Darby

by Jonathon Scott Fuqua

  The man raised his voice back. “Mr. Carmichael, don’t you get disrespectful with me, ’specially after what you done!”

  Daddy said, “I’ll get as disrespectful as I want. That’s exactly what I’m gonna do. You stop me on the road like this again, and I’m gonna get real disrespectful. I’m gonna get downright nasty.”

  Laughing, the man said, “Oh, yer a big fella, Mr. Carmichael, but you couldn’t shake no bullet, I don’t think. You take a look in that back window of my car, and you’ll see I didn’t come alone. The Ku Klux Klan don’t ever come alone. So next time you get ta feelin’ so friendly, you best consider the cost. Y’understand?”

  My daddy didn’t talk.

  “You hear me okay, Mr. Carmichael?”

  Daddy opened his car door, and he got in. He got the Buick rolling forward and around the man and the car that was sitting in the middle of the road. After a few minutes of driving, he said, “Darby? Darby, sweetheart, it’s okay. Those boys just needed directions. They’re from Columbia, and they lost their way, was all.”

  I started to cry. I couldn’t stop. Bawling, I said, “I . . . I heard what he said, Daddy! I heard him say he was from the Ku Klux Klan and how you might get shot by a bullet.”

  Upstairs, hidden from Aunt Greer, Mama squeezed me hard and told me that nothing bad was going to come of what happened. But I couldn’t stop crying. It was terrible. I didn’t want my daddy to die, and I didn’t want to, either. “I . . . I hate Mr. Dunn,” I sobbed.

  My mama rocked me good. She said, “Mr. Dunn probably didn’t have anything to do with what happened.”

  Placing a hand on my head, Daddy told me, “Darby, they’re all bluster and nothing more. The Klan is all bluster.”

  “What’s bluster mean?”

  “Means hot air,” Mama explained.

  “That’s what they’re full of,” Daddy declared, “just like a balloon. Besides, I promise you, we’re gonna be fine. I wouldn’t ever let something happen to you, your brother, or Mama.”

  “You forgot about Aunt Greer,” Mama joked.

  He laughed. “That’s right, Aunt Greer, too.”

  Smiling a little, I said, “How about your camellia bushes?”

  A grin came on his face. “Now you’re playing dirty. I wouldn’t allow anyone or anything to lay a hand on those.”

  Smiling wider, I snuffled. “Daddy, I swiped a bud for my hair on Monday.”

  “Oh, I know you did,” he said. “You always take them from the bush over by the smokehouse.”

  Surprised that he knew about that, I couldn’t help feeling better.

  When I woke up on the morning of my birthday, what happened the night before seemed like a scary dream that wouldn’t melt away. Still, I tried not to think too hard on the skinny man with missing teeth. Whenever I started to, I focused on turning nine and how I was going to have cake and get some presents after lunch. That made me feel better.

  Shaking from the cold, I slipped from my bed and rushed over to the fire that was snapping and sizzling on the andirons in my hearth. Freezing, I snuck so close I nearly climbed in. When I was warm, I rushed to the wardrobe and got my best dress from a hanger and slid it on as quick as I could. Then I found some socks and buckled on my Sunday shoes. Pulling a sweater around me, I charged downstairs to the warm kitchen.

  “Hey, Annie Jane,” I said, and went straight to the stove, which I commenced to leaning against.

  “Happy birthday, youngin.” Annie Jane was poking at strips of sizzling bacon with a fork. She wore a kerchief on her head, and her dress was one of Mama’s old ones with real small flowers all over it and a tearing hemline.

  “You know what Mama’s got planned for today?” I asked her.

  “I ain’t saying.”

  I leaned flat against the oven’s warm sides. “Annie Jane, what kinda cake are you making me?”

  “Your favorite.”

  “Chocolate?”

  “Yas, ma’am.”

  Inside the stove, logs roared. “Do you think I gotta eat breakfast, or can I save up for my party?”

  Annie Jane bobbed her head from side to side. “Oh, I’m sure you gots ta eat somethin’.”

  “Maybe just a little bacon?”

  “Full meal is what I ’spect your tummy be calling for.”

  Warmed up, I wandered away from the stove and over to the window. I looked down on our outbuildings and the Darby and Beth School. “I wish eleven-thirty would hurry up,” I told her.

