But on the chance that I was wrong about my memory of our economic and social standing following Daddy’s death, I called my sister and asked her about her remembrances. We had a good chuckle about the symbolism of a front porch. “Do you remember doing without after Daddy died?” I asked.
“Yes,” Linda said. “I remember we got clothes once a year, right before school started. Usually it was just a couple of outfits and one pair of shoes. I remember never having money for lunch. If I could scrape together twenty-five cents, I would try and get somebody in the lunch line to buy me an ice cream sandwich. They wouldn’t let you buy the ice cream without the lunch, and there weren’t free lunch programs in those days.”
“Did you consider us poor?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “But not the same kind of poor Mama grew up with.”
Mama’s definition of poverty is much more austere. For good reason. She has memories of growing up impoverished among the stately manor homes that belonged to the wealthy families in Rogersville. Grandpa Harve and Grandma Ruth’s house didn’t have a bathtub or shower. Baths were given in an aluminum tub in the kitchen, with water heated in kettles atop the woodstove and shared among the kids. The last person to bathe usually did so in cold, dirty water. There were no light fixtures, only bulbs on a string. Grandma Ruth took in other people’s washing to help make ends meet.
“Do you know who had to deliver those clothes?” Mama asked me. “I did. I would carry baskets of laundry to the back doors of those big fine homes. Do you have any idea what that made me feel like? I couldn’t wait to move out of Rogersville. After growing up that way, I can see why kids who are taunted kill other kids. People looked down on me. They treated me like I was shit. Like I was nothing because I was poor. Your daddy’s family was poor, too. They lived in a two-room house in McCloud, and they ate nothing but beans and cornbread every day of their lives growing up. Every day. It never varied.
“You’ve had a much easier life,” Mama told me. “You have never realized in your life how far I’ve come.”
Mama’s wrong about that. It’s by remembering these things that I can measure how far our family has come, over the years, mostly due to her efforts. Neither Linda nor I have forgotten how many lonely nights we spent in that trailer crying, wishing and praying that Daddy would come back and that God would bless Mama with an easier life. I suspect Mama’s own childhood had created a hunger in her to improve her lot in life long before Daddy died. His death was simply the impetus for her to do that.
CHAPTER 10
what mama didn’t know
LYING ON THE FLOOR AT THE FOOT OF MAMA’S BED I COULD BARELY FEEL JAMES’S STUBBY FINGERS STROKE MY breasts. I pressed my face into his neck. He smelled of sweat. It wasn’t the sour kind men boast of after mowing grass in the noonday sun. Rather it was sweet, like honeysuckle, like the sweat that drips from a toddler’s brow during a summer nap.
James was sprawled plumb atop me. This fondling was awkward for twelve-year-old kids like us. I was downright uncomfortable, but James didn’t seem to be. He was struggling to find his way underneath the layers of the white negligee of Mama’s that I was wearing. There wasn’t much need for me to resist. Frank was less than a foot away, making out with Leslie, James’s younger sister, on Mama’s bed.
I could tell James was far more excited about this moment than I was. His erection was prominent, although not much bigger than his index finger. Pressing into my right thigh, he sought to inch over on top of me. My ankles weren’t crossed, but they might as well have been.
I was a good girl, not a slut.
I’d been raised to say “Yes, ma’am” and “No, sir” to all my elders. I called grown-ups by their proper names—Mr. and Mrs. I didn’t backtalk much for fear of being slapped silly. I didn’t smoke like James’s and Leslie’s older sister, Beth. I didn’t drink like Frank. And I never, ever said swearwords. To be honest, I was afraid to be near folks who took God’s name in vain.
Mama tried her best to raise me and Frank and Linda up right. When we were really little, she used to read Bible stories to us from a big red book every night after supper. She’d pay us a dime if we could correctly answer questions like “What color was Jacob’s robe?” or “How many days did the rains that flooded the earth fall?”
Usually, Frank called out the answer before I’d had time to hear the question. He’s always been smart, even though he hasn’t always been the quickest study.
But Mama hadn’t had much time for anything or anyone since we moved to Georgia. When she wasn’t in school, studying, or working, she was hanging out with Juanita, the next-door neighbor, who was also a nursing student.
