The Pecan Man

by Cassie Dandridge Selleck

  "I hear you, Blanche," I said. "I hear you, and Lord help me, you’re probably right, but we can't just let it go. If he did this to Gracie, he'd do it to any child. We have to do something. We can't just sit here and do nothing."

  Blanche put her hands on her hips and looked at me like I didn't have good sense.

  “I need time to think, Miz Ora. Until then, nothin’ is exactly what we go’n do.”

  I woke up early the next morning. Truth is, I barely slept at all. I peeked into the guest room at six a.m. and Blanche was sleeping soundly with her arms wrapped tightly around her youngest child.

  I went to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee. I put some bacon in a cast iron skillet and pulled what was left of yesterday morning's biscuits from the bread basket on the kitchen counter. I decided to fry the biscuits in butter and scramble a few eggs once the bacon was done. I wasn't hungry. I just needed something to do.

  A half hour later Blanche came down the hall looking like she'd never gone to bed. Grace was beside her, still half asleep, but Blanche had obviously cleaned her up a bit. Blanche pulled out a dining room chair and deposited the child in it. Grace promptly put her head down on the table and went back to sleep.

  "How you feelin'?" I regretted the question as soon as I asked it. Blanche didn't answer.

  "Want some coffee? I made some bacon and eggs, too."

  "I cain't eat nothin', Miz Ora."

  "Yeah, neither could I."

  Blanche shuffled over to the coffee pot and poured a cup. She added milk and sugar and stood at the kitchen counter to drink her coffee. She didn't speak for several minutes.

  When the silence got too heavy, I reached out and touched her arm.

  “Blanche?”

  She didn’t look up, and almost whispered when she finally spoke.

  “She woke up cryin’ in the middle of the night.”

  I thought my heart would shatter right there - just burst into a thousand tiny shards of glass and spill out between my ribs.

  “Blanche...”

  “I told her it was just a dream,” she said. “Just a really bad dream - that it never happened at all.”

  “Dear, Lord…” I whispered.

  “And then I prayed He’d forgive me for lyin’ to my baby like that.”

  I offered lamely, "We're gonna get through this, Blanche."

  "I reckon we are." She didn't sound convinced.

  "I want you to do something for me and I won't take no for an answer." Silence.

  "I want you to let Grace come here after school for a while. She can ride the bus right down to the corner and you can meet her there every day.”

  Blanche brought her coffee to her usual place at the table and sat heavily in her chair. She gave me a look that I took to mean she was going to object. I plowed ahead.

  “Now, I know what you’re going to say and I’m telling you, the child won’t be any trouble. It’s just for a couple of hours a day and besides, I could use the company.”

  Blanche coughed and stared at her cup.

  “I was up all night thinking about this, Blanche. I’m here with you every day. You know my routines and I know yours. Hell, I know what you’re thinking half the time, but I don’t know your children.”

  “What’re you talkin’ about, Miz Ora? You know my kids.”

  I waved my hands at her.

  “Oh, I know little things about them from the stories you tell. I know Marcus is at Fort Bragg now. I know Patrice is your studious child, your rock, the one who holds the family together when you’re gone. I know the twins are boy-crazy and working on giving you gray hair and I know that Grace will never be the same again, but what I don’t know is who she was before this awful thing happened to her and I don’t know why I don’t know.”

  I stopped and drew a deep breath. I did know why. I knew exactly why and so did Blanche. It made me sick with grief and shame.

  Blanche straightened her back and sat tall in her chair. Her face was set in a way that said her decision was made. I could argue until I was blue in the face and it would not change her answer. In the brief seconds before she spoke I actually felt relieved. It was one thing to recognize myself as a fraud. It was another thing entirely to do something about it. I could console myself with the knowledge that I tried to change it, but the truth was, I was glad that Blanche would refuse my gesture. It somehow made sense that she wouldn’t want my help with Grace.

  Blanche stood and looked out the window for a moment.

