by Wayne, Jimmy
In warmer weather one apartment became a canteen store, where the kids could buy ice cream and other snacks. The African-American woman who lived there would answer the door and invite us in, then lead us to the kitchen, where she had an assortment of snacks for sale. The price for each item was more expensive than what the local convenience store charged, but that’s how the old lady made a profit. I didn’t have much spare change to spend, but when I did, I liked helping the canteen woman.
We also had an openly gay guy who lived at Pine Manor. He, too, was African-American and had long, painted red fingernails. He never spoke; he just danced like a robot, and all the kids in the apartment complex loved to watch him.
Despite growing up in a racially charged section of the Carolinas, I never thought twice about someone’s skin color, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t an issue. The “N” word was a common term among both blacks and whites, and although our schools had been integrated since the mid-1960s, there was a lot of leftover racial animosity. My best friend George was an African-American kid, much bigger and taller than me. When George’s parents realized that we had become buddies, they told him he couldn’t hang around with me anymore. I thought it was because I had begged George to ask his parents if I could have a piece of his birthday cake. “No, Jimmy,” he told me sadly. “It’s because you are white.” I tried making new friends in the complex, but none of the new kids were as cool as George.
One day a group of kids and I were walking through the pine trees, getting ready to cross over a barbed wire fence, when I heard sirens. I turned and saw a fire truck stopping in front of our apartment.
I ran as fast as I could, past the firemen who were just arriving, and into our apartment, where I saw Mama sitting on the couch crying. Both her arms were severely burned. A young black man had pulled both empty vegetable drawers out from the bottom of the refrigerator and ran to the neighbor’s to fill the drawers with ice. He quickly brought them back and then filled the remaining space in the drawers with water. He carried each drawer over to the couch and placed a drawer on both sides of Mama. By then the fire company’s paramedic was in the house, and he told Mama to place her forearms inside the drawers. Mama sat there crying as the paramedics prepared to take her to the hospital.
When she calmed down enough, Mama explained what had happened. The grease had caught fire on the oven range when she was frying potatoes for Patricia. She tried putting the fire out with a towel but to no avail, so she grabbed the handle on the pan and rushed to the back door, holding the pan of burning grease. When she opened the back door and attempted to toss the grease out and away from her, the grease apparently flew upward and came back down on her arms.
About that time the young black man, who was in the neighbor’s yard, looked up, saw what was happening, and came running to her rescue. I didn’t know him, but it was another reminder that when someone is in trouble and needs help, skin color or other external circumstances are irrelevant.
MAYBE THE FIRE WAS A WAKE-UP CALL. MAMA TRIED HARD to get her life on the right track after that. She even got a job, working the third shift at the Mauney Hosiery Mill, a textile mill that produced stockings. She began dating Joel, a security guard who monitored the mill, but that relationship ended as soon as Mack, a former lover of Mama’s, came back into the picture.
I’d heard that Mack waited on Joel to get off work one morning and attacked him as he walked across the parking lot. The last time I saw Joel, he had a broken arm and was wearing a sling.
Mack didn’t hang around too long this time—probably because he didn’t want to frequent our apartment complex. A large number of African-Americans lived in the Pine Manor Apartments, and Mack was extremely racist.
SINCE MAMA WAS WORKING NOW, THAT RAISED THE ISSUE of childcare at night. Patricia and I were too young to be left alone, so Mama asked the Chesters, a family who lived in a house near Kings Mountain battleground, to babysit my sister and me while she worked.
Mr. Chester was a quiet man who worked outside in his yard a lot. Mrs. Chester was an old-fashioned Baptist woman who always wore a dress and kept her hair up in a bun. She cooked over a woodstove in the kitchen, and her chicken and dumplings were some of the best I had ever eaten. I was always glad when Mama dropped Patricia and me off at the Chesters’ home before their dinnertime. No matter how much or how little food they had, Mrs. Chester made it stretch to fill two more mouths.
The Chesters had an adult son, Karl, living at home. Mama said Karl was a bit slow, and that’s why he still lived there. But Karl had a lot of people fooled; he was smarter than most people realized.
