Yard War

by Taylor Kitchings

  Daddy raised his eyebrows and didn’t say anything.

  “I say ‘colored person’ or ‘Negro,’ ” Mama said. “Never that other word that starts with n, or any other ugly term. Unlike a lot of people around here.”

  The other day when we were taking Willie Jane home because her Buick wouldn’t start, Mama said she wanted me to go too, because Daddy was still working at the hospital and she wanted a man in the car. I felt good being the man in the car, but kind of bad that Willie Jane has been my other mama my whole life and I didn’t have any idea where she lived. I never pictured her in any house but mine.

  Farish and Ginny Lynn sat in the back with Willie Jane, and I sat up front with Mama. We drove way out on Woodrow Wilson Boulevard across a couple of bridges before we turned onto her street. She still lives in a shotgun shack, like the one she told me about living in when she was a girl, all crowded up with others just like it. The only fences are chicken wire, and the yards are either all dirt or all weeds. It’s like even the trees don’t want to be there. I knew colored people don’t have as much as we do, but I guess I never knew how much they don’t have.

  I met Mama’s eyes, and I knew we were both thinking how run-down and sad everything looked. Then Ginny Lynn piped up: “Uh-oh, we’re in colored-town!”

  I slunk down as far as I could go. Mama sat up and looked like she was ready to yank some hair out of somebody’s head.

  “Where in the world did Ginny Lynn hear that name?” She was using her trying-to-be-calm voice, but her eyes had gone black.

  “She didn’t hear it from me!” Farish said.

  “Me neither!” I said.

  “Well, somebody taught it to her,” Mama said. “Ginny Lynn, honey, we don’t say that. Now tell Willie Jane you’re sorry.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ginny Lynn said.

  “That’s okay, sweet girl.” Willie Jane laughed and tried to make Mama feel better, because who knows what a four-year-old white girl will say?

  All the way back to our house, me and Farish had to convince Mama that we had never used that name in our lives and there were lots of other places Ginny Lynn could have picked it up besides from us. Mama admitted we were right, but her eyes were still black. When she says she’s not a racist, she’s telling the truth.

  —

  I didn’t get up until after ten. Willie Jane was loading the dishwasher when I went into the kitchen.

  “Mornin’, Mr. Sleepyhead.”

  “Mornin’. Where is everybody?”

  “Farish is down the street. Ginny Lynn’s watching cartoons. Ya mama runnin’ errands and ya daddy is trying to rest. You missed the pancakes.”

  “Huh?”

  “Buckwheats.”

  “Aw, come on, Willie Jane.”

  She knows buckwheats are my favorite.

  “What you expect, you come in the kitchen so late? No more batter.”

  “You can make some more.”

  “Unh-unh, I got to vacuum. Ya mama want me to vacuum this whole house today. And finish the ironing and—”

  “Ple-e-e-ease….”

  “Can’t do it.”

  “Come o-o-o-o-n….”

  She closed up the dishwasher and turned it on and turned around.

  “I can show you how to make ’em,” she said.

  “I don’t feel like learning how to make ’em. I’m too sleepy.”

  “Then I guess you gonna have to ask yourself, ‘Am I more hungry or am I more sleepy?’ ”

  “I’m sleepy and hungry and you’re the maid.”

  I wasn’t trying to be mean, but dadgummit, I wanted some pancakes.

  I knew she was mad, because she wouldn’t say one more word. I kept sitting there and didn’t say anything either. She got another big bowl out of the cabinet and started mixing up some more batter, and when she had made them, she kept on not saying anything and handed me my buckwheat pancakes.

  I buttered them real good and poured molasses all over them and ate on the couch in the den so I could be away from Willie Jane.

  Dee was working out front. If he would hurry up and finish the yard, we could do something till the guys got here for the game. Meanwhile, I couldn’t find much of anything to do by myself. The last time I told Willie Jane I was bored, she had said, “Bored? On the best day of your life?”

  “Why is this the best day of my life?” It was just a Tuesday.

  “ ’Cause it’s the one you have.”