While we were holding our make-out sessions in Mama’s bedroom, Linda was usually watching cartoons in the living room or playing with that overstuffed Thumbelina doll of hers. Linda had been a chatterbox, but once Daddy died, she mostly sat by herself on the cement patio or the front stoop’s cinder blocks. She’d sit sucking her bottom lip, dressing and undressing that baby doll of hers, ignoring Frank and me, like we did her.
It was Frank who first coerced me into kissing a boy. No, not him. His buddy Joe. Joe and his sister Mary Jane were hanging at our trailer house one afternoon. Frank wanted to put the move on Mary Jane, but he was hindered by the presence of me and Joe. The solution seemed simple enough. If Frank could get me and Joe out of the room, he’d have a chance with Mary Jane.
“Why don’t you and Joe go to the other room?” Frank asked as he stroked Mary Jane’s waist-length golden locks.
“Why?” I asked.
“Y’all can make out or something,” he replied.
Joe took me by the hand and led me into my brother’s bedroom. “I’ve never kissed anyone before,” I said, giggling nervously.
“That’s okay,” Joe said. “It’s not hard. I’m going to put my mouth over yours. You have to leave yours open a little bit. There’s nothing to it.”
Joe was not a particularly good-looking fellow. He had expressive eyes, a great tan, and the ugliest set of teeth. Sharp fangs grew out over his eyeteeth. Two sets of teeth were shoved into one very crowded mouth. I couldn’t help but stare at Joe’s mouth as he leaned in for a kiss. I had visions of Dracula Barnabas Collins from Dark Shadows leaning in for a lusty bite.
Then, SLAP! BAM! A bookcase full of New World Encyclopedias tumbled over behind me. I tripped and fell into Joe. He caught me but not before slamming his forehead up against the wall above the bookcase.
Frank and Mary Jane came running. “What’s going on?” Frank yelled.
I was doubled over, laughing. Stunned, Joe rubbed his forehead. “I was trying to kiss your sister,” he said, laughing too.
Frank took one look at all the books sprawled about our feet and shook his head. “That must’ve been some kiss,” he said.
PUSHING JAMES OFF the top of me, I stood up. Frank poked his head up from the bed. “I’m done,” I said.
James picked himself up from the floor. Frank climbed over Leslie and off Mama’s bed. Leslie stood and pulled her shirt down and tucked it back into her shorts.
I slid open the door to Mama’s room and marched down the hallway to the living room. Sitting in a corner, in a half-circle, were a bunch of scraggly kids. My good friend Mary Jane, and Joe, and Frank’s good buddy Joe Kirkland. I don’t remember if Opie was there that night or not. Joe K. was spinning a Coke bottle, waiting for his chance with Leslie. Flipping his blond locks away from his forehead, he looked up at Frank and grinned.
This is how we spent our Friday and Saturday nights—playing spin the bottle or post office—groping each other in the darkest corners we could find. Sometimes we’d spread a blanket over the pine needles behind an empty trailer. Other times, if our parents weren’t home, we’d conduct our explorations in their beds. Sex was like boxed cereal. It could be poured out and devoured at a moment’s notice. Sometimes it was sweet, but it was nearly always colder than the real affection we’d once known as a family.
Mama didn’t know anything about our nocturnal activities. She didn’t like leaving us kids alone at night. Grandpa Harve was there, but he didn’t offer us much supervision. Sometimes, when he was really upset, he’d beat the floor or the walls with his cane, telling us kids to quiet down or yelling for Frank to hurry up and empty the coffee can Grandpa kept under his bed for peeing in. But Grandpa Harve was as much a burden as a help to Mama. His right hand, the one on his dead arm, hung heavy at his side or between his legs when he was sitting. Unable to will it to move, Grandpa Harve would fling it around with his one good hand. He had to have help buttoning his shirts, hooking his pants, tying his shoes, and opening his pack of cigarettes. He couldn’t even pick at his own sores.
“Karen, c’mere and help me with this,” Grandpa said whenever the eczema scab covering the elbow of his good arm got too thick. Flexing his arm up, he’d nod toward the white crusty scab.
“Peel that back, would ya?” he asked.
