Fifth Born

by Zelda Lockhart

  24

  Nothing Hid That

  Shall Not Be Manifested

  Her house had wide-planked floors, just like the ones in Grandeddy's store. Sun beamed in from every window, and the walls still held some of the cool air from the night before. Plants in all kinds of odd-shaped pots, some giant and some just little clippings, lined the walls and hung in the windows. The air was peaceful and comfortable. The smell of smoked wood from her fireplace was caught up sweet and heavy in the air. Aside from the great room where I stood, there was her bedroom off to the left and a kitchen straight ahead.

  She pulled up one of the wooden chairs that still had the bark of whatever tree it was made from. "Well, sit down. Don't stand there lookin like you ain't got no sense." I could tell she was still irritated about the ghost of Ella Mae.

  The table was much too large for one woman, made of the same wood as the floor. It could seat ten easily.

  I asked, Does anybody else live with you? You have any kids or anything?

  Nah. I do get a few people stoppin by every now and again. I can always hear them comin way off. Some of them buys a rug or two from me. I weaves my own rugs out of old coats, and shirts and all kinds of stuff other folk throw out.

  How come Mama and them dont talk about you? I never saw any pictures of you or anything.

  Folks bury the things they dont want to be lookin at inside they heads. They just find some kind of way to wipe it away or kill it so they can keep on surviving the best they can.

  I looked down at the cup of tea she set in front of me and hid a grimace. Tea? I thought only white people drank tea, small dainty white women. I kept staring at the tea so I wouldnt see her reaction when I said, Mama always changes stuff she doesnt want to think about. I mean, she doesnt want to deal with it. So its like all of a sudden she goes from talking and laughing and being Mama, to not being able to see, or hear. Then all the craziness around her gets turned into one of her stories about the good times.

  She laughed deep and so loud that her voice resonated in my chest. I smiled back at her, and she shook her head. Lord, she done growed up and turned into Motha.

  I sho is glad to meet you, Odessa. You can tell me about my kinfolk, and Ill tell you about yours and sho-nuf well be talkin bout the same people. She laughed again and got up to go into the kitchen. Drink your tea. Its got sassafras from down to the creek. Keep you from gettin dizzy till I can get some eggs fried up.

  For a minute I forgot about Deddy hunting me. I forgot about Baby Jessie calling my name. I forgot about how every sip of tea, every inch that the sun crept higher, made my trouble with Mama and Deddy worse.

  I never liked the way fried eggs smelled, thought they smelled too much like a wet chicken, but Elizabeth put onions in them. She said, Caint nobody expect a person with a good taste for food to just eat eggs dry-along-so.

  When I was done and after I had eaten two pieces of homemade bread, I asked her if she would walk back to Grandeddys house with me, maybe tell Mama that I had gotten lost.

  Child, I dont worry with them folks no more. You welcome to stay around here till you get your nerve up, but I aint puttin myself in the way a none of them. Theyll just find some way to get me mad and start talkin all kinds of stuff to make me want to hurt somebody.

  You aint nowhere far from your Grandeddys house, just head straight out there and cross over five barbed-wire fences, through that open field a rolled hay, back through them trees, and thats it. Aint no more than a mile a two.

  I got up and stood at her screen door, looking out as far as my eyes could see, and there was nothing that looked familiar. I couldnt even see another house from where I stood. Just some rows of corn off to one side, three cows in the distance, and a few groves of trees here and there.

  Elizabeth . . .

  You aint gotta call me that. Just call me Ella Mae. Long as you aint plannin on talkin about me dyin in a well or scratchinsomebodys eyes out, I aint got no problem with you callin me that.

  Ella Mae . . . why does Mama and them pretend like you dont exist? And why do you live out here rather than just runnin away someplace far away from Grandeddys house?

  Its a long story, child. Life dont just unfold from a little question, How come? Things happen the way they do by startin from long before a person is born, and by the time the wrongdoin get to you, it just pushes you to the way you is in this world, and you dont even know why.

