don’t know you need copper tubing
to make hooch—
not rubber hose.
But it ain’t no fun being pissed off,
so everyone laughs—
at the dumbass sheriff.
Ray shook his head, called Sheriff some choice names.
I got home without asking about Millie.
I stood there thinking.
There was nothing to do but get in my car
and go on over there.
When I drove onto their stretch of gravel
Lewis ran out and said, Let’s drive into town—
just when
Mrs. Jeter called out the window,
The boys are off fishing.
Really? Fishing? Or sleeping off some moonshine?
I put my hands in my pockets
stalling.
I called out so anybody inside their little house coulda’ heard—
I was wondering
if y’all wanted to go to the drive-in tonight?
Sure, said Lewis.
I wanna come.
I heard mumbling,
chairs scuffing across the floor,
like maybe somebody pushed away from the table.
Garnet came outside.
Hi, Richard.
Y’all wanna go to the movies tonight? I asked.
Yeah, sure.
I stalled some more. Uh, does Millie wanna come?
I’ll see. I’ll see who else wants to go. What time?
I’ll pick all y’all up around seven o’clock.
Someone called from the window, Who is that?
Must’ve been Millie.
Richard Loving, Garnet called back.
Wanna go to the movies tonight, Millie?
A pause.
Sure you do, Garnet called back. We all do.
Millie still inside didn’t say no or nothin’.
Garnet winked, nodded, smiled at me.
I think she wants to go, she said.
I drove off, doing little push-and-pulls
on the steering wheel
of my DeSoto
and ended up just nodding my head.
She wasn’t making this easy.
But maybe she was just shy.
MILDRED
OCTOBER 1955
I cannot believe it.
“Garnet, why’d you do that?”
“’Cause I wanna go
and he wants you to go.
You know you wanna go.”
I don’t know any such thing.
Everything I’ve said
points to, NO, I DON’T
WANT TO GO.
But maybe—
just maybe—
I do—
just to find out
if he’s arrogant
like I think he is.
Richard picks us up at seven o’clock—
right on time—
in his green and white car
which is buffed shiny.
Otha
with our cousin Curtis,
and Lewis climb in the backseat.
I’m about to climb in with them
when
Theo and Doochy decide
at that last minute
that they’re
coming.
They say,
“Sit up front, girls.”
Garnet pushes me
into the front seat
and climbs in behind.
“Can we pick up
my friend, Floyd?”
Which we do on the way—
in Bowling Green. So now
I’m squashed up against Richard
with Garnet on Floyd’s lap
next to me
and the five boys in the back.
Richard says, “You look
real nice, Millie.”
And maybe I do,
’cause I worked on my hair
and I’m wearing a skirt and blouse.
So I say, “Thank you”
and,
“It’s real nice you takin’ us
all to the drive-in.”
He’s silent a moment
and the car is full of
conversation
and
laughing
which makes it easy
for us to talk
unheard by the others.
Besides which
we are smashed
very close together.
He says,
“I asked everyone else,
so you’d come.”
He takes a quick look
maybe to see my reaction—
he’s so close
I can feel his breath
brush across my cheek
and I wonder,
can he feel the HEAT
rising off my face?
He’s older than me.
I feel all flustered.
I’m not embarrassed
when I’m with the
boys at school.
And really I’ve known
Richard
forever.
He’s come to our house
since I was little.
He’s part of the section
and the get-togethers
and we’ve all grown up together
only he grew up
five or six years earlier.
I decide to take hold of myself.
I say,
“Well, I guess that’s a good move,
you asking everyone,
’cause I might not’ve come
if it was just you and me.”
He takes his eyes off the road
right
when I take a look at him
and he’s got
this big smirky smile
on his face.
I laugh and say,
“Maybe you had better
watch the road.”
After a second or so
he kind of half grins and guffaws.
Lewis, from the back, says,
“What you laughing at,
Hyena?”
“Lewis!” I scold.
“That’s what we call him.
That’s what he IS.”
