I was forever begging her, “let’s go get Daniel” on weekends when I couldn’t see him in school. His own mama always seemed glad to get him out of the house, like he was something of a burden to her ’cause he interrupted her “fun.” I recollected a time when Daniel was in a grumpy mood on one of those days we’d picked him up. There was nothing he wanted to do. Mama had got him as we drove to the grocery store, and he didn’t say a word when he got in, on the way to the store, or back to the house.
Mama finally asked, “Daniel, are you okay?”
Nothing.
I tried to get him to talk too. “Hey, Daniel, maybe when we get to my house, we can fix that light a little better near our stage, and maybe we can find some wood and add a platform to stand on, and maybe . . .”
Daniel finally spoke and cut me off. “I ain’t feeling like none of that.”
“Oh.”
There was only silence then. I noticed his arm had a red mark, like a scratch. Mama glanced at me, and shook her head ever so slightly, a signal to let him be. That visit was terrible, with Daniel all out of sorts, and me trailing after him as he wandered about our farm like a lost puppy. We figured something must have happened, but what we didn’t know. Something he didn’t want to talk about. I was torn when it was time for him to go home. It had been no fun at all, yet I was troubled too. His presence that day was so heavy and unnatural, I worried about what he faced back at his house. I had to hand it to Daniel though. His ability to bounce back from those times was extraordinary. Next time I saw him, it was as if that dark day was erased and never happened. I never did find out what made him act that way, but when I think about how his mama is, and how his sister can be, he was due to have those off moments now and again. They probably set him on edge, made him uncomfortable not knowing what might come out of one of their mouths. For us, Daniel fit in like he should’ve been a part of our family instead.
That was why that feeling of being glad he and his family were gone didn’t fit with how it usually went with me and him. After they’d left, here came Vernon Slater, from Slater’s Feed and Supply. Trent said a cussword, and Ross smacked his head. They were hungry and worn down from the constant flow, and I was bone tired too. But, Mr. Slater, he’d known Daddy near about long as anyone. He came shuffling slowly up the drive, hanging tight to the wrought iron railing at the front steps. He was about seventy-five and walked in a manner that said he hurt somewhere, maybe everywhere. Before he even knocked, I swung the door open, catching him with his hand in the air suspended. It was as if he had to lower it in order to raise his head so he could look at me. He gave me a weak smile and stepped inside. I took his hat, and hung it next to Daddy’s, and in doing that, it was as if it was any other day. I had an unusual, out of touch moment where I could imagine him still here.
Mr. Slater turned to Ross and said, “Couldn’t hardly believe it when I heard it.”
Ross said, “We couldn’t hardly believe it when we saw it.”
Mr. Slater sucked on something in his teeth and nodded. “Well. Y’all know your daddy was a fine man. Been knowing him since he was knee high to a grasshopper. He never did think a farming like work. Reckon if he was called home to the Lord, might as well been working in the place he loved best.”
I motioned toward the couch, and extended him the sort of welcome Mama would’ve offered. “Mr. Slater, won’t you sit a spell?”
He made a delicate turn, and shambled over to it, then did another slow turn, looking behind himself twice as if to make sure the couch hadn’t moved before he eased himself down. We took a seat with him as was warranted, Ross in Daddy’s chair, me in Mama’s rocker. Only Trent stood by the kitchen door, looking put out. Mr. Slater’s watery blue eyes circled around to each of us, and then stayed on me.
“You know when your daddy was ’bout ten years old, he fell into Mr. Montague’s new well after him and your granddaddy dowsed the property.”
Ross and Trent looked at each other. We hadn’t heard this story, and I leaned forward a bit.
Mr. Slater said, “There he was, bent over, looking into the hole and there he went, head first. Your granddaddy tried to grab him, got only his shoe, and it slipped out of his hand. Everybody heard the splash when he went in. They put a board crosswise, tied a rope around it and your granddaddy went down to get him, said he was knocked out cold, floating in the water. What was funny about it was, after they finally got him back out, someone found a piece of quartz rock somewheres on his person. Not in a pocket, but inside a his britches, or his shirt, something like that. Purty one too, clear as glass.”
