The Summer We Got Saved

by Pat Cunningham Devoto

  “Oh sure.”

  They drove the eighteen or so miles out of Bainbridge along Highway 72, just past the small community of Crossroads, and turned right. Red clay fields rolled out on either side of them as they came onto the property. This coming was instant guilt for Eugenia. She looked out, her eyes filling with tears as she saw the ghosts of slaves laboring to clear the land. “It must be very hard for you to stand in those fields day after day,” she said.

  And Charles, unaware of her meaning, “Are you kidding? I’m delighted that after years of sweating it out, I’ve finally got the land—some of it—back where it belongs. Maybe this year I’ll be able to make a good profit on the Williams place for you girls.” The Williams place was a part of the farm that Mr. Ben had given over to his daughters. Of course they, being women, were not expected to run the place. That was up to the elder son. They did, however, expect to reap the profits, if there were any.

  He pulled the car up to the one thing on the farm that he knew would impress her, the thing that he wanted to show off to her—the house for Will. “What do you think?” He had parked in front of the beginnings of the cinder-block house. Framing boards held plumb lines that marked the edges of what would one day be the walls.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s the house for Will. You know, I always told you if I ever got the money, I wanted to start redoing all the tenant houses on the place. Well, this is the first one. It’s Will’s house. He’s been with us longest, so his comes first.”

  “He’s the only Negro—the only black man left on the place,” she said.

  “Some of the other tenants weren’t too happy about it, but I thought, Will has been with us forever, and with Dad. He deserves it.”

  She said nothing as she got out of the car to go next door and speak to the old man who would be the recipient of the cinder-block house. He sat rocking on the front porch and stood for her coming. She insisted that he take a seat after she had given him a hug. Charles got out and walked straight to the building site. The girls watched from the car. Tina folded her arms on the top of the front seat. “She told me she thinks Will is no better than a slave.”

  “Why would she say that?” Tab leaned forward, rested her arms next to Tina’s, and peered out the window. “He doesn’t even work anymore. Pop says he’s too old.”

  “Because he’s tied to the land and he doesn’t have freedom of choice.”

  “He’s lived here always. Where would he go if he did leave? How would he get any money?”

  “I don’t know. Aunt Eugenia says that’s not the point. It’s the philosophical question of the individual’s merit that warrants our concern.”

  “What a crock. You got it from Aunt Eugenia. I bet you don’t even know what it means.”

  “You are obviously not old enough to comprehend the problems we are having with the coloreds right now.”

  “More crock. What do you think me and Maudie May were? We were best friends. Before she got polio. Before she had to leave town.”

  “That was years ago. You and your little colored friend did nothing but run around town getting into mischief.” Tina began quoting Aunt Eugenia again, babbling on and on, making no sense to Tab’s ears. She looked out the car window, thinking of Maudie and the summer they were together, smiling as she remembered. Once, she and Maudie had gone to the river fishing—a place completely off-limits to Tab. She must have been around ten at the time. “We gonna get enough fish to sell so we can buy the brothers some school supplies,” she had said. Before Tab knew it, they had ended up in the middle of the river in a leaky boat. The two of them had come too close to a barge on the river. It had been the scare and the thrill of her life—and a miracle that they had escaped drowning.

  It was early evening when they left the farm and headed back home. Their car stopped momentarily, waiting for an old Chevy sedan to pass by before they pulled out onto Highway 72. As their car picked up speed, Eugenia turned to the backseat. She reached over and patted Tab on the knee. “I have a wonderful surprise for you girls later on.”

  CHAPTER 9

  The Surprise

  EVERYONE HAD CONGREGATED at Miss Hattie’s for supper. As soon as napkins were down, Eugenia was the first to speak, “You know I told you girls I would have a surprise for you. Well, I had a letter from Bebe before I left California. He—she wants me to come visit while I’m here.” Eugenia looked down at the untouched squash casserole on her plate and picked at the slivered almonds on top. “So close to Chattanooga and all.”

  “Bebe who?” Uncle Tom asked.

  “You know, Bebe Palmer. I went to college with her.”

