Tales from a Free-Range Childhood

by Donald Davis

  Quickly, Larry and I repaired the opening and hid behind two trees. It would happen very soon.

  For a few minutes, there was no smoke. We almost wondered whether the burning paper had gone out or the paper in the bottom was so old it was too damp to ignite. Then it started to happen. It seemed as if the smoke had simply built up until it filled the entire pit before beginning to seep through the leaves at the top. Then it began to evenly waft through all over the hidden surface of our trap. It was a big smoky area for sure. Smoke gradually rose up silently into the air. The little boys had to be coming soon. Surely, they could see this from wherever they were. Why weren’t they coming?

  There were two important things that Larry and I did not know. The first one was that Ronnie and Joe were no longer playing outside. They had retreated into the house to watch television. The second, and more important, thing we did not realize was that, since this was Easter Monday, our fathers were home from work. My daddy and Mr. Leatherwood were both working on top of the hill in their side-by-side gardens while Larry and I were hopefully watching a growing column of smoke rising into the sky.

  Suddenly, I heard Mr. Leatherwood’s voice. He was calling to my daddy. “Joe, look down there in the trees. There’s smoke coming up out of the woods. We must not have gotten the yellow jackets’ nest put out last night. It looks like the fire might have come back to life.”

  Daddy responded, “I see it. Looks like it’s pretty big. Come on, Lawrence! Let’s get down there and stomp it out!”

  Larry and I watched from our behind-tree hideouts as my father (the vice president of First National Bank) and Larry’s father (the county school superintendent) came charging downhill to stomp out the escaped fire. We stood there and silently watched.

  If we had stayed hidden, maybe they would not have known who dug the big hole. But there would have lingered a lasting question: who did it? Maybe at best we might have escaped a little longer.

  It was not to be so. When our fathers were no more than twenty-five feet from the pit, Larry and I were both struck by another responsibility virus. We jumped out from behind the trees and at the same time yelled, “Nooo! Stop!” It was too late. All we did was again announce ourselves as the culprits.

  Larry and I stood there and watched as our fathers disappeared into the depths of the earth. It was an astounding and memorable image.

  All kinds of things happened then: limbs flew up in the air out of the big hole, burning pieces of newspaper and grass flew out, dirt clods flew out, many very bad words flew out. There was fury in the ground!

  We realized they were talking to us. “Get over here right now!” Was it Larry’s daddy or mine whose voice we heard? “You heard us. Get over here and get us out of here!” It didn’t matter which one it was, they were both yelling at both of us. “We are going to whoop you both. You are going to get a whooping you are going to remember. Get over here!”

  Slowly, we walked over to the ruined pit and looked down into the hole. It looked like daddies-in-a-blender! They were furious. “Get us out of here!” they were both hollering now.

  Suddenly, Larry and I realized the same thing at the same time. They were stuck! They could not get out of the hole without our help! We were not as close to death as we had thought. We needed to think about this whole thing.

  Suddenly, Larry got the idea that our fathers’ inability to get out of the hole gave him some sort of bargaining power. He looked down at both of them. “We’ll get you out if you don’t give us a whooping! Yes, we will!”

  With that offer, both fathers got tickled. It was such a ridiculous scene that they started laughing. Then we started laughing. Then all four of us fell into laughing so hard that we were crying and could not stop. Suddenly, we were all four the same age—not fathers and sons but four boys, all of whom were in love with trouble. It was a great feeling. They then told us that they would not give us a whooping. They would think of something else for us. (We didn’t even hear that last part.)

  Larry and I walked up to the garage of our house and got the wooden stepladder. We carried it down to the pit and lowered it down the side. My daddy first and then Mr. Leatherwood climbed out of the hole and dusted themselves off. We were still laughing.

  “Thank you, boys.” It was Mr. Leatherwood talking. “We couldn’t have gotten out of there without you. There is not going to be a whooping. We are good for our promise.”

