“You notice she ain’t calling on you no more in class?”
“I do.”
“Well, what you thank of that, smarty?”
“I try not to think about it.”
“She thanks you a asshole, too.”
I recognized all three voices, but I was shocked by the last one. Never before had Rosetta Jones spoken in anger to me. I couldn’t resist looking up at her.
“You spent all those nights on my porch eating my mama and daddy’s food. Now you throw that crap in my face?”
“You ought not to be such a asshole,” she said and walked away with the group.
I began to break down.
By the time spring came, isolation had defeated me. I tried hard to make new friends and recapture old ones. I stopped going off into my little world at recess and attempted to participate in their games. But they were having none of it. I figured they were just being tough, basking in the glow of their obvious victory over me. I figured they were making me sweat a little before letting me back into the gang. Once, I even apologized to T. Wall and Beno for this silliness I had cooked up. It hurt me terribly to do that. They just laughed and walked off.
Some days I would find myself kissing up to them, almost willing to go to my knees and beg for some friendship. By the end of those days, I’d always feel nauseous. I rode home on my no-longer perfect bike, completely uncomfortable with myself. It made me sick to know that I had offered to trade my dignity for friendship.
How desperate did I become over that spring? I am embarrassed to think about it. I contemplated all sorts of measures to get back into their good graces. I let my grades fall by flunking a couple of tests. But they didn’t take it as a sign of good faith. They took it to mean that they had successfully broken me.
Home was no better. Mark was busy giving me hell because I had failed tests, and I began to hate that he was my brother. That, as well as our competitive nature, caused me to stop flunking. Maybe Mrs. Leggett yelling at me influenced me a little, too.
The days wore and wore on me. Finally Mama Jennie got tired of hearing me complain, and she sat me down to talk. We were on her screened front porch, looking out over her hill and her flowers.
“I always did love the spring, though I can’t enjoy much of it ’cause somebody always be sitting beside me complaining about this or that. I can’t even hear the little birdies singing.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay, son. The ole lady just toying with you. Let’s have us a discussion and see if we can’t get all this stuff offa that chest of yours.”
I settled into a big wicker chair, and she rocked in her favorite porch rocker. I took a big swallow of her sweet, sun-brewed iced tea.
“I don’t understand, Mama Jennie,” I said. “I want to be their friend, but I don’t know what to do. I love reading. I love learning. I tried to apologize, but they won’t let me off the hook. But I’m not dropping my grades anymore. And I ought not to be blamed for the way Mrs. Leggett treated me in the beginning. I can’t help what she does!”
“I know that, baby.”
“Then, if I can see that, and Bojack can see that and you can see that, how come they can’t see it?”
“I can’t really explain it, honey. Folks just gets afraid of stuff they don’t understand completely.”
“What can they possibly be afraid of? And so what if they are? It ain’t their life.”
She turned away from me, raised her eyebrows, and took a deep breath. I looked out over the boardwalk and watched an old man crossing it, carrying a bag of groceries from the Colonial Store.
“Once,” she said, bringing my attention back to her, “they was these two colored boys living up near what’s now Porter’s Trailer Park. Use to be nothing but a bunch a ole shacks all lined up in a row that was slaves’ houses. Anyhow, not too long ago, these two boys was there, and they liked each other in the way mens and womens suppose to like each other. You know, falling in love and all that. More than just being friends. You know what I’m getting at, son?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, maybe you is reading too much these days,” she replied, smiling. “So anyways, some of these no-account Negroes ’round here decided they was gone teach them boys a lesson. Went on and beat ’em bad and then took and run ’em right out of town. Some say they used a broomstick on ’em in a certain way. The thang was, them boys won’t bothering nobody but theyselves. If you was to find it unnatural, then that be fine for you, but that’s all the far you should take it. But some folks can’t hold theyselves back with thangs of that nature. Thangs that go against what they feels is the natural grain. And more important than that even is that they afraid that they might see something of theyselves in there somewhere, and they can’t handle that, so they got to get it out of they lives.”
