More Sweet Tea

by Deborah Smith

  “You mean you’re gonna be playing for Sally Rand!?” The tone of her voice bespoke shock and disbelief.

  “Yessum. Mr. Goodhart, he didn’t act like nothing was wrong with me doing it when he told me about it and what they wanted and all.”

  Mama’s eyes grew wide and her forehead wrinkled. “He didn’t?”

  “Nome. If he did, he didn’t say nothing about it.”

  Mama stood there for a minute, her lips tight together. Suddenly, she leaned toward me, her face just inches from mine. “Don’t you go to Tabernacle Church?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Don’t we all go there?”

  I could feel Mama’s hot breath—breath hotter than the surface of her iron—swat my face. “Yessum,” I said.

  “Don’t you go to Tabernacle Church?” she said, repeating her earlier question, only this time she spoke louder than before and our faces almost touched.

  It finally dawned on me what she might be getting at. “Mama,” I said, “are you trying to say no, I can’t go do it?”

  She smiled and brought herself upright. “No,” she said in a voice sweet and soft, “I’m not saying no, you can’t do it.”

  My hopes soared. “What are you saying, then?” I asked.

  In a flash, Mama’s eyes blazed as she got right back in my face. “I’m saying hell no, you can’t do it!”

  IN MAMA’S presence, I telephoned Mr. Goodhart and told him of her decision. He said he understood and promised to contact the carnival people and let them know I wasn’t coming. He went on to say that he was confident they would work something out and for me not to worry.

  I felt awful about not playing for Sally Rand and about letting her and the carnival people down. I also felt embarrassed. Here I was, eighteen years old and still under my Mama’s thumb. I entertained no doubt whatever that I would be the object of much ridicule at school the following Monday, especially from Rheay Walling and the rest of the country-boy numskulls he hung around with.

  To minimize my embarrassment and to demonstrate that I had some measure of independence, I resolved to see Sally Rand’s show that evening. After all, Mama only said I couldn’t play for Sally Rand. She didn’t say anything about my not being able to see her perform.

  “Mama,” I said, “I’m gonna go on back to school. If I hurry, I can still make last period. I’d hate to miss my physics class if I don’t have to.”

  I cared nothing for physics. I really wanted to see if I could find someone willing to go with me to see Sally Rand.

  Mama, no doubt suspicious of my new fondness for a course I had straight Ds in, pointed her iron toward my drumsticks. “All right, but you just leave those things right where they are. They’re staying there until that woman leaves town. You understand me?”

  I nodded. “And Mama, if you don’t mind, could I skip supper tonight and have the car? Before Mr. Goodhart said something about me playing for Sally Rand, I had kinda planned on getting me a date and going to the picture show this evening.” I told Mama the truth. I had planned on doing this before Mr. Goodhart called me into his office.

  Mama sighed. “Well, I reckon so. Your daddy, he called from the plant and said he’d be late getting home. Said he had to drop off some Dr. Peppers somewhere and ice them down. I hadn’t planned on fixing anything but grits and fried baloney nohow.” She inserted a pants leg into the narrow end of the ironing board. “You be home by eleven. Don’t you make me have to worry. You’ve already upset me enough to last a month.”

  “Yessum.”

  “Who you dating?”

  “I dunno. Not yet, I don’t.” I really didn’t. I just knew it wouldn’t be the girl I kissed in the stairwell, or any girl for that matter.

  MY “DATE,” if he could be called that, turned out to be Shorty Askew, a baby-faced munchkin with about as much sense as he had height. Among my close friends at school who did not have a real date that Friday evening, Shorty was the only one qualified by age for admittance to the Sally Rand show.

  All the way to the stadium where the carnival had set up its tents and rides in the parking lot, Shorty talked of nothing but what he hoped to see of Sally Rand. He practically foamed at the mouth when he talked about her. “Let’s don’t walk ‘round none now when we get there. Let’s go straight to where they got her show set up, okay? I wanna try and get us a front seat.”

  That suited me. I hoped to see what Shorty hoped to see too.