  We were relieved, but not for long.

  “While you boys were getting the ladder, we figured out what to do in place of the whooping.”

  We were both shocked to realize that they had really meant this promise. Larry and I listened.

  We finally asked, “What is it?” We couldn’t believe this was not over.

  “Well”—Daddy was the speaker—“first we need to ask you, are you sure, totally sure, that you don’t want a whooping?”

  Larry and I did not even consult before we answered in unison, “We don’t want a whooping!”

  “Well,” Daddy went on, “if you are sure, you can hear our plan. Here it is: this winter, the first time it snows, we want both of you boys to take a sled out on the hill over there and show the little boys how you ride the sled through the apple tree. And if you have trouble doing it the first time, we want you to do it over and over again until you get it right.”

  In unison, Larry and I both wailed, “Please, give us a whooping!”

  Daddy and Mr. Leatherwood walked over to a maple tree, and each of them broke off a limb. They then pretended to give us a whooping, with all four of us laughing all the way through the little charade. It was wonderful punishment! And that was the last time either of us remembered getting a whooping from either of our fathers.

  Chapter 17

  THE DUCKTAIL

  From the time I was born until I was old enough to go to Mrs. Rosemary’s kindergarten, Mama tried to cut my hair. She didn’t want to waste the money to send a child to the barber and spend good money on what didn’t matter anyway. While she was so totally in love with my brother Joe’s hair, she thought what I got on my head (which she often compared to her own hair as “little fine mouse hair”) needed to be as mowed down as possible.

  Her efforts were not very successful, as I had two strongly opinionated cowlicks, one at the crown and one on the right front corner, that believed themselves to be in charge of my hair. No matter what Mama tried, it did not work. The more she cut, the worse it looked. The cowlicks made the hair stick up more and more the shorter it was.

  When I was about to go out in public and be in kindergarten each day, Mama gave up. One day, she told Daddy, “Take him on down to the barbershop and get his hair cut. Maybe they can do something with it.”

  Daddy took me to his own barber, Herschel Caldwell. All the Caldwells came from Cataloochee, and our family had known all of them forever. Both Herschel and his brother, J. R., were barbers.

  Herschel saw immediately what the problem was: Mama was trying to keep my hair so short that it would not lie down anywhere near where the cowlicks were in control. He trimmed me a little bit around the ears, then sent me back home with Daddy to tell Mama to let my hair grow out until it got enough length and weight to lie down. Then, he said, it could be parted and combed and would look very nice.

  Hair was a battle with Mama all through elementary school. She still fussed when it got the least bit long, and she would always take me to the barbershop and try to supervise Herschel while he was cutting it. “Can’t you take a little bit more off on top?” She was circling his chair while he cut.

  “If I take more off on the top, Lucille, it will stick up at the crown like Alfalfa on The Little Rascals.”

  “Can’t you make it a little shorter in the front?” She would not give up.

  “If I make it shorter in the front, that part will stick up like Dagwood Bumstead.” Herschel wanted to be proud of his work. The biggest embarrassment to me was simply having my mama not only take me to the barbershop but also try to su
pervise the barber, who knew very well what he was doing.

  In about the third grade, I discovered Wildroot Cream Oil. My first little bottle was given to me by Mama’s brother, my uncle Spencer. I think he felt sorry for me. I loved it.

  By now, Herschel had convinced Mama that my head would actually look better if he could leave enough hair for me to comb. The Wildroot Cream Oil did make it possible for me to get it to stick together enough for parting to happen, and it would often even lie down in the back.

  I remember the day I got that first bottle. I put it in my pocket and took the Wildroot Cream Oil to school with me. All day long in Miss Ruth Metcalf’s class, I secretly worked with the Wildroot Cream Oil.

  When we first got to school and the bell had not yet sounded, I went to the boys’ bathroom and rubbed a bit into my hair. Combed, I went to class happy and knowing that I looked good.

