“How y’all doing?” he said.
“Okay.” Suspicious. Cagey. “How about you?”
“About as well as can be expected,” he said. And then he touched the gun. He tugged at the waist of his pants and adjusted the way the gun hung on his belt.
His accent was soft, hardly southern at all, almost midwestern but slower and with a slight twang.
“Sure is hot,” he said. He pointed with his chin across the street. “Is that your bike over by the bank?”
“Yeah.”
“Sure is a pretty thing,” he said. “How’s she run?”
“Smooth,” I said.
“And fast, I bet.”
“Fast enough,” I said. “Speed limits, you know.”
“Yeah, right.” I don’t think he believed me.
“You’re loaded down,” he said, never taking his eyes off the bike. “Going far?”
“Just to Bowling Green right now. After that I’m just going.”
“Living every man’s dream,” he said. “Ooo-wee! That’s just about heaven.”
He started to walk away, around the corner and to his car parked there, but he came back.
“Hey, you ain’t lost, are you?” he asked. “You looking for something you can’t find in that phone book?”
“Well, yeah. I’m trying to find a number for the Coon Hunters’ Club I passed a while back.”
“You passed it on this road? How far back?”
“Not too long ago,” I said. “Back between here and Owensboro.”
He scratched his head and shook it. “Naw, sir,” he said. “I don’t remember ever seeing no Coon Hunters’ Club on this road.”
“But I just saw it.”
“Naw. Not in this county. If it was here I’d know about it. I know where just about everything is in these parts. That must have been back in Daviess County. And you won’t find that number in this phone book. This here is Ohio County.”
He gave one more long glance toward the bike, shook his head and smiled.
“You be careful on that thing,” he said. “I’m not going to tell you to have fun. That’s not something I even have to worry about, is it?”
He walked away, still adjusting the gun on his belt and pulling at his collar. I heard him muttering to himself. “Man oh man,” he was saying. I couldn’t tell if he was talking about the heat or talking about the bike.
I took a long look at the bike myself. It certainly was a beautiful machine, big and blue and sleek and all loaded down, two black saddle bags, one on each side, a canvas duffel strapped to the luggage rack on the rear, and a fishing rod attached. I admired my choice. The first bike I ever owned. The first I ever rode. BMW. K75s. A sport bike that looked like a racer but built for long-distance touring. It had six miles on the odometer when I picked it up, twenty-two at the end of the first afternoon I owned it. The dealer and I went to Forest Park on it and he taught me how to ride it. Twenty minutes it took and he told me I was on my own. By the end of the next week, I had put six hundred miles on it. The bike was ready for its first routine service, and I was ready to hit the road. I wondered how the odometer would read by the time I got home again.
I crossed back over and suited up, slowly for all the world to see and envy, jacket, gauntlets, helmet. I looked like a road warrior, I felt like a road warrior. As slowly as possible I climbed on. A light squeeze on the clutch handle and the kickstand retracted by itself. I stuck the key in the ignition and started the engine. An instant of slight pressure on the little green button was all it took. She fired right up. I said to myself: Ah! Those Germans! as I always did when I had climbed on and was about to take off. When I applied the brakes, the red light on the instrument panel went off, telling me the rear brake light was working. Ah! Those Germans.
I checked for traffic. I put the bike in gear. In half a moment I was gone. I forgot all about Bull Connor and the hateful past, forgot I was in the South. And for the moment I was back to my old self, a tall man with a beard, now with a hot-looking motorcycle. I was king of the world again. Being black hardly mattered.
IV
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men Gang aft agley.
—Robert Burns
The year I took to the road was meant to be the year I bought a house and settled down somewhat, the year I could finally, honestly and without hesitating or fudging answer the question: Where is your home, where do you live? I had my eye on one of those rehab deals in some desperately rundown inner-city neighborhood—itself an adventure—where you can buy a big house, old and tired, for about twelve dollars and a promise to revitalize it, which I was eager to do: eager to make something with my own hands, my own sweat and a few tools, something beautiful out of nothing special, out of something ugly. Never mind that I’m no carpenter and know nothing about electricity or plumbing or construction. I can handle a saw. I can drive a nail. And I can learn.
But I hadn’t any money—not enough income anyway to buy and redo a house, but yes, money enough for a more modest adventure, money enough to buy a motorcycle, money enough to hit the road.
Once I took to the road, I imagined it might become the year I would learn to hit a curveball, long after any threat of a baseball career was over. That threat ended in 1969 when I was thirteen. I couldn’t hit a curveball then either, nor even a well-thrown fastball. So I wanted to spend the summer going from batting cage to batting cage, in every small town I came to, punching in quarter after quarter, hour after hour, swinging at every pitch the mechanical arm threw at me. I would start off in the little league cage and progress until I was up to major league speed. I would wait for the machine to click into gear and for the yellow light to come on, and then stare down a ninety-mile-an-hour fastball, one after another after another. Timing, a good eye, and quick wrists. That’s all it takes. I didn’t want to try out for the majors. I just wanted to be able to hit the damned thing.
