Before I left for work at Miss Peggy’s, I went out to feed my granny’s chickens. I guess you could call them her pets. Other than giving us eggs, Granny’s chickens never found their way on a platter. They always died from old age. Everybody teased her that she could knock a pig in the head with no problems during hog killings in the fall, but those chickens, she loved them like they were her babies. Anytime I couldn’t find her, I knew to look out at the coop because she was probably out there talking to her feathery youngins, as she called them.
I greeted them as I threw dried corn into their chicken coop. “Morning, Daisy. Morning, Cleo. Morning, Bessie and Claudine. And Mr. Lincoln, how are you doing, you old ornery rooster? Y’all got anything out here for me?” Mr. Tote had built the coop for Granny several years ago, and it looked like a palace fit for royal chickens instead of a bunch of country chickens like ours. After I got them fed and watered, I collected five eggs. That was pretty good. I took them inside and laid them in a bowl on the table, and then I crept out as quiet as I could so I wouldn’t wake up Granny.
I loved walking to work, especially when the sky was still dark—right before the sun began to rise majestically above the horizon. I didn’t hardly hear a peep from any of the houses as I passed by. Some of the farmers were probably already up and out getting the farm animals fed or watering their crops, but other than a few lamplights in some of the windows, I felt like it was just me and God awake this early on a Saturday. I loved walking late at night, too, when the moon was high above the trees and the stars would sometimes look so alive, it was like they were raining down from the heavens. This morning the moon was still holding on to its place in the sky, so it was in the moonlight that I passed through town.
Parsons didn’t have the same sentimental feeling for me that Colored Town did. Even though, really, they were one and the same. Colored Town was my heart and soul. Parsons, on the other hand, was just buildings and businesses that belonged to the white folks whom I only really knew in passing. There was Mr. Monk Davis’s gas station where Uncle Myron would stop for gas, but only he would have conversations with Mr. Monk. Me and Granny would sit and stare straight ahead, because even in 1936, it wasn’t safe for Colored folks to look a white person in the eye, especially a white man. Somehow, Uncle Myron got away with it. I never understood how, but white folks seemed to respect him and give him a much wider berth than they did the rest of us. Maybe because he was a business owner. Or maybe just because he was Uncle Myron.
Farther down the street was Mr. Lowen’s Drugstore where Jimmy Earl was going to work that summer and Miss Betty Powell’s Dry Goods. I probably went to Miss Betty’s more than any other place to pick up new sewing patterns and thread and cloth for Miss Peggy. Miss Betty didn’t allow Colored folks into her store, so you had to tell your order to her helper, Baxter Lee, and then, after Miss Betty rounded it up, she would have him come collect the money and give it to her. You would have to stand there and wait while she counted up the money to make sure you didn’t cheat her.
After Miss Betty’s store was Doc Henry’s house and office. Doc Henry would doctor on you no matter if you were Colored or white, rich or poor. One time my throat got so sore I was crying out in pain, or at least as much crying as I could do with a throat that was on fire. Granny had tried every trick she knew to help me. I gargled with cayenne, honey, and hot water. I sucked on cloves of garlic. I drank licorice root tea. You name it, and Granny gave it to me. But it wasn’t until Doc Henry came by with some white powder that he poured into a small glass of whiskey (Granny allowed it because he said it was for medicinal purposes) that I started to feel better. As I passed his house, I noticed his car was gone. Knowing Doc Henry, he was probably out tending to some sick soul or delivering a baby.
Once I went past his house, there wasn’t a whole lot to see besides farmland. Some of the farmers were already out lugging water buckets from the stream to their crops, trying desperately to save their bounty from the drought.
It was probably a good three miles to Miss Peggy’s house, but I didn’t mind. I enjoyed the journey because it gave me time to think. I always felt safe going from Colored Town to Miss Peggy’s. I had been making that walk since I was a little girl.
I walked by the Parsons Plantation where Jimmy Earl’s best friend, Courtland, lived, and many of the Black Parsons who never left after slavery. And not too far from their house was Miss Lovenia Manu’s place. Miss Lovenia was a root woman, and people went to her for anything as simple as the common cold to requests to get in touch with spirits that had already passed on to the other side. I looked up at her house as I walked by. I saw a single flickering light in the front window, but no sign of anyone being awake. I hurried on by. Miss Lovenia and her twin sons gave me the jitters.
