Shiloh and Other Stories

by Bobbie Ann Mason

  “She talks funny,” I said, sitting down beside him.

  “Folks up here all talk funny. I’ve noticed that too.”

  Uncle Boone had been a clerk in the war. He told me about the time he had spent in the Pacific theater, sailing around on a battleship, looking for Japs.

  “Me and some buddies went to a Pacific island where there was a tribe of people with little tails,” he said.

  “Don’t believe a word he says,” said my aunt, who had been listening.

  “It’s true,” said Uncle Boone. “Cross my heart and hope to die.” He solemnly crossed his hands on his chest, then looked at his watch and said abruptly to me, “What do you think of Gorgeous George?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How about Howdy Doody?”

  “Who’s Howdy Doody?”

  “This child don’t know nothing,” he said to my aunt. “She’s been raised with a bunch of country hicks.”

  “He’s fooling,” said Aunt Mozelle. “Go ahead and show her, Boone, for gosh sakes. Don’t keep it a secret.”

  He was talking about television. I hadn’t noticed the set in the living room because it had a sliding cover over the screen. It was a ten-inch table model with an upholstered sound box in a rosewood cabinet.

  “We’ve never seen a television,” my mother said.

  “This will ruin her,” said my aunt. “It’s ruined Boone.”

  Uncle Boone turned on the television set. A wrestling match appeared on the screen, and I could see Gorgeous George flexing his muscles and tossing his curls. The television set resembled our radio. For a long time I was confused, thinking that I would now be able to see all my favorite radio programs.

  “It’s one of those sets you can look at in normal light and not go blind,” my aunt said, to reassure us. “It’s called Daylight TV.”

  “Wait till you see Howdy Doody,” said Uncle Boone.

  The picture on the television set was not clear. The reception required some imagination, and the pictures frequently dissolved, but I could see Gorgeous George moving across the screen, his curls bouncing. I could see him catch hold of his opponent and wrestle him to the floor, holding him so tight I thought he would choke.

  That night, I lay in the cedar-perfumed room, too excited to sleep. I did not know what to expect next. The streetlamps glowed like moons through the venetian blinds, and as I lay there, my guardian angel slowly crept into my mind. In Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories, there was a picture of a child with his guardian angel hovering over him. It was a man angel, and gigantic, with immense white feathery bird’s wings. Probably the boy could never see him because the angel stayed in what drivers of automobiles call a blind spot. I had a feeling that my own guardian angel had accompanied the bus to Michigan and was in the house with me. I imagined him floating above the bus. I knew that my guardian angel was supposed to keep me from harm, but I did not want anyone to know about him. I was very afraid of him. It was a long time before I fell asleep.

  —

  In the North, they drank coffee. Aunt Mozelle made a large pot of coffee in the mornings, and she kept it in a Thermos so she could drink coffee throughout the day.

  Mama began drinking coffee. “Whew! I’m higher than a kite!” she would say. “I’ll be up prowling half the night.”

  “Little girls shouldn’t ought to drink coffee,” Uncle Boone said to me more than once. “It turns them black.”

  “I don’t even want any!” I protested. But I did like the enticing smell, which awoke me early in the mornings.

  My aunt made waffles with oleomargarine. She kneaded a capsule of yellow dye into the pale margarine.

  “It’s a law,” she told me one morning.

  “They don’t have that law down home anymore,” said Mama. “People’s turning to oleo and it’s getting so we can’t sell butter.”

  “I guess everybody forgot how it tasted,” said Aunt Mozelle.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if that business about the dye was a Communist idea,” said my uncle. “A buddy of mine at the plant thinks so. He says they want to make it look like butter. The big companies, they’re full of reds now.”

  “That makes sense to me,” said Mama. “Anything to hurt the farmer.”

