Catfish Alley

by Lynne Bryant

  It's quiet for a few seconds and then he says, "Tanner ... hm ... my father knew some Tanners. Are you related to Ray Tanner?"

  "Yessir. He was my father."

  "And he's dead now?"

  "Yessir, he is. About those records ...," I start to say.

  "What few records my father kept are stored at the old studio on Main Street. I will see what I can find. Come by tomorrow afternoon at one o'clock sharp. I'll be waiting for you."

  I'm fixing to tell him I can't come tomorrow because I've got work, but he's already hung up.

  I decide to park down the street at the old feed store. Folks around here know my Ford, and this way I have less chance of someone seeing it parked right in front of Purvis's place. I ain't ever felt no reason to care about who sees my comings and goings, but today I find myself looking around to make sure I ain't going to meet somebody I know. I just want to get in and out of Purvis's studio as quick as I can. Daddy died more than twenty years ago, but he was only in his sixties when he passed. There are still people alive in this town who knew him, who probably even knew about the things he did. But I sure as hell don't want to talk to anybody about this.

  It all seems so shameful now. I ain't no nigger lover, but I sure don't want it known around town that my own daddy lynched one. That's why I got to get my hands on the negative of that photograph and make sure it gets burned.

  When I'm sure there ain't nobody watching me, I go in the glass street door and climb the skinny stairs that lead up to the studio. At the top there's a small landing and a wooden door with faded lettering that says Purvis Photography, J. R. Purvis, Photography for All Seasons painted on the door. I have this crazy thought in my head to wonder what the lynching season was.

  I open the door and come into a barely lit reception area with a small wood desk that's bare except for an old black rotary dial phone and a black hat, the kind the old men around here wear. A waiting area has a sagging floral settee and two old worn-out wingback chairs. There's a little table under the wide window that overlooks the street. It's got a vase of them artificial flowers on it that are coated with so much dust you can hardly tell what color they are. This place looks exactly the same as it did when I came here for my high school portrait. I'm looking out to see the view to the street, when I hear footsteps coming from the back and someone clearing his throat.

  The man who comes in is tall, about my height, and a big man. He fills out his black suit coat like one of them blown-up balloons you see on TV at Thanksgiving. He's got a thick shock of wavy white hair, and when he gets near me, I realize he's pretty old — at least eighty, I'd say. That must be his hat on the desk.

  His voice is deep and he acts real stiff. "Mr. Tanner?" he asks. I nod and he holds out his right hand. "I am J. R. Purvis, Jr.," he says, giving me a quick handshake. I notice his hands are dead cold and soft like a woman's. "I'm sorry, but I don't think I'm going to be able to help you. My father was an atrocious record keeper." He don't smile. He just stands there with both his hands folded in front of him and waiting for me to answer. He screws up his face into a frown and looks up at my cap.

  I reach up and quick pull off my John Deere cap. "Yessir," I say. I shuffle my feet, feeling nervous.

  "Have a seat, Mr. Tanner."

  I sit down in one of the old chairs, trying to place this man. I know I've seen him somewhere before. Purvis don't sit down, and now I'm feeling like a schoolboy with the teacher standing over me. He still ain't said nothing. Not much for shooting the shit, I reckon, so I figure I might as well get this over with. I'm starting to wish I never came here.

  "Mr. Purvis, I was sure hoping you'd have some records or negatives of pictures your daddy took back in the early thirties."

  Purvis responds real fast, like he had his answer all planned out before this meeting. "My father was not a very efficient record keeper, Mr. Tanner. We have a few files on the marriage, graduation, and baby photographs, but that is the extent of it. I'm afraid that if you want reproductions, you'll need to see a professional photography restoration specialist. What type of family photograph were you interested in investigating?"

  All of a sudden, I realize why he looks familiar. I've seen his picture in the Clarksville Dispatch. This man is that big-ass lawyer in town who tried that murder case up in Tupelo with all the hype back in the seventies. No wonder he acts like he's got a rod up his ass. I'm trying to remember the details of the case. Something about a black man killing an old white woman. He was the lawyer for the black man. Then I realize Purvis has just asked me a question.

