Sarah groaned.
“What’s trash patrol?”
“Sarah will show you.”
“How much?” Sarah asked.
“Ours, hers, and theirs,” Uncle Taylor said, pointing west.
“We weren’t hurting her.”
“You were stealing her privacy.”
“She’s sitting right out there on the beach, for all the world to see.”
“Tell you what. Go sit right next to her and watch her.”
“Jubie just told me what Mrs. Willingham did to—”
Uncle Taylor cut her off. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“What if she asks me why we’re doing her beach?”
“Tell her it’s neighborly love.”
As Uncle Taylor turned to leave, I said, “I thought your uniform was white.”
“I have a white dress uniform. Where’d you see it?”
“We have a photo in the living room at home.”
“From my graduation, I guess.”
“I like the one you have on, too.”
“Thank you, Miss June.” He took off his hat and bowed to me. I watched him walk back to the house, taking high arcing steps to keep sand from getting in his shiny shoes.
“Dad’ll do an inspection when we’re done. If he finds a toothpick, we’ll have to add another chunk of beach.”
We went to the kitchen for grocery bags to put the trash in, and I looked around for Leesum but didn’t see him.
Cellophane from Nabs, cigarette butts, soda bottles, a bloody Band-Aid. I put a candy wrapper over my fingers to pick it up and put it in the bag.
As we picked up trash, I asked Sarah, “Will you get a spanking?”
“What for?”
“Spying on Mrs. Willingham.”
“Trash patrol is for that.”
“Doesn’t your daddy spank you?”
“He says he’s going to, but he never does.”
Yellow plates were set around the white kitchen table for lunch. Ham sandwiches on rye bread filled a platter next to a bowl of slaw. A plate with slices of cantaloupe and honeydew sat on the lazy Susan with a basket of potato chips, a dish of tomatoes, and yellow salt and pepper shakers. A perfect picture of a lovely lunch. I put ice in glasses while Sarah called everybody to eat, and Mary came along behind me, pouring tea.
Uncle Taylor switched on the attic fan, propping open the door to the screen porch, and the paper napkins fluttered as we sat down. Mary and Leesum took their plates to a table on the porch. When we bowed our heads for Uncle Taylor to say the blessing, I squinted through my eyelids at Leesum. His eyes were closed, his hands together under his chin. He took praying seriously.
Over lunch nobody said much. As we finished, Sarah asked her father, “Now can I tell you what Mrs. Willingham did?”
“You may.” Uncle Taylor turned to Sarah, giving her his full attention. Daddy wouldn’t listen to me for more than a minute.
“All Mary was doing was walking on the beach, and Mrs. Willingham told her to stop, and for Leesum to get dressed, and things have to be separate.”
“When was this?”
Sarah asked me, “When, Jubie?”
I looked at my plate. “Early this morning.”
Uncle Taylor asked me, “Were you there?”
“Yes, sir. We were gathering shells for a sand castle.”
“You and who else?”
“Me and Davie, Mary and Leesum. Mary walked in the water on Mrs. Willingham’s beach.”
“And what was Leesum wearing?”
“Shorts.”
Uncle Taylor turned in his chair to speak to Leesum. “Is that right, Leesum?”
“Yessuh.”
“And did you go in the gulf?”
“Some.” Leesum looked at me.
“Did Mrs. Willingham see you in the water?”
“Don’t think so. Leastways she dint say she did.”
Uncle Taylor turned back to me. “What did Mrs. Willingham say?”
“That Mary shouldn’t be in the water, that it’s against the law.”
He took his napkin from his lap and wiped his mouth. “Mrs. Willingham is a lonely woman with too much time on her hands. Negroes scare her. She worries about her property value.” Daddy never explained things the way Uncle Taylor did, speaking to us as if we were adults.
Uncle Taylor turned in his seat and spoke to Leesum and Mary. “I’m sorry for what happened. She’s right about the law, but most people are pretty relaxed about hired help.” He cleared his throat. “Uh, Mary, what did your minister say when you called?”
