Original Sins

by Lisa Alther

  He reprimanded himself. Some things were simple to those objective enough to see them. The Negro population of this region had been systematically starved, exploited, and abused for far too long, and it was time to put a stop to it, which was why he was here. What’s complicated about that, Raymond Redneck? he asked himself.

  The major place of work in Wilbur was a canning factory. Houses and services for its workers comprised the town. Surrounding it were farms that grew vegetables for the factory. On the outskirts of the farms were rows of two-room cottages on red clay roads in which lived the Negroes who picked the crops. Farther out, scattered through the red clay hills, were the tenant farmers, white and Negro.

  Raymond’s carload joined another in the basement of a Negro church on the edge of the cottages. They slept all together, boys and girls, Negroes and whites, on the floor in sleeping bags. The project director was a Negro woman from Atlanta named Glenda. At the first staff meeting Justin began quoting Marx.

  Glenda dismissed him with a shrug. “Honey, I don’t give a shit bout no Marx. I got to get me six crates of baked beans out to Taloosa, Tennessee, by early this evening.” They were divided into teams and assigned areas to canvass. Glenda made suggestions on how to approach people, and described the actual mechanics of getting someone registered.

  Morris and Justin and a couple of others argued about the “manipulation of community people.”

  Glenda interrupted. “All right, white boys, who’s gon drive the Ford into Newland for groceries tomorrow?” Raymond was aghast. People screamed at Justin, struggled to outquote him. But no one had ever shrugged him off like an annoying puppy. And certainly not a woman, not a Negro woman, not a Southern Negro woman.

  Maria suppressed a smile as Justin’s face turned grey. Glenda glanced at him. He gave her a tight smile. She continued assigning chores, not smiling. Weakly, Justin turned his profile to her. She looked away.

  To Raymond’s astonishment Justin began hanging around Glenda all the time. Raymond overheard her say, “Listen, baby, white boys don’t want but two things from nigger women: housework and pussy. And Justin honey, I know you ain’t got you no house.” This only seemed to spur Justin on. Raymond couldn’t figure it out. He himself stayed as far away from her as possible. He was a mass of anxious confusion around her. Ruby and Kathryn had cuddled him when he was a child, but he was no longer a child, and the role of the white male in Negro women’s lives in the South was that of rapist. Yet he found himself wanting to sit on her lap, his head resting on her breast, while she tied his shoes. And he hated himself for seeing her like this.

  One night Raymond was propped against the wall on his rolled-up sleeping bag trying to read Kapital. Morris and Justin beat a hollow rhythm on the Ping-Pong ball. Reports had drifted in that afternoon of a voter registration team in Chattanooga—a rabbi, a priest, and two students—who’d been knocked down and kicked by angry whites. Raymond had met the priest once at a meeting in Chattanooga. He was from Massachusetts and exclaimed to Raymond over how cute the little pickaninnies were, with their big wide eyes and grins. Frankly, Raymond had also wanted to kick him.

  Raymond thought about his documentary—the bombing of the Birmingham church, Medgar Evers’s murder—and realized he was terrified. He glanced at the others, who were writing letters, reading, or talking quietly. On the rare occasions when a car would pass on the gravel road outside, all activity would cease. The girls cleaning up in the kitchen would stop talking. The guitar being picked would cease abruptly. Pens would hang over paper. The Ping-Pong ball was held in front of an upraised paddle. As the headlights swept through the windows and across the room, each person listened intently—to the basso continuo of frogs, locusts, and crickets, to the crunch of car over gravel—praying that neither noise would alter or cease.

  They heard footsteps, a knock at the door. All activity in the room halted at once. Raymond assured himself that the Klan wouldn’t bother to knock. Glenda went to the door. An old Negro man in coveralls, carrying a chocolate cake, entered. A couple of people laughed nervously, and Morris served the Ping-Pong ball.

  The old man nodded shyly to the group and handed Glenda the cake. “The missus, she say can you use you a fudge layer cake?”

  Glenda talked to the old man in a low voice, apparently about the incident in Chattanooga. He chuckled. “Yeah, that’s a tough cat to clean up after, ain’t it?”