  “Let’s see,” she replied real easy-like, making a show of turning all the way around and staring at the wind-up clock, “you gots yourself a three-hour wait. You best figure out what to do so it don’t take forever.”

  Gazing at our sunny backyard, I was thinking, Three whole hours! when my daddy sauntered in for breakfast. Sitting down, he didn’t talk right away. Then, after gulping down a warm glass of milk, he dabbed his mouth with his napkin and gave me a good looking-over, like a teacher. “You okay, Darby?” he finally asked.

  “It’s my birthday,” I answered, and, directly, my head swam with pictures of the skinny Klan man and Daddy, looking like they were gonna grab each other. I trembled and smiled. “Right now, I’m real happy ’cause I’m already nine,” I told him.

  He nodded. “Yes, you are. The only reason I ask is I don’t want you worrying about last night.”

  “I ain’t,” I blurted.

  “I’m not,” he said, correcting my talk.

  “I’m not,” I repeated.

  Daddy scrunched his napkin into his lap. “That sort of thing can be scary, Darby, but you should know it doesn’t bother me a bit. Those boys aren’t so interested in us.”

  From the side of my eye, I could see Annie Jane watching and wondering what Daddy was meaning. “I know,” I told him, wanting to take an eraser and rub the Ku Klux Klan man out of my head like lines of chalk on a blackboard.

  I spent the morning out back, kicking the basketball against a fence and pole-vaulting. Every so often, a black family stopped by the Grab, which is this little building inside our backyard where tenant farmers can shop without going all the way to town. They come by and knock on our back door, and Mama or Aunt Greer runs out and helps them get supplies like flour or eggs or things of that sort. Then we mark it in a book, and my daddy takes it from their wages.

  Tenant farmers came and went from the Grab, and I watched the families until McCall shuffled out and we played basketball. Like usual, though, McCall got upset that I kept beating him, so he didn’t play too long before he went back inside. Bored, I walked into the front yard and skipped beneath our flagpole trees, kicking up pine needles in the grass. Traipsing all the way out to the highway, I ran across the cold, blowy road and dragged my feet along for fun, sending dust puffing into the air. Then, for no reason, I wandered into our big red barn that sometimes seems like a church with a steeple. I climbed up into the hayloft, where I stared out the loft door with its pulley and hoist above. Leaning, I peered across the fields. I saw past way-off tenant homes that looked more like crumpled woodpiles. I saw turkey vultures circling in the cold sky the way they do. I saw a line of trees that ends one of our smallest fields and starts Mr. Dunn’s property. And there was Mr. Dunn’s house, so little, as if ants lived in it. It wasn’t dark or mean or even real seeming. It didn’t look like a little kid would die there or like the owner would belong to the Ku Klux Klan, either. Nervous, I backed up and fell over a hay bale. Then I thought that it had to be near about eleven-thirty, so I ran back to Ellan as fast as I could. When I got there, I saw that I still had an hour and a half to wait.

  For my birthday party, Mama had made a fright show downstairs. She’d set up little booths and blankets all over. You reached your hand into a hole to feel a wolf’s brain or a witch’s tooth or monkey eyeballs, and that got all of us screaming so that for a while my party was crazy. It was gross fun, and it wasn’t till afterward that we found out the stuff we touched wasn’t real. The wolf’s brain was an oyster, and
the witch’s tooth was an arrowhead and the monkey eyeballs, they were two pickled quail eggs.

  Later, out in front of Ellan, as we took sticks and tried to burst open a bag full of candy and tiny presents, Sissy surprised me by telling Evette to fetch her a drink, which Evette did. Boy, that got me mad at the both of them. “You aren’t here to help,” I told Evette. To Sissy, I said, “She’s our friend and isn’t gonna get stuff for anyone but herself.” But that didn’t stop anybody from treating her different.

  Even though it was a little cold out, Mama and Aunt Greer had set four small tables in the backyard. They were real pretty, too, with white cloths draped over the tops and nice cups and glasses arranged right. Also, because I was the birthday girl, I got to choose who I wanted to sit alongside me, and I decided on Evette and Beth even though it wasn’t exactly proper for a white girl to eat alongside a black girl. I didn’t care, though. During lunch I even told them, “I wish for my birthday that we were friends and that the three of us would do anything for each other. I wish we were pretend sisters.”

