Catfish Alley

by Lynne Bryant

  But there never was a next child. The same cancer that killed Mama because she ignored it for thirty years started early in me. My dreams of surrounding myself with beautiful children disappeared along with my uterus and ovaries. No son for Dudley. No more daughters for me.

  I never confided my sense of loss to anyone. Instead, any conversation with women in the community could so easily be turned to the subject of Dudley, or a home

  I was restoring, or my daughter, Milly. Deflecting attention from myself had become a habit very early in my life and I never broke it. Dudley's parents were so indulgent, of him and of Milly, that it was easy even with my own child to gloss over my particular past. Milly has always been a happy, contented person. She must have gotten that from her father. She doesn't seem compelled to ask questions. She takes her secure place in the world for granted. All through school as she was growing up, I focused her attention on Dudley's family. It was fairly easy to just say that my Louisiana parents died young and I was taken in by the Stanleys.

  I see a lot of myself in Milly. She's very interested in appearance, but she doesn't have to work as hard at it as I did. She really does have wealthy grandparents. She really was a debutante and a sorority member at Ole Miss. It's all part of her reality, not a fairy tale. Milly has no problem allowing me to indulge her; having everyone's attention is her birthright. It's probably my fault that the child has been on the fast track since conception. She was even born two weeks early. She whizzed through high school, finished college in three years, married her prelaw boyfriend this past summer, and is now complaining about being bored and trying to decide between opening a boutique and going to graduate school. I always dreamed that we might go into business together. After last night's phone call, I have serious doubts about that.

  "Hey, Mama," she said in her distracted tone. I can always tell when she's doing something else during our phone calls. I could even hear magazine pages turning. We chatted randomly about nothing — mostly clothes, home decor. I haven't told her anything, of course, about the problems between her father and me. She did ask what I'm working on now. I told her about the tour.

  "An African-American tour? You're kidding, right?" she said.

  "No, I'm really not kidding. The committee wants to launch it next spring."

  "Ew. Sounds depressing. What is there to tour?"

  "So far, not much. A couple of interesting houses, maybe," I equivocate, surprised at myself for feeling a little defensive. I might not like it, but this tour is part of my work.

  "But you don't really know any black people ... well, except maybe Ola Mae. How are you getting your information?"

  "From a woman named Grace Clark, who taught school here forever. She's retired now, but she's helping me out." Of course Milly doesn't know her, because Milly has been in all-white private schools her entire life — until Ole Miss, that is. She seemed to seamlessly mesh herself into an integrated environment in college. Although she never brought home black friends, there were two black girls in her sorority.

  "So, how does that work, exactly?" Milly asked. "Does she just sit and tell you about these places? Or, I mean, like, do you have to actually go see them?"

  I took a deep breath, already imagining her response to my answer. "Miss Clark has insisted that I drive her to the places and that I write down the stories that she tells me."

  "Wow! So let me get this straight. You actually go to the black parts of town and visit these places with this old black lady. Are you, like, the only white person there?"

  "Well, I've only been to a couple, but yes, pretty much. ..." I think about telling her about my experience with Del Tanner, but decide not to.

  She's laughing now. She's so smug in what she thinks is her enlightened racial attitude.

  "Oh, Mama. I would love to be a fly on the wall when you are touring around with an old black woman. That would be a sight to see."

  I manage to change the subject and get off the phone, feeling even more frustrated and confused. Am I angry because I'm having to do this or am I angry at Milly for thinking I can't?

  Adelle puts her arm around Grace's shorter bony frame and gives her a comforting squeeze. It's obvious that standing here in Dr. Jackson's exam room eighty-one years later still brings back some painful memories for Grace.

  Grace looks up from the exam table and shakes herself slightly, as if trying to wake up. "I guess you'll be wanting to see the rest of Dr. Jackson's office and the house now. Adelle, be sure and take her in there and show her the library," she says, walking out of the office, talking over her shoulder.