  The courage, thought Raymond. To have lived with intimidation his entire life and still be able to chuckle, still be thoughtful enough to bring others fudge layer cakes. It blew Raymond away.

  After the old man left, Morris said to Justin, “Did you hear that cat? Did you really hear him, man?”

  Justin nodded. “Dig it.”

  In his sleeping bag Raymond imagined a casement window pushed open, a fire bomb dropped in. The door opening silently to admit ranks of white-sheeted maniacs. Weapons: knives from the kitchen. The Klan would have guns. Every man in the South had several. Would Negroes from nearby houses help out? Probably not. They were even more terrified than he, had every reason to be. The girls. Would they be raped? It was bad enough being an unarmed man. Imagine being a girl. No, Southern males were too hung up on chivalry. They wouldn’t rape defenseless girls. Unless they were Negro girls…. There was another besides Glenda—Annabelle. They should be spirited upstairs, hidden under the altar. The Klan wouldn’t think to search upstairs. If they did, they wouldn’t defile a church. They were mostly Fundamentalists—Baptists, Church of God, Holiness people—took their religion very seriously. But a Negro church? How about that church in Birmingham? True, he was short and skinny, had never won a fight in his life. But the time came for every man when he had to make a stand against Injustice. He lit a cigarette and hung it from his lower lip.

  Raymond was so worked up he couldn’t sleep. He crawled out of his sleeping bag, stepped over the others, and let himself out the door. It was like stepping into a warm bath—lukewarm air enveloped him, insect chatter filled his ears. He walked to the rear of the church and climbed the ladder onto the flat roof, a spot he came to often when he needed to recover from group living.

  They could all climb up here and pull the ladder up. There was a low wall on all sides to crouch behind. What could they throw down? He tried to remember the tactics of beleaguered Christians in Crusader movies. Boiling oil? Rocks? What if the Klan set the church on fire? They’d be roasted alive up here, like pigeons in clay. What did Gregory Peck do in Pork Chop Hill?

  Then he remembered the sessions in New York. Passive resistance. They weren’t supposed to fight back. They were supposed to roll into balls, like those orange and black caterpillars The Five used to collect. By accepting violence without reprisal, the volunteers could illustrate that it was possible not to hate those who reviled and persecuted you. Those performing the violence could see the loathsomeness of their behavior and repent. On the rooftop this strategy violated his instincts, which tended toward defiance. He wanted to go to his death kicking and cursing.

  Maybe he should talk the others into taking turns guarding up here at night. He strode back and forth chewing his fingernails. As the black in the east turned to dark grey, he clambered down. Back in the basement he kissed Maria awake and led her, yawning, to the roof, where he spread his sleeping bag. He buried his face between her large breasts. He felt her vagina tighten around him as he thrust into her. They weren’t able to be alone much. Raymond knew that each time they made love might very well be their last. These bodies that gave them so much joy were fragile, infinitely vulnerable. And there were people out there who wanted to maim and destroy them.

  An overwhelming greed for life gripped Raymond. He thrust harder and faster, making Maria writhe against him; she moaned so loud that he had to cup his hand over her mouth.

  Afterward they lay in each other’s arms and watched the long pale fingers of dawn gently stroke the night sky until the grey became engorged with crimson. The fiery ball burst up over the horizon, sp
urting streams of molten sunlight. The green hillsides were swathed in drifting veils of mist. Dew glittered red in the rising sun, like diamonds in a furnace. The birds began their daily din. Cows cropped tender shoots of new grass. Raymond reflected that he had drunk the milk of those cows, eaten the flesh almost his whole life. He’d eaten fruits and vegetables grown in that sticky red clay. His body—this body that was giving him so much pleasure with Maria—was actually composed of the soil out there on those hillsides. Whereas the elements that made up Maria’s luscious body were from all over the country, all over the world. Mangoes from Mexico, she was formed from. Borscht from Kiev.

  “Christ, it’s so beautiful here,” Raymond said in a choked voice.

  “Too bad it’s filled with such unbeautiful people,” Maria murmured.

