DAD WAS IN THE SHED, repairing stack poles. He let out a What the— when he saw me.
I cut him off. It’s okay. I just slipped.
I explained that I fell on my arm going down a gravel embankment, on my way to the river. How I’d seen a bunch of kids playing on inner tubes. It looked like fun, so I’d decided to join them. Dad knelt down and looked over my face and inspected the green stains and red splotches covering my cast. He shook his head with concern.
By where Artie fishes?
Farther down.
Where the geese nest?
Down more. Where we saw Mister Slappery’s terrier doing it with Mister Marnin’s collie—up against the tree, where no one but us could see. Remember?
Oh. Well, I know what it’s like for you boys. You’re growing by the day—don’t know where your body starts and ends half the time. Whaddya say we get some ice for this?
Dad wiped the dirt and tears from my face, suggested that I not tell Mom, then led me inside. Miss Della was on her way out. She walked out the front door, down the steps, and out the driveway without saying a word. Mom stood in the doorway quietly watching her first hair appointment in weeks disappear through the elms lining our drive.
We didn’t have any ice in the house, so I dug out a hand towel and wet it with cold water. I could hear Mom out on the stoop telling Dad that she didn’t care how little things had cooled down in town, Tobias Wetherall Muncie had never done anything but good, and that no matter what Dad’s opinion of colored people, it was important to show our respect to folks who had been good to us.
Dad didn’t think “it” necessary. Mom acknowledged that “it” would be awkward, but insisted. I had no idea what they were talking about but I was inclined to side with Dad—Mom tended to overdo things. There was a moment of quiet. I headed for my room and slipped into bed with that wet hand towel draped over my face. I was a mess. I pulled the covers up to my chin and just as I was starting to drift off, I was startled awake by a door slamming shut and someone snapping, Fine. I’ll drive there myself.
I lay in bed the next morning with the vague memory of Dad having come in during the night and given me some aspirin. And of Mom asking if I was sure I didn’t want any dinner, and me answering, But you don’t know how to drive.
I’ll learn. So help me God, I’ll teach myself.
But where would you even go?
• • •
THE NEXT COUPLE of days were a blur. All I remember is being startled awake one morning by the sound of Mom barging into my room. She riffled through my dresser and set out a pile of clothes, then disappeared into the kitchen with my white button-down flapping behind her like a flag. My arm was still aching, but at least the swelling had gone down enough to inspire the belief that the worst was past. Dad put two rubber bands around my cast to keep it from slipping off and called it good as new.
I changed into a clean undershirt and reached for the tie that Mom had set atop my dresser, fumbled it into a slipknot, then slung it around my neck. The look of horror on Mom’s face when she walked past my room was worse than the time she’d discovered I’d used the last few drops of her eight-year-old bottle of Chanel perfume that Dad had given her for high-school graduation.
She jerked it from around my neck and told me I wasn’t ready for a real tie yet. I left the house that morning in a short-sleeved button-down and clip-on tie, carrying an aluminum baking tin as heavy as a cat. Mom teetered down the steps in pressed hair, heels, and a dark dress that covered her ankles and buttoned at the neck. Dad was at the top of the steps in his coveralls and boots, checking his wristwatch. It wasn’t until we all piled in the truck that I realized I didn’t even know where Toby had lived.
Our driveway let out to a road of packed dirt. The open field across it was ours, too. Dad turned right. Half a mile up, our field ended and the Orbachs’ began. Dad eased right at the first turnoff, then continued along a stretch that ran parallel with a rutabaga field, and a little farther up, their big house came into view. Then came the Schaefers’ fields. Their peanuts had been out of the ground a month already and two dozen convicts were laying pulled peanut vines out in neatly lined rows. Armed guards were standing on the field’s perimeter, watching as they worked. Dad slowed on the appearance of our turnoff, which we were approaching from the back side. He was taking the most roundabout way possible—claimed that it was the easiest way to sidestep the trouble in town. We pulled back onto Cordele Road, and as we passed the Camelot, Dad noted that Mister Abrams’s fortunes had sure taken a turn for the worse in recent weeks. Mom wasn’t concerned with Mister Abrams.
It won’t be long now until they bury that poor boy.
Della told you that? That kooky old maid. Her family tree may as well have roots in everyone’s front yard, for all she knows about who has done what to whom.
Mom gazed off to the side of the road. She didn’t seem to care about anything Dad had to say as we passed the charred remains of Goolsbee’s shop.
Mark my word. People won’t forget.