  "Just a minute," I say, following her. I can't seem to help myself. "You stopped in the middle of the story. What happened to Zero? Who was his fight with?"

  She pauses, but she doesn't look at me. "I'll finish the story, but first I've got to sit down. Y'all complete your tour while I rest in the parlor. When you're done, come meet me."

  Adelle shows me through the rest of the

  Jackson home. It's not an antebellum, but it's an attractive Victorian. I wonder how both these women ended up as old maids, but I decide not to ask right now. My list of questions about these women just keeps growing — and their history is not even part of this tour.

  "Miss Jackson, how do you feel about your family's home being part of an African-American tour of Clarksville?" I ask, after we finish the tour and head back to the parlor.

  "If you can put together something like that in Clarksville, Mississippi, I would be happy to have y'all tour this old house. There are a lot of memories here for me, some good, some bad. Since I walk around with a couple of ghosts all the time, it might be nice to share them with someone else for a change."

  This makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. She sounds so matter-of-fact. "Ghosts? You're not serious, are you?"

  She doesn't answer me. She just chuckles low under her breath. Maybe Zero died that day, right there in that exam room. We get back to the parlor, where Grace dozes in a chair by the window. She wakes up when we come into the room.

  "How did you like the rest of the house?" she asks.

  "It will be a good house for the tour," I say. "Authentic antiques, interesting history. Now, Miss Jackson, about those ghosts."

  Adelle and Grace look at each other and smile, but I can't read them. They seem to share a secret.

  "You wanted to hear what happened to Zero, remember?" Adelle says.

  These women are maddening! They leave stories unfinished. They make me wait until the next visit, as if I have endless time for this. Who would have thought I could ever get so roped into the stories of old black women?

  We settle into chairs in the sunny parlor.

  "Do you remember how I told you that Zero got a nickel for his birthday?" Grace asks.

  "Yes, ma'am, I remember. And he was going to start a savings account at the Penny Savings Bank." I wonder if that bank is still around. That might be a good place to put on the tour.

  "That's right. Well, he was on his way to the bank that day, with that shiny new nickel in his pocket, when he was stopped by two white boys. We found out later it was Ray Tanner and one of his buddies."

  "Tanner? The same Tanners that run the lumberyard?"

  "Yes, Ray Tanner was Delbert Tanner's daddy."

  "And he beat up your brother? Why?"

  Grace shakes her head and sighs. "Zero was admiring that shiny new nickel and not paying attention to where he was going. He looked up and those two white boys were standing in front of him blocking his way. Later that day, when he was able to talk, he told me that Ray Tanner said, 'What you doing, nigger? Where'd you get that money?' Zero said he was a little scared, but he thought they would just go on about their business. He also told me later that he probably could have made it easier on himself if he had just given them the money without a fight."

  "Given them the money?" I'm appalled.

  "They said to him, 'Don't no nigger need money. You probably stole it, anyhow. You give that money b
ack so's we can find who it belongs to.' "

  "That's horrible! You mean they beat him up and they took his money? All for a nickel?"

  "Well, I reckon mostly they beat him up because ..." Grace pauses and smiles. "He told them that he was saving to be a doctor and to get out of town so he wouldn't have to deal with ... excuse my language ... redneck assholes like them."

  Grace and Adelle both laugh. The pride they share for Zero Clark is obvious.

  Grace continues. "My brother never was very good at keeping his mouth shut or his head down."

  "Did someone do something? Did you go to the police?" I ask. They only laugh harder. "Why is that funny?"

  Adelle replies first. "Mrs. Reeves, you'll have to forgive two old women. Sometimes you learn to laugh or you'll be crying all the time. There was no point in calling the sheriff. This was a white boy that beat up a black boy. They wouldn't have done anything. Zero didn't want to call attention to himself. My papa tried to get him to at least tell the sheriff, but Zero said he just wanted to forget it."

