Fame and Glory in Freedom, Georgia

by Barbara O'Connor

  “That’s a good idea, Harlem,” Ray piped in. “Maybe she can trim mine up some while she’s at it.”

  I perked up. “Yeah, she could trim yours up some, too,” I said. “But y’all have to go to her house. She can’t leave her daddy unless her sister, Alma, comes over, and she lives clear over in Fort Valley.”

  Ray punched Harlem on the arm. “How ’bout that?” he said. “We’ll get us a free haircut. Maybe I’ll give her a free tattoo.”

  Me and Ray laughed, but Harlem, he just said, “‘Fluent,’” and turned to a fresh page in his notebook. I figured he was mad about being called a hippie, but I knew I could work the mad out of him pretty easy.

  I knew Mama was going to have a hissy fit if I was late for dinner again like I always am, so I was trying to keep my mind on hurrying down the sidewalk. But spelling words kept kicking around inside my brain, slowing my feet down. “Facsimile. Forsythia. Fungus.” How was I ever going to make it all the way to “Z”?

  That’s what was on my mind as I headed home and that’s why I nearly jumped out of my shoes when Mr. Moody stepped out of the bushes right in front of me and I ran slap into him. Cans went every which way, rolling and clanging and spilling puddles of soda on the sidewalk.

  I waited to be yelled at, but Mr. Moody didn’t say one word. He just started picking cans up off the ground and tossing them back into his bag.

  “I’m Bird,” I said. “Remember me?”

  He nodded. His shirt was unbuttoned, showing his gray-haired chest and his sunken-in stomach with his ribs sticking out. He sure was skinny. And guess what he had hanging from a string around his neck? A radio. I couldn’t get over that. A beat-up-looking radio all held together with silver tape.

  “Harlem’s a good speller,” I said, helping him pick up the cans.

  Mr. Moody flung his garbage bag over his shoulder like Santa Claus with his sack of toys. I thought he was just going to walk away, but instead he said, “I never was much one for spelling.” His wild-haired eyebrows danced up and down like they were alive.

  “Me neither,” I said.

  Mr. Moody turned to go.

  “I know where there’s a bunch of cans,” I said.

  He turned back and looked at me. His whiskery face was tanned and leathery-looking.

  “In that ditch that runs beside Faris Road,” I said. “There’s a bunch of ’em in there.”

  Mr. Moody’s mouth twitched like it was just dying to smile, but didn’t. He nodded his head at me, then turned and headed off down the sidewalk, his cans going clang, clang, clang in that bag.

  “This is Ray and this is Harlem,” I said with a good feeling in my stomach ’cause here I was with my three friends and it seemed like just yesterday I only had one. (That one being Miss Delphine, of course.)

  Miss Delphine thrust a hand out towards Harlem. “Nice to meet you, Harlem,” she said.

  Harlem ducked his head in that way of his—like he wished he was short instead of taller than Miss Delphine. “Nice to meet you,” he said. I knew he needed some time to warm up.

  Then Miss Delphine turned to Ray and did the same thing, shaking hands and smiling and all, and ole Ray, he looked like he’d just floated through the pearly gates of heaven. Miss Delphine was wearing that fluffy white sweater that I love and the blue jeans with shiny silver studs down the sides. If that red-eyed snake crawling down Ray’s arm bothered her, she didn’t let on. (But I was kind of relieved to see that Ray had buttoned his shirt all the way up so that flying eyeball wasn’t showing.)

  “Who’s first?” she said, waving her arm toward the kitchen chair she had put on a sheet in the middle of the living room.

  Ray nodded at Harlem and Harlem looked kind of pitiful, but he went on over and sat down.

  It was just like Miss Delphine to make that afternoon sail on by as easy as anything. She talked on and on about one thing or another and before long even Harlem was rattling on about how his favorite sandwich is pineapple on toast and how he used to go crabbing down in Savannah ’cause he has cousins down there.

  Ray was nearly falling all over hisself handing Miss Delphine the scissors and saying “Yes, ma‘am” and “No, ma’am” till she flapped her hand at him and said, “Stop that. You’re making me feel old.” (And then he’s saying he’s sorry about forty times too many.)