  Evette answered, “Beth don’t wanna be my sister.”

  Beth gave a shrug, causing the shoulders of her coat to rise up beside her pretty ears, which are the other things about her I want.

  “She’s saying she doesn’t mind being pretend sisters,” I informed Evette.

  Beth said, “I’m not saying that.”

  I gave her a stern stare. “You should, ’cause Evette’s so nice and you are, and it doesn’t make any sense that we wouldn’t be pretend sisters.”

  “Sure it does,” Evette told me. “It’s ’cause I’m black.”

  “No it isn’t,” I told her, but right off I knew she was right.

  Quiet for a little bit, Beth pushed a piece of cake around with a spoon. Then she finally spoke. “If it’s what you want, Darby, just for this afternoon I’ll play sisters.”

  Smiling, I told her, “Thanks,” and I swung about and made big eyes at Evette.

  She bulged hers back. “I suppose you wants me to play like we’re sisters, too?”

  I told her, “It’s my birthday.” Taking up both of their hands, I said, “We’re playing sisters.”

  Sitting at the other tables, my friends looked at us.

  “We’re playing sisters,” I announced again.

  Sissy frowned. “How can you be sisters? She’s black.”

  Angry, I told her, “We’re just playing, is how.”

  After cake, Mama and Aunt Greer got some games going. We pinned paper tails on the outline of a donkey and did musical chairs with a phonograph. We were sitting in the cold grass, playing hot potato, when Boog’s daddy arrived to take him and Shoog, who was his neighbor, home. Then Helen’s brother drove up and carried her and Jack-Henry back into town. A few minutes later, Beth’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild, bounced down the driveway in their Cadillac, pulling up next to the Grab. Getting out, Mrs. Fairchild came over to us while Mr. Fairchild waved and went into Ellan. Watching the door shut behind him, I wondered if he wanted to talk to my daddy about the Klan man. I stared at the back side of the house for a few minutes. Then I forgot and listened to Mrs. Josephine Fairchild’s funny story about one of her birthday parties when she was little. She told about how her daddy had made up an extra-large pot of Brunswick stew, and their dog found it and pushed the top off and tried climbing in before it spilled on top of him.

  “Did your dog get burnt?” Evette asked.

  “Luckily, it wasn’t steaming hot.”

  “If it was, he might’ve cooked,” I said.

  “You’re right,” she agreed.

  Mrs. Fairchild started in on another story about her dog, and by the time she was finishing up, my daddy and Mr. Fairchild came out the back door and moseyed in a circle around us, stopping by the laundry house. They began laughing.

  I peeked over at Beth and smiled.

  She smiled back.

  Turning, Beth’s mama said to me, “Darby, I nearly forgot to tell you. I loved your article in the Bennettsville Times.”

  “You did?” I asked.

  “It was exceptionally sweet,” she declared.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” I told her. “I got another one coming out next week. But I don’t think it’s gonna be sweet. It’s different ’cause Evette helped fix it up and . . . and . . .” I sputtered to a stop. My heart sunk because I’d just given away the secret me and Mr. Salter were keeping.

  “Evette,” Mama said, turning toward my friend, “you helped her write about Great-Uncle Harvey?”

  Shaking her head, Evette answered, “No, ma’am. I just fixed things when she asked me to. My aunt’s been writing for a newspaper in New York, so I’ve wanted to write. I wanted to since I was little.”

  Mama looked back at me. “Is that why you got the itch to write articles, because of Evette?”

  For a minute or two, I considered not telling the truth and even thought about running over to my daddy. But I didn’t do either. I stood my ground and repeated to myself that newspaper girls are supposed to tell the truth.

  I said, “Yes, Mama, she’s how I got the idea. I liked what Evette told me about newspaper girls, and I was thinking that if I don’t ever have any money and can’t ever afford new dresses and jewelry, then I might wanna do something like that.”

  My mama turned toward Evette. “I’m impressed you’ve got such a fine grasp of the language.”

  “I guess I just do,” Evette whispered.

  Mrs. Fairchild touched Evette on the head. “I think it’s wonderful that you want to be a writer.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” she answered bashfully.