  The smell of parched peanuts and cotton candy greeted us as we arrived at the stadium well before Sally Rand’s scheduled six o’clock show. Our hearts sank. A long line of men stood outside her show tent, laughing and telling dirty jokes.

  Above the entryway to the tent hung a huge, brightly colored canvas sign that depicted a nude woman holding two large fans that covered her private parts. The sign advertised Sally Rand as “Her Sexellency” and proclaimed her as “The Greatest Fan Dancer of Them All.” Several large black and white photographs of a longhaired, young blond in various sensual poses sat upon easels next to the ticket booth.

  Shorty and I strode to the ticket window where a man with greasy, black hair greeted us with a gold-tooth smile. He leaned forward and peered down at Shorty. “Hey, Pee Wee. Where’s your stroller? Back off.”

  Shorty didn’t budge. “I’m eighteen.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “and I’m Dwight Eisenhower.”

  “I tell you, I’m eighteen,” Shorty insisted.

  The man held up a roll of blue-colored tickets. “Buddy, if you’re eighteen years old, I’ll eat all these here.”

  Shorty tossed him his driver’s license and the price of admission. “Then you better start chewin’.”

  The man studied Shorty’s license for a moment and handed it back to him along with a ticket. “It probably ain’t yours.” He squinted at me. “You with him, Hot Rod?”

  I nodded and gave him my money, reaching over Shorty’s head to do it.

  The ticket seller smirked. “Enjoy the show, Baby Snooks. You, too, Hot Rod.”

  The moment I got my hands on the admission ticket a feeling of guilt swept over me. Usually, when I got that feeling, an admonition my mama must have told me a thousand times flashed through my brain. This time was no exception. It went: “Be sure your sins will find you out.”

  Shorty pulled at my arm. “Would you look how long that line is? We’ll be lucky to even get us a seat.”

  Before we could turn to go to the end of the line, a man standing next to a concession stand near the entrance announced that everyone with a ticket could now come inside. Shorty and I sprinted forward, gave the man our tickets, and raced into the tent. We found seats on the front row, right in the middle, just a few feet from the stage.

  Shorty kicked at the sawdust beneath our feet and slapped me hard on the thigh. “Ain’t nobody gonna believe we got up this close. I betcha we see somethin’. Whatcha wanna bet, huh? Hot diggety dog!”

  The tent soon filled with whooping, whistling, and hollering males of all adult ages. Even a few women ventured inside, their presence serving only to make things seem more exciting, but also more illicit.

  Right at six o’clock, the emcee of the show, twirling a cane and dressed in a purple zoot suit and large polka-dot bowtie, strolled out onto the stage and tapped the microphone two or three times with his middle finger. He began his part of the show by insulting two men in blue overalls who sat down front to our left. “Hey fellas, you can’t sit there. As ugly as you two are, you might scare the feathers off Sally’s fans and that’d ruin her act.” He threw them each a large, brown paper sack. “Here. Do her favor, will you? How ‘bout wearing this during the show.”

  Both men dropped the sacks over their heads. The crowd laughed.

  The emcee aimed his cane at the two men. “Would you look at these guys, everybody? T
hey pay good money to come in here to see a buck-naked woman and what do they do when they get inside? They put a bag over their heads.”

  The crowd roared as the two men yanked the sacks off and looked around with sheepish grins on their faces.

  After cracking more jokes for ten minutes or so, the emcee surveyed the audience with his hand held flat against his eye brows. “Is there anybody out there who made it past the third grade? If so, how about raising your hand and letting me see it?”

  Shorty raised his.

  The emcee squatted at the edge of the stage and stared down at Shorty. “Why, if it ain’t Little Beaver. Or is it Henry Chicken Hawk?”

  Little Beaver and Henry Chicken Hawk were names of two comic strip characters.

  “Listen up, Sweet Pea,” the emcee said, standing and using the name of yet another comic strip character, “I asked for somebody who made it past the third grade, not for somebody who’s in the third grade.” The man motioned to Shorty. “Oh, what the heck! Come on up here, little fella, and let me take a gander at you.”

