“Let me shake your hand, Miss,” he says to Mary Faye at the bottom of the stairs. “And yours too,” he says to Norris.
“Ain’t you Cliff Clawhammer?” shouts Norris.
“That’s right. On television, anyway. He tipped his cowboy hat—it was felt and making him sweat—and shook Charles’s hand and said he enjoyed the music. He had on a shiny red shirt and a black western tie.
“What’s your name, honey?” he asked Mary Faye.
“Mary Faye Bell.”
“And yours?”
“Norris Bell. I seen you on television.”
“Well, keep watching. You all excuse me. They want me to sing a few songs after this group and I’ve got to tune up.”
I thought he seemed a little tipsy, but I figured it must be my imagination, and didn’t think nothing else about it.
I went over to where the Golden Agers were. They were all very complimentary about our singing. I made Mary Faye and Norris go along and meet them all, and say thank you to the compliments—which they do without my help: Mama has seen to that. The Golden Agers were all having a good time and doing okay so we put our lawn chairs and blanket down front with Mama and Daddy, got settled and listened to the rest of Cliff Clawhammer’s songs: “Peach Pickin’ Time in Georgia” and “Curly Headed Baby,” which he dedicated to Mary Faye and Norris: “This here’s for two future award winning country singers: Norris and Mary Faye Bell.”
Norris and Mary Faye were excited to death.
When he came down off stage he went up and sat with the Golden Agers and talked to them for about half an hour. Norris and Mary Faye went over and listened. I would have gone too, but Charles didn’t want to.
But here’s what happened late in the afternoon: At 3:30 Aunt Flossie loaded up the Golden Agers. Two had already left with somebody in their family, and one had been dropped off at home after the cannon firing, so Aunt Flossie thanked us and told us we could stay if we wanted, that there was plenty of room to take everybody home without us. So we decided to stay. At about four, Mama and Daddy left, but Mary Faye and Norris stayed to ride back with us.
At about 5:00, during a break, me, Charles, Mary Faye, and Norris decided to walk up the hill to the parking area where three guys were playing guitars and fiddle. Charles took his banjo and joined right in—sounding good.
I hadn’t seen Cliff Clawhammer since before lunch. All of a sudden I saw him and this woman coming from the stage area, walking up the hill toward us. She’s about fifty and is walking beside him and for some reason she’s wearing this formal black dress and black high heel shoes. You could tell her hair was dyed because her face skin looked like it definitely would not have black hair—and she’s wearing high heel shoes of all things, and all of a sudden it looks like this yellow page from the phone book floats down out of her mouth. Then another one. Well, it’s of all things—I hate to even say this—vomit. She’s not even stopping walking—just bending over a little, like she’s too proud to stop, and all the while not getting a speck on her dress. It was like she knew just exactly how far to bend over while she walked.
And Cliff, he’s sort of stumbling along, talking to her, and I realize they’re both drunk and headed toward the portable outhouse not far from us.
Charles and the three boys were going strong: playing “Little Maggie.”
Norris says, “Here comes Cliff Clawhammer!” and him and Mary Faye start toward him and the woman.
“Mary Faye, you and Norris get back here,” I said. They could tell I meant business.
Mr. Clawhammer and the woman walk right past us like they don’t even see us and he’s saying, “Go ahead and puke, Alice. Don’t be so ‘g. d.’ proud. Go ahead and puke.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. He really was cussing like that. Cliff Clawhammer. Talking like that to a woman. She won’t his wife because she didn’t have on a wedding ring. She was in a trance, and he was wobbling along beside her with his eyebrows pulling up his eyelids like he was trying to stay awake.
He led her over to the bathroom, then waited for her, then they walked back by us without speaking, him stumbling, with his red shirt tail all out in back, and her walking with her head up like she’s walking down a aisle.
It was a disgrace.
I had hoped it wouldn’t come up on the way home, but it did.
Norris and Mary Faye were sitting in the back seat.
