The Road to Memphis Read online

  “You on your way home?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I’m going to take Little Willie up to his place. Seeing yours on the way, be glad to take you too.”

  Harris was elated at the offer. He grinned widely, then hurried into the back.

  “I best take the mules on home,” said dutiful Christopher-John, although he looked at the car with some regret that he wouldn’t be getting to ride in it, not now, anyway. “I’ll let Mama and Big Ma know y’all here.”

  “How’s everybody?” asked Stacey.

  “Fine. Papa’s not home, though. He went down south of Smellings Creek early yesterday morning to do some work. S’pose to be back late today sometime.”

  Stacey looked at me. “Speaking of how folks doing, how you feeling, Cassie?”

  “Good enough to be going back to Jackson tomorrow,” I said.

  He smiled. “Good. Now I can take you in my new car.”

  Christopher-John climbed onto the wagon. “S’pose I’ll see y’all in a bit.”

  “All right,” Stacey said, giving him a wave, then he opened the car door to get in. Little Man slid over, and I got in on the other side, leaving Little Man to sit in the middle.

  I turned around and looked at Moe as he got in the back to sit beside Little Willie, and said, “Got something to tell you, Moe.”

  “What’s that?” asked Willie, as if I had been talking to him.

  “Your name Moe?” I questioned.

  Moe flashed his sweet, dimpled smile at me and my upbraid of Willie. Little Willie just shrugged. “What is this? Something I can’t hear?”

  “I want you to hear it, I’ll tell you,” I said.

  “Well, be that way,” shot back Willie, as if I had hurt his feelings; but I wasn’t worried that I had. Willie and I were always speaking our minds to each other, and neither one of us took offense to what the other one had to say. Being with him and Moe was the same as being with my brothers. We were all too close and knew each other too well to go taking offense.

  “What is it, Cassie?” asked Moe quietly, still smiling. “What you got to tell me?”

  I cut my eyes at Willie. “I’ll tell you later.”

  “Yeah, she tell you later,” said Willie, “’cause she ain’t decided yet if she want me to hear it. But don’t you go feeling bad now, Moe, ’bout you and her keeping secrets from me. I’ll find out sooner or later what she feel so important I can’t hear.” He grinned. “I got my ways.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said as Moe shook his head and Little Man and Stacey laughed at my usual duel of words with Willie. Then Stacey started the car, honked the horn in good-bye to Christopher-John, and sped south down the road, past Jefferson Davis School, where the white students attended, then turned east. Soon we passed the grounds of Great Faith, where mostly everybody in the Negro community attended church and where children of the community attended school. Not too far from Great Faith was where Harris lived. As we neared the trail leading to Harris’s place, we saw Clarence Hopkins standing on the road talking to Harris’s sister, Sissy. Sissy was Harris’s twin, though you’d never know it to look at the two of them. They didn’t look a thing alike. Stacey honked the horn, and Little Willie poked his head out the window and called, “’Ey, you two! What y’all know good?”

  Sissy turned, stared at the car, then hollered at Harris as if she hadn’t even noticed the rest of us or the new car we were riding in. “Harris! You come on! We got work!”

  Obediently Harris got out of the Ford. As big as he was, Harris was afraid of his sister and most always did her bidding. “Well, I thank ya, Stacey, for the ride,” he said, running his fingers softly over the side chrome. “It sure is nice . . . .”

  “Harris! Ma’s waitin’!” Sissy shrieked, then without a wave or hello, she turned and switched up the trail.

  “I best go on,” said Harris regretfully. He turned toward the trail, then looked back. “’Ey, almost forgot, Stacey, what with the new car and all, but Clarence and me, we goin’ coon huntin’ t’night. Y’all gonna come ’long with us?”

  “Coon hunt?” said Willie. “Yeah, I’ll be on there. Feel like some good coon eatin’.”

  “Harris!”

  “More than likely, we’ll join you too,” said Stacey as Harris backed off. “We’ll talk to you later.”

  We said good-bye, and Harris followed Sissy up the trail. Clarence glanced after them.

