Grace

by Robert Ward

  “That’s terrible,” I said. I couldn’t imagine anyone having such an attitude about a daughter, especially not my brilliant and wonderful grandmother.

  “I know it sounds harsh, honey, but you have to understand the times we lived in back then. This was before antibiotics, and families often lost children. It was a fact of life, and so people had to pin their hopes on the strongest. But my parents loved me and tried to do what was best for me. Which is why they decided to send me to my father’s brother’s place in Mayo County for a year or so. My mother had very romantic nineteenth-century ideas about the simplicity of country life and good country air. If anything could do it, the country would cure me from disease. So I was sent down to Mayo to live with my aunt and uncle.”

  “So you left home, too?” I said, stunned.

  My grandmother smiled.

  “Did you think you were the only person who ever moved in with a relative, honey?”

  I managed a laugh. But truthfully, it was a little disturbing to me. Even my angst wasn’t unique.

  My grandmother sighed and went on.

  “Now, I liked Mayo just fine in the summer. It was a beautiful little town on the Chesapeake, backwoodsy and picturesque. On a peninsula of the South River about forty-five miles below Annapolis. In the summer it was wonderful, with the fields and the water and the animals … and the shellfish—crabs, mussels, oysters…. Truthfully, it was like a little paradise.

  “But it was very backwards socially … and having just discovered the world through Caroline’s eyes, I didn’t want to go there one bit. The thought of that dull little town in the cold winter … no movies, no stores, no Caroline … I cried for a week when I learned of my parents’ plans. But it was no use … they had made up their minds. So I said good-bye to them and to my dear tutor, and my father took me and my pile of books down to Mayo to my aunt and uncle, Vern and Sally, to live with them.”

  “That must have been very hard for you,” I said. “I just can’t imagine your parents shipping you out like that.”

  “I had a little trouble believing it myself. And my aunt and uncle weren’t exactly the kind of people who doted on children. Vern sold fish in a market in Annapolis, and Sally kept some chickens. They seemed like decent, hardworking people, but they never had much to say. Their place was just a small, white-board cottage with a little front porch and small front yard, surrounded by an old picket fence. Fine in the summer when you could walk down to the South River and jump right in. But in the gray freezing winter with all the snow and rain I felt as trapped as some animal in those woods. There was nothing to do but go to school, do my homework and my chores, listen to the radio for an hour, and go to bed. And what a school. It was like I’d been sent back to the Stone Age. Mayo High was a white building, a five-room place, with very few supplies and ancient textbooks, and our teacher, Mr. Simmons, was a nasty and bitter man who wore the high starched collar and bow tie of the era. He had a trim little mustache that I’m sure he thought was sophisticated but actually made him look like a prude. He had a stern authoritarian manner, and he reveled in the eradication of the Indians, which, of course, he called the ‘taming of the West.’ I remember even now how his lectures always included lines about ‘the necessity of subjugating the savages.’ He compared wiping out the native population with the Palmer raids of the day. But he wasn’t critical of it—he loved Mitchell Palmer.

  “He also made cracks about women getting the right to vote, and worst of all, he taught us that slavery wasn’t so bad, saying that ‘indeed many of the slaves were happier and better cared for on the plantations than they would have been left on their own.’ Needless to say, all of this was extremely repugnant to me. Lord, I disliked that man. And what got me even hotter was the fact that the class, especially three boys, J.J. Randall, Bailey Calhoun, and Lee Harrison, thought Mr. Simmons the world’s greatest wit. They greeted every one of his stupid and offensive jokes about Negroes or the stupidity of women with great gales of laughter. I decided right then and there that I would not sit still for it. I might have been banished to the nineteenth century, but I wasn’t going gently. I began to speak up in class. When Mr. Simmons taught us that slavery was kind and compassionate, I would cite chapter and verse about hangings and stabbings and rapes. When he talked about the treachery of the Indians, I would mention how they were helpful to the Pilgrims who then showed their gratitude by betraying their trust and killing as many as they could. And courtesy of Caroline Wright, I had names and dates to back up my arguments.”

  I smiled as Grace went on. It was so much like her.