“Well, I don’t see how they figure that trying to educate myself is against the natural grain.”
“You see anybody around here trying to do what you doing?”
“Mark is.”
“I mean somebody like you. Talking up about it and ain’t ruled by what people be thanking about you. Mark is just like his mama. I ain’t saying he ain’t going no place, ’cause he’s a smart child, too, but he ain’t sure of himself, or he wouldn’t be trying so hard not to offend nobody by going full force after what he want. No, I’m talking about a shining star.”
“Well, if I’m that, I’m not the first. There was Billy Ellis.”
“And look how folks helped him out.”
“Why would they be afraid to see themselves in me or to be like me? I don’t think I’m anything special, but I’m not bad, and to want what I want isn’t bad. I don’t see how it can hurt.”
“Maybe some of them want to do what you doing. Some of them probably afraid of trying and falling on they faces and being embarrassed in front of everybody. Some of them look at what you doing and see a big, nasty dark forest staring back at ’em. They might know that they is something good on the other side, but they afraid of what’s in them woods they got to go through to get there. Along with a whole bunch a other thangs, folks ’round here remember the Applegates being found dead in that cornfield over yonder near your place. They remember what the Ellis family was and see what it is. It just look like something they can’t handle, something that ain’t worth stirring up white folks for and maybe getting killed over and all. Some Negroes just feel all that reading and studying and trying to be a big lawyer or something ain’t a Negro’s place. Like I say, against the natural grain.”
I nodded. “Aunt Mary told me that a nigger by any other name is still a nigger.”
“Well, there you go, then. She don’t believe Negroes oughta be nothing. Talk like that just back up what I say.”
“Why do they believe that? When they go around saying stuff like that, don’t it just keep other people from trying? How can she believe we ain’t supposed to be anything? Doesn’t she know she’s just doing what white folks want her to do? She claims she hates them, but she helps them keep us down.”
“Chile, that ain’t nothing new to this ole woman. Back in slave days . . . you know who Nat Turner was?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Funny how they don’t teach you nothing about Negroes in them school books,” she said angrily. “Nat was a slave. He led a rebellion. Got a bunch of slaves together and went on the run killing white folk from plantation to plantation. Even the white children. Now, I ain’t for no whole lotta killing, but in times of war—and that is what it was—you gotta do what you gotta do. I don’t fault Nat none. He was trying to free hisself and his peoples. But don’t you know, one time he went to a plantation, and they was a waiting for him and his mens. They started shooting at ’em soon as they rode into the plantation, and don’t you know that most of the shooting from the plantation side was from slaves. Negroes killing Negroes for the white man. Helping them crackers keep them in they place, all because they been brainwashed into believ
ing that’s where they belonged. Been going on for a dog’s age, chile.” She shook her head and sighed. “My Lord!”
“I guess I had figured out that we do this to ourselves. I just didn’t want to believe it.”
“Well, believe it. ’Cause if you don’t believe it, you can’t fix it for yourself or nobody else.”
“Huh! I couldn’t fix it for me or anybody else long as they keep treating me like I’m the evil white man.”
“I reckon they thank you trying to be white and all.”
“I don’t see how they figure that.”
“Look at the way you be talking and all. Doing that studying and stuff. They thank you trying to act white, so they tries to act white back at you in they own way.”
“I don’t see how they feel the way they’re acting is white.”
“Well, lotta folks feel like most of being white just include a person being powerful enough to dump on anybody he wants to. So maybe they trying to look at you through them kinda white eyes, like they big enough to keep you down in your place, so you won’t get up’ty. If they can keep you down, then they done showed you they in control of your life. Just like white folks been keeping us down, afraid of what might happen if they takes they heels offa us. Maybe we might show ’em that we smart, too, and start running some of the stuff they been running all these long years.”