He and his mother shared an unusual ghost story. I didn’t know all the details, but the gist of the story was this: if three lightning bugs get inside the house, it means you’ll see a ghost that night. Most likely this story was part of Mrs. Chester’s strategy to make us do our best to keep the front screen door closed. Nevertheless, I was always thinking about ghosts whenever Patricia and I stayed with them overnight, which we did often when Mama worked the third shift.
One night I was lying in Karl’s bed. It smelled of firewood and dirty socks. The quilts were old and heavy, and the sheets were stained with perspiration. I was nearly asleep when I heard a creaking sound and saw the wooden bedroom door slowly open. The moonlight was shining through the windows, creating strange shadows on the bare walls and antique furniture.
I was thinking about the ghost tale when I saw a silhouette of a large person standing in the doorway. The figure crept toward the bed, and when it passed the window, I could clearly make out that it was Karl.
I was scared and wanted to say something, but I didn’t; instead, I pretended I was asleep. Peeking out from under the covers, I saw Karl stand beside the bed and take off his pants, carefully making sure they didn’t hit the floor with a thud that might awaken me. It wasn’t all that unusual that Karl would get undressed; it was, after all, his bedroom in which I was sleeping. But then he braced himself with both hands on the bed and sat down. He lifted his legs and eased back onto the bed, apparently trying not to wake me. He lay there for what seemed like forever and didn’t move. Nor did I. In fact, I barely allowed myself to breathe.
After a while Karl repositioned himself as if he was trying to get comfortable. He remained in that position a little longer, then rolled over on his left side, facing me. He was so close I could smell his breath and his dirty body. I tried hard to pretend I was asleep.
Karl reached over with his right hand and took my right hand, then slowly pulled it back toward him, placing my hand on his privates.
I flinched in horror, but I was so afraid, I dared not move. Instead, I continued to pretend I was asleep. Karl tried to manipulate my hand, so I jerked it away and rolled over to my left side, up against the wall, tucking both of my hands under my body. I laid awake like that the rest of the night, doing my best to give no indication that I was aware of what had just happened.
Karl finally sat up in bed, then stood, grabbed his pants, and walked out of the room. The following morning I was terribly sleepy from being awake all night, but I had to get up and go to school.
Mama met Patricia and me at our apartment when the school bus let us off later that afternoon. As soon as I saw Mama, I told her what Karl had done and urged her to confront him or at least tell Mrs. Chester. I just knew Mama was going to believe me and take us to another babysitter from then on—but she didn’t.
When Mama told Mrs. Chester about my accusations, Mrs. Chester simply smiled and said, “I think Jimmy’s imagining things. He must have dreamed he saw a ghost in the bedroom.” She looked at Mama, waiting for her to agree.
Mama nodded, and that was that.
I begged Mama not to take us back to the Chesters’ house, but she did anyway. “Jimmy Wayne Barber, you shut your mouth and stop lying about Karl.”
“I’m not lying, Mama,” I said through my tears. “I’m not.”
“Well, we need the Chesters to babysit, so just shut
up your mouth.”
My sister and I went back to the Chesters’ house that evening. When we walked in the kitchen, Mrs. Chester was cooking, as always, and Mama immediately started bragging on what a great cook she was. It was as though nothing had ever happened.
Karl was in the living room watching The Incredible Hulk. He had taken off his shirt and was growling and flexing his muscles in front of the television, along with the Hulk. I sat down in a wooden chair at the kitchen table and glared at him. I couldn’t believe what this pervert had done to me. I looked at Mrs. Chester and then at Mama as she was going out the door, leaving for work.
As she did every day, Mama said, “Jimmy, you behave.”
Me behave? What about this guy? I wanted to say. Of course, I didn’t. I merely smiled a fake smile and waved good-bye.
That night I lay there in Karl’s bed, staring up at the ceiling. Every so often I saw the flickering of a lightning bug in the corner of the room. I counted, “One . . . two.” I lay there and waited until my eyes refused to remain open any longer, and I eventually fell asleep.