  Raymond looked at her. “They’re my people.”

  “Not anymore. You left, remember?”

  “How would you feel, Maria, if I said Jews were unbeautiful people?”

  “Lots are.”

  “But how would you feel if I said it?”

  “Annoyed.”

  “But I’m not supposed to feel annoyed when you all say that about Southerners?”

  “Oh come on, Raymond, don’t tell me you’re trying to defend crackers?” She laughed.

  “I’m just trying to point out that you’re as racist as they are. As we are.”

  “But that’s ridiculous. Jews have been persecuted. Southerners have been persecutors. You can’t compare them.”

  “But you’re treating people as categories rather than as individuals.”

  “Isn’t that what Southerners are doing when they deny someone a job just because his skin is dark?”

  “But that’s my point. You’re doing the same thing.”

  “Garbage,” said Maria.

  When they’d first started canvassing, they’d all been unsure of themselves, in spite of their training. But by now they’d established a style. Justin, Maria, and he walked to a tenant’s house—three rooms of weathered wood. The name on the mailbox was T. R. Randall. They marched across the dirt yard onto a rickety porch. Justin knocked. Eventually a Negro woman in a tattered maid’s dress answered.

  “Howdy, Mrs. Randall. Justin Lawson here,” he drawled, trying to hide his New York accent. Her eyes grew wide with alarm that he should know her name. “This here’s Maria Stoneberg and Raymond Tatro. We’re staying over at the church. There’s a lot of us working in this area. You may have heard about us?”

  “Yes sir, I did. Won’t yall come in?”

  Raymond could tell she was praying they’d decline.

  “Why, thank you, we’d love to.” They marched in and perched on her sofa, which was exuding stuffing like popped cotton pods.

  She clenched her apron hem and watched them. Two small children hid in her skirts and peeped out. “Yall excuse me just a minute, I’ll go fetch Mr. Randall.” She went to the back door and sent a child racing across the yard to a listing shed.

  “Hot enough for you?” Justin demanded.

  “Yes sir, it sure is.”

  They sat in silence.

  “Got your crops in yet?” Justin asked.

  “The tabbacky is out. But the corn ain’t in. Too wet to plough.”

  “Wet?” Justin and Maria said simultaneously. “You’ve had a lot of rain this year?”

  “Yeah, Lord, we like to been warshed away.”

  “That a fact?” They’d already been told this at a dozen different houses.

  Mr. Randall appeared in the doorway. He wore overalls, an undershirt, and work shoes. He smiled shyly and said, “Hidy. How yall today?”

  Justin thrust out his hand. Mr. Randall stared at it, then shook it gingerly, as though being passed leprosy spores.

  “You see, Mr. and Mrs. Randall, we’re going from house to house trying to get folks to go down to the courthouse and register to vote.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Are you registered voters?”

  Another long pause.

  “No sir, we ain’t,” Mr. Randall finally replied.

  “Are you planning to go down there soon?”

  Mr. and Mrs. Randall glanced at each other. “We ain’t never felt no need to vote.”

  “But it’s so important,” Maria interjected. “The way things are right now, the man that gets elected doesn’t have to pay any attention to your people. But if you all were helping to put him in office, he’d have to, wouldn’t he?”

  “Yes ma’am, I reckon so.”

  Raymond could tell by the set of Mr. Randall’s jaw that he was increasingly determined not to vote. Maria interpreted his polite agreement as encouragement. “I mean, for instance, the road commissioner would have to pave your road if you could vote him out of office, wouldn’t he?”

  “Thas a fact,” he said with a shy smile.

  Raymond was confused. What Maria was saying was true. But they were violating the Southern code by not heeding the signs that said Mr. Randall wanted them out of his house. Maria and Justin couldn’t be expected to recognize those signs, not knowing that Southerners of both races were reared on the aphorism “The true test of good manners is whether or not you can be pleasant to someone with bad manners.” Raymond had a responsibility here to take charge.

  “Well, guess we’d better be going,” Raymond announced, standing up. Mr. and Mrs. Randall looked at him with gratitude. Maria and Justin looked at him with amazement since they’d barely begun their pitch.