Uncle Myron had started picking us up and driving us to Miss Peggy’s because the walk was too hard on Granny now, but I didn’t want to be in the car with him this morning. I was feeling too good to get drowned in his negative talk, and I knew without knowing that he would have just picked up the conversation where he had left it the night before.
Uncle Myron’s wife, Aunt Josephine, died a few years back, and his bitterness toward the world seemed to get worse after her death. His only joy seemed to be centered around his children’s successful lives. So I tried to be understanding, but sometimes I just needed to avoid him. And anyway, I was still feeling the excitement of my time with Cedric. When I got back to the house last night, I didn’t tell anybody about meeting up with him, not even Lucille. I knew she wouldn’t have told anybody, but I wanted that memory to be just mine—at least for a while.
I made it to Miss Peggy’s house and stepped onto her porch but was startled when I saw Jimmy Earl sleeping in the porch swing. Back when we were children, he would sometimes sleep out on the porch with his cousin Skeeter and Courtland, but I hadn’t seen him do that in years. Because he was so long and lanky, his legs spilled out over the edge. He had also grown a short beard. I wondered what Miss Peggy thought about that. I went on inside without waking him. He looked tired, so I just let him rest.
I went to the bathroom and collected the basket of dirty clothes and sheets that I had rounded up the day before. Jimmy Earl had come home with a ton of dirty laundry, I saw, because my wash load had doubled since the previous day.
Miss Peggy had a nearly brand-new Maytag washing machine, but Granny and I never used it more than once or twice. In my opinion, it was too rough on the clothes. I wasn’t going to argue that it got things clean, but the clothes just didn’t seem the same, so I used the washboard and tub that Granny had been using for years. It took a little more time to get the wash done, but some things ought not to be rushed. I was out on the back porch giving one of the towels a final soak when I heard someone clear his throat. I laughed and turned around.
“Good morning, Jimmy Earl Ketchums,” I said. “’Bout time you got up. You done turned city boy, getting up at seven in the morning?”
I tended to be shy around most boys, but not Jimmy Earl. He was like a brother or one of my cousins, so I didn’t feel awkward around him—even though looking at him then, he didn’t look like the same gangly boy who had gone off to college a few years ago. He was still thin as a rail, but his features looked manlier. If the truth be known, he favored his daddy, Mr. Earl Ketchums. Of course, I never would have said that in front of Miss Peggy. She couldn’t stand one thing about Jimmy Earl’s daddy except that if there hadn’t been an Earl Ketchums, there wouldn’t be a Jimmy Earl.
“Well, if it ain’t Stringbean the Washing Queen,” he said, grinning at me like always. After I hit puberty, Jimmy Earl started calling me Stringbean. I got tall but I didn’t get very big. “When are you and Birdie going to enter into the 1930s and use the washing machine? Washing by hand has to take three times the energy, not to mention the time. What’s wrong, you scared of the Maytag?”
“You let me worry about the washing, Jimmy Earl, and you just worry about that scruffy mess on your face. I’m surprised Miss Peggy hasn’t made you shave it off already,” I said, flicking some bubbles from the wash at him. He laughed.
“Surprisingly, she didn’t say a word about it,” he said. Suddenly his face grew serious. “Opal, is Gran okay? She’s lost a ton of weight since last Christmas, and she seemed like she was having difficulty breathing last night.”
I wrung out the last of the towels and put them in the basket with the other wet sheets, towels, and pillowcases. I wiped my hands on my apron before answering him. “I don’t know, Jimmy Earl,” I said honestly. “She hasn’t said anything to me, and if she told Granny, Granny hasn’t shared, but then, you know those two. They are closemouthed when it comes to each other’s secrets.”
“Well, I’m going to take her in to see Doc Henry on Monday,” he said. “A woman her age can’t be too careful, and I doubt she’s seen Doc Henry in years.”
“Actually, Doc Henry stops by to check on her every so often, but it might be wise for you to take her to his office,” I said. “Listen, you might want to go check on the livestock, since there ain’t no telling when Mr. Tote will come in to work. Mr. Tote is probably feeling”—I cleared my throat and smiled—“a little poorly this morning, I imagine.”
Jimmy Earl shook his head. “Poorly my foot. Hungover, you mean. Tote’s getting too old to be carrying on like that. Birdie just needs to go on and make an honest man of him. Maybe he’ll stop some of that cattin’ around and drinking.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Don’t be wishing Mr. Tote off on my granny. She’s doing just fine, thank you very much. And anyway, Mr. Tote don’t believe in God. Or at least not how Granny does. That wouldn’t work if the Lord himself came and joined them together.”
