Catfish Alley (4 page)

Daddy
always told me that I needed to grow up and make something of myself, leave the
bayou and see what was beyond her waterlogged levees. Mama, on the other hand,
said I was too big for my britches, that I thought I was too good for hard
work. Thing is, she was probably right. I wanted nothing to do with the life
they had. I wanted to get as far away from that swampy, gator-infested place as
I could. Daddy's been gone now for more than twenty-five years and I haven't
thought about him in a long time. The first time I met Delbert Tanner I
wondered what Daddy would have thought of him. More often, these days, I wonder
what Daddy would think of me.

Inside
the office, a woman sits behind a large metal desk. She looks up as I walk in.
She looks so familiar to me; I wrack my brain and finally place her. She was my
checker at the Sunflower grocery store just last week. She is probably around
my age, mid-forties. Her hair is a strange shade of red, somewhere between
legitimate auburn and the color of a pumpkin pie. She is wearing a lavender
knit sweater that, I must say, doesn't do much to hide her belly roll and a
plaid skirt that looks like something from the sixties. She's friendly, though.

"Good
morning, may I help you?"

"Yes.
I was hoping to talk to Del. My name is Roxanne Reeves. I did some business
with Mr. Tanner back in the spring. He might remember me. Is he in the office
today?"

"Yes,
ma'am. He is. I'll check with him. Please, have a seat."

While
I wait, I wander over to the old black-and-white framed photos on the wall.
They show the way the mill and lumberyard looked in the late 1920s. The
Davenports still owned the mill then. The secretary tries in vain several times
to use the telephone intercom to contact Mr. Tanner. Each time she buzzes
through to him, she accidentally disconnects right after he answers. After the
fourth try, the office door bursts open and Del Tanner springs into the
reception area like a wild cat. He looks older than I remember, his weathered
skin almost too tight for his angular frame and his slicked-back hair a
yellowish gray.

"Dammit,
Ruth! How many times are you going to push that thing? I must've answered you
five times!"

"I'm
so sorry, Mr. Tanner! I just can't seem to get the hang of it."

"Well,
what is it? I've got work to do."

Ruth
nods toward me. "This is Mrs. Reeves. She is here to see you."

Tanner
looks up in surprise. Apparently, in his tirade, he hadn't noticed me. Now, of
course, he is all smiles. He walks over to me with his hand out.

"Hello
there, Mrs. Reeves. Good to see you again. Please, come in and tell me how I
can help you today."

I
follow him into his office and sit in the uncomfortable folding metal chair he
offers me. Tanner slides into the chair behind his wide pine desk, leans forward
and smiles broadly, showing a gold front tooth. "I remember doing business
with you, Mrs. Reeves. You came in about those beams for the Dillard kitchen,
didn't you?"

I
nod. I bet you remember, I think to myself. That was quite a lucrative
transaction for you. Personally, I thought the price was ridiculously high, but
Rose Dillard was tenacious. Once she heard that the beams were milled locally
in approximately the same year her summer kitchen was built, there was no
stopping her. Of course, I'm comfortable negotiating for lumber to remodel a
one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old structure, but I'm not sure how I'm going to get
that little old black woman waiting for me in the car through the gates of Del
Tanner's lumberyard.

"Mr.
Tanner ..."

"Please,
call me Del." Another flash of the gold tooth.

"Del
... You may not know that I am the director of the Clarksville Pilgrimage Tour
of Antebellum Homes. We plan the annual spring Pilgrimage Tour, several events
related to the history of the area, and the Holiday Home Tour."

"Yes,
yes, I know the pilgrimage. Good for business in town, I hear. 'Course those
tourists aren't buying lumber" — he laughs at his own humor — "but I
support what's good for Clarksville. I didn't know you were the director,
though. That must be a big job."

"Yes,
it's a pretty big job...."

"Are
you needing something for a restoration project? Because I just got in a load
of beams from a torn-down house over in Yalobusha County. They'd be perfect for
a restoration."

"No,
Mr. Tan ... Del. What I'm interested in is the building you keep that lumber
in."

"Come
again?"

"It
has been proposed to our committee that we include an African-American tour as
part of the pilgrimage events."

Tanner
rolls his chair back from the desk, crosses his arms, and stretches out his
long legs. He looks puzzled. "What's that got to do with me?"

"Are
you aware that your warehouse was once a school for black children?"

Tanner
laughs and looks at his watch. "No, ma'am, I sure wasn't aware of that.
This business has been in my family for more than sixty years and nobody ever
said nothing about a school around here. All that building's ever been to me is
a storage warehouse for old lumber. Listen, Mrs. Reeves, I hate to hurry you,
but I've got a load of pine coming in here in about fifteen minutes ..."

It
starts to dawn on me that this might not work out.

"I
won't take much more of your time. What I'd like is for you to let me drive
through the gate so that Miss Grace Clark, our consultant for the
African-American tour, can show me that building."

"Consultant?
You got you some educated nigger from up north to consult? How about you hire
me as your consultant? You want to have an African-American tour in
Clarksville, Mississippi? I'll tell you where you ought to be touring. Down
there at the unemployment office is where you'll find 'em all. I hire them, but
I can't keep one on the job. Drink up their paycheck, beat their wives, get
thrown in jail, and don't show up on Monday morning."

I
wasn't ready for this and I'm not sure how to react. He does have a point about
the black people and the unemployment office, but still there are the Humboldts
and their insistence on this tour.

"No,
we don't have a consultant from the north. Grace Clark was a schoolteacher for
many years at the black elementary school and then at Clarksville Elementary
after they integrated. She knows a lot about the history of the area."