  “I’m keeping Grace out of school for a week or so. I’ll make arrangements to change her bus route when I call the principal about her schoolwork.”

  I sat in stunned silence for a moment before I managed a shaky, “Good. Then that’s settled.”

  Blanche cleared her empty cup off the table and started in on the dishes. I took my coffee to the front porch.

  I had never questioned my benevolence before. I was raised on the Scriptures. I knew what Jesus said about doing “unto the least of these”. Doing a kind thing was part of my nature and wasn’t it a kind thing to allow Blanche’s child to stay with her every day? So why, suddenly, did it seem as if the gift had come from Blanche?

  Grace woke up thirty minutes later. She wandered onto the porch with her hair stuck straight out on one side and a crease on her cheek where it had rested on the table. She stared at me for a moment, then climbed into my lap as if she had sat there a hundred times before.

  “Mama said to come keep you company.”

  I patted her leg and we sat quietly watching the squirrels in the pecan trees until Blanche came to get Grace to take a bath. While she was in the tub, I walked to the JC Penney store downtown and bought a new outfit, complete with shoes and socks, for Grace. I came home to find Grace wrapped in a huge towel, sitting on the bed in the guest room. Blanche was rolling up Grace’s soiled clothing and putting it into a paper sack.

  “What are you going to do with those?” I asked. I think part of me still hoped she’d call the police. I couldn’t imagine not reporting such a horrible violation as Gracie had endured.

  “I’m not sure,” she replied.

  “Don’t wash them yet.” I said, and prepared for the backlash I was sure would come.

  “Hadn’t planned on it,” Blanche said.

  Five

  It was amazing how quickly things went back to normal, if you can ever call your life normal after such an event has taken place. Blanche told Grace that her ordeal had been nothing more than a bad dream. It’s not how I’d have handled it, but that’s probably not saying much under the circumstances.

  As October settled in, Eddie stopped mowing my dormant St. Augustine grass and spent his time raking leaves, gathering pecans and mulching my flower beds with pine straw. A home as old as mine needed frequent upkeep and there were always odd jobs to do. Eddie seemed grateful for the extra money and completed each task with extraordinary care. He generally showed up early and left before Grace got off the bus in the afternoon.

  Grace settled into her new routine and easily made herself at home, despite Blanche’s frequent admonitions to mind her manners and stay out of my hair. Blanche needn’t have worried and I told her so. Grace was precocious and curious, but not at all destructive and I enjoyed her company more than her mama would have imagined. She turned out to be a blessing, in more ways than one.

  When Halloween rolled around, I got to sit and enjoy the Trick-or-Treaters going from house to house. Grace, filled with self-importance and utter glee in the witch’s costume I made for her, stood at the edge of the stoop and counted out exactly two pieces of candy for each child. The pigtails Blanche kept in Grace’s hair prevented a good fit for the pointed black hat I got at Woolworth’s. Each time she reached into the plastic pumpkin that held the candy, the hat tipped forward, rolling off her head and down the front steps. Blanche and I sat in our rockers on the porch and laughed until our sides ached watching that child. She wouldn’t hear of taking the hat off until I suggested she pour
the candy from the pumpkin into the hat and distribute it that way.

  When the foot traffic slowed, Blanche gathered Grace up and headed for home. Grace put up a fuss until Blanche promised to stop at a few houses on the way so she could collect some candy of her own. I refilled the pumpkin bucket and sat awhile longer on the porch to wait for latecomers.

  Blanche and Grace had only been gone a few minutes when Skipper Kornegay showed up with three of his friends in tow. They were too old for costumes, but apparently not too proud to stand in line for candy.

  “Hey, Miz Beckworth.”

  “Hey, yourself.”

  I wasn’t in the mood for hypocrisy.

  “Nice evening, ain’t it?”

  “It was.”

  He gave a nervous laugh.

  “Well, uh…Trick or Treat.”

  “Aren’t you a little old for Trick-or-Treating?”

