Spitting Image

by Shutta Crum

  I started going over and over in my head what I’d said to Mr. Birchfield and Mr. Henry, and what had happened during their visit. I tried to remember it all, exactly like it was. But I got madder and madder as I thought about it. I’d wanted them to write about how exceptional everything was here in Baylor. Instead, this felt like they’d crept up behind me and done something sneaky. And they hadn’t even put a picture of Cooch standing on his head in the papers.

  After a while, Mama came in. She pushed up on her bangs with one hand like it hurt her to have her hair touching her face. “OK, Jessie,” she said, sitting down next to me on the edge of the bed.

  “Mama, I never said those things. At least, not the way they came out in the newspapers.”

  “I know, Jessie. I know you wouldn’t have deliberately done that. But tell me exactly what did happen and exactly what you did say. Start at the beginning.”

  She already knew about me saving money for Robert’s glasses, and that Mr. Henry and Mr. Birchfield had hired me as a guide. I told her about them taking pictures at the Weavers and giving money to Mrs. Weaver. And I told her how Lester had said that sometimes photographers did that so folks would let them take pictures.

  I told her about the pictures they’d taken of Cooch and how they had agreed that Cooch was “exceptional,” a good example of local color. I told her about meeting Baby coming out of Miss Maybee’s house, and how I’d explained to them that the people that lived here in Baylor didn’t mind Baby coming through to eat.

  Then I had to tell Mama the hardest part—that the money Mr. Henry had given me was to have been shared with Baby, and I hadn’t done that. I’d put all the money in with the money for Robert’s glasses. “I’m sorry, Mama. I’m so sorry. I should have given it to Beryl Ann, and then she’d have known that they took pictures of Baby, even if Mr. Henry and Mr. Birchfield didn’t go to the Piggly Wiggly to find her. But I was afraid Doyle would find out about the money. Besides,” I rushed on, “I didn’t really think they’d use a picture of Baby. I told them when Baby ate at people’s houses, it was OK with everyone.”

  I looked at Mama, feeling sure she was disappointed in me again. “But the way the paper reported it, it makes Baby sound like a . . . I don’t know . . . a dog, or something that we all keep around by giving it handouts.”

  Mama sighed and sat for a long time on the edge of my bed with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered one more time.

  Finally, she said, “It was wrong of you to keep all the money, even for a good cause. At least, you should have told Beryl Ann about the reporters.” Mama stood up. “And I do see how, if someone wasn’t brought up here and didn’t know Baby, what you told them might sound a bit peculiar. I can see how it could have got all mixed up in their minds.”

  “But they should have told me, shouldn’t they, that they were gonna put all that in the paper. I thought they were my friends,” I said.

  “They certainly should have talked to Beryl Ann before they snapped even a single picture of Baby, or to me before they quoted you.”

  “Do you think something good can happen because of this?” I asked.

  Mama tilted her head and looked at me kind of funnylike.

  “I mean, Lester said sometimes good people can come and help folks if they get upset enough by what they see in the newspapers,” I explained. “And sometimes good things can come out of something bad. Maybe that’s all Mr. Birchfield and Mr. Henry were trying to do—to get people riled up in a good way to help with the president’s War on Poverty.”

  “Well,” Mama said, “folks around here certainly are going to be riled up. Let’s hope it’s in a good way. Who knows, maybe more people will donate money or help Miss Woodruff. The problem is. Beryl Ann has to be able to face her friends and the people at the Piggly Wiggly. She doesn’t want them to think she’s a bad mother.”

  “She’s not! She’s a good mother!”

  “We both know that, Jessie,” Mama said patiently, “but people who don’t know her so well might wonder now. They might wonder if she’s fit to take care of Robert and Baby.”

  “Fit? Fit! That’s what that social worker, Mr. Ritchey, was going on about.” I made a face at Mama. “Robert didn’t like him.”

  “Mr. Ritchey’s got a job to do. The state hires him to keep an eye on kids and make sure they’re well taken care of, that kind of thing. And now, because of this article in the paper, he’ll probably be back to see Beryl Ann.”

  “Hmmph!” I snorted. “He ought to be snooping over at Dickie’s.”

