by Jeri Watts
Maybe a present won’t help; I can’t buy a different world. But it’s all I can do. And I have to do something.
Well, it wasn’t our finest Christmas, but it’s done. James smiled some and seemed to like the new work gloves I gave him. He even said thank you, which was two of the five words he uttered all day.
Everyone loved the gifts I made at school — Granny Bits just raved. You’d think she’d never seen pot holders and dream catchers made out of yarn and Popsicle sticks. It was nice, though, to see my family happy and to know I helped make that feeling.
Shag and I went outdoors after church ended. Does your church have a special service on Christmas Day? Ours is quite long but not boring like church sometimes can be. We have lots of singing and then our pageant with the little kids pretending to be shepherds, angels, and baby Jesus. We finish with a rousing rendition of “Hark the Herald,” which is my most favorite Christmas song ever.
Shag and I walked sort of haphazardly, our legs for once not gobbling up the miles. Even though the Christmas service is a nice one, sometimes being cooped up in our house and then church is just overwhelming to me. I feel my muscles scream to stretch and my lungs ache to open on air that isn’t trapped and stagnant, overflowing with the rich aromas of corn bread, country ham, and corn pudding and the pungent odors of Pastor Moore’s talcum powder that he slathers over himself and Old Lady Drinkard’s stale and slightly mummified “scent of gardenia” perfume mixed with the runny eggs she spills on herself every church day. I always need to get out and be alone on Christmas for some time on my own with Shag, and we take our time, meandering around until I can look back into the family faces. I know this seems a strange way to feel about a holiday, but Christmas sometimes settles in my chest until it feels like I will pop.
My walk took us out a couple of miles, and on our way back, we came near Frank Charles’s land. I wasn’t looking for trouble, and I sure wasn’t looking for Frank Charles. I just wanted a walk and some space of my own, and the creek I followed happened to close in near the Feaganses’ meadow.
Then something caught my eye, a sliver of shadow, I suppose, and I instinctively called Shag to me. I ran toward the shadow with the lightest tread I could manage. As I closed on the spot, I heard voices, angry and shouting. I don’t know why, Miss Anderson, but I started this strange shaking inside, like my whole being was afraid or chilled to the bone. I got myself to a grove of mossy-footed oaks and huddled there, waiting for the shaking to stop. Shag crouched beside me, and I realized why I was shaking. It was James’s voice I heard.
He was shouting at some of the Feaganses’ cows — three scraggly cattle that now found their way blocked by James, Cabbie Simpson, and Montgomery Watkins. The boys were waving knives, yelling at the cows, and herding them toward the small smoking shed where the Feaganses keep their curing meat. Those cows were looking all spooky, the whites of their eyes showing like the petticoat that always pokes out of Granny Bits’s dress. They could take out that shed in a heartbeat — no lie, Miss Anderson — and there’d be hell to pay then, sure enough. The beating I took at the order of Mr. Feagans was nothing to what he and the law would do to three black boys causing trouble.
I was still shaking like when I had that scythe fever, but I felt like I had to stop things. I gave Shag a command to come by, and together we moved out of the stand of trees. I took to one side of the cows and sent Shag to the other, but I can’t tell you what exactly happened after that. I gave commands and I saw Shag follow, but I heard shouting and calling in my ears, muffled — things all blocked up in my head, like when I had the cold settle there last winter. My hearing wasn’t the only thing blocked. I moved, but it was like I was walking though molasses and I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop those cows from hitting the shed. I don’t know if it was that I wasn’t sure of what I was doing; I don’t know if it was the boys getting between Shag and the cows. I simply don’t know what went wrong.