Kneeling by his chair, I’d start picking at the outer edges of the sore. As I peeled back the meringuelike layer, very little blood seeped out. The scab covered a dry spot that had grown callous from years of picking. Still, the skin underneath was as red as rib-eye steak. I knew it must pain Grandpa, although he never once winced or scolded me.
I hated picking Grandpa’s sores; I didn’t have the stomach for it. But it troubled me even more that Grandpa couldn’t do such a simple task for himself. And I knew it discouraged him. The ritual was performed every six weeks or so in an almost reverential silence.
Grandpa Harve and I never talked about much of anything. We didn’t speak of his days as a deputy or his life with Granny Ruth. We didn’t talk about his boys, or his daughter, my mother. And we never ever talked about Vietnam or the Army or my father’s death. Sometimes, he’d give me a pat on the head or a quick grin, but mostly he just sat smoking his Pall Mall cigarettes, one right after the other, and thinking about things I knew nothing about. If Grandpa Harve was worried about the company Frank and I were keeping, he never said.
The kids we ran around with weren’t really bad kids. We were just mostly unsupervised. James and Leslie’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Williams, held the tightest parental reins, but they managed a business—Shipley’s Donuts, out on Wynnton Road—that demanded their attention. They were up long before the crack of dawn, tossing flour and sprinkling powdered sugar for the hundreds of orders they filled each day. When they got home, they would plop down in recliners in front of the television set and tune the world out.
They were always polite and always made me feel welcome in their home. Mrs. Williams was a big wrestling fan. Sometimes she’d invite me to join the family for the wrestling events at the Columbus Coliseum. I only went a couple of times, but I was there one of the nights Mr. Wrestling was cheered on. Tim “Mr. Wrestling” Woods was a favorite among the Columbus crowd. Just like the Mr. Clean fellow in the laundry commercials, Mr. Wrestling always wore white. White boots. White briefs. White mask. That’s how we all knew he was the good guy—his attire was white as snow, like the souls of those saved by the blood of the Lamb. But it was that white mask that Woods wore that kept the crowd mesmerized. I sat on the edge of my seat that night, just hoping his opponent would rip it off. Like a lot of girls, I wanted to know if Mr. Wrestling had a face as handsome as the rest of his anatomy.
I’d never seen Mrs. Williams get too riled up. She was a fairly even-tempered woman, not prone to hollering at her kids or her husband, so I was dumbstruck to see her get all worked up over a man in polyester briefs. When Mr. Wrestling climbed through the ropes and waved to the crowd, Mrs. Williams was perspiring and hooting like a schoolgirl at a pep rally. I could tell she really favored him. But then, so did the rest of the crowd. You’d have thought Elvis had just walked onstage the way everybody was clapping and screaming.
That same crowd was ready to lynch Mr. Wrestling’s opponent later that evening when blood squirted from beneath the white gloves Mr. Wrestling wore. The jerk had chomped down on Mr. Wrestling’s finger so hard, he liked to bit it in two. Blood dripped down Mr. Wrestling’s hand, down his forearm, down his elbow. Only a low-down scoundrel would wrestle that way, Mrs. Williams said. Following the match, we maneuvered our way through the crowds and down the stairs to the parking lot. Everybody was fuming mad at the dawg who bit Mr. Wrestling.
On other occasions, Mrs. Williams took Leslie and me to watch Leslie’s sister, Beth, in modeling shows. Beth was a tall, skinny thing, like that famous fashion model Twiggy. She didn’t have an ounce of fat on her body, which I always thought odd because Mrs. Williams was the plumpest mother in the neighborhood. Beth had red hair, like her brother James, but not as many freckles. She took modeling classes under the guidance of Miss Mable Bailey at Mable Bailey’s School of Charm and Modeling. For several decades, taking a course from Mable Bailey was nearly a rite of passage for many Columbus girls. Even those of us who lived in trailer parks. Mama tried to sign me up when I got older, but I refused to go. I probably needed it more than the average girl, but I knew it’d take a legion of well-heeled women to make me over.
