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Just Plain Folks Page 9

by Lorraine Johnson-Coleman


  Well, I had his attention then ’cause he stopped acting the fool long enough to ask me what he got to do, so I told him. You see, if you wants to get rid of a witch, then you gots to get you a broomstick and put it ’cross your front door. She’ll be so busy riding it, she won’t be able to bother you. The other thing you can do is put a Bible under your pillow, ’cause she’ll have to read every word in it ’fore she can bother you. But really there ain’t but one way to get rid of a hant once and for all. You gots to sprinkle salt inside of that skin she takes off, ’cause it will burn her butt if she tries to put it back on. Then she’ll just have to leave the same way she come.

  I figure Brother Jim must have done something, though he ain’t never told me what, but I do know that I ain’t seen her no more after that. He got hisself another wife soon after, and they looked ’bout as happy as happy could be. But everybody ain’t blessed as Brother Jim. Some folks just can’t get rid of evil when it comes on around, and they sure don’t always get no second chance at lovin’.

  Now, you take me. I had one of them no-good men. He wasn’t happy just being a dog at home, he had to go sniffing all over town. Finally he got him one of those shameless hussies that’s always after somebody else’s man. Not too long after that, I started getting sicker and sicker. I knew then that them two had put something on me, but they couldn’t get me like they wanted ’cause I’m always protected. I carries my High John the Conqueror root wherever I go, and I gots my lucky hand in my shoe. Well, soon as I knew what was happening, I went to see Doctor Bug. It might’ve took all my spare change, but if anybody could do what I needed him to do, it was Doctor Bug. In no time at all he done pulled that evil off me and had it thrown right back on ’em. Then for good measure, I got me a pair of my husband’s old drawers and cut ’em in just the right places like Doctor Bug told me to. I cut them really crucial parts to bits. I figure he might have gone off with that no-good hussy without so much as a backwards glance, but I done fixed ’em. I’ll bet they ain’t having such a good time now.

  You can’t tell me nothing I don’t already know about conjure. I done seen it all. It’s gotten so in this here town you can’t trust nobody ’cause you don’t know who is who, or what is what. I tell you I gots to stay one step ahead of ’em or Lord knows where I would be. Now I’m gonna tell you a thing or two that can help you ’cause that’s just the kind of person I am.

  You can sprinkle salt and pepper around somebody’s head and it will sho’ ’nough bust they brains out.

  If you want to get rid of somebody, then you got to get you some graveyard dirt; the best kind is what’s deep down in the grave. Sprinkle it round the door of the person you want gone, and they can’t stay after that.

  If you want to drive a person crazy, then take a strand of their hair and nail it to a tree.

  The best tip for a woman is this: The easiest way to hold on to a man is to get a little piece of his clothing and keep it. He can’t get away as long as you keep that little rag.

  If I starts out and got to turn back, I know it’s bad luck ’less I makes a cross and spits on it.

  I don’t borrow or lend salt ’cause that’s bad luck, too.

  And lastly, I don’t never sing ’fore breakfast ’cause sure as I’m living, I’ll be crying ’fore dinner.

  You see, the Lord gave the colored man all the signs ’cause He knows it’s the only way we can make it. If my right eye jumps then it’s good luck, and if my left eye jumps then it’s bad news, and my left eye ’bout jumped out of my head just ’fore Hattie came and told me ’bout Purlie. Poor Sister Purlie, if she’d only listened. You got to do all you can to keep evil away.

  Yeah, evil is all around us and it’s probably them devilish spirits that got me feelin’ so poorly. That’s why I didn’t go to the service. My sister come by and checked up on me. Then she tried to take me to Pitt County Hospital but ain’t no doctor ever meant me one bit of good, so I went to see Bertha the medicine woman instead. She fixed me right up. Now, some folks don’t trust her ’cause they figure with the stuff she know, and the things she do, she got to be some kind of witch herself, but I don’t believe it. I heard tell that if a woman ain’t never been with a man, then she can’t be no witch. It’s having them connections that hooks her up to the evil. Now, Bertha may have her a fine healin’ hand, but Lord, that chile got a face that would scare the backside off a mule! Ain’t no man want none of that what she got, trust me. I knows ’bout these things and then some, but like I said, she did fix me right up. Gave me some honey and lemon in a whiskey tea to help me with this cold, and then gave me some salt water for my fever. I been taking garlic cloves for my blood pressure and they seem to be doing me pretty good. Later, I’ll take me a swig of kerosene and sugar to kill the rest of these here germs. Sister Bertha did tell me to stand on my head to get rid of this headache, but old as I is, if I stood on my head, I’d have more problems than just a headache!