  “’Ey, man!” called Willie, his head still out the window. “You and Sissy fighting again?” Although it wasn’t any of Willie’s business if they were, the fact of the matter was that Sissy and Clarence had been seeing each other steady for the last two years and they always seemed to be fighting.

  “Ah!” scoffed Clarence, dismissing Sissy with a wave of his hand. “Don’t even wanna talk ’bout that girl!” He hurried over to the car. A good-sized boy, well built, and standing some six and a half feet tall, Clarence was another of Stacey’s closest friends. He looked the car over. “Now, whose car is this?” he demanded. “Tell me, Stace, whose is it?”

  “Who you see driving it?” Stacey returned with a wide grin across his face.

  “Yours?” Clarence hit the roof of the car and laughed. “Man, you don’t say!”

  “It’s the truth, hoss!” proudly testified Little Willie, as if the car were his. “Our boy done signed the papers just this mornin’!”

  “Well, I want me a ride!” declared Clarence. “Y’all move over in back there.” He opened the door and started to get in, but then a truck came roaring crazily up the road, and he slammed the door quickly and jumped out of the way behind the car. The truck passed us, hit a deep pothole, and went careening off to one side and into a muddy ditch. Stacey immediately turned off the car engine and jumped out. The rest of us followed and dashed over to the truck, its right wheels in the ditch and lying almost flat on its side. As we neared, the door exposed to the road opened and a big, redbearded man attempted to get out. When we saw him, we stopped. We knew the man. He was Charlie Simms. He was Jeremy’s father.

  Mr. Simms poked his head out the window and glowered at us. “Well, come on! Help us with this door!” he ordered. “Can’t lift it from the inside.”

  Clarence climbed onto the truck and lifted the door upward. Mr. Simms scrambled out. Jeremy followed.

  “Y’all ain’t hurt none, are you?” asked Clarence.

  Jeremy looked at his father and shook his head. “Don’t think so. Seem like the brakes just gone out on Pa.”

  Mr. Simms went to the front of the truck, checking the ditched side, and Stacey said to Jeremy, “Look like you’ll be needing a team of mules to get you out.”

  Jeremy sighed. “Yeah, look that way, all right. S’pose that what come from hurryin’.”

  His father came back. “Whose car is that sittin’ there yonder?”

  Stacey glanced up the road as if he didn’t know what car Mr. Simms was talking about. Then he turned back and looked at Charlie Simms. “It’s mine.”

  Mr. Simms did not look pleased. “Ain’t know’d you had a car, boy,” he said, as if he were supposed to know everything. “You earning that much money up there in Jackson? When’d you get it?”

  His was not a friendly inquiry. “Just recently,” said Stacey, not bothering to fill him in on the details. The less white folks knew about our business, the better.

  Mr. Simms stared malevolently at the car, then he went to his truck and pulled out some rope from the back. “Truck’d do better, but I ’spect y’all can still help. Come on, give us a hand,” he ordered. “Three of y’all get on down in that ditch, lift the truck level to the road. We’ll get this rope here tied to the back end of that car and the other end to the front of the truck, and y’all can pull us out.”

  Jeremy stared at his father. “But, Pa, Stacey, he could tear up his car thataway—”

  “Got no time for discussin’,” said Mr. Simms as he tossed Stacey the rope.

  Stacey caught it, glanced at his new car, t
hen looked again at the truck and shook his head. “I try pulling that truck with my car, Mr. Simms, I’ll likely tear up my rear end gears.”

  “No, you won’t,” replied Mr. Simms, all knowing. “Just go ’head, tie that rope on like I said, put it in low gear, and you’ll be all right.”

  “Pa, we can’t ask him to do that. I’ll go on home and get the mules.”

  Mr. Simms turned red-hot. “Don’t you dispute with me! I don’t wanna hear ’bout no mules! I got no time to go back for no mules! We needs to make that run to Strawberry, and we needs to make it now! Now, Stacey, you hitch up that rope, boy!”

  Stacey did not move. Calmly he said, “Mr. Simms, you need a pair of mules to pull that truck out of that ditch.”

  “Pair of mules or an engine. Thing is, though, I don’t see no mules, and I got no time to go fetchin’. Now, nigger, you do like I say.”

