“Yes’m,” I said, and opened the door on the first knock.
“Hi, little fellow. Is Emma here?”
“Yessir, cum on in. She be out in a minute.”
Emma called out, “Jes have a seat on th’ bed. I’ll be right out.”
“That’s all right Emma. Take yore time. Is this yore boy?” eyeing me curiously.
“Suuuure is. Me an that boy been down the road together, ain’t we baby?” She didn’t expect me to answer but knew it sounded good to the white fish.
“I didn’t know you had any children.”
Stepping from behind the curtain in a see-through nightgown, “There’s a whole lotsa thangs you don’t know bout me … yet,” and put them eyes on him. “Baby, you go set out front an if anybody cums by lookin for me, tell ‘em I ain’ home.”
“Yes mam.”
Mr. Sessoms was a catch, a real big white fish. He owned the hardware store downtown, had lots of money and a brand new car. After that first time, he only came at night. Explaining to Emma, “It’s hard to git away from the hardware store durin the day.” In the months that followed, our house became his second home and he kept me practically anchored to the front steps. The night visits soon became a problem when his timing was off. Answering the door to wait on my late night whiskey customers, sometimes it’d be him. Emma already had company; I had to get rid of him, quick!
Whispering to him with the door barely opened, “No sir, she ain’ here. She gone,” I lied. “You gotta go now! Ain’ nobody here but me.”
Trying to push the door inward to peep inside, “Any idea what time she’ll be back?”
“No sir. I gotta close the door now. Emma tole me not to open it for nobody.”
“Well, tell her I came by, will you?”
“Yessir, I’ll tell ‘er,” and closed the door in his face.
On my way past her bed back to the kitchen, “Whut’d they want?”
“They didn’ want nuthin Emma,” I lied again.
Emma knew why Elzado had stopped coming to the house; she didn’t like George. Elzado was a fast talker who didn’t bite her tongue about anything. “I can’t stand him. Emma, he’s jes fulla shit. I be damned if I know whut you see in him.” They cracked up when she quipped, “Must be the cookin.” Both of them had spirited senses of humor and neither took offense when they teased each other, especially about their men.
Now that he had gone, she came regularly again. “Emma, you oughta be glad that black bastard left. If it’d been me, I’da run ‘em off long befo now. You know whut that tree-totin S.O.B. dun?”
“Whut else the nigguh do?”
“Axed me to trick wit ‘em! I didn’ never say nuthin to you bout it cuz I know how crazy you is, so I jes stopped comin over here. He wudn’ no earthly good! Baby, pass Aunt El that bottle frum yo mama.”
“Yes’m, Aunt Elzado.”
“I sho wish you’d stop callin me that an call me El lak yo mama do. Who in the hell ever heard uv a name lak Elzado? Emma, I ain’ never gon forgive you an Sally for lettin Bama name me that.”
“Don’t blame it on me. I didn’ have shit to do wit it.”
“Grandma Duck useta make me so damn mad when she’d holler Elzado. Sound lak a Meskin tellin you to git the hell away frum ‘em. So baby, jes call me Aunt El. Okay?”
“Yes’m, Aunt El.”
“Say Emma, lemme tell you. I stood out on my Gotdam porch this mornin flaggin cars til my fuckin arm nelly fell off. They kept passin right on by. Shit, ain’ hardly nobody trickin no mo! Girl, lemme hold sump’n if you kin spare it.”
Whatever money we had in the house, Emma produced it and let her take what she needed, expecting no payback. Elzado didn’t care much for gambling, and generally stuck to the basics. She was fairly well content to have some white man “take care” of her and to turn an occasional trick.
Elzado was at the house again, “Emma, I got me a rich white man now, gal! An he don’t want me to hit a lick at a snake! All he wants me to do is jes be nice to him ever now an then. He ain’ nooo trouble at all! He’s old gal, I mean old!”
“If he’s old is you make it sound, whut kin he do?”
“Nuthin!” They cracked up. “Not a fuckin thang! He jes laks to play wit it.”
