Blackberry Days of Summer

by Ruth P. Watson

  When the conductor yelled, “Jefferson County,” I retrieved my suitcase from under the seat.

  I was the only passenger to disembark. Most of the passengers were headed to Richmond or even farther south to places like Charlotte, North Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia. As I placed my foot on the red clay, old memories resurfaced in a rush. When I caught a glimpse of a cardinal flying through the trees, I smiled because I always felt as though red birds brought good luck. The greenery was thick, rows and rows of pines. Everything looked the same as it had when I’d left.

  “You gonna be all right?” the colored porter asked when I stepped down from the train.

  “Yeah, I’ll be okay,” I said, admiring his weathered, deep chocolate skin with folds of wrinkles layered around his eyes. I couldn’t help wondering what kind of blues they told.

  “Ain’t nothing ’round here but road. Now you be careful, ma’am,” he said, and stepped back up in the train car.

  “I know,” I mumbled, and waved.

  I picked up my suitcase and started down a path I’d trod many times as a child.

  The noon sun was high, and the grass was withered from the cold. The air was fresh and filled with scents of earth. When I passed pastures with grazing animals, their musty odors floated through the air like wind. The walk was eerie, and by the time I arrived at my parents’ small farm a mile down the road, I was slightly spooked.

  I took a deep breath and headed up to the front door. On the front porch were two weathered, ash-colored rocking chairs.

  I knocked and the door opened. “Lord have mercy, look who’s here.”

  My mother was a dark-skinned, thick woman with tiny feet and fingers. She had a round face with deep dimples and black hair mixed with gray. I favored my momma a great deal, folks used to say, but had taken my complexion and height from my daddy.

  “Don’t just stand there. Come in, child.”

  We held each other for at least a minute.

  Then she waited until I had sat down. “Why do you have that bruise over your eye?”

  She was never one to waste time. When she had something to say, it was quickly on her lips.

  “It’s a long story, Momma.”

  She looked at me as if I was still a child. “Now take yo’ time. Think long and hard and then tell me the damn truth.”

  I shook my head.

  The house hadn’t changed in years. Pale gray paint and white curtains still were the core of her decorating scheme. On the Davenport was a throw cover she’d made out of scraps of material. Around her fireplace was an assortment of white plates with a blue paisley design. An old photograph on the mantel showed me and my siblings one Sunday after church when I was twelve years old. I remembered her begging the white photographer to let her pay for the portrait in installments. I was reminded that nothing had changed. She sat with her chubby arms crossed over her chest, anticipating my answer. Next, she would grind me for the truth.

  “Momma, Willie and I had a fight, words and shit.”

  She was surprised. “The last time you wrote me, Willie was still in the service. When did he get home?” And she peered at me like she always did, thinking I made up stories simply for the sake of lying. She was wrong. They were only for survival.

  I took off my shoes, wincing at my sore feet. “He’s been home for over a month now.”

  “So why in the hell did he hit ya? What lie did you tell this time, girl?”

  “Why do you always have to believe the worst about me?”

  “I know my child. You are always hiding some sort of shit.”

  When she spoke, it was as if I was still her little girl. Most time getting whippings for telling “stories,” as she called them. However, from my point of view, my stories were exaggerated truths, although I realized that excuse had never gotten me anywhere with her.

  “Willie put his hands on me for the first and last time.”

  “Tell me what happened. Did he find out you been seeing Herman?”

  “We are just friends,” I protested.

  Her lips tightened grimly. “Child, you are way too old for this. Telling lies like you did when you were a little girl. I thought I’d whipped you enough for that. Now you gonna go and get yo’self in trouble. Willie is a good man. He would do anything for you. I can’t see that boy lifting a hand to you.”

  “Well, he did,” I said with attitude.

  She assessed the truth of what I was saying, then relented. “Willie better not come down here with no shit like that. I know you did something, though, ’cause he never hit ya before.”

  “We were only married six months before he went into the service.”

  She allowed that was true. “You really never know a person till ya live with ’em.”

  “He’s good, but he’s got a temper.”

  “Now, I told you not to take no wooden nickels from nobody. If he ever raises a hand to you again, you got to leave him where he’s standing. But then again, don’t go ’round ’voking him, either. I know ya, child, and there’s mo’ to this story.”

  “Momma, can I just feel safe at home?”

  She nodded, but followed that with a warning. “This is the country, child. We treat each other right ’round here. Ain’t nobody better than nobody else. Now I know you got some uppity ways, and if you gonna stay here, forget that you been in the city most of yo’ life. We move a little slow.”

  “Why are you saying this nonsense to me, Momma?”

  “I told you to think big. And I’m glad you do, but don’t put the people down around ya.”

  “I don’t do that.”

  “I want you to know.”

  I shook my head.

  “Put yo’ things in the bedroom, and come get yo’self some of Momma’s home cooking,” she said.

  Annie May Moore, my mother, always demanded attention, and she got it. She worked in the church and stood contently beside my father on the farm. She knew her children, paid attention to everything they did, analyzing us and insisting on the truth. Lying to her was worthless. Since I had been her youngest, my siblings felt she always gave me more breaks. Whenever I talked back to her, instead of slapping me as she did to them, she would simply listen. My aunt said it was because Momma used to be like me.