  ‘Of course, none of this sat well with Mr. Simmons. His face puckered up and his cheeks got red. I thought his head was going to blow up, which would have suited me just fine. He had never been challenged before … and he didn’t quite know what to make of me. He told me to hush my mouth, said that ‘this is Mayo County, where the teachers teach and the students listen.’ That bit of sophistry was met with hoots and hollers from the king of the local hillbillies, J.J. Randall. He was a big, good-looking boy, but he was stupid and mean, and it became immediately apparent to me that he absolutely hated Negroes and also hated me for defending them. I found out that his father was a rich man who owned a marina and a lot of land in the area, and was even on the Annapolis city council for a while.”

  “I hate him already,” I said.

  “Oh, you would have,” Grace said. “He was very much like Buddy Watkins, only with just enough brains to think he knew something about life, and a rich father who could buy him whatever he wanted. He even had a car, a new Ford, in which he drove his two pals and several of the local girls. All of them assumed his attitude about me, and I found myself just about totally alone. Lord, I was miserable and unhappy, but I was also angry, and I kept up a steady barrage against Mr. Simmons, so much so that he called in my aunt and uncle to ‘discuss my problems.’ They were horrified. They had assumed I was this nice, polite, and sickly little church girl and that I would never open my mouth. Uncle Vern told me I had to ‘cease and desist sharing my opinions in class.’ My aunt Sally claimed that she was ‘coming down with sick headaches,’ she was so upset. They begged me to be quiet, and I felt bad for their sakes and tried, too … for a while.”

  “Didn’t anyone in the class side with you?” I said.

  “I’m getting to that,” my grandmother said. “Yes, there was one girl, Bonnie Grady. She was from a more progressive family, and she and I became the two musketeers, thank the good Lord, because without her friendship I would have gone crazy down there. Bonnie didn’t say much … unlike me she didn’t have a big mouth, but she was a very kind and very serious girl, and also unlike me, she believed that actions spoke louder than words. She had joined a group who went to what they called Nigger Row on the outskirts of town.”

  I felt my face redden when my grandmother said “nigger.” It was considered far worse than any curse word by my family, and I had never heard her or anyone else in our family say it before.

  She looked at me and shook her head.

  “The place was known as Dave’s Corners, too, but only the Negroes called it that. Even my own aunt and uncle said ‘Nigger Row.’ As if that was a perfectly acceptable name for a place. Mayo, Annapolis, Nigger Row … to these good country people, all one and the same. I was furious about that, too. But to get back to Bonnie, she took clothes and food over to the Negroes every couple of weeks, and she had gotten to know some of them and even gone to a few services at the Negro church. One winter afternoon when we were taking a walk by the frozen-over South River, two things happened, things that at the time seemed like nothing much … but they changed my life forever. First, Bonnie told me that she had heard the most remarkable preacher at the Negro church. He was a brilliant speaker, both intelligent and highly emotional. He had talked about love, she said … love as forgiveness and consolation in the world…. She said he had an almost hypnotic control over his audience.

  “Well, I was immediat
ely interested in this person, you can count on that. And when I heard his name, well … I just had to meet with him. It was like no name I had ever heard of before … Wingate Washington.”

  As she said the name I thought of the night she had first had one of her spells. That was the name she had cried out, ‘Wingate … Noooo.” Then I remembered the inscription in her book on Gandhi. W.W., Mayo County …

  “Quite a name,” I said. “What was the first most interesting thing about him?”

  “He was sixteen.”

  “And preaching?”

  “Yes … Of course, he wasn’t an ordained preacher. But the Negro community has often had child preachers. Anyway, I was dying to meet him. And Bonnie just laughed and said, ‘The feeling’s mutual. I’ve told him about you, and he wants to meet you, too.’ Now you must remember in those days Negroes and white people did not mix socially. It was all right if you were giving charity to Negroes, but socializing because you wanted to know a Negro … well, that was unthinkable. After all, why would anyone want to know a Negro? Lord have mercy. So Bonnie showed a lot of courage talking this way … and her courage made me bolder. She said she would try to set the meeting up … but that it was dangerous for everyone involved and it might be best if I disguised the meeting as part of the charity visits. The only problem with that was that her group had just made a visit and wasn’t due to go again for a month. That was far too long for me, so I begged her to see if we could do it sooner. I had never really talked with any Negroes, and the prospect of meeting a teenage preacher … well, that was terribly exciting.”

  “What was the other thing that happened?” I said.

  Grace seemed lost in a fog.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve lost my way. What?”

  “The second thing. You said two things happened that day that changed your life.”