  Various family members shifted in their seats. They didn’t like to be reminded of Bebe Palmer. “Oh yeah.” Tom took a Parker House roll out of the bread basket and remembered what everyone else already had. “The nutty one—helped you get that job as youth director at the Methodist church over there. Is she still speaking to you after all that commotion you caused, insulting her church and all?”

  “I don’t think—” Miss Hattie began.

  “Insult her? I did not insult her.” The fork came down and scooped up an almond sliver. She chewed slowly, remembering, and then swallowed. “Besides, she forgave me, after awhile.”

  “You don’t call asking those colored children to the youth fellowship—and it was her church—insulting?”

  “For what was”—Eugenia pointed her fork at him and tried to lower her voice—“for what was a positive experience and a great awakening for her church—what should have been a great awakening.” She reached for her iced tea, not bothering to finish explaining to him, to them.

  After she had taken a small sip, “My thought was that I might take Tab along with me for the visit.” She smiled at Tab. “Bebe’s youngest is about your age.”

  “Me? You wanta take me?”

  “Yes, you. Won’t we all have fun?”

  Tab looked to her mother for help that wasn’t forthcoming. “Well, uh, I guess.”

  “We’ll love riding the Incline up Lookout Mountain and”—she glanced at the head of the table—“and I’ll make sure she gets to look at all the monuments up on Missionary Ridge.”

  Everyone else at the table was, for the moment, silent. The women tried not to smile at one another. Eugenia had been with them only a few days, and already nerves were on edge. This way, she would still be visiting, they would still be extending their hospitality, they would still be loving her, and yet she wouldn’t be visiting, wouldn’t be making everybody nervous for two whole weeks—or maybe longer, if Bebe asked them to extend their stay. A ripple of calm passed down the table. “Why, that’s so thoughtful of you, Eugenia,” Mary said, and picked up the basket of rolls and handed it across the table to her daughter. “We’re almost out of rolls. Tab, will you bring us more, please?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you.”

  “But Tina likes to do all that housekeeping stuff. I don’t take home ec ’til next year.”

  “Now.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  And as she walked out of the room with the basket still half-full of rolls, she could hear her mother trying to cover for her. “Eugenia, that’s so thoughtful. What a treat for the girls.”

  Tab flung the bread basket on the kitchen table so hard that rolls scattered over the table and off on the floor. She was in the process of picking up the rolls when her mother walked in, calling back to the others. “I’ll just see what’s keeping her.”

  “Tab. That was the most impolite, halfhearted response I ever heard. What is the matter with you? You know better. Where are your manners? When someone invites you someplace, you must say how grateful you are, even if it’s the Devil himself. You know that.”

  “I don’t wanta go. I’m not going. Aunt Eugenia, she makes me nervous.”

  “Why would you say that? Y’all will have a marvelous time going to parties, riding the Incline. You may even meet some of the boys who go to Baylor Milit
ary School up there. They always look so handsome in those uniforms.”

  “They do?” She reconsidered, but only for a moment. “I don’t care.” She tapped fingers on the top of the kitchen table. “Not going.”

  Her mother sighed. “Well, that’s a shame. Tina just told Aunt Eugenia she would love to go, even if you can’t come along.”

  “Tina?” Tab’s eyes shifted off the table and to her mother’s face.

  “Yes. Didn’t Tina tell you Eugenia invited her this afternoon?” Suddenly, her mother seemed to see something very amusing out the kitchen window. “I guess it slipped her mind.”

  “Nothing ever slips her mind,” fingers still tapping the table.

  Her mother turned to go. “Well, I guess I’ll just tell her you can’t—”

  “Okay, I’m going.”

  “I’ll tell her you’re delighted.”

  Tab picked up the last roll off the floor, blew on it, and dumped it in the basket before she walked back out to join everybody else.

  Miss Hattie even offered her car up for the trip. “It’s much nicer to ride in than that jeep, more comfortable for the girls.”

  Mr. Ben said nothing, but he did shake his head slowly in the affirmative, thinking perhaps of all the statues and cannons Tab would want to see.

  She had on a hat they all thought must be a California-style. Nobody in Alabama would wear a thing like that. Red felt, with the brim pulled down on one side, and a long scarf wrapped around her neck and trailing behind her, as Tina was trailing behind her now.