Besides, Mable Bailey scared me. She had an air of strictness about her, like a librarian schooled in the Dewey Decimal system. Or a Sunday school teacher whose favorite book of the Bible was Leviticus. Her black hair was backcombed and piled high atop her head. She must’ve used a can of “Extra Hold” Aqua Net to keep it in place because she never had frizzes or wispies falling down around her forehead. Her lips were ruby red, all the time. And she wore a girdle, even though she didn’t need one.
Mable Bailey taught thousands of gangly schoolgirls how to walk confidently down a runway while wearing stilettos. Leslie and I marveled over Beth and her charm-school friends, but we suspected that we weren’t cut from the same cloth. For one thing, Leslie was much too busty for button-down blouses and smocked jumpers. And me?
Well, I’d dropped out of Brownies after the first two meetings because uniformity made me nervous. I didn’t like PE classes at school because all the girls had to wear the exact same navy blue gym shorts that snapped up the side, like a toddler’s romper. So if belonging to the in crowd required me to wear a Brownie sash or Playtex girdle, well then, I was a confirmed misfit.
Beth knew my weaknesses, and for some reason or another, she loved to prod my sore spots. I think it was mostly because of her own sibling rivalry with Leslie. Although Beth was the trained model, Leslie was the natural beauty. She looked more womanly than her stick-figure sister. The boys swarmed to be near Leslie whenever we played spin the bottle or any of our other make-out games.
Beth’s closest friend was a trashy gal named Evelyn. She didn’t live in the same trailer park as the rest of us, but sometimes Evelyn rode the bus home with Beth. Evelyn had peroxide-dyed hair, even at fourteen. And big boobs. D cups. Bigger than Leslie’s, even. She wore so much eyeliner, she favored a raccoon. Like Beth, she smoked, cursed, and flirted with older men. Including the school bus driver.
I kept my distance from all three of them—Beth, Evelyn, and the bus driver. I hadn’t liked him since he chided me one morning while en route to Eddy Junior High.
“That gum you’re chewing is going to heaven,” the driver said, glancing up at the mirror above his head. That’s how he kept track of us kids, watching us through the mirror.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said. We weren’t supposed to chew gum on the school bus. I must’ve looked as uncomfortable as I felt.
“I said that gum you’re chewing is going to heaven ’cause you’re chewing the hell out of it now,” he said with a laugh.
I immediately swallowed the peppermint wad.
But that driver never said a word to Beth or Evelyn when they chewed gum. He even supplied them with cigarettes from time to time. Whenever Evelyn was on the bus, he was downright attentive, always studying the mirror to see what she and Beth were up to in the backseat—and laughing right along with them.
One day Evelyn got on t
he bus and told everybody within earshot that as soon as the bus stopped she was going to whup my ass. I don’t know what prompted her threat. I was sitting in my usual spot at the front, trying to avoid her and Beth and everybody else. All the boys on the bus thought that’d be a dandy thing to watch, Evelyn kicking Karen’s ass. And they told her so.
I’d never been in a fight with anyone other than Frank or Linda. The one thing I knew for sure: I wouldn’t run from one. I was pretty sure Evelyn could do just what she threatened, but I was going to go down like Mr. Wrestling, fighting with all my might.
Sure enough, as soon as we got off the bus, Evelyn walked up to me. “I don’t like you,” she said.
“Tough shit,” I replied, mustering up some of Mama’s attitude.
Evelyn hauled off and slapped me across the cheek. My books fell out of my arms. The boys—James, Joe K., Joe C., and some others—formed a circle around us and began egging Evelyn on. “Kick her ass!” someone screamed.
Evelyn reached up and yanked a handful of my hair. I balled up a fist and punched her left D cup.
That pissed her off royally. She pushed me to the ground, climbed atop my chest, and began to beat at my face. I flung my arms at her, grabbed a handful of her bleached blond hair, and pulled out a gob. She kept wailing on my face. I ran my nails down her cheek, scratching as deep as my weak nails would go. The boys kept hollering. “You little bitch!” Evelyn screamed.
“Fat ass!” I cried back.
She slapped me again. I pushed her off and scrambled to my feet.
“Crybaby!” one of the boys yelled at me.
“SHUT UP!” I yelled back, bending to pick up the schoolbooks strewn about the dirt road.
After the Flag Has Been Folded Page 10