Raney

by Clyde Edgerton

  “Well, that’s a clear answer,” says Charles. “I mean—let me ask you this first: if it’s clear in the scriptures, you don’t have to think about it very much, do you? I mean if it’s there, it’s there.”

  “Well, yes. But I can only speak for myself.”

  “My problem,” says Charles, “is that it’s not all that clear to me.” Charles seemed very calm. “So I’ve had to think about it and of course that’s okay: to think about it. Right?”

  I didn’t know Charles had been thinking about all that. I imagine Charles thinks about several things at once sometimes.

  “Certainly it’s okay to think about it. That’s why God gave us a mind: to use. No problem there.”

  “The way I see it,” says Charles, “Jesus said, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ That means I have to help Raney out at home because I would have her help me out if we switched positions. But if we both worked, we’d both do the same amount of work at home. It seems only fair that way, or just. And justice is what God is all about. I think. That’s a little more general than your interpretation.”

  “You know,” said Aunt Naomi, “on that ‘do unto others as you’d have them do unto you,’ you could say that you ought to give somebody all your money because that’s what you’d want them to do to you, but then if everybody did that, there’d be nobody to take any money because you wouldn’t want somebody to take yours, and if the Devil could talk somebody into it, that somebody would go around taking all the money and end up the richest person in the world while everybody else was poor. We talked about that in Sunday School one time.”

  “That’s not exactly what I’m talking about, somehow,” said Charles. “See, Mr. Gordon, I think societal expectations play a large part in all this. For example, society sees men as fulfilling about one thousand jobs, and women—about three or four: housewives, secretaries, teachers, and nurses. That doesn’t seem exactly fair to me—or just. It seems to me that if societal expectations are unjust then the church ought to be doing, or at least saying, something about that.”

  “In some ways I agree about society expectations,” said Preacher Gordon. “But I worry about government expectations, too. You know, the whims of society and government shift like the sands. What’s in today is out tomorrow. We need to—”

  “Build our houses on a rock,’ says Aunt Naomi.

  “God’s truth has been God’s truth for so long,” says Mama, pointing with her fork, “and I know the joy I’ve felt in raising my children is a joy from God and I thank God I was able to stay home and do it. And I thank God for people like you, Preacher Gordon, who have been called to interpret the Gospel.”

  “I guess the whole point I wanted to make,” says Charles, “is that it’s not all so simple and clear to me about a man’s role and a woman’s role. Surely the social customs of biblical times influenced the scriptures. Wouldn’t you say, Preacher Gordon?”

  “Perhaps,” said Preacher Gordon, “but then again, divine inspiration has a certain timelessness about it.”

  “I mean slavery didn’t seem to be a burning issue back then,” says Charles.

  I didn’t want to get into all that.

  “That’s why tinkering with the scriptures bothers me so much,” said Mama. “All those translations. I read somewhere they had computers working on one of those new translations. That takes the cake.” She got up and brought the tea jug.

  I could see what Charles was talking about. I’d never thought about it before.

  “I’ll tell you what I don’t like,” says Aunt Naomi, “is the idea of all this government day care stuff. That’s pretty much like the communists, ain’t it, Preacher Gordon? Seems like we’re getting more like them and they’re getting more like us. They’re wearing dungarees all over the place. Pretty soon we’ll be all the same. That’s what I’m afraid of. I heard not long ago that England is going communist.”

  “You mean ‘socialist,’” says Charles. “Except they’ve been that way a long time.”

  “That was it: socialist,” says Aunt Naomi. “That’s what I heard—that they’re going socialist. And did you know that they have day care centers on just about every street corner in Russia?”

  “Aunt Naomi,” I said. “What if all the communists started wearing green shirts. It’d be all right for me to wear one, wouldn’t it?”

  “Well, yes, but . . . if we happened to have a war and somebody started shooting all the communists, you might get shot. You wouldn’t want to wear a green shirt then. That’s another thing: the way women are dressing like men. It’s unnatural.”

  “How about some more cabbage, Preacher Gordon?” I said.

