She had the baby in August and it was beautiful, a very light coffee brown with light brown eyes. I loved to take care of it. I’d do all kinds of nutty things like hold it, and close my eyes and pretend I was nursing it. I’m certainly going to nurse my children when I have them. Bethrah used to answer all the questions I had about breast feeding, and she’d tell me some very funny things. Like there was the time she went into New Marsails to a hen party and came home that night and asked me, “What time did my baby eat?”
“He started to cry at seven and I gave him a bottle,” I told her.
“I thought so.” And she smiled to herself and giggled. “At about seven, I started to drip, and ache, oh goodness, I just ached like I’d been punched and I had to get up and go drain. I knew my little boy was hungry.”
Just imagine, she was twenty or thirty miles from her baby and she knew he was hungry. It must be wonderful to feel that close to someone.
I learned about what was happening to Tucker and Bethrah because of breast feeding. That may sound really crazy, but it’s true. Bethrah used to say that a mother who breast-fed her baby had to stay very relaxed or she’d dry up and the baby would have to go on a bottle. She had promised herself that when she had a baby, she’d stay relaxed and make it work.
Anyway, in September after Dewey left for college and Tucker had bought the farm, she just dried up. That was all; she was doing very well, but she dried up like a desert. I can even remember the particular night she told me. I remember because I started to grow up. That’s silly, I know. I guess you can’t say you just suddenly overnight grow up. What I mean is that I started to think about some things in a grown-up way.
What happened was I went down to the kitchen to get some orange juice (I love the stuff) before I started my homework, and was just sitting there, sipping it in the dark near the window where I could see the stars. It was like looking at a picture because there was a square of stars framed in the wall.
Then the door swung open and Bethrah came in. It was so quiet and nice, I didn’t say anything, and I don’t think she knew I was there because I don’t guess she’d have started crying. But all at once, I could hear her sobbing across from me in a dark corner near the stove, then saying: “I don’t understand you, Tucker. I try. I try. I try, but I don’t.” That was all, over and over.
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to let her know I was there if she had come into the kitchen to be alone. But if I kept quiet and she found out, she might’ve thought I was a snoop. But then: “Miss Dymphna?”
“Bethrah? What’s…”
“Oh, Dee—” There were footsteps and then she grabbed me, and started to cry on my shoulder. I was really surprised; I’d always seen her when she was strong and knew exactly what to do when something went wrong, but this was completely different from anything that had ever happened. I put my arms around her and patted her back. And after a while she stopped crying, and stood up, all shaking. I could just make out her face; she was looking at me. “I’m drying up.” She started to cry all over again, and I hugged her again for a long time until she stopped, looked up, and started to tell me what was wrong.
She was sobbing and shaking so it was all very confused, but this is what she was saying, more or less. Tucker didn’t tell her anything. He did a lot of confusing, strange things and never talked them over with her, and never told her why he did them. He’d bought the farm from Daddy and Bethrah said she knew he wasn’t just going to become a farmer. He was planning something else, and she didn’t know what. She even doubted if he knew what he was planning. He didn’t think about things; he just did them. And all this had confused and worried and upset her so that now she was drying up.
By the time she finished telling me that, she was much calmer. She got up and went for an ash tray, tried to light a cigarette, but I could see the flame shaking, and she couldn’t get it lit. She cursed it and put the cigarette back into the package. “I don’t really need this kind of treatment, Dymphna.” Then she got really mad. “You think this is the first time? It isn’t. But it’s sure the last time.”
Then she told me about one time when they first got married and she took him to meet some of her old college friends. As she told it, I remembered that night because I’d heard them drive in afterwards on the gravel in the yard and when the motor stopped, I’d heard her say: “How could you act that way? How could you embarrass me like that?”
I don’t think he answered; at least I didn’t hear him say anything. There was just the two sets of footsteps on the gravel like crushing ice.
And then Bethrah said: “All I wanted was a dollar. You could’ve given me a dollar.”
“I didn’t want to,” he said finally.
“I guess THAT’S clear! But even so, if you didn’t agree with him about the Society you could have given him the dollar because I asked you to.”
“That ain’t no reason,” he said. That had even made me mad. I should think a husband would do something for his wife if she really wanted him to.
So Bethrah told me about that in the kitchen. “Did I make a mistake that night! You can’t imagine! I never should have taken him. Do you know what he did? I almost lost every friend I have…or had.” She got up and started to pace.
It seems some friends of hers had invited them to a party. “Tucker didn’t want to go. And I ACTUALLY convinced him. I got him to give in so he could do THAT to me. Dymphna, I know he doesn’t have any education. But, honestly, I’m proud of him. I wanted them to meet him.”
As she told what happened, I could see the whole thing; she didn’t have to tell me how it happened, only what it was about. I’d lived with Tucker long enough to know just what he’d say, just how he said it, and looked saying it. And that surprised me at the time because I never realized I knew so much about him. I never thought I paid much attention to him like Dewey does.
