by Jane Gill
“I remember,” Lu said, “I looked to you, too. It never occurred to me to ask you how you felt. I thought you were just so noble for dropping out of school to go home and take care of your family. I really did,” she said. “That’s when I knew I wanted to marry you, Zach Connors.”
“Yeah?” he asked, gently squeezing her hand. “You wanted to be married to a man who ran an air-conditioning company instead of a Wall Street tycoon?”
“Yeah,” she said, leaning her head against his.
Then the tension was back in her voice. “Martin’s a different story, though. He stayed on that farm with Daddy for years,” she said. “And he acted like a martyr for it.”
“How so?” Zach asked.
“Well, the couple of times I went home from college, Martin seemed to make sure he didn’t have any time for me.” Lu sat up cross-legged. “It was so obvious. Like, he’d make up excuses that he was going to hang out with his friends or needed to finish some work. I could tell it was to avoid being alone with me. It really hurt. We were so close as kids, I adored him from the first day he came home from the hospital. But once I was in college, when I did come home it was so obvious that he resented me. I didn’t know what to do with that. And the next thing I knew, he was married. He never even invited me to his wedding! And now he’s pretty much said how he wants me to do all the work which means he doesn’t intend to help at all.”
“Did you invite him to our wedding?” Zach asked.
“No,” Lu said. “We didn’t have much of a wedding, remember?”
“We could have,” Zach pointed out. “You said you just wanted to go down to the shore and get married. It seemed like a swell idea, just the two of us. Then when we came back, well, my Mom was disappointed that we hadn’t had a nice wedding—that we left the family out.”
“She was?” Lu asked.
“Yeah, but that was a long time ago, and it doesn’t matter now,” Zach said dismissively. “Let’s talk about Martin for a minute though. What is he, three years younger than you? I mean, if you were thirteen when your mom passed, then he was only ten—you were his big sister. I know you were a kid, but he was, too! Maybe he felt that when you left for college you abandoned him or something.” Zach paused. “Kids are strange like that. And what I’m thinkin’ is, if that’s how he felt, maybe you need to try to understand that.”
“Hey, he was fifteen when I left for Temple,” Lu defended.
“Yeah, but fifteen isn’t grown up. Look at William just a year ago,” Zach pointed out. “All moody, and quiet, even angry. Think about Martin back then, is all I’m sayin’.”
“Yeah, I see what you’re saying,” she said, shifting on the bed. “But then he needs to grow up now. You know, no one forced him to stay on that farm. He could’ve left—he could’ve done the same thing I did. It was his choice to stay. Is that supposed to be my fault?”
“Hell, no,” Zach said.
“Martin spent a lot more time with Daddy than I did. All those years he worked that farm with Daddy—I can see now where he thinks just like him,” she protested.
“How do you mean?” Zach asked.
“Daddy never wanted progress,” she said. “He would never take a chance on anything. He was afraid to take any risks, and he didn’t want us to either. He talked about Civil Rights, even named Martin after Dr. King, but he didn’t live it. He didn’t want us to get involved with anything that even hinted at Civil Rights—didn’t even want us to talk about it! It was like he wanted us to stay on that farm and hide.”
Lu sat up straighter. “It was the 1980’s, for God’s sake, but Daddy would never consider doing anything that wasn’t exactly what his father had done and his grandfather before him. And that was that,” she explained. “Like, if you wanted something better, then you were ‘uppity’ you know? And, I don’t see where I have to apologize for wanting something better. My brother is smart, he graduated high school with honors. I hate to think of him having to play Step’n Fetchit in his job. If he had just gone to college…” She paused. “But I guess he never wanted it like I did.”
“People don’t always want the same thing. You know that,” Zach said. “And there isn’t anything we can do about it. Besides, it sounds like he has a good job.”
“I suppose,” she said. “It’s just that from the time I was little I knew I didn’t want to be looked down on. I wanted to be as good as everybody else. Was that so wrong?”