  Shorty did not have to be told twice. As the audience applauded, he jumped from his chair and bounded up the steps to the stage, smiling from ear to ear.

  The man cocked his head. “You sure you’re old enough to be in here, sonny boy?” He glanced over one shoulder and then the other. “You wouldn’t want the sheriff to lock me up for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, now would you?”

  “I’m eighteen. How many times I gotta tell y’all?”

  “Eighteen months?”

  “Years.”

  “Is that right?” The emcee took a step backwards and gave Shorty the once over. “By the way, how’s the law suit coming?”

  “What law suit?” Shorty asked.

  “You know, the one you brought against the city for building the sidewalks too close to your butt.”

  More laughter erupted from the audience.

  “Tell you what I’m gonna do for you, little fella. I’m gonna give you a chance to make you some money right here and now. I’m gonna sell these boxes of candy I got here to all those folks out there, and I’m gonna let you carry the boxes out to those who buy them and collect their money. For each box I sell, I’m gonna give you five cents or a nickel, whichever you want. Which do you think you might want, a nickel or five cents?”

  “Five cents.”

  The emcee crooked his head and tapped himself on the temple. “You’re a smart little devil, ain’t you, son? Can’t fool you. No siree bobtail. You know five cents is more money than a nickel, don’t you?”

  The audience laughed.

  “Can be.” Shorty pulled at the waist of his pants and grinned. “One of them might be a 1943 copper penny and, if it is, I’ll be rich. Give me pennies. I don’t want no nickels.”

  The emcee eyed Shorty and shook his head. “Uh-huh,” he said and pointed toward the front entrance. “See that man way back yonder, Sweet Pea? The man you gave your ticket to? He’ll settle up with you when we’re through. Keep track of the number of boxes and don’t you try cheating me, cause I know how many we got to sell. You got all that?”

  Shorty nodded and hitched his trousers. “Got it.”

  After shooing Shorty off the stage, the man took hold of the microphone. “Ladies, if I can call you that. Any of you ever been called that before?” He paused and looked out over the audience. “One of you? Okay. Lady and gentlemen, each one of these boxes just might have a valuable prize in it, in addition to the best candy you’ll find anywhere.” He put his ear next to a box and jiggled it. “Several of these might even have a seventeen jewel Bulova watch inside it. Just think, for only fifty cents, you might get lucky and win a watch worth a hundred times that. Now, who wants to buy a box and take a chance?”

  Several hands flew up and Shorty dashed off with the candy boxes. After several minutes when it appeared no one else wanted to buy any more candy, an olive-skin man with a Yankee accent, shot up from his front-row seat and yelled, “I got one! Look, everybody!” he cried, waving a watch around. “A Bulova! A Bulova watch! Wow!”

  A score or more hands pierced the air and Shorty scampered to take them their boxes and grab their money before they could realize they’d been had.

  All during the candy sale, I sat wondering where the band was that would accompany Sally Rand. I saw a band stand, but it stood empty. How was she gonna dance if she didn’t have a band? I asked myself.

  A little past six-thirty, the emcee and the microphone disappeared, the lights in the tent dimmed, and a spot light dotted the stage. Shorty had not returned to his seat. I figured he had gone to settle up.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” a voice announced from off-stage, “for your evening’s entertainment and coming to you straight from Hollywood, California, we are proud to present Her Sexellency, the star of stage, screen, the Ringling Brothers Circus, the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco, and the Century of Progress World’s Fair in Chicago, the greatest fan dancer of them all, Salleeee, Sally Rand! Let’s hear it for Sally!”

  His pockets bulging, Shorty plopped down beside me just as the applause died away and the speakers on each side of the stage began blaring an upbeat, scratchy recording of Swinging on a Star. As if by magic, a pretty woman not much taller than Shorty donned the spotlight, twirling two long, pink feathered fans as she took short, twisting steps around the stage in rhythm to the music.

  Shorty nudged me.

  “Quit it,” I said. “I’m watching Sally.”