"Look,
Mrs. Reeves, that's all well and good, but I don't have time this morning to
escort you and this old black woman around the lumberyard. I'm sorry, but
you're going to have to come back another time."

"So
you're saying that if we make an appointment, you'll take us through the
warehouse?"

"Yes,
ma'am. I'll take you through it, or I'll get one of my boys to do it. But I'm
going to tell you right now. My lumberyard is not going to be part of some
trumped up
African-American
tour." He
says
African-American
as if the words are sour in his mouth. "I do that and I'll be out of
business in a year." He stands up and opens the door of his office.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, Mrs. Reeves."

Grace

When
I see the look on Roxanne's face as she comes out the door of the lumber
office, I know it didn't go well. Mouth all set in a straight line, forehead
all furrowed up. I can't say I'm surprised. I've known the Tanner family since
I was a little girl. White folks think the Tanners are upstanding citizens in
this community. But white folks are going to think what they want to think.
Delbert's daddy, Ray Tanner, has been dead about twenty-five years now, as I
recall. His son is just like him, though. Del Tanner might not be a Klansman,
but he thinks like one. I wonder for the hundredth time why I'm putting myself
through this.

Roxanne
opens the car door, throws her purse down on the seat between us, and plops
herself down. She grips the steering wheel and looks out through the windshield
at that building like she can't figure out what just happened. She turns to me
and starts to say something, stops, starts again, and finally just says,
"Miss Clark, that didn't go very well."

I
figure she might as well get used to it. If this white woman is going to try to
head up an African-American tour in the town of Clarksville, she'd better get a
little more realistic about what she's dealing with. Poor thing, all caught up
in her romantic ideas about Scarlett O'Hara and how people loved their darkies.
She's never seen what's right under her nose.

"What
happened?" I ask.

"He
... well, he ..."

I
have a hunch Delbert Tanner probably used some strong words Roxanne is not
accustomed to hearing. Her social set prides itself on their enlightened
attitude toward black folk. But when it comes right down to it they're just as
uncomfortable as Del Tanner's type.

Roxanne
is talking now, trying to be tactful. "It sounds like he's very busy
today. Something about a load of lumber coming in any minute now. He wants us
to schedule an appointment to look at the warehouse ... Miss Clark, this is
just one old building. Aren't there others? I mean, surely there are
better-looking places than this?"

Bless
her heart. "How about you drive me over to Sanders Cafe? We'll have a
piece of pie and I'll tell you a story about that old warehouse."

Obviously
Roxanne Reeves has been taught to respect her elders, even old black women. She
doesn't argue.

"All
right then, we'll go over to the cafe, if that's what you want. Did you want to
show me anything else today?"

"No.
We'll just start here for today."

Sanders
Cafe is one of the few places in Clarksville where you see just about the same
number of white folks as black. I figured Mrs. Reeves won't be too nervous
about us coming here together. I don't get to town much these days, so I get
stopped twice before we're in the door with folks speaking and asking after me.
When we walk in, several of the black folk seated around nod and smile. Of
course, I've got to chat for a minute with Mary Ellen.

"Hey,
Miss Grace! It's so good to see you. What brings you to town today?" Mary
Ellen comes around the counter to give me a big hug. She's a sweet girl — I
believe she was one of my students sometime in the seventies. Making a good
living for herself with this cafe. She has the place fixed up real nice, even
got each room of the old house painted a different color, white curtains in the
windows. I like it because it's homey, but mostly because the woman can cook.
I've never known a white woman who could cook such good pies.

Mary
Ellen glances past me to Mrs. Reeves, but I don't think she realizes we're here
together. It occurs to me that I'm too old to be conducting my own little
social experiment. But here we are. Roxanne is studying the pies in the case
like she's in a museum or something. Probably wondering what I'm going to say.

"Mary
Ellen, you know Mrs. Roxanne Reeves, I reckon," I say and look over at the
back of her head, where she's still bent toward the pie case. She pops up then
and gives Mary Ellen a stiff little smile.

"Hello,
Mary Ellen," she says.

"Yes,
ma'am, of course," says Mary Ellen, nodding at Roxanne. "How are you
today?" Mary Ellen is looking at both of us like we're the strangest pair
she's seen in a while.

"Fine,
thank you," says Roxanne.

"Roxanne
and I are doing some historical work together," I say. "She's looking
into the places around here that were important to black folk years ago."
Roxanne is looking all fidgety now, picking at something on her sleeve.

"Oh,
I see," says Mary Ellen. It's pretty clear to me that she has no idea what
I'm talking about, but she's too polite to ask. "Isn't that
something?" She seems to not know what else to say, so she moves around
behind the counter and adds, "What can I get for y'all today?"

I
realize right then that in all my years of coming to the cafe, I've personally
never arrived with a white person to sit down together to eat. They sit at
their tables and we sit at ours. Nowadays, you see a mix every now and then,
but not much. I wonder about myself. What was I thinking, asking her to bring
me here?

We
order pieces of Mary Ellen's apple pie and coffee and settle ourselves at a
corner table. I think Roxanne is trying to ignore the looks from folks around
the room and get this over with.

"So,
you were going to tell me about the school," Roxanne says.

"When
I was a little girl, my brother, Zero — his given name was Thomas — and I lived
with my mother and my grandmother in a small house on the Calhoun plantation. I
remember my first day at the Union School. I was so excited. That was also the
day my brother got his nickname...."

Roxanne
starts to relax around the shoulders a little bit, stops glancing around the
room so much. I always could calm the children with my stories. Maybe it will
work for her, too.

September 1919