This is what American men and young boys aspire to, the happiness of hitting a baseball, the same as they dream of one day hitting the road.
But way has a habit of leading on to way. The goals do blur. You learn to take the bends in the road as they occur, the hills as they arise, continuing on until a dead end bars the way. You turn. You take what the road offers. You follow where it leads.
I could no more have bought a house and settled down than I could have avoided the South. The road I was on headed south. Even when it had gone north it was carrying me south.
I sped along Highway 231 toward Bowling Green. All seemed suddenly right with the world. It was autumn in the South, which is quite unlike that same season anywhere else. The sun shone so hot the day would have seemed full-blown summer to a New Englander. There was not a trace of coolness in the air. The leaves had not yet given thought to changing color. But once you got used to it and accepted it for what it was, once you put out of your mind notions of autumn’s chill, the heat was magnificent.
The sun traced its path in the southern sky and radiated full on my face. Inside the helmet was like an oven. I opened the visor to let in air. The heat had been debilitating. Now the wind rushed inside the helmet and was invigorating. It rushed into my eyes and made them water. A bug smashed against my cheek.
I unzipped my jacket. The wind slammed against my chest. At eighty miles an hour, I began finally to cool down.
Tobacco fields patched the land. Houses here and there were scattered, simple and made of wood, most of them painted white. There were few cars on the road.
Then all of a sudden, as if out of nowhere, traffic began to get heavier. Trees cropped up where farmers’ fields had been. The yards got smaller. The houses started coming closer together. Bowling Green lay just over the next hill, and I slowed down.
At the edge of town Highway 231 turns east. It merges with Highway 68 coming in from the right, from the west and south, and together the two roads, now one, come to an abrupt end about two hundred yards farther on. The road dead-ends into a hospital. What appears to be the
main branch carries off to the right, but forks as well off to the left and up the hill. The road left and the road right both seem about the same, just as fair. I can’t say why—the wind, the smell, the way the bike leans—but I’m in the left lane. When the light turns green, I turn left.
The left fork takes me along a few twists and turns and carries me into the center of town. Perhaps the road right would have done the same; I’ll never know. I probably won’t be going back that way. But this is where I want to be. This is where, I suppose, I need to be.
In the center of the square there is a little park that lies dark green, cool and moist in the shade of trees and shrubs. There are freshly painted benches, none of them occupied, and the park looks like the perfect spot for an afternoon nap. My shoulders are tired, my lower back very stiff. But I’m also hungry.
I park the bike in the shade and strip off the hot riding gear. I hook the helmet on one of the bike’s foot pegs. I tuck the jacket under one of the straps that holds the duffel on. Refusing to worry about any of it for more than a second, I leave it all on the bike. I stretch. I loosen up a little. Then I stroll around the square. I want to find food.
On all sides the square is surrounded by shops and stores and what used to be a movie theater. Repair work is being done to the faҫade of one of the shops. Ladders lean against the side of the building. The men who climb up and down hang on with arms hooked through the rungs. With one hand they hold buckets and brushes and tools. The free hand chisels away old paint, applies new colors, mortars bricks in place. And as I have been watching these workers, they have been watching me. One of them calls down. “Hey! Nice bike.”
I wave up, a feigned casual air, but I’m thrilled, as proud as an envied child with a new toy.
Around the corner and down the incline from the bank, there is, at the far end of a parking lot, a place to eat. All I really want is a sandwich. A greasy burger will do, some chips and a cold drink to take back to the square. According to the sign hanging over the door, this place, Mariah’s, calls itself a delicatessen, but it’s a bit fancier than a sandwich shop. I can tell as soon as I enter. They’re going to make me sit, put a napkin in my lap, and wait until someone comes to serve me. Lunch could take an hour or more. With luck, since I’ve missed the noon rush, it won’t take too long. I’m aching for my nap.
The tables are butcher blocks lacquered shiny. Wooden chairs, a few booths, lots of light flooding in through the windows. It’s the kind of place office workers, clerks and secretaries, treat themselves to only once in a while. Salesmen treat each other to lunch here and compare notes, an excuse to have a few drinks in the middle of the day.
Off to the left is a bar with those high tables where you have to stand up to eat and drink. That section is empty and would suit me fine, but a skinny young man in a white shirt and black trousers that are too long comes to me the moment I step through the door.
“May I help you, sir?”
“Yeah.” I answer looking around, not looking at him, not overly polite. “Can I get some lunch?”
“Right this way, please.”
He yanks a menu from the stand and leads me into the back room. It’s empty, away from the few other customers. And he sticks me in a little booth in the corner.
“How’s this?”
“Fine,” I tell him, but I don’t really know. How can I be sure?
I’m dressed pretty shabbily, a sweaty T-shirt and a pair of old dingy trousers. You can’t tell that I’ve just gotten off a motorcycle, that I’m touring the country and that I have an excuse for looking grubby. To him I probably just look scummy and poor. He may even be wondering if I have enough money for lunch.
