A Tyranny of Petticoats

by Jessica Spotswood

  I’d never wondered much about life past the end of the lane.

  We had a television set, out in the barn. Daddy liked to keep up with the news, but Granny wouldn’t allow such newfangled contraptions into her house. It took me my whole adult life to get used to having that radio in the living room, she always said. Then they go on and invent something new. No call for it. She had this scratchy-throat voice, from years of breathing in Granddad’s tobacco smoke. ’Course, he went on into the sky a few years before I came along into the world.

  Daddy might have been the man of the house, but Granny sure enough ran the place. So the TV went into the barn. Daddy always did things how Granny wanted. “Get that girl some books,” she’d say. And sure enough, Daddy’d come home with some for me. I had quite a collection by that summer. Twenty-two books in all. That was more than anyone I knew, including the girls who still went to school. They had books, but they had to give them back at the end of the year. I’d gone to school over in town up until eighth grade, and then Daddy pulled me out. Needed help around the farm, he said, with Granny getting on in years.

  “Let her learn,” Granny said. “I can manage.” But she couldn’t. Her back didn’t want to bend low enough to weed anymore. Her fingers shook trying to grip the handle of a broom or a rake. Sometimes she didn’t even see all the eggs that our hens laid, right in plain view in their nests.

  We had a television set, out in the barn, I was saying. And I had all these books too. So I knew about the world. Daddy had a rocking chair out there that he’d pulled off the porch. Come evening, after supper, he’d go sit out there. Watching. Rocking. Muttering from time to time about the state of things. I watched with him, most nights. He only brought in the one chair, so I sat on the floor by his knee, far enough away not to get rocked on, sifting scraps of straw through my fingers.

  The world came into our barn every night. And most nights, I was glad enough to be safe in that barn, and not out there in the rest of it. It sounded bad out there. On television some nights they pulled numbers out of a machine, and if your birthday matched, you had to go and fight in the war in Vietnam. If you were a boy, that is, and over eighteen.

  Black people didn’t need to go all the way to Vietnam to find a war, Daddy said once while we were watching the draft. Sometimes the newspaper showed pictures of civil rights demonstrations. People protesting a system that said black people should live separate; black people should stay in their place, and that place should always be small. If you were black and you lived in the South, you had to fight. If you were black and you lived in a city, you had to fight. Didn’t have to go anywhere, even. That fight came right to you.

  Nothing like that ever came close to our farm. I could walk through the field and get to town. There was a general store there, and a post office, and a restaurant, and a bar I couldn’t go into. Everyone knew me. Everyone was black.

  The worst thing I’d ever had to fight was a jackrabbit, dead set on digging up my string bean plants. I was a good girl. The edge of my world was the end of that lane.

  2.

  I wandered through my garden picking rhubarb and blackberries. The berries along the fence were plentiful this time of year. They were full and ripe, and you had to pluck them just so or you’d have nothing but berry mash and stained fingertips for your effort.

  Rhubarb-and-blackberry crumble sounded delicious to me. I could make a right good crumble, Granny always said.

  Daddy came out of the house, over the yard. I thought he was making for the fields, but he headed straight for me. He stepped right over my rabbit fence and stood between the string bean stalks, as if tall and lanky things should stick together. He was chawing on the end of a long stalk of grass, like he did when he had things on his mind.

  “Sandy,” he said. “Listen up a minute, baby girl.”

  I’m sixteen now, I wanted to tell him, hating the way he still called me that. But this was one of a lot of things I wanted to say that Daddy wouldn’t want to hear. I would always be his baby girl, and I think he liked to remind me. So I hugged my berry bowl and said nothing.

  “The Panthers are coming,” Daddy said. “Be here tomorrow, sometime after first light.”

  My fingers fumbled. The berries bled. “The Panthers?”

  “The Black Panthers,” he said. As if I didn’t know.