At the last minute, I had the presence of mind to call Shag out of the way, and she pulled out right before the shed would have collapsed on her. The cows just hit the shed and sheered off as the shelter collapsed. Their bawling cries filled the air, so loud, shaking the sky, and it seemed like people should have been able to hear all the way into Bedford City and downtown Lynchburg. I looked back and thought I could see between the slats of the shed as it fell, see the meat falling into the pit where the fire is kept stoked, see a winter’s worth of food lost. I heard shouts and cries from far and near, and I rushed to the safety of the trees with Shag called to my side. I know I must have imagined this seeing — I couldn’t really have seen between the slats — but I would have sworn on a month of Sundays that I’d seen it. It is that vivid in my mind: hams hanging, falling down, down into a pit, while screaming cows slam into falling boards as they hit the ground.
The cattle continued to mill about, stomp the ground, and moo loudly, but the act of knocking the structure down seemed to have taken most of the scare out of them. Suddenly I saw Frank Charles in the middle of the cows. Where had he come from? He was calming them, easing them, and then he looked me straight in the eye. I wish I could make this a clear scene for you, but I lived it and I cannot make it clear for me, so I don’t see how I can make it clear for you — it is a jumble of moments, a mass of minutes that happen like blinks of an eye, one and then another and then another. I don’t know what happened to James, or his friend Cabbie or that Montgomery Watkins, but after I heard their shouts and saw them start the cows toward the building, I didn’t think of them again, so sure was I that Shag and I could stop things.
But we didn’t. I didn’t do anything but risk Shag at that building collapse. I think I might have made things worse.
Mr. Feagans rushed up, and I pulled my head back into the bushes and gave Shag a signal to be still. My heart felt like it was pounding through my chest, and my mouth went dry like after I’ve run my hardest.
“Gol darn, boy, who’s messing with my cows?” Mr. Feagans yelled, pushing a hand through his hair.
Frank Charles eased his fingers onto Bessie and put his back square between me and his pa. “I, uh, I spooked ’em. Didn’t mean to, Pa. I just cracked a stick and it sent them into some sort of nervous spell. I didn’t mean to, really.”
Mr. Feagans lashed out and smacked Frank Charles full on the mouth. Shag started to rise, but I stopped her. There was no sound at all. Frank Charles put his hand to his cheek and mumbled “Sorry” over and over.
The cows followed Mr. Feagans’s sharp command, and he started behind them. “Come on, boy. Got to get some bags, try and save some of that meat. God a’mighty, but you’re one sorry excuse of a son.”
Frank Charles took one deep breath but didn’t look back. I know he saw me. I know he saw James. And now I’ve told you.
What will happen to us, Miss Anderson? What will happen to us now?
Frank Charles is a surprise.
I had to snatch a minute with him on the way home — no easy feat with that nosy Laura Westover. Of course, she thinks Frank Charles is pretty low on the list of important people, so she doesn’t do much with him for the most part. I cornered him where he cuts off the path to head home.
“What are you going to do?”
He turned to me with a blank look on his face.
“Do?”
“I know you saw me. What are you going to do?”
He shrugged. “Nothing.”
I can’t stand worrying about stuff like that, waiting to see. I pushed it. “I know you’re going to tell. Let’s just get it over with.”
“I’m not doing anything about anything,” he said. “We got most of the meat.”
“And the building?” Shag was circling us and watching closely.
He shrugged again.
“Why are you taking the blame for me?”
He shook his head. “Wasn’t you. I saw your brother and those boys.”
I wanted to lie, Miss Anderson, but you know I’m pretty bad at that.
I kept looking at him.
He shrugged again. But then he continued talking. “I don’t really know. Seems like things just got out of hand. I’d gone up there hoping to run into Shag, and I heard your brother talking. At first he sounded — I don’t know — sad or something. And then he started sounding mad, and then things got all mixed up. I get mixed up sometimes.
“But my pa wouldn’t understand that, about James. Or me, really. He doesn’t seem to ever get mixed up. He always knows what he thinks.” Frank Charles wouldn’t look me in the eye, but he stared at Shag. His hands were going in and out of his pockets. “He tells me what I should think, what’s right and wrong. And he’s my daddy, you know. But sometimes, I just don’t know what’s right. He’ll do something and it feels, um, ugly or mean or something. I get mixed up then. I just don’t always know what’s right. You know what I mean?”