A funny thing about restaurants, you can never really know why they seat you in a particular spot. A section for those who smoke and one for those who don’t. Tables for two, tables for four or more. Certain places for young men alone, perhaps. Spacing the customers when possible to offer a bit of privacy, to give all the waitresses an equal shot at tips. Or.…
Does he tuck me away in this corner to keep me out of sight? If yes, is he hiding me because I’m grubby, or because I’m black?
The South wins again.
I am black. I know that. I can’t stop being black. But I don’t have to be reminded at every turn, do I? I certainly don’t need to remind myself, to limit myself in that way. And it is limiting, confining. Once you start thinking in terms of race, everything that happens, every person you meet, every circumstance, everything on earth always gets defined in terms of race, ours and theirs, us and them. And everyone else becomes THOSE OTHER PEOPLE.
It’s so tiring, the constant racism, the constant wondering and worrying, the constant vigilance. Is it this, is it that? It steals your energy, clogs your pores, makes your hair fall out. It makes your food taste funny.
Did someone spit in my drink?
A cute little waitress comes over, young and very happy, as if there might be nothing at all on her mind more important than her boyfriend. There’s a college nearby. She’s probably a student. She smiles sweetly. She pours iced tea into my glass.
“Do you know what you’re going to have?”
A burger, fries, and a small Caesar salad.
“Is there someplace I can wash my hands?” I would like to sound as gruff as possible, displeased as I was about being stuck in the corner, but facing her smile and her politeness, it isn’t easy.
“Yes, sir.” She points. “Right through there and make a left.”
When I come back I slouch across the booth. I lean back against the wall, arms folded across my chest, and put my feet up. I close my eyes, shut out thoughts and light. Darkness softly enfolds me.
From somewhere I hear singing. Negro spirituals far in the distance. Someone singing the blues. “King” Oliver on Bourbon Street.
A little black kid tapping my shoulder, asking if I need a shine, wearing the cap on his head backwards. In the barbershop behind him, black men beckoning but I can’t tell if they’re calling the boy or if they’re calling me. Big smiles. Happiness pouring out. Until the explosion. A bright light. The boy vanishes. The barbershop disappears in the flash.
The sun has shifted. The bright sunlight streams through the window and stings my eyes. Rays of light cross the room, dust suspended and swirling in narrow shafts. I blink a couple of times to clear my vision.
I must have dozed.
Outside in the street, two motorcycles are roaring past. The bikes are old, the kind that make much noise and sound like cannon fire.
One man rides solo, the other has a woman strapped to his back. Both men have long hair, their big potbellies bouncing on their thighs. The woman looks haggard and hard. She wears no helmet.
I take a deep breath and smell food.
The waitress has set my plate before me. She stands above me, smiling like an angel of mercy, holding the pitcher of tea, poised to pour more as soon as I nod yes.
I smile kindly and thank her. Even if I wanted to be gruff, with her there it would be hard even to pretend. She disarms me with her own kindness.
“Having a hard day?”
“About like all days,” I reply. “Thinking too much, I guess.”
“We all get those days now and again,” she says, sounding like an old veteran, preparing for a career of missed opportunities, still waiting tables when she is old and divorced with kids to put through school. I’m waiting for her to call me sugar, the way old waitresses often do.
“And there’s nothing you can do about them,” she says, “but smile a little. I find it always helps if you smile a little. Sometimes it even helps you beat the heat.”
She smiles.
“If you want more tea or if you need anything else, just holler.”
I settle back and relax. The burger’s not bad.
It comes to me now that the waitress reminds me of someone, a young ballerina I once met in Washington, D.C. I had gone with a friend to fetch her from the airport.
“Did
you have a good flight?” I asked her.
“Yes, sir.”
She was about nineteen, about the same age as this waitress, very pretty, and like the waitress, much too polite.
“You’re from the South, aren’t you?” Even without the accent it was evident.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “From Mississippi.”
I wanted to ask her if in Mississippi they always called black men “sir,” but I preferred to imagine that she had been raised to be polite to all her elders, to call all men “sir,” and to say “yes, ma’am” to all the women. It was nice. But she made me feel old.
“You don’t have to say ‘yes, sir’ to me,” I told her. “I’m not that old. Okay?”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
The South.
When I had finished eating, the waitress came and cleared the dishes away.
“Dessert?”
There was nothing on the menu I wanted.
“No. I’m quite satisfied,” I said. “Unless…”
“Yes, sir?”
A gush of air escaped my nose, a little laugh.
“You don’t have a coconut pie stashed in the back somewhere, do you?”
“No, sir. We sure don’t. Sorry.”
She left the bill. I checked her addition to make sure there wasn’t a mistake. Sure enough, there was.
I debated, but not long, whether to point it out. The mistake was in my favor.
When she came back to collect, I pointed out the error.
“It seems,” I said, “you forgot to add on my salad.”
“Sssh,” she whispered. “I didn’t forget. But you looked hungry and real beat. I thought I’d treat you.”
She smiled. I’m sure I was frowning.
There is something about unmitigated generosity that brings out the paranoic in me. It is not much different from unprovoked hostility. At some point you sit up, you look around, and you wonder, Why me?
Was it her, was it me? Was it the full moon? Or something in the air?
South of Haunted Dreams Page 5