“I wish that wuz true wit the one I got. That bastard cums roun two an three times a week, makin sho he gits his money’s worth. I can’t complain though. That sonuvabitch sho pulled me outta a hole when George run off. I got caught up on my rent, an he pays for my whiskey jes regular as the man brangs it. That sho takes a load offa my shoulders,” and she could ill afford to lose such a cushion.
“I know it do gal! Shit! My ol’ man’s the same way. I don’t havta worry bout no rent, no groceries, no nuthin. An thas the kinda man I been wantin. Befo I forgit,” running her hand inside her bra, “here,” handing Emma a twenty.
The next time Mr. Sessoms paid Emma a visit, he told her humorously, “I’m gonna have to come up with somethin different. I just about wore the Legion Hall out. My wife’s called there a couple uv times and I wuzn’t there.”
“Tell her you out takin care uv bizness,” Emma joked back.
“I can’t, I done used that up too!”
“Well, looks lak you might be in trouble,” she jazzed.
Elzado had a lot of free time on her hands and was back visiting again. I sat out on the front steps listening to them shoot the shit while sharing a half-pint. I heard her telling Emma she found out Sally and Bama were living in Dallas, 124 miles away. Soon as the news was exchanged, they overwhelmingly agreed, “Who gives a shit!”
When the car stopped in front of the house, I instinctively hollered inside, “Emma! Here cum the police!”
“Fuck it, we ain’ doin nuthin wrong,” Emma said, sliding the half-pint under her mattress. “They early. My whiskey man ain’ cum yet.”
The two deputies got out. When they came near the house, I moved off the steps out of their way. They went inside.
“Whut’s yore name gal?”
“Elzado Barnes,” she snapped.
“Git up off yore ass when I’m a-talkin to you!” Mr. Thrasher hollered, angered by her curt tone. “Emma, git dressed proper unless you wanna go like that,” referring to her housecoat are bare feet. “We’re takin both uv y’all to jail.”
“Whut for?” Emma asked as she went behind the curtain to change. “Whut we dun? Y’all kin see ain’ nobody here but me an my sister an my boy. Whutcha takin us in for?”
“Never mind, Emma. Just hurry up in there. All we know is the sheriff wants to talk to y’all.” After Emma got dressed they put her and Elzado in the car and drove away. This time, my crying didn’t help.
I walked to the courthouse and had to stand on a fruit box to see her through the cell window. “Whut happen to you?” grimacing at the sight of her battered face.
“I’m awright. El wouldn’ hush til she got both our asses whupped.”
“She gon be awright? Where she at?”
“They got her in that cell ‘cross the hall. She’s beat up priddy bad.”
“When they gon letcha cum home?”
“I don’t know,” disgustedly. “This ain’ for gamblin an bootleggin, an they won’t let us pay no fine to git out.”
She told me Mr. Sessoms’ wife had been tailing him and went to the sheriff crying, “Emma, the colored gal over by the railroad tracks, is ruinin my marriage.” She said they already had a warrant out for Elzado for “swindlin.” Her sugar daddy’s children got suspicious when they detected all the withdrawals he was making at the bank and had been watching him closely.
“Go on back to the house an stay there. Don’t cum up here no mo. You might git hurt.”
“For whut?”
“Jes do lak I say.”
I walked away with tears sliding down my face, tears she never saw. I left but I didn’t go home. I hung around outside the courthouse and found an empty bench on the square with a view of the entrance. I sat there al
l day listening to the birds chirping and singing, and watching the squirrels run around on the lawn and in the giant oak trees.
Later that evening I saw several men wearing white hoods over their heads going in the courthouse. They brought Emma and Elzado out the front door. I hid underneath the tall hedges and watched. When they shoved them down the steps, Elzado stumbled and fell. One of the men kicked her and shouted, “Git up frum thar, you Gotdam nigguh whore! We’re gonna stop you two whores frum messin with these decent, God-fearin folks in this town!” He snatched her up by the hair and pushed her down the steps.
“Let’s take ‘em out ‘cross the river an tar an feather ‘em!” another said.
I heard Emma begging, “Please, don’t take our lives. At least give us a runnin chance!”
After a brief huddle the men laughingly agreed, “It’d be a helluva lot more fun then runnin rabbits.”
