“Yall done sulking yet?” he asked.
“We aint sulking,” I retorted. “We just dont want to be round no mean people.”
“Aint you being a little hard on em? Most of em didnt mean no harm. Amos was smart-alecky, but Albion was right, Amos is just mad because he didn’t git the red ear first. And you know how Ila Mae is. She’s allays sour as if she ate a bait of persimmons.”
I giggled and looked at Albion.
“I reckon we ought to go back,” he said. “I shouldn’t have got so riled.”
“I didn’t say that,” Ben said. “You had a right to be riled. But they aint no reason to be all by yourself because of it. You’re like kin now. Come on back and set with us.”
Flora smiled at our return and indicated we were to sit beside her. Most of the corn was shucked and Farrie Whitt told a haint story around the bonfire. We ate popcorn, and Aunt Jane brought down taffy that the women had pulled from the new molasses. I looked around the circle at the smooth faces glowing in the firelight. Then I thought, what agony to truly be cut off from them.
We stayed past midnight. Aunt Jane, old and tired, took Albion and me to the wagon long before, and snuggled in the back with us beneath piles of quilts. Albion and I did not sleep. We lay side by side, our faces so close that I could see the whites of his eyes even in the dark.
“How did you lose your homeplace?”
“The railroad took it.”
“How?”
“They just took it.”
I had never heard of such a thing, but knew Albion was not one to lie.
“How can that be?”
“They wasnt nobody to stop them. Now I aint got no place. Aint no place to be buried when I die. Just be out on the mountain somewheres, like Momma. Wont nobody know where I am.”
“Why dont you stay here?”
“My daddy wouldnt stay. He vows to go back to West Virginia some day and settle. But he aint got enough money yet.”
“Where will yall go when he comes back?”
“We go down toward Georgia in the winter. Hit’s a bit warmer.”
It hurt me to think of him with only his father, hungry and cold, most likely.
“Will you come back?”
“I hope so. I’ll come back and marry you when I’m bigger. And I’ll git me some land, maybe here in Kentucky.”
“And we’ll build us a house out of wood with a big porch, and paint it white.”
“And have six younguns.”
“All right. Can I have another kiss?”
He kissed me lightly on the mouth and we fell asleep.
The wagon jolted us awake when we started back down Scary. The sky was punched full of stars. We turned on our backs and all of heaven stretched out over us. The mountaintops hung upside down; as the wagon dipped and swayed they reached out and grabbed the full moon, then let it pop up again, like a fish teasing a cork bob.
Albion’s father came the next week and took him away. I followed their wagon for a time as it trundled up Grapevine toward the ridge that led to the Levisa and West Virginia. Albion was pale and quiet.
“Come on go with us, girl,” Thomas Freeman said jovially.
His words were terrible to me. I walked along until we reached the mouth of Scary. Then I stopped. It was the boundary of the Homeplace, a mystical boundary. I feared to cross, feared I would be cast out as Albion was with no place of my own. I waved goodbye, my arm heavy as lead. Albion was lost to me. I loved him, but it was not enough to hold him. I first began to understand what I have learned since, that there are forces in this world, principalities and powers, that wrench away the things that are loved, people and land, and return only exile.
I ran to the Aunt Jane Place to lay my head in the lap of the old woman and weep.
Four
ROSA ANGELELLI
YES, I KILL THAT BUTTERFLY. BUT I SAVE ALL THOSE OTHERS. I let them go. I throw them into the air and they fly away.
Mama, why do I ever leave Sicily? You hold me on your lap and pat my cheek. You feed me oranges.
The butterflies live in our trees, purple and gold. I chase them and have one in my hands. The legs are strong, they pluck at my flesh and I am afraid they will hurt me. My hands break the wings. I do not mean it. My fingers are slick with powder from the wings.
I cry because it is dying.
Papa laughs. Silly, he says. Stupid.
Mama cleans for the big people in Palermo. She polishes the floors. She comes home and combs my hair.
You do not pick up the butterfly, she says. Do not touch with your fingers. The dust comes off and the butterfly cannot fly.