I interrupted him. “He’s still got it, it’s on his dresser.”
Mr. Slater said, “Don’t surprise me none. He was like that about what held sentimental value to him. Things some wouldn’t call important was to him.”
Like the divining branch he’d given me. Daddy said he could’ve used any branch, but it was the one his daddy give him. Mr. Slater was right. Daddy put a value to things some would think worthless.
Mr. Slater cleared his throat and said, “Well, either way, y’all would serve him well to grow up and be like him.”
Ross said, “Yes, sir,” while Trent only narrowed his eyes and looked elsewhere. I nodded at Mr. Slater, who kept an endless supply of Mary Janes and Tootsie Rolls for the kids who came into his store.
He said, “Your daddy was real proud a y’all. Don’t never forget that.”
“No, sir.”
He turned to Ross and asked, “What’s your plans now, son?”
Ross said, “I reckon we’re gonna get back to planting the crop soon as we can.”
Mr. Slater pursed his mouth, like he was thinking hard on something.
Ross went on. “I mean, we were preparing the fields and all when . . . it happened. Daddy had a list ready for what he’d intended to plant. I can get it for you, then come by the store to get it once it’s all gathered.”
Mr. Slater pressed his hands on his knees, and stood. “Hang on to it for now. I got to speak to your mama first, the sooner the better, if possible.”
Ross looked confused. “Okay.”
I got his hat for him and he slapped it on his head.
When he got to the front door, he leaned toward me, and half-whispered, “You were extra-special to your daddy. He was real proud of you and what you could do.”
It pleased me, what he said, and after he went out, I shut the door, and hoped no one else would show up, now the sun had gone down. And no one did. Matter of fact, once Mr. Slater came and went, the visiting slowed to a point that soon enough, there were no cars venturing down the road, no one bringing food, and the phone went silent except for the ring tones signaling calls to others. The people Daddy had known had paid their respects and now it was time to get on with their lives. It was all we could do too, but how do you do that when such a huge part is missing? Mama sure didn’t appear up to it. She’d not been out of her room except to attend to the necessities of life.
A couple of days later, I came through the dogtrot, heading toward the kitchen after another early morning walk around the fields, and no luck. I usually gave up when a reddish sliver broke the horizon, as if daylight revealed the reality and futility of what I was trying to do. I could hear the low rumble of Ross’s voice, talking to someone.
“We got to think about the planting.”
I expected it to be Trent, but no, it was Mama. She sat at the kitchen table, a steaming cup of coffee in front of her.
Her voice was hoarse as she responded to him. “I guess. Got to get on, get by it. Somehow.”
Her face was white, thinner. There were dark circles under her eyes. Her hair needed a washing, and hung limp against her cheekbones. She noticed me looking through the screen door, and her expression softened. I came into the kitchen and went around to the back of her chair, leaned over and wrapped my arms around her shoulders. She put her hands on my arms and leaned her head against me. She smelled of cigarettes, Jergens hand lotion,
and sorrow, and I noted how her shoulder blades, all jutted out and sharp, poked into my chest. I squeezed her tight and then moved to the other side of the table to sit.
Mama stared at me. “Sonny, you look like something the cat drug up.”
I’d been dressing in the same clothes for a week, a pair of droopy dungarees, a torn shirt that had a streak of brown on it that might have been gravy, and my scuffed, muddy work boots. I hadn’t unbraided my hair the entire time either and stray frazzled ends stuck out from my head, wild and unkempt. I’m not sure if I’d been brushing my teeth much. I hadn’t really cared about how I looked.
I stared down at myself. “I reckon so.”
I scratched at my head, and Trent came inside at that moment, his face going from glum to hopeful when he saw her.
He hugged her too, then stepped back to look at her carefully. “Mama, you all right?”
