Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick

by Zora Neale Hurston

  Near the end of the period, Hurston published one of her finest stories, “The Gilded Six-Bits” (1933), which offers one of her most direct critiques of the politics of race. Her critique is embedded in an interesting reversal of other migration stories (in that one of the characters migrates south) and provides a subtle interrogation of masculinity. In its conclusion, however, Hurston turns the reader’s attention to the politics of race. When “The Gilded Six-Bits” appeared in Story magazine, it caught the attention of editors at J. B. Lippincott and ultimately led to the publication of Hurston’s first novel, Jonah’s Gourd Vine. Again, the complexities of marriage take center stage in a love triangle, but this time a northerner participates in reverse migration when he moves from Chicago to Eatonville to open an ice cream parlor. There he meets Joe and Missie May, a young married couple. Joe puts the urbanite on a pedestal, talking repeatedly about this urban interloper with “de finest clothes . . . ever seen on a colored man’s back” and a five-dollar gold coin for a lapel pin. Missie, on the other hand, seems decidedly unimpressed. Readers then are almost as shocked as Joe is to find Missie and the northerner in bed together. When Joe discovers the affair, he also finds that the gold pin he had admired is nothing more than a gilded coin. It and the urbanite are both fakes. Things are not always as they seem. In the final lines, Hurston turns this story about love and marriage to illuminate yet another way in which appearance and reality collide, this time in the politics of race. She confronts readers with racism in the one scene in which a white character appears. When Joe finally spends the northerner’s gilded coin in a local shop, the white store clerk articulates the stereotype he has imposed on Joe: “Wisht I could be like those darkies. Laughin’ all the time. Nothin’ worries ’em.” The ironic claim rings hollow for readers who know just how painful the acquisition of that gilded coin was for Joe. The clerk’s use of the term “darky” reveals that he sees Joe as a minstrel figure untroubled by the woes of the modern world. Through dramatic irony, Hurston points out that Joe’s life is far more complicated than the racist clerk can imagine. The line contrasts what readers, white and black, know about Joe’s life with what the clerk thinks he knows. In this way, Hurston undermines the stereotype, revealing its distortion of a man’s complex humanity.

  THE END OF THE ERA

  In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Hurston took a break from writing short fiction as she traveled the South collecting African American folklore. During this period she drafted the material that would eventually become three distinct books: Mules and Men (1935), Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-tales from the Gulf States (2001), and Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” (2018). She and Langston Hughes fell out over their failed collaboration on Mule Bone in 1929, which did not appear in print until 1991. And she worked to bring authentic folk performances to the stage to great critical acclaim but with little financial success.50 Zora’s fiction was changing, too. The last story from Hurston’s Harlem Renaissance years, “The Fire and the Cloud” (1934), marks a significant departure from her earlier stories in terms of themes, characters, and settings. There is no love triangle, no Eatonville or Harlem settings, no vernacular speech. Instead, “The Fire and the Cloud” focuses on the Old Testament figure of Moses. Hurston’s attention has shifted from identity politics to the complexities of leadership. “The Fire and the Cloud” appeared five years before her novel Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939), in which she develops Moses as a magical figure—a masterful hoodoo practitioner, one not only dependent on God but powerful in his own right. Building on a long tradition of the Exodus story serving as an inspiration in African American culture, Hurston shifts the focus from the plight of the people being led out of bondage to the struggles of the leader. In the short story, readers see Hurston exploring for the first time the isolation and burdens of leadership. Set in the days after Moses has led the people to the Promised Land, the story opens on a mountain where the great liberator sits overlooking his people. Although seemingly without companionship, Moses strikes up a series of conversations with a lizard, in which he reveals he is alone after forty years of leadership. He is unconvinced that the people he served will remember or appreciate his sacrifices. After all, he points out, “The heart of man is an ever empty abyss into which the whole world shall fall and be swallowed up.” At the end of thirty days on the mountain, Moses symbolically inters his role as leader and walks away, leaving his powerful staff leaning on the pile of stone. He passes the role of leader to Joshua, who will find the staff and assume that Moses has passed away. The story’s conclusion literally and symbolically severs the role of leader from the human being who assumes the mantle, suggesting it is a performative role. While followers might naively put their leaders on a pedestal and idealize them, leaders take on the role their followers need them to assume, sometimes at great personal cost.