I sob, I broke the wings.
Bambina. She kisses the top of my head. It was so pretty. Is that why you are sad?
Senore Davidson keeps butterflies in cases. I polish the cases. The butterflies are prisoners, the pins hold them down. I want to tell Mama about them but she is so far away.
Mario brings me here. And Papa. Mario comes to West Virginia to dig the coal and be rich. I don’t want to go. I don’t know Mario very well. Papa says go.
I have eight children, he says. How can I feed them all? You are the oldest. You go and send back money. How else can a woman help?
Mama cries. Rosa is like my sister, she says.
Mama takes me to the boat. Papa does not come.
I will see you again, she says. Bambina. I will see you again.
Senore Davidson brings Mama to stay with me in this place. There is a white bed for her here, in this room.
Mario digs the coal for Senore Davidson at Felco, and that is where I go to live. I watch the names from the train. Carbon. Winco. Felco. I like the name of Felco because it sounds Sicilian. I think of home. The olive trees, the orange trees, Mama. The towns in West Virginia are all the same—the houses are white and they have eyes. Their windows are black, eyes that do not sleep, that need rest.
Mario takes me to his house. The floor sags. When we speak the house speaks back. We have our iron bed, one chair and a table. Mario says it will be better. He saves the money. I cook our first dinner, pasta slippery with fresh tomatoes and peppers. We have baccala on Sunday for our wedding. Special. The priest comes to our house because there is not yet a church. We cannot talk to him because he is the Irish. I wear a white chemise with the cutwork on the front. Mario comes into my bed and I think of Mama, I want her to comb my hair once again.
The women watch me when I go to the store. They are very pale and their dresses are faded. I wear a red skirt. They turn their heads and whisper. Little boys cry, Dago, Dago.
I tell Mario and he is angry. I kill them, little sons of bitches.
He drinks wine. He doesn’t like me to drink it, but I pour a little into my cup when he is gone. The Tally wine is sweet. Sometimes we have the Spanish wine, sour as an olive. The water is bad here. The house is so cold. The wine warms me. But Mario measures how much is in the bottles and he hits me.
Do you think I am made of dollars? And what shall I do with a woman who is ubbriaca?
Mario whips my babies. Francesco says he will not go in the mine. Lazy, Mario says. He ties him to the fence, pours the slops down his back, sets the pig on him. Francesco bleeds and bleeds, my sheets are bloody. How? says the doctor. He slip and fall down the slate pile, I say. Cut his back.
My hair is still black. I catch it with a net, like black lace. I make it myself. I watch for the butterflies to return. Then I will leave this place.
Five
C. J. MARCUM
I NEVER THOUGHT MUCH OF ISOM JUSTICE WHEN HE WAS A BOY. Oh, I like Isom well enough. A body can’t help it, him always with a grin on his face and acting silly. But he never has been serious about nothing, wasn’t then and ain’t now. Not the union, not the land.
Rondal is crazy about Isom. He always looked up to him. I never could figure it. Sure, Isom always had everything he ever wanted. His daddy has money. Ermel built the Hotel Alhambra in Annadel, fanciest hotel in southern West Virginia, ye
llow brick, stained glass windows, mirrors and carpets inside. He built the Roxie Theater and give it to Isom to run when he growed up. The women always hung around Isom, especially them flashy whores. But take away the money and that laugh of his, and Isom Justice can’t shine Rondal Lloyd’s shoes. That’s the way I always seen it. But Rondal can’t see nothing in himself.
Whenever them two boys was in trouble, you can bet it was Isom thought it up. Not that Rondal don’t have a good mind. But he weren’t cut out for trouble-making. He paid attention to his schooling and did real good at science. His teachers said he was curious-turned. I sent him over to talk to Doc Booker, the colored doctor, who is a friend of mine. Rondal didn’t want to go at first, said his daddy didn’t hold much with Negroes. But he finally went and come back with an armload of medical books and some old doctoring tools. He took to catching frogs, smothering them in bottles and cutting them up with them instruments, right on the kitchen table. Violet had hissy fits when she found a pile of frog innards in a coffee cup.