  Mama’s eyes widened and she sucked in on her lower lip. “We’ll see about that,” she said. She got up to leave. At the bedroom door she turned. “Beryl Ann’s still here, if you’ve got something to say to her.”

  I knew I had to, but it wasn’t going to be easy. “Do I have to tell her about the money for Robert’s glasses?” I asked.

  “Not right now,” Mama said. “We’ll talk about that later.”

  I shuffled down the hall and into the kitchen behind Mama. Beryl Ann was at the sink, wiping down her face with a wet washcloth. She smiled weakly at me.

  “I’m sorry, Beryl Ann,” I said, trying not to choke up on my words. “I should have told you the reporters took some pictures of Baby. But I never said what the papers said I did, not the way they wrote it.”

  She sniffed some more and took a long catchy breath. “I know, Jessie Kay. I know you wouldn’t . . . you wouldn’t say anything in the world that would be hurtful to Baby or any of us.” She put her hand on the back of a chair to steady herself. “I’ve just got to get through work tomorrow, and the next day. Then it’ll get better.” She tried to smile her funny, lopsided smile at me. Only it wasn’t working so well right now.

  I ran to her and threw my arms around her and buried my face in her dress. “You and Mama are the two best mothers in the whole world!”

  “Now you’ve gone and done it, Jessie Kay,” Beryl Ann said as she hugged me. “Now I’m crying again.”

  thirty-two

  I TOLD MAMA THE NEXT DAY that I’d like to give back Mr. Henry and Mr. Birchfield’s money. But Mama said no. It was meant for a good cause, and no matter what happened, it ought to be used for that. She also said that as soon as she got home from the Gas & Go for lunch that day, we’d drive up to the Weavers’ and give it to Miss Woodruff so she could get Robert’s glasses arranged for right away.

  Besides, from the look on Mama’s face, I knew she had some message she wanted Miss Woodruff to pass on to Mr. Henry and Mr. Birchfield.

  Mama was all business that morning. As she passed my bedroom door, she shouted at me to make my bed. “And for goodness sake, clean Mr. Perkins’s tank—it stinks!”

  “OK!” I started yanking at the sheets on my bed. Then I looked at Mr. Perkins. “It’s all right, Mr. Perkins,” I said, as I lifted him out of his tank and sat him in a shoebox. “She didn’t mean it personally. You know there’s just no getting around Mama when she’s like this.”

  So I cleaned my room, and Mr. Perkins’s, while Mama worked. I figured some exercise would do us both good, so I went outside and jumped rope to five hundred and made Mr. Perkins jump ten times before I put him back in his clean tank. Then we both had breakfast.

  After breakfast I went over to see Lester. I definitely needed another deep-thinking drink from his well.

  I stopped on his porch, slid the well cover to the side, and dropped the bucket. After a nice long drink, I whispered, “Ah . . . the best water in the world.” Then I peeked in the screen door. “Lester?”

  He was reading at his kitchen table. He pushed a bunch of papers and books aside as I pulled up a chair and plopped my chin in my hand. “Lester, nothing’s turning out right. They got everything in the newspaper upside down, and Robert and Beryl Ann are both upset. And Mama’s mad.”

  I put my head down on the table and felt its coolness on my hot cheek. I glanced up at him. “I didn’t know
they would actually put a picture of Baby in the paper, and I don’t think anything good’s gonna come of it. Not like those other articles and pictures you talked about.”

  Lester nodded. “It’s easy for things to get out of hand. Here,” he said, adjusting his glasses and pulling over a big book and some of the papers on his table. “I dug out that New York Times article again last night.” I sat up and he showed me the newspaper we’d looked at a couple of weeks before.

  I pointed at the picture of the miner and his family. “You said sometimes news like this can make good things happen. What happened yesterday sure wasn’t good. Everyone’s crying. And I don’t know if Robert’s ever gonna talk to me again.”

  Lester peered at the picture in the paper. “There’s only one thing wrong with these kinds of articles and pictures,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “How would you feel if you were the one in the picture?”