  We spent the evening talking about Washington, D.C., the lights of the city, the nightclubs I sang in. After a while, my father turned his nose up. “That ain’t no life for a married woman.”

  We snickered because my mother had gotten as much joy from listening to the stories as I did from telling them. She had wanted to know every detail.

  The next day, a Sunday, we got dressed for church. Like old times, I convinced Momma to put on some lipstick and nutmeg powder. She did and admired her beauty in the mirror. Daddy hitched the horse to the buggy. I waited and prepared to step back in time. Most people here couldn’t afford cars. The church was a good two miles down the road, as I recalled walking there many times as a child.

  “Whoa,” Daddy said when we arrived, and the wagon came to a stop.

  After Momma and I got out, Daddy coaxed the horse over beside the graveyard, where two other buggies were hitched. It was the fourth Sunday and everyone, including my siblings, attended church. Most of the community had helped build it. My grandparents had helped lay the foundation for the building. Even the land had been donated by a family in the church. The pews and floors had been built with lumber from the trees off the sharecroppers’ lands. The pulpit was in front of the church, with a podium. A potbelly stove off to the left kept it warm in the winter, and opening the window sashes cooled it off in the summer. The outhouse was in the back of the building. In the summer months, the yellow jackets buzzed around, and often people were stung while eliminating. Even snakes had been known to find shelter in the outhouse. The deacons always took responsibility for keeping the church in shape, including the outhouse.

  “That’s her,” a lady said, pointing her crooked finger at me.

  She and several
other church members came over to us. “Annie May, yo’ daughter is home. You come to sing for us?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m here visiting Momma for a while.”

  “You used to have a beautiful voice when you were a little girl,” one of the ladies said, “and you used to love to sing verses. We’d love to hear you do a tune for us this mo’ning.”

  I glanced at Momma, who had moved on and was standing with Daddy, talking to a man on the church steps. She saw me and winked.

  “You remember ’Marching to Zion,’ don’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good. You walk in the church with the choir.”

  Before I could further protest, the other woman laid a hand on my forearm. “You’re such a pretty girl. We so glad you want to sing for the Lord.”

  My muscles tightened, and I bit my lip, actually wanting to sing out, “I’m a sinner.” My momma had deliberately left me to fend for myself. There was no denying a herd of desperate and demanding old ladies with hats cocked to the side on their heads. So I followed them up the steps and down the church aisle to the choir stand, singing, “We’re marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion…”

  I kept in step with the ladies, rocking from side to side with them as we came down the aisle.

  My father, mother, and siblings sat on the second pew of the small wooden church. The community gathering place, I called it. Everybody came, including the babies. The deacons sat on the right, facing the preacher who had been there ever since I was a child.

  I was starting to feel comfortable when Herman strolled to the front of the church and waited while the country woman from the nightclub walked down the aisle. What was he doing here? I started to hyperventilate.

  I took a deep breath and rolled back on the pew close to Momma.

  She put her arm around me. “You all right?” She was the only person that knew about him.

  “I guess so,” I answered, my lips quivering as I tried to keep from crying.

  After the service, Momma took my hand, and we walked over to Herman.

  “I knew you weren’t no good,” she said to him.

  “Ms. Annie, I do care,” he said to her, and then, turning to face me, added, “Sorry.” At that point his new wife intruded in our circle, glowering at me. She knew who I was.

  CHAPTER 13

  CARRIE

  I never liked a liar. Momma had always said, “A liar is worse than a thief.” Yet, I was sneaking behind her back, not once or twice, but sometimes as much as three times a week. I’d meet Simon in the evening under the tree in the schoolyard, and then I’d tell Momma I’d been studying with Hester. In truth, the only lessons I’d learned were about Simon.

  The old pine tree became our spot. Even in the fall, when its cones and needles blanketed the ground, we met there and let the wind blow through our hair. Our whispers were safe under the tree.

  Simon told me, “I’m getting tired of us acting the way we do. I come to your house and we pretend we’re casual friends. We are more than that, and I don’t like sneaking around, especially behind your momma’s back. We’re starting out the wrong way and I care too much about you to keep this nonsense up. Besides, you are a grown woman.”

  “I don’t like lying, either. I’m not a liar by nature. But Momma won’t understand; she never does. I thought it would be easier on everyone if we waited a while before letting her know.”

  He disagreed. “All we’re doing is making our lives hard. Besides, you will be sixteen soon and she should understand.”

  “I’m going to tell her. I really am.”

  I wanted to keep it our secret, though. It would break my heart if Momma made me stop seeing him, I thought. She had warned me many times about girls sneaking around with boys and then coming up with a baby. “If any child comes in this house with a baby, they’re going to have to get out of here,” she’d said to me one day, right after John had teased me about Junior in school. “You gonna get your education first.” Yet, every time that I saw Simon, I’d get a tingling feeling inside. My girlish crush had turned into the womanly arousal that Momma had warned me about. No more sly grins, but sultry hints of passion instead. Warmth stirred through my loins. When he pulled me close, the thumping of his chest against mine sent me to another height of ecstasy.

