On the way to church, Fred and I sat on the tailgate of Uncle Curtis’s pickup, letting our feet drag along the dirt road. I had on last year’s shoes which were too small and hurt my feet, but I knew I had to suffer until church was over. Last night’s rain had settled the dust so I didn’t have to worry about it soiling my one white shirt, which my mother had starched and pressed to perfection with her heavy black iron, heated on her kitchen stove.
When we turned the corner onto Center Point Road, I looked toward the sawmill, thought about Jake and asked Fred, “You ever talk to a black person?”
“We ain’t supposed to talk to niggers, unless we telling them what to do. Why?”
“I just wondered.” I had suspected this was how everyone felt. Now that it was confirmed, I decided I couldn’t share my encounter with Jake, even with my brother.
Everyone parked their vehicles in the shade of the oak trees next to the church and left the food inside them. When we arrived I was amazed to see my mother get out of the cab of the pickup, Fred jump inside in her place, and roar away with my cousin Robert at the wheel.
“Where’re they going?” I asked my mother.
“They have to go get the blocks of ice and chip it up for the iced tea.”
I was left to suffer alone. The worst part started immediately. It was the hugging, kissing, and pinching by all my aunts and great-aunts. I could close my eyes and know which one it was just by their smells. My father’s sister, Aunt Cleo, always smelled sweet like wild flowers; in fact, today she had a bouquet of daisies pined to the bodice of her Sunday dress, held there by a big orange-colored cameo pin. My mother’s two sisters, Aunt Allie May and Aunt Lallie Grey, smelled like her, like some wonderful smell from the kitchen. Today, it was the aroma of fresh-baked cake. There was no mistaking the two sisters of my mother’s mother, Aunt Minnie and Aunt Sadie, who both smelled like peach-flavored snuff.
I felt suffocated and my face ached from having my cheeks pinched. Finally, I escaped when everyone’s attention turned toward the new Chevrolet Fleetwood station wagon pulling into the churchyard. It was Old Man Cliff Creel.
That was how everyone referred to him—as Old Man Cliff Creel. He was the only rich man I knew and he seemed to own just about everything. Miss Lena’s store wasn’t really Miss Lena’s. It belonged to Mr. Creel. As did the sawmill, the land where Uncle Curvin grew his cotton, and most of the other farm land around. Anytime anyone pointed out a field, more often than not someone would say, “Old man Cliff Creel owns that.” He owned the trucks which hauled the logs and the forests where the logs were cut. He even owned the three-room shack where we lived; my father had to pay him twelve dollars a month for rent.
If anybody wanted to borrow money, then Mr. Creel was the only source, and there would be interest to pay. I had passed many times by his big white house, about a mile past Miss Lena’s store heading toward Coffeeville, but had never even entered his front yard. It was just too intimidating. I had heard folks say he kept a mean dog behind the picket fence with a manicured lawn on each side of the walkway, leading up to flower beds and shrubbery in front of the long front porch, which was lined with swings and rocking chairs.
There were also several outbuildings, including a large barn and a smokehouse which was almost as big as our house. I had never seen Mr. Creel without a hat, except inside the church, and today was no exception. As soon as he got out of his new car the preacher rushed over to shake his hand and welcome him. They were the only two men there wearing suits and neckties.
Old Man Cliff Creel looked fat and mean to me. His face was shaved clean, framing his fat nose which was crisscrossed with tiny red and blue veins. I remembered my mother saying that was a sign of a man who had drunk too much whiskey for too long. Below his nose were thin lips between which I could see his tobacco-stained teeth. When he and the preacher began walking toward the front door of the church everyone knew that it was time to start. As they walked through the crowd everyone would say, “Good morning, Mister Creel.”
He would nod to people while he kept walking. I saw the glint of the sun’s reflection off the gold bar on his necktie when he walked by me, and I shrank away.