She rested her head down on her arms, and stayed like that for a few seconds. She eventually lifted it, reached across the table, and slid a cigarette out of the pack Daddy had left near the salt and pepper shakers. She put it in her mouth and lit it.
After she exhaled, she said, “I’ll be all right. We’re gonna be all right. We’ll get through this.”
There was conviction in her voice, on her face too. She looked and sounded determined enough to me. Mama came from tough stock, having grown up on a chicken farm with only Aunt Ruth, and Granny Walters, a life of hardships after Granddaddy Walters died of a stroke, dropping dead right on the kitchen floor. She’d wrung a lot of necks, more than most mamas who only threatened to, if they got aggravated enough at their young’uns. She swore long as she lived, she’d never raise that many chickens again. She’d talked about the strong ammonia odor along with a wet, fusty, feathery smell she felt she couldn’t ever get out of her hair or clothes. After Granny Walters passed from emphysema, she and Aunt Ruth sold their childhood home, and split the money. By then Mama and Daddy were married, and used it to buy what they needed for the farm. Mama once said Aunt Ruth likely squirreled hers away, burying it in jars around the small house she’d bought up in Rocky Mount. One could say Aunt Ruth was a tad eccentric.
Mama was wearing a pair of Daddy’s old pants, and they hung off her thin frame. She had a kerchief tied around her head, like she always did when she intended to work. Looking like she was ready to do something made me get up and get the apron off the hook by the stove. I cracked eggs into a bowl, and moved the skillet to a burner to heat it up. Soon the familiar sounds of cooking and the smell of food filled the kitchen again. I split some biscuits brought by someone who’d come by earlier in the week and put them in the oven to heat up. Mama needed to eat, and I didn’t bother to ask if she wanted anything. I fixed the food, and put a plate in front of her and said nothing. I filled plates for Ross, Trent, and myself. Mama stared at the food and then, to my relief, she picked up her fork.
It grew quiet as we ate scrambled eggs and biscuits, and drank up the entire pot of coffee. We sat together as a family for the first time in what felt like months. Mama’s gaze suddenly fastened to the empty area at the end of the table. Daddy’s chair wasn’t there since someone had moved it into the hall by the phone.
She brushed a crumb from the corner of her mouth. “You know, all you do and say would matter to your daddy. Before you speak, make a decision, or go to do something, you think about him, how he’d go about it.”
The three of us replied, “Yes, ma’am.”
Mama said to no one in particular, “Bring his chair back over here where it belongs.”
Ross got up and slid it back into its rightful place. That small correction made a big impact ’cause even without him sitting in it, there was something right about it being there than not.
Ross returned to his earlier topic. “Mama, Mr. Slater wanted you to come by the store. You up to it today?”
“What’s he want, you reckon.”
“I don’t know. He said he needed to talk to you.”
Mama said, “Today’s good as any other,” and Ross’s face relaxed from looking so worried.
He was like Daddy in that way, full of get-up-and-go. Mama got up from the table, and left the kitchen. When she came back, she’d put on a touch of lipstick. She didn’t wear it around the house, and though she wasn’t vain, she never went out “in public” without it.
She said, “Let’s go.”
We piled our dirty dishes in the sink, went out, and got in the truck. Trent climbed into the truck bed, and I followed, which is how we always rode when it was nice. I leaned against the back of the cab, thinking the drive to Slater’s could have been like any other if I closed my eyes and let myself believe Daddy was driving. I’d already found out thoughts like that were useless, and only made me feel worse. I stared through the back window at Mama holding onto the list, her thumb going over and over the pencil marks Daddy had made. It was early May at this point, and there were acres filled with cotton plants as well as tobacco, corn, soybeans, and sweet potatoes.
Ross’s head swiveled left and right. I could imagine what he was saying. “Gosh, look a there, that cotton’s almost six inches high already,” and “Doggone, that corn’s shot up a foot since I last seen it.”