  Finally, Miss Delphine says, “Ta-da!”—holding her arms out wide and grinning at Ray and Harlem.

  And there they stood. The two of ’em. Brand-new haircuts. And Miss Delphine had done a fine job.

  So Ray and Harlem are poking each other and mumbling thank yous and the next thing you know we’re all playing cards and eating pretzels. Miss Delphine put on feathery pink slippers that showed her red-painted toenails and laughed a lot in that loud way of hers that makes everybody else laugh, too.

  I called home to see if I could stay for dinner and Mama said no but I pretended like she didn’t and stayed anyway. I knew she’d probably send Colleen over to get me and I’d be in trouble, but it felt so good being there at Miss Delphine’s with Ray and Harlem that it was worth getting hollered at.

  Miss Delphine heated up leftover spaghetti and some of Alma’s homemade succotash. Ray and Harlem carried on about how tasty it was and how it sure hit the spot and things like that.

  Once or twice Miss Delphine left the room to check on Pop, and Ray would whisper to Harlem how nice his haircut looked.

  After dinner we played a spelling game that Miss Delphine made up and I couldn’t believe how good I did, even though me and Harlem were only up to “H.”

  I know that night will stay with me till kingdom come—over there in Miss Delphine’s house, playing games and eating pretzels with my three friends.

  10

  By the time we got to “L,” Harlem knew that my daddy had been married once before, that I found Randy Buckner’s math homework in the cafeteria last week (and threw it in the garbage ’cause he calls me names), and that I got eight stitches in my arm when I fell off the back porch with a steak knife last Fourth of July. He knew my favorite color, how many sit-ups I did in gym last year, and why Colleen’s hair fell out when she was five.

  But I still didn’t know much of anything about Harlem. If there was a contest for changing the subject, Harlem would get the trophy, that’s for sure.

  But that didn’t stop me from trying. About the most I could get out of him was that his uncle shot a cat one time and his cousin got kicked out of school for starting fires. No mention of his mama and the chicken bone yet.

  “‘Likable,’” Harlem said.

  “I know, I know,” I said. “No ‘e.’ You’ve said that one a hundred times already.”

  “What about ‘likely’?”

  “‘L-I-K-E-L-Y’ Let’s go spy on Ray.” I looked at the curtain over the door leading to the back room. A big, fat man was back there getting a tattoo. Ray had let me and Harlem stay this time, and I was sure dying of curiosity about what it looks like to get a tattoo.

  “Ray wouldn’t like it,” Harlem said.

  “So?”

  “So I don’t want to.”

  “I’m sick of spelling,” I said.

  Harlem closed his notebook and laid his pencil down. “Then what do you want to do?” he said. “Besides spy on Ray.”

  I slammed the dictionary shut. “Let’s go to the Have-to-Have-It Shop.”

  So me and Harlem headed on over there.

  Mrs. Eula Thatcher was sitting in a dirty old chair eating biscuits and gravy that looked like dog slop (smelled like it, too).

  “Who’s that?” she said, jabbing her fork at Harlem and spattering drops of gravy onto her giant stomach.

  “Harlem Tate,” I said.

  “Where’s he from?”

  “He lives with Mr. Moody.”

  She let out a big “Pffft” that sent spit and gravy flying every which way. “What’s he living with that sorry sack of misery for?”

  I felt bad that she said that, but Harlem just s
aid, “You got any binoculars?” like he hadn’t even heard her.

  “Nope.” Mrs. Thatcher pushed herself up out of her chair with a grunt and tossed her gravy-soaked paper plate into the trash. “Got a microscope,” she said, taking a big, wheezy breath.

  “You got any new stuff?” I said.

  She flapped a hand toward the corner of the store.

  I motioned for Harlem to come with me to rummage through the piles. We set to work, pushing stuff aside and picking things up. A waffle iron. Rusty cookie tins. A Monopoly game. A hair dryer.

  “Hey, look,” I said, stepping over a folding aluminum lawn chair. “Skates!”

  I held up a pair of dirty white roller skates. They had black scuff marks on the sides, the laces were frayed and broken, and one of the fluffy pink pom-poms was missing. (They didn’t smell too good, neither.) But that didn’t stop me from slipping my foot into one and letting out a whoop when I saw it fit perfectly.