I knelt and slid my hand down Shag’s warm, soft back. “I know.”
He sat down in the dirt and put his hand toward Shag. He paused and looked at me, his eyes questioning and hopeful. I gave a little nod, and Shag shuddered just a little as Frank Charles Feagans, the boy who made me Moon Child, the boy who’s protecting my brother, the boy who surprised me more than I can say, passed his hand one, two, three times down the length of Shag’s body, drawing comfort from the dog he admires almost as much as I do.
I didn’t say thank you but I should — I suppose you aren’t going to tell on James or me. Your little note in my journal, about all being well, makes me believe you kind of think like Frank Charles. Thank you. How many times will I end up saying thank you to you in this one little journal? And when you thanked me, I guessed you figured that I’m Frank Charles’s friend now and well . . . I guess I am.
James stopped me when Shag and I came back from Mr. McKenna’s. “Went over and helped Mr. Feagans fix the shed today.” He kept stacking wood, but he looked me in the eye.
“I’m glad.”
“Thought a lot, after you jumped in, trying to help. And you didn’t tell. I’m not sure why you’d do that for me.”
I nodded. “Seemed the right thing to do.”
“Sometimes I don’t know if I understand you,” he said, pulling another log out of the chopped pile and onto the stacked one. “Oh, I . . . I didn’t tell him it was me what did the damage.”
“Probably the smart thing,” I said. “Frank Charles took the blame.”
“Frank Charles? That little kid who comes over for vegetables sometimes? Why would he take the blame?”
What could I say to explain, Miss Anderson? I thought for a minute, but all I could come up with was “I think he just felt it was the right thing to do.”
“Sometimes I don’t reckon I understand white people, Kizzy Ann.”
“I think it’s just understanding people, James.”
I tried to get Frank Charles to hire me. I had to be out of my mind, when I think of it. His family doesn’t have any extra money, so why in the world did I think he would have anything to spare? I’ve been studying on it quite a bit, looking through your Encyclopedia Britannica and the use of makeup in ancient Egypt, and I thought if I could just get some money, I might be able to go to Drug Fair and try a few things to cover my scar. I don’t know what I could do for Frank Charles’s family, but who else could I work for? Anyway, I guess he figured things out, or I don’t know, but what amazing friends I have . . . because Frank Charles told Mr. McKenna, who went to Drug Fair, and he bought makeup for a black woman! I sure would have liked to have been in the store when that happened — this very white-haired, pale-skinned Scotsman going into the Drug Fair in Madison Heights and discussing which makeup products to buy for “women of dark complexions.” HA! I don’t know how he did it! Or maybe he didn’t discuss anything with anybody, because he basically had everything under the sun in that Drug Fair bag. I guess he just bought everything they had in the store and asked no questions at all. Frank Charles brought me the bag. He caught me by the stream and said, “Here you go. Mr. McKenna says you look fine, but if this’ll make you feel better, then take it,” and he shoved the bag at me. He was red in the face, and he ran off faster than I’ve ever seen him run.
I feel a fool, Miss Anderson, but I’m also excited. Maybe this will be the answer. I know I haven’t said much about it in here. In fact, I’ve deliberately not said much about it in here. I spend nights looking at the moon and trying to figure out how I feel about my face, about my name, Moon Child, about my scar. Knowing my face will never look as it did before, I finger my raised skin. How is it when you know you will never be the person you were before? Does Keith dive into College Lake with the same abandon now that a bottle sliced into the back of his head? When Shag saved my life, I was not the same Kizzy Ann I was the day before. When my brother got into trouble in the woods, I was not the same as the day after, nor was he. When Caroline Kennedy woke up on November 23, she was not the same girl she was the day before, even if her face was as pretty as the day before — her life is a lot better than mine in a lot of ways, but it is also a lot worse.
