It was a night of miracles.
“And here’s one marked for a little girl. How about you, dear?” called the city lady, and beckoned to Pattie-Cake.
Spellbound, forgetting her mother’s admonition about accepting charity, Pattie-Cake moved toward the bearer of gifts. Clay-Boy reached for her, but she was beyond his grasp.
The other children pressed in against Clay-Boy with urgent whispers.
“What’s Daddy goen to say?”
“We won’t tell him.”
“He’ll find out.”
“We’ll hide it till he’s gone back to Waynesboro,” Clay-Boy replied.
Pattie-Cake accepted the present, thanked the lady, then ran back to her brothers and sisters. They crowded around her in a tight little circle to watch her open the rectangular box.
Two small, elegantly shoed doll feet appeared as the box was opened and the tissue paper folded back. Then two pink dimpled knees and the beginning of a crisp white organdy dress. “Oh,” and “Oh,” murmured Pattie-Cake with each new revelation of the doll until at last the face came into view. She stared down at it for a moment, the delight in her face still shining, and then her cries of joy turned to sobs.
“What’s the matter, honey?” asked Becky.
Pattie-Cake held out the doll. Suddenly thrust from an upright to a horizontal position, the doll cried “Mama,” and its yellow hair fell away from around the permanently arched eyes to reveal that its face was cracked apart from its hair line to its throat. Some ineffectual attempt had been made to glue the face together again, for little beads of glue had formed along the separate sides of the face, but the repair job had not lasted.
“It’s ugly,” cried Pattie-Cake, dropping the doll in the snow and burying her face in Clay-Boy’s lap.
“I’ll fix it, honey,” said Clay-Boy comfortingly.
“It’s scary,” sobbed Pattie-Cake.
The city lady, perplexed, looked out at the children and then called, “What’s the matter over there?”
The city lady started toward the group, now knowing the problem, but bent upon making amends. Before she reached them a great feeling of shame swept over Clay-Boy. He felt that he had betrayed his father and brought dishonor to the family. He reached down, scooped Pattie-Cake up in his arms and led the way off toward home. Not one of them looked back to their friends and neighbors who had lowered themselves by accepting something they had not earned.
No one spoke on the way home except for Becky, who cursed aloud to the night and the snow.
“Sons-of-bitches! It’s just like Daddy always claims,” said Becky bitterly. “Nobody ever gave away anything worth keepen!”
And for once everyone was in complete agreement with Becky.
FIVE
Olivia was feeding wood to the old cooking range. She watched the first red blaze appear, heard the sharp crackle and then a spit of sparks. The wood was dry. It would make a hot flame for roasting the turkey. She had objected mildly when Homer and Ida had left, but now that they were gone it was good to be alone in the house, free of her mother’s suggestions that Clay was off playing poker, or drinking whiskey, or spending the week’s paycheck in sinful ways. She poked the stove wood, and when she was satisfied that the fire was going well, she closed out the bright eye of the fire with a stove lid.
She felt better now that she had a plan. It was a village custom that if the man of the house did not return home at some reasonable hour the oldest child in the family would go looking for him. Olivia had taken some pride that she had never had to send Clay-Boy to look for Clay, but tonight she would sacrifice pride. When the children arrived home she installed the younger ones at the radio in the living room and quietly called Clay-Boy into the kitchen.
“What’s the matter, Mama?” asked Clay-Boy, his hands outstretched over the cooking range to catch its warmth.
“I didn’t want to say it in front of anybody, but I’m worried about your daddy.”
“I expect his bus is late. It’s a right snowy night.”
“Could be any one of a thousand things. Bus could of slid off the road. Maybe he’s already at Hickory Creek and the snow’s too thick for him to walk the six miles home. It’s a blizzard outside.”
“I could go look for him, I reckon,” said Clay-Boy. Having thought of it, the boy warmed to the idea. It was better than sitting home waiting.
“I thought maybe if you could find Charlie Sneed. He’s got that old truck. You tell him I said to ride you over to Hickory Creek and see if there’s any sign of Clay walken.”