  “I’m getting these,” I whispered to Harlem.

  I whispered ’cause I know Mrs. Thatcher’s game. If you let on like you want something real bad, she won’t budge one little cent off the price. But if you play like you don’t give a hoot, then you might can get yourself a bargain.

  So I worked on Mrs. Thatcher for those skates and, sure enough, I managed to get them for exactly what I had in my pocket—$3.50.

  Now I had something to look forward to after spelling practice every day. I’d put on those skates and me and Harlem would head outside. Most times I got off to a jerky start, but then I’d settle down and glide along, my teeth chattering and my knees shaking on the bumpy sidewalk. Harlem liked to run beside me in his slow-motion, long-legged way, his giant sneakers hardly making a sound.

  Sometimes I’d have to holler “Get out of the way” at somebody ’cause I wasn’t too good at stopping. And Harlem, sometimes he’d run smack into somebody. We got our share of dirty looks, but we didn’t care. Then just about the time my head got clear of all those spelling words, Harlem would say, “Let’s go study some more.”

  Sometimes I could talk him into going on a little farther, but most times he’d just turn around and head on back, making me scramble to stop my rolling feet and turn around.

  We were all the way up to “R” when Miss Delphine decided to have a spelling bee party. Well, not exactly a party. More like just supper at her house, but she made it feel like a party.

  “Y’all bring your spelling words and I’ll fix supper, okay?” she said. “We can decorate the living room and use a tablecloth and all. Oh, and candles. Lots of ’em. We’ll use those candles Alma gave me. And then we’ll have a pretend spelling bee so y’all can practice.”

  I watched her take the knickknacks off the knickknack shelf, wipe each one with a rag, and lay it on the tattered living room rug. Then she ran the cloth around in circles on the top of the shelf and carefully returned each knickknack to its spot.

  “Be sure you tell Ray to come, too,” she said, lining up a little glass horse beside a jewel-covered music box.

  “I will,” I said.

  Miss Delphine put a china hummingbird on one side of the shelf, then changed her mind and moved it to the other side.

  “Only eleven days left,” I said.

  She put both her soft, warm hands on my cheeks. “Ain’t this exciting?” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said. But inside I was saying, “How am I ever gonna remember that ‘omitting’ has two ‘T’s’ or that ‘orator’ ends in ‘O-R,’ not ‘E-R’? And how come spelling is so easy for Harlem? Seems like nothing comes easy for me except getting hollered at, laughed at, or lied to by all them hateful kids at school.”

  Miss Delphine put the last knickknack on the shelf: a china clown riding on a little tiny bicycle.

  “Hey, I know what!” she said.

  “What?”

  “Let’s dress alike for the spelling bee supper,” she said. “You know, matching colors and all.”

  She grabbed my arm and pulled me down the hall towards her bedroom.

  “Let’s look through my closet,” she said. I watched her face so smiling and happy as she jerked blouses and skirts and sweaters out of the closet and tossed them on the bed. She looked like a little girl—not a grownup lady. A little girl who might come to my birthday party or go skating with me.

  I stood there and let her hold blouses up to me or drape sweaters over my shoulders and it was all I could do to keep from closing my eyes and folding my hands and saying, “Thank you, Lord, for Miss Delphine.”

  That night, laying in my bed with the headlights of passing cars gliding across my bedroom ceiling, I did just that. I closed my eyes and I folded my hands and I whispered into the darkness, “Thank you, Lord, for Miss Delphine.”

  And then I added, “Please help me get to Disney World. Amen.”

  11

  “Don’t be shy, now,” Miss Delphine said. “There’s plenty more.” She pushed a bowl of black-eyed peas across the table towards Ray.

  It looked to me like Ray Davis didn’t have one ounce of shy in him when it came to eating. He hunched over his plate and wiped around the edge with a piece of bread, sopping up juice from the collard greens and stewed tomatoes. Then he folded a piece of ham like a taco and scooped in a big blob of pickle relish.

  Harlem wrinkled his nose at me and I wrinkled mine back. But Miss Delphine, she smiled like she’d just been crowned Queen of the Universe.