  Mary had taken the other children to swimming lessons, so Charles drove the girls over to Miss Hattie’s in the farm pickup, taking the morning off to unload suitcases from their car into the Buick and tell the girls good-bye.

  “Now you take good care of my beauties,” he said to Eugenia as he stood on the porch with his girls, giving them alternate hugs.

  “Oh, I will. They’ll love this trip, an awakening—oh, and fun, full of fun.”

  Charles motioned for Tab to come and sit in the porch swing with him for a minute while the others were loading. “You know the other night, when you got upset with Eugenia about how different her ideas are from . . . well, say, your grandfather’s?”

  She nodded, half-listening. “Yes, sir,” watching the car to make sure Tina remembered she, Tab, had dibs on the backseat.

  “I know you haven’t traveled much.”

  “Two times to Birmingham and once to Memphis.”

  “Right, but that was with me and your mother. Now when you go on this trip, you may meet people who don’t feel like we do about things.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said again, not hearing.

  “Well, just try to keep your eyes open to new things. When I went off to college for the first time, it was—”

  She turned abruptly and gave him a big hug. “I sure will, Pops. I gotta go. They’re waiting.”

  CHAPTER 10

  On the Road

  THE DAY WAS BRIGHT AND SUNNY, a forerunner to glaring and baking.

  Tina had taken off the football letter jacket as soon as they were out of town and had flung it to Tab to store on the backseat. She rolled her window all the way down as they passed over Twelve Mile Creek Bridge. The muggy morning air ran at their faces like high-powered hoses, tearing at the ponytail Tab had earlier curled and sprayed. For a whole two weeks, they were to be pampered and treated to the high life in Chattanooga. Aunt Eugenia’s friend Bebe Palmer, it was rumored, had inherited bargeloads of money when her father, a maritime lawyer, had sued the heck out of one of the big barge companies whose boats would, from time to time, run into each other in the river. Miss Bebe probably had money to burn and would think nothing of spending trifling amounts on the likes of them: holding barbecues and afternoon teas, sending them to ride up and down the Chattanooga Incline till their fannies were sore, going to dances where the boys would come over and ask to be put on their dance cards. Tab found herself biting off bits of Purple Passion.

  Tina had run down to the drugstore just before they left and bought yet another orange lipstick. Tab had taken the time to pack her two starchiest crinolines. They were not that far out of style. Now Tina was sitting in the front seat with Eugenia, keeping time to the radio on the dashboard. They would make a great impression with their grandmother’s new car. People would think they were rich also. Tina had turned the radio to the highest brow station around—“Charlie Mac and His Classic Swing Hour”—to show Aunt Eugenia that they were not altogether backward in this part of Alabama. Jo Stafford was singing an oldie but goodie, “Shrimp Boats.” Tina and Aunt Eugenia joined in: “Shrimp boats are a-comin’ / Their sails are in sight / Shrimp boats are a-comin’ / There’s dancin’ tonight.”

  Eugenia slowed the car to make a left turn off Highway 72 and head north. Tina hardly noticed. The wind in her face would not allow eyes that open, but Tab did, and—thinking Eugenia had taken a wrong turn— “Aunt Eugenia, you know the way we always go is straight on out Seventy-two to Huntsville.”

  Eugenia took off the red felt hat with one hand, placed it on the seat beside her, and ran fingers through her hair. There followed one of those conversations everyone in the family seemed to have with Aunt Eugenia from time to time—Tab every time.

  “When I was your age,” Aunt Eugenia said, glancing at Tab in the rearview mirror, “I would have given anything to get out from under, even for a few weeks.”

  “Get out from under what?”

  “Sometimes I felt as if I would suffocate.”

  “The heat? Guess they don’t have it so bad in California.”

  “I knew they loved me, in their own way. I knew that.”

  “Oh yeah, the family, oh yeah,” trying to accommodate. “They said it about a million times, on the porch the other day, before you came, said they just all loved you.” After all, Aunt Eugenia was the one taking them to Miss Bebe’s to have the barbecues and meet the boys from Baylor.