Richard is smiling.
He’s real good-natured.
And now there are lots
of conversations again,
and I release my
shoulders which kind of felt
tense and high
but I’m still watching him
out of the corner of my eye.
Richard is okay.
He doesn’t talk a lot,
but he listens,
and gets a
quiet smile
on his face when someone says
something funny.
Sometimes he thinks
it’s funny when no one else
gets what’s funny
about it.
About a half mile
from the drive-in
Otha calls out to Richard
to stop the car
and unlock the trunk—
and that makes Richard smile.
He does what they ask.
Otha and Curtis
climb in the trunk.
There’s a lineup of cars
at the entrance.
We hear the muffled voices of
Otha and Curtis
in the trunk
saying,
“Hurry. We need air.”
We laugh,
tell them shut up laughing
’cause they’re using up
their oxygen.
When we get to the gate,
Richard, Floyd, Doochy
do the paying.
Garnet and I have dates.
We give each other a smile.
We drive through,
find a pretty good spot,
Richard gets out,
pounds on the trunk,
unlock
s it,
and chortles as
the boys pop out gasping—
falling over each other
they’re laughing
so hard.
They go up to the stand,
come back with RC Colas
and popcorn
for everyone,
then they climb
on top of the car with Lewis
to watch the movie.
We’ve got the sound box
hooked on the window.
Doochy and Theo
take off,
maybe looking for other friends.
Garnet and Floyd
get in the backseat,
and Richard and I
have the front.
The movie showing is
A Star Is Born.
It might not be the newest movie
but none of us has seen it.
Judy Garland is
so pretty
and her singing so BEAUTIFUL.
Garnet and I
love how Esther
(Judy Garland)
finds the guy in the end
who loved her
from the beginning.
On the way home
me and my sister sing
“Somewhere Over the Rainbow”
remembering how
Judy Garland was Dorothy
in The Wizard of Oz,
and the boys
are laughing at us
and we don’t even care.
Doochy says,
“Yeah, good movie,
‘A Star is Stillborn.’”
The boys,
including Richard,
crack up so hard
the tears are streaming
down their faces.
And yeah,
it is sort of funny
so Garnet and I laugh along too.
Richard has so many laughs
I have to find other words
for all of it—
chuckling, chortling,
snorting, cackling—
let’s see—
cracking up, guffawing,
HOWLING.
That’s why they call him
Hyena.
He smells spicy—
I think it’s his aftershave.
He’s shaved close
so his face is smooth—
not like a baby’s bottom—
but not like sandpaper
either.
He puts his arm around me.
In the movie
when Esther gets kissed,
I let him kiss me.
It’s a nice kiss—
not my first,
but the best—
soft and sweet.
RICHARD
OCTOBER 1955
Millie was the last one out of the car.
I said,
I’ll stop by next week?
But I said it like a question, ’cause she don’t like to be told.
She nodded.
I drove off, hitting the steering wheel
of my good ole green DeSoto
feeling just fine.
MILDRED
A FEW DAYS LATER
OCTOBER 1955
On Sunday the family
had dinner together
like always.
No one dropped by
which wasn’t
like always.
On Monday,
went to school,
came home,
did chores.
Percy Fortune
dropped the boys off.
Just my brothers.
No Richard.
Tuesday,
went to school,
came home,
started chores.
Washing greens at the well,
I hear tires on gravel.
Look up,
green DeSoto rolls in.
Richard slides out.
I say,
“The boys still out workin’.”
He stands there,
car door still open.
I stand here,
hands full of drippin’ collards—
just lookin’ at each other.
A smile creeps across his face.
He closes the car door,
walks toward me,
slow,
says,
“I’m not here to see them.”
I still stand here
not sure what
to say.
He says,
“I’m here to see you.”
When he’s right in front
of me
I figure out what to say.
“What took so long?”
And he starts some slow
rumbling in his throat
which gets louder,
rhythmic,
then breaks into almost
a howl
of laughter.