  “How about another deviled egg?” she said.

  Ray looked up like he was surprised to see the three of us sitting there. “Huh?” he said, his cheeks bulging out with ham. “Oh, yeah. Don’t mind if I do.”

  When he reached for a deviled egg, that scaly green snake tattoo stretched out and then coiled back again like it was alive. Like any minute now it was going to come slithering right off his arm and into the collard greens.

  Miss Delphine stood up and smoothed her short red skirt. Then she straightened the ruffles on her pink blouse and fluffed her curly hair. Her flowery perfume floated in the air around her.

  We were wearing the same colors, but something told me we didn’t look too much alike. The red-checked skirt Miss Delphine had given me to wear was pinned at my waist with a giant safety pin.

  “Don’t worry,” she had said. “Nobody’s gonna see that pin.” Then she had pulled her pink sweater with the sparkly gold threads over my head and smoothed my hair.

  “There,” she’d said, standing back and examining her work. I still wasn’t too sure about my look, but Miss Delphine put her arm around me and led me to the mirror. There we stood, side by side, her looking like a valentine beauty queen and me with my legs bowed out like the letter “O” and my toothpick arms dangling at my sides and my ears sticking out through my stringy hair. Miss Delphine had jiggled my shoulder and said, “Aren’t we a sight for sore eyes?”

  Ray and Harlem had showed up early, standing under the porch light with their new haircuts all combed down slick. They had brought a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and Miss Delphine had squealed, “Lookit this, Bird. Doughnuts!” like she was thrilled to death even though she had made an apple pie, so we sure didn’t need those doughnuts.

  Me and Miss Delphine had decorated the living room with crepe paper streamers and flowers made out of pink tissues. We had cut alphabet letters out of construction paper and taped them on the walls and curtains. There was a checkered tablecloth on the table, with a vase of pink and red carnations in the middle. We lit candles and turned on the tiny white Christmas lights we’d strung over the windows, and that room I’d been in a thousand times looked like a brand-new fairyland.

  Ray and Harlem had sat there with their eyes bugged out while me and Miss Delphine carried in bowl after bowl of steaming food. Miss Delphine brought Pop in and pushed his wheelchair up to the table. She tucked his napkin under his chin and smoothed his hair down with her hand. Then she said grace.

  “Thank you, Lord, for this food we are about to receive, and please help
Bird and Harlem get through the ‘T’ words. Amen.”

  We all laughed and then the eating started and I didn’t think it would ever stop. Leastways, not for Ray. Even when Miss Delphine said, “I think Pop’s probably ready for bed,” Ray was still mopping pie crumbs off his plate with the back of his spoon.

  Miss Delphine pulled Pop’s wheelchair away from the table and wiped his face. As they headed for the bedroom, Pop lifted a shaky hand and said, “Bye.” He looked happy, like he was pleased as anything to be there at the spelling bee party.

  When Miss Delphine finished helping Pop to bed, she grinned at us and said, “Now let’s have a spelling bee.”

  “Don’t go past ‘S,’ okay?” I said.

  “I know, I know.” Miss Delphine opened the dictionary. “Who’s first? Ray, you keep score, okay?”

  And so it started. Me on one team and Harlem on the other. By the time we got to “F,” I was losing big-time and Harlem was starting to bug me, all slouched down on the couch with his legs stuck out halfway across the room, rattling off those letters like he was bored silly. When he missed “granddaughter” (only put one “d” in there. Ha!), I covered my mouth with my hand to hide my smile and Miss Delphine shot me a look.

  Finally Miss Delphine called out “souvenir” and the last drop of minding-my-manners went right on down the drain.

  “This is stupid!” I hollered. “I can’t do this. We might as well forget it.”

  Then I stomped out of that fairyland room in my shiny black shoes that hurt my feet, and I made sure the door slammed hard behind me. I went out into the darkness and squatted by the magnolia tree, burying my head in my arms and waiting for Miss Delphine to come after me.

  But she didn’t. Harlem did.

  “Bird?” he called into the darkness.

  “Go away.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Right in front of you, you idiot.”

  In the glow of the streetlight I could see Harlem groping his way across the yard, like a blind man.