Out of the Night That Covers Me

by Pat Cunningham Devoto

  They walked through a coach car full of people putting up suitcases and settling in for the journey. The train had settled in as well, had found its clicking rhythm and was pulling them along, a little town full of people and things, moving through the countryside.

  At the end of the next car, they saw Aunt Nelda arranging and rearranging boxes. John walked up to her and tugged on her sleeve. She jumped and jerked around. “John,” she shouted. Her cheeks flushed to a bright pink. “I clean forgot about you.” She grabbed him by the shoulders. “Oh my, I was so worried about getting everything changed from one train to the other and making sure nothing was stole. I”—she looked out the windows at the passing scenery—“I didn’t even know the train had started. What has got into me?” She looked around to see who was witness to her blunder and saw the porter standing there. “I’ll take him now, porter. You can go about your business.” The porter turned and walked back up the aisle without a word.

  “So uppity-acting,” she muttered, then tried to smile at him. “Oh now, all’s well that ends well. You come and sit right—” She turned, to see two suitcases and a paper shopping bag stacked in the seat he was supposed to have. She was biting her lower lip as she began to move boxes and bags out of the way.

  He stood watching her. She had never even been to visit them before the funeral. He had only heard his mother talking to her on the phone once or twice. On these occasions, his mother had done most of the listening and not much talking. When he had asked her later what they had talked about, she had only said, “Family matters,” and that someday, perhaps, Aunt Nelda would come and live with them. She had never said Aunt Nelda and Uncle Luther and Aunt Nelda’s children, but only Aunt Nelda.

  “It’s such a responsibility having to do all this without a man around.” Aunt Nelda heaved a heavy suitcase onto another suitcase in the empty seat opposite them. “It’s all for you, you know.” She squared the suitcase to the one below. “All for your dear mother.” The thought momentarily caught her off guard and she stared at the seat cover. Just as quickly, she finished rearranging things to make a place for him to sit. He stepped over a shopping bag and sat down, hands in his lap, face staring out the window. They were on the outskirts of Montgomery now. We aren’t even going to leave the state. It couldn’t be that different. He said this to her as his thumbs slowly circled in his clasped hands. Then he closed his hands, fingers inside, like she had taught him. “Here’s the church; here’s the steeple; open the door and see all the people.” He halfheartedly opened his hands to see the finger people inside, then looked out the window.

  The countryside passing before him began to change. The land had flattened out. Even the color of the dirt was different; hard red clay, solid underfoot, had softened to a sandy gray-black soil. Small dirt devils kicked up by the passing train sent funnels of dust into the air.

  Here, long stretches of open fields lay off in the distance. From time to time, there was, on the horizon, a big house that appeared to be the center of activity for the people and land. Dirt roads wound out from its center like beckoning tentacles.

  After more time, they began to pass miles and miles of dark piney woods that crowded in on the railroad tracks.

  John wondered where all the colored people headed to Chicago were by now. Probably up around Bainbridge, where he had come from, probably headed to Memphis.

  Now they were on a trestle passing over a wide black river that had trees growing to the water’s edge. Their big roots stuck straight down in the water like giant straws sucking up whatever lay beneath the surface. It was unlike anything he had ever seen. Not like the Tennessee River in his hometown, big and wide. For miles, the Tennessee had stretched out before him, an open face. Here, water oaks and moss, scrub pines and palmettos never gave a clear view of what might lie ahead. Far off up the river, there was a small strip of light being squeezed out between the tops of the trees and rolling dark clouds that moved to cover what remained of the sun.

  The Bend

  THE old woman watched as the turkey vulture, wings spread full out, slowly circled in the afternoon thermals that radiated off the sun-soaked river and flatlands of the Alabama Black Belt.

  High off the land, the vulture scanned a large horseshoe-shaped piece of black earth far below. Wrapped around this bend, the Alabama River twisted and turned its way south to the Gulf of Mexico. Thousands of years before, in its meanderings, the Alabama had carved out what now lay visible below the white-and-black wings floating on a late-afternoon breeze.