“He be happy to have Leesum stay with him for a while. They’s a bus at five this evening that gets to Charlotte tomorrow night. Reverend Perkins’ll be there to meet it.”
So it was decided. I hoped Leesum knew how sorry I was that he was leaving.
Mama, Uncle Taylor, and Kay Macy Cooper were going for bridge that afternoon at the officers’ club with Mrs. Willingham. “She’s an incredible bridge player,” Uncle Taylor said. Mama groaned.
Mrs. Cooper said, “Taylor, you’re too kind. She’s lucky. That double finesse she pulled last week . . .”
“She counts cards. That’s skill.”
“Why do you defend her?”
“Skipper Willingham saved my hide more than once. His widow’s a narrow-minded biddy, but I watch out for her.”
Uncle Taylor wanted to take Leesum to the bus station, but the schedule would’ve messed up their plans, and Stell was dying to drive the Packard. Uncle Taylor said, “You’ll be fine, Stell Ann. It’ll be broad daylight. Take Mary and Jubie with you, and let Mary get out with Leesum to buy his ticket. You and Jubie lock the car and stay in it. If you have any trouble, look for a policeman, an MP, anyone in uniform. Everybody knows me.”
I spent a lot of time getting ready for the trip to town. My yellow cotton sundress was great with my tan, and for once my hair did exactly what I wanted it to. When I looked in the mirror, I knew I was pretty. I ached to ride in back with Leesum, but that couldn’t be. I knew the rules and I hated them. On the ride across the bay and into Pensacola, I kept sneaking glances at him, catching him looking at me. He liked me as much as I liked him.
At the station, there were sailors everywhere. When Stell pulled up in front of the bus station, I got out and she shrieked, as I knew she would, “Where are you going?”
“Inside with Mary, to say a proper good-bye to Leesum.”
“You are not! I’ll tell Mama.”
Mary said, “Estelle Annette, I’ll take care of her.” When Mary used our full names, we listened.
Inside the station, Mary told us, “Y’all go over by the door to the buses. I’ll get the ticket.”
Leesum and I walked to double doors marked DEPARTURES. Next to the doors was a sign, NEGROES BOARD LAST. We stood there, the backs of our hands touching like everything was okay, looking at each other. I said, “Your name does mean heaven. Elysium or elysian fields. I looked it up.”
“Wonder where my mama heard that.”
“Maybe at church.”
He said, “You the prettiest girl I ever knowed.”
I couldn’t think what to say.
“I probably ain’t never gone see you again, but I ain’t never gone forget you.”
“Me, neither.”
“If you want, you could write me a letter sometime.”
I tried not to show how happy that made me. “Where?”
“McDowell Street Baptist Church, McDowell Street, Charlotte.”
“Okay.”
“You know I can’t write you back.”
“Yes.”
“I can write. Just you can’t be gettin’ no letters from me.”
“I know.”
Mary tapped my shoulder. “Bus leaves in ten minutes. We better go.” She handed Leesum his ticket.
As Mary and I walked through the crowded station, I looked back at Leesum until I couldn’t see him anymore.
That night Uncle Taylor to
ok us all down to the beach to lie on blankets under the stars. A steady breeze blew in from the water, bending the sea grass, and jazz music drifted over the dunes. Lights from a ship moved slowly across the gulf.
I lay back under the stars, thinking about the kind of music Leesum listened to. In my mind I was already writing him a letter.
“Oh, Taylor, how delightful this is,” Mama said. “If I lived here, I’d be on the beach every night.”
“Lucky there’s a gulf wind,” said Uncle Taylor. “Otherwise you’d be cursing the mosquitoes.”
“Look!” Stell cried. “A falling star.”
“Star,” said Davie.
I made a wish about Leesum.
“A meteorite, actually,” Uncle Taylor said. “There are a lot of them in August.”
I smelled the lemony scent of his aftershave.
“I could sleep here,” Mama said.
“Polaris, the North Star!” Sarah said. “And Ursa Major, the Big Dipper.”
“The Milky Way.” I gazed at the cloudy trail of stars across the sky. Where was Leesum on his long trip back to Charlotte? Did he have a window seat? Could he see the Milky Way, too?