But I knew; I could see them all sitting there, talking about things I guess college people talk about: the world situation and old teachers. And Bethrah said that colored college students always get around to the race question. Then one member of the group said he was an officer in the local chapter of the National Society for Colored Affairs and he might as well use the opportunity to drum up membership.
Bethrah told him she had let her membership lapse and she’d give him a dollar and to please send her a card. Then she looked at Tucker, who’d been very quiet, who hadn’t said a word since being introduced to them all. I could really see him when she told me that, sitting in a chair straight up, his hands folded in his lap and the party lights playing on his glasses so you couldn’t see his eyes, as little and ugly as he could be. Bethrah said, “Tucker, give him a dollar for me, will you please?”
Tucker just sat there, his face angry-looking and said, “No.”
I could see everybody, all her old friends look at him really slow and surprised, but not wanting to show it, and then darting a look at Bethrah and then away, thinking: the poor thing; she married a real cheap skate.
I blushed for her when she told me, like it had been me and I knew how embarrassed she must have felt.
Then she said to him, “Please, dear, give him a dollar. The Society needs the help and I believe in what they’re doing. I’ll pay you back when we get home.” She was thinking that it was all right that he’d worried about money. Her friends could understand that; they all had to skrimp to make ends meet and pay for their schooling.
But that wasn’t it! That wasn’t what he was talking about because he reached into his pocket and pulled out all the money he had—she said it was close to twenty dollars—and reached over and handed it to her, while all her friends were looking on, embarrassed for themselves and for her. Then he said: “I don’t want you to pay me back. Here’s all I got. But don’t give none to him for no piece of cardboard.”
That’s what really upset her; she leaned very close to me and
her eyes were angry. “He could be cheap. Dee, he could be as tightfisted as a boxer. But all of my friends and me too, we believe in the Society. We believe they’re doing something important and doing it well. But for him to sum up all their work that way…a piece of cardboard. I don’t expect you to understand how I feel about this.” She looked me in the eye.
But I did understand. I don’t think much about race, and certainly didn’t then, but I know next year I’ll go up North to college like Dewey and there’ll be colored people there and I’m sort of looking forward to it because Dewey says it’s really an education in itself. But that wasn’t even what she was talking about. She was surprised and hurt to find he didn’t believe at all in something she believed in very strongly.
Then, she said, the person who’d asked for the dollar said to Tucker that it was more than a piece of cardboard, that the Society was working for Tucker’s rights and the rights of all colored people.
This is when he started to sound stupid, sitting there just looking at the Society-person, and maybe even smiling a little, and then not smiling any more and saying: “They ain’t working for my rights. Ain’t nobody working for my rights; I wouldn’t let them.”
The Society-person said that whether or not Tucker let them, they were doing it anyway, that the decisions they won in the courts would help his children go to school and get a good education.
“So what?” That was Tucker’s answer. “So what?” he said in that high, chirpy voice like an old man’s.
Bethrah was looking around the room apologizing with her eyes, and some people turned away, not angry, just ashamed, and her very close friends looked at her with pity, and that was the most painful thing of all.
The Society-person went on: “Don’t you want your children to have a good education?”
“I don’t care about that,” Tucker said.
“Well, whether you like it or not, the Society is fighting your battles in the courts and you should support them.”
Tucker just sat there. “Ain’t none of my battles being fought in no courts. I’m fighting all my battles myself.”
“You can’t fight all this alone. What battles?”
“My very own battles…all mine, and either I beat them or they beat me. And ain’t no piece of cardboard making no difference in how it turns out.” Then he got up and walked out of the room. Bethrah said she got up too and apologized to everyone, and felt like crying, but didn’t because she was so mad she wouldn’t let Tucker have the satisfaction of seeing her cry.
She wanted a cigarette now, and this time succeeded. “I think he must be crazy. Education is the most important thing there is, Dymphna. Especially for Negroes. And if he thinks he’s keeping my child as ignorant as he is, then he’s in for a fight. My friends must’ve thought he was a terrible Uncle Tom. And what they must’ve thought of me for marrying him?” Then she was sad. “Why doesn’t he explain anything to me? That’s all I want. Is that too much?”
“No, Bethrah,” I said. I don’t think I should have said that because it was all she needed: someone to agree with her.
She looked at me seriously. “I’ve had it, honey.”
I don’t know if she cried after that. I don’t think she did. It wasn’t fifteen minutes before she’d packed some things for herself and the baby and was walking down the hill to catch the bus to her mother’s house in New Marsails. She wouldn’t have had time to cry.
* * *
—
SHE WAS BACK IN A WEEK. We all missed her a lot, even Tucker. He didn’t say so, especially not to me, but I could tell. He didn’t seem as crisp as before; he trudged around like a zombie, in a daze, and I said to myself: It serves him right; I hope she never comes back.
But I only said that for her sake and to see him punished. For me, it was bad having her gone.
Then I walked into the kitchen and there she was, cooking. I couldn’t understand why she’d come back, and must’ve looked confused because she looked at me real level and grave for a long while. “I know, Dee. He was right. And when I found out I was wrong and why, I called him and told him to come get me and he did.”