  There was no way in or out of this bend except by a broken-down hunting road that passed through the bottom of the horseshoe. An old ferry that had once served the Bend now sat idle and rusting on the opposite shore of the indolent old river. Small houses dotted the landscape. Each was surrounded by several acres of land, freshly harrowed and then planted in rows of corn, cotton—some sorghum. One of the farms had a pigsty that nurtured a newborn litter. The vulture dropped several hundred feet in hopes of an easy meal. Finding all the newborns in good health, he rose once again on the steamy updrafts.

  On the west end of the Bend, the land sloped off into thick swamp before it gave way to the river. Situated on the only piece of high ground in the swamp was the log cabin where the old woman sat in her front porch vine rocker, her eyes following the buzzard as he drifted through the haze.

  She was the product of three generations of Benders. Her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother had all lived out their lives in the Bend, had probably watched the forebears of that same vulture circling in the summer sky.

  The old woman, and all the people of the Bend, were direct descendants of slaves who had come from North Carolina in the early 1800s. Their slave master, James Randolph Kay, had ordered them on a months-long journey walking into western South Carolina, through Georgia, across Alabama, and into this place they would eventually claim as their own.

  They had cleared the fields and cultivated the crops of what became Kay’s Bend Plantation. Through generations, isolated from the rest of the world, most stayed on at the Bend as emancipation freed them, as some married into local Indian tribes, as the Great Depression almost starved them out, and as the world wars depleted their ranks.

  Now, in the mid-1950s, there were still very few cars or tractors, no paved roads, little indoor plumbing, and no telephones. It didn’t matter to the old woman or the other people of Kay’s Bend. Home was a place of common experience, of standing together, no matter that their foothold might be in quicksand. That they didn’t actually own the land was of little or no concern to them. Years in the fields as slaves, as sharecroppers, and now as tenant farmers had made it impossible for them to think of its belonging to anyone else.

  Again the thermals caught the vulture, and he soared higher. Now coming into his view, far off on the horizon, were the tops of two church steeples, the roof of a train depot, the houses and shops of a small town.

  CHAPTER 5

  AUNT Nelda was putting on more lipstick. When she finished with her lips, she took a little off the top of the stick and rubbed it on her cheeks. To John, she looked a little like the Lucky Strike Girls on the back of the Look magazines he used to read. This was what Aunt Nelda smoked, Lucky Strikes. He watched her light up.

  She just forgot about me for the one second the train was pulling out. That’s all.

  Other passengers were sitting around half-asleep, lulled by the repeating sound of wheels hitting tracks. Some were reading the Montgomery Advertiser. The lights were coming on as the sun went down outside. He pulled the window shade to block out what passed. He thought it rather warm and cozy inside now.

  Suddenly, Aunt Nelda jerked in her seat, blew out a big puff of smoke, and mashed her cigarette in the ashtray with one hand as she waved the smoke away with the other. Then she hopped up to motion to a lady coming toward her down the aisle.

  “Mrs. Vance, why, hello there, Mrs. Vance. What a surprise to see you.” Aunt Nelda was pulling down her dress and patt
ing her hair. The woman stopped and seemed to take a moment to recognize Nelda. She was dressed in the same way as Aunt Nelda, but not in the same style. Her hat and shoes were a dyed match. Her dress didn’t carry the wrinkles of daylong wear.

  “Why, Nelda,” she finally said, “I almost didn’t recognize you, I was passin’ through in such a hurry.”

  Aunt Nelda grinned broadly and stepped out into the aisle. “My goodness, I was so surprised to see you. I just couldn’t hardly believe my eyes,” she said. “Are you on your way back to home?” Her hand flipped in the air. “Well, course you are. That’s how come you’re on this train.” Nelda twittered at her own foolishness. “How silly of me.”

  “The Judge had bankin’ business in Montgomery, so we’ve been stayin’ at the Jeff Davis for a few days,” the woman said. She sounded more like a colored person than any white the boy had ever heard.

  Aunt Nelda began changing her way of talking to match the manner of the woman. “Well, I declare, y’all musta been havin’ a high old time in Montgomery. It’s such a delightful town,” said Aunt Nelda.