  It didn’t make sense to me. When they talked about reds, all I could imagine was a bunch of little devils in red suits, carrying pitchforks. I wondered if they were what my uncle had seen in the Pacific, since devils had tails. Everything about the North was confusing. Lunetta Jones, for instance, bewildered me. She came for coffee every morning, after my uncle had left in a car pool. Lunetta, a seventh-grade teacher, was from Kentucky, and her parents were old friends of my aunt’s, so Mozelle and Boone took a special interest in her welfare. Lunetta’s life was tragic, my aunt said. Her sailor-boy husband had died in the war. Lunetta never spoke to me, so I often stared at her unself-consciously. She resembled one of the Toni twins, except for her horsey teeth. She wore her hair curled tight at the bottom, with a fluffy topknot, and she put hard, precise g’s on the ends of words like “talking” and “going,” the way both Sharon Belletieri and Betsy Lou did. And she wore elaborate dresses—rayon marquisette dresses with Paris pockets, dresses with tiered tucks, others of tissue chambray, with what she called “taffeta understudies.” Sometimes I thought her dresses could carry her away on a frantic ride through the sky, they were so billowy and thin.

  “Lunetta’s man-crazy,” my aunt explained to me. “She’s always dressed up in one of them Sunday-go-to-meetin’ outfits in case she might come across a man to marry.”

  Uncle Boone called her thick lipstick “man bait.”

  —

  The buses remained on strike, and I spent the days in the house. I avoided Sharon Belletieri, preferring to be alone, or to sit entranced before the television set. Sometimes the fading outlines of the characters on the screen were like ghosts. I watched Milton Berle, Morey Amsterdam, Believe It Or Not, Wax Wackies, and even Blind Date. Judy Splinters, a ventriloquist’s dummy with pigtails like mine, was one of my favorites, and I liked the magician Foodini on Lucky Pup better than Howdy Doody. Betsy Lou teased me, saying I was too old for those baby shows. She was away most of the time, out on “jelly dates.” A jelly date was a Coke date. She had jelly dates with Bob and Jim and Sam all on the same day. She was fond of singing “Let’s Take an Old-Fashioned Walk,” although one of her boyfriends had a car and she liked to go riding in it more than anything else. Why couldn’t he take us to Detroit? I wondered, but I was afraid to ask. I had a sick feeling that we were never going to get to see the buildings of the city.

  In the mornings, when there was nothing but snow on television, and the women were gossiping over their coffee in the kitchen, I sat on the enclosed porch and watched the people and the cars pass. During the heat wave, it was breezy there. I sat on the rattan chaise lounge and read Aunt Mozelle’s scrapbooks, which I had found on a shelf above the television set. They were filled with brittle newspaper clippings mounted in overlapping rows. The clippings included household hints and cradle notes, but most of the stories were about bizarre occurrences around the world—diseases and kidnappings and disasters. One headline that fascinated me read: TIBETAN STOMACH STOVE DECLARED CANCER CAUSE. The story said that people in Tibet who carry little hot stoves against their abdomens in winter frequently develop cancer from the irritation. I was thankful that I didn’t live in a cold climate. Another story was about a boa constrictor that swallowed a horse blanket. And there were a number of strange stories about blue babies. When my aunt found me reading the scrapbooks, she said to me, “Life is amazing. I keep these to remind me of just how strange everything is. And how there are always people worse off.” I nodded agreement. The porch was my favorite place. I felt secure there, as I read about these faraway wonders and afflictions. I would look up now and then and imagine I could see the tall buildings of Detroit in the distance.

  —

  “This is a two-tone gabardine spectator dr
ess with a low-slung belt in the back,” said Lunetta one morning as she turned to model her new dress for us. Lunetta always had official descriptions for her extravagant costumes.

  My mother said in a wistful voice, “Law me, that’s beautiful. But what would I look like, feeding the chickens in that getup?”

  “Just look at them shoes,” Aunt Mozelle said.

  Lunetta’s shoes had butterfly bows and sling heels and open toes. She sat down and tapped her toes as Aunt Mozelle poured coffee for her. She said then, “Is Boone worried about his job now that they caught that red?”

  “Well, he is, but he don’t let on,” said Aunt Mozelle, frowning.

  Lunetta seized yesterday’s newspaper and spread it out on the table. She pointed at the headlines. I remember the way the adults had murmured over the newspaper the day before. Aunt Mozelle had said, “Don’t worry, Boone. You don’t work for that company.” He had replied, “But the plant is full of sympathizers.” Now Lunetta said, “Just think. That man they caught could have given Russia all the plans for the power plant. Nothing’s safe. You never know who might turn out to be a spy.”

