by Jeri Watts
I deposited the books at the desk. Miss Anne peered over her little reading glasses. “I expected you next Saturday,” she said.
“I came today.”
“But the books are not due until next Saturday,” she said. “I was going to have you meet a man.”
Puzzled, I looked at her. “What man?”
She pulled out a piece of paper. It was not a scrap like we have at my house, but a whole sheet of white paper (though not creamy, like what you have for letters), and she began to write.
Her script, as you would imagine, skimmed across the page. It was lovely and perfect, her t’s crossed and i’s dotted like a printing press in action. It was cursive, which I cannot read easily and certainly cannot decipher upside down. She folded the sheet and boldly penciled a name on the front: Donald McKenna.
“Take this down to the Farmers’ Market. Sometimes he’s there more than one Saturday a month. But I had told him next week.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, taking the note from her.
“You wanted to know about your dog,” she explained. “I cannot get a book for you, but I can get you a source. Fine man. He lives in your neck of the woods — near Goode. You go on, now. See that man.”
I tell you, Miss Anderson, I didn’t want to go see any man I didn’t know. But I did have a little curiosity, I admit. And saying no to Miss Anne Spencer is like saying no to Mrs. Warren. It is just not done. So I strolled down the big hill to the market on Main Street.
There were lots of people. I didn’t see a face I knew. Not that I’ve ever met a Mr. McKenna, but I suppose I thought I’d see someone I knew who could help me.
I was more than a little annoyed at that point. You ever pulled that hill up Polk Street? It’s practically straight up, so I admit I was peeved. And then I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder. I turned and looked straight into a barrel chest and a plaid flannel shirt. I tilted my head to look up.
“You’re from Mrs. Spencer,” he said, and he pulled the note from my hand. I must have looked puzzled. “There are phones in the world, girl. I got a message to look for you. You’re as she described. You’d not expect that a poet couldn’t describe a person, now, would you?” He looked me up and down. “She says you have a dog.” His blue eyes darted across the page, his head bobbing and his bright white hair going every which way. Those six words boomed out. His accent was peculiar, sort of rolling in his mouth before it burst out.
“I have a dog.”
He looked at me then. Hard. His quick gaze swallowed me as I took a long look at him — his hearty head of white hair, a nose much like a beak, and white caterpillar eyebrows that wiggled back and forth over his eyes. It was clearly his turn to talk, but he wasn’t saying anything. I waited a little longer, but the caterpillar mustache he had that matched the eyebrows didn’t shift a bit. He wasn’t going to talk.
I repeated, “I have a dog.”
“You said that.”
“She’s a border collie.”
“So Mrs. Spencer said.”
I shut up then, Miss Anderson. I told you, I’m not walking on eggshells anymore. I didn’t ask him to talk to me, so I wasn’t about to scrape along trying to eke out a conversation.
We stood there then for well onto five minutes. Five minutes, Miss Anderson, is a long time to stare at a man you don’t know.
He finally spoke, his loud voice filling the space around me. “Lady tells me you want to work your dog.”
“I don’t know what that means, ‘work my dog.’ She does aplenty.”
He smiled at that. “Bet so. Can’t stop a border collie from working.”
It went on like that for quite some time, Miss Anderson, him saying three words, me adding four. Seemed to fill a long time, but all of a sudden I found I’d agreed to bring Shag to meet him one day, and I was on my way pulling that hill.
I’m wondering what I’ve gotten into. A white man with a funny way of talking and a face alive with hair. Kind of feels like I’m stepping into a hole I can’t see the bottom of. I’m tempted to not show up, but like I said before, I am a mite curious. And if it will help me make Shag her best, if it will help me look out for her in some way, I will go as deep as I need to go.
He has a tidy little house, I’ll say that for him. At least it looks tidy from outside. Of course, I didn’t go in.
Chopped wood stacked near the door, but not too close (no varmints crawling from the wood into the house). Chopping block and ax with covered blade neatly located near the stack. A shed nearby with bridles, reins, chains, and whatnot hung in an order clear to the person hanging them, every one in a particular spot. Shadows around the tools and bridles — they are hung up, or folded and hung up, the same way every time.
He sure doesn’t take that much care with his hair.
He was sitting in one lone lawn chair, like he knew I’d be coming. I deliberately hadn’t said when I’d be by, had deliberately avoided a time when I thought he might be available. I wanted to miss him. I wanted him to be making repairs to an old fence or taking goods to market.
But he was there. Waiting.
Shag went to him straightaway, and that surprised me. She has never gone to anyone right away but for me. I know I sound jealous, but I’m not.
He passed his hands over her. He looked like a judge at a dog show, I thought, or at least how I imagine they look. Checking out her hip sockets, opening her mouth to inspect her teeth. “She has good conformation,” I said.
His head snapped up so he looked me in the eye. “Och, girl, you one of those dog-show nuts?”
I had to admit I didn’t know anything about dog shows, or at least not much.
He went back to his examination of Shag. “I don’t hold with the dog-show crowd myself. It’s all fine for a dog to look pretty and such, but the biggest thing is how a dog works. Dogs aren’t toys. They’re partners. Don’t let ’em work, you’re taking the heart out of ’em. She’s a good worker, I imagine.” He held still then, cradling Shag’s head between his beefy hands and gazing into her eyes.