“Charlie’s down at the pool hall, or was. I saw his truck down there a while ago.”
“Then you try to catch him. Tell Charlie we’ll pay for the gas.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“Don’t say anything to the children. I don’t want them to worry.”
Clay-Boy slipped into his father’s old sheepskin jacket and buttoned it across his chest. The jacket was big on him, and he seemed to disappear somewhere inside it, his thin, freckled face swimming inside the turned-up collar.
“What you goen to wear on your head?” asked Olivia.
“My cap’s a little wet, but it’ll do,” replied Clay-Boy.
“Wait a minute,” said Olivia. She disappeared into the bedroom and returned with a package wrapped in white tissue paper and tied with a red ribbon bow.
“This was goen to be your present from Santa Claus,” she said. “You’re getten it early.”
From the package Clay-Boy removed a red woolen cap. Olivia had knitted it herself in the long nights alone in the living room after the children had gone to bed and before sleep caught up with her.
“It’s right pretty, Mama,” said Clay-Boy gratefully, and placed the cap on his head.
“Pull it down over your ears. I made it plenty long so your ears wouldn’t freeze.”
Olivia found a long warm scarf and wrapped it around his throat so that with the cap above and the scarf below all that could be seen of Clay-Boy were his eyes.
“And if somebody asks what you’re doen out, don’t you tell them you’re looken for your daddy,” admonished Olivia as he looked back in parting.
“Yes, ma’am,” answered Clay-Boy. He closed the door behind him and thrust himself into the elements. A hard wind slashed the sleet and snow, almost whipping his breath away for a moment, but the coat and cap and scarf protected him. He felt like a warm old turtle inside his shell.
At the corner where the road turned he looked back at the house, but all that was visible were vague damp patches of light which shone from the windows. He plunged down the road into darkness, making his way more from memory than any landmark he could find with his eyes.
Charlie Sneed’s truck was still parked in front of the pool hall when Clay-Boy staggered up through the blizzard. Underneath the single street light he noticed that Charlie had grown careless, for the tarpaulin which covered the back of the pick-up truck had been left loose and underneath, clearly visible, was the antlered head of the poached deer. Clay-Boy pulled the tarpaulin back in place, climbed the steps to the pool hall and entered.
The room he had come into was called “the Restaurant.” It occupied one long quarter of the rectangular building, the remainder of the building being given over to the pool hall. A counter lit by a row of bare electric overhead lights ran the length of the restaurant. Tables with soapstone tops surrounded by chairs of a variety of styles filled the remainder of the room. From the adjoining room came the solid click of pool balls hitting against each other.
Clay-Boy was uncertain of his reception here. There was an unwritten law that no children and no decent woman ever entered the building. It was strictly a man’s preserve and a jealously guarded one.
“Hey,” said a voice which came from Ike Godsey. Ike appeared from behind the counter where he was lethargically washing glasses in a steaming tub of soapy water. Ike, the bald, round-faced owner, bar-tender, chef and bouncer combined, looked at Clay-Boy with surp
rise and displeasure.
“You know I can’t serve you, Clay-Boy,” complained Ike. “Don’t you know better’n that?”
“I know that, Mr. Godsey,” answered Clay-Boy, shaking the snow away from his shoulders in showers. “I’m looken for Charlie Sneed.”
Ike peered into the adjoining room, his face clouded with disgust. He beckoned to Clay-Boy. Puzzled, Clay-Boy crossed to Ike and leaned across the counter between the jar of pickled pig’s feet and the beef jerky to where Ike was beckoning him closer with a wave of his hand.
“Is your daddy home from Waynesboro yet?”
“No sir,” answered Clay-Boy, “but we’re looken for him any minute.”
“I wish he’d get here. Maybe he’d talk sense into Ep Bridges.”
“What’s Ep done now?”
“Arrested Charlie Sneed for hunten out of season. Got him handcuffed in yonder. Claims he goen to throw him in the jail up in Lovingston.”
As sympathetic as he was to Charlie’s misfortune, Clay-Boy regretted it for personal reasons. He knew of no one else he could ask for a ride to Hickory Creek, and there was no way now that he could be of help to his father if Clay indeed happened to be walking home from the bus stop.