  “Yeah, the elected officials should be working for you,” Justin continued. A glazed look came over Mr. Randall’s dark eyes. Similar to the look that comes over a buck’s eyes when it’s been shot.

  “Can I offer yall folks some coffee?” Mrs. Randall asked, her tone indicating this was a formality to be declined.

  “No, thank you, m’am,” Raymond replied. It would use up a week’s supply. He realized with a start that he had more in common with the Randalls than with Maria and Justin. The Randalls kept food on their table with difficulty. They weren’t interested in whether their road was paved or not because they and their friends didn’t have cars.

  “That would be lovely,” replied Maria, probably operating out of the Yankee convention of accepting cups of hot something as a social gesture.

  “Please.” Justin nodded.

  “You sure you won’t have none now?” she asked Raymond.

  “No, thank you, ma’am.” His skin crawled with anxiety. Yes, it was important to get them registered, if only to give them the self-respect that the status of Voter was supposed to bring. Yet the Randalls already exuded a quiet self-contained dignity.

  As they sipped coffee, Justin took out a registration form and handed it to Mr. Randall. From the way he handled it, Raymond could tell he could barely read. “We’ve found some folks are a little bit scared to go down to the courthouse because they don’t know just what to expect. They don’t know what they’re getting themselves into. But it’s no big deal really.”

  “Where yall from?” Mr. Randall asked, gazing at the form.

  Justin paused. “Well, Maria and I, we’re from New York. Raymond there’s from Tennessee.”

  Mr. Randall looked at him as though he were a sparrow in with a flock of buzzards. “Where at?”

  “Newland.”

  “I been there once. Got me a aunt up there. Pearly Randall. You know her?”

  “No, I don’t. Where does she live?”

  “Over by that river. I disremember her street name.”

  “I know that river pretty well. Some other kids and me had us this club and we used to …”

  Raymond and Mr. Randall swapped Newland stories, while Maria and Justin glanced at their watches, their forms, and each other.

  On the porch Justin asked, “You reckon you and Mrs. Randall will go down there and register soon?”

  “Well now, I surely will think on it. Yes sir, I surely will. And I do predate yall coming by.”

  As they walked do
wn the road, Raymond said, “You might as well mark them down no.” It felt good to Raymond to be able to offer Justin an insight. Justin could help him understand New York City, and he’d help Justin understand Tennessee.

  “He said he’d think about it.”

  “He was just being polite.”

  “We were doing fine until you launched into your down-home backwoods bullshit.”

  Raymond was unnerved by Justin’s belligerent tone. He’d thought they were finally exercising some reciprocity. “No, we weren’t. We were in trouble from the minute we called her Mrs. Randall before letting her introduce herself.” He felt he was being generous saying “we” since it was Justin who’d done it.

  “Oh Christ, you crackers slay me! Now he’s pulling his ‘we know our niggers’ routine.”

  Anguish shot through Raymond. The truth was finally out: The man he admired most in the world thought he was a cracker. Only as long as he accepted with wide eyes everything Justin said would Justin tolerate him. Was there some way now to appease him, to regain his patronage? He’d make a joke! He opened his mouth to say, “Yeah, I guess you’re right, Justin.” But the words stuck in his throat. “I don’t know nothing about Negroes. But I do know something about Southerners. Because I am one.”

  Maria looked at him.

  Raymond and Maria lay on his sleeping bag on the roof, which was still warm from the afternoon sun. Raymond had been talking for twenty minutes without pause: “… so I get rid of my accent; I grow a beard; I wear jeans and work-shirts; I read Marx and Lenin and Fanon; I go to concerts and rallies and benefits, and give money and time and effort. Then I find out that all along he’s been thinking of me as a cracker.’ He goes crazy when a white person calls someone a nigger, but he doesn’t hesitate to call Southerners crackers and …”

  “Raymond, you’ve been talking on and on, and you don’t even realize I haven’t been listening. I might as well be a priest in a confessional. At least I’d get paid.” He looked at her, stunned. She was smiling sadly. “I guess our sexual problems stem from the same source.”