  I look down at my green and yellow cap, twisting it in my hands. "This ain't exactly a family photograph, Mr. Purvis ... I mean ... my daddy was in it, but ..." I'm not sure where to go from here. Has this guy looked at old J. R. Purvis's photographs? Does he know that his daddy photographed lynchings along with all them weddings and high school graduations and baby pictures? I reach in my shirt pocket and pull out the postcard. "This is the picture I'm interested in."

  Purvis barely glances at the postcard I'm holding out for him to see. He clears his throat again and says, "I'm sorry, Mr. Tanner. There seems to have been a mistake. My father did not take that photograph, nor do we have any records of any such photographs." He turns around, walks to the desk, picks up that black hat and sticks it on his head. Before I can say hello or kiss my ass, he's opening the door, saying, "Now if you'll excuse me, I have clients to see."

  I realize I've been dismissed. I start to tell him that J. R. Purvis's name is on the postcard and so is the date, but this son-of-a-bitch is so cocksure, I don't have the balls to argue with him. I walk out of the studio and head down the stairs. I stop for a second, listening to Purvis pull the door closed behind him and turn a key. I look up and see him start down the stairs, laboring over each step. "Good-bye, Mr. Tanner," he says.

  "Um, yessir. Good-bye," I say, feeling again like a schoolkid, slapped on the hand by the teacher. As I'm walking back to my truck I'm wondering what exactly just happened and why the conversation with Purvis seems so strange. It's like he's hiding something, but why? I walk a block, then turn to look back at the studio. A big old Mercedes pulls up. The driver hops out and takes Purvis's hat while he gets in the backseat. The driver closes Purvis's door and drives off.

  Three hours later, I'm back at my office trying to get some work done, but I'm still stewing over my meeting with Purvis. Why was he so short with me and why was he so stubborn about that postcard not being done by his daddy? Maybe Purvis really didn't take the picture. But why would his name be on it then? I don't understand why you'd make a postcard of something like that anyway. Looks to me like you'd be setting yourself up to get caught. But then, maybe those boys weren't worried about getting caught back then. I think again about the way my daddy talked about being a young man in Mississippi. My whole life Daddy complained about every step that blacks took toward being more equal with us.

  I remember when he was in the last months of his life, living with us, before he went into the hospital. He'd sit on the porch in a rocking chair, playing checkers and yak-king with his old buddies when they came by to visit. I was trying to keep the business going and I couldn't stand being around the old man for very long at a time. Alice was a saint to take care of Daddy those last few months. I wonder what all Alice heard Daddy talk about. The old man got plumb out of his head toward the end. Seemed like he talked more about his younger days than anything else.

  Maybe it's time I talked to Alice. Lord knows, I don't need to be worrying about this now. My business is on the line, I'm trying to get the bank to give me a loan, and all I can think about is who the boy was that Daddy strung up from a tree more than seventy years ago. Disgusted with myself, I lock up the office and head home.

  Chapter 13

  Roxanne

  "Grace, I've been wanting to ask you something for a long time," I say. We're sitting on the screened-in porch of Pecan Cottage, enjoying the late-afternoon breeze as we go over the details of the
tour. I've drafted a preliminary program and brought it by for her to look at.

  "What's that, sugar?" Grace asks, continuing to study the program through her thick glasses.

  "How is it you came to own Pecan Cottage? I mean, I know you'll understand when I say that I don't know of any black women in this area who own antebellum homes ... well, not like this one ... or not because they inherited them from family, um ... white family ... I mean ..." I am just not sure how to ask this and I'm getting frustrated. Fortunately, Grace interrupts.

  "You want to know how an old black schoolteacher comes to own a house that was in a white family for six generations?" Grace asks.

  "Yes, I do."

  Grace sits back in her rocking chair and lies down on her lap the program she's been studying. She takes off her glasses and absently begins to clean the lenses with the bottom edge of her sweater. "Do you remember me telling you that I grew up in a little house down on the back of this property?"