  “No,” said the lady, “I’m worn out with sleepin’ in a strange bed and eatin’ out. I’ll be happy to get home.” She looked over to John, who had stood up when the woman approached. “Nelda, as many times as we’ve made this trip, I don’t believe I have ever seen you or your children on here before.”

  “Oh, no, ma’am, he ain’t . . . isn’t my child,” said Aunt Nelda. She began whispering to the woman. John stood there, feeling foolish. Of course he knew what she was saying all along. His mother had died. He had no father, no other relatives. She was, out of the goodness of her heart, taking him back to live with her. She finally finished her story. They both looked down at him and smiled.

  He looked back at them, words bouncing around in his head. Idiots.

  Mrs. Vance continued smiling and began to say the usual. My but he was a fine-looking boy, but small for his age, wasn’t he? He could have passed for six, or maybe even five. She just knew he was going to love Lower Peach Tree. Always conversation designed to facilitate, to accommodate, never to illuminate. He was disgusted by it and made no attempt to respond. He knew it was impolite, but he didn’t care. Then there was a pause; no one saying anything.

  “Well,” Mrs. Vance finally said, “I mustn’t keep the Judge waitin’. I just reserved a place for us in the dinin’ car. I’m on my way back to get him.”

  “Oh, how silly of me, blockin’ your way and takin’ your time when I know the Judge must be starved.” Aunt Nelda blushed.

  Immediately, the mention of food overtook his disgust. He pounced on the idea of eating. “This is a good time for us to eat, too, Aunt Nelda. If you didn’t have any more to eat than a candy bar, you must be starved also,” he said.

  Aunt Nelda looked startled. Then she glanced back to Mrs. Vance and laughed. “Oh my, that boy. What with all the movin’ around we did in the Montgomery station, and, uh, I wasn’t able to leave my things unattended in the station.” She laughed and bit her lower lip. “Boys are always hungry, even if you feed ’em one hundred and nine times a day.”

  “Perhaps you and—I didn’t get your name, son,” Mrs. Vance said.

  “It’s John, ma’am.” Anxious, the boy stuck out his hand and then quickly pulled it back, remembering the code of manners he had been meticulously taught.

  “Well, John . . .” She smiled and offered her hand. Only then did he extend his.

  She studied him for the first time, still holding his hand. “I understand from Obadiah that the roast beef is just delicious tonight. Would you like to join us for supper?”

  Aunt Nelda grabbed his hand and pulled it back. “That’s just too lovely for words, Mrs. Vance. I, that is to say we, would love to join you, but”—she looked around at the suitcases and bags—“I’m just afraid we have to stay here and look out after all of our things. I do hate travelin’ with such a load. It just inhibits your social life no end. We’ll just stay here and order from the sandwich cart when it comes around.”

  Mrs. Vance looked mystified. “Well, why don’t you stay here and guard your things and John can be our guest for dinner. Would you like that, John?” He began stepping forward, trying to get over Aunt Nelda’s boxes and out into the aisle.

  “Yes, ma’am, I sure would.”

  Aunt Nelda caught his shoulder. “Now hold on there, boy.” She was biting her lower lip again. “You can’t eat with the Judge lookin’ like that.” She looked at Mrs. Vance. “That’s just lovely of you to ask, but he doesn’t even have a clean shirt on. Let me tidy him up a bit while you go get the Judge.”

  “Do as you like, Nelda, but of all the people in the world, the Judge would be the last one to care how he looks.” She turned to leave. “We’ll be back directly.”

  CHAPTER 6

  AUNT Nelda watched Mrs. Vance as she disappeared down the aisle; then she turned and pushed John back in his seat. She grabbed her purse and began fumbling through it.

  “Now listen here, young man.” She pulled a white handkerchief out and let the purse drop on the seat next to her. “Judge Vance is the president of the Planters and Merchants Bank of Lower Peach Tree, the one and only bank in Lower Peach Tree. The only place you can get crop loans, or money of any kind. Stick out your tongue.”

