Tales from a Free-Range Childhood

by Donald Davis

  Mama did not know what to say. I thought the plan was wonderful. I was thirteen years old, and except for staying at my grandparents’ house I had never in my life been far enough from my mother that I could not feel her breath on me. Now, thanks to crooked teeth and Trailways, I was about to have adventures on my own. (I noticed, but Mama did not, that Daddy failed to tell us whether any of the parents with whom he had talked had actually done this with their own children. I discovered later that I was the first!)

  A couple of weeks later, the appointment was made. It was to be at nine-thirty on a Thursday morning. Mama thought the later time would be good in case the bus was late or I was slow getting from the station on Coxe Avenue up to the Flatiron Building.

  Early that morning, I was up, bathed, and ready to go. Mama made rude comments about my appearing more interested in the trip than in going to school. I reminded her of what Daddy had said when the braces plan was made: “It will be part of my total education. I won’t even really be missing school!”

  There were plenty of instructions from Mama on the way to the bus station: “Now, you sit near the front of the bus where the driver can see you. Don’t you go way in the back. And get you a seat of your own. If someone tries to come and sit down beside you, you move! And when you get over to Asheville to that bus station there, don’t you use the bathroom in the bus station. You hold it until you get to Dr. Turbyfill’s office.” There was more, but I had stopped listening by then.

  I still remember climbing up onto the silver-and-red Trailways bus and looking out the back window at Mama standing beside her car. Watching while the bus drove away, it was a beautiful sight to see her get smaller and smaller and smaller until she simply disappeared. I suddenly felt totally free!

  The bus actually got into Asheville a little bit early. I headed up Coxe Avenue, turned the corner onto Patton Avenue, then left up Biltmore Avenue to the Flatiron Building. I was there at nine-fifteen on the nose. They took me in early, and I was rewired, adjusted, and back out of the office before ten o’clock.

  Since I knew that I had only a couple of hours before the new version of soreness set in, I decided to go straight to Woolworth’s and eat at the lunch counter. They were still serving breakfast, so I had waffles with as much butter and syrup as I wanted. Then I walked up and down every single aisle in the store, looking at and touching everything I wanted to examine to my heart’s content.

  It was a leisurely stroll back to the bus station early for the eleven o’clock bus back to Waynesville. All went as planned. Daddy was waiting at the bus station, and I was back at school for the entire afternoon. I felt like a free and responsible thirteen-year-old adult.

  The next appointment did not work out in exactly the same way.

  I never did figure out what happened. When I got to Dr. Turbyfill’s office for my next appointment, the office was full of kids when I arrived. I wondered whether his business was booming, or maybe there had been some sort of sickness which caused a lot of makeup appointments.

  At any rate, the result was that the entire day was way behind time. I sat there staring at the clock on the wall and listening for my name to be called. When I finally got to go back to one of the chairs, it was already ten-twenty. It took another good ten minutes for Dr. Turbyfill to finish on his other patient and come to me. I could not say a thing with my mouth wide open, but I was silently wishing for quickness. It was not there. He let me go at exactly ten fifty-five.

  I ran out of the office, ran down the flight of stairs without waiting for the elevator. I knew there was a shortcut out the back and along Wall Street. Patton Avenue was crossed in an instant, and the bus station was in sight.

  What was also in sight was the back end of my Trailways bus leaving for Waynesville, on time for the first time in its life. I had lost the race.

  Panting and out of breath, I ran into the station and up to the counter. “I am supposed to be on that bus!” I cried to the ticket agent. “I do not live in Asheville. I live in Waynesville, and I am supposed to be on that bus so my daddy can pick me up and take me to school!”

  The Trailways agent was very kind. He simply told me that everything would be okay and that he would be my helper in working things out. Without even needing to look on the schedule, he told me that another bus left for Waynesville at four-ten in the afternoon. It was even a direct bus, stopping only in Canton, and would get me back where I belonged at five o’clock.

  After I settled down a little bit, the agent even offered to call my daddy at the bank and tell him exactly what had happened. This suited me just fine, as I did not want to talk with anyone right now.

  Once Daddy heard the news, he wanted to talk with me. He was not mad at all. In fact, he seemed to think that everything was a little bit funny. He told me to calm down, go and get something to eat, get a book or a magazine, and he would be waiting for me when the later bus arrived. What a relief!

  I counted on my fingers: “Eleven, twelve, one, two, three, four.” That seemed like a long time to hang around the bus station, especially since Mama had specifically told me I was not to use the restroom there. I decided to follow Daddy’s advice and get food and something to read to fill out the time.

  Starting back up Coxe Avenue, the first place I came to was called the Coxe Avenue Newsstand. It was open in the front and had big Coca-Cola coolers right beside the street. There were glass cases filled with candy bars right inside the door. Coke and candy . . . that is food! So I headed inside and bought a bottled Coke and a Baby Ruth (while I could still chew peanuts!).

  Daddy had suggested that I get a book or a magazine. The newsstand did not have books, but it was filled with magazines. This was just the place! I started looking at all of them, trying to decide what to buy.