“What do you mean, ‘as good as everybody else’?” he asked.
“Daddy accused me of being uppity,” she said. “I’m just scared to face these people tomorrow. I think, being young and so independent, when I left everyone probably thought I was uppity, and maybe defiant. And tomorrow I’m going to have to face them.”
“Uppity?” he scowled.
“Well, it’s like the whole thing with Susan’s hair today. It just went all over me to see her in cornrows.”
“But, that’s what all the girls are doin’ these days, isn’t it?”
“My mother used to put my hair in cornrows, you know, with little ribbons, like little Ashanti tonight.” Remembering made her sad. “But even in the 1980’s in some colleges, black girls weren’t allowed to wear cornrows.”
“They weren’t?” Zach asked. “But when your mother put yours in cornrows, you weren’t in college, right?” he chided.
“No, of course not. She’d work and work on my hair. I just loved it. She’d tie little red and white ribbons in it, and I’d run and look in the mirror, just full of myself, you know? And Martin and I used to go with Daddy whenever he’d take the crops down to the train station to ship them out.”
“Yeah?” Zach said.
When Daddy took the big farm truck into town, Luella and Martin always piled in beside him. It was exciting to get a chance to go with Daddy when he took the crops in. Driving down the road, he would talk to them just like he talked to grownups, about how he was so pleased with all the help he had from his neighbors and how living on the farm was the best life God could’ve given them. He’d pull into the train station and they were free to run around on the loading dock while he talked to the other farmers and made arrangements to ship his crops. Sometimes he would stop the truck on the way home and they would get out and pick wildflowers to surprise Momma. But then one day Daddy said they were getting too big to go into town with him anymore and he stopped taking them. Momma needed them at home to help her, he said. And just like that their happy trips with Daddy ended.
“And there was always this man, this old blind man, down there, Mister Cornelius. He played the fiddle. Me and Martin just loved it,” Lu said. “He played the fiddle while we were waiting on Daddy. And, uh,” her voice caught in her throat. She took a sip of her drink and continued, “Well, Martin and I would dance, like little kids do—you know how they do—just dance and hop around. Everybody would clap when we were done, like we were special, you know? I loved going down there.” She took another swallow from her glass, the wash cloth still in her hand. “Well, this one time there were some white men there on the loading dock and they were watching us dance. They were all smiling, and we just danced faster and faster and then one of them says something like ‘Lookie, here, boys, look here at these little pickaninnies!’ and Daddy came out on the dock just then. He looked real mad. He didn’t say anything, but he grabbed me and Martin by our arms and hauled us out of there. We couldn’t ever go back to the train station with Daddy after that. It was like we’d done something wrong.”
“You know why he did that, right?” Zach asked.
“Yes, of course,” Lu said. “I figured it out when I was older, but it stuck. Just like school, when all the white kids would show up on the first day with new clothes. Zach, they had like two and three pairs of shoes, and new clothes, and all us little black girls would stand around with our socks folded over to hide the rubber bands that were holding them up. We’d be in same old dresses from the year before, except that the hems had been let down and
the collars turned. That was when I first realized we were poor—that we were different. And I hated it. I just hated it.” She grew silent for a moment gripping Zach’s hand.
One afternoon, Luella’s Momma called her in from the yard. Luella knew that Momma had been working hard in the evenings sewing a new dress for her first day of school. Momma measured every part of Luella carefully before they went to town to choose the material. Momma and Grammy were sewers, and many nights Luella was lulled to sleep by the rhythmic sound the sewing machine made as the pedal went up and down, forcing the needle and thread in and out of the fabric. Finally, the dress was finished. Luella could hardly contain her joy as it fell over her head and she pushed her arms through the sleeves. She held still as the sash was tied, then she twirled around and around the living room for Daddy. He laughed and hugged her close. “You gonna be the prettiest little girl there,” he assured her. “Your momma has done a fine job on that dress.”