  "My brother never even told our mama what happened," Grace adds. "He told her that he got into a fight with some boys at school and lost the nickel from his pocket. Oh, Lord, she was angry. She didn't whip him because he was already so beaten up. But she did make him do extra chores for a month. And she didn't let either one of us go to school for a week."

  "So she never knew that Zero was innocent?" I ask.

  "No. I believe Grandma knew, though. She always knew those kinds of things without us telling her. She had a way about her. Don't you know she had Zero load her into the wagon and she went to town with him herself? Told Mama she had business to attend to. She and Zero went to the Penny Savings Bank and opened that savings account after all. It was a proud day for my grandma and for Zero."

  I sit in silence with the two old women. They are remembering Zero. I'm turning it all over in my mind. Del Tanner must have come by his mean-spiritedness honestly. His daddy sounds every bit as prejudiced, if not more. How could he take a nickel, just one small nickel, from a boy who had so little? All of it is about what black people deserved and didn't deserve. I'm not sure I can hear many more of these stories. Milly's right. They are so depressing.

  Chapter 4

  Roxanne

  As I set out to pick up Grace this morning it's raining — pouring rain, actually. I pull on my raincoat and make sure to grab a couple of umbrellas. Of course, she hasn't told me where we're going today, so I'm trying to be prepared for anything. I called her earlier to see if she wanted to cancel and wait until next week. I can't believe I was actually a little disappointed thinking we might not have our Tuesday morning together.

  "Cancel?" she said. "Why would we want to do that? I'm not sweet enough to melt and a little water never hurt anybody."

  So, here I go, in a steady downpour, dodging the deep holes in the gravel drive, squinting to see through the fog that has settled in over everything.

  When I arrive I rush from the car to Grace's back porch door, hurrying to put my umbrella down before I get drenched trying to get in the door. Grace is waiting for me, as usual, with hot coffee and delightful smells of something baking in her kitchen. Today's treat is something Grace calls cathead biscuits.

  "Why are they called cathead biscuits?" I ask, trying to fluff some of the water out of my hair.

  "I'm not sure. That's what my grandma called them. I think it's because they are as big as a cat's head. Here's the butter, and I've put out some of my muscadine jelly from last year. We had the best muscadines I've seen in a long time."

  "I wish I knew how to make jelly," I say as I slather the biscuit with a generous helping. "It's such a pretty color." I take a bite and the jelly tastes even better than it looks, tangy and sweet all at once. "These are the best biscuits I've ever had."

  Maybe even better than Mama's, I think. My mind wanders to Ponchatoula strawberries ... Mama and an old black woman in the Stanleys' gleaming kitchen, stirring up batches and batches of bright red jam. It was a Saturday in May and I was thirteen years old, doing everything I could to steer clear of the sweltering hot kitchen. Mama and her friend, Miss Ethel, were telling stories about their husbands while they worked. The kitchen was filled with the sound of their laughter and the overpoweringly sweet scent of strawberries. I volunteered to come with Mama that day, but I had no interest in jam-making, like Mama thought.

  Mrs. Stanley was hosting a bridal shower for the granddaughter of one of her friends and I was dying to see what a rich girl's bridal shower was like. Although Mama and Miss Ethel were complaining about Mrs. Stanley deciding to have a party on jam-making day, I was thrilled. Mainly because I got to help set up the trays of finger foods that would be spread across the dining room sideboard. Each time I carried in a tray, I peeked into the parlor and listened to the polite "oohs" and "aahs" coming from the room full of women. I was so impressed with how sophisticated it all was and I couldn't help but notice the difference between my own mother's raucous laughter and storytelling and the sedate interaction of the ladies during the bridal shower. I was especially fascinated with the bride and her friends. They whispered and giggled over each new crystal goblet or serving piece. I managed to avoid learning anything about jam-making that day. And here I am now, regretting that, too.

  "You all right?" Grace asks.

  "Oh, yes, I'm fine," I say, almost wishing I could tell her about Mama and Ponchatoula strawberries.