  “Oh, no thanks. Well, maybe just a little. It’s all mighty good, Doris.”

  We all said it sure was.

  The communists didn’t have a thing to do with it.

  “What do you think about me working and having a baby, Daddy?” I asked.

  “Jimmy Pope called me a communist,” said Norris.

  “Be quiet,” said Mary Faye.

  “Well,” said Daddy, “we’ll have to see about all that when the time comes. You ain’t pregnant, are you?”

  “Oh no.”

  So we didn’t talk about it any more. We drifted off to talking about the Blue Ridge Parkway.

  Preacher Gordon ate a lot. He’s not bashful about that. Mama says that’s one thing she likes about him. And he shook Charles’s hand when we left and said he’d like to talk to Charles some more. I think Charles likes him better now that he’s got to know him over a meal and found out he is not iron clad like Mr. Brooks—who threatened to stop singing in the choir because Mr. Phillips, the choir director, was against the church buying a bus. Of all things.

  “Charles,” I said, while we were driving home, “I wish you felt like staying a little longer on Sunday afternoons. All we’re doing is sitting and talking. It really don’t hurt, does it?”

  “As a matter of fact, it does hurt. I can’t just sit in one place like that for a whole afternoon and talk about, about God knows what all, or who all. I do think I like talking to Mr. Gordon, better than I thought I would, better than I like his sermons. Maybe I can start talking to him about his sermons. I’ll bet nobody else in that church does. I mean really talking.”

  “I’m talking about Mama and them, mainly. I’d like to visit more—sometimes other than just on Sundays, but—”

  “Go. Visit during the week.”

  “Charles, you know it wouldn’t seem right—me traipsing in to see Aunt Naomi once a week with you sitting at home with your nose in a book and Aunt Naomi asks, ‘Where’s Charles?’ and I say, ‘Sitting at home with his nose in a book.’”

  “That would be okay with me.”

  “I know it would, because it’s not your reputation.”

  “Reputation?”

  “Charles, the entire foundation of my entire family is built on visiting. The family that visits together stays together. And if—”

  “What if they didn’t stay together, Raney? What would happen then?”

  “Wait a minute. I haven’t finished. And how do you think I feel walking into a room full of my aunts, uncles, and cousins when the living husband that I’m married to is at home reading Robinson Crusoe or something. It’s like walking in beside a blank spot, or one of them black holes, Charles. Now I could—”

  “Raney, there are plenty of singles at your family gatherings.”

  “I haven’t finished. Oh no, they aren’t ‘singles.’ Uncle Frank is dead, Uncle Forrest is dead, and now Uncle Newton. My widow aunts don’t count as singles. And their husbands didn’t ever sit at home reading.”

  “Maybe that’s why they’re all dead.”

  “Charles. Charles, that’s simply awful.”

  “Okay, I’m sorry.”

  “What I was going to say is: you wouldn’t have to come every single, solitary time. The way it is now, if I visited regularly by myself they’d all forget who I was married to
.”

  “Wear a name tag saying, ‘My husband is Charles—male, 5'10", loves to read—especially today.’ I’ll get one made up—I swear.”

  “I don’t think it’s funny. I think it’s important.”

  III

  Sneeds and me got along fine the first week at the store. Monday—the day I started—he let me do the candy order. I had to check the items on the order sheet. The salesman says, “Two boxes Baby Ruth, two Butterfingers, one Powerhouse.” He was going so fast I had to keep stopping him. Sneeds said that was the thing to do. He said a delivery man gypped him out of some potato chips one time and some magazines another time.

  The part I like best about working in the store is finding something for somebody when I know where it is and they don’t. Somebody will come in, look around for a minute, then come over and say, “Do you have any Kleenex?” And I say Sure do, and come around from behind the counter and go straight to it. It’s like being in a spelling bee and getting the easiest word.

  Right off the bat—that first day—I told Sneeds that the minnow tank had to be moved.

  He says, “Do you know how much that thing weighs?”

  “No, but if you’d scoop out all the dead minnows and mud it’d probably be down to about twenty pounds and you could slide it wherever you wanted to.”