  Now I find something to do.

  I decided to finish my new Dracula model on the patio, where the paint fumes weren’t so bad. The trick is to get that little speck of white in the eye. That’s what makes them look alive. But even after I got my speck of white better than it’s ever been, I had this feeling that making monster models wasn’t as much fun as it used to be. I’ve been having that feeling a lot.

  Mama took us to the fair last week. Everything smelled and tasted as good as ever. The midway was jam-packed with people, and the rides and games were all lit up as bright as ever. But the Ferris wheel seemed like the same old Ferris wheel, especially riding it with my sister, and even the Wild Mouse was something I had done enough times. Like I had used it up. The man running the Tilt-A-Whirl had a face like a leather map, and he was real skinny and missing teeth and did not seem to like anybody. I had never really noticed the people who run the rides.

  I remember thinking when I was a kid that those paintings advertising Lobster Boy and Alligator Woman were the coolest part of the whole fair, and I couldn’t wait to be old enough to go in there and have a look. But this year, Mama told me about those paintings, and she said they were probably just a man and a woman with fake scales and painted skin, or some poor unfortunates with birth defects, and how could anybody gawk at that? She said it was cruel. So now I don’t want to go see them. I don’t even know if I care about going back to the fair next year, which is something I thought I’d never say. I might just tell Farish to bring me some taffy.

  She was out on the patio with me, playing with an old Hula-Hoop I found in the storeroom. Farish took one look and grabbed it and started spinning it around her waist. You won’t catch me doing that.

  I finished my Dracula and told Farish to put that Hula-Hoop down and throw me some passes. She said no. Because I wanted her to.

  “You couldn’t throw wet macaroni at a wall anyway,” I told her.

  The truth is, Farish has a good arm for a girl. She may be only eight, but she can handle a baseball pretty good. Mama says she’s a tomboy and her new short hair suits her. Farish probably would have cut it as short as a boy’s if Mama had let her.

  “You couldn’t throw applesauce at a balloon,” she said.

  “Twerp.”

  “Goob.”

  “Oooh, I’m gon’ tell Mama you said ‘goob,’ ” I said.

  “No!”

  There’s nothing ’specially wrong with saying “goob,” but Farish didn’t know that.

  “Throw me some passes or I’m tellin’.” I handed her the ball.

  She made a face like I smelled bad. “I’ll throw from the patio. I do not feel like gettin’ my feet dirty.”

  Farish loves to get dirty.

  “Okay, you can stand on the patio and protect your precious tootsies.”

  “I’m gonna tell Mama you said ‘tootsies.’ ”

  “Let’s see how you handle a football.”

  I was running a crossing route from one side of the yard to the other.

  “All you have to do is get the ball to me when I come by,” I told her. “Ready? On three.”

  She nodded and made her determined face. I got set.

  “Hut one! Hut two! Hut three!”

  Every time I got to where I was supposed to catch it, the ball hit the ground ten yards behind me and rolled down the hill. Superman couldn’t have backed up fast enough.

  After I ran down there and brought it back a few times, I said, “Farish, listen. Aim for in front of me.”

  “You me
an throw it at the air?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you say so.”

  I got into my stance.

  “Hut one! Hut two!…”

  Farish reared back and heaved it as hard as she could before I could even say “Hut three.” It cleared the second flower bed and rolled on down to the creek.

  “Farish!”

  “I threw it at the air, Trip! That’s what you said!”

  “Here!” I handed her the Hula-Hoop and went after the ball.

  The Hula-Hoop came wobbling by as I walked back up the yard.

  “Look, I did it!” she yelled. “All the way to the creek!”

  “And you’re gonna have to go get it, too!”

  She took off running and was almost to the spot when I remembered. I had been checking for that snake from a safe distance every day, feeling the same sick in my stomach, not wanting to ever see it again—but at the same time wanting to, so I could chop its head off and not have to think about it anymore.

  “The snake! The snake! Farish! Don’t move!”

  “Where?” She bent over and started looking all around. I ran down and dragged her away.