“Why was Cliff Clawhammer’s wife sick?” said Norris.
“She was drunk,” said Mary Faye.
“How do you know?” said Norris.
“You could tell.”
“Could not.”
“You all be quiet,” I said. “They were drunk, Norris. It’s a sad fact, but they were.”
“She was drunk?” asked Norris.
“Yes, I think so.”
“I didn’t know women got drunk.”
“Anybody can get drunk,” says Mary Faye. “Miss Peabody said some children in the ghetto get drunk because of their lifestyle.”
“Sometimes people want to escape things,” said Charles.
“That does not make it right,” I said. “You’re sounding like psychology.”
“Well. . . .”
“Is it a sin for a woman to get drunk?” asked Norris.
“It’s a sin for anybody,” said Mary Faye. “Mama said it was a sin when Uncle Nate got drunk. I’m not going to ever touch one drop of liquor or beer or anything else. I promised.”
I remembered. I’d promised too. I must have been about five. I can’t believe I forgot. But the little bit of wine I’d drunk didn’t seem to count somehow. Then I wondered if maybe it had to count. Then I figured it didn’t.
“Promised who?” said Charles.
“Mama,” me and Mary Faye said together.
“I promised too,” said Norris, “because it’s a sin. I promised to try not to sin.”
“She said not to do it,” said Mary Faye. “Not just ‘try’ not to.”
“She said to try not to sin,” said Norris. “That Jesus would forgive you if you did it and were sorry and asked him to.”
“She said to not sin.”
“Try not to.”
“Wait a minute,” said Charles. “What are some other sins?”
“Don’t you know?” said Norris.
“Well, I’ve got my own ideas,” said Charles.
“Lying and stealing and cheating are the others. You’d better know what they are.”
“What about gossip?” said Charles. “Ever talk about that?”
“I don’t think that’s one of the sins,” said Norris.
“Oh, well,” said Charles, “maybe we can talk about it sometime.”
I wasn’t sure what he was getting at, exactly.
For the rest of the way home I tried to explain to Mary Faye and Norris as best I could how drinking could ruin your life, how Uncle Nate had missed opportunities to live a full Christian life because of alcohol and how people sometimes have to choose the narrow path or the wide path and the narrow path is full of thorns.
Then I got the narrow path and wide path backwards bacause somehow I thought Uncle Nate was taking the narrow path instead of the wide path. But it’s just the opposite.
At church, Sunday, Aunt Flossie said it had been one of the best Golden Agers’ days ever. Monday night about a minute of the cannon firing was on Channel 9 news. It showed all the Golden Agers standing watching and then Bob Ross talking to Mr. Earls and Aunt Flossie. You could hear “Salt Creek” in the background and there was a quick glimpse of me and Charles. And Aunt Flossie looked real good. Right at the very end, when Bob Ross finished talking to Aunt Flossie, you heard in the background: “Birdie, go get the—”; then it cut off.
I called up Aunt Flossie to see if she’d seen it. We’d been talking about how Mr. Earls hollered “Birdie” this and “Birdie” that. We thought it was funny it got on television. We said maybe it would be preserved forever.
Tuesday, I stopped by Aunt Flossie
’s and she was sewing. All of a sudden she said, “Birdie, hand me them scissors.”
III
One of the oddest things in the world has happened to Madora Bryant’s oldest sister, Jessie Faye. She and Richard, her husband, found out they couldn’t have any babies. Mama heard he was the cause and Aunt Naomi heard she was the cause. I asked Madora and she said she didn’t know but that Jessie Faye wouldn’t talk about it, so I haven’t mentioned it to anyone else. I figure if Jessie Faye wants to keep it quiet then we all ought to respect that.
Well, they up and adopted a baby boy. Which I think is all right. God might not want you to have any babies of your own blood. That don’t mean it’s not all right to have one that’s been abandoned.
They didn’t have any problems adopting since they’d both been to college, except it took over two years. But. It turns out that the baby is half colored. He looks that way anyway. Everybody says so.