  “Yeah, well, you’re never too old for candy, Miz Beckworth.”

  He laughed again. I didn’t.

  “I think you’re wrong there, Skipper. Comes a time when you have to put away childish things and face life like a man.”

  His friends, to this point standing in silence, began to laugh uneasily, too. I called them each by name.

  “Donnie Allred. You old enough to be treated like a man?”

  “Yes’m, I reckon I am.”

  “Then you don’t need any candy, now do you?”

  “No ma’am, I don’t reckon I do.”

  “Allen Madison. You old enough to be treated like a man?”

  “My daddy don’t think so.” He elbowed Skipper, who was the only one of the four who no longer laughed.

  “James Robert Hardy, you old enough to be treated like a man?”

  Allen answered for him. “Jimbo’s still in diapers, Miz Beckworth. I think he should still get some candy.”

  Jimbo turned and walked away. “Come on, y’all. Let’s get outta here.”

  Skipper didn’t move, nor take his eyes from mine. The other three boys turned and laughed their way down the sidewalk, pushing and heckling each other, no doubt wondering what had gotten into this crazy old lady. Skipper stayed put.

  “You got something to say to me, son?”

  “I could ask the same of you.” His voice held more contempt than fear. I stood my ground anyway.

  “Are you asking, Mr. Kornegay?”

  Silence.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  Knowing what he had done to Grace, I probably should have been afraid, but I wasn’t. Skipper was defiant, but puzzled. It occurred to me that he had not made the connection between Grace and me. I wanted to confront him right there. Wanted to call his daddy and tell him to come pick up his deviant son and do something about him. But my loyalty was to Blanche and I bit my tongue.

  I stared at him for several minutes until, finally, he fidgeted a bit and looked away. I pulled a handful of candy from the bucket and tossed them on the ground at Skipper’s feet.

  “Here’s your candy, boy.”

  I turned my back on him and went into the house, flipping the porch light off as I did. Moments later I heard the clatter of wrapped candy hitting the front window like hail. I don’t know when he left or which direction he went. I went to bed and picked up the candy the next day.

  By the time we started making preparations for Thanksgiving, Blanche’s entire family had gotten used to the changes in our relationship. It wasn’t unusual now for Blanche’s twins, ReNetta and Danita, to show up of an afternoon, just to do their homework on the front porch or watch T.V., which they didn’t have at home. Patrice had made the cheerleading squad at the high school, so she was no longer home in the afternoon to watch them anyway.

  One of the mixed blessings of living on Main Street is having a front row seat for all of the local parades. I never tired of seeing the homemade floats made from chicken wire stuffed with colorful paper napkins. And, though the very thought of having a child of my own in a beauty pageant sent me into fits of revulsion, I secretly enjoyed waving at the little girls perched on the backs of sporty convertibles. I could even forgive the mothers who dressed them in layers of tulle and satin, curled their hair into tiny ringlets and plastered their sweet faces with enough makeup for three grown women when I thought about how wonderful it must feel to be a princess for a day.

  The closest I ever came was the day I was married. That went by so quickly that, when you factor in my nerves, I was left with not much more than a long list of do's and don'ts and thank you notes etched in my memory of the event.

  This year's homecoming parade was particularly exciting for the girls. Patrice would be leading the Mayville High Cheerleading Squad. I helped take up her uniform at the beginning of the year. The skirt was a little short, but I have to admit Patrice was striking in it. Her long dark legs contrasted beautifully with the orange and white pleats of the skirt and she carried her willowy body with extraordinary grace. She was then and remains today, a simply beautiful girl.

  Blanche's children had seen many a parade from the porch of my house, but never one with their own sister in such a prominent role. They had school banners to wave and spent hours practicing the chants they'd watched Patrice learn at the beginning of the season.

  The parade started at 4:00 p.m. on Homecoming Friday. The game would start at 7:00 that night, but none of us would be going. I think Blanche always wanted to go see Patrice cheer, but I imagine the thought of negotiating those wooden bleachers was enough to give her pause. We were all excited for the opportunity to see her in action.

