by Jeff Fields
"I'll kill you, Jojohn! So help me God, I'll kill you!" I twisted and managed to land a solid kick into him. He howled in pain and slammed me up against the brick wall. "I ain't never put a hand to you yet, boy . . . !"
I caught him hard on the chin. He shook it off and I caught him from the other side. He growled and stepped back, and I went head first into a pile of crates.
He dragged me out by the heels and shook me violently until I thought my neck would snap, then he shoved his face close to mine.
"Look at you! See what it done to you! I can beg 'cause sons a bitches owes me! It don't shame me. But look at you! Don't you never do nothin' that shames you!" And he flung me over his shoulder and carried me, fighting and kicking and yelling with every ounce of strength I had, out through the block of stores, along the ware houses, across the railroad and down into the Ape Yard.
He strode down the middle of the road, cars slowing and moving around us, people leaning out to stare. I continued to fight him, shouting myself hoarse with every cuss word I knew, until finally, striding across the iron bridge of Twig Creek, he growled with exasperation and heaved me over the rail.
I surfaced gasping in the freezing cold water to fling a final set of epithets after him as he continued up the road, muttering and slinging his arms.
We went back to scouting up odd jobs around town, which wasn't much but a little yard work here and there, and helping a couple of the warehouses with their fall inventories. Tio offered to reopen my account at the store but I turned him down. It was too much of a strain getting the other one paid off. Besides, I told him, trying not to gag on the words, we had a few shelves of Em's vegetables that the boarders had canned for him.
The boarders were still doing well, and still having us up for supper, but there was a growing concern among all of us during that time, and from a source none of us would have expected. It was the tone of the letters coming from North Carolina, a tone that was anything but like Miss Esther. The boarders wrote to her faithfully once a week, and under their prodding I managed to get off a note to her now and then—mostly the ''I'm fine, how are you?" variety—but the sporadic responses we got back were becoming less inquiring about what was going on around the house, the neighborhood; they dropped their advice about cleaning and canning, their raucous anecdotes, and were centering more and more on the small, confined world in which Miss Esther now found herself, becoming ever more morose with each writing.
The boarders were down at the store one Friday afternoon when I came in, and Mrs. Bell was just finishing reading the latest one to Mr. Teague:
" . . . took us all out to supper at a restaurant last night. It was good to be out for a change, but I couldn't enjoy it. He fussed the whole time. He sent his dinner back three times. I told him he better not send it back anymore or. they might spit in it or something. Lucille got upset about that and we had to leave.
"They haven't talked to me all day. I don't care.
"It sure is pretty out the window. I always did like the fall. It always made me want to be up and about doing things. But I just don't have the energy I used to. The doctor says I'm sleeping too much.
"I guess I'm just catching up on all I lost with you all. ha.
"Must close now, it's getting harder to see to write. It comes on me sometimes. It must be this new medicine, I think I may be allergic to it.
Love to all, Esther."
Mrs. Bell tucked the letter back in its envelope and handed it to me.
"It just don't sound like Esther," said Mrs. Porter. "She's not happy up there."
"Well, of course she ain't happy," said Mr. Rampey. "Would you be, locked in with that tribe?"
"Esther's very strong," said Mrs. Bell. "I'm sure her son is caring for her the best he can."
"Oh, for God's sake," snapped Mr. Jurgen, jerking open the drink cooler, "that son of hers couldn't properly care for a hog! Would you like a drink, Lester?"
"Not out of there," said Mr. Rampey.
"I'd like a Dr. Pepper, please," said Mrs. Metcalf. "You know,'' she said, "maybe she is allergic to her medicine . . ."
Mr. Burroughs pulled out a Pepsi and held it aloft. "What happened to that box that used to freeze 'em?" he wanted to know.
"I wish we'd never let her go," said Mrs. Cline. "We could have taken care of her."
"Come in, Theron, come in," called Mr. Teague over the register. Theron Walsh, the young black man who read meters for the power company in the Ape Yard, came in the store. "What can I do for you?"
"Mr. Teague, I come to see can I use your telephone. They want me to call the po-lice down there."