The announcements had been made, the hymns sung, the collection plate passed, the prayer that lasted for what seemed like eternity had been prayed, and now Brother Benny Hurd was deep into his sermon. About then I felt an itch so deep it was almost painful. It was coming from just below my waistline and I knew at once that a redbug was embedded in my skin. I gritted my teeth, thought about the wonderful food I was about to have, jumping into the cool water of Satilfa Creek, or dousing that nasty chigger with some rubbing alcohol. When I could stand it no longer I plunged my hand into my pants and began scratching vigorously; that is, until my mother started whacking my head with the edge of her Jesus fan.
I became very still until everyone’s attention was back on the preacher, then I slowly turned my head toward the window. From my seat on the end of the pew I saw Fred and Robert kneeling over two wash tubs containing huge blocks of ice. They were attacking the blocks with ice picks and I could see chunks falling away from the blocks into the tubs. I saw Fred insert a sliver of ice into his mouth. He looked up, saw me, and must have felt guilty because he turned his back toward me.
A little river of sweat, starting from beside my ear, had trickled down my face onto my neck where another aggravating itch had begun, but I dared not scratch.
I didn’t know how much longer I could stand it. My belly was itching, my neck was itching, I was hot, I was thirsty, and I was hungry. I decided to try to listen to the preacher and see if I could make any sense out of what he was yammering about. It was about something in the Bible where one brother killed the other. I listened while he said, “After Cain, out of jealously, killed his brother Abel, God put a mark on him and banished him to the land of Nod, east of Eden, where he would be a fugitive and vagabond for all his days on the earth.”
Preacher had my attention, but I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. He paused, took a handkerchief from his pocket, mopped his face, and glanced out the window toward the big oak trees. I sat up straight and thought, yes, he’s thinking about iced tea and fried chicken, too.
He continued: “Yes, my friends, look around you and see who has the curse of the mark of God.”
I slid up on the edge of my seat and gripped the back of the pew in front of me. I certainly wanted to know who God had cursed and what kind of mark He had put on them. In case I ran into one, I definitely wanted to recognize them. My itching, hunger, and thirst were gone as I anxiously waited for the preacher to reveal this great secret.
His voice was rising now as he abandoned the lectern and walked to the left side of the podium, directly in front of Old Man Cliff Creel. “Who among us are the vagabonds and the fugitives? Who among us bear the mark of the curse of God?”
I was beside myself, thinking, why doesn’t he just tell us?
Preacher’s voice was a roar now as he pumped his fist into the air. “I ask you, who among us tills the earth, but it no longer yields its strength to them? It’s the black man! He wears the mark of the curse! My friends, it’s the niggers!”
I was astounded as I heard Old Man Cliff Creel yell, “Amen, brother.”
The sermon was concluded and Brother Benny called everyone to their feet to sing the closing hymn. Every once in a while he would break in, and as only the piano played softly, he would invite people down to the altar to be saved or rededicate their lives to Jesus.
I don’t know whether it was my prayer to be released or the food outside, but no one wanted to be saved that day.
Finally, mercifully, it was over. Everyone was outside, smiling, talking and eating. I knew where the best food was. The fried chicken and the butter beans were my mother’s, then I helped myself to Aunt Ola’s potato salad and Aunt Lillian’s banana pudding. I cleaned my plate and drained my ic
ed tea along with Fred and Robert on the tailgate of Uncle Curtis’s pickup.
Through it all I kept thinking about the end of the preacher’s sermon. I had never heard of the land of Nod. I thought black people came from Africa, and I was glad they had, because somehow they had managed to bring some okra seeds with them. Without them, there would be no fried okra.
There were a lot of questions in my mind, but I knew this was not the time, the place, and there was not a person—then I thought, Jake! I had to figure out a way to get to the sawmill, today!
Almost immediately opportunity presented itself. While cleaning up my mother told me, “Go get on the truck. We’re going to visit at your Uncle Curtis’s for a while.”