  “Oh, of course,” she said. “Well, this other one is rather important, I think…. Bonnie and I continued to walk and talk. The river was frozen white, glistening in the sun…. It was incredibly beautiful. The whiteness of the snow-laden trees, the crisp coldness of the day … and then to complete the picture I looked up the river, and suddenly I saw the most incredible sight—a single solitary skater cutting and slashing his way over the ice, heading toward us. I’d never seen anything quite like him. Bonnie and I stood there watching with our mouths open at the beauty and power of this man skating toward us. He was strong-legged, well muscled. He had on a plaid shirt, britches, and a brown watchman’s cap, and he fairly soared over the ice. It was thrilling to see him, and as he got closer I could make out that he was so very handsome … ruggedly handsome, in a way that took my breath away. I hoped, said a little prayer, that he would come closer … for I knew there was something about him. I was young and blossoming, and my heart made this huge pounding sound in my ears. I badly wanted to see him up close … but he came to the center of the river, waved to us twice, then turned and headed north, the direction from which he’d come.”

  “Who was he?” I said.

  She smiled.

  “Can’t you guess?”

  “Cap?”

  She smiled affectionately, and suddenly I was shocked to see that though they’d been through a million battles, she still loved him. I mean romantically. She had a dreamy, sexual look on her face … which surprised and shocked me. I had always assumed that they were … well, my grandparents, that that was their relationship not only to me but to each other. Now I realized how narrow and childish my view had been.

  “What happened?” I said. “How did you two get together?”

  “My, you are in a hurry,” my grandmother said. “Listen, it’s taken me a lifetime to tell this story, so you’ll just have to be a little more patient if you want to hear it all.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It’s okay,” Grace said. “I forgive you. You’re just suffering from an advanced case of ‘young.’ “

  We both laughed at that (her more than me). Then she cleared her throat, stretched her arms, sighed, and began again.

  “I went to sleep that night with crazy images in my head. A young black preacher, in a black suit, skating over a river of glass…. It was a strange time, a time in which I felt as though I was lost inside a dream even after I was awake. There have been only a few times like that in my life, times in which I felt that something incredible was just about to happen … and the tension was all but unbearable. I knew, like I’ve never known anything else in my life, that a huge change was coming. Suddenly, I felt that I had been sent to Mayo for a purpose, a great and good purpose … and I couldn’t wait to see what it would be.

  “But meanwhile, J.J. Randall and his friends were driving me half to distraction in school. I had defied Mr. Simmons in class again, and the boys would not stop teasing me. Before school, at recess … they bothered me with their ‘nigger lover’ talk. I remember praying to God to deliver me from my own hatred of them.

  “Since my only friend was Bonnie, and she was often busy with her own life, I found myself hanging around the house a lot. My aunt and uncle had a radio, which thankfully sometimes picked up classical music from Washington, D.C., so I listened to that. But there was so little else to do, I decided to try and draw my relatives out. It occurred to me that maybe they were just shy, that underneath they might really be interesting people. So one night at dinner I didn’t let them off the hook with their usual ‘pass the potatos’ talk. I told them all about school, how I was doing better in class … which they were thankful for … and then I dropped the bomb. I told them that my real problems were that I truly believed that Negroes were as good as white people and that as Christians we had a moral obligation to stand up for them. Well, you never saw such a reaction. The two of them stopped chewing and just stared at each other for a second. I thought my uncle Vern was about to choke to death. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, they resumed eating, as though I’d said nothing whatsoever. But I didn’t want to let it go at that … no, sir.

  “ ‘Listen Uncle Vern,’ I said. ‘I really do want to know what you think about this? Am I wrong?’

  “He looked like he had a sudden attack of gas.

  “ ‘Each has to think his own way,’ he mumbled.

  “ ‘Yes, that’s all well and good,’ I said, smiling with all my charm, ‘but I’m very confused on the subject. I mean if my elders won’t tell me what they think, how am I to know what’s right?’

  “My uncle looked powerfully disturbed.

  “ ‘Mr. Simmons thinks that the idea of equality between the races is a Communist plot,’ I said. And this time I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “ ‘Don’t know that he’s wrong,’ my uncle said.

  “Now it was my turn to be shocked. I had actually thought that underneath my aunt and uncle’s straitlaced social conventions they were probably more liberal than they made out. My, was that ever wrong.

  “My aunt spoke up then, sweetly and determinedly.

  My dear,’ she said in her kindest voice, ‘absolutely no good can come from the mongrelization of the races.’