  My mother was disturbed. “Everything you all have worked so hard for—and the reds could just come in and take it.” She waved her hand at the kitchen. In my mind a strange scene appeared: a band of little red devils marching in with their pitchforks and taking the entire Kelvinator kitchen to hell. Later, it occurred to me that they would take the television set first.

  When my uncle came home from work, I greeted him at the door and asked him bluntly, “Are you going to get fired because of the reds?”

  He only laughed and twitched my plaits. “No, sugar,” he said.

  “That don’t concern younguns,” Aunt Mozelle told me. She said to her husband, “Lunetta was here, spreading ideas.”

  “Leave it to Lunetta,” said Uncle Boone wearily.

  That evening they were eager to watch the news on the television set. When the supervisor who had been fired was shown, my uncle said, “I hope they give him what-for.”

  “He was going to tell Russia about the power plant,” I said.

  “Hush, Peggy,” said Mama.

  That evening, I could hear their anxious voices on the porch, as I watched Arthur Godfrey, wrestling, and the barbershop quartets. It seemed odd to me that my uncle did not want to watch the wrestling. He had told me wrestling was his favorite program.

  —

  Sharon Belletieri had a birthday party. Aunt Mozelle took Mama and me to a nearby Woolworth’s, where I selected a coloring book for a present. The store was twice the size of ours at home. I also bought a souvenir of my trip—a pair of china dogs, with a label that read “Made in Japan.” And my mother bought me a playsuit like Sharon’s.

  “It’s Sanforized. That’s good,” she said with an air of satisfaction, as she examined seams and labels.

  My mother looked pale and tired. At breakfast she had suddenly thrown up, the way she had during our bus trip. “I can’t keep anything down this early,” she had said. My aunt urged her to drink more coffee, saying it would settle her stomach.

  Sharon Belletieri lived with her parents in a famous kind of sanitary house where you couldn’t get TB or rheumatic fever because it had no drafts. “You won’t have to worry about polio,” Betsy Lou had told me. The house had venetian blinds like my aunt’s, and there was also a television set, an immense one, on legs. Howdy Doody was on, but no one was watching. I did not know what to say to the children. They all knew each other, and their screams and giggles had a natural continuity, something like the way my mother talked with her sister, and like the splendid houses of the neighborhood, all set so close together.

  For her birthday, Sharon’s parents gave her a Toni doll that took my breath away. It had a bolero sundress, lace-edged panties and slip, and white shoes and socks—an outfit as fine as any of Lunetta’s. It came with a Play Wave, including plastic spin curlers and Toni Creme Rinse. The doll’s magic nylon hair was supposed to grow softer in texture the more you gave it permanent waves. Feeling self-conscious in my new playsuit, I sat quietly at the party, longing to give that doll a permanent.

  Eventually, even though I had hardly opened my mouth, someone laughed at my accent. I had said the unfortunate word “hair” again, in reference to the doll.

  Sharon said, “She’s from Kentucky.”

  Growing bold and inspired, I said, “Well, we don’t have any reds in Kentucky.”

  Some of the children laughed, and Sharon took me aside and told me a secret, making me cross my heart and hope to die. “I know who’s a red,” she told me in a whisper. “My father knows him.”

  “Who?”

  “One of the men your uncle rides with to work. The one who drives the car on Thursdays. He’s a red and I can prove it.”

  Before I could find out more, it was my turn to pin the tail on the donkey. Sharon’s mother blindfolded me and spun me around. The children were squealing, and I could feel them shrinking from me. When I took the blindfold off, I was dizzy. I had pinned the donkey’s tail on the wallpaper, in the center of a large yellow flower.

  That evening Betsy Lou went out with a boy named Sam, the one with the car, and Lunetta came to play canasta with the adults. During Cavalcade of Stars, I could hear them in the kitchen, accusing each other of hiding reds, when they meant hearts and diamonds. They laughed so loudly I sometimes missed some of Jack Carter’s jokes. The wrestling came on afterward, but my uncle did not notice, so I turned off the television and looked at a magazine. I spent a long time trying to write the last line to a Fab jingle so that I could win a television set and five hundred dollars a month for life. I knew that life in Kentucky would be unbearable without a television.