  Beth tugged at her mama’s dress. “Me and Evette and Darby, we played like we were sisters today.”

  Mrs. Fairchild nodded. “Do you want to be a writer now?”

  “We didn’t talk about that,” Beth admitted.

  Nervous, I watched Mama’s face soften to the notion that I’d copied Evette. Like everyone in Marlboro County, my mama has a lot of respect for Mrs. Fairchild, and if Mrs. Fairchild believes something is okay, everyone usually decides that way with her.

  “So, Darby, how was your party?” Mrs. Fairchild asked me.

  “Oh, it was fun. Mama set up a fright show and we had games and ice cream and cake and such, and we played tag. But I haven’t opened my presents yet so that other kids don’t get jealous.”

  Laughing, Mrs. Fairchild pushed some of her pretty curls behind an ear.

  My daddy and Mr. Fairchild walked over. Tilting his hat, Mr. Fairchild said, “Hello, Greer and Big Darby and Sissy. Happy birthday, Little Darby.” Then he surprised me and stuck a hand on one of Evette’s shoulders. Squatting down, he smiled at her. “Darby’s daddy just told me you’re Elwood Robinson’s daughter. Is that right?”

  Evette’s eyes became wide and worried. “Yes, sir.”

  “Darby’s daddy thinks the world of your father.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I got a question for you.”

  “Okay, sir.”

  “How does your daddy know Mr. Hawkins, the man whose boy died the other night?”

  She shrugged. “They’s friends from church, sir. My daddy and Mr. Hawkins collects the money in baskets and sometimes they go to church at night to discuss things.”

  “Did you know Mr. Hawkins’s boy?”

  “Yes, sir. His name was Devin, and he was older. He was nice to me, but once I saw him pull his sister’s hair.”

  Mr. Fairchild nodded and let go of Evette’s shoulder. Standing, he smoothed out the top of his pants. He told her, “It was a sad thing that happened.”

  Evette said, “Yes, sir.”

  When everyone was gone and Annie Jane was doing dishes, I opened my presents from Mama and Daddy and Aunt Greer while McCall sat nearby and watched. “Hurry up,” he egged me, “ I wanna see if I like anything.”

  I said, “It doesn’t matter ’cause I won’t let you have it.”

  Altogether there were three present
s, and I picked the biggest one first. Tearing it open, I found a new wool sweater that Mama had knit me. Holding it in the air, I imagined myself wearing it to school. “It’s so pretty,” I told her. Getting up, I gave her a big hug. The next gift I opened was wrapped in a kitchen cloth. As I undid it, I recognized that it was a little plaster sculpture of a horse with Robert E. Lee, the famous Southern general from the Civil War, alongside him. Since before I could recollect, my daddy had kept that teeny sculpture on his desk at Carmichael Dry Goods. On account of the horse being so proud and handsome, I always liked it. When I’d sit in his office, I’d pretend that the horse was a unicorn and Robert E. Lee was a princess.

  “Thank you, Daddy,” I told him, getting up and giving him a hug.

  “I know how much you liked it.”

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling dizzy from happiness.

  The last thing I got was a pecan pie that Aunt Greer had made me.

  “Can I have some?” I asked.

  “Not till after dinner,” Aunt Greer said.

  That night while tucking me in bed, Mama said, “Was it a good day, sweetheart?”

  “Yeah,” I told her, looking into her round, friendly face. Unless she’s mad, she’s so sweet-looking that you just want to climb into her arms and have her hold you tight and delicate. Sometimes, it seems impossible that she was considered one of the hardest and meanest teachers at the Murchison School. But everyone says that it’s true, that when she first got to town, she was serious and difficult and didn’t want anything to do with the locals, including my daddy. I guess that changed after he asked her to marry him.

  “Mama, are you angry about me wanting to be a newspaper girl?”

  She laughed. “No, Darby. Newspaper writing isn’t ladylike, but it’s not a horrible thing for a girl to try her hand at.”

  “Evette’s real smart,” I told her. “If she wasn’t black, she’d be a genius.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Mama,” I said, “why do you think Mr. Fairchild asked her all those questions?”

  She shook her head. “Who knows?”

  I said, “Mama, I love my sweater, and the fright show was perfect.”