  What was good, however, could always be better. When we got to take our restroom break on the way out to recess, I applied more Wildroot Cream Oil. It made my hair darker, and this time combing it made it look like I had permanent little harrowed rows in a cornfield. I looked even better than before.

  Throughout the day, every time there was a chance, I added more of the creamy stuff.

  By the afternoon, I could reach up and put my hand on my cheek and feel the slipperiness of Wildroot Cream Oil that could no longer get a grip on the top of my head. I was simply greased.

  The biggest problem was that by now Mama was teaching second grade at my school, and my route home in the afternoon was to go to her room when the bell rang and, of course, ride home with her.

  I had lost my sense that the Wildroot Cream Oil had a noticeable odor. I had added it little by little and grown immune to the smell. Mama, however, smelled it before she looked closely at me. I had to surrender the bottle to her, and before we even got in the car to go home, she took me into the little bathroom beside her room and washed my head with something Haskel Davis normally used to clean the sink itself. I went home smelling like a pine tree, with all my hair sticking up like pine needles.

  Hair was a continuing battle as junior-high years approached. Musicians set the mark, and some of the kids I most admired seemed to have full permission to follow. The classmate I admired most was Milas Chambers, the first person my age I ever knew who had his own guitar. He thought he was Hank Williams Number Two! His hair was something to behold.

  Milas Chambers lived with his grandparents, and Mama said that is why he got to have and do anything that he wanted to do. He got the guitar in about the fifth grade, and at every school talent show he would wear a cowboy hat and play Hank Williams songs. The favorite was “Hey, Good Lookin’.” When he sang, he looked girls (and even mothers) in the audience straight in the eye and winked as he strummed on the guitar.

  Mama said that he had once been in her class when she substituted in Sunday school, and she did not want me playing with him, imitating him, or even looking at him. This made him more interesting than ever.

  When we all moved up from Hazelwood Elementary School to Waynesville Junior High School, Milas Chambers really hit his stride. He was converted from Hank Williams to Elvis Presley. This affected his entire demeanor.

  He started wearing a lot of black clothes to school, always with the back of his shirt collar turned up. His favorite song was now “Hound Dog.” He wiggled when he played the guitar and sang. But worst (or best!) of all, he let his hair grow longer, dyed it black, and had it fixed up in what Mama called “a pompadour with a ducktail.” She was disgusted. I was more impressed than ever.

  Milas’ hair was long all over. It was parted on one side, and the side away from the part was swooped up over the top of his head like an ocean wave on which a surfboard could ride. Both sides were so long that they were swooped back over his ears like wings. The tips of these black-dyed wings met at the back of his head in what for all the world did in fact look like the tail of a duck resting on the nape of his neck.

  Mama could not even stand to look at him.

  His hair was the goal of my dreams.

  Because my mama still took me to the barbershop even in junior high school, I fought off going as long as I could between trips. And since she was now a very busy elementary-school teacher, she would accidentally let me slip by the haircuts until my hair was almost long enough to suit me and way too long to suit her.

  I still rode home with her from school each day. But now that I was at the junior high school and not at her school, I had to wait each day for her to finish her work, then drive a long mile to pick me up on the way home. My little brother, Joe, would already be in the car with her.

  My favorite waiting place was on the steps of the band building. This building was between the junior- and senior-high parts of the campus and had sheltered west-side steps. As the fall moved into winter, this was the warmest outdoor waiting spot.

  One afternoon, she pulled into the circular drive to pick me up and I could already see the look on her face. “You look like a sheepdog!” she announced. “I was just counting on my fingers, and it has been a full month since you had your hair cut.” (My hair did and always has grown very slowly. Not my fault.) “You have got to have a haircut. I wish I had time to take you up to Herschel’s today, but I just can’t do it. And tomorrow, I am going to have to go to the grocery store. I hate for people to know that a child of mine looks like you do!”