  He laughed. He’s got rotten teeth and he’s about thirty-five or forty I think, and he moves real slow. But he keeps the books and Daddy says he’s accurate and he just hopes he can keep him.

  “Well,” says Sneeds, “besides the fact that that tank weighs about a thousand pounds, you’ve got the problem of that big wall socket for the filter and light and all that. There ain’t another one anywhere except on that post right there beside the tank. You’d have to put in another wall socket.”

  “I’ll talk to Daddy about that,” I said.

  Also on that first day I found a feather duster under the counter. But you will not believe what else I found under there. There were these boxes of preventatives. There were all kinds of makes and models. It embarrassed me to death.

  Well, that’s okay. People have to get them somewhere.

  I tried to dust off the canned food with the feather duster but what I needed was a vacuum cleaner. All the feather duster did was move the dirt somewhere else. So Thursday morning I brought my Kirby and by lunch I had the canned and boxed food cleaned up and by Friday I had the windows squeaky clean and all the junk cleaned off those shelves. Even Sneeds was pleased. The whole place looked like you’d opened window shades on a sunny morning. I moved out those oil cans from around the stove and got three brass-colored spittoons from Pope’s, cleaned the ceilings, the bathroom, the shelves, and throwed out nine big garbage bags of pure-t trash.

  The only problem was that even before I finished, one of Sneeds’s buddies, Lennie somebody, came in and said, “Hell, I might as well be in the g. d. Seven-Eleven, Sneeds!”

  Monday, when I put the feather duster back under the counter I noticed these stacks of magazines under there. Girlie magazines. Playboy, Penthouse, and some other one. In my daddy’s own store. I could not believe it. My mind shot ahead six or seven years and I saw a little boy or girl of mine rustling under that counter and seeing a picture of a unnatural act which would stick in their mind forever as the way it’s supposed to be. In my daddy’s own store.

  “Sneeds, why do you have those magazines stuck under the counter?” I said. “Why don’t you put them out on the rack with all the others?”

  “They ain’t your regular magazines,” says Sneeds. “We might get a little trouble from some of the church people.”

  I’ve already heard two or three men around the store talking about “the people down at the church.”

  “Well,” I said, “how does anybody know about those magazines if they’re stuck behind the counter?”

  “Oh, they know. They know. There’s regular customers who come in here as soon as we get in a new shipment.”

  “Well, don’t expect me to sell any.”

  “Okay, I won’t. Just holler for me.”

  That beat all. Here this had been going on under the whole community’s nose for no telling how long. In my daddy’s own general store. I figured I’d just have to say something to Daddy about it.

  I finally had a chance after Sunday dinner when he went back to the bedroom to take his usual Sunday nap; I followed him.

  “Daddy, I know about them magazines under the counter at the store.”

  “Honey, now you leave those magazines alone.”

  “Daddy, that’s not what I’m talking about. How can you go to church and still sell those magazines? I can’t do it. Everytime somebody wants one I call Sneeds. Why do you sell them?”

  “Honey, Sneeds manages all of that. I give him free rein in ordering and the whole magazine idea is his. I asked him about those magazines myself and he said their profit margin is higher than anything in the store. If you want to talk to Sneeds about stopping the magazines—fine. I just hate to put a man in control of something and then pull the rug out from under him. Plus, they’re out of sight. He keeps them out of sight.”

  “I just think it’s wrong, Daddy.”

  “Well, let me think about it. That’s all I know to say now. I hate to let Sneeds do something and then tell him not to do it.”

  So I decided I would try to talk to Sneeds again. Monday afternoon—of the second week—during a lull, I’m sweeping inside and Sneeds is sitting out front in the sunshine. I go out and stand in front of him, putting the shadow of my head across his eyes.

  “Sneeds, don’t you think those magazines under the counter are filthy?”

  “They ain’t filthy—necessarily,” he says. “They don’t hurt nobody as far as I can tell. These people’ll buy them somewheres. We might as well make the money as somebody else.”

  “Well, I just don’t think it’s right. If it was, they wouldn’t have to be under the counter. You know the expression ‘under the counter’?”