  I strained to understand what she was talking about and to connect it to my life. I didnt want to think that the things that Mama and Deddy did, the lies Mama told and the way Deddy tried to work my mind into a silent fear, were because of something before me that I couldnt fix.

  What was it like in the family when you were growing up?

  You got to pick somethin for certain for me to tell you about. My mind aint been just sittin around here waitin for you to show up so I can tell you thirty-somethin years worth a livin.

  What happened for real, not the Ella Mae game, but the real stuff that somebody made it up from?

  She was sitting now in one of the chairs with her elbows on her knees, her hands clasped, looking me straight in the eyes. Her eyes clear, no shades pulled down behind them. She put her hair behind her ears, the hair that hung straight on either side of her head. Like Granmamas, it didnt look like black peoples hair, and I wondered if she pressed it.

  I got weavin to do. Money dont make itself, and I got work to do on my plants, and some weedin out back. But Imgonna take the time to tell you some things. But if theres any such thing that you already know to be the truth, just move me on along to save time.

  Yes, maam.

  Dont call me that, neither.

  25

  Moonshine

  She pulled her chair in close. I was embarrassed that our knees almost touched, so I turned around in my chair and picked at the cold remains of my eggs and toast while she began her story.

  "Well, first of all I'm the only child in my family that came out lookin different. Ain't nobody ever told me, but I know that my real deddy was a Indian man. I know it ain't supposed to be, but my deddy was my grandeddy, Motha's deddy.

  "After Motha and Bo had already been married a long time, Motha's deddy used to come by and drank and carry on with Bo. Them and all the men that spent time at our house was plenty in good with the white men in Starkville.

  "Bo and my Indian grandeddy had whiskey that ain't nobody else had, and Bo used to say you can sell a whitefolk anything he dont want if you can keep him drunk. Trouble was, Bo and my grandeddy was drunk pretty much too.

  Aint nobody ever said it, but me and Motha look too much like my old Indian grandeddy. We lookin like sistas, not motha and daughter, and from my memory as a little gal I looks now like he look to me then.

  So aint nobody ever said it, but me and Motha got the same deddy. After four children I was conceived right under Bos nose. Older I got, round about five or six, more people starts saying how I sho-nuf ended up lookin like Motha and her Indian side more than I was lookin like Bo at all.

  I swear Bo started hating me right then, and any time he could find a reason to, he was tryin to tear the hide off of me. So everybody round these parts just start thinkin I was bad, because Motha said my Indian side made me mean. Right about then or thereabouts Bo and my Indian grandeddy started fightin all the time over whose money, and whose whiskey.

  I was just a child myself, but I knew too that they was fightin about how much my grandeddy treated me like I was his baby, not his granbaby. He called me Moonie cause he say I was his little Moonshine, and he took me with him every time he had a run to make.

  Motha didnt say nothin about it to neither one of them, just seem like more Bo hated my grandeddy, more she hated my grandeddy too, and more Bo hated me, more she aint treated me right either.

  Yo mama, Bernice, and them wouldnt play with me except to tease me. And because when Bo would whup me I would fight back, Motha said I wasnt fit to go up to Ms. Bernadette house fo schoolin. Sa
id if I didnt stop actin likea heathen, she was gone send me to the Choctaw reservation.

  Round about then there was some kind of commotion with some other Indian mens and Bo about my grandeddys money, and I aint never seen my grandeddy again since. I was about eight or nine, and aint nobody ever talked about him eitha. Motha just let it go, just all the time said, God fix a sinner by and by.

  Me, I like to got more badder than I already was with not having nobody to treat me special. Bo worked me right alongside Chet and Jo, said workin would get the Indian meanness out of me. Except all it did was made me strong as a boy. And that sho didnt seem to make nobody like me any better.

  I was from then on talkin bout how I was runnin off to Blackjack to ask folk if they seen my grandeddy.