“Can I just walk on home? I want to see if Ned and Daddy are home yet. See what they got.”
“Well, I suppose. You just be careful.”
During the confusion of everyone packing up I snatched a chicken leg and a pulley bone, quickly wrapped them in a piece of used wax paper, and stuffed them into my pocket. Just before leaving, I took off the hurtful shoes and tossed them in the back of the truck.
4
Nail Soup
I dashed into the woods just past Miss Lena’s store. When I reached the first pile of logs, not yet in sight of Jake’s shack, I stopped dead in my tracks. I heard a strange, rhythmic, melodious, wonderful sound—one I had never heard before, and I liked it.
The sound stopped. I stood frozen in my spot and waited for it to start again. It didn’t, so I walked on past the far end of the sawmill and there was Jake, sitting on a block of wood, staring into his bed of hot coals with his old guitar resting across his knees.
He looked up at that moment and I said, “Hello, Jake.”
“Ted! Well, now, don’t you look nice. You been to church?”
“Yeah, we had dinner-on-the-grounds today.”
“Been a long time since I been to one of dem, but I remember all dat fine food. I was just getting ready to fry me up a couple of flapjacks. I ’spect you too full to join me.”
“Yeah, I’m stuffed. But I brought you a couple of pieces of fried chicken to go with your flapjacks.”
“Lawd have mercy,” Jake said as he unfolded the wax paper. “You be Mister Ted from now on. Bless yore little heart, Mister Ted. Why you do dis?”
I wanted to tell him that I had always been taught to offer a gift if you wanted something, and I did want something from him. I wanted answers, but I didn’t know how to explain this, so I just said, “I don’t know. Just saw all that food and thought you might like some.”
“You mind if I go ahead and eat dis chicken? Dem flapjacks can wait.”
“No. Go ahead.”
I watched while Jake ate his chicken, threw the bones into the fire, then wiped his hands on his handkerchief. Only then did I feel it was appropriate to question him. But the questions the preacher had raised could wait, because I had to know about the music. “Jake, you were playing your guitar and singing before I got here, weren’t you?”
“I sho was. You heard me?”
“I sure did.”
“You like it?”
“I liked it very much, but I never heard anything like it before. What kind of music was it?”
“Why, dem wuz de blues. I wuz singing de blues.”
“What in the world is the blues?”
“Well, now, dat’s kinda hard to explain, but I goings to try. De blues is something deeper dan a mood. It—it comes from heartache caused by want, need, hurt, loss, hard work, sacrifices, and things like dat.”
“Why would you want to sing about stuff like that?”
“You just full of questions today, and dat’s another tough one. I s’pose singing de blues kind of makes dose things not seem quite so bad, plus it’s a reminder that they do exist.”
“Can just black folks sing the blues?”
“Shoot no. White folks can sing ’em too. I’ve heard ’em do it.”
“Where do the songs come from?”
“I just makes ’em up as I go along.”
“How in the world do you do that?”
“I be happy to show you. Dis’ll be yo’ song. You just pick out a subject.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“Sho you do. Pick out something like being hungry with no food, some kind of hard work, or—”
“How about this old sawmill?” I interrupted.
“Oh yeah, dat’s easy.”
I watched while Jake started strumming on his guitar, then suddenly he picked up the pace and broke into song:
“Got dem old sawmill blues
“De kind you just can’t lose
“Got sawdust in my clothes
“Got sawdust in my nose
“Sweat all in my eyes
“I ain’t telling no lies
“No time to drink no booze
“’Cause I got dem old sawmill blues . . .”
I sat there on that block of wood and was completely captured by the essence of the words, the sounds of the instrument and Jake’s voice. It was as if I could actually feel the music, an experience I had never had before. He went through the song four times and I had it memorized by the time he hit his last chord on his guitar. The sound and the wonder of the music lingered in my memory, and I was still tapping my toe, even after it was over.
