Darby (3 page)

Sure enough, a bird was strolling the opposite shore, grabbing fish with a pointy beak. “How’d you know?” I asked him.

“Heard his legs stir the water.”

I watched the bird for a while. Then I got curious, and asked, “Great-Uncle Harvey, do you remember what seeing was like?”

He raised a hand for Jacob to stop pushing. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “I sometimes have dreams about seeing things.”

I stepped back and looked at him. “What mostly do you see in your dreams?”

“I ain’t sure if I can explain it.”

I brushed some burrs off my white dress. “Could you try maybe?”

Great-Uncle Harvey smiled. “I see my daddy’s hands sometimes, the way they had deep cracks along the tops.”

“You mean wrinkles?”

“I don’t think. Cracks is what I remember, like the way the bark on a tree feels . . . except smaller.”

I watched the big fishing bird lift its legs and swing into the air above the pond. So as not to make my uncle sad, I decided not to tell him that people never have cracks on their hands’ tops. “Well . . .” I mumbled, “I didn’t know Granddaddy except for when he was stuck in bed.”

“Yeah,” Great-Uncle Harvey said. “It’s just something I see sometimes.”

Unsure what I should say, I picked up a twig and pushed at a spider web. “Did anyone tell you I wrote a newspaper article?”

“Nobody did,” Great-Uncle Harvey said. “What did you write about?”

“Just something true,” I answered. “It was boring while I was doing it, but now that it’s gonna be in one of the papers, I like it all right.”

“Sounds good,” he said.

“I just tried to tell the truth. That’s what my friend says newspaper writers do.”

“The decent ones,” he agreed.

“That’s the kind I’m gonna be,” I said. I looked at the furry tops of Great-Uncle Harvey’s wrists, which hung over the wooden armrests of his rolling chair. Seeing them reminded me that I’d lied about my granddaddy’s hands. “Great-Uncle Harvey?”

“Yes, child?”

“Maybe I gotta say something uncomfortable.”

“Well, go on and say.”

I thought about how to make it sound right. “To be honest, I . . . I don’t think your daddy had hands that could’ve been cracked that way? I never saw somebody with hands like that.”

“Maybe my dreams are wrong?”

“Maybe they aren’t,” I said. “I just haven’t ever seen it.”

With a hooked finger, he loosened the collar of his nice shirt. “Fact is, it’s been a long time since I saw anything.”

“Great-Uncle Harvey,” I whispered, “I didn’t want to tell you, but I thought I should.”

“I appreciate the truth, Darby.”

“That’s what newspaper girls gotta do,” I explained.

“It’s your job,” he agreed, grinning again. Then, as if he wasn’t blind at all, he reached over and squeezed one of my elbows.

“How’d you know where my arm was?” I asked.

“Just did. Now go on and let’s keep walking,” he said, waving a hand to get Jacob to push some more.

That night, after I was excused from dinner, I went downstairs and out the back door to where Jacob was smoking a cigarette in the dark. For some reason, the way he was so quiet made me curious. I stood near the doorway looking at him. Leaning against a tree, he was nearly invisible.

I said, “See that house way in the field? That’s where one of my best friends lives. Her name’s Evette, and she told me last week I should be a newspaper writer. That’s why tomorrow I’m gonna go tell her that the
Bennettsville Times
is gonna run my story. You know what? I bet she doesn’t believe me, either.” I stared at Jacob, but it didn’t seem like he heard me. “Can you talk?” I asked.

Jacob studied me so that I got a chill. “Course I can,” he grumbled, and puffed his cigarette.

“But you don’t ever say anything.”

He flicked the last part of his cigarette into the dirt. “What should I be saying?”

“Just stuff.”

“Child, I save my breath for folks who wansa listen.”

“Oh.”

He laughed. “See how me and you don’t have nothing to talk about? I save my breath.”

I thought for a while. Then I asked, “Do you like pushing around Great-Uncle Harvey?”

“Better than pickin’ cotton.”

I said, “He’s real nice.”

“He nice, but we don’t say nothing.”

“That’s what it seems like.”

“That’s what it is,” he said.

I waited a minute, then told him, “My friend who lives in that house right there is black, and she’s got an aunt and uncle in New York who bought a house and a car.”