At school Luella worked hard on her lessons and listened to her teacher carefully, but school wasn’t like home, and Luella didn’t like having to sit still most of the day. At the end of the day she always tried to be the first one in line for the bus so she could get a good seat, but the other kids often butted in front of her, and, before she knew it, she was the last one in line. One day a new girl came to class. Her name was Barbara. She had long dark hair like Luella’s, except hers was straight and hung down to her shoulders. Luella’s hair was curly and usually in twists or braids. A lot of the other children knew each other, and they played together and talked together. Barbara and Luella didn’t know many of the other children, so the two quickly became friends. They sat next to each other whenever they could, and held hands when the class was ushered outside at recess. Sometimes they shared their lunch and talked about how they both had brown eyes and hated cauliflower and spiders. Barbara lived in town, so she didn’t ride the bus. After Barbara came to school Luella liked going to school. She was sure she and Barbara would be friends forever.
One day on the playground Luella went to join some girls who were playing a game of blind man’s bluff. Their teacher was over by the fence talking to another teacher. Suddenly, one of the girls pushed Luella to the side and said, “I ain’t playin’ with no nigger!” Tears filled her eyes. She didn’t know what she had done wrong. She hung her head and slunk away, taking a seat on the rail by the bicycle rack. Barbara, who had been on the swings was quickly at her side.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Frances called me a nigger,” Luella confessed, her nose starting to run.
“Don’t pay her no mind,” Barbara said. “She’s bossy.” Then she added, “What’s a nigger?”
“I don’t know,” sobbed Luella.
“I know you grew up different,” Lu said, swiping at a tear. “But can you just try to understand?”
Zach was quiet. He let go of her hand. Finally, he spoke. “I don’t know how to say this. Everybody that’s black has been called a nigger by somebody. People learn to deal with it.” He paused briefly. “We’ve been married a long time, and, I guess first off, I don’t understand why we never talked about all this before, and second, well, are you tellin’ me you don’t want to be black?”
“No, no!” she said, shaking her head. “You don’t understand. Nobody understands.”
“Then, help me out here,” he said.
“It wasn’t that I never wanted to be black, but, as I got older I just knew,” she said. “I just knew, there was no way I was ever going to be poor. I was going to go somewhere where nobody would ever call me a pickaninny again, where I could have ten pairs of shoes if I wanted. I think Daddy hated that in me, but I couldn’t change it. I wouldn’t change it! So I worked hard in school, really hard, and I got that scholarship and got out. I wanted to make something of my life, and I was sure I could do it, if I could just get far enough away from that farm,” she confessed. “I didn’t care about anybody but myself back then.” She sighed heavily. “And now that I’m beginning to realize it, I’m embarrassed and, uh, ashamed, too, I guess. All the people who knew me then will be at the funeral, and I don’t know how I’m going to face them.”
Chapter Ten
The morning of the funeral, the knot in Lu’s stomach burned like a hot rock. She heaved a deep sigh as she straightened Zach’s necktie. “Can you believe my brother last night?” she asked. “Did he honestly think he could just take the farm? I can’t believe it!” She walked to the mirror and pulled her jacket down snugly.
“Aw, c’mon, Lu,” Zach said. “I think he just wanted to get a rise out of you.”
“Yeah, and that’s why he gave the waitress a special little tip, too, huh?” she spat. She marched to the table and picked up her purse. “I’ll tell you one thing for sure. This had better not be some hellfire and damnation service either, or I’ll strangle him!”
“Uh huh,” Zach said, holding open the motel room door indicating it was time for them to leave.
Tucked away on a narrow county road, the white chapel was much smaller than she remembered. A small wooden sign marked the entrance, “First Church of Christ – Holiness. We Go By The Book”.
“Hon, if you didn’t know exactly where this church was, I woulda’ never found it,” Zach muttered as they pulled into the parking area which was lined by large white-washed rocks.