“She helps me with our milk cows.”
“You’ve not trained her, then.”
I touched my leg, and Shag stood beside me again. “She helps with the cattle, I said. She comes when I want. She works.”
“If you trained her, she’d do more than help. She’d think as you, knowing what needs doing by the shift of your head or the simple saying of a command.” He stood up and let his hands fall to his side. “You can teach her. I will help. Every border collie ought to be trained — it makes them feel useful and satisfied.”
I rubbed Shag’s ear. “I don’t have any money for training. Besides, she works. I’m sure she’s satisfied.”
He raised those woolly eyebrows. “Does she herd?”
“Oh, yes,” I told him. “She herds our cows some, chickens, my family . . . sometimes she even tries to herd leaves, but they don’t listen.”
“Sometimes”— he kept his eyes on Shag —“dogs like her show their frustration by working everything. She’s a bright one, I can tell, and training her will help her keep her control.”
“It’s wrong to herd?”
“No, no. It’s just that it can be a signal that they aren’t getting to use all their abilities, that they’re frustrated. In city dogs, they might show it with tearing up furniture, but for a country dog, it can be indiscriminate herding.”
Now, I have to tell you, Miss Anderson, I just loved that new word, indiscriminate, but this was Shag we were talking about, so I focused back on what he was telling me. What he said made some sense, and I nodded my head. That’s when I realized I’d just committed us, Shag and me, to working with this strange man. I still feel a bit nervous about it, but he did something that I believe sealed the deal. After I nodded, he whistled once, and when Shag followed, he put her in a pen with sheep and stood beside her. It wasn’t like he just turned her loose — he supported her the first time she was with sheep. That felt right. It’s what I wou
ld have done. So maybe this will be good after all.
I’m telling myself that, anyway.
I’m sure you’ve noticed how we’ve broken into groups to eat. Naturally, the white students eat separate from the black students, but also the boys eat separate from the girls. Even then, there are certain groups of boys who always eat together and certain girls who never eat with other girls. I’m one of the ones who moves from group to group. I don’t have one particular group I belong to. To be honest, I don’t really fit anywhere, but I don’t not fit either. I’m not a loner, exactly. I can work with anybody or work alone, just depends. I sit with Shag a lot, just us, when it’s still nice enough for us to eat outside. To be honest, that’s my preference, but I know my mama worries if that’s all I do, so I try to sit with other people, so that when I go home and she says, “Who’d you eat lunch with?” I can honestly say someone’s name besides Shag’s. For instance, you’ll see me eat sometimes with Sarah and Mildred. They’re okay, but they are pretty silly. Plus Mildred is scared stiff of Shag, even though I have told her Shag will not hurt her unless I tell Shag to or unless Mildred tries to hurt me. Mama says you can learn something from everyone in the world, but I don’t know what I can learn from them. I know what I learn from eating with Omera and Ovita, the twins. They hardly say boo, except when they talk to each other in their twin language, so what I learn is Christian patience. I am exhausted after eating with them, and also more than a little annoyed. But Granny Bits says it is good for my soul to be tried by fire. Well, I am getting a good workout on my patience, that’s for sure. Do you ever get lonely, eating by yourself? I’d come and eat with you, but I’m sure that would set the tongues wagging, making me look like a teacher’s pet, plus you’d get in trouble eating with one of the black kids. And maybe you like to eat alone, so you can think and have a few minutes not to have to talk. Maybe I’m a trial to you. Hmm, I hadn’t thought of that.
I know I’ve mentioned my brother to you before, but I’m getting really worried about him now. I’ve talked a lot about how angry James is about the football players not being treated fairly. You probably don’t see a good side to James from my writing of him, I suppose. The other night I was surprised by him myself. At dinner, I talked highly of you, how kind you’ve been to me, the interest you’ve shown in Shag. James never looked up. But after we finished the milking, we turned the cows out and walked back up the drive — all the chores done, we were in the dark and I couldn’t see his face — he started talking quietly about school for him. He doesn’t have just one teacher, being in high school, but it’s pretty much the same, in all his classes: bad.
“Most of the teachers won’t even look at us kids,” he said. “They don’t call our names on the roll, and you can’t take tests since you didn’t show up on the roll according to the way they call it. If anybody asks, they say you didn’t come to class, because you didn’t answer the roll. But of course, you didn’t answer because they didn’t call your name. I heard them talking — they call it their ‘silent protest.’ They say that Dr. King isn’t the only one who can have a nonviolent protest. They don’t give us textbooks so we can’t study, and they don’t call on us in class, even if we raise our hands. It’s like we’re invisible.
“The one time a teacher did speak to me, he said, ‘Mister, they may tell me I have to let you in my room, but they can’t make me teach you. So there.’”
I told James he should tell Mama and Daddy. We were almost back to the house, and I could feel Shag circling near, hear her panting as she kept close.