  Blanche put on a pot roast for supper and settled us on the porch with sweet tea, Kool-aid and popcorn. The fall weather was perfect for a parade. I do not ever experience the metamorphosis of summer to fall without hearing the distant sound of marching bands and police sirens in my head.

  I should have been prepared, should have thought ahead to what might happen but, as usual, I didn't and the day was nearly ruined before it even got off to a good start.

  First in line in every hometown parade is always the police chief, followed by squad cars of various officers not on duty at the time.

  Blanche had gone in to check the roast. Danita and ReNetta were standing on the sidewalk, with Gracie hopping about on the flat stoops at the base of the columns flanking the porch steps. She might not have even looked up if Ralph Kornegay hadn't chosen the moment he passed our house to flip on his blaring siren. Gracie squealed and covered her ears, then craned her neck to see the source of the commotion. There, waving from the front seat of his father's squad car, sat Skipper Kornegay, his white hair gleaming in the low pitch of the afternoon sun.

  Gracie flattened herself against the porch column, hands reaching behind to grip its wide round girth, her face a mask of terror and her feet back pedaling as if she could push the column out of the way with her body.

  I don't remember a time when I moved so swiftly. I was out of my chair within seconds, my glass of tea cast aside without thought. I reached Gracie just as the scream penetrated her paralyzed vocal chords and joined the sound of the wailing siren. Scooping her up under one arm, I flung open the screen door and entered the living room, kicking the heavy wooden door shut with one foot. Both doors slammed at once.

  Blanche met me at the hallway and took Grace from me without a word. I don't remember if I ever even told her what happened. I think she just knew from the sound of the scream that it was another nightmare come back to haunt her little girl.

  Blanche took Grace into the guest room and worked to quiet her down. A wave of nausea hit me with the force of a hurricane and I stumbled to the downstairs bathroom, my fingers shaking too violently to manage the light switch. I don't know how long I vomited or how many times, but by the time I felt able to walk again, Blanche's crooning had worked its magic and Grace was asleep under the chenille bedspread, bathed in that now familiar pink glow.

  Six

  We missed seeing Patrice's squad pass by the house and her disappoint
ment was

  obvious when she popped in to eat dinner before the game.

  "Mama!" Patrice complained. "Where were you?"

  As Blanche struggled to respond, the twins mercifully provided a plausible, if not completely accurate, reason for our absence.

  "Aw, that ol' sireen scared Gracie half to death," Danita put in first.

  "Yeah, you shoulda seen it," ReNetta said, rolling her eyes. "Miz Ora had to carry her inside, hollerin' like a little baby."

  Patrice's annoyance quickly turned to concern.

  "Is she okay?" she asked Blanche.

  "She fine," Blanche answered. "She been sleepin' ever since."

  "I'm worried about her, Mama," Patrice said. "She hasn't been herself lately."

  "Don't you worry none." Blanche tried to reassure her. "She go'n be all right. She jus' tired, that's all."

  "She's been tired a lot," Patrice persisted.

  "You best stop your fussin' and eat up now. Game starts in half an hour."

  The rest of our meal passed in silence and Grace did not wake until Blanche put her into the taxi to go home.

  It was a while before I got used to the constant commotion in the house each day after school, but I took to taking a nap after lunch, so I’d at least be rested up for the afternoon onslaught of laughing and squabbling. The twins often asked me for help with their homework. They seemed to be in awe of the fact that I had been to college. They were puzzled, however, as to why I had never actually taught school, as I had intended to do with my degree in Home Economics.

  Up until that point, I had never questioned it myself. Sometimes it seemed like I was listening to the story of my own life and not telling it when I explained to the girls how different it was for women “way back then”. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had a nice life and Walter was good to me for all practical purposes. It’s just that their questions made me wonder how my life might have been different if I’d lived it for myself and not for the man I married.