by Mary Morony
“Ethel, what does embezzlement mean?” I asked over a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that noon.
“Have you been lis’nin’ to yo’ Momma on da phone, again? You best stop that ear droppin’.”
Since Daddy no longer lived with us, it was always my mother who drove us to school in the morning: four kids, going to three different schools, and one of the few times Stuart’s life intersected with mine. She was spending as much time as she could away from home, but to tell the truth, the trip was far more enjoyable when she decided to catch the bus or ride with friends. Otherwise, Gordy, Helen, and I had to sit in the back of the red woody station wagon and listen to my sister and mother bicker all the way to school.
“Why can’t I go the dance?” Stuart would implore. “Dad would let me go,” she’d say. “I want to live with him. He said I could.”
“The lawyers said…”
“I don’t care what any old lawyer says. I’m going back to live with Daddy and you can’t stop me.” Stuart slammed the car door behind her.
Gordy was lucky: he was the first out, so usually he was dropped off before my mother and Stuart had even started to get worked up. I remember some mornings when my mother wept all the way as she drove Helen and me to our school. Then the routine, unpleasant as it was, changed for a second time that year.
With Daddy out of the household and with expensive lawyers to pay, my mother found she could no longer afford to send us children to private schools. The four of us were switched to public school.
Ethel said one morning while fixing breakfast not long after that, “You know, Miz Ginny, I heard dey is gonna close down da schools here in Charlottesville.”
“You heard what? Where?” My mother shook her head like Ethel was all wrong. “Who said such a thing?”
“In church on Sunday, the reverend say we’s ‘pose ta send our chil’ren to school—ta the white schools—as soon as the law be signed. He say dat no matter what’s we hear we is ‘pose ta gets ‘em ready fo school. And if dey close da schools like dey say dey is, we is ‘pose to take ‘em anyways. And ta sit outside da school all peaceful like. He say he ‘spect dey will too.”
“Will too what?” My mother looked puzzled.
“Well,” Ethel stated flatly, “close da schools.”
Gordy and I were elated to think we wouldn’t have schools, but knew enough to stay out of the conversation. It never occurred to us that we would still have to go to school.
No sooner had we started to get accustomed to our local public school, then, for reasons that made no sense to me, we were sent off to attend classes in church basements and old houses. Within a month of our switching schools, the public schools had closed rather than have white and colored kids go to school together. We were relocated to makeshift classrooms and our teachers came with us. More and more often Stuart was getting rides with friends, so that everything seemed to me to be changing at once. It didn’t take too many weeks of driving to school every morning to convince my mother that carpooling might be a good idea; that way she’d only have to drive once a week, and if she made Stanley the yardman drive for her, she could avoid the tedium altogether.
I may not have fully understood why the schools had to close, but I knew one thing for sure: I didn’t want our yardman driving the car pool for my mother. Stanley was fine in the yard, though a little stinky, but mothers were supposed to drive car pools. Three other mothers took turns driving us to school. Jerry’s mom was the best. She was always late. She had a car with only two doors and we had to really squeeze ourselves in. I loved to snuggle up to her fuzzy coat in the front seat. She said funny things and made everyone laugh. One cold morning she let me wear her already warm gloves because I had forgotten mine.
When it came time for my mother’s turn to drive, Stanley drove in her stead. She said it was because driving made her nauseated now. We weren’t so sure about that, though, because she drove plenty of other places when she wanted to. Still, my mother’s belly was growing bigger by the week, and whenever anyone wanted to know why our mother didn’t drive us, we would blame the baby. Helen, Gordy, and I at least knew Stanley; the other kids in the carpool were even more uncomfortable with the awkward turn of events than we were. We all knew that colored people were somehow responsible for our present school situation.
“My mom says white kids shouldn’t be alone in a car with a nigger,” one of the Williams boys announced none too quietly as Stanley pulled away from the curb in front of their house. “She said if your mom doesn’t get off her high horse and drive us like she ought to, my mom is going to—”
His brother cut in, “‘Sides he stinks!” Everyone laughed but us.