  "Yes, ma'am. You said your mama worked for the Calhouns."

  "Yes, she did. And my grandma before her. My great-grandma was a slave of the Calhouns and she and her husband stayed on after the War and started sharecropping. Her daughter, my grandma, worked for the Calhouns as a cook. My mama grew up here, too. Grandma insisted that Mama finish high school — she was always fierce about education, even though there wasn't much available to a black woman in those days. You could graduate when you were sixteen if you went straight through. Mama did what Grandma wanted and finished high school, but then she ran off with her sweetheart, Monroe Clark, came back here a married woman.

  "Mama had my brother, Zero. Then two years later she had me. Then, as I told you before, Mama died when I was twelve. All my life I thought Zero and I had the same daddy."

  "You mean you didn't?" I'm surprised by this. "But you didn't mention your mother getting a divorce. ..." I stop myself, realizing I've made another assumption.

  "They didn't divorce. The man I always thought was my daddy died when I was just a baby. But Mama and Grandma had always told me stories about him. So Zero and I grew up out here living near the Calhoun house, helping out at parties, playing in the woods near this house. I helped Mama clean and Grandma cook. Zero helped out around the yard and the barn. He took care of the horses and parked the cars later on when people started driving cars."

  I can hear the sadness in Grace's voice. "Miss Grace, I'm so sorry. If this is too painful to talk about ..."

  Grace shakes her head. "No, no. It's all right. I'm old and only the good Lord knows how much longer I'll be around to tell these stories. It's a good thing for me to tell them now. But before I do," she says, getting slowly up out of her chair, "I need to get something that I want to show you." Grace leaves the porch and goes into the house. She's gone for several minutes.

  I'm beginning to wonder if I should follow her in and offer to help, when she reappears holding what looks like a yellowed envelope and sits down again in her chair. She continues without missing a beat.

  "So my grandma raised us after Mama died, you see. I came home every day after school to help out around the house and to help her with her work. The Calhouns paid me two dollars a week. I was so proud when my savings started to mount up. Zero started working as soon as he could pick up a broom, for old Mr. Green down at Green's Grocery on Catfish Alley. He wouldn't get home until after dark most nights. We kept his supper on the stove. But he was just as determined as I was to save for college. Grandma had always told us how important education was, so she couldn't complain a whole lot about him not being at home much.

  "You remember how I told you about Dr. Jackson helping to get Zero out of town after that business with Andy Benton?"

  I nod. "Yes, ma'am."

  Grace's voice cracks a little then and she takes a deep breath. "We rushed around that night and got Zero ready to leave for Alcorn State, and I think that's when Grandma started getting pains in her chest. I remember noticing her holding her hand over her heart, but she never complained. We didn't have the modern medical treatment and the medicines then that we have now, you know. Plus, Grandma kept ignoring it, saying she had just eaten too many bitter greens or too much onion.

  "I found her one morning, just two days after Zero left, slumped over the table in the Calhouns' kitchen. I had come into the house to ask her a question and noticed the smell of burning biscuits. She had put a batch of biscuits in the oven for the Calhouns' breakfast and sat down at the kitchen table to drink a cup of coffee. The doctor said he didn't think she suffered much. The Lord took her mercifully fast. Within a week, Zero had left for college and I had to bury our grandmother. I tell you what, Roxanne, I had never been so lonely in my life! Everybody I loved was leaving me — Zero was off to college, Grandma died, Junior had already gone on the road to play his music, and Adelle was going to Tuskegee for nursing school."

  I feel the old familiar pain in my own chest. My mother died when I was just a young woman. There have been so many times when I miss her. Wished I could talk to her, ask her advice, or cry on her shoulder.

  "What did you do then?" I ask.

  "After Grandma died, Zero tried to convince me that he should stay and not go back to college, but I told him absolutely not! He had worked too long and too hard to quit now before he even got started good. I had a little money that Grandma left to me in her will and I offered to take over Grandma's job for the Calhouns until I could save enough money for school. I had my heart set on going to Tougaloo College, you see, and becoming a teacher.