Like he can’t stop himself
he reaches round my waist
but I don’t think my mama
would like that
so I side-step him,
still clutching my collards.
I laugh
so he knows I don’t
really mind.
Very next day
I’m waiting on the steps
at school—
waiting for Richard to pick me up
like he said
he would.
Garnet and everybody else climbs
into Percy’s car.
“Comin’?” they yell to me.
I say, “No. No thanks, I’m waitin’.”
They shrug and drive off.
Fifteen minutes later
I’m feeling foolish—
then scared.
After four o’clock—
almost an hour late—
Richard rolls up.
I get in—don’t say a thing.
Richard says,
“The boss stopped in,
started talking ’bout bricks.
You know, bricking.”
I don’t know what to say.
What I’m thinking is,
it’s a long way home
on foot—
like fifteen miles or more.
Richard says, “Bean, I’m sorry.
He’s the boss.”
I find words. “Yeah,
I guess you couldn’t help that.”
He sighs, starts driving, says,
“You afraid I wouldn’t show up?”
“Yeah.”
He says, “Won’t happen again,”
and looks over at me.
“Ever walk home before?”
I say, “Nope, never walked home.
Always somebody driving.”
“What if nobody picks you up in the morning?”
“Then we don’t go to school.”
It happens.
There’s always chores to do.
“You angry at me?”
Not easy to be
angry at him—
smiling all crooked
the way he does.
He’s got as many smiles
as he’s got laughs.
Am I angry at him?
“I don’t rightly know. Yeah. No.
Maybe I was worried.
I know you didn’t do it on purpose—
to be mean.”
I roll down the window all the way,
let the breeze blow
through the car.
He looks at me, says,
“You look pretty, Bean.”
MILDRED
A FEW WEEKS LATER
NOVEMBER 1955
On Friday night
Richard and I,
with Garnet in the back,
go pick up Floyd
and we joyride.
“Watch for the sheriff,”
Richard says,
then goes FAST
on the hardtop<
br />
and lets the wind
carry us along.
Floyd says,
“You off your rocker?
Sheriff don’t take kindly
to speedin’.”
Richard turns onto our road.
The trees all stretch over the top
so we’re in a tunnel.
Feel protected.
Rained earlier,
so the dust is settled.
I hang my head out the window
let the wind rush through me.
We turn around,
drive through the tunnel again,
back onto the hardtop
and drive into
Tappahannock.
I feel kind of like a queen,
in here
all safe and comfortable.
Everyone out there
has to walk
in the street.
Richard parks the car
and now
we
are
walking
down the street.
Richard takes
my hand,
now we’re
strolling—
makes me feel like
I belong
right next to him.
Floyd’s got his arm
draped over
Garnet’s shoulder
up ahead.
People looking
at them.
Or maybe not.
Maybe they’re
looking at US—
Richard and me.
No matter.
RICHARD
A FEW WEEKS LATER
NOVEMBER 1955
On my way over to Jeters’ I saw Sheriff in a truck—
his dog in the back.
What was he doing on our road?
I want to tell him,
Get back to town. That’s YOUR place.
Leave US alone.
But he just drove through slow, looking.
Patrolling, I guess.
Family already was playing music by the time I got there.
Millie was dancing with Otha,
looking real pretty.
But when the tune ended
she walked over to me, all heated from the dance.
We stood together. Close enough that
every now and then we touched.
Each time she brushed against me,
felt like I’d burn up—
but in the best way.
She turned to me, pulled my shoulder down
so I had to lean further toward her.
She whispered in my ear
which made me crazy—her warm breath in my ear.
She said my name. Just that.
Her saying my name sends me.
Saying my name AND whispering. Shoot,
I’m a goner.
MILDRED
NOVEMBER 1955
Hog slaughtering time.
We sugar-cure pork—
with more salt than sugar—
so we can trade
bacon and hams
at Byrd’s store
for flour and salt—
also rice and sugar.
I missed a bunch of school.
The farm is important.
Loving vs. Virginia Page 3