I didn’t want Mama Jennie to see me fighting off tears, so I got up and walked across the porch and stared out the other side. I heard her rocker begin to creak, and I knew she was doing what I had seen her do many times before. She was rocking back and forth, gathering enough momentum to help propel herself to her feet. Then I heard the familiar tapping of her old, thick-heeled, black lace-up shoes against the wooden floor. I felt her behind me and then her hands on my shoulders. I could hold it in no more.
“Go ahead and cry, baby,” she said. “Ain’t nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I’m so tired of being called an Uncle Tom.”
“That hurt, don’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am. A lot.”
“See, the white folks got the word nigger. They use it when they want you to feel like you lower than the nastiest insect alive. They use it ’cause they know it makes you hate yourself when you hear it, and you got to fight against it. But sometimes it takes all the strength you got and wears you down to a nub. When colored folks want to make another colored person feel like they ain’t nothing, they use Uncle Tom. It’s colored folks’ words for nigger. Same meaning, and it ain’t no easier to listen to, I swear.”
“I hate thinking they know they have me beat.”
“Ain’t nobody got you beat, child. You too young to be beat in a lifetime type of struggle.”
“They laugh at me,” I said. “When I ask to do things with them.”
“Don’t be begging, son.”
“But I like to have fun, too. I like friends. I remember what it was like to be with the guys.”
“You got to get they respect first. They ain’t gone let you do nothing long as you begging ’em for it.”
“How do I do that?”
“Become a quiet man. Hold to yourself. I don’t just mean in body, I mean your thoughts, too. Keep them inside yourself. Don’t beg, whine, or nothing like that in front of nobody. Keep you to you, and don’t let nobody know you but so well. Make people wonder what you is all about. Then, they be respecting you. People always respect what they don’t know good. It might be out of fear of what they don’t know about you, but that be alright too. Just as long as they respects you.”
I listened to her good sense. I understood it, but I still didn’t want to believe all of it was necessary.
“Why do I have to go through so many changes? All I ever wanted was to try and make something of myself.”
“Let me tell you something now, Evan. You ever hear the crabs-in-a-bushel-basket theory?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Well, listen up, and listen up good.”
I turned around to face her. She kept her hands on my shoulders and looked right into my eyes.
“Negroes,” she said, “is sometimes like crabs in a bushel basket. See, if you catch about three-quarters a bushel basket and watch ’em, you see ’em trying to climb to the top to get out.”
“That’s natural, ain’t it?”
“Sho’ it is. As natural as you trying to get ahead. But if you was to watch carefully, you be seeing that every time one crab gets just about to the top, another one’ll reach his ole claw up there and snatch that first one back down into the crowd. Negroes is sometimes like that; don’t want one to get ahead if the rest can’t. Just like them crabs. You hear what I’m saying?”
“I understand.”
“Good,” she said. She pulled a tissue out of her pocket and wiped my eyes. “But don’t you accept none of this mess, now. When they grab you by the leg and try to keep you down, you take that loose foot and kick ’em right in the face. You hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And then don’t even look back. That’s why you need so many changes. It be the only way for you to be getting where you want to get.”
“I hear you,” I said. She hugged me tight and kissed me on the top of my head.
“All right then,” she said softly. “That’s my man. That’s my Evan.”
1969
CANAAN, VIRGINIA
SIX
Going to church was a big part of life in Canaan. I can’t think of a person from my community that didn’t participate in the Sunday ritual, and there were plenty of congregations to accommodate them. It felt like the town had one church for every fifty people. There were the traditional churches like ours, Grace Street Baptist, and several holy-roller churches headed by, as Daddy called them, “jack-leg” preachers who “woke up one day and decided they was called or something or other. Jumped up in the first pulpit they could find and commenced to yelling about nothing. Can’t preach a lick, but they right good at passing the plate!”