"Police? Where, down where? Who wants you to call?"
"The welfare lady, down at Miz Lampham's, lady lives down in the bottom. She's been sick lately and now she's in there and the do' locked and the welfare lady say we better get the po-lice. She said would I come up and call."
Mr. Teague came out from behind the counter. "I'll go see about her. Tio!"
"I'll come too, you might need some help," said Mr. Burroughs.
"Yeah," said Mr. Rampey. "Woody, hey Woody!" Mr. Woodall dropped his Nehi on the floor. "Come on," said Mr. Rampey, motioning. Mr. Jurgen was already holding the door.
"You ladies take care of the store," said Mr. Teague.
"But," protested Mrs. Metcalf, "we don't know . . ."
"Prices are stamped on most everything," said Mr. Teague. "If it ain't, charge whatever seems fair. Go right in, go right in," he said to two black women coming in, "you'll be more'n taken care of."
The Lampham woman had been in the hollow less than a year. She lived alone in a shack in Fletchter Bottom. When we arrived there was already a small crowd milling about the yard. A couple of young boys clung to the window sill, trying to peer in.
The young white woman from the welfare department was on the porch. "We can see her in bed in there," she said. "Where are the police?"
"Never mind the police," said Mr. Teague, making his way stiffly up the steps. "How long since anybody's checked on her?"
"The neighbors say she hasn't been seen for two or three days. One of my clients called the office."
"I thought she was on the welfare. Ain't you been keepin' a check on her?"
"Well, no," the woman corrected him, "she's not on welfare. . ."
"But she signed up better 'n four months ago," said Mr. Teague. "She told me so herself."
"She did fill out an application, but it was incomplete so it was never processed."
"What!"
"The medical history was incomplete. It was sent over to the Senior Citizens Visiting Committee to have someone call on her to check it out, but . . ."
"God almighty damn," muttered Mr. Burroughs.
"Listen, we're overworked as it is . . ." Mr. Teague was already trying the door. "Wait, now, don't you think we ought to call . . ."
"Stand aside there, Alvah!" Mr. Burroughs strode briskly across the porch and his size-thirteen brogan landed beside the flimsy door knob. The door banged opened and Mr. Teague marched into the house.
The skeletal old black woman raised herself feebly and groped on the night table for her glasses. Mr. Teague went straight to her bedside and bent down to look in her face. "It's Alvah Teague, what's wrong with you, Ruby?"
She wet her lips and tried to speak.
"How long since you seen the doctor?"
"Who—who is it?" She was frightened and confused.
Mr. Teague walked to the door. "Anybody know her people?"
A woman stepped forward. "She got a boy down in Columbus, Mist' Teague. He were due to be sent overseas."
Mr. Teague put his hands on his hips, blinking, thinking. He looked up at Mr. Burroughs. The other man looked down at the woman and slowly wiped his mouth. "Ramp!"
He reached down and snatched back the sheets, exposing legs as small as a child's. Mr. Rampey knelt on the other side of the bed and they lifted her carefully and made their way out through the crowd.
Mr
. Rampey looked up at the welfare lady. "How come you people can take such good care of them that don't need it."
With the help of Jurgen and Woodall, they eased themselves and the Lampham woman on the truck bed and sat cradling her in their arms. Tio adjusted the bricks under the seat and got back behind the wheel. ''Easy now, boy," said Mr. Teague, "watch them ruts."
Dr. Breisner pronounced it pneumonia, with complications. "And with the malnutrition . . . hell." He gave her a shot and sent Tio to the drugstore with two prescriptions. "I don't give her the night, though."
"Shouldn't she be in the hospital?" asked Mrs. Porter.
Dr. Breisner sighed. "Hell, I wouldn't even move her again. They'll just kill her up there. Let her sleep."
Out in the hall, Dr. Breisner said, "Well, Horace, looks like you've got another guest," and, with a sardonic smile added, "I didn't know you were taking in the black ones now."
Mr. Burroughs looked in at the women slowly gathering their rockers about the bed. Two of them were fixing a tent. Farette came in with a steaming kettle.