  The whole wide world closed around me. “The Panthers,” I repeated. We’d seen them on TV, a few months ago. They stormed into the California state legislature in Sacramento, openly carrying shotguns, rifles, and other legal weapons, in protest of a bill that would strip rights from black citizens. It made the national news. Those boys are gonna get themselves killed, Daddy’d said that night. Not the kind of thing I’d forget.

  “What are they coming here for?” I asked.

  Daddy moved the stalk of grass from one side of his mouth to the other. “Take the cart to the store and stock up,” he said. He moved like he was going to walk away and then he didn’t. “Don’t need to say nothing to Jake about the reason for the excess.”

  “How many people?” I asked.

  “’Bout a dozen.”

  I’d never cooked for that many. “For lunch tomorrow?”

  Daddy nodded, short. “And on through the weekend.”

  Saturday lunch, Saturday dinner. Sunday breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I didn’t want to say it, but I had to. “It’s going to take more than the cart,” I blurted.

  Daddy shifted the grass. “You reckon?”

  “Yeah, ’cause they’ll eat like you. Not like Granny.”

  I was being a little impudent, maybe. But then Daddy got that sliver of a smile on his face. The one that means he’s thinking How’d I get a kid so smart? That’s according to Granny.

  “Can you get enough for lunch tomorrow?”

  “Sure.”

  Daddy chawed on the grass for a moment. “Write the rest on a list,” he said. “I’ll call it over. They’ll stop in town on the way and pick up what you need.”

  “What are they coming here for?” I dared ask the question a second time. My heart was beating like a crazy drum.

  “It’s none of your concern.” His brows darkened and gathered, like a quiet storm. “You’ll cook for them, as our guests. Otherwise you’re to have nothing to do with them. You hear?”

  I could read between the lines. The Panthers would be dangerous. Exciting.

  “You hear?” he said, louder.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Daddy strode away, hands jammed in the pockets of his overalls, grass head dancing past the side of his cheek. Hands in his pockets meant he wasn’t sure about something.

  We’d had guests for dinner lots of times. I always made chicken or roast beef. Fresh vegetables from the garden. I specialized in potatoes. Not growing them — cooking them. Baked, mashed, fried, home-fried, gratin. I did a nice corn casserole too, when we could get fresh corn. We could get some this time of year.

  My ribs began to ache from the ceramic lip of the berry bowl digging into my side. I relaxed my grip, though my heart still quaked in this brand-new rhythm, a fresh pulse from somewhere outside of me.

  I’d need to pick a lot more blackberries.

  3.

  “He thinks I don’t know what he’s up to,” Granny said, smacking a wooden spoon against her palm. “I always know.”

  I had my eye on the kitchen window. Watching for the telltale dust cloud to rise over the trees.

  I could see on the map that we were fifty miles from Oakland. That’s where they’d have started out. But who knew when? Or how fast they would drive? Or how much traffic there might be on the blacktopped roads? Or if they’d stop for gas, or breakfast in a restaurant in another town like ours?

  “I always know,” Granny muttered.

  “What’s he up to?”

  “Sneaking around with those friends of his,” she said. “Them wild boys.” Her eyes grew all big and she waved the spoon. “My boy, he’s too smart for the likes of them. Foo
ls,” she insisted.

  Dust blurred the sky, low in the distance. “They’re here,” I said.

  “Uh-uh, uh-uh,” Granny said, and hefted herself off toward her room.

  I’d spent the morning frying chicken. It waited on the table, on a platter, under cloth. When I saw the dust cloud, I pulled the potato salad from the icebox and started slicing the bread. I fired up the oven to warm the crumble.

  The cars slithered through the avocado trees like a slick black snake. Three cars.

  Engines cut. Doors popped open like the snake had grown legs. Fourteen men emerged, stretching their limbs.

  I’d expected them to be men, I guess, but they were boys, mostly. Not much older than me. A couple looked downright scrawny.