Mama never said whether she believed me or not, but I was thankful when she found another sitter in the neighborhood who volunteered to watch Patricia and me; we never had to go back to the Chesters’ house again. I missed the dumplings, but not the ghost tale.
Eight
I THINK I KNOW HOW JESUS FELT
PATRICIA WAS NINE, AND I WAS EIGHT WHEN MAMA informed us that we were moving out of Pine Manor and into a small, yellow house on Second Street in Kings Mountain. Although at the time I could not have imagined myself ever meeting her, much less singing with her on an album, country music legend Patty Loveless once lived in the brown trailer on the opposite end of Second Street. Patty had been singing with the Wilburn Brothers when she married the group’s drummer, Terry Lovelace; but to avoid confusion with porn star Linda Lovelace, Patty had changed the spelling of her last name. When she and Terry divorced, she kept her stage name.
The Second Street neighborhood was filled with kids, and there was always something exciting going on—a baseball game, hide-and-seek, skateboarding, or building clubhouses from cardboard boxes or scrap lumber we scavenged from discarded factory pallets.
I experienced a number of firsts on Second Street. It was where I first heard a curse word on public television and where I first tried Beech-Nut chewing tobacco. I nearly gagged on the stuff, so I glued the pack closed and returned it to the store.
Most significantly, it was while living on Second Street that I first met my biological father. I had seen him before, but I was too young to understand who the stranger was and why he was reading a book to me. But I guess at nine years old, Mama considered me “of age.”
She was driving down Second Street one day when she pointed at a man sitting on a porch swing. “Jimmy,” she said matter-of-factly, “that’s your daddy.”
What? My daddy? Really?
I scooted up to the edge of the backseat and looked out the window to see the man Mama was talking about. He was wearing a white T-shirt and faded blue jeans. His hair was combed back neatly, like James Dean’s. His arms were spread out resting on the back of the porch swing, and he looked as though he was relaxing without a care in the world.
Mama continued on to our home, only a few blocks away. The moment she pulled into our driveway and parked the car, I jumped out and ran as fast as I could back down Second Street. I found the house with the man on the front porch, raced across his yard, and bounded up the steps onto the porch. Apparently surprised at the intrusion, he stopped swinging and simply stared at me.
I was out of breath, but I was so excited to let him know who I was. I could hardly contain myself as the words tumbled out of my mouth: “Mama said you’re my daddy!”
He peered at me intently, then smiled and said, “Well, how ya doing there, buddy? It’s nice meeting ya.” He leaned over and patted my head with his right hand. Then before I had a chance to say another word, he stood up, pulled at the waist of his jeans, and said, “Well, you take care of ya self, all right?” He walked inside the house and closed the door behind him.
No! Wait! I screamed silently. Don’t go. Please don’t go; don’t leave me again!
But he was gone. I stood on the porch, peering through the windows on the door, waiting . . . waiting . . . and waiting for him to come back out. But he never did.
After a while I turned around and dragged myself back down the steps, then down Second Street to the small, yellow house, only three blocks away.
There’s an old saying: “You don’t miss something you’ve never had.”
That’s just not true.
MY DAD’S MOTHER, MARY JANE STEWART, HAD DESPISED Mama even before I was born. Maybe she knew Mama’s reputation because when Mama became pregnant with me, Mary Jane refused to believe I was her grandson. “My son will not be responsible for another man’s baby,” she declared.
I can remember seeing my paternal grandmother only once in my entire life. It was Halloween, and Mama dressed Patricia and me to go trick-or-treating. She must have been thinking about how my dad treated me that day on the front porch because our first stop was at Mary Jane’s house.
With no hint of a warning, Mama pulled her car in front of my grandmother’s house and said, “Go to the front door.”
Patricia and I excitedly headed to the house, carrying our empty trick-or-treat bags. Just as we got to the front porch, Mary Jane flung open the door and called out whimsically, “Trick or treat?”