  Simon never pressured me for more, even when we found it hard to stop. He never put his hands on my thighs and in my bloomers like Hester said John did. He was more respectful than that. But sometimes I had that feeling. And when I did, my cheeks would turn pink, and I’d have to force myself to think about something else.

  Simon respected me. Knowing it made me feel special because he was not a lay-down-in-the-woods, shame-your-name type of fellow.

  “I want something to look forward to on my wedding night,” he said. I gazed into his almond-shaped eyes and was mesmerized. Had he pursued it further, I surely would have given in, and later regretted it, as Momma had predicted.

  “You are special to me, Carrie, and I want our lives to start out in the right way. I believe marriage should come first. That’s why this fooling around ain’t going to work.”

  “I know, but I can’t help it.”

  In two months, I would be sixteen. Most girls were married by that age. Yet I settled for a date with Simon to church or an occasional picture show in town. Every time I got home after spending time at the schoolyard with him, my eyes dropped with shame. The minute I’d see Momma, the guilt would clog up in my throat. But it was never enough to make me tell her how I’d been sneaking around with Simon.

  On another note, she did come closer to finding out how much I was dodging Mr. Camm. Sometimes he’d block my path and other times he would stare at me. It always happened when Momma was away at the Fergusons’ or outside hanging clothes or lying down. Soon as she’d come into the room, he would change his demeanor as the wind did on an unpredictable March day. He was always around and taking up space that should have never been his to enjoy. He turned my stomach.

  Momma almost caught him one Tuesday evening after she’d gone into her bedroom and left me in the kitchen washing the dishes. Instead of joining her, he sat in the high-back chair in the front room. After a minute, he walked into the kitchen.

  “Please move,” I said when he stopped directly in front of me.

  “Why don’t you stop whining?”

  He thought I’d give in to his sleazy attentions. “I need you to move so I can get by.”

  “I ain’t going nowhere,” he said, his beady eyes shifting around the room, in case Momma came out of the bedroom.

  “Can I go around you now?” I insisted.

  “You know you like it.” I saw him fondling the crotch of his pants.

  I pushed him, and he still didn’t budge.

  “Please, leave me alone,” I whispered. I didn’t want Momma to know how much of a pervert she’d married.

  “Just shut up.” With one firm stride, he pinned me against the kitchen sink. Alcohol wafted into my nostrils.

  I lifted my leg up as high as I could and came down on his foot hard.

  “Ouch! You little…” He stopped, instantly retreating when Momma entered the room.

  “What is going on in here?” Momma asked.

  “Nothing,” he responded quickly before I could speak.

  I wanted to scream. I was so upset, all I could do was walk out of the room. My breathing was hard, and even after I settled down in my room and pulled my diary out to write, I still wanted to knock him out cold. Momma had kept me from killing him. He had wanted to do something so despicable. And the closer he came to crossing that line, the angrier he made me.

  The last thing I wanted was to be accused of making things up. Ida, who was around thirteen or so, lived a few miles up the road, not far from the church. She had accused her uncle of trying to come on to her. After the news got out—and rumors travel fast in the country—I overheard Momma telling Papa at church, “Ida made the whole thing up, Robert. She’s a l
ittle liar.”

  And when Miss Topsie accused Mr. Tom of taking liberties with her, Momma and Papa had both laughed and said she’d made it up. She kept her wavy black hair shorn close, and slicked down with a bang. She was beautiful. Her flawless, caramel-colored skin, thin waist, wide hips, and big toned legs made all the men stop and stare. When she’d come to church, the reverend would clear his throat because of her mesmerizing beauty. A time or two, Papa even gawked and Momma had tapped him on the shoulder. “Pay attention to the reverend.”

  All the ladies whispered when she walked through the church door. Some even sighed, and others uttered, “Look who done walked in the church.” The church women knew that she was the kind who could take a man on a sultry trip away from his family. Men begged for her attention, but none like Mr. Tom.

  One of the deacons in the church, Mr. Tom, simply yearned for her. Every time he saw her, his imagination would take him to heights he was ashamed to mention. The thought of her made his nature rise. He’d catch himself and look the other way. The entire congregation noticed, myself included.

  Now, Miss Topsie wasn’t real easy. She wanted a man who could do something for her like pay her rent, take care of her farm, and buy her clothes. She lived in a nice house and had a farm that was well kept by the men she hired. But Miss Topsie liked her meat a little rare. She liked being a mistress to white men with overloaded pockets and a craving for dark honey. Mr. Tom always felt that he could be the one to change her ways. He even bragged to one of the other men, “Once women get with me, it is hard as hell to walk away.”

  He’d told another deacon, “Ain’t no white man can do her like I can.”

  The deacon replied, “You ain’t got no money, Tom.”

  “What the hell does that have to do with anything? I can have any of these women on the church grounds.”

  “Man, that woman doesn’t want you.”

  One day, Mr. Tom blocked Miss Topsie’s stride when she stepped foot on church grounds. When he approached her and made his advances, she’d put her hands on her wide hips and softly but decisively said, “Tom, you ain’t my type.”