  He nudged me again. “What?” I whispered, trying to follow Sally’s every move, hoping to glimpse a forbidden area.

  “I gotta tell you something.”

  “Tell me later.” I said, my eyes glued on Sally.

  “I can’t. While ago, when I went to get my money . . .” His voice trailed off as Sally spun closer to where we sat.

  Shorty began again, his voice louder. “Just now, when I went—”

  “Shhhhh!”

  “You know who’s standing out there by the drink stand where we come in at?”

  Gusts of cool air put in motion by whirling fans licked my face as I sat wide-eyed, watching Sally gracefully gyrate, watching her fans turn, watching for anything I was not supposed to see.

  “Do you?”

  Sally pranced to the edge of the stage, twisting, spiraling, teasing. I strained to see everything I could. All at once she turned sideways, jerked her head backward, flicked one heel upward, and rolled her fans to one side—the side nearest me. It was then, between the turn and a quick tilt of the fans, that I saw something she never intended for me to see. I saw what I can only describe as her “nudity”—covered over with a body stocking.

  “I seen your daddy.”

  “What!?”

  “Yeah. I seen your daddy and he said to me, ‘How’d you get here?’ I told him I’d come with you.”

  My heart quit beating. My lungs emptied of air. “Why’d you … why’d you tell him that for, you idiot?”

  “I dunno. I just kinda let it slip. I didn’t mean to.”

  The spotlight followed Sally Rand as she circled to the other side of the stage.

  Meanwhile, I looked for me a safe way out. I couldn’t face Daddy right then. What really worried me was I knew he would tell Mama where I’d been. Daddy never kept anything from her.

  THAT SAME evening I sat in the kitchen across the table from both parents. They looked at me with eyes ablaze but said nothing.

  The silence ended after what seemed like forever when Mama unloaded on me. “Didn’t I tell you your sins would find you out? Didn’t I tell you that? I don’t think I’ll ever get over this,” Mama wailed “Thank the good Lord your daddy was out there collecting for those drinks and ran into Shorty when he did or you just might’ve gotten away with this, young man. Told me y
ou had a date. You lied to me. That’s what you did. Well, mister, you’ve had the last date you’re gonna have for a long, long time, I tell you that, and when you do get to date again, you’re gonna have to walk cause you’re sure as heck not getting the car. So, don’t you even bother to ask for it.”

  I had no defense. My parents had me dead to rights.

  Daddy lit a Lucky Strike, leaned his chair back on its hind legs, and pointed his cigarette at me. “Thing I wanna know is how you got by me? I kept waitin’ for you to come out.”

  “I crawled out under the back of the tent.”

  Smoke curled from Daddy’s nose and mouth. “But why’d you do that? Shorty’d done told me y’all’d come together. Why didn’t you just come on out and admit what you done like a man?”

  Mama answered Daddy’s question before I could address it. “Why did he run from you, is that what you mean? I’ll tell you why come he done it. ‘The wicked flee when no man pursueth.’ That’s why come.”

  “Well,” I said, “I knew y’all’d probably be mad and—”

  Mama snorted. “Probably be mad? That’s not the half of it.”

  “If it’ll make any difference to y’all, I didn’t see nothing.”

  Mama heaved a sigh. “That doesn’t make any difference. You looked at her, hoping to see something, didn’t you? And what does the Bible say? ‘Lust not after her beauty in thine heart’? Plus, you went there, knowing full well you weren’t supposed to.” She stood and batted the air to clear away Daddy’s smoke. “You know what you gotta do now, don’t you?”

  “Nome.” I really didn’t know and I feared to ask.

  “Come Wednesday night prayer meeting, you’re gonna march yourself down to the front of the church and you’re gonna make a public confession of your sin, that’s what you gonna do.”

  The news jolted me. “Oh, Mama, you—”

  “Don’t you ‘Oh, Mama’ me and don’t you look cross-eyed at me neither. You’re gonna do it, by George. Not only have you gotta get right with me and your daddy, you gotta get right with the Lord.”