“I’m just teasing,” he said, laughing. “I know as good as you that Tote and Birdie wouldn’t last ten minutes. Let me get on out there and check on things. Do you know if the other fellows are coming today to water the crops?”
Along with Mr. Tote, there was Mr. Jimbo, Mr. Laz, and Mr. Montgomery Lee, and when things really got hectic in the fall, Mr. Silas Griffin would come and help out. He was this poor white man who lived out near Jimmy Earl’s daddy’s house. The both of them sold moonshine, but when harvesttime came around, both would go and do some work on the local farms.
I shook my head. “No, I don’t know if they’re coming. I handle the indoors and Mr. Tote is in charge of the outdoors. But you might go on out there and see if they’re already working. Sometimes they just start doing things without coming up here to the house first. I’ll have breakfast ready when you get back,” I said.
“Thanks, Bean,” he said, returning to his old nickname. He grabbed a hat from the hook by the door. He started to walk away and then stopped. “It’s good seeing you. I’ve missed all of you. Thanks for taking care of Granny and Mama. I couldn’t do what I’m doing if I didn’t have you here to manage things for me.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, feeling my cheeks get hot. I wasn’t used to this grown-up Jimmy Earl who paid me compliments. “Don’t forget about breakfast. I’ll make poached eggs for you.” I knew that was his favorite.
“You are all right, Opal Pruitt. For an ugly, old, skinny stringbean,” he teased, sounding like the Jimmy Earl I had grown up with again.
I splashed him good with some of the soapy water as he hurried past me. I was happy to have my childhood friend home for the summer. I could tell Jimmy Earl was more mature, if one could imagine that, because he was already mature before he left. Oh, he was a prankster and a jokester, but he was always making sure the women in the house were happy, and that included me and Granny.
He was still the good-natured boy I used to play hide-and-seek with as a child, but I could tell he was different. We both were. This growing-up thing was not all fun and games. I remember as a little girl always wishing I was older. The day after my birthday, I started throwing in the “half.” If someone asked how old I was, I would respond, “I am twelve and a half” or “fifteen and a half.” As the childhood days became faint, sweet memories, I found myself longing for them. Afternoons at the pond fishing with Jimmy Earl and his mama, Miss Corinne. Playing house with my cousins, or explorers, where we pretended like we had discovered new lands and new people. But now, everything was changing. Jimmy Earl didn’t sound as much like home as he did before. But I guess that’s what happens when you leave. You never come back the same again.
“Hey there, Opal,” Granny said from the door. “You need help getting the wash out on the line?”
I turned and smiled. I hadn’t even heard Uncle Myron drive up. I guess he let her off and kept going, which was fine with me. I was still feeling a tad bit salty about the things he had said the previous night. I didn’t want to have an argument with him this early in the morning.
Granny was a big woman who carried herself like royalty, or at least how I imagined a queen might walk and move about. Even with arthritis, she still forced her body to retain its dignity and height, which I got from her. So where others might be stooped, Granny continued to walk proud and tall. I knew how much it took out of her to always keep her body straight and unbent. Not a day went by that I didn’t thank God for her and her strength.
“I’m fine, Granny. I just need to wash out these pillowcases and then I’ll be done with this load. If you want to get started on breakfast, that would be good. I promised Jimmy Earl poached eggs, though. You mind making them?” I asked.
“No, honey. I don’t mind at all,” she said and came over and hugged me.
“You’re gonna get yourself all wet,” I chided, but I melted into her embrace. Granny was a stern woman, but she never shortchanged me on hugs and kisses. I always knew I was wanted by her, even if I couldn’t say the same about my own mother and father.
“Wouldn’t be the first time I got all wet,” she said and then backed away and gave me a serious look. “Opal, you listen to me, and you listen to me good. You are just fine the way you are, and there is no shame in the work we do. Don’t you never let nobody make you feel less than what you are because of what you do. You hear me?”
I nodded. “Yes ma’am.” I knew she was talking about what Uncle Myron had said.
She patted my cheek. “I better get in there and start working on poaching eggs. It’s been a good hot minute since I’ve cooked them that way. You’re much better with all that fancy cooking than I am.”
I watched as she walked back into the house. I finished washing the pillowcases and then picked up the heavy basket and carried it out to the clothesline. Jimmy Earl’s dog, who had become my shadow after Jimmy Earl went off to college, followed behind me.