  The farther toward the back of the little store you got, the more interesting the magazines were. There were no men in them, and the women were very interestingly clothed, if you could call it that. All of a sudden, the owner of the stand—the very man who had sold me the Coke and candy—saw me back there. He almost shouted, “You, little kid. Get out of there! That is the adult section, and you do not belong there!” He got me so upset and insulted I left without even buying a comic book.

  Just across the street from the bus station was the new two-story Sears, Roebuck store. We almost always went there when the family came to Asheville, and I loved the store. The usual frustration was that I was never the shopper. Every time I wanted to stop and look at something, Mama was the one saying, “Don’t look at that. You don’t need that. We are not going to buy that. Come on.”

  On this day, I went into Sears, Roebuck in no hurry and with no one to herd me along. The bus did not leave until four o’clock, and it was now only one. For nearly two hours, I inspected every single thing that Sears, Roebuck had to sell, from toilets to truck tires.

  On the bus ride back to Waynesville that late afternoon, I knew that I had just had one of the greatest days of my life, and it was all because of a simple, blameless mistake in timing.

  After that day, I almost never managed to catch the right bus again! There were plenty of excuses available. “The bus over there was slow, and I got up to the office pretty much after my appointment.” “He has so many new patients, it just takes a lot longer than it used to take.” “Those children from Asheville live so close to the office that they all get there way ahead of me.” Not one single one of these excuses was untrue. It was just that when one of them honestly happened, I happened to walk very slowly back down to the bus station, just in case!

  At least once every month or two, I had a good full five hours on my own to explore the big city of Asheville without any supervision at all.

  Straight across the street from the Flatiron Building was Ivey’s Department Store. They had the first escalator in my life. I would go across to Ivey’s and simply ride the escalator up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down. One day after riding about six round trips, I came to the bottom and was met
by a policeman who had been summoned by the Charles of the Ritz saleslady. Before he could think of a question to ask me, I was out the door and two blocks away. I decided not to shop at Ivey’s anymore, if they were going to act like that.

  Just up the street from Ivey’s was Harry’s Pontiac-Cadillac. It was great fun to go into the showroom and look at the new cars, especially the Cadillacs. I would open the doors and sit in the driver’s seats, pretending to drive. The salesmen were too polite to limit my looking, as I might be the unknown child of a potential Cadillac customer, and they didn’t want to take any chances.

  One day, I was walking down Patton Avenue when a large black car pulled over to the curb and the driver rolled down the window. “Hey, kid!” He was talking to me. “Do you know where the liquor store is?”

  “Sure,” I barked back immediately. Then I proceeded to give the driver a set of directions that would not only not get him to any liquor store in North Carolina but would also assure that I never saw that particular black car ever again.

  Two favorite places to check out on my city walks were the Plaza and the Imperial theaters. They were, of course, not operating during my daytime visits, but they had great color posters of all the upcoming attractions. It was great fun to walk back into the recessed entrances behind the ticket windows and look at the advertisements for all the movies that were coming. Once, I remember seeing a poster for a movie called Hell and High Water. I could not imagine what that could be about, since those two ideas did not go together at all.

  One day, I was walking past the Imperial Theater when there was a great line of people at the ticket window. It did not take me long to realize that it must be spring-break week for Buncombe County schools, and the theater was having special showings for children who were out of school. Without even looking to see what was playing, I got in line and proceeded to buy a ticket.

  Once inside, I discovered that I had paid to see a movie called The Curse of Frankenstein. Not long after it started, a huge, grotesque monster appeared on the screen. He was reaching toward the audience. The entire house screamed in unison! As the screams continued and intensified, I sat with my eyes closed and my head between my knees, not daring to look at another moment of the movie.

  In addition to the Plaza and the Imperial, there was another theater in downtown Asheville. It was on Biltmore Avenue and was called the “Fine Arts.” It was a strange place. A lot of the light bulbs that spelled out the name Fine Arts seemed to be perpetually burned out. And all of the windows on the front of the theater were painted solid white. It was hard to see what was playing there, as they never had the names of the movies listed. There were some little, tiny, almost hidden posters behind the ticket booth that seemed to list some movies. They had strange titles like Foxxes in the Chickkenhouse and seemed to feature only strangely shaped women. It was a creepy-feeling place.

  Biltmore Avenue started on Pack Square, an old part of town with a monument to Zebulon Vance, a two-time governor of North Carolina. It may have once been a nice part of town, but now it was mostly beer joints and pawnshops.

  I loved the pawnshops, especially Finkelstein’s. They sold wonderful knives and harmonicas. I figured it must be dangerous to play the harmonica, since they were displayed right above the switchblade knives.

  Over a two-year period of time, I came to know every street and corner of downtown Asheville, from the Grove Arcade building to Beaucatcher Tunnel. Crooked teeth had made me a real man of the world.

  One of the saddest days from my adolescent memory was that day when Dr. Turbyfill made the announcement, “Well, you are finished now. I have done all I can do with you. As long as you wear your retainer regularly, you have no need to come back!” The fun was over.