James snorted at my suggestion. “I thought about it, but what good would it do? You still can’t make them teach us. You can’t replace every teacher, Kizzy Ann. Heard about Prince Edward County? They closed all their public schools — white kids go to private schools, the ones who can afford it, and the black kids and the poor white kids get no education at all. At least here I can sit in the classroom and hear what’s being taught. And there’s some good teachers fighting to get the grades and rolls thing looked at — maybe these jerks can’t stay in place but for so long. Just keep quiet about it and be thankful for your teacher you got.”
So, thanks again, Miss Anderson. I sure do appreciate you.
Gosh, I hope you say I’m not a trial — I know you’ll say you understand, even though you won’t agree about the other kids. Of course you won’t. You’re the teacher!
I’m in another group with that Laura Westover. I know I’m not supposed to complain, Miss Anderson, but couldn’t you keep us apart? If she tells me to get makeup to cover my scar again, I think I’ll deck her! Today she had everybody in the group talking about scars. Keith showed us the back of his head.
“We were playing at College Lake, see,” he said. “My brother invented this game where he throws a bottle into the lake at the same time I dive in, and I see if I can get the bottle before it sinks to the bottom. I’m a fast diver, and I can always get it before it sinks.” He’s so smug, I swear.
But Laura put him in his place. For once I was happy to have her around. “But not fast enough when your left-handed cousin from New York threw the bottle, right? You didn’t move the right way that time, and whack, right across the back of your noggin!”
At least his hair covers the scar. He let us all feel it — even the black kids. It does raise up pretty nasty; his doctor wasn’t near as careful as mine, but I reckon he needn’t be, since he knew his hair would cover it. Still, it’s all lumpy. I thought Laura was going to lose her lunch. I was far more interested in the texture of his hair, though, to tell the truth. It’s like the softest satin I’ve touched — reminded me of Shag’s fur after her baths. I guess not all white folks have hair like it because Daisy Simmons commented on it. “Cheese and crackers, but you got nice hair, Keith,” she said. “I’d give a lot to have hair like this. I wash my hair in egg whites once a week to soften mine up, but it don’t feel nothin’ like this. What you doin’, boy?” Keith jerked his head down like it was a hot potato, and for once I wasn’t the focus of the stares and the butt of the jokes. I felt a little sorry for him but was grateful all the same for someone else to be getting the attention, especially after Laura had talked about scars so much.
And the cafeteria! I didn’t even realize the school had a cafeteria! The few days we haven’t eaten outside, we’ve eaten in our room, so I just didn’t know it existed. You got to eat with other teachers, so of course it was nice for you — I’m really glad. I’m sure the others liked it too — we could sit with other classes from our grade if we wanted. I sat by myself, at least until David Warren came on down and joined me, and then the Stark twins too. They asked about Shag, and it was like you knew, because you came and told us we could go check on her, and I was so worried, but of course she was fine. Still, it made me feel good to go see her then. David played fetch with her, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that’s rather beneath her, but she did it anyway because she’s a kind dog. And he did mean well. Of course that left me to make small talk with the Stark twins. Peesh! At least it got me out of that echoing cafeteria! It was really loud. And I missed Shag.
I cannot believe the upside-downness of the world. One day your biggest problem is whether you feel like you can work with a man whose eyebrows are alive, and the next minute your problem is that your country’s president is dead. When the principal came to the door and then you told us school was closing because someone had killed the president, I thought you were just joking around. Then I could see you were crying and Mr. Glenn was crying, and I could feel a blanket of sad covering our school and our state and our nation. I hope no black man did this. I’m running home to my barn to hide, just in case.
My mama cannot stop crying. She made pancakes this morning, which she only does for funerals and birthdays. Today is nobody’s birthday.
We ate our pancakes in silence, as silent as the syrup when it pours slow and smooth across the fist-size pancakes my mama stacks high. Daddy usually complains about those pancake
s — he calls them two-bite pancakes — but he just swallowed one after another, barely chewing. His hand went from plate to mouth like the automatic pie machine I saw at the bus station. Pie gone, pie there, pie gone, pie there. The sad seeps over us all. It never occurred to me to walk today. I went to the bus stop automatically. When I called Shag to walk with me to the bus stop, she kept her head down the whole way. Of course I only know because I kept mine down too.
Mr. Fielder didn’t say a word when he swooshed open the bus door. He usually mutters, “Watch out, darky,” or something like that, but today he kept his eyes straight ahead and his mouth shut.
None of the kids moved as I walked down the aisle. Tommy Street didn’t stick his foot out. Laura Westover didn’t flounce her hair at me.
I eased into my usual spot right next to the big tear on the backseat and felt the silence settle around me.
You’ve given us extra time to write, now, as if even you can’t stand to break the quiet. I can see Laura crying, but she’s not sniffling out loud. And it seems the clock isn’t ticking as loud as it did just Friday.
How can one man dying make the whole world hush?
After school I sat with Shag at the kitchen table. I couldn’t study my spelling-bee words. I know we’re supposed to keep studying on them and working for that big bee at the end of the year, but it seems pointless in light of all that is happening in the world. Shag was lying at my feet, and I was kind of tranced, smelling the hot iron from Mama in the other room and feeling weighed down by the silence. And then the quiet cracked.