I don’t think anybody has necessarily been done any harm, unless he turns on Jessie Faye and Richard. And off and on the coloreds get in the habit of burning down their own houses. The only other harm is that people notice and talk which could hurt Richard and Jessie Faye’s feelings, or the little boy’s. I’m not going to mention it because you never know when something might happen to you that other people could talk about.
Charles gets blue in the face on this one: the whole segregation thing, as I said. He says they are burning down unfair landlords’ houses, not their own houses, but I say all you’ve got to do is read the paper to find out they’re burning down their own houses and shops right there in their own neighborhoods and as soon as they start, they steal a TV set out of a display window before it gets burned. I’m sure it has something to do with their forefathers having those bonfires in Africa.
The Indians are the same way—they still have things like that left in their blood; it’s just a matter of time for them to outgrow it. I’ll bet scientists will discover all that one day. Uncle Newton used to say he wished the Indians and the niggers would get in a war and that any American who could get that war started deserved the medal of honor. He was just kidding though. At least I think he was just kidding. I think we’re all Americans. But the rest have got to get used to the melting pot like the whites have. You can’t stay outside the melting pot and still be a true American.
Yesterday, when we had Christmas dinner over at Aunt Naomi’s, it happened. We always have Christmas dinner at her house—early in December, to avoid the rush. We had eaten dinner and exchanged presents (we draw names in November—you’re not supposed to spend over two dollars. Aunt Flossie said we ought to raise it to three but that got voted down).
Now I don’t mind Charles having odd opinions about segregation so much as I do the fact that he has to announce it to the family.
Here’s what happened. It was Uncle Nate who brought the whole thing up. Me, Charles, Mary Faye, and Norris were sitting on the living room couch and Uncle Nate and Uncle Norris—who little Norris was named after—were sitting across the room. Uncle Norris is Mama’s brother from Charlotte. Other people were in and out. Uncle Nate looks at us and says, “Have you all seen Jessie Faye Burton’s boy?” He was eating a piece of chess pie as big as the Baptist Hymnal—in a plate on his knees.
“Yes,” I said. I have never brought the subject up, but that baby has got to looking more and more like a little high-yellow. I don’t know what the right name is: octagon or something. He looked as normal as he could as a baby. I saw him. But he was baldheaded then. Now his hair is as kinky as . . . well, as a nigger’s.
Charles has done told me that if one of our children ever says “nigger” he’s going to slap him across the room. I can’t see that. Now I do think a person shouldn’t say “nigger” to a nigger—unless maybe the nigger acts like one.
And I think if a person like Charles is offended easily, you should probably say “blacks.” They’re entitled to their own opinion.
Well, after I’d said yes I’d seen Jessie Faye’s boy, Uncle Nate said, “He looks like a nigger, don’t he?” He was eating his chess pie with a spoon.
I said, “He does to me.” Right away I worried about what Charles was thinking, or what he was going to say.
What he said was, “What difference does that make?”
Uncle Nate and Uncle Norris looked at Charles like his nose had just fell off. Then Uncle Nate says, “What difference does it make?”
“That’s right,” says Charles. “What difference does it make?”
“Do you want a nigger youngin’?” says Uncle Nate. “Cause if you do, you married into the wrong family.” He looked at Uncle Norris, then got up to carry his plate and spoon back to the kitchen.
“I don’t think skin color makes any difference,” says Charles.
“It makes you a nigger,” says little Norris.
“Be quiet,” I said. “Go get me some tea. Here, take this glass.”
I thought of all the years the colored people around Bethel and Listre had lived in real low conditions and had never amounted to anything and I figured if Charles thought skin color didn’t make a difference then he must be blind.
Uncle Nate, heading toward the kitchen, stopped, turned around, came back and sat down still holding his plate and spoon. He looked back and forth between Charles and Uncle Norris and then glanced at me like he couldn’t believe what Charles just said. I was thinking, “Oh no.”