  Poor Sister Purlie, I declare I don’t know how we gonna get through the year without her. Who’s gonna cook pig’s feet for New Year’s? And February is the church’s anniversary — who we gonna get to lead the choir? I tell you Purlie had a dip and a swish in her marching step that was sinful to just watch. Then in spring, Purlie would always pitch in and help Bertha deliver all them beautiful babies — the result of all that summer lovin’.

  I guess we just some good-loving, good-timing kind of folks in these parts, and didn’t nobody like a frolic better than Purlie. Right smack in the heart of summer, the whole town comes out for a pig pickin’, and nobody makes ’tater salad like Purlie. ’Course I knows her secret — she adds just a little bit of sugar, and a dash of red vinegar right ’fore she mixes it all up. I told you, don’t nothing get past me! Oh Lord, and what about the fall? I just don’t rightly know how them leaves out there gonna turn without good old Purlie to guide ’em. And then there’s October corn shucking. To be so old-actin’ and always complainin’, Purlie could outshuck the best of ’em. I remember one year after we finished with the corn, we gathered together all them leftover shucks, got us some hay and some scraps we found here and there, and made us some brooms. We sold ’em for ten cents apiece and used all that extra money to get us each a new pair of stockings. Fanciest stockings I ever had! Come that Sunday we was stepping so high that no one could tell us a dat-blame thing.

  I figure it’s gonna be toughest at Christmas. That was Purlie’s favorite time of year. Right ’fore Christmas is Kooner time round here. The men always gets together and makes ’em a drum with an old barrel and a piece of ox hide. Then they gets themselves the jawbone of a mule with teeth still in it, and makes ’em up a one-stringer. Old Man Sam plays the water jug, and me and Purlie could really drag on ’cross a washboard. We would all play and them others would sing loud as loud could be. There did come a time or two when we sounded pretty good, but most times we sounded like a passel of animals caught in a trap — we sho’ had a good time, though, so didn’t nobody seem to mind. Jimbo always dressed up like the Kooner man. He gets hisself all decked out in all the rags he can find and then puts him on a big buckskin hat that sits so high on his head that he looks like he’s ’bout seven feet tall. He comes around dancin’ and carryin’ on, and all the while he’s steady collectin’ them pennies. Everybody round here saves up all the coins they can just so they can have them a little somethin’ to throw at the Kooner man. Soon as Jimbo’s cup gets full, here comes the Reverend with his hand out beggin’ for the blessing. I declare God done fixed it so that that man can smell every spare dime.

  Well, I suppose that time will march on the way it always has. The seasons will come and the seasons will go, and eventually one day will just seem to fade on into another. I figure that’s just the Lord’s doing, and we sho’ can’t get in the way. There will be joy and there will be sorrow, and those of us who are still here to see it all will be thankful for the extra time, but glory, I just can’t figure how we’ll move these old lives along without our de
ar friend. Oh Purlie, baby, I sho’ will miss you.

  AFTERTHOUGHTS

  Superstitions continue to exist and even flourish around the world, including within most technological societies. Many regard them as a throwback to ancient times when humans sought to explain the world around them without facts or appropriate data. Others attribute superstitions to plain foolishness and fear.

  The enslaved Africans may have converted to Christianity in large numbers, but they held on firmly all the while to their supernatural beliefs. Complementing Christian faith in the slave quarters was conjure, a sophisticated combination of herbal remedy and magical ritual. African Americans believed that illness and misfortune had both natural and supernatural causes, and they didn’t want to take any chances on either. Skeptical about traditional white man’s medicine, they consulted voodoo doctors and mixed up herbs in small pouches tied carefully around their necks. These little “goofer bags” held everything from dried frogs’ bones to graveyard dust, depending on the need and circumstance.