I know people look hard at me. I’m not stupid. Pretty girls get things that ugly girls don’t. But smart girls get things too. And I am smart. Anyway, I pulled out the makeup to look at it, but I realized that I don’t know what to do with it — and I am smart enough to know that if you just put makeup on without knowing about it, you don’t end up looking good. You end up looking worse. This is not something I can ask my mama or my granny about. I plan to go to the library as soon as I can. Let’s hope Miss Anne Spencer has more books on makeup than she has on border collies.
I went to the library — not today, but I’m just getting to write today. There is a lot more to a poet than you think! Miss Anne Spencer had books on makeup, and she let me look at them, but then she invited me to her study for tea. I didn’t want to go, but how do you say no to a force like Miss Anne Spencer? You don’t. I pored over the books on makeup. I have to admit they were overwhelming. Lots of diagrams that looked like you need a degree in engineering to understand, at least it seemed to me. Who would think putting on makeup would be so danged hard? But the books she pulled for me were about masking scars, not just your basic makeup, and I started getting nervous. They were for people with severe scars. Like me. It seemed so complicated. I put the books on makeup back on the shelves and went to her study. She had tea things ready for us. She sipped her tea and then she “cut to the chase.” That’s exactly the way she said it.
“Let’s cut to the chase, Kizzy Ann. You’re looking at these books on makeup because you want to cover yourself up, am I right?” She took a delicate sip of her tea.
I nibbled a scone. At least I think it was a scone. I don’t really know. I’m not too knowledgeable about tea etiquette, as you might expect, Miss Anderson. “Yes, ma’am,” I said.
She tilted her head to the side and looked me over. “I don’t know if your scar will fade, but it doesn’t seem to dominate your countenance.”
Another new word. Countenance. Read it in the Bible before, but never heard it in everyday talk. I wrote that one down as soon as I got out of there, even if I had to put it on the palm of my hand, as I had no paper. I said, “Well, to look at the reactions of the people around Lynchburg, you’d think it dominated my countenance. If by that you mean it is the main thing they see when they look at me.”
She smiled. She has a real pretty smile. I don’t see it often, as I rarely make her smile. I am often a nuisance to her. She set her teacup down. “Kizzy Ann, I’m not in your situation: I have no scar. But I know two people who were scarred by life in . . . not dissimilar ways. Let me tell you about them.”
Hmm. My first thought was Can she really know two people who had severe scars? That’s pretty many. But then I guess a librarian knows a lot of people. My next thought was I’ve probably missed some of what she is saying and that is rude, and Granny Bits would skin me alive if she could read my mind, so I’d better stop thinking and start listening. Miss Anne must
have known I wasn’t paying close attention, because she put a hand on my hand and looked into my eyes. Her voice was soft.
“My cousin was beautiful like the flowers in my garden, Kizzy Ann. When she was nineteen, she was trapped by a fire in her bedroom and though she escaped through the window, her neck and the right side of her face were damaged. Laura couldn’t recover from the sad fact that when she looked in the mirror, she no longer saw her own face but the face of a stranger. She retreated from people and wouldn’t be seen. She wrapped herself in scarves, even though her skin hurt to be touched by any fabric. Sometimes I think I revel in my flowers to be close to the beauty that was a part of her.
“I knew another touched by tragedy, but rather than letting it shape her life with sadness, she made her own way. She was burned differently. More of her body was involved, and so there was more scarring, but it was less severe. Still, when you looked at her, you knew she’d been in a fire. You knew she’d had . . . damage.”
“People stared.”
Miss Anne Spencer swallowed, then nodded slowly. “Yes, Kizzy Ann. People stared. A lot. But my friend just didn’t care. No, that probably isn’t right. I suppose she did care, although she never said. She just went ahead with her life. She didn’t wear lots of makeup. She didn’t stop doing what she wanted to do. She went ahead and lived her life. Because she had things she wanted to do. And she did them.”