  In the years between “The Fire and the Cloud” and Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Hurston traveled to Haiti and Jamaica on two prestigious Guggenheim fellowships. She wrote the novel on her first trip as she tried to “smother [her] feelings” after leaving her longtime love affair behind in the United States. “The plot was far from the circumstances, but I tried to embalm all the tenderness of my passion for him in ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God,’” she writes in her autobiography.51 While Hurston’s black contemporaries were critical of the book when it appeared because it did not explicitly confront class issues, it has been largely responsible for her ascending to the canons of American literature.52 When the author returned to the United States after her fellowships in 1938, she would focus on producing books and essays. The peak of her productivity as a short story writer was behind her.

  Almost a century later, Hurston’s contributions to American literary culture continue to inform the ways we talk about the Harlem Renaissance, Modernism, women’s literature, folk literature and folklore, ethnography, migration fiction, and Southern literature. Her groundbreaking stories and bodacious personality have made her one of the most-storied and most-studied Harlem Renaissance writers. Hurston’s finest stories have made her a hypercanonical figure, a giant of the twentieth century, an icon. This collection of Hurston’s Harlem Renaissance short fiction, particularly the addition of once-lost stories to her canon, requires readers to rethink her legacy. In these recovered stories, we see her explore the urban experience and the educated New Negro, two elements of Harlem Renaissance culture that seemed to have been lacking in her oeuvre. We see her use her “crooked stick” to critique the politics of gender, class, and race. Situated within the better-known body of Hurston’s work, as they are in this volume, these recovered stories reveal the broader scope of her writings, both in terms of theme and form. Hurston’s keen ear for vernacular speech, her devotion to depicting proudly and completely the folk she knew, and her persistent attention to the intersections of race, class, and gender have left us a beautiful, complicated, and unsurpassed legacy of Harlem Renaissance short stories.

  Genevieve West

  October 22, 2019

  John Redding Goes to Sea

  The Villagers said that John Redding was a queer child. His mother thought he was too. She would shake her head sadly, and observe to John’s father, “Alf, it’s too bad our boy’s got a spell on him.” The father always met this lament with indifference, if not impatience.

  “Aw, woman, stop dat talk ’bout conjure. ’Tain’t so nohow. Ah doan want Jawn tuh git dat foolishness in him.”

  “Case you allus tries tuh know mo’ than me, but Ah aint so ign’rant. Ah knows a heap mahself. Many and manys the people been drove outa their senses by conjuration, or rid tuh deat’ by witches.”

  “Ah, keep on telling yur, woman, ’taint so. B’lieve it all you wants tuh, but dontcher tell mah son none of it.”

  Perhaps ten-year-old John was puzzling to the simple folk there in the Florida woods, for he was an imaginative child and fond of daydreams. The St. John River flowed a scarce three hundred feet from
his back door. On its banks at this point grew numerous palms, luxuriant magnolias and bay trees with a dense undergrowth of ferns, cat-tails and rope-grass. On the bosom of the stream float millions of delicately colored hyacinths. The little brown boy loved to wander down to the water’s edge and cast in dry twigs, and watch them sail away down stream to Jacksonville, the sea, and the wide world and John Redding wanted to follow them.

  Sometimes in his dreams he was a prince, riding away in a gorgeous carriage. Often he was a knight bestride a fiery charger prancing down the white shellroad that led to distant lands. At other times he was a steamboat Captain piloting his craft down the St. John River to where the sky seemed to touch the water. No matter what he dreamed or whom he fancied himself to be, he always ended by riding away to the horizon, for in his childish ignorance he thought this to be the farthest land.

  But these twigs, which John called his ships, did not always sail away. Sometimes they would be swept in among the weeds growing in the shallow water, and be held there. One day his father came upon him scolding the weeds for stopping his sea-going vessels.

  “Let go mah ships! you old mean weeds, you!” John screamed and stamped impotently, “They wants tuh go ’way, you let ’em go on.”

  Alfred laid his hand on his son’s head lovingly. “What’s mattah, son?”