Me and Violet done well for ourselves in them days. We got married in 1901, the year after my mamaw Missouri passed away. Thereafter we had two little girls, red-haired like their momma. Violet was a Stacy, Annadel Justice’s second cousin. She is good to Rondal, loves him like a son. Fact is, I never missed having no boys because I think of Rondal as mine. He worked in the drugstore with us, run the soda fountain all on his own after school.
Isom got a hold of Rondal after supper. Rondal started his homework at nine o’clock, but before that him and Isom would go to the hotel. They’d shoot pool in the gambling room. Gambling is illegal in Justice County, but the sheriff at that time was one of Ermel’s best customers. They was a room back in behind the hotel lobby. Inside Ermel had pool tables, slot machines, and dice boxes. The door was bolted and they was a panel at eye level that slid open from the inside so that Elmo Bowen, the bouncer, could see who was there. Isom got in any time he wanted by banging on the door and hollering, “Hit’s me, Elmo!”
The Alhambra was a sore point with our family and the Justices. Annadel hated it, partly because of the whorehouses and saloons beside it, partly because of the gambling. I heard her and Ermel fight about it many a time.
“You should never of sold Everett Day that land for them whorehouses,” Annadel would say. “I dont like my younguns growin up around that.”
“What you want me to do, keep all the land to myself, tell everybody when they can go take a crap on it, like them coal operators do?”
Truth was, Ermel was into politics even back then. The coal operators controlled the Republican Party and held all the local offices at that time. But through business connections, Ermel knew every bootlegger in the area and had already got himself on the county Democrat committee. He seen the Alhambra and the whorehouses as a way of saving the county from the Republicans.
I wasn’t happy with what he was doing. I wished he would have kept on farming his land. Of course if he had, I wouldn’t have no drugstore, nor money saved up. I wouldn’t have no icebox nor electric nor water inside my house. It keeps me awake at night wondering if I done sold my soul for them things.
I tried to forbid Rondal going to the Alhambra with Isom. But Ermel took it like I hurt his feelings, so I shut up about it. Ermel has been good to me. So I just told Rondal no drinking. He said sometimes Sam Gore, the bartender, slipped them whiskey watered down. I whipped him for it and went to talk to Sam. Sam promised he’d stop it, and keep an eye on Rondal, too. I felt better then, because Sam is a man to trust, not like a lot of white men I know.
They’s a lots of Negroes in Annadel, and I like about most of them. The Jim Crow don’t go here. Ermel ain’t happy about it, but he admits that colored people’s money spends just as good as white people’s. And he’ll say, “It’s a hell of a lot easier to deal with a nigger than a damn dago. At least a nigger speaks English.”
I was scairt of the Negroes at first. It was something different. Then Doc Booker come on the city council with me. One night we got drunk together after a meeting and Doc started cussing the coal companies. After that we got on just fine.
Doc told me a lot about history that I didn’t know. The Negroes, they been kicked around. They know what it is. The white man, he’s a little slow to learn. You got to kick him about ten times solid, till his teeth is all knocked out and his balls is black and blue, before he catches on that he’s been whupped.
We got four Negroes on the council now and Doc Booker was mayor twicet before me. We got Negroes on the police force, and colored and white mix in the hotel and in the whorehouses. The Justice Clarion claimed Annadel is like “Sodom and Gomorrah, a den of violence, drunkenness, depravity, and miscegenation.” Last couple of years they added “radicalism” to their list. What they don’t like is that this here is the one place in all these coalfields where a man can be free, speak his mind, do like he pleases. Sure we got problems. The police is busy most nights breaking up fights, and Doc does a lots of business on people that been shot. But it beats what happens other places.
One thing I tried to teach Rondal is to respect the coloreds and the foreigners. He was raised up wrong that way. And I’ll say this for Isom, it don’t make no difference to him the color of a man’s skin, nor how much money he has. Isom likes everybody.
Doc Booker tends the colored people at Jenkinjones as well as Annadel. The coal camp doctor at Jenkinjones won’t see Negroes, and Lytton Davidson didn’t want to pay for a doctor just for coloreds. That is the only reason Doc Booker is allowed to hang around Jenkinjones.