Trent leaned against the opposite side of the cab, pretty much ignoring me. He messed with his pocketknife, opening and closing the blade, and pressing it against his arm as if to test the sharpness. The gravel lot at Slater’s was filled with a half-dozen trucks and one tractor. Slater’s Feed and Supplies was a flat-roofed cinder-block structure, with a wooden front porch that went end to end. Ads were painted on all sides of the building. A giant-sized Pepsi Cola bottle cap was on the front left, while the Purina Dog Chow checkered symbol was on the right. A message for a brand of defoliant stretched down the full length of it, and showed withered leaves from a cotton plant on the ground, indicating a successful leaf drop. I already knew on the other side was an ad for fertilizer.
We parked under a tree, and I hopped down out of the back. I followed Mama and Ross inside, while Trent took off to where Mr. Slater kept shotgun shells. Cool air from massive ceiling fans whirling overhead caused anything loose to flutter, spin, or flap. Customers had lined up in orderly fashion to get what they needed at the back, with the colored farmers waiting for the whites to pay up first. They stayed huddled together in a corner, out of the way, talking softly amongst themselves. I’d asked Daddy why that was one day, why the colored people had to wait and let the white people go first.
We were sitting inside the truck after coming out of the store, and he’d said, “It’s complicated, Sonny, although it doesn’t need to be. There’s people who think different, those who believe the coloreds ain’t as good as us. Can’t change their minds, the way they think. They’re just ignorant, is all.”
“Does Mr. Slater think that?”
“I doubt it, but I’m sure he does it this way only to keep some of his customers happy.”
Today, only white people were in the store, and I felt a sense of relief ’cause it had always made me uncomfortable, like I was somehow personally to blame for colored people having to wait. I’d been taught to respect my elders, so it didn’t ever set right to be allowed to go before they did, especially if we’d just walked in.
Junior Odom was stocking shelves, and when I walked by he stared rudely, his face holding the same ugly smirk he wore in school. He was filling bins with nails and didn’t act like he cared half fell on the floor. Mr. Slater was talking to Mr. Cornell about lime, and after he finished, he turned to Mama. She went to hand him Daddy’s list, but he didn’t take it.
Instead he leaned over the counter, said something, and pointed to a door that said, “Office.”
Usually, all we had to do was hand someone the list. Whatever we wanted was put on Daddy’s account to be paid after the crops sold. This was highly irregular and Mama looked uncomfortable. She and Ross followed Mr. Slater into the office while those standing in line stared after them. I f
elt self-conscious, like everybody knew something we didn’t. They were only in there a couple minutes, but boy, when they came out, Mama looked fit to be tied. Ross’s face was blood-red, making his blond hair stand out even more. She motioned sharply for me to follow and given her expression, I wasted no time.
“What’s wrong? Ain’t we getting anything?”
Her jaw was squared, and she didn’t answer. Ross was behind her, puffing like a locomotive.
Near the front door Mama spotted Trent and said, “Trent!” in a voice we rarely heard.
I couldn’t see him, but I heard, “Hey, I want . . .”
Mama said, “Now!”
Her tone matched her look, hard and angry.
Ross spoke. “I can’t believe it.”
Mama shushed him. “Ross, not now.”
Ross was too disturbed though, his voice emphatic. “It ain’t right! We’re paid up, and we’ve always paid on time, every year!”
“I said, keep your voice down.”
Junior snuck into the aisle closest to us, eavesdropping. I wanted to go over there and tell him to mind his own business, except Ross’s voice was loud enough for everyone to hear anyway, even Mr. Slater, who looked our way, his eyes drooping with sadness.
“It ain’t fair!”
Mama put her hand on his back and moved him toward the door. “Fair ain’t how you stay in business.”
Junior hovered even closer, and when I scowled at him, he put both hands up to his cheeks, and pulled his skin down in a fake expression of distress. I could’ve knocked him into next week, if I’d have thought Mama wasn’t looking.
The Forgiving Kind Page 4