We moved away from the heat of the sun and hot coals onto a bench in a spot of shade beside Jake’s shack. The bench was simply a scrap board resting on two more blocks of wood.
We sat in silence for a few moments before Jake said, “You got something else besides de blues on yo’ mind, don’t you?”
“Yeah, how you know?”
“You just quiet and thoughtful looking.”
I felt awkward and knew even at my young age that I was broaching a sensitive subject, but somehow I knew Jake would understand and explain things to me. I started slowly, reached a comfort level, then proceeded to tell him the entire story about the last part of the preacher’s sermon.
When I finished, once again, we sat in silence for a while until Jake asked, “So what you think about what yo’ preacher said?”
I had been waiting for him to tell me what he thought. Now he was asking me, so I told him. “I ain’t too sure that preacher was right at all.”
“You can bet yo’ bottom dollar on dat. He was right by saying a mark was put on Cain and he wuz sent off to de Land of Nod. But de next time you see dat preacher, tell him to read further and de Bible will say dat Cain and his family went on to be folks who lived in tents and raised livestock. Don’t sound like black folks to me. He just trying to stir up some hate. Proud to see it didn’t work on you.”
“You read the Bible?”
“Read it from cover to cover.”
“When did you do that?”
“When I was in de— While back when I had a little time on my hands.”
“How about that word, the one y’all don’t like to be called?” I didn’t want to say it.
“You means, nigger?”
“Yeah.”
“What about it?’
“Where did it come from and how come y’all don’t like it?”
“It come from back in the slave times when ignorant folks couldn’t pronounce Negro. I s’pose we don’t like it ’cause it reminds us of dat part of our past. Now, anything else bothering you today?”
Jake had awakened the music in my soul, erased the doubts in my mind, and added to my education that day. I still wasn’t sure what that preacher was up to. It was as if he had been preaching to Old Man Cliff Creel. I would have to ponder on that.
In the meantime, there was one more thing bothering me about Jake. “You ain’t got no garden and no chickens. You can’t live on flapjacks. What else do you eat?”
“I we
nt to Miz Miss Lena’s after you left yesterday and bought myself some groceries.”
“What’d you buy?”
“I got me some tins of sardines, a few cans of pork ’n beans, box of soda crackers, sack of flour, and a bucket of lard.”
“My mother says you can’t live on stuff like that. You need fresh fruit and vegetables, eggs, and occasionally a piece of meat.”
“She absolutely right. Eggs is what I miss most. Dey would go mighty fine with my flapjacks in the mornings. But if worst comes to worst, I can always make myself some nail soup.”
“Nail soup—what in the world is that?”
“You never heard de story ’bout nail soup?”
“No, never did. Will you tell me?”
“I sho will. Can’t rightly say whether I read it or somebody told it to me, but it goes like dis:
“Dey was a gentlemen traveling by foot down a lonely road. It came on toward dinner time and a powerful hunger came upon him. A little farther down de road he came up on a farm house and dey was a lady in de front yard raking leaves. He decided to ask her for some food. Stopping at the front yard gate he spoke saying, ‘Top of the day to you, ma’am. I been traveling all day, I’m real hungry, and wondered if you might be able to spare a little food.’
“The woman replied, ‘I’m hungry myself, but I don’t have a scrap of food in the whole house.’
“De traveler said, ‘Well, in dat case, maybe I can help you. Do you happen to have some water and a cooking pot?’
“‘Why, yes, I do.’
“Reaching into his pocket, de traveler pulled out a shiny nail and said, ‘I have a magic nail here. If we put it into a pot of boiling water it will make a fine soup, den we both can eat.’
“‘Do tell,’ the lady said. ‘Come on in the house and let’s put a pot of water on the fire.’
“Once the water was boiling the traveler dropped the nail in the pot and said, ‘Now, pretty soon we’ll have us a fine bowl of soup, but, you know, if we just had a potato, den de soup would be outstanding.’
A Yellow Watermelon Page 3