  “ ‘The what?’ I said. Oh, they had me good and angry now.

  “ ‘You heard what she said,’ my uncle said. ‘You want to know how we feel—well, that’s it.’

  “ ‘That’s crazy,’ I said. ‘You sound like members of the Ku Klux Klan.’

  “They looked at each other again, a look that sent fear straight through me.

  “ ‘The Klan has its good points,’ my aunt said.

  “ ‘I cannot believe that I am hearing this,’ I said. ‘Burning and torturing and killing innocent people.’

  “My uncle suddenly pounded his big fist on the table.

  “ ‘Some races are meant to serve,’ he said. ‘That’s their place in the scheme of things and when they are told time and time again that they must remember this, and then still willfully rise up and try to usurp the natural order … well, then, things, ugly and unfortunate things, will happen to them.’


  “I was crying now. I simply could not believe that I was hearing such talk…. I barely knew what I was saying …

  “ ‘Are you a member of the Klan?’ I asked.

  “ ‘No, I am not,’ he said. ‘And I don’t condone what they do, but I understand their reactions …’

  “ ‘Oh, you do,’ I said. ‘How charitable and truly Christian of you … of you both!’

  “I pushed my chair away so hard I tipped it over, and then I stormed up the steps and slammed the door behind me as hard as I could.

  “I fell on my bed and felt as though I were going mad. My own family … thinking such horrid things. I wanted to go home at once, and to hell with the country and its perfect air.

  “Yessir, I was ready to leave that night, to walk back in the snow if I had to … but I thought of how tired, how sick my parents were, and how I would miss a whole year of school … and I decided that I would finish the semester, then leave.

  “To her credit, my aunt came up to my room and talked to me. She told me that she was sorry my uncle had lost his temper, that he was tired, and things had been difficult for him and that in reality he would never hurt a soul … he just liked to hear himself talk … that kind of thing. I let her calm me down … but my mind was set. As soon as I could I would leave. Of that there was no question at all.

  “And I would have, too … if things had turned out differently.”

  My grandmother sighed and rubbed her neck.

  “This stiffness … that’s what old age is, Bobby … everything stiffening … including your spirit if you aren’t careful. You remember that.”

  “I will,” I said.

  “Now, let me see, where was I? Oh, yes … after that pleasant dinner I barely spoke to my relatives. I had decided they were the enemy, too. My only ally was Bonnie, and the only thing I liked in school was that they had a music teacher. She was a volunteer from the community named Marjorie Chase, an old maid, but she was very nice and a fine teacher. She was teaching me piano one day after school, and I was doing pretty well at it. The only problem was that I missed my ride and had to walk home in the dark. On this particular day it was cold and rainy, so it had gotten very dark early … and I wrapped my scarf around my neck and buttoned up my coat, and headed down the path through the woods. I hadn’t gone far when I heard the sounds of something trampling through the trees to the right of the path. At first I thought it was my imagination, and I went on walking. But then I stopped quickly, and I heard someone take a few more steps before stopping, too. My blood ran cold, and it had nothing to do with the weather. There was someone there … and I was pretty darn sure I knew who it was. J.J. Randall. His taunts had become increasingly threatening, and now he was trying to scare me to death. I kept walking straight ahead, and with each footstep I could hear the echoing step in the trees. Then I thought, maybe … maybe he wasn’t just going to scare me. Maybe he was really going to hurt me. But I managed to keep my head. I told myself that I was not going to be beaten by someone so damned ignorant and hateful, that whatever it took, I was going to protect myself. I looked up ahead and saw a bend in the road. There was about a hundred yards from that bend to the main road. If he was going to do anything to me, it would have to be before I got there … so I had to act soon. I picked up my pace. When I got fifteen yards or so from the bend in the road, I broke into a run. I was fast, and I knew that running on the path, I’d get there quicker than J.J., because he had to dodge trees and brush in the near dark. I went around the corner fast, then ducked in behind some pines. I searched the ground and in a few seconds found what I needed, a tree limb. I picked it up, crouched, and waited. I heard him coming through the trees fast. I’d surprised him, but he was making up for lost time. Then I saw him come around the curve. I didn’t wait. I knew if I let him strike first, I was finished. I jumped out from behind my tree and swung the tree limb hard. I hit him right in the chest, hard, and he moaned and fell back on the ground. I jumped out over him, holding the tree limb like a war club…. If he tried to get up, I was going to bash him again.