  At age sixteen, I got my driver’s license. The first time we went to Asheville after that, Mama agreed to let me drive. She was totally amazed that I got around the city so easily and seemed to know how to go directly from place to place. When she commented on it, I complimented her: “Oh, Mama, you have always been so clear in describing Asheville from your days in teachers college here. I learned from listening to you!”

  I think now about the spring of that year when the school annuals arrived. As soon as I got home with mine, Mama wanted to look at it. She went, of course, directly to the class photographs. There I was, smiling, with both rows of straight, brace-free teeth glowing.

  “Oh, look at you!” she smiled. “Look at how nice you look! Remember before you got the braces, and you didn’t even want to have them? Well, look at that picture. What do you have to say now about having your teeth straightened?”

  I smiled back at her. “I’m glad I did it. You see, I always tried to remember what my daddy said that day when I first went over there.”

  “I don’t remember,” she said, opening the door.

  “He said, ‘Son, just think of it as part of your education.’ And that is what got me through all the pain and suffering of the whole thing.”

  Chapter 19

  THE NEW OLD CAR

  When Mama and Daddy met, Mama had never even ridden in a car. She grew up on a homesteading farm where there were no powered vehicles of any kind. Her father never learned to drive in all of her growing-up years.

  She had ridden the train to college and back. For four years, she walked to and from the school where she taught. Not until she met Daddy did she ever get into the first car that ever carried her. She was twenty-five years old at the time.

  Needless to say, when she and Daddy got married and started their family, it was a one-car family. There was Daddy, Mama, Joe, and me—and the 1936 black Plymouth. Daddy was the driver. That is the way the world was made, not only for our family but for a predominance of post–World War II American households. A car was a possession of prized luxury, and there were not a lot of them to casually pass around.

  When I was in the second grade and Joe was old enough to start to church-basement kindergarten, Mama, who had taken an eight-year hiatus from teaching to have us, decided that it was time for her to go back to the classroom. Daddy agreed, with one condition: she needed to learn to drive.

  She objected, “One driver is enough for any family. We have one car, and only one person can drive it at a time. We are always going places together, so there is no need for me to learn to drive.”

  She lost the argument, and with Daddy as the teacher and the additional coaching of two little boys in the backseat, she perilously learned to drive the 1948 Plymouth.

  As soon as she had her driver’s license, Daddy started the campaign: “Why don’t we get another car?”

  “What’s wrong with that car?” Mama objected. “We just got it two years ago, and you know Harry will be bringing us another one when we need it.” Daddy’s brother, our uncle Harry, was a Chrysler-Plymouth dealer in Leaksville, North Carolina. Every few years, he would show up at our house for Christmas with a new car he had decided Daddy was going to buy. It was always the Plymouth that was so profoundly ugly he knew no one would buy it, and he had to get rid of it some way.

  “I do know that,” Daddy countered. “I am talking about a second car so that we can each have one to drive. Harry can get us a good used car, or we could just keep this one and add a new one when he has one for us.”

  Mama did not even argue. She simply walked out of the room and closed the door, a little too loudly, behind her. This was bad. If she had argued, there would have been a chance. But if no one will even start to argue with you, how do you have any possibility of winning the fight in the end?

  Daddy did not give up. Every time he had a chance, he brought up the idea of the second car.

  “It would actually save us money.” This was his best argument. “Now, I am taking you to school every morning and driving back from there to work. ‘Doubling back,’ I call it, and using more gasoline and wearing out the tires. Then, in the afternoon, I have to leave work and go get you and double back again to take you home and then go back to work and probably h
ave to stay later to make up for leaving to take you home. It makes sense for us to have two cars. I’ll call Harry!”

  Mama did not budge. “If we waste money and get another car that we don’t need, people will talk about us. They will say that I went back to teaching school just so we could show off and buy things that we did not need to start with. Besides, as soon as a family begins to go places in different cars, that is the beginning of the end for them. And I have already called Harry and told him in no uncertain words that we do not need a second car, and that he better not think about getting in on this act!”

  It seemed that Daddy had lost the battle, but still he did not give up.

  At the end of my sixth-grade year in school, we moved to our new house. Daddy now figured that the “doubling back” business was worse than ever before. He figured it was a total of three more miles each day, which meant fifteen wasted miles each week. This translated into sixty useless miles each month, and finally added up to nearly eight hundred never-to-be-recovered miles in the course of a full year.

  Uncle Harry brought us a new Plymouth that year during the Christmas season. Daddy said the new car was a special color called “Monkey Vomit Green,” and called it “Mama’s car,” implying that he would soon have his own car. Uncle Harry drove off, taking our old car with him, along with another threat from Mama.

  The argument resurfaced when I turned fifteen and was signed up for driver’s training at school: “Lucille, we are about to have three drivers sharing one car. In a couple of years, Joe will learn to drive. I don’t see how we can possibly divide one Plymouth four ways.”