But as soon as she said it, she looked over our heads and saw Mama sitting in the car. Patricia and I stood there with our trick-or-treat bags open, looking up expectantly at Mary Jane. But Mary Jane didn’t budge, and she offered us no candy. Instead, she stood there in the doorway, holding a handful of candy, looking back and forth, first at us, then at Mama, then back at us. When she realized Patricia’s and my identity, she yelled a few mean words to Mama. Not to be outdone, Mama returned fire and sent a blistering litany of expletives and other nasty words right back at Mary Jane.
My grandmother quickly stepped back inside her house, slammed the front door, and turned off the front porch light. She never gave us the candy. Patricia and I stood there at the bottom of Mary Jane’s steps in the dark until Mama yelled, “Come on, git in the car.”
For us, trick-or-treating was over.
MAMA WAS A STRANGE MIXTURE OF THE HOLY AND THE profane. If Mama and Canadian Mist were a mixed drink, it would be called Intemperance. Mama drank too much, got drunk, and did stupid things, like driving her green Ford LTD around and around the yellow house at a very high speed.
She’d crank up her music to blaring levels as she listened to “Night Moves” in the comfort of her home. There was nothing unusual about that, but then she’d raise all the windows in the house, open the front and back doors, and turn “Hollywood Nights” up as loud as that stereo would go, so the whole neighborhood could hear it. Like a vinyl Bob Seger record, Mama had an A side and a B side. The only consistency in her life was her inconsistency.
She could be sitting Indian-style on the living room floor singing “Highway to Hell” on Saturday night, then come Sunday morning, she’d be at the Baptist church, front and center, singing “I’ll Fly Away.”
In a similar manner, after several months of late-night partying and early morning toilet-hugging, Mama would eventually crawl her way through the beer cans and liquor bottles strewn across our floor, back into the loving, forgiving arms of Jesus.
Mama got saved just about every other month, or whenever the rent money ran short. Patricia and I always knew when Mama had invited Jesus back in the house by the overwhelming smell of Pine-Sol. When Mama was off the bottle, she was in the Bible; and when she was in the Bible, she made Patricia and me clean the house all day long and read Scripture to her before bedtime. Mispronouncing a biblical term was our worst fear, but words such as propitiation or names like Melchizedek and Nebuchadnezzar were simply not in my nine-year-old
vocabulary. When we couldn’t pronounce the words, Mama would yell at us, and then she’d whip us—sometimes severely.
Although Mama didn’t know how to pronounce all the words in the Bible either, to her, anyone who couldn’t read the Bible was either purposely insulting God or was demon possessed, and she was not about to allow her kids to be either.
I almost hated to hear Mama say, “Jimmy, read to me,” as she handed me the Bible. Mama made me afraid of Christians, Jesus, and Pine-Sol.
THAT SUMMER A GROUP FROM A CHURCH UP THE STREET came knocking on doors in our neighborhood, informing parents about their upcoming Vacation Bible School. It was a good deal for parents in our neighborhood—several hours of free babysitting, some snacks, and even some cute crafts, combined with some good moral teaching—what lazy parent wouldn’t want their kid to go to Vacation Bible School? Mama sure did.
I didn’t want to hang out with people like Mama, who hit kids when they mispronounced Scripture, but Mama made me go anyway. I arrived on Monday morning at the big, brick Baptist church, carrying with me a big, bad attitude. I knew I couldn’t buck Mama’s decision that I go, so my best alternative, I figured, was to misbehave and get kicked out as soon as possible.
I walked into the classroom, where all the other kids were already seated. The teacher was handing out beads and wire to be used in making a craft. “Hello!” she said, sounding genuinely happy to see me. “Just have a seat over there.” She pointed at an empty chair in the back left corner of the small room. I took my seat as the teacher walked around the room, handing out supplies.
Intent on getting kicked out, I made a few funny noises, trying to interrupt the class as she talked, but she pretended she didn’t hear me. She then walked back to the front of the class and told everyone to take the wire and begin threading it through one of the beads. As we followed her instructions, she began telling the story about Jesus and why He died on the cross. I made a few more noises but soon realized she wasn’t going to allow me to disrupt her or to control the class. After a while I gave up and listened to the story. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I was intrigued.