The Road to Memphis Page 5

  Christopher-John stepped forward and sliced the silence. “Papa! You not going to say anything ’bout the car?” He knew Papa’s thinking about Jeremy, as did we all.

  Papa glanced at him, at Stacey, then stepped closer to the Ford. “Well, now, what’s this here?”

  “It’s a ’38 Ford, Papa,” I announced proudly, “and it belongs to Stacey.”

  Papa seemed not a bit surprised. His back to Stacey, Christopher-John and Little Man, he smiled at me and winked, then studied on the car and was silent.

  “It’s something, huh, Papa?” asked Little Man, coming along side him.

  Papa didn’t answer. Hands in his pockets, he walked slowly around the car, saying nothing.

  Stacey looked a bit anxious. He came closer, waiting on Papa’s assessment of the car. But Papa, after rounding the car, just grunted and still said nothing. Stacey looked at the car, then back at Papa. Papa’s good opinion was a mighty precious thing, not only to him, but to all of us. “Papa?” he said finally. “What do you think?”

  Papa didn’t crack a smile. “Well, now, I been hearing ’bout a new car all up and down the road. Got stopped three different times by folks braggin’ on it . . . . Seems you been showin’ it off.”

  Stacey looked away, his face solemn. “Wasn’t showing off, Papa. Was just taking folks for a ride.”

  “You sure ’bout that?”

  Stacey looked back at him, “Well, I suppose the truth is I was showing it off . . . a little.”

  Papa grunted again and walked once more around the Ford, giving it another close inspection. Stacey, Christopher-John, and Little Man all stood aside, awaiting his decision, but I knew how Papa felt. The wink had told me all. Finally he came back around and joined us. “Well, I’d say folks are right. It is something!” He smiled wide and put his arm around Stacey’s shoulders. “Now, when I’m gonna get me a ride?”

  Stacey gave Papa a joyous hug, then tossed him the keys, much as Uncle Hammer always did whenever he came down from Chicago with his new cars. “Right now, Papa!” he said.

  “Ah, now, son, look like you just finished cleaning it—”

  “Don’t matter! We’ll clean it again—”

  “That’s right, Papa!” volunteered Christopher-John, though I, myself, had no intention of chammying down this car one more time. “We don’t mind.”

  Little Man opened a back door, eager for another ride. “Papa, come on!”

  Papa laughed and got in the driver’s seat. Stacey got in the front with Papa, and I was about to get in, too, when Big Ma came down the back porch. “Now, where y’all goin’?” she yelled, hands on her hips. Then she squinted. “David, that you?”

  “Yes, ma’am, Mama!” Papa called back. “We’re just gonna take us a ride.”

  “Son, don’t y’all leave from here! Supper’s ’bout on!”

  “Won’t be but a minute, Mama! My son just done bought himself a car, and I got to take me a ride in it!”

  “Well, Cassie, don’t you leave from here! You gotta get this here table set and mix up some corn bread—”

  “I’ll be right back, Big Ma!” I yelled, and got into the car. If all the boys were going, I knew I was going too. While Big Ma continued to fuss Papa turned the car around and we rolled down the drive to the road. It was another glorious ride.

  When we got back, more than an hour later, Big Ma was still fussing, but that wasn’t unusual. By the time we settled down for supper, she had finally quieted, having vented all her displeasure at having to hold up her supper and about my being no help at all. But then I announced that I was going coon hunting with the boys, and she started up again. My grandmother loved to fuss. “David, y’all jus’ spoils this girl!” she declared, glancing with disapproval down the table to the other end, where Papa sat at the head. She passed the hot platter of golden-fried chicken down to Stacey, then let Mama, sitting next to Papa, have a condemning look too. “I done told y’all and told y’all time and time again, a hunt ain’t no place for a young lady! This girl, she got no business goin’ huntin’! That’s what menfolks s’pose to do!”

  Christopher-John glanced over at her as he helped himself to another slice of corn bread. “But, Big Ma, it wouldn’t hardly be a hunt without Cassie.”

  Little Man concurred in that opinion. “Cassie, she always go when she’s here.”

  “Go too much, ya ask me!” Big Ma got up and pulled another pan of corn bread from the stove. She slid the bread onto the already near-empty platter, then sat again and went on fussing. “Boys s’pose t’ go huntin’, not girls! Boys got men things t’ be talkin’ ’bout on these hunts, and girls, they jus’ ain’t s’pose t’ have no ear for that kinda thing!”