Dad clenched the steering wheel and we crossed the river. I leaned over Mom and rolled up her window. The stink of low tide passed by the time we emerged from the chuh chuh chuh chuh of the covered bridge. A procession of peach trees flitted past, and it took all of five family orchards before I realized that she had been talking about Toby. A checkerboard-style arrangement of trees passed by. Eventually they thinned out and were replaced with a span of flat pastures crisscrossed with haystacks. Dad looked over and winked.
You know you’re from Akersburg if you like the smell of manure. Do you like the smell of manure?
Mom turned away. Me, too. Dad sighed and said that it was just as well to get the condolence call taken care of. Suppose it’s better this way.
Couldn’t live with myself otherwise.
Dad looked over but said nothing. Asphalt turned into packed dirt, and somewhere along a tight, winding back road scattered with old leaves, we pulled in behind a tractor leaning in a drainage ditch. Mom stepped into the reedy grass, careful not to trample the wildflowers. I got out at her prompting and stood on the side of the road.
Hoe, Emma, hoe.
You turn around, dig a hole in the ground.
Hoe, Emma, hoe.
Emma, you from the country.
Hoe, Emma, hoe.
You turn around, dig a hole in the ground.
Hoe, Emma, hoe.
A curtain slid back in the squat house in front of me. A colored woman I didn’t recognize peeked out from behind a tile of cardboard fitted shabbily over a busted-out window. Dad rocked himself out of two-day old mud, then turned around. Our truck never seemed the time-traveling spaceship that it was at that moment, its trail of exhaust thinning in the distance.
He’s not coming with?
No.
Why not?
Mom undid her shawl and bent down in front of me. She adjusted my tie and told me to close my mouth. You’re gonna be just fine. People are people. Remember that. Now you just watch your mama and do what I do, hear?
Is Toby’s family in there?
Of course they’re in there. Where else would they be?
I pointed to the open field. Twenty or so colored men were out threshing. Mom adjusted my sling, licked her fingers, and pressed my hair straight. She led me across the dirt road and up the front stoop. She handed me the baking tin and knocked on the door. A colored woman pulled it open. Mom directed me inside and thanked the woman she called Myrna.
Mom tossed her handbag into a chair and headed for the kitchen. She pulled the refrigerator open and set the baking tin inside like she owned the place. I knocked into one of the flower vases crowding the doorway on my way in. I stooped down and groped over the floorboards to pick it up. The woman named Myrna stooped down beside me to help. The back door creaked open, and I heard Mom scream Evan!
Evan?
A colored boy—the colored boy—stood in the open doorway in rolled-up overalls, no shirt, and bare feet. It was the same Evan who nearly tore my arm off. Mom knelt down in front of him, and all I could think was, Evan? What the heck is he doing here? When Mom introduced him to me as Toby’s son, the bottom seemed to fall out from under me.
What are you talking about? “Toby’s boy”? That’s Goolsbee’s boy.
Mom gave me a look. I knew that look, and I didn’t like it one bit. It made me feel stupid.
He never mentioned having a son! That’s Goolsbee’s boy!
It was Goolsbee’s boy. Goolsbee’s boy was Goolsbee’s son. He only had one, and that was him. Goolsbee’s was the only place I ever saw him, so it only made sense. Mom’s look told me to stop while I was ahead. I felt like my worst nightmare was coming true. Damn it all, Toby barely even mentioned having a wife, never mind a son. I glanced at the fridge. I wondered if Irma was the one who was busy trying to make room for all the food we’d brought. No. Wait. That was Myrna. I looked down at the little purple flower in my hand, then up at the back doorway. Mom and Evan were looking at one another in a dusty shaft of light coming in through the back doorway.
Huey, there’s someone I’d like for you to meet.
I took a step back.
Never mind him. If you ever want to come over to our house and spend time with me, you’re welcome to. Or even just to borrow some toys. You just let me know, okay?
Another woman entered the room. She was a small-framed woman, shorter than Mom. Her belly was so big I thought she was about to fall over.
Little Huey? What happened to your arm?
I was hit by a car.
And what’s this?
I was distractedly looking for the TV. There was none. I felt out of place in a house without a TV.
Oh, this? This is just old newspaper. I unwrapped it. Here.
What is it?
Well, nothing really. But. Well. It’s something Toby told me to fix once. Ma’am. And that I—or—Well. I glanced at Evan coldly. I couldn’t even think his name without a feeling of deep fury welling up inside me. Well, I recently broke it again. Even if it can’t be fixed, Toby—I mean, Mister Muncie—was the rightful owner. You see, it belonged to him, ma’am. In a manner of speaking. Because he told me to fix it. It may not look like it, but I did. And now I’d like for you to have it. You see right here? I tried to glue this. But as you can see, it still isn’t quite right. But I tried. And Toby said that’s what counts. Which is how I know that he’d have appreciated this—because I tried. Boy, did I try. I know it doesn’t look like much. But—well—I tried, ma’am. I really did.