  He stuck out his tongue and she wiped her handkerchief on it. Then she began to clean off his face. “You mind your manners, like I know you can. Don’t eat too much. Don’t seem too hungry. Don’t forget to take your napkin down.” She smoothed his hair with the wet handkerchief, then dropped it and started rummaging through a shopping bag.

  He was insulted that she would question his social graces, but he let it pass. He was too hungry. “Why do you call him ‘Judge’ if he’s a banker?” he asked. She didn’t hear him.

  “I was sure I had an extra shirt in here for you. It was one I found in the dining room after we packed everything up.” She pulled out his old blue-and-white shirt, one he had outgrown a year ago. Immediately, he could see his mother in their dining room, smiling as she unwrapped his old shirt from around her silver tea tray. “See how much you’ve grown? This is the only use for it now.” She had handed him the tray. “I want you to take this next door. Tab’s mother wants to use it for a party she’s having.”

  Aunt Nelda jerked the shirt he had on up over his head, messing up the hair she had just smoothed down. Then she started trying to get the undersized shirt on him. When she finally did, it was so tight around his neck, he could hardly breathe.

  “That won’t do.” She jerked it back off, exposing his scrawny white chest. “We’ll just have to make do with what you had on.” She smoothed the original out with her fingers against her wrinkled dress and handed it back to him. He pulled it on quickly, embarrassed that others might have seen him exposed in this way. On top of that, he had not been able to stop the tears from welling up in his eyes at the remembered sight of his mother standing in the dining room, holding the silver tray.

  Just as he had gotten the shirt back over his head, the big porter was standing in the aisle, looking down at him.

  Holding on to the porter’s arm and positioned slightly behind him in the narrow aisle was an older man, shorter by several inches than the porter. He wore a dark suit and white shirt stiff with starch around the collar and cuffs. John glanced up at thick glasses set above a graying beard. The man appeared to be looking out the window, detached in some way from everyone else. As soon as Aunt Nelda spoke, the man turned his head in her direction.

  Aunt Nelda was beside herself. “Judge, what a pleasure to meet up with y’all. I had no idea y’all were on the train ’til I saw Mrs. Vance, Adell, awhile back.” She put her hand to her hair to smooth it down. “Now isn’t this somethin’, us meetin’ like this.” John noticed she said this in her new way of talking, the one she had developed since seeing Mrs. Vance.

  “Evening to you, Nelda.” He said nothing after this, and there was an uncomfortable silence.
Then he said, “Mrs. Vance tells me you have a guest who’ll be taking dinner with us.”

  “Oh, yes, I sure do, Judge, and let me tell you how delightful it is of y’all to have him,” she said, turning around to take John’s shoulder and push him forward. “This is my nephew, who’s comin’ to live with me. Shake hands with the Judge, John.”

  The Judge slowly disengaged from the porter’s arm and held his hand out. John took it and felt the warmth but said nothing. He couldn’t help staring, even though he knew his mother was watching him and must think it rude. The Judge pulled away and reached for the porter’s arm.

  “You walk on ahead of me and Obadiah, boy. Mrs. Vance will be along directly.”

  “Nelda, it’s good seeing you,” he said as he tipped his head in her direction. Then he turned to the porter. “Proceed on, Obadiah.”

  Obadiah started down the aisle again, with the Judge holding to the back of his left arm and the boy turning to look at them every few steps, mesmerized by something, but he had not quite figured out what.

  Aunt Nelda was saying after them, “Now y’all have a nice time, and John, don’t you eat the Judge out of house and home.” He could hear her nervous laugh as they walked away.

  Two more cars down was dining. As they walked along, people seemed to know the Judge. They would say hello, and, likely as not, the Judge would say hello right back to them and call their names. Some would stand and say a few words to him as he passed, but he never lingered. Each time this happened, John would stop and stare at the Judge and the person he was talking to. Each time, the Judge or Obadiah would have to remind him to move on when they were finished. Just as the same thing was happening for the fourth time, John turned forward, as he was shooed on, and caught his foot on a piece of carpet. He went sprawling. It was at that moment, as the boy sat on the aisle floor, looking up at the Judge, that he realized and blurted it out. “You, you’re blind.”