  They carried sacks of things, loose totes stuffed with perhaps a few clothes each. Some cradled armfuls of worn-looking books. I counted five canvas duffel bags bulging with guns. One guy bent into the trunk and came up with an armload of paper grocery sacks. I opened the kitchen screen door.

  “I’ve brought the groceries,” he said, with a spreading, tilted grin. He was taller than me, but not by much. He wore a jaunty, rough-sewn cap of olive green. His eyes were dark and alive with energy. They seemed to smile even more than his mouth did. “Where would you like them, miss?”

  My cheeks warmed. “I’m Sandy.”

  “Where would you like them, Miss Sandy?” He was teasing me now.

  My mouth twitched open ’cause it couldn’t help itself. I hoped my teeth looked as clean and strong as his.

  “Right here on the counter is fine.”

  He hefted the sacks into place. “All right, then.” He brushed his hands off on his pants. “I’m Bobby.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” I said. That’s what you were supposed to say, I thought. It had been a right long while since I’d met anyone for the first time. Everyone around town had been here for years.

  It was strange to be alone with a boy in the kitchen. He looked around like he was seeing something special. I guess it was all new to him, the way he was new to me. He glanced at the stove, then me. The icebox, then me. The sink and counter and the bags he’d laid down, and me.

  Finally he said, “Uh, well, those are the groceries, then.”

  “Where?” I said, ’cause I felt like being funny. I’m not usually funny, at least outside of my head.

  He smiled again. Teeth and lips and a tongue that darted out for a quick teasing second.

  “Yo, Bobby,” someone called. “We’re going out back.”

  “See you,” he said.

  “Tell them there’s lunch. When you want it.” I wanted him to turn around. And he did.

  “Sure thing.” He pounded the door frame as he slid away. “Smells right good in here too.”

  As I moved to unpack the groceries, I felt wide awake and sort of tingly. Across my chest and down my legs, a blush over my whole body. I waited for it to go away, but it didn’t.

  4.

  The Panthers gathered around our dining table. Laughing and chattering, clinking silverware against dishes, lip-smacking and groaning about my home cooking.

  We didn’t have fifteen chairs, so some of them stood. Others sat along the baseboards, balancing plates on their knees. I guess I should have dusted down there. Daddy sat at the head of the table. I lingered in the doorway. Granny stayed in the living room, rocking in her chair, arms crossed in a huff. You could hear it in the rhythm of the runners on the floor: These young’uns. They don’t know.

  The guys fell into companionable silence, finger-licking the chicken from its bones. The calm became something almost spiritual. When they were done, one by one, they resumed laughing and chatting and the room came alive again.

  For the first time, I noticed how quiet our house is, most of the time. Dinner is usually a quiet, grunting affair, where Daddy swiftly shovels food into his mouth before retreating to the barn for the evening. And there is always something left over, which is what Granny and I eat for lunch the next day.

  The Panthers scraped the plates clean.

  5.

  Watching through the hinges on the open barn door, I could stand in shadows and no one would see me. Oil lamplight washed over their faces, drawing them glowing then dark.

  Torry read pages out loud from a book called The Wretched of the Earth. He folded the book and asked the group, “So what does Fanon mean when he talks about exploitation?”

  “He’s talking about how we used to be slaves, and even though people say we got free, we’re still trapped.”

  “Things are supposed to be different now, but the system’s still stacked against us.”

  “How so?” Torry asked. He had a certain kind of voice on, like a teacher in the classroom. He knew the answer, but he wanted someone else to say.

  “Guys like us do all the work but get paid very little,” said El. “Meanwhile those rich white guys sit back and reap most of the profits.”

  “We can work full-time, or two jobs, even, and still barely be able to make rent, or keep the heat on, or keep the pantry full.”

  “Say more about why.”

  “Same type of guys that own the businesses own our apartment buildings. They set the wages and the rent, just so. They want to keep us jiving and checking, keep us poor and struggling day to day.”

  “So we don’t have time to think,” Bobby said.

  “So we don’t have time to get together and rise up.”