  I was lost in her story, building pictures in my mind. Somebodys voice other than Mamas was adding to my combination of memories and stories. Did you ever get to Blackjack?

  Sure I did. I never reached it on foot, but about the time I was fourteen, Bo started sendin me in the truck to deliver shine or pick up money for him. Motha used to tell him a girl didnt have no business doin stuff like that, but he just laughed and said I wasnt no girl, I was a heathen.

  I took every chance I had to ask anybody who even look like they was part Indian to tell me if they knew about my grandeddy. But mostly I was pickin white folks who had black hair and was not tellin nobody how come they look a little darker than most white folks. And more than one time I got into fights and Bo stop lettin me run his whiskey. Said I was bad for business. Seem like the colored people didnt want to be talkin about nothin like that, and the white folks was ready tohang me for bein a nigga who thought I was good enough to argue with white folks.

  Bo got in the habit of tellin me, Dont tell nobody that your dumb ass is kin to me. If they ask you, say you escaped off the reservation.

  I reckon thats the best way to describe what you callin my childhood. But what probably causing your mama and them to be makin up tales about me bein some kind of ghost mournin for her child got somethin to do with stuff entirely different that I aint sure you old enough or done built up enough doings in your life to be hearin.

  I said, Im old enough. Ive had to change diapers and take care of babies since I was nine. I have my period. . . . I looked down at the floor and was a little embarrassed that I let that slip in my excitement.

  She pulled one of the other chairs out from the table and said, Sit down here. Now Im tellin you this stuff so youll know the real truth about all your people. Aint nothin bein said for you to go runnin your mouth tellin people what you know. Besides if you old enough to be bleeding, you old enough to know what kinds a things this world can bring down on you now.

  I guess you can say I aint never had nobody courting me like what youd call a boyfriend. You got yourself a boyfriend yet? She looked at me, concerned. I said back, embarrassed, No.

  Aint nothin to be ashamed of. You dont need to be ashamed of having one or not having one. Motha was always tryn to make me feel better about not having one by tryn to ask the sistas at church if they boys would take me along with your mama and them and they boyfriends when they was goin up to West Point to go to the color folks dance house.

  But I aint never liked to dance, and I didnt want to be bothered with no boys bein mad because I was stronger than them. We both laughed out loud. She seemed as pleased with my company as I was with hers.

  Round about that time is when Bo started that mess about his own baseball team. Boys was comin from all over Mississippi to play on a team owned by a colored man. All the other owners was old white men who had gotten all they money the same way Bo did, from sellin shine back when our folks still couldnt get it.

  You should have seen your mama, Geraldine, Gladys, and Flora. When school let out, they would be servin drinks and standin around in all that dirt in they picture clothes, tryin to get them little old boys and grown men to look at them.

  Your deddy Loni and his brotha was in the young men that came up from Jackson.

  I was a little surprised. So Deddy and Leland really did play baseball?

  That was his name, Leland. I aint makin no mistake, amI?

  That was his name. But hes dead now. He and Deddy had a fight, and Deddy ended up killing him.

  Ella Mae shook her head, shocked at the news, shocked that I shared it so bluntly. Lord have mercy. Trouble dont see its way out of this family.

  We sat quiet for a while, Ella Mae contemplating Lelands death, then she went on.

  I aint sayin they could play ball good, but they sho tried to work they way onto Bos team. When there wasnt hardly enough men playin decent enough to lick any other teams, Bo made me play, and I didnt hardly mind. I liked playin ball bettathan anything, and was the only one that could hit the ball out past the pasture and out to the big road.

  She chuckled, shaking her head.

  Besides somewhat, I was glad Bo was actin like I was worth somethin. He told people my name was Jim Dandy. Jim was Bos real name, but didnt nobody know that but Motha and us kids, and since my little tits didnt look like nothin under my jersey, and folks most the time thought I was a Indian man, then it worked out pretty good for everybody.