I was still looking at her like I didn’t understand, which I didn’t. But all she said was: “It’s so new and good I want to be selfish about it for a while. I’ll tell you one of these days. It’s better anyway if you figure it out yourself. Try.” And she smiled. But her smile was a little different, like she knew a wonderful secret and she was more than just happy, but contented too.
She got pregnant again. I guess it must’ve been in December because she was just starting to gain weight in April when she came into the kitchen and said, “Missus Willson, Tucker and I have to leave. We’re sorry, but we have to.”
Mother almost cried, right at that moment. “But, Bethrah…”
“I’m sorry, Missus Willson, but Tucker wants to go. He wants to move to the farm.”
Mother’s lashes were already wet. “But, Bethrah, you’re pregnant and it’s much better for you to be in town…isn’t it?”
I just stood there with my mouth open.
“We have to go. Tucker wants it. And I have to go with him.”
I just turned around, went to my room, and cried for hours. I guess I didn’t have a right, but I really felt betrayed because I’d have to be in that house all by myself with my parents. I even thought about moving out, but I could only go into New Marsails to my grandmother’s, Mother’s mother, and she was really primitive. She doesn’t have a modern idea in her head. She’d want me in at nine on Saturdays. So I didn’t move out. I guess I wouldn’t have anyway.
The night before Bethrah left, I sat in my room being really grumpy. It was late and I was feeling very, very sorry for myself. I couldn’t even sleep. I heard a knock on my door and sort of bitterly told whoever it was to come in. It was Bethrah. I guess I knew that before I saw her.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” She seemed very apologetic. “I want to tell you something.”
“Sure.” I wasn’t very friendly.
She sat on my bed at the other end, and stared at the floor between her legs. “I know how you feel about my leaving. I’m sorry. I have to go, though, I know that.” She looked at me; very slowly I turned away, because I might have been starting to cry. I don’t know.
“Remember the time before I left Tucker that we talked in the kitchen?” I didn’t say anything; she knew I remembered.
“You see, the trouble with me was that I was a college girl. I wasn’t at college, but I thought like a little coed. There was something I couldn’t figure out about Tucker and it upset me because I took it like I’d take a flunk on a test.
“I don’t really know, but maybe those of us who go to school, Dewey, myself, not so much your mother, I guess your father, maybe we lost something Tucker has. It may be we lost a faith in ourselves. When we have to do something, we don’t just do it, we think about doing it; we think about all the people who say certain things shouldn’t be done. And when we’re through thinking about it, we end up not doing it at all. But Tucker, he just knows what he has to do. He doesn’t think about it; he just knows. And he wants to go now and I’m going too. I’m not going to tell him he’s leaving a secure job and people who honestly care about him. I’m just going with him. And not just because I love him, but because I love myself. I think maybe, if I do whatever he tells me to do, and don’t think about it, well, for a while, I’ll be following him and something inside him, but I think maybe some day I’ll be following something inside me that I don’t even know about yet. He’ll teach me to listen to it.
“I wanted you to know why I was going because maybe it’ll help you get along better here. If you understand what’s making me go, maybe it’ll help you find something inside yourself that will make you survive whatever your parents decide to do. And your helping yourself, your finding some comfort inside yourself, will
be much better than any comfort I can ever give you.
“Well, that’s what I wanted to say.” She got up and started for the door. I still hadn’t looked at her.
I jumped up just as she put her hand on the door knob and called her in sort of a cracking voice, and ran to her and hugged her, and cried. So did she. And then we stood apart and looked at each other.
“Come see me a lot, all right?” She smiled at me. I promised her I would.
Now she’s gone for good and I don’t even know where. I’m just hoping she writes me.
That’s all I know about everything; I guess it isn’t much. As for my parents, they seemed to get on better today than I’ve ever seen them, holding hands and all. Maybe something happened yesterday, but I can’t imagine what. Anyway, I try not to worry about it. I don’t think I’m hard or anything, but it’s really their problem and I haven’t got anything to say about it. Either they figure it out and stay together or they don’t and split up. That’s the whole point; at least I think that’s what Bethrah was saying although it’s difficult to accept. I mean it seems horrible that the most you can do for people you love is leave them alone.
Dewey Willson III
WE WERE STANDING on the Ridge looking down into the sheer cut called Harmon’s Draw. The General was a few steps away from us, barely old enough to be my father, in gray pants with yellow piping, his shirt sleeves rolled up past his elbows. His hair was white and long.
We watched the Yankees advance under a canopy of dust, coming down the paved Highway, passing the statue of the General, down the main street through Sutton, past Mister Thomason’s store and then up the hill toward us. Sweating horses pulled cannon; the men marched in order and even at this distance, I could see the faces of each man shaded under his blue visor. The General stood quietly watching them. “Hold your fire until you’re sure you can’t miss,” he kept saying.
A Different Drummer Page 11