  Between hands, Uncle Boone and Lunetta got into an argument. My uncle claimed there were more reds teaching school than making cars, and Lunetta said it was just the opposite.

  “They’re firing schoolteachers too,” he said to Lunetta.

  “Don’t look at me,” she said. “I signed the loyalty oath.”

  “Hush your mouth, Boone,” said Aunt Mozelle.

  “I know who a red is,” I said suddenly, coming to the table.

  They all looked at me and I explained what Sharon had told me. Too late, I remembered my promise not to tell.

  “Don’t let anybody hear you say that,” said Lunetta. “Your uncle would lose his job. If they even think you know somebody that knows somebody, you can get in trouble.”

  “You better not say anything, hon,” said Uncle Boone.

  “Peggy, it’s past your bedtime,” my mother said.

  “What did I do?”

  “Talk gets around,” said Lunetta. “There’s sympathizers even in the woodwork.”

  The next day, after a disturbing night in which my guardian angel did nothing to protect me from my terrible secret, I was glum and cranky, and for the first time I refused Aunt Mozelle’s waffles.

  “Are you burnt out on them?” she asked me.

  “No, I just ain’t hungry.”

  “She played too hard at the birthday party,” Mama said knowingly to my aunt.

  When Lunetta arrived and Mama told her I had played too hard at the birthday party, I burst into tears.

  “It’s nobody’s business if I played too hard,” I cried. “Besides,” I shrieked at Mama, “you don’t feel good at breakfast either. You always say you can’t keep anything down.”

  “Don’t be ugly,” my mother said sharply. To the others, she said apologetically, “I reckon sooner or later she was bound to show out.”

  It was Sunday, and the heat wave continued. We all sat on the porch, looking at the Sunday papers. Betsy Lou was reading Pleasant Valley by Louis Bromfield. Uncle Boone read the Sunday comics aloud to himself. Actually, he was trying to get my attention, for I sat in a corner, determined to ignore everyone. Uncle Boone read “Abbie an’ Slats,” “The Gumps,” and “Little Orphan Annie.” He pretended he was Milton Berle as he read them, b
ut I wouldn’t laugh.

  Lunetta and Uncle Boone seemed to have forgotten their argument. Lunetta had dressed up for church, but the man she planned to go with had gone to visit his mother’s grave instead.

  “That man sure did love his mother,” she said.

  “Why don’t you go to church anyway?” asked Betsy Lou. “You’re all dressed up.”

  “I just don’t have it in me,” said Lunetta. She was wearing a shell-tucked summer shantung dress and raffia T-strap sandals.

  “Ain’t you hot in that outfit?” asked my aunt. “We’re burning up.”

  “I guess so.” Lunetta seemed gloomy and distracted. I almost forgave her for upsetting me about the sympathizers, but then she launched into a complicated story about a baby-sitter who got double-crossed. “This woman baby-sat for her best friend, who was divorced and had two little babies. And come to find out, the friend was going out on dates with the woman’s own husband!”

  “If that don’t beat all,” said Mama, her eyes wide. She was drinking her second cup of coffee.

  “No telling how long that could have kept up,” said my aunt.

  “It made a big divorce case,” Lunetta said.

  “I never saw so many divorce cases,” said Mama.

  “Would you divorce somebody if you found out they were a Communist?” Lunetta asked.

  “I don’t know as I would,” said Aunt Mozelle. “Depends.”

  “I would,” said Mama.

  “I probably would,” said Lunetta. “How about you, Boone?”

  “If I found out Mozelle was a red?” Boone asked, grinning. “I’d probably string her up and tickle her feet till she hollered uncle.”

  “Oh, Boone,” Lunetta said with a laugh. “I know you’d stick up for Mozelle, no matter what.”

  They sat around that morning talking like this, good-naturedly. In the light of day, the reds were only jokes after all, like the comics. I had decided to eat a bowl of Pep cereal, and “Some Enchanted Evening” was playing on the radio. Suddenly everything changed, as if a black storm had appeared to break the heat wave. My mother gave out a loud whoop and clutched her stomach in pain.