  Today, the array of African American wives’ tales, warnings, and folk cures is abundant indeed. Travel from place to place throughout the South and you’ll find there are even variations and contradictions on common themes. In Alabama you may hear that rain in an open grave is a sure sign that the dead person is heading to Heaven; talk to a North Carolinian, though, and he or she will tell you that rain is a sure sign that the Lord is trying to remove all traces of the deceased from the face of the Earth. There is no consensus except for the fact that the rain is a sure sign that means something.

  The hant is one of my favorite folk characters. Europeans fear the witch, but African Americans are terrified of the hant. She has the eeriness of the European witch, but with a few differences: the hant is a woman who moves normally throughout the community during the day and then sheds her skin in the evening and terrorizes man and beast alike during the midnight hours. She slips through keyholes and under door cracks, and she sneaks into your room and “rides you till you ’bout smother.”

  The hant is really more mischievous than dangerous, but to keep her away there are some things you can do. You can keep a Bible underneath your pillow or a broom across your door. There are stories about the victims of a hant taking matters into their own hands. One man claims that when a hant came around to annoy him in the middle of the night, he pulled out a baseball bat and started swinging. The next day, his neighbor showed up at his door with bruises covering the majority of her upper body. He knew then who was the hant, and joyfully spread the word throughout the community.

  My mama tells me to flush my hair down the toilet instead of throwing it away in the trash. “The birds may get to it in the trash,” she warns me, “and if they do, they’ll run you crazy.”

  This is from a highly educated woman who taught for thirty years. It doesn’t make sense — most of her folk wisdoms don’t — but it doesn’t hurt anybody, either. So I figure, why not? I’ll do it just in case. You never know. You just never know.

  Miz Lullabel, the Devil, and the Sunday Hat

  Now, I don’t want y’all to think that I just set around telling tales. I try my best not to get into other folks’ stuff, and I work like the dickens to keep folks out of mine. You know it ain’t everybody that you can confidence. But I got to tell you something that you really ought to know — a third person in your business ain’t never gonna do you one bit of good. Look what happened to them Judsons when Miz Lullabel got through with them. You mean you ain’t heard that story? My auntie told me this years ago, and whenever them troublemaking, do-nothing-for-nobody folks come along, I remember this story so I’ll know what to do with them.

  • • •

  On down thisaway, there lived an old woman named Miz Lullabel Lee. There really ain’t no describing her; let’s just say that she was something else. Well, one day she was setting on the porch, rocking back and forth as easy as the summer afternoon, when all of a sudden the Devil came riding down the road on his horse. He stopped in front of Miz Lullabel’s house, climbed down off his horse, and started to boohoo like a baby. This tickled Miz Lullabel Lee. She came on round, peeked on down at him, and started grinning like a spooked cat.

  “What’s wrong with you, Devil?” she asked him. “I would have thought that with as much hell as you’ve been raising around here lately, you’d be feeling pretty good.”

  “Well,” the Devil said, “it’s them Judsons down the road. No matter what I do, they just keep living and loving like I ain’t even here.”

  Miz Lullabel was real tickled then, and she laughed out loud. “Devil, I do declare,” she said, “you don’t know what you’re doing, do you? If you wanted cussing and fussing, you should have come to me. Why, it would scare the horns off your head if I told you about some of the confusion I done started right here in this town. So if you got a hankering for some trouble, you leave it to me.”

  Now, the Devil figured that maybe he ought to stop weeping long enough to take a good look at Miz Lullabel Lee. She was still laughing hard, but there was a dangerous shine in her eyes.

  “Well, Miz Lullabel Lee,” the Devil said, “I’ll make you a deal. If you can do what I ain’t been able to do, I’ll bring you a brand-new hat to wear to church on Sunday.”

  Miz Lullabel Lee was excited now! “A new hat,” she said, “like the one they got on Main Street — a big, pretty one with a flower at the top that you tie under your chin. Devil,” she said, “you got yourself a deal.”

  The next day Miz Lullabel Lee went walking down the road. The first person she come to was Miz Judson out in the yard tending to her flowers and minding her own business. Miz Lullabel Lee walked right up to her and hugged her. Now, how was that sweet woman supposed to know that Miz Lullabel was up to no good?