He shook his head. “Up in Maryland, a black man’s got hisself a whole chicken farm.”

“You know what? Before the other day, I never heard of a black person owning those kind of things.”

“That’s right,” he said. “You wouldn’t.”

I watched him light up another cigarette, and just as it got to burning orange, my mama started hollering for me from deep in the house. “Darby! Darby Sinclair Carmichael, it’s time for bed!”

Looking up at the back of Ellan, it seemed like I could see right through the walls to where Mama was calling for me in the hallway. I said, “I gotta go.”

“That’s fine, miss,” Jacob answered back.

When I was wearing a nightgown and ready for bed, I crept downstairs to ask Great-Uncle Harvey if I could write a newspaper story on how he was blind. Slinking through the house, I found him sitting on the back porch with my daddy. Drinking glasses of headache medicine, they weren’t saying but a few words here and there.

When I caused the floor to creak, Great-Uncle Harvey said, “Who’s sneaking around behind me?”

“It’s me,” I said.

“Darby,” my daddy groaned, “it’s past your bedtime.”

I nodded. “Yes, sir. I just wanna ask Great-Uncle Harvey a question, is all.”

“What can I do for you, child?” Great-Uncle Harvey spoke in his bullfrog voice.

Feeling more skittish than a bird, I said, “You . . . you think you’d mind if I write my next newspaper report on you being blind and hearing so well and even dreaming of seeing sometimes?”

My daddy swung about. “Darby, that’s disrespectful!”

But Great-Uncle Harvey shook his head. “Naw, it ain’t, Sherman. Matter of fact, I’d be honored.”

Frowning at me, Daddy said, “Great-Uncle Harvey, don’t feel obligated.”

“I don’t at all, Sherman.”

I climbed up the side of his rolling chair and balanced myself on one of the armrests so that I could give him a good hug. “Thanks, Great-Uncle Harvey,” I told him. “It’s gonna be real fun.”

Hugging back, he said, “I’ve never been the subject of a newspaper report before.”

The next morning, I had to go to Sunday school, then to church, where I listened to our long-winded preacher. Sometimes his sermon goes so slow that my head gets woozy, and I got to leave before I faint. When that happens, McCall gets annoyed and says I embarrass him. The thing is, my daddy seems happy to go outside, where we sit on the steps and talk about the trees or the grass or something like that. Every so often, he’ll say, “Reverend Macy had a whole lot to discuss today.” Once he told me, “I was starting to get lightheaded, too.”

When I finally got back home that morning, as fast as I could I put on a play dress and some old shoes. Grabbing up my notebook, I ran for Evette’s house. As I huffed through the cotton field behind Ellan, the sun got hot against my blond hair. Covering part of it with my hands, I yelled, “Evette! Hey, Evette! I got something to tell you!”

Sticking her head through a half-torn screen, she looked out a back window. “I’m coming out.”

“I don’t got long,” I hissed. “In just a little bit, I gotta eat Sunday supper.”

“I’ll be there in a second,” she said, disappearing.

Waiting for her, I threw dirt clods as far as I could. They whisked into the air and disappeared among the wavy rows of cotton plants that my daddy’s mules had tilled. All around, the sky was so clear and clean it seemed like the blueness was painted on a ceiling. And on account of it being Sunday, the fields in every direction were empty. Then I heard Evette’s front door slam, and I hurried around toward the side of her house, where I took hold of her hand. Together, we darted off toward the woods and hid ourselves behind a fallen-over tree trunk.

“Guess what?” I said.

“What?”

“It was a good idea about being a newspaper writer. Maybe it is fun.”

“Yeah,” she said, “that’s what I think.” She smiled. “If you wanna try it, I’ll help you. We could write things together.”

“That’s okay. I don’t need to learn any more about writing.” Shrugging, I added, “Do you wanna know why?”

Real slowly, she said, “Why?”

“Well, it’s ’cause my very first newspaper story is being put in the
Bennettsville Times
this week. I just took it over to Mr. Salter, and he wanted it right away. Isn’t that something?”

Evette leaned against the tree trunk. “You told me you was scared to write anything.”