  "Then one afternoon in late September, about a month after Zero left and Grandma died, Mr. Calhoun knocked on the door of my little house. He had what looked like an old letter in his hand and he said, 'Grace, I wonder if you would come up to the house. Mrs. Calhoun and I need to talk to you about something real important.' Well, I'm here to tell you that just about scared the living daylights out of me! I thought for sure they were going to tell me I had to get off the property."

  "I thought you told me that your mother got the deed to that house in old Mr. Calhoun's will?" I ask.

  "She did. And it passed on to me. But you have to remember, I was a young girl then, only eighteen years old. And it was 1931. I didn't know but what he could make me move off of his property, him being the landowner and all."

  "Yes, you're right. I can see how you'd be scared."

  "I came up here to the big house. As a matter of fact, we sat right where you and I are sitting today. I remember because there was a cool breeze that evening. Very unusual for September. We talked about how it smelled like rain and we laughed about how Grandma could always tell when it was going to rain by the way her knees ached.

  "I was a might shaky when I sat down, but Mr. and Mrs. Calhoun were smiling and friendly, so they put me at ease a little. And then Mr. Calhoun pulled out that letter he had in his hand earlier and started to tell me about it."

  September 1931

  "Grace, Ruth and I have some news for you," Mr. Calhoun says, and he looks at me over his small round spectacles. He's holding a yellowed-looking piece of paper in one hand and an old envelope in the other. From where

  I sit, I can't make out any of the writing, but the stamp on the envelope must be foreign. It isn't like any postage stamp I've ever seen around here. I cross my ankles and try to keep my hands still. What could this be about? Are they unhappy having a colored woman living alone on their property? Are they thinking about hiring someone else? Are they unhappy with my work? I try to keep the panic down.

  All the way up here when I was walking from the little house, I've been thinking of other jobs I could do and who might be hiring in town. There's always the garment plant. That's what I'd planned in the first place. Maybe I could take the little bit of money that Grandma left me and go to nursing school with Adelle. The problem with that is I don't want to be a nurse. I don't have the stomach for it. I want to be a teacher. I've always wanted to be a teacher.

  Mr. Calhoun looks at Ruth, who smiles at
me reassuringly, and then back at me. "As you know, your grandmother kept her will in my father's safe."

  "Yessir, I did know that. She always said it would take a lot longer for Pecan Cottage to burn up than it would our house."

  "That's right. I remember her saying that. Anyway, after Daddy died and my older brother died and I realized that I was going to inherit the place, I spoke to your grandmother about her will and she said that she would like to just keep it right where it was. So we left it there for safekeeping."

  "So is this something about her will?" I ask. "I mean, I thought all of that was settled?"

  "No, no," he says. "Everything is fine with the will. But when we were looking in the safe for your grandmother's will, we found a letter tucked inside your grandmother's document. I had never seen the letter before and it has to do with you and your family."

  I'm racking my brain for what might be contained in this mysterious letter. I sit silently waiting for Mr. Calhoun to continue.

  "As you probably know, I had an older brother, Gerald, who was a pilot for the French air force during the Great War."

  I nod. "Yessir, I remember seeing the photograph of him in his uniform, standing in front of an airplane. I always liked it when I got to dust the parlor because I could look at all of the photographs. ..." I stop talking, realizing I'm bordering on nervous chatter.

  "That's right. And we lost Gerry when he was shot down over France. But apparently before he died, he dictated a letter to a French nurse. That letter is what I found folded into your grandmother's will. My father must have known about it, but neither Ruth nor I had ever seen it before. It is a little difficult to read, but I've read it over several times and I would like to read it to you now, if that's all right."

  I nod, still wondering what this could possibly have to do with me.

  Late-afternoon rain clouds have rolled in and occasional streaks of lightning spark the sky, followed by a distant rumble of thunder. Mr. Calhoun switches on the lamp beside the wicker chair he's sitting in and begins to read....