  “Mah ships, Pa,” the child answered weeping. “Ah throwed ’em in to go way off an them ole weeds won’t let ’em.”

  “Well, well, doan cry. Ah thought youse uh grown up man. Men doan cry lak babies. You mustnt take it too hard bout yo ships. You gotter git uster things gitten tied up. They’s lotsa folks that ’ud go ’on off too ef somethin didn’ ketch ’em and hol’ ’em!”

  Alfred Redding’s brown face grew wistful for a moment, and the child noticing it asked quickly, “Do weeds tangle up folks too, Pa?”

  “Now, now chile, doan be takin’ too much stock of what ah say. Ah talks in parables sometimes. Come on, le’s go on tuh supper.”

  Alf took his son’s hand, and started slowly toward the house. Soon John broke the silence.

  “Pa, when ah gets as big as you ah’m goin’ farther than them ships. Ah’m going to where the sky touches the ground.”

  “Well, son, when ah waz a boy, ah said ah waz going too, but heah ah am. Ah hopes you have better luck than I had.”

  “Pa, ah betcher ah seen somethin in th’ wood that you ain’t seen.”

  “What?”

  “See dat tallest pine tree ovah dere how it looks like a skull wid a crown on!”

  “Yes, indeed,” said the father looking toward the tree designated, “it do look lak a skull since you call mah ’tention to it. You ’magine lotser things nobody evah did, son.”

  “Sometimes, Pa, dat ole tree waves to me just after th’ sun goes down, an’ makes me sad an’ skeered too.”

  “Ah specks youse skeered of de dahk, thas all, sonny. When you gits biggah you wont think of sich.”

  Hand in hand these two trudged across the plowed land and up to the house—the child dreaming of the days when he should wander to far countries, and the man of the days when he might have—and thus they entered the kitchen.

  Matty Redding, John’s mother, was setting the table for supper. She was a small wiry woman with large eyes that might have been beautiful when she was young, but too much weeping had left them watery and weak.

  “Matty,” Alf began as he took his place at the table, “dontcher know our boy is different from any othah chile roun’ heah. He ’lows he’s goin to sea when he gits grown, an’ ah reckon ah’ll let ’im.”

  The woman turned from the stove, skillet in hand. “Alf, you aint gone crazy is you? John kaint help wantin tuh stray off, cause he’s got a spell on ’im, but you oughter be shamed to be encouragin’ ’im.”

  “Aint ah done tol you forty times not tuh tawk dat low-life mess in front of mah boy?”

  “Well, if taint no conjure in de world, how come Mitch Potts been layin’ on his back six mont’s an’ de doctah kaint do ’im no good? Answer me dat. The very night John wuz bawn, Granny seed ole witch Judy Davis creepin outer dis yahd. You knows she had swore tuh fix me fuh marryin’ you ’way from her darter Edna. She put travel dust down fuh mah chile, dats what she done, to make him walk ’way fum me. An’ evah sence he’s been able tuh crawl, he’s been tryin tuh go.”

  “Matty, a man doan need no travel dust tuh make ’im wanter hit de road. It jes comes natcheral fuh er man tuh travel. Dey all wants tuh go at some time or other but they kaint all git away. Ah wants mah John tuh go an’ see, cause ah wanted to go mahself. When he comes back ah kin see them furrin places wid his eyes. He kaint help wantin tuh go cause he’s a man chile.”

  Mrs. Redding promptly went off into a fit of weeping but the man and boy ate supper unmoved. Twelve years of married life had taught Alfred that, far from being miserable when she wept, his wife was enjoying a bit of self-pity.

  Thus John Redding grew to manhood, playing, studying and dreaming. He attended the village school as did most of the youth about him, but he also went to high school at the county seat where none of the villagers went. His father shared his dreams and ambitions, but his mother could not understand why he should wish to go to strange places where neither she nor his father had been. No one of their community had been farther away than Jacksonville. Few, indeed, had ever been there. Their own gardens, general store, and occasional trips to the County seat—seven miles away—sufficed for all their needs. Life was simple indeed with these folk.