  I looked again at the ripped underwear and the torn clothes of the kids in the picture and thought about how dirty Baby had looked in the picture he was in. “I guess I should have gotten Baby all dressed up if he was going to have his picture taken,” I said.

  “But remember, I told you the photographers who take these pictures don’t want that. They want the people in the pictures to look like they do every day. That way the world can see how the poor really live.”

  “If I was poor, I wouldn’t want everybody knowing it.”

  Lester nodded. “That’s just it. Folks have got their pride. It’s hard to let the whole world see your suffering.”

  Then he opened the book he had pulled over. Inside were old black-and-white pictures, mostly of poor folks, by photographers named Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange. There were lots of kids and farmers and their wives who looked limp and worn out. It made me feel real sad to see those pictures.

  “These are famous photographs,” Lester told me. “Some photographers who traveled through the South during the Depression took them. In their day they did a lot of good. These photographers made folks see that we had poor people right here in America who needed help. Then these pictures helped the president decide what to do. Jobs were created for men and women. Whole programs were set up to help people earn a living. That might not have happened without this kind of proof by hard-working photographers and journalists.”

  I flipped through Lester’s book and then looked back at the picture in the newspaper, imagining myself in it. How would I feel knowing that all kinds of strangers and, worse still, neighbors and uppity people like DeeDee and Lorelei were looking at my clothes and house and seeing how poor I was? It suddenly seemed very personal.

  “It doesn’t feel right, though,” I said. “How can it be good if it feels like it isn’t anybody’s business?”

  “Well, that’s what some people say,” said Lester. “That it’s nobody’s business, especially if you’re the one in the picture.

  Now Lester had me going in circles. “I’m confused,” I said. “Mr. Henry and Mr. Birchfield paid Mrs. Weaver, and she really needs the money. So that was good. Maybe it’s OK, then. Maybe it’s OK that folks know we’re poor in Baylor and need help. And maybe it’s OK if that miner got ten dollars to have his picture taken,” I said, and pointed at the picture. “But maybe it’s not OK if people are so poor that the only way they have to feed their kids is to take money to let others see them like that—not washed up, and in their old clothes and all.”

  What I was feeling wasn’t a pure feeling, like getting really, purely mad. “This has got good parts to it and bad parts to it,” I said. I looked at Lester, and then laid my head down on the table again. “I don’t know what to think.”

  He smiled. “Don’t think you’ve got to figure it all out, little one,” he consoled me. “Folks who are in this position have got to figure out what’s best for them—what they can live with. They’ve got to decide that for themselves. The thing is, now you know how Beryl Ann may be feeling.”

  “I should have told her about the pictures,” I said sadly.

  Lester let me scoot over and sit on his lap. He gave me an extra-long hug. “Mr. Henry and Mr. Birchfield are the adults here. They should have talked to Beryl Ann,” he said. “Or taken the time to find your mama and talk to her. Don’t go beating on yourself. Beryl Ann and Mirabelle are right to be upset . . . at them.”

  “I think they’re gonna get an earful,” I said, remembering the state Mama was in when she left this morning.

  Lester smiled. “Let’s hope it does some good.”

  thirty-three

  AFTER LUNCH, MAMA AND I were about to pull out of the driveway to go to the Weavers’ house when I saw a blue station wagon pull into the Ketchums’ drive. “That’s Mr. Henry” I told Mama. “Miss Woodruff said they were coming back. Maybe she’s with them.”

  “Hmm. Beryl Ann must not have gone in to work today, after all. Let’s wait a couple of minutes and then walk over. I’ve got something to say to those two.”

  Uh-oh. I almost felt sorry for them.

  Mama backed up the car and we went inside. She paced around the kitchen. I mostly tried to stay out of her way.

  After about five minutes she said, “Let’s go.”

  Beryl Ann was sitting on the front porch and leaning forward talking with Miss Woodruff. Mr. Henry, with one of his cameras draped around his neck, and Mr. Birchfield stood down at the bottom of the steps acting like they were both on trial. They shifted nervously from foot to foot.