One of the hooded men started pushing a few white citizens who had gathered back away. Another held tightly onto Emma and Elzado’s arms while the rest got into their cars. With engines and headlights on, someone yelled from a car, “Turn ‘em loose!”
Emma and Elzado started running down the street and passed twenty feet from where I was hiding. I ducked down lower because I didn’t want Emma to see me. I figured she would have pulled out of that race to give me a whuppin for disobeying a direct order. Some of the spectators began running behind them and got in the way. The “Klu Kluckers” had to slow their cars down, and blew their horns trying to get through the crowd. This helped.
They turned off East Methvin Street, cutting through different alleys. I ran with the crowd, and saw them heading for the railroad tracks. Their high-heeled shoes were hampering their running and the cars were catching up. They started running down the tracks. The drivers stopped and turned around. “C’mon, boys!” one shouted. “We kin head the bitches off at the overpass!”
Lucky or not, a train was coming and slowed down a little to collect any messages from the Y pole. Emma and Elzado hopped it. I raced down the tracks to where I had last seen them running. Emma was gone. The revelation buckled me to my knees. “Emma! Emma!” I wailed and withered like the limp stem of a dying flower. Lightning had just struck the center of my heart.
I wandered aimlessly for a while and went home, quickly latched both doors and lit the lamps. I got the salt box and lay awake all night to throw some on Bloody Bones if he showed up, and listened for a knock and the sound of Emma’s voice.
I did what she told me and stayed at the house until Mr. Booth rented it to somebody else. In lieu of the back rent Emma owed, some men came in a truck and hauled everything away, except the clothes I bundled in her crap blanket and took with me. I went to Mama Joe’s, “Kin I stay wit you?”
Holding Pat in her arms, she looked at me with indifference and said, “Naw Whitefolks, ain’ got no room.”
I never thought Emma would be gone so long. At the age of six, I was totally on my own. I walked the streets, hung around the gambling shacks, and slept in boxcars, under bridges or railroad trestles. Stealing food and living down on the streets, I moved among the hustlers like a shadow. Survival was the name of the game. It was save-thine-ass time, not school time. Dodging the truant officer for not attending school was a full-time job.
Chapter 5
I was sitting on the bench in front of the Star Cafe one afternoon when an old gentleman I knew as “Wino” came walking around the corner. He sat down beside me and struck up a conversation. By now, everybody in town knew about Emma and Elzado’s “messin wit white men an gittin rid outta town on a rail.”
“Has yo mama cum back yet, boy?” he asked in a friendly voice.
“Nawsir, but she be back … prob’ly by tomorrow.”
“Yeah, well … where you stayin since she been gone?”
“At diffunt places.”
“Lak where?”
“Lak all kinds uv places.”
“Who you been stayin wit?”
“Nobody. I don’t need to stay wit nobody. I kin take care uv myself.”
“I see. Oh, I don’t doubt yo word for a minute that you kin take care uv yosef. You a real big, little man. Do you go to school?”
“Oh yessir,” I blurted. “I go ever day,” fearing he might squeal on me.
“Whut grade you in?”
“The first. Y’know whut Wino? You sho ast lotsa fuckin questions.”
“Aw, I-I’m sorry Albert. You right. I didn’ mean to pry in yo bizness. I jus thought you might need a little hep or somethin.”
“Naw, I don’t need no hep. Emma be back … prob’ly she be back in the mornin.”
“Well, she prob’ly will, but jus in case she don’t make it in an you need a place to stay, you kin cum keep me company an stay in the room wit me. That is, if you don’t mind listenin to an old man’s ramblins all the time. We could be … pals. I git priddy lonesome sometimes without nobody to talk to. I bet you do too. Don’tcha?”
“Sumtimes. But I got me a buddy.”
“You do?”
“Yep, name’s Floyd. He’s my pal.” Floyd and I ducked the truant officer together, and stole milk bottles to sell for our picture show money. We would sit up in there all day, sucking on our one-cent jawbone breakers, watching the movie over and over until they closed that night.
“Ain’t that one uv Miz Bertha’s boys?”
“Yep, she’s his grandma.”
“I take it y’all are real good buddies?”
“Yessir! An we don’t fight each other neitha. I’m waitin on ‘em right now. We goin do sump’n.”