“Shhh, he can hear you,” I’d whisper, checking the rearview mirror often to see if he was watching us. Every once in a while I’d catch his old eyes scanning the backseat.. I didn’t like Stanley driving us anymore than they did, but the stuff they said made me squirm with embarrassment. Maybe it was my own discomfort, or because I was used to seeing Stanley in the yard—or perhaps he was just one of those men who’s too big for confined spaces—but it always seemed like Stanley took up more of the car than he should have. No one else in our carpool had help, black or white, so they didn’t understand that having to drive for my mother wasn’t Stanley’s fault.
Gordy had the great idea one morning to tell Stanley to drop us off blocks before the makeshift school. He said, “We like to walk.”
We all said, “Yeah, we like to walk. Drop us off here.”
And Jerry added, “You dumb nigger.” It was all I could do not to punch him in the mouth.
I don’t think Stanley liked driving us to school any more than we liked having him do it. Without a single word of protest, he pulled the car over to the curb and stopped. We all got out. He waved his sweat stained, brown felt hat and drove off.
“I’m going to tell your mother you are using bad language,” I told Jerry after Stanley drove away.
“What bad language? Nigger? She won’t care.”
After that, every time Stanley drove us to school, he’d drop us off at that same place. I think he took special delight when it rained. He never gave us the slightest chance to say, “Never mind.” At the end of the day, without fail, Stanley would be waiting in my mother’s conspicuous red station wagon at the front of the line of cars, which the whole school would file by. Even when it wasn’t particularly warm out, he’d have the windows down so anyone who wanted to could see right in the car. I don’t know if he really did wear a red plaid shirt every time he picked us up, or if it just seemed like it.
The car pool disbanded before the school year was out. During recess, Jerry said that his mother “didn’t like niggers driving him around.” What he didn’t say, but I heard him tell someone else, was that she thought my mother was gonna end up paying for being so high and mighty and ought to stop associating with niggers the way she did. To my siblings’ and my horror, Stanley continued to drive us every day. The funny thing was, we liked Stanley. Once the neighbors’ kids were no longer riding with us, we had nice talks; but I did hate having to get in and out of that car at school.
By the time school started the next year, we didn’t have to worry about Stanley driving. He’d stopped coming to work for us. I speculated on the potential scandal of the situation—it seemed there was always a scandal when hired help got laid off—but Gordy informed me quite matter-of-factly that I didn’t know anything: we couldn’t afford Stanley anymore, and that was that. Before long Ethel was doing everything we’d ever hired out for, and then going home before dusk. Sometimes she’d make our dinner before she departed, but as more and more tasks fell to her, she began leaving the cooking to my mother. It’s a bad thing when you can’t tell the mashed potatoes from the gravy. Worst of all, we had to start eating in the dining room.
Chapter 13
Ethel
1924
Drinkin’ started out as the most fascinatin’ thing I ever thought about when I wa
s ‘bout fourteen or fifteen. On our afternoons off, Roberta, Alberta, and me would go out behind Freeman’s funeral parlor. We’d take a little picnic, play games, and have ourselves a big time and weren’t bothered by a soul, ‘cept Roberta, who was always makin’ out like she was too fancy for picnics out back of a rundown ol’ funeral parlor. “I’s hot out chere. Ain’t enough shade here to cool a ant,” she complained one summer Sunday. “Ol’ dry mud just vibratin’ heat. Less go sit on the porch and pretend we’s white folks wit’ a fine house that ain’t got nothin’ to do but sit an’ fan ourselves,” she said, like it was ‘bout the best thing in the whole wide world to do. “Ethel, pick up them sandwiches and brang ‘em along.” She sashayed over to the porch and plopped herself down on the stoop like she was fine as rain.
“How you gon’ preten’ to be a fine white lady an’ ain’t got no chair to sit on?” Alberta asked.
“You is simple as Huberta, po’ soul,” Roberta said, like she was so much better than our older sister. “That’s the point of pretendin’: you don’t gots to have it to be pretendin’; you make believe.”
“I know’d what pretendin’ be,” Alberta puffed and blew like a dog with a snout full of dust. “Mama would knock you up one side and down the other if she heard you talkin’ ‘bout Huberta like that. An don’ be acting like it be all righ’ if you say poor ol’ soul afterward. You’ll be simple if she catch ya. I be telling ya that sure as I live and breathe.”