"Is she black, Huff?" He shook his head. "Well, you know, when you get our age you don't see too good."
They walked together down the stairs. "Well, anyhow," said Dr. Breisner, "this one won't be with you too long."
"Aw, hell, that's what you've promised all the rest of us at one time or another, and we'll be around to take you in. By the way, how your boys doin', Huff?"
"Doin' fine. The oldest one, Henry, just made captain; he and Mary are still in Pensacola. Tad finished up his doctorate this fall at the university, and of course Joseph is still in high school."
Surprised, Mr. Burroughs said, "I didn't know Tad was gonna make a doctor too."
"Hell, not a real doctor. A Ph.D., in history, for Christ's sake. Fact, he's been in and out of town all summer doing work on his dissertation."
"On his what?"
"He's doing his final project for his degree on Pollard County history." Dr. Breisner shook his head. "Gotta hand it to him, though, he pulled one off there. He got a two-thousand-dollar grant from the Pollard Centennial Commission to do a pamphlet on the history of the granite industry here, you know, the hundred years since the Poncini brothers, and the promise of a five-hundred-dollar bonus if he locates the Robinson grave . . . he's spent most of his time this summer on that."
"Hell, they've dug up half the Johns property lookin' for that scutter and they ain't found him yet."
"Yeah, but Tad says he's on to something they don't know about. He's got this theory. Anyway, he says come centennial time in January he'll be ready to spring old Easter Robinson once and for all."
Well," said Mr. Burroughs, "still and all, the town would do better with another real doctor than a dead Civil War bandit. Want a little something, Huff?"
Dr. Breisner shook his head, but Mr. Rampey was already at his elbow twisting a cork. The doctor took a long swallow and came up wet-eyed. "Damn, Ramp, that's awful! Where you buyin' it now?
Travis Turner, and I believe the son of a bitch is cutting it with Clorox."
"Pour it out. That damn stuff'll eat out your stomach."
"Well, if that damn Baptist courthouse gang wouldn't keep the county voted dry . . ."
"I've got a bottle of good stuff in the car. Come with me, boy, and I'll send it in. Keep an eye on the old woman, Horace. I'll stop by in the morning—if I don't hear from you before then."
"She'll be here," said Mr. Burroughs. He leaned against the porch post. "That crowd upstairs won't let her go."
27
Finally, we got a break. Jayell, no longer able to bear watching Gwen leave the house for work, and apparently having drunk his melancholic self-pity to the dregs, came tearing out of convalescence and took the job with Smithbilt Homes. They had no major projects going in Quarrytown at the time, only an occasional house or two contracted by individuals, but on those Jayell gave Em, the shop boys and me every hour of work he could. His new income also enabled him to reopen the shop for repairs and cabinet work.
Jayell's first assignment was the bogging Abbeville development, where his first action was to cut the work force by half. He reorganized the teams of heavy-equipment operators, carpenters, masons, electricians and painters and put them on strictly scheduled plans, would not tolerate the slightest holdup or delay, and unleashed his maniacal wrath on any supplier with a late delivery. Within a couple of weeks the project was not only moving again but ahead of schedule, with a precision and attention to quality construction that made even the FHA inspectors shake their heads. Several of Smithbilt's board members flew up from Miami to inspect the job. They had long luncheons with Jayell, and took back some of his designs.
Gwen was ecstatic. She and Jayell had been invited to join the country club. She was having her genealogy traced with an eye toward the DAR. She began giving lavish parties—lavish by Jayell's standards anyway. Jayell's idea of a big get-together was to bring his television set and a washtub of iced beer down to the shop for himself, Em, Skeeter and Carlos to watch Tech stomp Georgia. Gwen had him start a swimming pool in the backyard like the Henderson's ("Now? In September?"), and for his birthday surprised him with the announcement that with her first paycheck of the school year she had made a down payment on a lot at Lake Lorraine.
It seemed Jayell was being ensconced at last in what he had called that "nouveau middle class."
