road.

  As the sounds passed by, Mama peeked out. Wasn’t a thing to be seen, not one horse, not a mule, nothing. Not even a cloud of dust.

  Grandmother didn’t whip them for lying when they got home but said hundreds of years ago there was Indian tribal wars in that area and maybe that was what they heard.

  Mama might of been strict and hard, but she never lied to me.

  I couldn’t get out of my mind the story of this nice Christian lady everybody liked and how two bad men came to beat and rob her and then threw her down in the well where she drowned. At her funeral, people all crying, fainting, and moaning, and everybody swore they still heard her screams coming from deep within the well. I thought I heard her screaming through my dark window every night, but it all happened miles away. And long ago.

  My dreams started getting worse. Nightmares. Hants talking. Papa was in them almost all the time.

  I kept thinking of this medium-sized American Indian man I started seeing in my dreams when Papa had his heart attack in 1912. Came many times in the middle of the night and talked to me, told me of his life and how he came from far away. He was brown, kind of mahogany color, had a high bridge nose, and his beady eyes kept looking and looking at me. Sometimes he took me out the window and we flew all around the countryside. Told me not to be afraid. It seemed so real.

  One dark night my Indian friend said he was going away. I remember his very words. “I’ll see you again when you a grown man.” And then he left, but I kept thinking of him long after he was gone.

  Uncle Jonse Mauney kept coming to mind, too. A gold-colored, yellow man, he died some months before Papa. Born in slavery and unable to read or write, he was the smartest man I ever knew. They called him the “Mystery Man”—could figure out any mathematical question right in his head. Anything. Everybody said his mind was as good as twenty college professors, and twice as fast.

  I once saw him watch a slow freight train go by that had these long serial numbers on the side of each car. After the train passed he give me the total of all the numbers.

  People ask him how many railroad crossties there was between Salisbury and Norwood, some thirty-five miles apart. He knew. Someone wanted to know his age in days, hours, and minutes. Told him right off.

  If a man was building a house of a certain size, he ask Uncle Jonse the number of bricks, shingles, and planks needed. Then he order the exact amount he said. Storekeepers called him down at inventory time and did all their figuring through him. And the man couldn’t read a single word on a page.

  School teachers tried to trick him with hard questions. Like how many ticks a clock would make in three days, seven hours, and fourteen minutes of ticking. Knew that too.

  One time some New London men put together a almost impossible question. How many chickens would there be, they wanted to know, if one chicken hatched twelve chicks, each chick then laid and hatched twelve more eggs, and so on for a certain number of cycles. The answer was up in the billions, I think, but Uncle Jonse gave the answer immediately.

  Nobody knew how he did it and neither did he, but everybody said it was a God-given gift. All the circuses wanted him but he never went—didn’t want to be called a freak.

  How could Uncle Jonse do what he did without knowing how to do it? I was frightened just thinking about that answer.

  After he died, we started hearing noises in the house. Two months later, when Grandmother’s five-gallon stone crock exploded in little pieces, we knew something bad was going to happen. Grandmother died early the next morning. I knew it was Uncle Jonse that give us the token.

  I kept remembering the time a few years back when I went with Papa to get a wagonload of vegetables. Well, this particular night we riding home after dark. The moon was moving in and out of the clouds. The woods all quiet. We were along on the road when we got up to this old Baptist churchyard where all the white slave-masters are buried.

  Suddenly, our horse stopped and Papa couldn’t make him go. Something was holding old Jim back—was prancing about crazy-like, snorting, ears twitching, eyes big and white. He never done that before, so I started crying and Papa looked kind of shaken. Just then, the old horse got turned loose. Now, this horse was sort of lazy and slow, but when he got turned loose, he just took off, running wild from one side of the road to the other, off almost in the ditch, then up against the meadow fence and back down again. The wagon was bumping and jumping, melons rolling out the back. It was more then a mile before Papa got him to stop.

  Papa never went back that way again at night, and it took weeks for me to get over that scary ride.

  Uncle Fred once told of seeing a twelve-foot giant black man when he was a kid, with big red eyes like fire coals, a white beard that touched the ground, bright painted red lips, wearing a long black robe, and carrying a staff as he came slowly out of the woods. That made me tremble just to hear tell of it.

  More and more such thoughts kept running through my troubled ten-year-old head. Each one worse then the next. Didn’t know what it all meant. Strange, frightening dreams. Hants all around, some standing back there in the shadows waiting to get me. Papa not there. I was alone, confused, and very afraid.

  It was the most fearful time in my life.

  3. The Influential Years, 1916–1923

  “Lizzy, something has to be done to help that boy.”

  It was Mr. Rufus G. Kluttz talking to Mama. His wife’s family, the Pecks, knew my father’s father very well, and Papa was raised as their own from the time he was ten. These were good white people, yes sir.

  “We all know how close Clyde was to Wash,” continued Mr. Kluttz. “He’s grievin’ almost six months, and if we don’t help him he’s going to have big trouble.” He pointed to his head.

  They talked a long time about me. I heard him tell Mama he wanted me for the summer and he pay for my food and clothes. Said he take me to shows in Concord and Salisbury, be like a real father. Mama wasn’t sure and kept hesitating.

  “He can come back any time he wants,” he said.

  “Mama, please let me go,” I cried. It was the first time I spoke up in months.

  “See Liz, he’s feeling better already.” And Mr. Kluttz patted me on the shoulder, just like Papa used to do.

  I went to live with him around the middle of March 1916. He and his wife lived in a new house just two miles outside of Gold Hill, about eight miles from New London.

  The first thing Mr. Kluttz did was buy me a piggy bank.

  “I’m going to give you twenty-five cents a week, Clyde,” he told me. “When you go to church, you put a nickel i
n the collection box. If you want some penny candy, you buy it whenever you want. And if you save the rest, maybe you can get your own bicycle.”

  That excited me because I saw a sixteen-inch-frame bicycle with solid tires in the Sears, Roebuck catalogue that cost $5.98. It sure looked pretty.

  Mr. and Mrs. Rufus G. Kluttz, the wonderful white people that took me in after my father died, standing in front of their new house in Gold Hill, N.C., 1914. (Photo courtesy of Mrs. Carrie Misenheimer.)

  “I want my boy to have his own,” Mr. Kluttz said.

  After about a week, he took me to the dry-goods store in Concord and bought me a seven-dollar knickers suit that only wealthy white kids wore. It was salt-and-pepper color with a stylish Norfolk jacket, the kind with a belt in the back. He got me a pair of full-length patterned stockings and tan, hand-buttoned shoes. Paid $2.50 for them. Then a small straw hat with a bright-colored band. Could wear the soft brim either up or down all around. Mrs. Carrie Kluttz was a good seamstress and made me a matching short-sleeved shirt with two breast pockets. Got me a little brown bow tie to go with it.

  Man, I sure looked great. And felt so neat. This was a time when most colored boys wouldn’t dream of buying even a two-dollar suit for Sunday wear. Some of them boys went raggety as buzzards, walking around in patchy clothes with their little behinds coming through the worn pants.

  “Your new clothes are not only for Sunday,” Mr. Kluttz said, “you wear them whenever you want. I want you to be somebody all the time.”

  “Why’s that, Mr. Kluttz?”

  “Because appearance is half the battle in life, Clyde.”

  That advice impressed me very much. I never forgot it.

  The next Sunday I went with Mama to church. It was the M.E. Methodist Church, but they call it the United Methodist now. When I walked in so straight and stiff wearing my new clothes with the hat brim down all around, everybody’s eyes was on me.