  John was the subject of much discussion among the country folk. Why didn’t he teach school instead of thinking about strange places and people? Did he think himself better than any of the belles thereabout that he would not go a courting any of them? He must be “fixed” as his mother claimed, else where did his queer notions come from? Well, he was always queer, and one could not expect the man to be different from the child. They never failed to stop work at the approach of Alfred in order to be at the fence to inquire after John’s health and ask when he expected to leave.

  “Oh,” Alfred would answer, “yes, as soon as his ma gets reconciled to th’ notion. He’s a mighty dutiful boy mah John is. He doan wanna hurt her feelings.”

  The boy had on several occasions attempted to reconcile his mother to the notion, but found it a difficult task. Matty always took refuge in self-pity and tears. Her son’s desires were incomprehensible to her, that was all. She did not want to hurt him. It was love, mother love, that made her cling so desperately to John.

  “Lawd knows,” she would sigh, “Ah nevah wuz happy an’ I nevah specks tuh be.”

  “An from yo actions,” put in Alfred hotly, “you’s determined not to be.”

  “Thas right, Alfred, go on an’ ’buse me. You allus does. Ah know Ah’m ig’nrant an’ all dat, but dis is mah son. Ah bred an’ born ’im. He kaint help from wantin’ to go rovin’ cuz travel dust been put down fuh him. But mabbe we kin cure ’im by discouragin’ the idea.”

  “Well ah wants mah son tuh go, an’ he wants tuh go too. He’s a man now, Matty, an’ we mus let John hoe his own row. If it’s travellin’, ’twont be for long. He’ll come back tuh us bettah than when he went off. Anyhow he’ll learn dat folks is human all ovah de world. Dats worth a lot to know, an’ it’s worth going a long way tuh fin out. What do you say, son?”

  “Mama,” John began slowly, “it hurts me to see you so troubled over me going away, but I feel that I must go. I’m stagnating here. This indolent atmosphere will stifle every bit of ambition that’s in me. Let me go, Mama, please. What is there here for me? Give me two or three years to look around and I’ll be back here with you and Papa, and I’ll never leave you again. Mama, please let me go.”

  “Now, John, it’s bettah for you to stay heah and take over the school. Why won’t you marry and settle down?”

  “I’m sorry Mama that you won’t consent. I am going, nevertheless.”

  “John, John, mah baby! You wouldn’t kill
yo’ po’ ole mama, would you? Come kiss me, Son.”

  The boy flung his arms about his mother and held her closely while she sobbed on his breast. To all of her pleas, however, he answered that he must go.

  “I’ll stay at home this year, Mama, then I’ll go for a while, but it won’t be long. I’ll come back and make you and Papa oh so very happy. Do you agree, Mama dear?”

  “Ah reckon t’ain’t nothin’ ’tall fuh me to do else.”

  Things went on very well around the Reddings home for some time. During the day John helped his father about the farm and read a great deal at night.

  Then the unexpected happened. John married Stella Kanty, a neighbor’s daughter. The courtship was brief but ardent—on John’s part at least. He danced with Stella at a candy-pulling, walked with her home and in three weeks declared himself. Mrs. Redding declared she was happier than she had ever been in her life. She therefore indulged in a whole afternoon of weeping. John’s change was occasioned possibly by the fact that Stella was really beautiful, he was young and red-blooded, and the time was spring.

  Spring time in Florida is not a matter of peeping violets or bursting buds merely. It is a riot of color, in nature—glistening green leaves, pink, blue, purple, yellow blossoms that fairly stagger the visitor from the north. The miles of hyacinths are like an undulating carpet on the surface of the river and divide reluctantly when the slow-moving alligators push their way loglike across. The nights are white nights as the moon shines with dazzling splendor, or in the absence of that goddess, the soft darkness creeps down laden with innumerable scents. The heavy fragrance of magnolias mingled with the delicate sweetness of jasmine and wild roses.

  If time and propinquity conquered John, what then? These forces have overcome older men.

  The raptures of the first few weeks over, John began to saunter out to the gate to gaze wistfully down the white dusty road, or to wander again to the river as he had done in childhood. To be sure he did not send forth twig-ships any longer, but his thoughts would in spite of himself, stray down river to Jacksonville, the sea, the wide world—and poor home-tied John Redding wanted to follow them.