“My daddy been by here tonight?” asked Clay-Boy.
“Nobody breezed in here but that trash that calls himself the Law.”
“I reckon I better get home,” said Clay-Boy.
“That’s where I’m headen as soon as the Law finishes his pool game,” said Ike.
“Night, Mr. Godsey,” said Clay-Boy, and started back toward the door past the entrance to the pool room. He had not intended to peer in, but when he did, he stopped full in his tracks at the sight of Charlie, sitting forlornly on the bench he was handcuffed to.
“Lord God, Charlie!” exclaimed Clay-Boy sympathetically.
“You ever see such a messed up situation?” inquired Charlie bitterly.
“How’d it happen?” asked Clay-Boy.
“I run over a calf up yonder on the road a piece. Throwed him in the back of the track instead of letten him lay there and go to waste.”
“First calf I ever seen had ten-point antlers,” laughed Ep Bridges from the pool table where he powdered his cue stick with blue chalk. Ep Bridges was two hundred pounds of malice, a beefy, red-faced man with a spare tire of flesh girdling his middle which also supported a Colt .45 on a webbed holster.
“That’s one of Clyde Robbins’ calves,” insisted Charlie innocently. “I was goen to stop by Clyde’s and pay him for the damage first thing in the mornen.”
“First thing in the mornen you was goen to fry venison,” said Ep. “That’s what you was goen to do.”
“What’s goen to become of that calf, Ep?” asked Charlie righteously.
“I’m goen to grind him up and make venison sausage, once the Judge’s seen the evidence,” said Ep. He leaned against the pool table, supported the cue stick in his crooked index finger and ran the five-, six-, seven and eightballs into pockets in quick succession.
“That’s where you are, Charlie Sneed,” chuckled Ep. “Behind the eightball.”
“Ep, be a Christian and let me off,” pleaded Charlie. “Christmas ain’t no time to throw a man in that Lovingston jail. It’s cold and drafty. I’m liable to catch pneumonia and die before mornen. You want it on your conscience I died of pneumonia on Christmas Day?”
“You should of thought about that when you dropped that buck,” said Ep, draining the can of the last drop of Coors.
“I run over that calf by accident,” Charile persisted. “He just jumped up in front of the truck. I couldn’t stop, came near to skidding off the road as it was.”
“Come on, Charlie, let’s go to Lovingston,” said Ep. He tossed his empty beer can into a trash barrel, crossed to the bench where he had handcuffed his prisoner and unlocked the side which held Charlie to the bench.
“Wait a minute, Ep,” said Charlie, and turned to Clay-Boy. “You run home and tell your daddy about the fix I’m in.”
“Daddy ain’t home yet,” said Clay-Boy. “We still setten up for him.”
“What boy is this, Charlie?” asked the sheriff.
“He’s Clay Spencer’s boy,” said Charlie.
“Last time I laid eyes on Clay Spencer was when I raided that old colored church. They had a poker game goen out there.”
“That’s probably where he is right this minute,” said Charlie wistfully.
“One thing’s sure. You ain’t goen to be joinen up with him,” said the sheriff, and began leading Charlie toward the door.
“Mr. Bridges,” called Clay-Boy.
The sheriff turned and looked back at the boy curiously. Clay-Boy hesitated. He hated to ask a favor of a man who was taking Charlie Sneed to jail, but he was desperate.
“You’ll be goen by the colored church on your way to Lovingston, won’t you?”
“Sho’,” replied Ep.
“You wouldn’t give me a ride, would you?” asked Clay-Boy.
“You figuren to get mixed up with a poker game?” asked Ep wonderingly.
“No sir,” answered Clay-Boy, “I just want to see if my daddy happens to be there.”
“I ain’t supposed to carry riders,” said Ep, considering. “But what the hell! It’s Christmas! Come on!”
Clay-Boy followed his father’s friend and the sheriff to the sheriff’s white Dodge with the words COUNTY SHERIFF painted on the doors in forbidding black lettering. Once Charlie was placed in the caged-off back seat, Clay-Boy climbed into the front seat, positioning his feet between the two six-packs of beer which were stored there.