  “That’s right where it was,” I told her. “Still as a log. Just waiting for a dumb girl to put her foot on it.”

  “I want to see it.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “Maybe it’s over on the other side.”

  We stayed back from the bank and walked the length of the creek between our yard and Stokes’s. It was hard to know for sure because the grass was so high in places, but we never saw it.

  Then Farish said she wanted to get some sugar cane from Mr. Pinky’s garden. I went back into the house to get a knife, and when I came out, Dee was on the patio telling Farish how glad he was to finally be finished with all that raking.

  I invited him to come with us, and we walked down the backyard and over to the bridge and cut into Mr. Pinky’s backyard. Mrs. Pinky was standing in her kitchen window, and I was afraid for her to see Dee with us. But she rapped on the glass and waved real big and smiled. At Dee, too. We stepped through the pumpkins, into the green jungle of sugar cane, and I sawed off a couple of joints of cane and stripped them and cut them into bite-size pieces.

  We sat on the railroad ties between Mr. Pinky’s garden and the Bethunes’ yard and did us some chewin’. There’s nothing like sugar cane. It’s like a chunk of fresh-cut tree that got soaked in water and grass and sugar. I warned Dee and Farish to be careful about running their fingers the wrong way on the ties. You don’t want to get a splinter.

  We chewed up our first batch and spit it out, and I cut some more. Farish was so busy chewing, she hardly said anything, which was a nice change. I showed Dee how I can squeeze my hands together and make fart noises come out from three different sides. He can do it with his armpit. Mostly we just sat and chewed. With some people I would have felt like it would be bad to let it get quiet. But with Dee, it didn’t seem like we needed to talk unless we had something to say.

  Mr. Pinky’s back door slammed. His voice and a voice I didn’t know were coming down to the garden. We could barely see them through the cane.

  “Looks like your punkins are comin’ right along,” the other voice said.

  Farish stood up, and I could tell she was about to yell “Hey, Mr. Pinky!” so I put my hand over her mouth and sat her back down. I don’t know why. It wasn’t like we were doing anything wrong. I just liked being hidden up in there.

  “I tell you what, I ain’t sleepin’ too good since them trains started comin’ through here so late,” said the other voice. “That ol’ bastud lays on that whistle.”

  “Ol’ bastud.”

  Trains late at night don’t bother me at all. They sound like news from the other side of the world.

  “Punkins gon’ be ready just in time for Halloween,” Mr. Pinky said.

  “Looks like it, looks like it.”

  “Y’all come get you one in a couple of weeks.”

  When they went back inside, Farish asked me, “What’s an ‘ol’ bastud’?”

  “Something bad,” I told her. “And you’re not supposed to say it.”

  I told Dee we oughta go get his mama to fix us some sandwiches because it was gonna be time to play football before too long. I bet him I could beat him back to the house, but he got there way ahead of me, which I already knew would happen. Farish got back to the house pretty fast too. For a girl.

  Willie Jane was ironing and watching Ginny Lynn, and Dee begged her to let us change the channel to football. He said our TV was bigger than his.

  We told Willie Jane we were starving and needed emergency sandwiches.

  “Dee can have a sandwich,” she said, “but you can’t.”

  “What? Willie Jane, I’m sorry if I was mean about the pancakes, okay?”

  “You still can’t have a sandwich.”

  “Why not?”

  “Ya mama say y’all are havin’ a sit-down family lunch because she and ya daddy are throwin’ a party tonight and there won’t be time for a sit-down supper. A sandwich will spoil ya lunch.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “She said heat up the leftover chicken and dumplings from last night, and cook some turnip greens to go with it and that’s what you’re gonna eat.”

  “I’m starving!”

  “And y’all can’t be messin’ up in here either. Keep this house clean,” she said. “Farish, play with ya sister while I fix some pimiento cheese.”

  “I will watch my sister,” Farish said, “but I have absolutely no idea how to play with her, because she is four and I am eight.”

  She copies Mama all the time, like “I have absolutely no idea.”