  Out the corner of my eye, something went creeping. A rabbit or a fox, most likely. Something I couldn’t turn my head fast enough to see.

  But I did turn my head, away from the hinge gap into the darkness. I became aware then of the stark black air behind me. The new moon cast blankness over everything.

  The house loomed up as a shadow in the foreground, miles of fields beyond. Miles of road beyond that, I supposed, and on into the cities.

  What must it be like? I wondered. And in the breath behind that: Why have I never wondered before? I had seen so much of the city in the newspapers and on television, but I had never really wanted to go.

  “What’chu doing?” said Bobby’s voice behind me.

  I jumped about a mile.

  He laughed as I turned to face him. “We’re even now. You about scared me into tomorrow. Hiding here in the dark like that.” His silhouette against the light from inside the barn made it hard to see his face.

  “Oh, uh —” I stammered. “I was just coming to, I mean —” Sighing, I gave up the ruse. “I kind of just wanted to listen.”

  “Sure, sure,” Bobby said. “I just had to . . . you know.” He shuffled. “Step out to the field for a second. I’ll be right back.”

  I lingered behind the open doorway, out of sight of the rest of the Panthers. Bobby came back a minute later. I could hear the scratch of him zipping up his pants. He stopped a few yards short of me and flung his arms out in the country air. He tossed his head back and gazed at the sky.

  “Whew,” he said. “How’d you hook up all these stars?”

  I stepped out into the grass to join him.

  “Don’t you have stars in Oakland?”

  “Barely,” he answered. “Too much light from the buildings. I’ve never been in a place this dark. With so much open space. It’s amazing.”

  “You don’t get outside of Oakland so much?” I asked. Maybe we had that in common.

  “I’ve never been out of Oakland,” he said.

  We stared at the stars together. Bobby nudged his foot toward mine and ended up stepping on my bare toe. “Ow,” I said.

  “Sorry!” He put his hand out, as if to soothe something, and came up holding mine. “I didn’t know you don’t have shoes on.”

  I always went barefoot. I couldn’t imagine not touching the earth. On TV, the cities looked dirty and crowded, but not the kind of dirt you wanted to let touch your feet.

  But never mind my feet. Bobby was holding my hand. He slid his fingers between mine. The places where we were touchin
g felt warmer than anything in the world.

  “What’s it like in Oakland?” I asked him. “I’ve never been to a place where you have no space and it doesn’t get dark and you can’t see any stars.”

  “You can go into the park at night,” he said. “You just gotta watch out for pigs and whatnot.”

  “You have pigs in the city?”

  Bobby’s shoulders pitched forward, following his laugh. “Not those kind of pigs. It’s what we call the police.” He snorted three times quick. “Swine. The lowest of the low. Filthy. Greedy. Getting fat off the scraps of everyone’s table. Politicians. Businessmen. Government. The Man.”

  I got a little offended on behalf of my pigs. “That’s just mean,” I said. “They’re real sweet animals.”

  Bobby laughed again. “I never seen a real pig before,” he said. “So I guess I can’t rightly judge.”

  He was still holding my hand. Warmth radiated up my arm. He pulled lightly, moving toward the barn again. “I gotta get back. You coming in?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “I’ll get in trouble.” Right away I wished I hadn’t said it that way. I would have preferred for Bobby to think I was my own person. But Daddy was the one I had to live with.

  “Your dad?” Bobby said.

  I nodded. “He doesn’t want me to talk to any of you.”

  Bobby nodded too. “My mom took a lot of convincing. But in the end, she knew it was right, what the Panthers are doing. Protecting the community. Educating and empowering people.” He tilted his head. “Your dad’s already involved, though, so what’s the holdup?”

  Bobby was talking like I was going to join the Black Panthers or something. “I just wanted to listen, that’s all.”

  He smirked. It was dark, but I could feel it. “That’s how it starts.”

  “There’s no Black Panthers out here anyway,” I said.

  Bobby waved his arm. “You got a barn full of them right now.”