“I could shore use one of them beers,” said Charlie piteously from the back seat.
Ep Bridges pretended not to notice Charlie’s thirst as he entered the driver’s seat and started the car.
The blizzard had abated somewhat, but the snow still fell heavily, making it difficult for Ep Bridges to find the road, and when he found it to stick to it. There had been no cars in or out of the village, so there were no tracks for him to follow. Coming to some place where there was a question, he would get out of the car, shine his powerful torchlight around until he was sure of the direction he should take, and then take it.
“I feel like a damn zoo monkey,” grumbled Charlie Sneed in the caged-off back seat. “How about passen one of them beers back here to wet a man’s throat?”
Sometimes Ep Bridges would answer, but more often he would ignore Charlie, his attention focused on the difficult driving, intent on delivering his prisoner to the county seat, and going on to The Old Seminole Trail Inn on Highway 29 for a wide slice of coconut-custard pie and to swap jokes and anything else he had to trade with Hallie Stringfellow, the night girl.
It had crossed his mind to stop at the First Abyssinian Baptist Church and put the fear of God into any poker players who might be there, but the thought of Hallie Stringfellow urged him on, and when he came to the turn-off to the First Abyssinian Baptist Church he paused briefly to let the boy out of the car.
“Why don’t you give the boy a ride all the way, Ep?” called Charlie from the back seat.
“That road ain’t fitten to drive on even in dry weather,” said Ep. “I’d be mired up to my axle before I went a hundred feet.”
“I can make it, Mr. Bridges,” said Clay-Boy. “I’m much obliged for the lift.”
“You tell your daddy to come go my bail,” called Charlie just before Ep Bridges reached over, slammed the door shut and moved off down the road.
Watching the glow of Ep Bridges’ headlights swiftly disappear into the soft sibilant snow, Clay-Boy wished he had brought a flashlight. The First Abyssinian Baptist Church was a quarter of a mile down an unpaved road; the snow was already nearly a foot deep and he had no light to guide him. Blindly, Clay-Boy started down the road, sometimes losing his way, knowing he had drifted too far to the right or to the left when he came to a ditch or to snow-shrouded bushes. Once he thought he was lost, for he went a long way
with nothing to bar his passage. He thought he might have wandered into an open meadow, but his hand touched something, and when he felt it he recognized barbed wire. Clinging to the barbed wire he continued on, hoping that it would lead him to the Negro church and not away from it.
SIX
Somewhere, above the screaming wind and the biting whine of snow, Clay-Boy heard singing voices. The voices came and went, then drifted back again, but Clay-Boy made out enough of the words to recognize “It Came upon a Midnight Clear.”
Dimly ahead of him he saw a light, and he let go of the barbed-wire fence which he had clung to like a life line, and plowed through the snow toward the square of light. The voices grew stronger, and by the time he came to the graveyard behind the church, Clay-Boy knew that no white men were playing a clandestine game of poker in the church tonight. The rightful tenants had occupied it, and a service was in progress.
Clay-Boy entered the vestibule, which was separated from the main church room by folding doors. He had intended to rest there for a moment and warm himself, but as he opened the outer door the wind forced the folding doors open and row after row of startled dark faces turned to see who had entered. Now the swinging doors folded shut again, and Clay-Boy debated what to do. If he went in he would interrupt the service; if he remained where he was the people might think he was some white man there on mischief. The singing voices had already died away. He realized that by standing there he was already increasing the worshipers’ anger or anxiety or whatever they might be feeling, so he pushed the swinging doors aside and went in.
Row after row of black faces looked back at him questioningly. He stood there for a moment, uncomfortable that he had interrupted the service, seeing in the eyes that gazed at him that he had no right there and was not welcome. A wave of resentment flowed through the congregation, a murmur of whispered voices melting toward anger. He wanted to speak, to tell them that he was not one of the white men who desecrated their church with their poker playing, but he could not find the words to say it.
The Homecoming Page 5