  “Well, yes, but if you put them out where everybody can see them, old Mr. Brooks is liable to have the sheriff on us.”

  “Well, I just think it’s wrong to sell them at all and I wish you’d think about stopping.”

  “Do you know how much money they bring in?”

  “No.”

  “A lot. One heck of a lot.”

  There didn’t seem to be much I could do. I put out some tracts—“What the Bible Means to Me”—but they didn’t go very fast. The magazines sold steady. (I must admit that I couldn’t help laughing at some of the cartoons in Playboy. That’s all I looked at though—for any length of time. The pictures of the naked women are hazy like they’re in a dream. And I cannot believe they show everything like they do—so the men can go off somewhere and look at the pictures. I mean you don’t ever see some man sitting on the front porch or out in the yard looking at Playboy, do you? No. They’re too embarrassed.)

  Madora told me about Playgirl, but I don’t care to see one. I wonder if they have the men all hazy like in a dream like in Playboy. I think it would be better if they had them sweaty—kind of shiny, maybe like they just got off working in the fields on a hot day. But I haven’t seen one and I don’t plan to.

  For two days I’d noticed this brand new broom—with a piece of thin cardboard around the thistles—sitting by the cash register, but I hadn’t thought anything about it until Mrs. Johnson, who had just bought three bags of groceries, took a look at her receipt after Sneeds had torn it off the cash register.

  “What’s this here?” she said, pointing to the receipt.

  “Oh. That’s the broom,” says Sneeds.

  “I didn’t get no broom,” says Mrs. Johnson.

  “That there ain’t your broom?” says Sneeds.

  “Oh, no. I didn’t get no broom.”

  “I declare, I’m awful sorry, Mrs. Johnson. Let me put this back where it belongs. I imagine somebody must have left it standing here,” Sneeds says, real puzzled like. He carri
es the broom to the back of the store and leans it up against the other new brooms. “I’m awful sorry, Mrs. Johnson. I just saw it standing there and I thought it was yours. Let me give you your money back.” He dings open the cash register. “There you go.”

  Mrs. Johnson got her purse out of her pocketbook, snapped it open, folded the bills and stuck them in and dropped the change in and clamped her purse shut and smiled at Sneeds. “I don’t even need a broom,” she says. “I got three.”

  Sneeds followed her to the door, saying he was sorry. But do you know what he did then? He walked to the back of the store, got that same broom and leaned it up against the cash register. Again.

  “Sneeds Perry,” I says, “you tried to cheat her.”

  “Oh, no. It was an honest mistake. I didn’t mean to charge Mrs. Johnson for that broom.”

  “Well, Sneeds, you went and got it and set it right back up there! What for?”

  “There’s people, Raney, plenty of people—but not Mrs. Johnson—who come in here and charge stuff. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, some never pay it off. Paul Markham has a bill you wouldn’t believe, and nobody knows about it but me and your daddy, and Paul’ll pay on it, sure, but he won’t pay it off. Well, it ain’t right. It simply ain’t right, and I tell your daddy and he won’t do a thing about it. So, I collect interest—I’ll have a broom this week and a jar of pickles next week—one of them giant jars. Now that there with Mrs. Johnson was a accident. I didn’t mean to ring up that broom. But Paul was in here yesterday and Fred Powers today and I’d just rung it up for both of them and so—”

  “Sneeds, two wrongs don’t make a right.”

  “I might as well get them both while they’re here.”

  “No, no. I mean your wrong don’t make their wrong right.”

  “Oh. Well, maybe not, but charging them extra ain’t wrong because it cancels out their wrong. In other words, one wrong can cancel out another wrong.”

  “Sneeds. Sneeds, what if I tell Daddy? I mean I can’t just ignore this.”

  “If you have to tell him, tell him. But I think you ought to remember that I agreed to you working in here in the first place, so if it hadn’t been for me you wouldn’t have known about this anyway, so it’s my own doing, in a way. And what I’m doing is helping out your daddy, so you telling him would actually hurt him moneywise. But do what you have to do.”