  I thought it was a little strange that Granmama would let her girl play ball as a boy. What did Granmama say? Did she say it was a good idea too, or did she not know about it? I was hoping that maybe she was leaving out that Granmama didnt like what was happening.

  She had said that Granmama said she was acting like a heathenwell, maybe Ella Mae was, but I just didnt think that Granmama would let Grandeddy make a boy out of one of her girls.

  Child, your granmama knew everything about anything that was happenin around her house. I aint sayin you would have known that from her way of actin like she didnt know, but sho-nuf like your mama, she was deaf and blind when she wanted to be.

  I looked away from her, out the window, where the wildflowers were climbing the vines on the outside of her house, their faces peeping in the windows. The sky was full of white clouds now, making the afternoon air thicker with humidity.

  The two of us were quiet for a while, and I fought back tears. As much as I needed to be comforted, it didnt feel so good to have this woman who captured me with the curiosityof untold stories speak of Granmama like she was some heartless old woman when I knew she wasnt.

  I closed my eyes to keep the tears from coming out. I was paralyzed in that chair. I couldnt move to go back to Grandeddys, and I wasnt sure I wanted to sit there any longer pretending like I didnt have three little brothers I was going to miss terribly if I had to spend another night away from them. Everything was changing around me too fast. I should be with Towanda and Lamont. They wouldnt be with us next summer, and I knew that once they got to Mississippi State, they would look back at us Blackburns and be ashamed.

  I forced my mind to stop dancing. Can I have Granmamas Bible back? Im gonna walk back to Grandeddys house. I can figure out what to say on the way back.

  Ella Mae seemed slighted. Sho-nuf you can have it back. I aint got no use for it. You the one asked me to tell you how things was. She got up and tugged on the bottom of her jean jacket to pull it away from the sweaty T-shirt that she wore underneath. Well, you can quit lookin at me like that. If yous ready to go, you already know the way.

  She reached across the table and gathered up the bulkiness of Granmamas Bible with her big hand. I got things to do anyway. My whole day goin by the wayside messin around with you.

  I felt guilty and said to her, finally letting the tears roll down, I just wanna go home, okay? I ran out and heard the screen door clap behind me. But I didnt head toward the barbed wire. Instead I cut away off to the right and ran with Granmamas Bible, black and sweaty in my hand. I could hear Ella Maes deep voice, faint, calling after me, Child, where you goin? I wanted to be somewhere, not atGrandeddys, not with Ella Mae, so I could think. I had cried too many times in the past day. Too much confusion about everything.

  I couldnt s
tand that someone who I only knew as a ghost was undoing my memories of my granmama, the one love I had understood all of my life.

  26

  Pallbearers

  Ahead, I could see a tattered wooden building, and I stopped running. My overalls were covered with orange dirt, and I didn't look like I belonged to anybody.

  After a few minutes of catching my breath, I dried my tears. Before me stood Granmama's church, the church that she used to take us to on summer Sundays, the church where her funeral had been. I never knew that it was walking distance from Grandeddy's house. I hadn't been there since that day, and though I remembered every minute of that day, Mama always said to me, "You ain't rememberin nothin from when you was only three years old, you just try'n to piece together stuff you done heard other people say." But that wasn't true, and I needed to prove that to myself.

  As I walked up the wooden steps, I could see the brass, and the cherry wood of Granmama's casket on the shoulders ofblack men in black suits, their steps keeping the rhythm of tearful voicesMama and the aunts, crooning.

  Precious Lord

  Take my hand

  Lead me on

  Help me stand

  And other voices rose.

  I am tired

  I am weak

  I am worn

  The pallbearers were Uncle Chet, Uncle Jo, Grandeddy, and the woman who had taken me out of Mamas arms to the front of the church to see Granmama in her casket, the woman with big hands who had whispered into my small ear, Dont you never forget her face. You was her best granbaby. She tried to love you because she couldnt love her own, the woman who was Ella Mae.