I held up to Missus Muncie an abomination of my once prized dive mask, which the young colored boy standing in the opposite doorway, charming my mother, had so ruthlessly destroyed not but a few days before. Shards of glass were poking out. Elmer’s was smeared across it so thick the face plate wasn’t even transparent anymore. Never mind seeing through it, you couldn’t wear it without poking out an eye. I suddenly felt silly for having brought it.
I handed it to her. It would have had tremendous symbolic value to Mister Muncie. I just know it. He’d have looked upon it no different than if it were one of those fancy new ones. He always said that, ma’am. If something broke, don’t matter what, you fix it.
It pained me to have to give it to her in that awful condition. I apologized a second time for the fact that glass didn’t glue so well. And that I hadn’t been able to find every little piece. Missus Muncie received it tenderly in both hands and led me to the sofa beneath the front window and set it alongside an assortment of family photographs and keepsakes.
She stroked her big round belly and pointed at one. Do you know who that is?
I paused, suddenly uneasy. What am I doing there?
Evander Erraticus Muncie, you bring Huey here some iced tea. You’d like some iced tea, wouldn’t you? Along with a graham cracker from the cupboard. And you might as well bring Peola here some coffee while you’re at it. Don’t bother heating it, though. She’s used to it cold.
Irma pushed aside the flowers cluttering the coffee table. Everything seemed a great effort for her. She sat down and patted the seat cushion beside her.
Darker hair and eyes—and softer features, for sure. But child, you look just like your daddy. But enough of that. Now, what’s this I hear about you being at Good Intent?
Yes, ma’am.
Lucky you.
I still had the picture in my hand. I glanced up from it. Now she knew where I went to school? Something stank—and not the fatty smell of ham hocks boiling off on the stove. Mom sat down between us and interrupted me midsentence. She started saying how unfair life is, and how sorry she was, and how near and dear Toby was to all our hearts, and how lucky we were to have had a chance to get to know him, and how sorely missed he’d be, and how he’d been a sorely needed beacon in difficult times like these.
Buck didn’t have to tell me what an upstanding worker he was, Irma. I saw it myself—how he didn’t mind, not one bit, being out there on those long days. Under that hot sun. In its heat, covered in sweat. To provide for you and Evan. Whatever happened, you can be proud of that.
Missus Muncie’s face went flat. Where is he now?
Never could stand tears. You know that.
Mom was making up the same old garden-variety nonsense people say after someone they didn’t much care for while alive is dead and gone. When my drink didn’t come, I got up and went to the back door. I pressed my face against its pushed-out screen and wondered whether it was to Mom’s credit that she didn’t care what color people were. Evan was standing in the middle of a clearing, heaving an ax. He grunted as he brought it down—crack. I stepped out. He looked up at the sound of the door.
Shoulda seen it a week ago. TV people. News people. Radio people. Magazine people.
He paused. Yeah. Movie people, too. Couldn’t fit ’em all in. Cars and trucks lined up and down both sides of the road. It was like Main Street on a Sunday, so many of them coming and going. Made my head spin. See this? He stroked his fingers along the visor of his stiff, new ball cap. Robinson saw me with my old one on the TV. Said it was a shame a fan like me should have to wear something so shabby. Sent me this here new one. Even signed it and everything.
Jackie Robinson sent that?
Evan whacked it into shape and slid it back on. He left the ax in the chopping block and signaled for me to follow him. So I did. He guided me past a lean-to under which wood was stacked, past a chicken coop and underneath the shade of a tarpaulin hanging above a clutter of hubcaps, car rims, and bicycle tires.
I followed Evan over to a swing hanging from the high branch of a red maple across the way and past a stump of salt lick. He shoved the swing out of the way and pulled some shrubs to the side. Inside was a clearing. The ground was covered with curlicues of wood shavings, and chisels, handsaws, wood planes, and squares of sandpaper were scattered about. Evan picked up one of the bow staves stacked up against a chair and held it out to me. Said he’d made it himself.
I rubbed my fingers over it. I’d never felt anything so smooth. I couldn’t believe it. I could read cloud cover and wind direction for rain, fold a parachute, tie a noose, clean Dad’s Colt with nothing but a Q-tip and a toothbrush, identify the Tupolev Tu-4 bomber, evade capture by communists, and administer a lie-detector test to one, too, but I could not—I repeat—could not fashion my own bow from a tree stump.
Your pop taught you this?