I enjoyed that Sunday custom, except during football season, when Reverend Walker seemed to sense that my favorite team, the Dallas Cowboys, was playing and would preach well into the first quarter. His sermons, football season or not, were not the reasons I enjoyed being there. He had been preaching practically the same sermon for years. It would start out slowly, usually with the picking of a verse or two upon which to expound. Somewhere in the middle of the sermon, he lost sight of the particular verse and fell into the general “God is good and Satan is bad.” The hellfire-and-brimstone portion came at the end, with stomping, hopping around the pulpit and flailing his arms. He would point to the choir director, and the choir would sing a song while he wiped his brow. This routine was broken, though only slightly, on holidays.
On Christmas you could expect the usual sermon and likewise on Easter. But I guess nobody minded much. Just like people seemed comfortable with their lot in Canaan life, they seemed fine with Reverend Walker’s monotony.
One thing I did like was the choir. Only when it was in the midst of a robust, body-swaying, hand-clapping, tear-jerking gospel did I truly feel the presence of God. I remember well one special summer night during revival services. A minister from a church in Norfolk was visiting. All through his sermon about Job, you could hear a rumbling in the sky. Just as he finished and the choir was into one of those famous gospels, a thunderstorm hit us in full force. The organist played louder, and the choir sang with a new intensity. I heard an old woman shouting from the balcony, “Sing it to him, children! I do believe he’s a-talking back!”
Outside, the thunder roared. Lightning flashed so brightly that the holy scenes on the stained-glass windows seemed to come alive. Christ’s eyes flashed a certain comfort to me from a glowing cross. I felt like I was on Calvary, too, looking up at him as the storm turned the day into night.
This choir was swaying and Reverend Walker had joined in. I felt something I couldn’t put my finger on, but I knew it was good and it gave me goos
e bumps. I rocked from side to side, clapping, stomping and sweating. My young voice rang out. Then, in a flash of light and a great boom of thunder, the electricity went out and with it went the organ. Afterward, some people swore that it wasn’t the storm, but the organist; she played the organ with such feeling that the rest of the electrical system overloaded. Whichever, the organist didn’t miss a beat. In the dark, she slid over to the piano and the gospel continued. The choir couldn’t be seen, but you could feel them moving and singing. Before it was all over, the congregation was standing, clapping and singing in the dark. It went on for the better part of an hour.
But I was in church mostly for the fun stuff—congregation watching, specifically. I enjoyed observing the old ladies “getting happy.” It was easy to pick them out before the act really took place. They would be rocking back and forth in their seats during the sermon. When the rocking couldn’t use up the excess emotional energy, they would start to vocalize it. “Uh huh!” then “Yes Lord!” then “Preach on, brother!” then “Tell the truth, Reverend!” right on into the crescendo of “Thank you, Jesus!” and “Hallelujah!” Then, when words could no longer use up those relentless feelings, the true act of “getting happy” usually took place. The ladies got physical, standing at their seats or in the aisles still screaming, but also jumping, throwing their arms about, crying and fainting. Just before the fainting point, a group of younger women would grab the older women and take them back to their seats and fan them. Miss Betsy Williams was famous for “getting happy.” You could predict her crescendo moment as accurately as a Reverend Walker sermon.
I also liked the deacons who fell asleep during the sermon. Especially Deacon Tadd Wells, who would sleep every Sunday and wake up suddenly and shout “Amen” at the top of his lungs, usually at the most inappropriate moments.
Eugenia was also fond of resting through sermons. Once, she began to snore loudly. People looked at her with disgust, as if the looks alone would wake her up. But Eugenia was a heavy sleeper. Taliferro would nudge her to wake her up; he once nudged so hard she fell off the pew and onto the floor with a huge thud that stopped Reverend Walker mid-sentence. Everyone in the church became quiet, waiting for a sign from Eugenia indicating that she was all right. Up from the floor of Grace Street Baptist Church came another healthy and obnoxious snore. The children could not restrain their laughter. But even that couldn’t compare to the day Eliza Blizzard made rounds.
The Emancipation of Evan Walls Page 9