  Papa smiled. “Well, seems like to me, Mama—and you tell me if I’m wrong here—but seems like I remember the time when Papa was away from home and we ain’t had meat for the table and we gone hunting. Now, I recall rightly, it was you gone with me and Hammer down into them woods to hunt us a coon. You recall that, Mama?”

  Big Ma got contentious. “Well . . . that was different. Y’all was just little boys and we needed us some meat. Your papa and your brothers Mitchell and Kevin, they was all gone off workin’ ’way from here, lumberin’ up near that Natchez Trace. Somebody had to put meat on this table!”

  Papa took a slice of corn bread. “I recall, you were a mighty fine shot too.”

  “Yeah, I was,” Big Ma admitted, looking a bit prideful about the thing. Then she frowned at Papa’s teasing. “But that got nothin’ to do with Cassie here! She always been too much like these boys as it is. Time she started taking on womanly ways.”

  “I got womanly ways,” I contended, not too concerned about where this conversation was headed. I heard it every time I wanted to go on a hunt. “I cook and I wash dishes.”

  Everybody but Big Ma laughed. “Girl, don’t you get smart with me! You knows what I mean!”

  “Don’t worry, Big Ma,” said Stacey. “Up in Jackson, Cassie’s not so bad. Most times she can be a real lady, and you’d be proud. Suppose, though, that’s because she doesn’t have any mules to ride up there.” He grinned over at me. I rolled my eyes at him and went on eating.

  Papa smiled at the two of us, then said to Stacey, “Now, Son, what’s this you were sayin’ ’bout a truckin’ job earlier?”

  Stacey wiped at his mouth and spoke eagerly. “Looks like we could be getting on at the trucking company pretty soon now, Papa. Moe, Willie, and me, we all went down and talked to a man over there, and he was saying he was expecting to take on a lot of new workers. He said with all the Army camps opening up and all this defense building going on what with that war over in Europe, they’d have to soon have men pulling overtime.”

  “I thought you were doing some overtime work at the box factory,” said Mama, looking a bit concerned at this talk of changing jobs.

  “Well, yes, ma’am. But the thing is, Mama, I never planned on making a life’s work at the box factory. Trucking pays more money. It’d be a good job, I can get it.”

  Mama slowly nodded. “Well, anytime you can improve yourself, you need to do that, but I think you need to think about the fact you’ve been at the box factory for over two years now and you’ve had steady work. Also, you need to keep in mind you just bought yourself a car. Maybe now isn’t the best time to quit the box factory.”

  “Can’t be a better time, Mama. All kind of jobs are opening up and all kind of factories for defense. Now, you know the white folks, they get first crack at all those defense jobs, but they’re leaving some good jobs to take those on. That means we get a chance at some of the jobs they’re leaving. Some good jobs, too, and I figure to get myself one. Course, I don’t figure to quit the box factory until I actually get hired on at the trucking company. Could get hired next week. Could be a couple months yet, but I can wait.”

  Papa nodded his approval. “Leastways that’s something good coming out of this war talk.”

  “Maybe,” said Mama. “But I still d
on’t like this talk of sending our boys to fight.”

  Stacey shrugged off the possibility. “We aren’t going anyplace, not yet, anyways, Mama. It’s just talk.”

  Big Ma grunted disparagingly. “It was just talk, too, when your Uncle Mitchell and your Uncle Kevin gone off to fight some twenty odd years back and got theyselves killed, and your Uncle Hammer, he gone off and got hisself all shot up in the leg.”

  Stacey reached for more chicken. “Well, it’s not going to be that way with me. I’m going to have myself a good job soon. I’m not planning on anything spoiling that.”

  “I hope nothing does,” said Mama. “I don’t want my boys in a war.”

  “I wouldn’t mind going to fight,” said Little Man. “Seem mighty adventuresome to me.”

  “Not to me,” said Christopher-John. “Things adventuresome enough right here. ’Sides, I wouldn’t want to be pointing a gun at anybody.”

  “Would if I had to,” said Little Man.

  “Now, boy, you hush!” ordered Big Ma. “You ain’t going to fight no war! Ain’t none of y’all boys goin’!”