“Whut you two boys gon do?”
“We goin out to the circus grounds an work for us sum free passes so we kin git in to see it.” Looking down the road, I saw him coming, “Here he cums now. I gotta be goin, Wino.”
“Okay. You ‘member whut I tole you. If you change yo mind, I live roun there in the roomin house,” pointing, “in the first room on the right, next to the back door.”
I gave him noncommittal smile as I looked back over my shoulder running to meet Floyd.
When I got closer to him, “I hadta tote sum wash water fer Grandma befo I lef.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I wuz wonderin whut you wuz doin so long.”
Both of us were wearing our Tuf Nut overalls, but the seat of mine was weighed down ten pounds and almost dragging the ground. I had all my valuables and weapons in my back pockets. I carried at least a half-dozen big washers for throwing at older boys, rocks for my “nigger shooter,” and for close-range fighting I had a railroad spike. Along with my fighting paraphernalia, I carried my pee-wee dice, marbles, spinnerless spinning top, and of course, my protective salt wrapped in a piece of newspaper.
On our way to the circus grounds, “Look Floyd, when we git out there, lemme do th’ talkin.”
“Whutcha thank dey hab us be doin?” he asked.
“Prob’ly hepin put up th’ tents er sump’n. I don’t know. But whutever it is, me an you kin do it. An we kin sell us sum milk bottles an git us sum peanuts an stuff.”
“Yeah, I’m gon buy me sum uv dat cotton candy.”
“Me too!” We were drooling with anticipation. “Now, ‘member,” I said as we approached the grounds, “lemme do th’ talkin. Okay?”
“Go ‘head! I ain’ sayin nuthin.”
Circus hands were working all over the place, stretching out the tents and pounding the long anchor stakes into the ground with their huge mallets. I finally saw somebody who didn’t look extremely busy. “Les go ast that man over there.”
“You go axe ‘em. You tole me not to say nuthin, ‘membuh?”
“I will,” and walked over to him. “Pardon me sir.”
“Yeah, what is it?”
“Me an my buddy,” looking back at Floyd, “wanna work for sum free passes to th’ circus.”
“Well, I’m not the man you wanna talk to. You see that trailer cabin over there? Go knock on the door and talk to that man.”
/> “Thank you.”
I beckoned for Floyd to follow. I knocked and a man opened the door. The trailer was up on blocks and when he first looked out, we were so short he looked right over us. “Yeah, what can I do for youse guys?” looking down at us.
“Mister, me an my buddy here wanna work for sum free passes. An we’ll work real hard. Won’t we Floyd?”
“Sho will.” He was nine, and about a head taller than me.
We were so scrawny looking, he thought about it a few seconds before deciding. “Yeah, come to think of it, I can use two more big guys like youse two.” He opened the cabin door wider, “See that guy over there with his sleeves rolled up and all the tattoos?” We nodded. “Go over there and tell him I said to put youse guys to work. When you finish, come back by here and I’ll give youse your passes.”
“See there Floyd,” I said smugly, “whut I tell you!” As we walked up to the tattooed man, “Pardon me, mister.”
“Yeah?”
“The man in that trailer said tell you to put us to work so we kin git sum free passes to the circus.”
He stopped what he was doing, “Okay, follow me.” We did until, “Here,” he said handing us two buckets apiece. We followed him again. He stopped at the nozzle of the huge fire hose that lay trickling on the ground. “Okay, I’m goin over to the fireplug and turn the water up a little.” After adjusting the nozzle, “Watch this nozzle and let me know when it’s comin out fast enough to fill up your buckets.” Using the big wrench atop the fireplug, he slowly opened the valve.
Floyd and I started waving our hands and shouting, “Okay! Okay!”
He returned. “Alright, fill up your buckets and come on. We got some elephant waterin to do.”
Water sloshed all over the legs of our overalls as we hurried to keep up with him. “Do dem elefins bite?” Floyd asked in worriment.
“Nawww boy,” he said, “elephants don’t bite people. Unless, of course, they make ‘em mad. You know what really makes elephants mad?”
“Nawsuh,” we said.
“When they don’t get enough water.”
“Well, I sho don’t wanna make ‘em mad.”
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