“I was . . . but I did it anyway.” I smoothed the trim of my dress so that I looked neater, more like a newspaper girl. “See, when I got home after we talked about writing for newspapers, I thought about toads and how they don’t really cause warts, and since you said writing was fun, I went and tried it. I asked Mama and McCall what they thought, and I even wrote about how your sister carried one all day and didn’t experience a bad side effect. Then after I showed it to my daddy, I asked him if I should take it to Mr. Salter, and my daddy didn’t say much . . . so I did. I did it on Friday, and Mr. Salter must not’ve known about the toads, ’cause he decided to put my story in this week. So now I’m already a newspaper girl, and just a few days ago I didn’t even know anything about being one. It’s like I was supposed to be a girl writer all along. Doesn’t it seem like that?”

Evette made the ugliest face I’ve ever seen. “Your daddy must’ve gone and asked that man to put it in the newspaper, ’cause nobody can write a good article in one try. My aunt went off to college to learn how to do it.”

“My daddy didn’t have anything to do with me getting in the paper. Besides, maybe writing’s not easy for a lot of people, but it is for me.” Sashaying my head, I added, “Guess I’m just naturally skillful.”

“Darby, you ain’t natural at all,” she said, throwing a twig at my feet.

I swiped up a handful of dirt and poured it on top of her splitting shoes. “You’re just mad ’cause I’m already a newspaper girl, and that’s what you wanted to be.”

“I still wanna be one, and I ain’t mad,” Evette announced, standing.

Looking at her, I noticed that the biggest, blackest ant was zigzagging up the middle of her dress. “You got an ant on you,” I told her, knowing it would scare her something awful.

Evette shrieked and swiped at the ant like it was gonna can-opener her stomach.

“If you’re so smart,” I snipped, “you should know that black ants don’t bite.”

“It don’t matter, ’cause I just don’t like ’em. Maybe . . . maybe your daddy didn’t say nothing to the newspaper man, but the only reason you’re getting your story printed is on account of who you are. That’s all. It don’t even matter if I can write better than you, ’cause my daddy don’t own the Carmichael Dry Goods, and my daddy ain’t a white man who’s got his own house and farm and all that.”

Standing up, I tried to make her feel dumb. “Evette, you haven’t even read what I wrote, so you don’t know if it’s any good.” I swished my notebook at her. “You know what? I was gonna let you see it, but now I guess you’ll have to go buy a newspaper yourself.”

“I ain’t gonna go buy that fool thing.” Turning away, she thumped off toward her house.

I called after her, “Your whole family can’t afford a newspaper, is why you won’t buy one!”

Evette spun around. Pointing at me, which my mama says is just about the rudest thing you can do, she shouted, “Darby, you smell like cow poo!”

Fearful, I sniffed myself before screeching back, “I do not!”

Last year, when I caught the measles, my eyes got so weak I had to lay in bed with all the curtains plastered shut and the lights off. Everyone was nervous that I was gonna go blind like Great-Uncle Harvey. I wasn’t scared, though. Back then I didn’t know the measles were what broke his eyes. Instead, I fretted that Evette and Beth had forgotten about me. I didn’t know their mamas were keeping them away so they wouldn’t get sick. The whole time my body was coated with red dots, I worried I’d dropped out from their thoughts, which made me feel worse than itching and coughing. It wasn’t till I got better that I realized they still wanted to be friends.

The thing is, I never have forgotten how lonely it was in my dark bedroom. It was awful, that’s for sure. Anyways, after Evette yelled that I smelled like cow poo, I began to feel the same lonely way. Scuffing toward Ellan, I wondered if we’d ever play dress-up again. Over my shoulder, her tiny shack seemed like it was floating above the dry cotton stalks, and I wondered if she was already making plans to play with somebody who wouldn’t act superior. Every few steps, I stopped and stared and imagined that I could still see the dust clouds her heels had puffed into the air.

“Evette,” I said, tears bubbling in my eyes, “I’m sorry I was dumb.”

Walking on past the dairy barn, which is spread out and tall and jammed with mooing cows, I knew she was right about the
Bennettsville Times.
It was hard to admit, but I knew in my heart that Evette could be a more serious and expert writer than me. She was so smart, was why.