  When Mama and I walked up the drive, past Mr. Henry’s station wagon and Doyle’s hubcaps, to the porch, Mr. Henry and Mr. Birchfield both raised their hands as though to say hi. I didn’t say anything, not even “Howdy.” Seeing them, with their smiles, I got mad. I started counting right away, trying not to get all balled up inside and blurt anything out before Mama got a chance to say her piece.

  “I’m so sorry, Beryl Ann. I did want an article about the War on Poverty,” Miss Woodruff was saying. “But I certainly didn’t expect anything like this. If they’d checked with me first, I could have told them about Baby Blue and what a wonderful community Baylor is. Jessie told me all about Baylor and Baby when I first got here.”

  “And you should have checked with me before quoting Jessie,” Mama said, pointing her finger at Mr. Birchfield and Mr. Henry.

  “We—” Mr. Henry started, but Miss Woodruff didn’t let him finish.

  “Won’t you let them do a follow-up story on Baby Blue?” she asked Beryl Ann. “Then people might understand about what a close-knit community Baylor really is.”

  “I’m not sure,” Beryl Ann said. “Maybe it’s better to just let things die down.”

  I noticed Robert standing inside the front door listening. I raised my hand and waved. He looked at me and nodded. Well, that was better than nothing.

  Every time Mr. Henry or Mr. Birchfield tried to get a word in, Miss Woodruff acted like she had them by their ears and wouldn’t hear of their protests. And Mama lit into them again. I have to admit, they heard us all out. They ended up apologizing about a hundred times to Beryl Ann, and to Mama and me, and even to Miss Woodruff.

  Mr. Birchfield and Mr. Henry were willing to do a follow-up article, but they couldn’t convince Beryl Ann that it would be a good idea. Neither could Miss Woodruff.

  Beryl Ann kept saying that maybe we shouldn’t stir things up again. She said that the people who lived here and knew her would know better than to take the newspaper for the gospel truth.

  I’m not sure what Mama thought about the idea, because just as they were arguing about this, Beryl Ann rose straight up out of her chair. Everyone paused and turned.

  Doyle and Mr. Whitten had come around the corner of the house. Mr. Whitten stood off to one side, smirking. It was Doyle we all stared at. He stood on the path that ran back to the clubhouse with an old double-barreled shotgun raised and aimed at Mr. Henry and Mr. Birchfield.

  thirty-four

  “GET OFF MY PROPERTY right now!�
�� Doyle said in a steady voice. I couldn’t tell if he’d been drinking.

  “Whoa! Hey, there!” yelled Mr. Henry and Mr. Birchfield. “We’re . . . we’re going right now.” They both threw their arms up and started backing slowly away from the porch, trying to avoid the hubcaps while keeping their eyes on Doyle.

  Miss Woodruff had sprung up, too. Mama and I stood side by side on the steps. I could feel Mama’s hand sliding over to grab mine. We were all as quiet as we could be.

  “Doyle!” Beryl Ann said, breaking the silence. “Put that gun down before somebody gets hurt.”

  Doyle looked up at Beryl Ann on the porch and shook his head. “Can’t do it, Beryl Ann. These two”—he nodded over at Mr. Henry and Mr. Birchfield—“and you, Miss Nosy Body,” he said, nodding at Miss Woodruff and waving the gun over in our general direction, “I want you all off my property before I forget my manners and shoot somebody.”

  “Quit waving that thing around, Doyle,” pleaded Beryl Ann. “You don’t know who you could hurt.”

  I heard Mr. Whitten snicker. He was chewing on a blade of grass like he was enjoying a day at the fair. “No,” he said, doing a little fancy step and waving a hand in the air. “Wave it around there some more, Doyle. Make them dance a little.”

  That meanness just snapped something loose inside me. I yanked my hand out of Mama’s and yelled, “This ain’t funny, Mr. Whitten!”

  “Sure it is!” He laughed. Then he stopped suddenly and glared at me. “Now, shut up, you mongrel. I’ve had more than enough of you lately.” He spit the blade of grass out the side of his mouth.

  Mama grabbed my hand again and made a hushing sound. I was hopping mad. But when I looked quickly up at Mama and saw the control in her face, it calmed me right down. For everyone’s sake, I couldn’t let my anger get the best of me.