  “I’ve been thinking about you two so much lately. What could I do for you to assuage that feeling you must have every morning when you get up—at your age and here in this state—knowing there must be something else out there and not being able to make contact. You probably say, If only I could touch it, see it, be a part of it.”

  She looked at them expectantly.

  They looked back, eyes squinting.

  Then Tina smiled knowingly. “Aunt Eugenia, how did you know I always wanted to meet some Baylor boys?”

  Tab was beginning to connect the direction of the road with the direction of the conversation. “I don’t know what she means, but she doesn’t mean that.”

  “Of course she means that. Don’t you ever get anything?” Tina said.

  “Me? You should talk. Will you look around? I don’t even think we’re going to Chattanooga.”

  “Now girls, enough of that. I know how you feel, how suffocated you must feel, even if you don’t understand your own feelings at this point.”

  “I understand my feelings.”

  “Be quiet, Tab. Aunt Eugenia is trying to talk.” Tina was taking a good look at the outside scenery, trying to gauge where they might be.

  “Yes, well, we—that is, I—got a call this morning from Bebe. She had to go out of town unexpectedly, and so I decided to alter our plans slightly.”

  “Oh no, is there something wrong in her family?” Tina rolled up her window so she could listen better.

  “Uh, no—just business, as I understand it. She sends her regrets, but she won’t be able to be there.” The car had slowed considerably. Aunt Eugenia couldn’t drive at her usual breakneck speed and make up stories at the same time.

  “But what about the visits to Missionary Ridge, the barbecue parties, the boys in the uniforms?” Tina’s lower lip might be quivering.

  “She said she’s so sorry. We’ll have to do it next time we visit.”

  “We could go and stay in her house and let the servants wait on us.” Tab’s voice trailed off, “You kn
ow, so they would have something to do while she’s gone.”

  The car began to speed up again as Aunt Eugenia was over the flat-out lying part of her story. “I knew you would be too disappointed for words if I told you right before we left.” She shifted into third gear. “And soooo.” She had put her sunglasses on, the ones shaped like pointy cat’s eyes. Her scarf caught the breeze and flipped out in the wind. “I have made alternate plans. It’s a little unusual, but in the end . . . a fabulous experience, and one you both sorely need.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “What do you mean, ‘Uh-oh,’ Tab? Aunt Eugenia has gone to the trouble of making other plans just so we won’t be disappointed. Sometimes you can be so disagreeable.” She turned to Aunt Eugenia and put a hand on her shoulder. “That’s so thoughtful of you, Aunt Eugenia. What might be our alternate plans? I hear they have some fun things to do up in Gatlinburg. That’s not far. Mama said someday we might visit there.”

  Tab didn’t hear her. She had flopped against the backseat, wind from the two open back windows slapping hair across her face like some flogging she didn’t deserve. Now she would never get to meet up with the boys from Baylor. Her head crashed against the roof of the car. Aunt Eugenia had hit a pothole going fifty miles an hour while she was in the throws of the explanation of their alternate plans.

  “We’re going where?” She heard Tina almost shout and then she heard her mumble, “Oh my God,” and Tina never said ‘my God’—out loud—in Grandmother’s car.

  “What—what is it?” Tab was rubbing the top of her head.

  “The Highlander Folk School.”

  “What?” She was trying to remember where she had heard the name before, and then she remembered. “That place? The one you see on the billboards?”

  “Yes, Highlander Folk School.” Aunt Eugenia seemed to say the name without any problem. It floated off her tongue without the least bit of effort. They had never heard it said like that. Before, when it had been mentioned, it had been spit out like sour milk, or included along with a string of cusswords, as in “that damn Highlander Folk School,” or “the no-good, Commie-breeding Highlander Folk School,” or “those sorry-ass, nigger-loving Highlander Folk School people.” A camp hidden away in the hills of Tennessee that trained outsiders and coloreds and turncoat southerners in ways to integrate the schools, the buses, the rest rooms at the filling stations—everything of importance known to mankind. After training, people who went there were sent out to do destruction all over the South. Martin Luther King had been to Highlander Folk School. Eleanor Roosevelt had been there. Even the colored bus lady from Montgomery, she got her training at Highlander Folk School before she decided to go sit at the front of the bus and not get up.