“Levi, did you get fed this morning?” I asked as he rubbed up next to my leg. I put the basket of wet clothes onto the little bench that I’d gotten Mr. Tote to make for Granny in case she got tired while we were out putting up the laundry. “Poor thing. Your boy is back home and he ain’t paying you no never mind, is he?”
Levi looked up at me with that lopsided grin that always seemed to be on his face. If he was hurt by the slight from Jimmy Earl, he didn’t show it.
“Well, don’t you worry. I’ll see that you get fed soon as I finish hanging up these wet things,” I said. Almost like he understood, Levi lay down by the bench and watched me hang up my wash. But before I could get to the towels, I heard the loud roaring of a car engine. I groaned. I knew that sound. Levi raised his head at the sound of the motor, and when Jimmy Earl’s cousin Skeeter got out, he started a low growl.
“Shh,” I said in a soft voice. “It’s okay.” I didn’t want Skeeter to notice me. Levi got up and stood next to my leg. He was usually playful and loving toward everybody, but now he was standing rigid and at attention. They say dogs recognize evil, and Skeeter was just that.
Skeeter was always being hauled away by the law for fighting or just plain intimidating folks. He was big and muscular and loved to throw his weight around. Skeeter was heavy into making and selling moonshine with Jimmy Earl’s daddy, Mr. Earl Ketchums, but more than that, Skeeter was in the Klan and made no secrets about it.
Though the Klan had been on the decline, Skeeter and his daddy, Mr. Rafe, along with a handful of other no-account white men, were determined to keep it alive. As far as I knew, Jimmy Earl’s daddy wasn’t part of it, but he let them meet out in the woods where he lived from time to time, or at least that’s what I heard.
The Klan would sometimes ride around late at night and try to spook folks. So far, other than getting into a few fights here and there with some of the local Colored boys and men, they hadn’t done too much more than put on their white robes and hoods and march up and down Main Street in Parsons and yell at any Colored person who might be walking by, until the sheriff would ride through and tell them to go on home. The last time they marched was last year, a few days before Founder’s Day.
Some of the Colored boys had wanted to play baseball with the whites on Founder’s Day, and the Klan had marched through downtown Parsons over into Colored Town to let us all know that wasn’t going to happen. Not on their watch. And Skeeter had led the procession. Needless to say, there was no baseball between the Coloreds and whites.
Everybody, including Jimmy Earl, knew that Skeeter, Skeeter’s daddy, and Skeeter’s brothers were mean, ornery men, but Jimmy Earl loved Skeeter like a brother, and in his eyes, Skeeter could do no wrong.
“Skeeter’s harmless,” Jimmy Earl said one day when I mentioned how much Skeeter scared me. “He and them boys are just a bunch of backwards hillbillies trying to flex their muscles. They aren’t going to hurt anybody. Not really.”
I had just looked at Jimmy Earl. He was blind to anything Skeeter did. When they were younger, Skeeter took up for him when nobody else would. Folks used to tease Jimmy Earl about not having a real daddy, and Skeeter would blacken an eye and bloody the nose of anyone who would dare say such a thing about Jimmy Earl. Jimmy Earl never forgot that, and one thing about Jimmy Earl, he valued family above everything else, even if they were in the wrong.
And I think being close to Skeeter was his way of being connected to his daddy’s side of the family. He needed so badly to love and be loved by the Ketchums. Mr. Earl hadn’t done right by Jimmy Earl or Miss Corinne. That’s why Miss Peggy and Mr. Cecil went and got them shortly after Jimmy Earl was born. Granny said when they got to Mr. Earl’s house, Miss Corinne didn’t even have shoes to wear, and poor Jimmy Earl was looking yellowish in the face. He didn’t have a stitch of clothes on beyond his diaper, even though it was freezing cold outside.
Mr. Rafe and Skeeter tried to make up for how bad Mr. Earl had been as a daddy. Mr. Rafe would come by and pick up Jimmy Earl and take him hunting and fishing with his boys. When Christmas or birthdays would roll around, Mr. Rafe brought gifts, claiming they were from Mr. Earl, but everybody knew Mr. Earl drank and gambled away every nickel he ever made.
I watched as Skeeter walked out toward the fields where Jimmy Earl was. I made sure I stayed out of sight behind the large crape myrtle tree. I didn’t want to relive the last time Skeeter and I had been in the same space together.
One day a few months ago, Uncle Myron picked up Granny from Miss Peggy’s, but I wanted to get some wild strawberries to make us a strawberry shortcake that night. I was headed out near the Colored cemetery where they grew the best, when Skeeter drove up in his old jalopy. He used to pick on me around Jimmy Earl, but Jimmy Earl always teased him into stopping. But this day, there was nobody in sight to protect me.