Evan slid an arrow from a quiver leaning against the same chair. He put it to the bow, pulled it back, and let it fly. Thwangggg—the arrow smacked into a tree about thirty yards away. A squirrel was hanging from it about forty feet up, twitching. I looked at Evan with dismay and asked what the hell his problem was. He slid another arrow from the quiver, put it to his bow, and aimed it directly at me.
You’re like Topsy, if Topsy was a little faggot fucker who acted white just because he looked like a cracker. Your mama’s a no-shame gold-digging house nigger like that yellow bitch Cassy. And your daddy’s like Massa Shelby, if Massa Shelby had no fucking idea how to raise so much as a patch of grass. What? You don’t think I read? Well, fuck you. If it was up to me, you wouldn’t even be here!
Evan went quiet. The back door creaked open. He pointed the bow to the ground and whispered, I’m here to stay. You hear? Those cowards ever come after me like they did my daddy, it’s gonna be one of these right between their eyes. If they ever come around here at night, carrying on with their torches lit and honking their horns, throwing exploding bottles and tearing ass around the front of my house, I’m letting the arrows fly. Now shuffle along like a good little Sambo and report back to them that I ain’t going nowhere!
Evan disappeared into the shrubs. Mom called out. I wasn’t sure what had just happened. Evan was acting like it was me who’d pushed his daddy off that ladder. I made my way back in a fog, stumbling over tufts of grass and gnarled and knobby tree roots girding broad tree trunks. I tripped over a bicycle frame and followed a string of hoof prints in the mud until I picked up a footpath no wider than a leaf. It led straight to the back stoop.
Mom was on the porch, promising a flat-faced Evan that she would return just as soon as she could. Evan disappeared inside. Mom chewed me out for having wandered off. I kicked at a chicken clucking past on our way around the side of the house. Mom asked if I didn’t feel a little silly about having been nervous. Said she was happy to see us boys get along so well. It was the first time I’d seen her with anything resembling a smile in quite some time. So I didn’t say anything. She took my hand, and we made our way up the dirt road.
My whole arm felt like it was set to explode. I tugged on the plaster to relieve some of the throbbing. The frayed part up at the bend in my elbow split even more. It helped a little, but my arm still felt pinched in places. I slid my fingers underneath it and started jerking.
Is something the matter?
I hesitated. What would we do if that ever happened to Pop?
Mom stopped. If he fell from a ladder?
I nodded yes. Mom cautioned me not to trouble myself with thoughts like that and continued walking. After a few steps, she said that she didn’t know, but we’d figure something out. People always do.
Are you sure Toby liked us?
Sure I’m sure.
Because we were good to him?
Of course.
We don’t owe him any money, do we?
Just his back pay. But we’re pulling that together.
So Dad was a good boss?
Mom stopped.
And what exactly does it mean if someone says you live off the spoils of your family name? And what’s a gold digger? Is that good or bad? Because it sounds like it oughta be good, but then people say it in a way where it doesn’t. And just who the hell are Topsy, Cassy, and Massa Shelby, anyway? And is Evan part Chickasaw? ’Cause I got the impression he might be. They were the best with arrows, right? Like, that William Tell fella was modeled on a Chickasaw Indian, right? And what’s all this business about the legions of slaves that used to live out this way that I keep hearing about? Did that really happen? And now that I’m thinking about it, why don’t you and Pop wear your wedding rings, anyway? It’s a little embarrassing, if you ask me. Everyone else does.
What on earth were you two boys talking about back there?
I paused. And I thought crackers were just food.
What in the world did Evan say to you back there? Mom stopped. Wait. Hold it right there. I think I know what’s going on. This was bound to happen someday; I suppose today’s as good as any. Here. Listen. I know what people think—and what they say. Okay? I do. I really do. And how they talk. Okay? I know all that. You think I don’t know that? Well, I do. Listen. Your father’s not perfect, okay? But who is? What matters is that he is decent. Okay? I can tell you that much. So don’t let anyone tell you different. Ring or no ring, I wouldn’t be with him if he wasn’t. Now, some people in town talk, is all. They say mean things. Like, that we don’t deserve to be together—your father and I. Or they say the complete opposite, that we deserve each other, but they mean that in a mean-spirited way. Okay? Does that make sense? No? Kinda? Well, let me put it to you this way. See, some people say that your father allowed himself to fall for me because he was too simple-minded to know better. Okay? There. Make sense now? That was in the beginning. Then they said that he was staying with me only on account of—well—an accident, let’s just put it that way. Okay? Say, like I played a trick on him. That sort of thing. What kind of trick? Well, never mind that. But they were wrong about that, too. Nobody played a trick on nobody. There were no tricks involved, Huey. None. You’ll just have to take my word for it. There was nothing but love. One hundred percent pure, unadulterated love. But that’s hard for some people to accept. They just figure that something else unsavory had to be mixed up in it because according to them he was too good for me. They’ve been stuck on that belief and refuse to believe otherwise to this day. But they are wrong. So they have no choice but to say that it won’t last. And that’s more or less where we are today. But they are wrong about that, too. Because here I am. And there he is. And we’re still together. And no matter all the mean, nasty, and hurtful things people have said and done to try to tear us apart, here we are. Just as strong and in love as the day we met.