  The look in Stacey’s eyes hardened as he stared at Mr. Simms, but he said nothing. We all knew that there was little he could say, that for the most part, there could be no disputing white folks, despite their insults. If a person did, the repercussions could be terrifying.

  “Ain’t you heard me? Move!”

  In silence, Stacey turned and walked back to the car. Standing beside it, he took off his hat, his shirt, his shoes, his socks as well, and rolled up his pants.

  “Hell, boy, wh-what you doin’?” sputtered Mr. Simms.

  Stacey looked at him again and replied quietly, “Getting ready to get your truck out.” Returning to the truck, he handed the rope back to Mr. Simms. “But we won’t be using my car.” He glanced at the rest of us and stepped into the ditch. Willie, Clarence, Moe, and Little Man, too, all followed his lead. They took off their shirts and shoes and socks, rolled up their pants, and joined him. So did Jeremy. Then together they lifted the truck level to the road and pushed it out of the ditch. Mr. Simms stood aside, the rope in his hand, watching stone faced. Once the truck was back on the road, he got in without a word and tried to start it. At the first attempt, the truck sputtered and died. He tried again, and the engine roared to life. He barked for Jeremy to get in.

  “We thank y’all for what ya done,” Jeremy said.

  Stacey looked at him, glanced at Mr. Simms, and replied, “Well, that’s what neighbors do.”

  “Jeremy!”

  Jeremy looked around, left us with a nod, and got into the truck. Before the door was closed, Charlie Simms stomped on the gas and tore up the road toward Strawberry. He never even said a word of thanks. But that was the way of Charlie Simms. He had been that way for as long as we had known him. There was no changing him now, and we sure weren’t going to try. We weren’t going to worry about him either. The boys cleaned themselves up as best they could, put their shirts and shoes back on, and we again went on our way. It was too hot a day to worry about the likes of Charlie Simms. Besides, we had a fine new car to celebrate.

  Friendships

  Moe Turner propped his arms on the wooden fence and stared out at the cotton field stretching flatly toward the woods that separated the Turner plot of farmland from the next plot over. Beyond the woods, beyond that next plot of land, vast acres of the Montier Plantation swept southward past Smellings Creek. Most of the Montier acreage was farmed by sharecropping families, folks like Moe’s family, who lived on the land and gave half or more of their crops to Mr. Joe Billy Montier for the right to farm his land.

  Standing there beside Moe, I noticed the frayed cuffs and collar of his shirt. The shirt had been perfectly clean before our run-in with the Simmses and their truck—Moe always kept his clothes clean; he washed and ironed them himself. The thing was, though, he never bought himself anything. All his money, except for rent money in Jackson and a few dollars for living up there, went straight to his father. He was the oldest of seven and he took that position seriously. I glanced into his face, noticed how proud he was of the cotton, and I propped my elbows on the fencing and stared out too. “It’s been a good crop,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Moe agreed. “Papa maybe even make a little something after he give Joe Billy Montier his half and pay the expenses.”

  “Hope so.”

  Moe sighed, his eyes still on the field. Then he turned, looking first at me, then over to where his widowed father stood by the Ford talking to Stacey, and Little Man strutted casually around the car, showing it off to Moe’s six younger brothers and sister. Little Willie and Clarence weren’t with them. We had already dropped them off. “That car of Stacey’s, it’s pretty nice, huh?” Moe said, smiling now.

  I took a moment to look at that deep-set dimpled smile of his before I answered. I loved Moe’s smile. Moe wasn’t what most girls would have called a good-looking boy. He wasn’t a bad-looking boy, just all right-looking, except for that smile; it was wonderful. I looked again at the car. “Yeah, it is. He’s certainly proud of it too.”

  “Well, he got a right to be.”

  “Like that time Uncle Hammer came down from Chicago with that new Packard,” I said, speaking of Papa’s older brother who lived in Chicago. Stacey had gotten a lot of his car-loving ways from him. “We all were sure proud of that car too.”