Uncle Taylor was saying, “That’s right, our galaxy. Visible from dusk to dawn.”
“Taylor’s always been able to read the sky,” Mama said. “Ever since he was your age, Sarah.”
“And my big sister’s always bragged on me.”
I loved the sound of his voice. What would it be like to be his daughter?
CHAPTER 13
Every spring Mama brought out the hand-cranked ice cream freezer and had Mary take it apart to make sure the wooden paddles hadn’t rotted over the winter. In June, when strawberries appeared at the A&P, we began our weekly trips to Jackson’s Ice House for rock salt and bag ice so Mama could make ice cream. When we got there, I looked across McDowell Street at the House of Prayer for All People, and the place where Daddy Grace stayed when he came to town—a red, white, and blue mansion with music floating from upstairs windows . . . a choir, a piano, tambourines, drums.
At Jackson’s, men wearing heavy gloves used tongs to lift the dripping frozen blocks from a conveyor belt, stacking them into walls of ice in the delivery trucks lined up at the loading dock. Sweat ran down their faces, summer or winter. Puddin pestered the workers for slivers of ice and I shivered nearby, staring at the House of Prayer parsonage. Colored people dressed in their finest went up stone steps to a wraparound porch. I thought about climbing those steps, knocking on the door, being the only white person going into such a place.
One Saturday when we were at Jackson’s, I saw a gray-haired Negro in a cream-colored suit in a rocking chair on the porch of the mansion. People milled around him, visiting with one another, overflowing onto the steps and into the front yard. Boys fanned the man as he rocked. He had a thin mustache, black curved lines that started at his nostrils and flared out over his top lip. From time to time he raised a knuckle to his face and nudged the tips of the mustache, first one side, then the other.
Daddy came to get me and he looked across the street. “What a mess.” On the way home he said, “The niggers donate their hard-earned money, and it’s not even a real church. Daddy Grace, what kind of name is that? He’s Daddy Give-Me-All-You-Got. I hear he’s got a belt buckle made of solid gold.”
Stell was fascinated with the House of Prayer. When she read in the paper about the annual parade for Daddy Grace, she begged Mama and Daddy to let her go. “I want to learn about other religions. Jubie can come, too. Mary can take us.” She talked about it for days.
Mama said Stell was worse than water wearing away a rock. “I guess there’s no harm in just a parade. Let me tell your father.”
I was ready early, sitting in the kitchen, drinking a Coke, when Mary walked in, cloth violets on the lapel of her purple dress, her chestnut hair pinned up under a pillbox hat of flow- ers—mauve, scarlet, lilac. Her eyes shone and rhinestones twinkled at her ears. She smelled of Cashmere Bouquet.
“You look beautiful,” I told her.
“Thank you. Where’s Stell Ann?”
“Here I am.” Stell had on her pink cashmere cardigan, draped over the shoulders of her beige linen dress. She wore wrist gloves and carried a pocketbook that matched her beige heels.
“You a fine young lady,” said Mary. “And you looking good, too, Jubie.”
I was a mud hen in my brown corduroy jumper and white blouse. I stared down at my patent leather Mary Janes. They made my feet look bigger than ever.
We got on the Number 3 bus to ride downtown. Stell and I sat on the bench seat behind the driver, and Mary walked to the back. Her skinny calves and big purple shoes made me think of Minnie Mouse. A yellow line across the floor of the bus separated the front from the back. Farther toward the rear, the faded remains of an earlier line crossed the rubber floor mat. When the bus company realized there were lots more coloreds riding the buses than whites, they moved the line forward a few feet. Even so, the back of the bus was packed. A boy stood so Mary could sit. Stell and I, the only whites, were alone among the empty seats in front.
We got off the bus at McDowell and East Third, near the House of Prayer. Mary led us through a crush of people to a place she said would be the best for watching the parade. A few white spectators stood out in the sea of dark faces, and on every corner, white policemen watched the crowd.
Mary stopped. “This is good.” She looked up, squinting her eyes in the sunlight. “Hardly ever rains on Daddy Grace.”