Funny thing about Alberta and Roberta, they didn’ look no more alike than a dog and a donut. Roberta was tall an’ light-skinned an’ moved like a bird, sort of strutted when she walked, all quick like. Alberta was short, thick, an’ dark. She had a mop of hair that stuck straight up no matter what she tried to do to it, which wasn’t much. She didn’ have the patience to sit for braidin’ it, an’ she always said she “didn’ have time for no mens,” either. Maybe that was so.
The three of us sat on that porch all afternoon, actin’ like we was fine ladies having ourselves a tea party, laughin’ and gossipin’ about the white ladies we worked fo’.
“Would you mind pourin’ me some mo’ tea?”
“Why no, dearie. Like some milk an’ sugar wit’ it?”
“No thank ya, but I’d powerful like to have another piece of that there chocolate cake.” Pretendin’, it seemed, came natural to Alberta once she got the hang of it.
Roberta, with her high self, came up with the idea first, but it wasn’t like Alberta and me had anything against it, really. “The next Sunday we has off, les bring us some hooch an’ pretends we’s having a cocktail party,” she said, looking at the two of us hard so that we couldn’ disagree with her.
“Is we pretendin’ we’s got the hooch?” Alberta asked. “I spect so, cuz I don’ know nowhere to git any.” She looked at me like to ask, Do ya? I just shook my head and shrugged. I didn’t have no idea how ya got it. Prohibition made it ‘gainst the law to be drinkin’, an’ I ain’t never broke no law.
Roberta said, “Don’ ya’ll worry, I know what to do. My lady’s got some an’ I know where she keep it. I’ll jest help myself to a little bit an’ bring it ‘long wit’ me. She don’ never notice. I do it all the time. Take me a lil’ nip or two when ain’t nobody ‘round.”
“You do what?” Alberta brayed. “Girl, you gonna fine yo’self out in the street if you ain’t careful.”
“I’s careful. You know Miz Boyle ain’t got a lick a sense. I don’ spect she even knows it’s there. Her son be leavin’ it. Feels so good—just smooth as silk—it does. Takes all the bumps outta de road. I git my work done twice as fast so I kin sit with my feet up ‘til I hear her at the gate. Then I be hummin’ a tune as I goes about, lookin’ like I been dustin’ all afternoon.” She said looking proud as punch with herself. “After a while, even tastes pretty good,” she added.
“How long you been doin’ like that?” Alberta asked, soundin’ like she was impressed, but she could have been mad. You never could tell with Alberta. The wind shifted so often. “You know Mama would be on you like a duck on a June bug if she knew. She’ll eat you up with that stick o’ hers if you lose dat job.”
“I ain’t gonna be losin’ no job,” Roberta said, sure as a Bible salesman at a revival.
Alberta and I couldn’ disagree, knowin’ as little as we did on the subject. The boardin’ house where I worked was run by a strict Christian lady who wouldn’t even let a single bottle in her house wit’out checkin’ to see if there was any hooch in it. I even heard that she got a passel of her friends to close down the saloons afore they was closed for good. I didn’t think there was a chance I would run across any hooch at my work, and I knew Mama didn’t have none. The one thing you knew ‘bout Mama’s house was there weren’t nothin’ there ‘cept what you absolutely needed; and sometime not even that. Nobody, Mama knew, needed alcohol; and nobody I knew crossed Mama.
I looked forward to that next Sunday like a new pair of shoes. I don’ know why. I ain’t never paid no mind to nobody drinkin’ whiskey afore then. I didn’t know the first thing about it, but Roberta made it sound like magic to me—magic I wanted part of.
It was my turn to bring the sandwiches. I wrapped ‘em in some ol’ cotton rags while my lady was in the parlor. She didn’t pay me much mind on Sunday afternoons after the dishes was done. Didn’t even fuss ‘bout me makin’ the sandwiches, though she only let me use the leftovers she was ‘bout to throw to the dogs anyhow.
I slipped out the back door and hightailed it to the funeral parlor. When I got there, the lot was filled with cars, mules, wagons, and carts. People was millin’ ‘round dressed in their Sunday best. I’d forgot that Clarence Dean had passed. An’ when I remembered, I knew we weren’t gon’ be doin’ any drinkin’ that day. Roberta, on the other side of the yard, was talking with a boy I knew she liked. She looked like she had already had a taste or two. She waved me over.