There. Feel better? Sometimes people just have their own ideas about who should be with whom, Huey. That’s all. And they have a hard time letting go of those ideas. You could even say they’re married to them, in a way. So what do people say now? Well, I wouldn’t exactly know because I’m not around those people anymore. And frankly I don’t care. Because it’s all just idle talk from a bunch of folks who believe that I must be some piece-of-trash gutter girl who could never do better. Okay? I know all that. And now I guess you’re starting to know it, too. But right now you’re going to wash all that stuff out of your head and pretend like you never heard it, okay? Because it’s poison. And when poison gets into your brain, it can be hard to get it out. No, you don’t have to mention it to your daddy. In fact, I would prefer it if you didn’t. It would just upset him. Because it’s nothing but mean and nasty and spiteful stuff that we’re trying to put behind us, but that the people who don’t want to see us together keep putting in the way.
Listen, Huey. You’re gonna hear people say things about us—your father and me. But you shoudn’t believe it all. The bottom line is that your father is going to see to it that you have the bright future that you deserve. To me, all that matters in this world is that you’re provided for in that way. To have the honest-to-goodness chance to make whatever you want of your life. All that empty talk about pride coming from poor single women in broken families, without a hope in the world for themselves, much less their babies? Let them snicker all they want. Let them believe that I don’t have something they do. Because at the end of the day, their pride may only be good for their sleep, and sleep is overrated. I live for the waking hours. Phooey. You want pride? I’ll show you my pride. He’s standing right here. There’s not a thing in this world that I wouldn’t do for you, boy. You know that, right? I don’t have to do anything in the name of pride that I can do for you.
I turned back to the road.
What now, sweetheart?
Your rings?
Rings? We don’t have rings.
Don’t have rings? What kind of answer’s that? Why not?
Rings cost money, you know. And what’s a ring got to do with love, anyway?
And I suppose that’s why everyone one else has four or five kids, whereas you just have me? You know damned well I’ve wanted a little brother for as long as I’ve been stuck cleaning out the henhouse by myself, washing dishes by myself, shucking corn, peeling potatoes, scrubbing pots, cleaning the windows, sweeping out back, chopping wood, stacking wood, pruning shrubs, baling hay, sorting stack poles, cutting down trees, and pulling weed thistle.
Mom smiled. You’re a slow learner, but you’re coming along.
It’s not funny! Money, money, money. Shoulda known. Everything is about money. Always money! I stopped. Even Missus Muncie had on a ring! The man who used to work for us! And who’s dead now! His wife! And don’t think I don’t know about what you and Dad do in your room! All that, and no baby to show for it! And here you always go on about scripture, and Bible this and Bible that. Well, what ever happened to the Lord, he proclaimeth on the fifth day that man shall go forth on this day and multiply, so that his kin, too, may inhabit the earth, with all its earthly splendor? Because that woman’s belly was poking straight out to here. So don’t try and fool me with that business about the stork bringing babies when it’s as clear as day that something’s about to pop out of her any minute!
Mom walked off without a word. I ran up to her, grabbed her hand, and pressed it tight. She forced a smile, but I could tell that it was too little, too late. The road was a narrow, rutted path of red dirt. It was littered with derelict hand plows and old wagon wheels, and lined with brush, garbage cans, and other rusty metal junk. The colored men across the way were still spreading peanut vines over the wagons lined up along the side of the field. Evan’s ax echoed out—crack . . . crack . . . crack.
Emma, help me pull these weeds.
Hoe, Emma, hoe.
You turn around, dig a hole in the ground.
Hoe, Emma, hoe.
Emma, work harder than two grown men.
Hoe, Emma, hoe.
You turn around, dig a hole in the ground.
Hoe, Emma, hoe.
Our truck was sitting at the very end of the road, about a hundred yards away. Dad was behind the wheel, reading the paper. He folded it up and shoved the door open. I hopped in, cradling my arm like a baby. Mom squeezed in beside me. When I asked why he’d parked so far away, Dad said that he didn’t want to get stuck in the mud again, and pulled out.