  Stacey laughed. “Just make sure you let President Roosevelt know that, Big Ma.”

  Big Ma grunted. “Maybe I’ll do jus’ that!” she said. Then she laughed. We all did.

  We were still laughing when there was a knock at the back door. It was Sissy and Harris Mitchum. “Have some supper with us,” Mama said as Christopher-John and Little Man got chairs for them.

  “No, thank ya, Miz Logan,” said Sissy, sitting down. “We just come back from takin’ some cookin’ up to Reverend Gabson’s place, and we headed home. Just thought we’d stop by and holler at y’all.”

  “Reverend Gabson?” said Stacey. Reverend Charles Gabson was the pastor of Great Faith Church, and he had been ailing for some weeks now. “He still not up yet?”

  Big Ma shook her head. “Fact to business, he doing right poorly. I been up to they place trying to help out most everyday this week myself. Like for you to run by and see him while’s you here, Stacey. He always askin’ ’bout you.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I’ll sure do that. I’ll go on by there tomorrow after church.”

  “Harris,” I said, “what time you and Clarence going hunting?”

  Sissy took it upon herself to reply. “Why you askin’, Cassie? You not going, are you?”

  “I was figuring on it.”

  “Well, you gonna figure yourself right out of a boyfriend pretty soon here, Cassie, goin’ huntin’ all the time.”

  I turned on Sissy. “Well, that don’t make me no nevermind!” Mama cast me a reproving look, not because of my pronouncement, but because I had totally fractured my speaking. Mama, being a teacher, had been hard on the boys and me—especially me—these last few years about speaking correctly. She said if we were going to be educated people, we needed to speak that way. “As I said, it doesn’t make any difference to me,” I corrected, as Christopher-John and Little Man grinned at me knowingly. Mama nodded, satisfied, and I turned back to Harris. “Harris, what you say? What time?”

  “Well, I got no mind for huntin’ myself,” Sissy went on, not giving Harris a chance to respond.

  “Leastways, somebody actin’ like a lady ’round here!” said Big Ma, heartily approving of Sissy’s attitude. “I been tryin’ t’ tell this girl she got no business goin’ huntin’!”

  “I was talking to Harris,” I muttered.

  Big Ma laid a fierce glance of suffering on me, then said to Sissy and Harris: “Y’all not gonna have any of our supper, least have some of my blackberry cobbler. There’s plenty.”

  “No, ma’am, thank ya, Miz Caroline,” said Sissy. “We don’t care for anything.”

  “What ’bout you, Harris? I know how you loves my blackberry cobbler.”

  Harris looked at Sissy as if expecting her to answer for this, too, since she took it upon herself to do so much of his talking for him. When she didn’t say anything, he looked back at Big Ma and kind of halfway smiled. “Yes’m, Miz Caroline, I surely do.”

  “Then have some. Cassie, go get a plate for Harris.”

  I started to rise, then saw Sissy give Harris a poke. The smile left his face. “No . . . no, ma’am, Miz Caroline, don’t . . . don’t y’all bother.”

  Big Ma put her hands on her hips. “Boy, you gonna insult me and my cobbler?”

  Harris looked at her wide-eyed. “Why—why, no, ma’am, I sure ain’t! I—”

  Sissy took up the talk. “We just done got up from the table, and we’re plumb full,” she explained. “‘Sides, we watchin’ Harris’s weight, and he done had enough. Ain’t that right, Harris?”

  Harris looked at the floor and agreed it was.

  “Girl, why don’t you let Harris speak for himself?” I said, feeling right irritated with Sissy about the way she was always talking for Harris.

  “Cassie,” Mama admonished, reminding me with one sharp look that this was none of my business.

  I heeded the look and kept my silence, though I felt like saying more. Sissy and Harris were such an opposite pair of twins. Sissy was a little bit of a thing and a spitfire of a girl. Harris, despite his tremendous size was a retiring kind of soul. He messed with no one if he could help it. Their mother was dead and they had never known their father. They lived with their grandma Batie and their great-aunt, Mrs. Sarah Noble. I supposed that having no parents was one of the reasons Sissy was always bossing Harris around. But as bossy as Sissy was, she was mighty protective of Harris, too, and would take on anybody who messed with him, especially if somebody teased him about his weight.