  "I tell you what." She refills her coffee cup and pulls a chair up to the kitchen table. "After we get done with all of this running around Clarksville, digging up bones, you and I will have a lesson. I'll teach you how to make jelly and cathead biscuits. I may even share my recipes with you."

  "I would like that." I'm surprised by this realization. "So, where are we going today?"

  Grace stirs sugar into her coffee and gazes out the wide window of the kitchen eating area at the rain. "We are going to a very special place today. The Queen City Hotel."

  "Where is that?" I have been in Clarksville for more than two decades and it still amazes me, the places I've never heard of. But then, why would I? I don't talk to black people except to give them instructions on the services I need. Ola Mae has been working for me about fifteen years now, and I really don't know anything about her or her family. Today, for some reason, that strikes me as sad. What kinds of stories could Ola Mae tell?

  "The Queen City Hotel building is on the corner of Fifteenth Street and Seventh Avenue," Grace says. "Robert Webster built it in 1909, four years before I was born. Robert belonged to the Webster family. After the Civil War, he got himself a job working at the white hotel as a waiter. He scrimped and saved for thirty years to build that place."

  "What do you mean when you say he 'belonged' to the Webster family?" I ask, deciding to take one more biscuit. I'll have to get on the treadmill again this afternoon.

  "He was a slave. Born into slavery and freed by the Webster family after the War. He was thirteen years old when the War ended. That's when he went to work for the Gilmores, the white folks who owned the hotel downtown for white people. He saw what it was like for coloreds to never have a place to stay. They couldn't stay at the white hotel, you know."

  "Yes, of course." I guess that just fell out of my mouth, because I can tell right away it was the wrong thing to say.

  Grace looks at me with raised eyebrows, as if she's thinking I agree with segregation. She continues, shaking her head. "White folks did not want to mix with colored people anywhere. Not the hotels, not the restaurants, not the stores. If colored people hadn't built these places I'm showing you, they might as well have stayed in the field and picked cotton the rest of their lives."

  Once again, I am at a loss for words. Suddenly, I feel guilty for being white. And what am I supposed to do with that feeling? The War is over and the blacks got their rights, so why do we have to dwell on the past? Of course I know about slavery and segregation. I just choose not to dwell on them. I prefer to app
reciate the beautiful aspects of the Old South, like the gracious lifestyle, the lovely columned homes, the wide-skirted dresses with corsets and crinolines, rococo furniture. Capturing and restoring the beauty of the Southern plantation lifestyle is my specialty. And I've worked damn hard to get where I am. People flock from all over the country to see that lifestyle recreated once a year at the annual Clarksville Pilgrimage Tour of Homes.

  This African-American project is tainting all of that for me and I resent it. Why did I ever let Louisa Humboldt convince me to do this? I don't need the Riverview restoration job that badly. How will I ever reconcile the two tours? People leave the Pilgrimage Tour laughing and smiling and talking in bad Southern accents. How will people leave this tour? Depressed and feeling guilty, probably. Maybe this whole tour should have been left to black people to figure out.

  I can feel Grace watching me with those calm dark eyes of hers, as if she knows what I'm thinking. Suddenly, I don't have much of an appetite and I put down my biscuit. Better to press on, get busy. That always works.

  "Shall we get going? I can't eat another bite." I rise and clear the dishes. "How about if I wash these up real quick before we go?"

  Grace doesn't stop me. She just smiles and pats my shoulder. "Thank you," she says. "I'll go powder my nose and get my purse." She takes a step, then stops. "Oh, and we'll pick up Adelle on the way. Then after we see the Queen City, we'll go over and see Mattie Webster."

  Before I have a chance to ask who Mattie Webster is, Grace walks slowly out of the kitchen and leaves me there with the dishes and my thoughts.

  On the drive to the Queen City Hotel I'm lost in the rhythmic drumming of the rain on the roof of the car and the voices of Grace and Adelle trading stories about their brothers, Zero Clark and Junior Jackson, in the spring of 1924.