Skeeter blocked the road, so I just stopped. Scared to death. I looked left and right, and there was nothing but wide-open fields and not a single person in shouting distance. I was all alone.
“Well, if it ain’t Jimmy Earl’s Negress,” he said, getting out of his car and walking toward me.
“Leave me be, Skeeter,” I said, trying not to act afraid. They say an angry dog will attack you if you act scared. Looking at Skeeter and his hateful eyes, in that moment I would have rather faced down a dog with rabies.
“That’s Mr. Ketchums to you,” he said, walking up on me so close, I felt like I was caged in like Granny’s chickens in their coop. I could smell the liquor on his breath and the faint odor of chewing tobacco. I looked all around to see if I could find something to hit him with to give me time to run, but there was nothing. I was trapped.
Skeeter reached out and grabbed my arm. I flinched and then knocked his hand away. He laughed and grabbed my arm again, tighter this time, almost willing me to strike at him once more. My instincts told me not to fight. Not then. I couldn’t believe he was doing this to me in the middle of the road in broad daylight.
“Please leave me alone, Skeeter . . . I mean, Mr. Ketchums. Please,” I begged.
“I like the sound of that,” he said. “From now on, you make sure you call me Mr. Ketchums.”
I nodded, feeling tears welling up in my eyes.
“Maybe you and me ought to take a little walk out into the woods,” he said, smiling, most of his teeth dark from all the tobacco he chewed. He spat out a big wad of it and then put his arm around my waist. I struggled but he held on tighter. Just when I thought the worst was about to happen, I heard another car coming up the hill behind us. Skeeter quickly let me go, and I turned around to see it was Doc Henry. He was coming from Miss Peggy’s house. He stopped his car just behind us and then got out and stood by his car door.
“You having car trouble, Skeeter?” he asked. I could tell by the look on his face that he knew what was happening in the middle of the road that day.
“No sir. Not at all,” Skeeter said. “Just making small talk with Opal here.”
“Well, I’m going to give Opal a ride home, so we’re going to be needing you to move your car,” he said and motioned for me to come get in the car with him. I ran and got in the passenger side. I sat there, breathing hard the whole way, tears streaking my face. Doc Henry just acted like nothing was wrong and talked about the weather. Neither one of us ever talked about what had been going on between me and Skeeter, not to each other, and I definitely never told any of my kin. But seeing Skeeter again brought all of those memories flooding back to me. Thoughts of what happened, and what could have happened if Doc Henry hadn’t come along.
I finished hanging up the last towel and then took my basket and hurried back to the house. Levi ran behind me. I burst into the kitchen like hellhounds were chasing me.
“Girl, what you running for?” Granny asked, looking surprised and worried all at the same time. She was taking the biscuits out of the oven and putting Jimmy Earl’s poached egg on a plate.
“Nothing, Granny. I was just . . . I was just playing with Levi,” I said, and almost like he was agreeing, he barked from outside the screen door.
“Well, don’t you be running like that in this heat. It’s already hot and it’s not even nine o’clock yet,” she said.
“Yes ma’am,” I said. Then I heard Skeeter’s car roar off. A few minutes later, Jimmy Earl came in, and he looked worried.
“Birdie, I need to talk to you about something,” he said.
Granny smiled. “You came in just in time, Jimmy Earl. ’Course, you always did growing up. You seemed to have an inside clock to let you know when I was done cooking. Come sit down and—”
“Birdie, we need to talk now,” he said, his face more serious than I recalled it being in a long while. Normally, that look was reserved for his concern over his mama or something stressful going on with the farm or his schooling.
“What is it?” she asked, her eyes intense and serious.
“I need to talk to you outside,” he said. He didn’t even look at me but stared straight at Granny.
Granny wiped her hands on her apron. “Okay,” she said. She turned to me. “Everything is done. Just go get Miss Peggy and Miss Corinne and let them get started eating. We won’t be long.”
“Yessum,” I said and watched them both go out the screen door. I walked over to it as they walked out toward the barn. Jimmy Earl put his arm around Granny’s shoulder and talked quietly in her ear. I tried to see the expression on Granny’s face, but Jimmy Earl’s arm had her face shielded from my sight.
Levi, who was still standing by the door, looked up at me as if to say, “What’s going on with them?”
“I don’t know what’s going on, Levi,” I said. “But whatever it is, it can’t be good.”