  That’s when I got the idea. I offered, “Mama, I am thirteen years old. I know where the barbershop is located. I know Herschel Caldwell. Why don’t you just give me some money, and as soon as school is out tomorrow, I can walk on into town and get my own hair cut while you go to the grocery store.”

  “How would you get home from there?”

  I was afraid something would be wrong with this plan. “It is not much over a mile to walk home. I won’t go on the highway. There is a sidewalk all the way to the hospital, then I can go up Woodland Drive and cut through Rubye and Howard Bryson’s to the top of Hillside Terrace, and come on home that way. It would not be too long at all.” I crossed my fingers behind my back.

  Mama thought about it a few minutes. We had all once walked to town and back that way in the summer, just to see how it could be done if needed. I could easily do it.

  Finally, she agreed: “I guess it’s a good idea. You can try it tomorrow if it is not raining. I will send you to school with two dollars. The haircut is a dollar and sixty cents.”

  Of course, I already knew how much a haircut was. This was ridiculous. But it was going to work.

  The next morning, I went to school with two dollars in my pocket and a plan in my head.

  When the afternoon bell rang, I left Mrs. Pilarski’s classroom and headed toward town. It was no distance at all. Kids walked there from school every day.

  Herschel now cut hair at the Parkway Barbershop. It was a wonderful place with a half-dozen Koken chairs, mirrors covering the walls from the midpoint up on both sides, and a sign that proclaimed, “No Profanity and No Spitting.” The barbershop always smelled wonderful.

  When I got in the door, Herschel was cutting an old man’s hair. I recognized the old man but did not know his name. I would be next.

  When he finished shaving around the old man’s ears, Herschel whipped the sheet covering off him, popped the hair off of it while the man got out of the chair, and said straight to me, “Next! It’s you, little Davis. How did you get here without your mama?”

  I climbed up into the chair as I answered Herschel’s question. “I am thirteen years old. I guess I can at least find my way to the barbershop without my mama.”

  Herschel chuckled. “I know you can. But I also know your mama. I’ve known her longer than you have. Now, what can I do for you today? Your hair is longer than she usually lets it get. Want it cut all over the way we usually do it?”

  “No!” I answered quickly, before he could fire up the electric clippers. “Like I said, I am thirteen years old. I guess I can decid
e how I want my hair cut!”

  “I guess you can.” Herschel had a smile on his face now. “So, without your mama here, how do you want your hair cut?”

  The answer started with a question: “Do you know Milas Chambers?”

  Herschel was beaming now, but I did not realize that I was the source of his entertainment. “Of course I know Milas. I guess I know everybody in this end of Haywood County. What has Milas Chambers got to do with your haircut?”

  “Everything! What I want is for my hair to look like his looks. I am not sure that any of it actually needs to be cut off . . . just fixed. I don’t want it dyed black. I’ll keep my color. I just want to have a ducktail!”

  Remarkably, Herschel controlled himself. He did not laugh out loud. He calmly asked, one last time, “Is it okay with your mother for you to have your hair like that?”

  This was a question that could not be answered directly. I did the best I could. “Remember what I told you? I am thirteen years old, and I guess I can get my hair fixed any way I want it fixed. It is my hair.”

  “You asked for it!” was Herschel’s only answer.

  He started. Herschel lathered the nape of my neck and shaved the bottom hair off in a straight line above the level of the shirt collar. He did the tiniest bit of trimming of my sideburns. Then he searched around the shelf behind him until he found a round container labeled, “Butch Wax.” My hair was going to need all the help it could get.

  Herschel globbed some of the Butch Wax into my hair. He then combed it all straight back. That is the way he figured out where the part needed to go. He heated up a metal comb as his tool of choice. I could feel the warmth of the comb as he raked the wings back above each ear. I could feel the tickle on the back of my head as he shaped the ducktail. At the end, he kept combing the pompadour straight up in the air and letting it fall back over my head until it suited him.