“The difference it makes . . . the difference it makes,” said Uncle Nate, “is that it makes you a white man or a nigger. That’s the difference it makes.”
“That’s what Norris said,” said Mary Faye.
“Stay out of this, Mary Faye,” I said. “Why don’t you go outside and play?”
“I don’t want to.”
“I mean any real difference,” says Charles to Uncle Nate.
“Do you see any difference between a rabbit and a coon?” says Uncle Nate. His face was getting red and I could see tiny red blood vessels in his cheeks.
“Yes—but not between a black rabbit and a white rabbit,” says Charles, “and that’s the real issue.” He was up on the front edge of the couch.
Daddy came to the living room door, but went back to the kitchen.
I could not figure what all these animals had to do with anything. Anybody knows a white rabbit and a black rabbit wouldn’t mind marrying if they could, but that white people and colored people do mind marrying. That right there is difference enough for me. If it was natural for white and colored folks to marry then they would do it. God made us all to do natural things. Just look out your window at all the birds and animals doing natural things. That’s what God made them to do: natural things. That’s why dogs are so happy—they do natural dog things. You never see a dog doing something God didn’t intend him to do. You never see a dog doing a cat thing or a bird thing. Never.
Now when you look out that window you don’t see colored people and white people getting married. That’s very simple because God didn’t make that as one of the natural things for people in the world to do. If I married a colored man something inside me would say, “Raney, you are doing a very unnatural thing.” Course I would never do that anyway. But I mean if I did. It’s as plain as the nose on your face and some of these ideas of Charles’s must come from a part of his brain which has never known about the natural and unnatural things God has intended for us to do.
“The difference between a black rabbit and a white rabbit,” said Uncle Nate, “is their color. But the difference between a white man and a nigger is smell, lips, nose, hair, clothes, and laziness, and if you don’t know that then you ain’t been on the street lately.”
Charles stood up and walked right out. Just stood up and walked out. It embarrassed me to death.
So there I was sitting next to an empty spot on the couch and Uncle Nate, Uncle Norris, and Mary Sue and Fred Toggert, who’d just that minute, before the argument ended, come in from down the road, all looking at me and each other like s
omebody had slapped a preacher. So I sat up straight and said I hoped they wouldn’t hold it against Charles—that he had some unusual ideas about colored people, that his daddy was a college professor, but that underneath he had one of the best hearts in the world—I knew—and that his unusual ideas came from being raised sheltered-like. I was embarrassed to death—felt like I was making a speech. Nobody said anything. Uncle Nate stood up and walked out, headed to the kitchen, carrying his plate and spoon in his hand.
So last night at home I tried to explain to Charles about how embarrassed I’d been, but he wouldn’t speak! Said we’d talk about it later and walked off into the kitchen closing every door behind him.
I went to bed.
The vent.
“You wouldn’t believe it, Johnny. . . . No, oh no, you wouldn’t believe it. We were talking about rabbits. . . . Nevermind.”
Then the furnace came on and I couldn’t hear a thing.
When the furnace went back off, Charles was asking Johnny, of all things, if he’d ever had any fried okra. He went on about how good it was! (Mama freezes it, thaws it, flours it, then fries it. She brought some to the Christmas dinner. I don’t think it’s that good after it’s frozen.)
I figured I would explain to Charles about being able to hear through the vent as soon as he hung up.
But I forgot, because while I was laying there I got to thinking about Charles being outnumbered and that maybe Johnny Dobbs really was one of his best friends—that something traumatic in the army had caused them to be good friends.
If I had lived back in Bible times as a Hebrew and had been good friends with an Egyptian, then think of the problems that would have come out of that. Or what if I’d been friends with somebody who had leprosy: everybody back then hated people with leprosy. If I had married into a family—sort of like Charles has—who didn’t understand that you could be friends with an Egyptian or a leopard, then the problems—all in all—would have been worse.
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