  Moe laughed. “Y’all weren’t the only ones. Every Negro ’round here was proud of that car . . . almost like it was theirs. I know I was.” He turned to the fields once more. “One of these here days I’m figuring to get myself a car. First, though, I’m gonna buy me that land and give it to my daddy.”

  I didn’t say anything to that. Moe had been talking this same talk about land for his daddy for as long as I could remember.

  “I get the money, I’m going to buy us a nice little piece of land, then there won’t be no more sharecropping for this family. Course, I know we probably won’t ever have a place big as y’all got. Y’all was lucky, you know, your granddaddy buying up them four hundred acres all them years ago. Y’all ain’t had to worry ’bout trying to get land.”

  “No . . . just worry about trying to keep it.”

  He nodded, still looking at the fields. “One day we’re gonna have something too. I got my mind set.”

  “I know that, Moe.”

  He turned suddenly and smiled generously. “I got my mind set on something else too.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “You.”

  I heaved an exasperated sigh. Moe sometimes liked to tease about courting me, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. Moe and I were best friends, not courting partners. Besides, up in Jackson he already had himself two girls he was courting. “Boy, don’t be talking that talk to me. I got other things on my mind.”

  He folded his arms across his chest and laughed. “I know. High schooling and college.”

  “You’re right about that.”

  Moe laughed again. “Yeah . . . so what’s this you said you had to tell me? It got to do with schooling?”

  I grinned, pleased at my news. I always shared my school news with Moe. “Got my application from Tougaloo and Campbell College the other day.”

  “Already?”

  “What do you mean, already? It’s October.”

  “But you not going off to college till next September.”

  “Got to start early on this kind of thing, Moe. I don’t want September to roll around again and I don’t have all my stuff together. I have to get myself some scholarship money, you know that.”

  “Wish I could help you.”

  “Well, I thank you, Moe, but you be helping anybody, you best be helping yourself. Besides, I’ve got plenty of help. Stacey and Uncle Hammer, they’re both planning on letting me have some money, and Mama and Papa, they’ll do what they can. I get a scholarship, though, I won’t have to put a hardship on anybody.”

  “Still, wish I could help you.”

  I gave him a hard look. “You know you ought to go ahead and put some money on yourself, maybe even finish school.”

  He shrugged. “Too late for that, Cassie.” He looked past me out to nowhere.

  I
didn’t say anything further. He and Stacey and Willie, too, had all dropped out of high school at tenth grade to go to work. They had all figured that working and earning some money was better than going to school, and I could hardly fault them for thinking that way. There weren’t all those many jobs open to educated colored folks except to teach, and none of the boys had an inclination for teaching. Besides, there were some other jobs around that paid a whole lot better than teaching.

  “Cassie!” Stacey called. “We best be getting home now.”

  “All right, I’m coming!” I called back, then looked at Moe. “You mind what I say, Moe. It’s not too late.”

  Moe smiled at my persistence and shook his head, and we left the fence and headed over to join the others. Before we reached them, several of Moe’s brothers came running up all excited about the car. “Y’all sure y’all like it, now?” teased Moe at their elation. He wasn’t at all bothered that they seemed to have forgotten about the bags of licorice drops he had given each of them upon his arrival. But that was like Moe. It didn’t bother him what other folks had or the praise that was coming to them. He had his own goals set.

  Mr. Turner laughed. “Mos’ likely we ain’t gonna hear nothin’ else ’ceptin’ ’bout this car and them gettin’ that ride!”

  Moe looked at his father. “We’ll have ourselves a car one of these here days, Papa. Have a car and land too.”

  Mr. Turner’s hard-lined face softened somewhat, and he put a hand on Moe’s shoulder. “All I wants is for y’all younguns to get grow’d and off this place. Make yo’selves good lives. I ain’t worryin’ ’bout no car, no land neither.”

  “Still, you gonna have ’em. I promise you that.”

  I don’t know if Mr. Turner actually believed that he would ever have either, but he patted Moe’s shoulder just the same. The land and the car were Moe’s dreams, not his.

  Stacey opened the car door. “Well, we best be getting on. Folks at home probably been looking for us these last couple hours.” He glanced across the car at Moe. “You going with us on the coon hunt tonight?”