Lu, her heart pounding, stared at the small clapboard building planted among the ancient live oaks, their fern-covered limbs spread low over the grassy parking area.
The Stovalls were good church folk, as were all their friends. “God-fearin’ folks,” Daddy was proud to say. Sunday meant Lu would don her very best dress, and Momma would fix her hair carefully before they headed off to the service. It was usually hot in the church, and Luella’d get a pinch from Grammy Mayetta if she didn’t sit still. She liked singing best, but when Preacher Parker started into one of his long sermons, she’d hurry out with the other children for their Sunday school lesson. The children sat on handmade quilts spread out on the grass. There they dutifully learned the stories of the heroes of the Bible. Noah, who saved all the animals from the great flood. David, who with only a slingshot slew the giant, Goliath. And of course, the beautiful baby Jesus and his mother. Luella always saw herself as the mother, although she was sure baby Jesus listened better to his mother than her brother did to her.
The job of caring for the church grounds belonged to everyone, and it was an annual social event. Come spring, all the families gathered at the church very early on a Saturday morning. There, the men mixed up the whitewash in tall steel drums. The white lime poofed out of the heavy bags in great clouds as they added water and stirred the mixture with a piece of two-by-four. They dipped the milky liquid out in buckets. It took two 8-year-olds to haul a bucket around while the younger children danced behind them carrying their wide stiff-bristled brushes. They had the job of whitewashing the rocks that lined the perimeter of the church property, while the older children helped the men clean and whitewash the exterior of the church.
“Now, don’t be wastin’ that whitewash!” the men admonished as they handed them their brushes. The children, eyes gleaming, assured them they would be careful as they hurried off, white streaks trailing down their arms and legs. Boys and girls worked and giggled together, while the women unpacked baskets of food and set up a huge lunch in the shade. The older girls, who didn’t want anything to do with whitewashing, carefully covered the lunch dishes with dishtowels to protect them from curious flies and gnats.
Occasionally, the men took a break. They drank sweet tea by the gallons and mopped themselves with rags, attacking the sweat and whitewash that covered their necks and arms. The women congratulated them on what a fine job they were doing and urged them to rest a bit now and again. The men, in turn, fussed at them, declaring the job would never get done if they wasted all their time resting. News of family, near and far, was shared among the women, their voices breaking out in laughter or their heads sh
aking with “tsk, tsk,” depending on the news. Finally, after the work was finished and lunch put away, the congregants settled on the quilts to share the stories of family members long ‘passed on’. A prayer of thanksgiving and a few well-loved hymns ushered in the end of the day as the families packed up their belongings in the long shadows of sunset.
“How could I forget? I spent half my life here,” Lu said. “We were here every Sunday morning, and every Sunday and Wednesday night. It was our entire social life.” The small church, its steeple barely reaching above the oaks, set back off the road. A narrow concrete sidewalk led to three wooden steps up to dark green, double screen doors. The air was already heavy. Spanish moss, tangled with memories, floated on the morning breeze whispering of promises made and now long forgotten. Lu thought of all the Sunday mornings she played beneath the arms of these very same live oaks while the scent of orange blossoms perfumed the air. The congregation would sing, “There’s a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place,” and she was certain the spirit of the Lord smelled like orange blossoms. There were no orange blossoms in bloom today though. It was too late in the year.
Old GM cars and even older Ford and Chevy pickups lined the parking area. Without warning, a pimped out 1961 Chevrolet Impala in pristine condition pulled in, its radio blaring rap music. It was painted a metallic blue and the gold-colored spoked wheels glistened in the morning sun. Three young black men in baggy pants hurried out of the car. Their hair was slicked back, and each wore a heavy gold chain around his neck. Lu spotted Miss Pearl standing on the church steps and watched as she greeted the boys with a scowl, while she gruffly motioned them toward the entrance. They dutifully brushed their pants off with their hands and walked respectfully inside.