I’d never seen so many colored people in one place, and all of them in their Sunday best—men in suits and ties, women in dresses, hats, and heels. They lined up along the curb, two and three deep, with children closest to the street so they could see, and older people sitting in chairs.
Mary leaned out. “Here they come!”
Colored girls in white dresses walked down the street, dignified, their faces solemn, tossing what I thought were scraps of paper. Little girls toddled alongside teenagers. One of the scraps fell at my feet. A flower petal. A group of boys followed, clapping their hands and dancing to the rhythm of the band behind them. “His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” fast, loud. From around a corner, seven men playing trumpets and trombones joined the parade, dancing as they played, their horns swinging wildly in time with the music.
Across the street a policeman was putting handcuffs on a colored man who talked over his shoulder, shaking his head.
“What’s happening?” I asked Mary.
“Probably drunk, but maybe not. Sometimes they just takes them.”
The street filled with people dancing, singing, jumping off the curb and back up again in twos and threes on the sidewalks, in yards, on porches, clapping and swaying to the music.
I saw a man pull a bottle from his suit jacket and pass it around. A woman behind him tapped his shoulder and shook her head. He pushed her aside and took another drink.
I felt a sudden wetness in my panties. I tugged at Mary’s sleeve. “I got the curse and I don’t have anything with me.”
“My goodness. Stay here. I be right back.” She walked away, looking around, then called out, “Sister Coley?”
Stell asked, “Where’s Mary going?”
“To find a bathroom.”
Mary came up behind me. “This Miz Coley; she live right there. You go on with her. Sister Coley, this Miss June Watts.”
A tiny woman said, “How do. Come right with me.” I followed her, hoping I’d be back in time to see Daddy Grace.
Mrs. Coley took me up tall brick steps, across a porch. What would Mama think if she could see me going into a colored person’s house? Mrs. Coley was so dark-skinned that in the dim hallway her eyes and teeth seemed to jump out of her face. “The bathroom’s just down the hall. I’ll bring what you need.”
The door she’d pointed to opened into an enormous, sunny bathroom, filled with light that bounced off tile walls and floor. A photo of a white-haired colored woman hung over the toilet. Viole
ts in ceramic pots sat on the sills of the windows to either side of the sink. A fresh, sweet odor. Mama would love this bathroom.
“Miss Watts?” Mrs. Coley held a paper bag through the doorway. “I brought you what you need. You can use the bag for your panties.”
“I’m sorry you’re missing the parade.”
“I’m going right back out. Take as long as you need.”
The underpants Mrs. Coley brought were a little big, but the sanitary belt and napkin were the same as what I had at home. I left the house, closing the door behind me, carrying the paper bag. Two colored girls, teenagers, stood at the bottom of the steps.
The taller girl was all in lime green—hat, dress, and pocketbook. She teetered on green high heels. Her hands were on her hips and she glowered from under the floppy brim of her hat. “What you doin’ in Miz Coley’s house?”
The other girl, shorter, with a red hat and a mass of black curls, stepped forward. “What you got in that bag?”
I backed up a step or two, looking around for Mrs. Coley. “I had to use the bathroom.”
The tall girl said, “And the bag?”
Mary stepped between the girls. “Hey, June.”
The girl in the red hat said to Mary, “You know her?”
Mary took my hand. “This Miss June Watts.”
“What she been doin’ in Miz Coley’s house?” the girl in green asked.
Mary looked at her. “Is Valora okay these days?”
The tall girl said, “You know my mama?”
Mary held out her hand. “I’m Sister Luther from McDowell Street Baptist. Your mama’s a friend from when I were at the House of Prayer.”
The girl looked down at the sidewalk.
“I believe everything all right now.” Mary took my arm and we walked back to the curb.
I looked around for Mrs. Coley to thank her again but couldn’t see her in the mass of people.
“You okay?” Mary looked at the paper bag.
“Yes.” I wadded up the bag and stuffed it in my purse.
Two yellow convertibles came down McDowell side by side. Colored men sat across the tops of the backseats, with more men in front, all waving.
The Dry Grass of August Page 10