  “Well, y’all know y’all always welcome to our table,” Papa said and we went on talking about other things.

  After a while, when supper was over, Papa and the boys went out to tend to the evening chores and Harris went along with them. Mama returned to the garden and Big Ma joined her. I was stuck with clearing the table and doing the dishes. As I stacked the dishes, Sissy sat right where she was, not offering a hand, and prattled on and on about my going on the coon hunt. “Well, Cassie, I just don’t know how come you always wanting to go huntin’ with them boys,” she said. “They wanna talk ’bout men things, ’bout they personal business, and how they gonna do that with you sitting all up there?”

  I laughed for I could see right through Sissy. She had always been jealous of my friendship with Clarence, with Moe and Little Willie, too, and I knew it was her jealousy that was trying to keep me from the hunt. Still, despite her devious and jealous ways, I liked her. Big Ma said that was because we were so much alike. “What’s the matter, Sissy?” I asked. “Clarence didn’t invite you?”

  “Ah, I’m not thinking ’bout Clarence!”

  “What he do now?”

  She looked sullenly away, her arms folded across her chest, and thought a moment. “You know what he come telling me today? Said he goin’ off and join the Army.”

  I picked up the now empty chicken platter. “Well, you know he’s been talking about it.”

  Sissy ignored that. “Talkin’ about leavin’ me and just going off like we ain’t been nothin’ to each other. Here I am wantin’ to be gettin’ married, and he ’round here talkin’ ’bout takin’ off.”

  “Well, maybe you ought to let him. There’s other boys around here besides Clarence.”

  She turned a hostile gaze on me. “What do you know? And how come you always takin’ his side?”

  “Girl, don’t be putting me in the middle of this! I got nothing to do with you and Clarence. All I’m saying is there are other boys and other things to be doing, too, besides getting married. You only seventeen.”

  “Well, who’s askin’ you? You got your dreams, and I got mine. You up there studying in Jackson, talkin’ ’bout you going to college, thinkin’ on the law. It’s crazy, but that’s your dream and I don’t mess with it. You need that dream. Me, I need my dream too. I need my Clarence. He the only dream I got, so don’t come messin’ with it!”

  I laughed. “G
irl, you crazy,” I said, and took a load of dishes to the dishpan. “Crazy to be worrying about that boy like he’s the only one out there.”

  “Don’t you be laughing!” she chided. “You seventeen now. You need to be thinking on somebody to marry—”

  “Maybe, then, I’ll think on Clarence,” I teased.

  Sissy gave me a dead stare. “Naw, not Clarence. I whip anybody mess with Clarence.”

  “Now, see, that’s just what I mean ’bout this love business. Makes you go crazy. Makes you say and do crazy things. Girl, don’t nobody want Clarence but you.”

  Now there was a burst of laughter from her. “Well, then, that’s good, Cassie, that’s good. ’cause that way he stay mine.”

  “Well, you can sure have him too.”

  She got up and gave my arm what was supposed to be a friendly slap. “Girl, I gotta go,” she said.

  I rubbed my arm. “Well, if nothing else works out and you just set on marrying, you can always get Harris to go take a shotgun to Clarence.”

  Sissy laughed once more. “Harris? Shoot! Harris afraid of his own shadow. He ain’t got the backbone of a flea. We going.” I followed her as far as the back door. “See you at church in the morning, Cassie.”

  “All right, see you,” I said and as Sissy went down the porch hollering for Harris, I went back to doing my dishes. When they were finished and the floor was swept and everything was clean in the kitchen, I went off to the room I shared with Big Ma to decide upon a dress to wear to church in the morning and iron it before I left for the hunt. After all, there could be no ironing on a Sunday. I opened the chifforobe and pulled out my two favorite summer dresses, one blue and one red, which were yet to be packed. Standing in front of the mirror, I propped one, then the other against myself. I tossed the red dress on the bed; then, still holding the blue one, I pushed the lone braid hanging at the nape of my neck up to the top of my head and held it there. I always felt sophisticated when I had my hair up. Also, when it was up, I looked even more like Mama. As it was, I was tall like Mama, slender, tan-skinned, and had the same high cheekbones and long, crisp, thick hair. Mama always wore her hair up, and this time of year on a Sunday, so did I. I held the dress against me again. I liked what I saw.