  Willie Jane brought out a plate with three whole sandwiches after all, with potato chips, and milk with chocolate-flavored straws.

  “Thanks, Willie Jane!” She knows how much I love her pimiento cheese.

  The game on TV got boring and we started talking. Dee told me that the scariest show he ever saw was Rodan, about a giant bird monster. I told him about the picture of Moby-Dick in my Book of Knowledge collection. Moby-Dick is a giant white whale, big as a ship, and he’s coming up out of the water with little beady eyes and a giant white jaw that would snap you in half. When I was little, it scared me so bad I’d drop the book. I still have to sneak up on that page.

  I took Dee back to my room and showed him the Moby-Dick picture and my monster model collection. He said he wasn’t scared of Moby-Dick, but he really liked my Frankenstein. He said he was gonna buy a Rodan model kit he could make. I’m pretty sure they don’t make a Rodan model kit, but I didn’t say that. There’s no point in discouraging somebody unless you have to.

  When Mama called everybody to the table, I asked her if Dee could sit with us.

  “His mama told me Dee already had lunch.”

  “He could just sit with us.”

  “Dee can watch TV while we eat.”

  “But why can’t he—”

  “Because I said so.”

  Willie Jane brought out the chicken and dumplings with some corn bread and a big bowl full of turnip greens. Daddy asked her to please bring him some hot sauce for his greens and a glass of buttermilk to dip his corn bread in. I looked at Farish and we both made a face.

  Daddy had just gotten up from a nap. He said he had to work until “the wee hours” last night. I love staying up until the wee hours. My main goal in life until I was seven was to stay up all night like Daddy. It finally happened when Stokes’s mom took us to see a movie that had a banshee in it. All night, me and Stokes looked out his bedroom window at the clouds sailing past a full moon, seeing banshees and leprechauns and all kinds of creatures. It got tough around four a.m., but we had made a blood-brother vow to stay up until sunrise and it felt great to have done it. But not as great as I wanted it to feel. And now I had to think of another main goal in life.

  Daddy started talking about the clinic in Kansas City again and said he wa
s gonna fly up there pretty soon to see if it might be a good idea for us to move there. Every time he brings up the idea of moving, the girls whine, and Mama and I look down and don’t say anything.

  “We’re just talking about it, girls,” Mama said. “It’s nothing definite.”

  “Y’all can move if you want to,” said Farish.

  “Hush up and eat your turnip greens,” Mama said.

  “No thank you.”

  “Three bites. They’re good for you.”

  “I can’t even eat one bite.”

  “You heard me, young lady.”

  “Do as your mother says, Farish,” Daddy said, like he really didn’t care one way or the other.

  Farish sighed and looked at her plate.

  “Three bites,” Mama said.

  Farish put the smallest amount she could get away with on her fork and nudged it into her mouth like Mama was making her eat cat spit.

  “Turnip greens is for ol’ bastuds,” she said softly.

  “What did you say, young lady?”

  “I said turnip greens is ol’ bastud food!”

  Mama slapped Farish’s hand, and Farish jumped up and ran to her room. Ginny Lynn’s eyes got big as quarters.

  Mama said, “Trip Westbrook, did you teach your sister that word?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Well, who did? Did Dee teach it to her?”

  “No, ma’am, Mr. Pinky said it. He didn’t know we could hear him.”

  “You better not let me hear you sayin’ it either.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Then she shot a look at Daddy that said this was somehow all his fault. She said everybody was going to be here for the party in just a few hours, and she didn’t know how she was gonna be ready in time.

  We finished lunch quick. Mama jumped up and went into the kitchen and started giving more instructions to Willie Jane.

  Daddy and I stayed at the table and talked about bad words. I asked him exactly what “bastud” means, and he said the word is “b-a-s-t-a-r-d” and it’s somebody whose father isn’t married to his mother. Then I asked him about “yay-ho,” which is what Papaw calls people he doesn’t like. Daddy said the real word is “yahoo,” and it’s from Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, and it means people who act like animals, not whoever disagrees with you, the way Papaw uses it.