“Dewey, you knows my little sister Ethel, don’ ya?” she asked, looking all moony eyed. I was sorry she had asked me to come over. She twisted one of those big fat curls ‘round her face and batted her eyes. Roberta liked tryin’ the latest thing and havin’ your hair straightened was the latest. It looked all oily and greasy to me.
“I ‘spect I do,” Dewey grunted, hardly lookin’ at me. “You gonna come with me or not?” he asked, takin’ Roberta by the arm. “I know where we can get us lots mo’.”
She giggled, turned to me and said, “Go on home. If’n you see Alberta, tell her I got som’thin’ else to do.”
I couldn’ tell ya why I was so disappointed. Roberta was never somebody you could set your watch on, ‘specially if there was a man ‘round, but that snake oil of a story she told ‘bout drinkin’ had taken me over. I couldn’ imagine workin’ so hard that I could make time—time to put my feet up and time to enjoy it to boot. I wanted some of that, and I was bound and determined to get me some.
Alberta bumped up ‘gainst the back of my knees with hers like she always do when I don’ see her coming. “Where Ro?” she asked.
“She off with that no-count Dewey,” I sniffed. “Gots somethin’ better ta do, she say.”
“Mmhm!” Alberta sneered. “I bet she do. Le’s me and you go on over to Clarence’s house and pay our respects.” She ambled behind the mourners an’ I run to catch up.
“Do we has to go to the grave? I hate goin’ to the grave,” I said, beginnin’ to feel a panic set in. “You know how I gets—like I’s gon’ fall in and cain’ get myself out.”
Alberta nodded. “No, we don’ has to go to no grave. We can just hold back then go on by likes we’s there to help out. Early like, ya know. They be glad for the help.”
“I don’ ‘xactly wanna spend my afternoon off workin’,” I said.
“You wanna drink hooch or no?” She looked cross at me, waiting for an answer.
I didn’ argue. We followed the crowd to the churchyard then passed on to Clarence’s ramshackle lil’ house. There was a few women settin’ up
saw horses and boards, making tables out under the trees. Alberta spoke to one of the ladies and then come back to me.
“She say we should go on in the kitchen and help make the sandwiches.” The kitchen wasn’ big as a shoebox and there must have been ten people crammed in it fryin’ chicken, makin’ salad, peelin’ eggs, and sweatin’. I ‘spect it was not one degree less than one hundred and ten in there. One step in the door and the blast of heat hit me smack in the face. I turned myself right around. “You go on, Alberta,” I said. “I’m gonna eat my sandwiches I brung and go on home to Mama.”
“Wait here,” she said, disappearin’ into that furnace of a kitchen. Then she come back out, sweat-covered, with a knife tucked under each arm, a loaf of bread, a plate, and some sandwich fixin’s all piled on each other up to her chin. She nodded her head toward a rickety ol’ table under a tree. “Go’n over there an’ clean that up,” she said as the sweat jest pourin’ offa her face.
While Alberta balanced her load, I pulled a rag out from under the loaf of bread. Then I pumped some water into a bucket from the well and took it over to the table. Them ol’ boards had seen better days, but I tried to clean ‘em best as I could. Alberta plunked down the bread and fixin’s smack on that rotten wet wood. “I ain’t finished cleanin’ it,” I said. “It’s still dirty.”
“Don’ matter. We just makin’ sandwiches,” she said.
“People gonna eat ‘em, ain’t they?” I asked. “Ya can’t feed nobody dirty food.”
She started cuttin’ the bread, then handed me a knife an’ told me how to make a sandwich; somethin’ I been doin’ since I was big enough to hold a knife. I did the best I could to pick the dirt off the bread until she said to quit. “Put the white side up and nobody’ll notice.” Ashamed at myself, I did what she said.
They must have gotten old Clarence buried. Mo’ and mo’ folks was jest standin’ ‘round under the trees, talkin’. Afore too long, the yard was filled wit’ dozens of laughin’, shoutin’ people. They covered them tables with sheets and plates of chicken, collards, potato salad, stewed tomatoes, and deviled eggs was set out. I put our plate of sandwiches as far in the middle of the table as I could, hopin’ they’d be too hard to reach or to bother wit’. ‘Sides, the farther away they was, the harder it was to see them specks of dirt in the bread.