"Great God in heaven!" he moaned over the din of a Dirsey's Saturday night. "You know what I did last night? I played mahjong! Mah-damn-shong! Can you believe it? With Herbie Craft and his wife, for pete's sake. A lousy vice-president of First National Bank, a high-class loan shark, and she's treatin' the bastard like royalty! 'Dear,' she says—says, 'you know Mr. Craft.' And I say, 'Sure I know him. He repossessed my mama's first refrigerator!' Hooo—you should have seen his face!" Jayell took a long draught of beer and sleeved his mouth. "And you know where she is tonight? She's at the armory practicin' a play for that Little Theater she helped organize. Yessir, she's in her black toreadors and a little yellow blouse pulled up and tied up to here, and she's prancing around that stage and gettin' kissed by Wendell Hines! And you know sump'n else?" Jayell's eyes narrowed menacingly. "When it opens, I'll have to go and watch him do it, and applaud the son of a bitch!"
There was silence at the bar. They all sympathized with him. It threw a pall on the place.
"Kee-rist," muttered a truck driver from New Jersey, and ordered fresh beers all around.
"Kee-rist," echoed Em, and reached for his.
Gwen had grown increasingly cool to me, even at school, and avoided Em altogether. The shop boys, being black, posed no social threat to her. But Em and I were different, and I could tell she never knew quite what to do about us.
Then, a few days after that night at Dirsey's, she managed that final break between Jayell and the Ape Yard. A minor happenstance gave her the opportunity and she seized on it, and Em and I were ordered away for good.
Em and I were helping Jayell pour cement for the swimming pool. The missionary board was meeting at Gwen's house that day, so we had strict instructions to keep outside, which we did, except for slipping into the kitchen for water, since the plumbers working on the pool had turned off the outside spigot. Soon after the guests arrived I stepped in for a drink, and since it was the day after the Little Theater opening, they were taking time before the meeting to congratulate Gwen on the play, which she had not only played a leading role in but also directed. Sissy Davis, the mayor's sister, was reading the review in the Star:
". . . and certain to be nominated for the Quarrytown Little Theater's first Oscar is a delightful newcomer to our community, Gwendolyn Burns Crooms. Mrs. Crooms, a member of the Quarrytown High faculty (where she assumes the duties of drama coach from the capable hands of Thelma Martin, who is on leave of absence this year), was a prime mover this summer in the establishment of the Little Theater, and proved last night that she is not only a capable director but a splendid actress as well. S
he was utterly delightful as the vampish ex-wife, Clara, and literally threw herself into the role.
"Frivolous, witty and charming, her face often conveyed more than words, and even the lift of an eyebrow could be devastating. She was completely believable as the cunning Clara, struggling to win back her ex-husband's affections. Estelle Watson, as the best friend, apparently had some difficulty in getting her lines across to the audience, but Wendell Hines and Carl Lee Wyche were perfect as the boisterous army buddies, Pit Stop and Ed, and kept the audience in gales of laughter. Technical director Lorne Suggs' inspired stage setting provided a worthy frame for this top drawer production, written by our own Hal T. Whitmire of the Star staff. The play will run two more nights, Friday and Saturday, with an 8:30 P.M. curtain time. Tickets are one dollar-fifty cents for students—and may be purchased at the door, or at the Star office."
"Well!" Sissy Davis put down the paper and looked around the room. "It seems we have a celebrity in our midst today!" The ladies put down their Sanka for a burst of applause.
"Oh, really," fluttered Gwen, "the cast, the crew, they were all just so marvelous to work with. And with their help I have to say it was as good as anything I've seen in Atlanta." The ladies put down their cups for another round of applause. "We're off to an excellent start," she continued, "and with the continued support of the community, and the talents of people like Lorne Suggs, we just can't help but have the finest Little Theater in Georgia." That brought applause for Hilda Suggs, the director's wife, to be passed on to her husband. "Now, really," said Gwen, "we should get on with our meeting. I'm sure Reverend March has other commitments."
The ladies dutifully put away their cake and coffee and the minister led into a discussion of the church's sponsored missionary, one Reverend Pritchard, who was toiling among some natives in New Guinea. I was about to slip back out to work, but became so engrossed in the trials of the missionary, outlined in a letter which the pastor read aloud, that I couldn't tear myself away.