Winter of 1904 when they was real bad cholera, Doc begged medicine from my drugstore for his patients at Jenkinjones. Later on, when the danger was over, he took me on his rounds to meet some of the folks I’d helped.
When we got off the train at Jenkinjones, a mine guard stopped us. The brown handle of a pistol showed at his belt.
“What was you doin on the nigger car?” he demanded.
“Dont I look nigger?” I held my hand close to his face. “See them half-moons under my fingernails? That means nigger blood.”
“What?” He glared at me suspiciously.
“Aint you never heard that? Ask Doc here.”
“That’s right.” Doc nodded his head solemnly. “You got one drop of Negro blood and it show up in your fingernails.”
We left the man anxiously studying his own hands and hiked up the creek toward colored row. The massive brick company store blocked our way, straddled the narrow holler like a setting hen squatted down to guard a nest full of eggs. We passed it on a path that rimmed the creek bed.
I sat on rickety chairs, in little rooms whose walls were blackened with soot from stove chimneys, while Doc pressed his stethoscope to chests that heaved patiently. Sometimes he would look at me while he listened and raise his eyebrows. His eyes, what you call the whites of the eyes, was actually yellow, like they was stained with tobacco juice.
“What this boy been havin to eat?” he would ask.
“Cornbread and gravy. He spit it up.”
“Can you git a soup bone?”
“Maybe I ask the store. Nothing to go with it, though, till the garden come in.”
They never paid Doc. They didn’t have no money. Doc talked while we dodged around septic mud puddles between the houses.
“I judge half the houses here got a baby buried in the back yard where the mother give birth before her time, mostly in the winter. The mother be hungry and the baby be born weak. The mother wont have much milk. And take a look in the cemetery here. Aint nobody buried there that lived past fifty. You look. I give you ten dollars if you find more than two or three old people buried there.”
Foam gathered along the edges of Pliny Creek, and the smell of sewage was strong in the wet spring air. We passed by a row of white peoples’ houses. A woman come out on her porch.
“Yoo hoo!” she hollered.
We stopped.
“You a doctor?”
“Yes, ma’am.�
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“I got a youngun doin poorly. Can you look at her?”
A neighbor woman was hanging clothes on the line in her yard. She watched us climb the rickety front steps.
“Ethel, dont you let no nigger touch that child. No tellin what he’ll do.”
Ethel ignored her and stood with arms folded across her chest as we entered the house. The child lay wrapped in a blanket on a bed in the front room. They was four beds there, and no other furniture.
“Doc Boreman claims she’s took with the flux,” she said.
“So I see. ‘Pears she’s had it quite a spell.”
“Doctor aint been back in a month. Cant git him to come. Hit’s the drink is what it is. He lays drunk up in that office and dont see nobody.”
“He may do that for the same reason I’d like to do it,” Doc said, a tad too charitably, to my mind. “I can give you some medicine, but the main thing that child needs is good food. And I know you aint got it, so what good do it do for me to suggest it?”
The woman sat on a bed and clasped her hands acrost her belly. Her hands were big, her knuckles knobby.
“My man’s already workin sixteen hour a day. They’s eight younguns.”
“Honey, I know it. It’s the same story I hear on colored row.”
Doc give her some calomel I had donated. When we left, the neighbor woman was still in her yard. She was heavyset, and her hands was on her hips. Her only protection against the stiff wind was a thin brown sweater buttoned crooked up the front so the top button hung empty. Two boys was with her.
“Git on home, nigger,” she hollered. “We dont like you comin in here.”
A rock sailed past our heads as we walked down the road.
Doc held his bag on his lap during the three-mile ride home, as though it was a comfort to cradle it there. That bag is the only fancy thing about Doc. It was a gift from a doctor at the Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, where Doc studied medicine after he graduated from Howard University. His full name is printed on the side in gold—Toussaint L’Ouverture Booker, M.D. The bag is made of shiny black leather, in contrast to his shoes, which are scuffed white across the toes.
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