  “I declare, Sister Judson, I ain’t seen you in a month of Sundays,” Miz Lullabel Lee said. “I woke up this morning and realized that I ain’t been real neighborly lately, so I decided to stop by and see you and that mister of yours. How y’all been doing lately?”

  “Same as we have been for the last fifty years,” said Miz Judson. “That man ain’t changed at all. Now, marriage got its ups and downs, but I ain’t seen nothing better to replace it with, so I’ll just hang with it.” Then Miz Judson smiled that real pretty smile that everybody loved her for.

  “You know, Sister Judson, it seem to me like I might be able to help you. You know, my mama was one of the smartest women this country has ever seen, the Lord rest her soul. However, she didn’t take all that wisdom to the grave with her — she left some of it right here with me. You know we got to help each other, and I believe that I got a little something that will fix you right up.” Miz Lullabel’s words sounded right interesting to Miz Judson, and she couldn’t help but be curious, so she asked her, “Help me out how?” Miz Lullabel answered real slow and careful-like. “It seem to me,” she said, “like my mama had a surefire way of keeping a man doing your bidding for the rest of your days. I wouldn’t tell this to just anybody, but you always been real special to me.”

  “What you got to do?” Miz Judson asked.

  “Tonight when Brother Judson goes to bed, you go to the drawer and get out your clipping shears. Go right up to his throat and cut off his whiskers. Put them whiskers in your shoe and walk all over that man! My mama would say that that is the onliest way of putting a man where you need ’em — underfoot, so he can do what you needs ’em to do!”

  Miz Judson figured that it sounded like a pretty good plan, and it wasn’t like it was gonna hurt nobody. “I’ll do it,” she said. “Sure enough, I’ll do it.” Miz Judson watched Miz Lullabel disappear on down the road, but what she didn’t see was that Miz Lullabel had on a grin so wide, you could see every one of her five teeth! She didn’t walk but a little ways ’fore she come up on Brother Judson out in the field arguing with his mule. When he saw Miz Lullabel Lee, he waved her on over. Miz Lullabel made her way to him and gave him a big howdy-do.

  “Miz
Lullabel Lee, I ain’t seen you in … I don’t know when. What are you doing way out here with the country folks?”

  “Well now, Brother Judson, you know me to be a good Christian woman, and it seem like the Lord is steady trying to use me. Sometimes He gives me a message to carry on back to one of my folks, and last night He came to see me ’bout you. He told me something that’s been a-worrying on me since it was delivered to me last night. I wouldn’t’ve rightly believed it if He hadn’t whispered it in my good ear to make sure I heard it just right.”

  “The Lord came by to see you ’bout me?” Brother Judson was as turned round as a hen with its head cut off. He couldn’t rightly believe it. “Well, what did He say?”

  “I don’t mean to start no trouble,” Miz Lullabel said, “but according to the Father hisself, your wife gonna try to kill you tonight! She’s gonna try to cut your throat! I declare,” she said, “I couldn’t rightly believe it, but He whispered it in my good ear. Since He told it to me, I ain’t got no choice but to tell it to you.”

  “You must done gone crazy, Miz Lullabel Lee! They told me that you wear that wig too tight, and it seem like you done flipped it now! I been with that woman for more than fifty years. I ain’t never seen better, and I done seen many. Now you standing there telling me that she’s gonna kill me. She ain’t got no reason to want to harm me. I work hard, love her easy, and don’t even beat her! You must be ’bout crazy, that’s what I say!”

  Miz Lullabel wasn’t the least put out by them carrying-on’s. “You think what you want to,” she said, “but if I were you, I’d sleep with one eye open tonight. I know plenty of folks resting six feet under ’cause they didn’t listen to somebody they figured was crazy. Don’t worry, I’m leaving now. I have done my duty. I might’ve brought the message, but it was the Almighty that was the messenger. You do what you want with the wisdoms, but if I were you I’d sleep with one eye open.” With that Miz Lullabel Lee left and headed back to town. Now that grin was even wider. You could see every one of them teeth, and I do declare, she didn’t have but four!

 

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