Footloose in America: Dixie to New England (16 page)

Don also owned the house next door, which his older brother lived in. “He got shot up real bad in ‘Nam. He don’t get around too good. The VA takes care of him. When they pay his rent, I give the money to him. That way he’s got a little something extra to spend.” Don had just returned from
a shopping trip for his brother and mother-in-law. He started to pull the plastic bags out of the truck cab, then he stopped and turned toward me. “Here, this will show you the kind of shit I run into every day. I’ve got this little black gal that rents from me a few blocks from here. Real sweet little gal. She’s got a baby girl that just started walking a couple of months ago. Cutest little thing. Of course she’s got no husband, and she’s on welfare. But she’s no trouble. Late on her rent sometimes, but I work with her.

“This morning, I went by to get the rent, and there’s this big buck Nigger sitting at her kitchen table. He had an empty forty-ouncer on the floor and half-full one in front of him, and her baby girl was running around the kitchen butt naked. When she gave me the rent, I asked her why the baby didn’t have any pants. She said she didn’t have money for diapers. Right then, this dude says, ‘Baby, how about holding out ten bucks so I can get some more brew.’”

Don paused, grimaced and said, “That went through me like a shot. I walked over to him, pulled out a ten dollar bill, waved it in his face and told him, ‘No, I’ll pull out ten bucks and buy that baby some diapers. And when I get back with them, you aren’t going to be here.’ Then he said, ‘Says who?’”

Poking himself in the chest with his forefinger, Don said, “‘Says me!’ I told him ‘I own the place and I ain’t renting to you. I don’t know who you are but anyone who’d buy beer before diapers is not welcome in anyplace I own. And if you aren’t gone when I get back, I will remove you.’”

Reaching under the driver’s seat, Don pulled out a 9mm hand gun and tossed it on the seat. “I figured he’d be gone when I got there. But just in case, I stuck this in my pants when I took her the diapers. He was gone and she thanked me. Said she’d never have him over again. And she’d get the ten bucks to me next month. I told her not to worry about it.”

For the past few minutes, as Don was telling us his stories, we had been watching a low riding, mid-80’s Oldsmobile creep toward us. It was baby-blue, highly polished and headed east along the avenue. Because there was no parking lane, east bound traffic had to swerve across the yellow line to get around it. We heard a redundant base line from the radio long before we saw the car. Because the windows were tinted, we couldn’t see who was
inside, but every once in a while a black arm would gesture out the passenger window. And when a vehicle behind them honked, a black fist with the middle finger pointing upward would emerge from the driver’s side.

Adjacent to them, on the sidewalk was a tall slender black woman pushing a stroller. She was in her early twenties with the figure and face of a cover-girl.

It was apparent that someone in the Olds was talking to her. And as they got closer to us, it was obvious she was not interested in talking to him.

They were about twenty yards from us, when the engine revved and the car roared on up the avenue. When she got close to us, Don asked, “Those guys harassing you?”

With a forced grin, she shrugged her shoulders and said, “It’s no big deal.”

Don knelt down in front of the stroller. “Will you look at this little man! I can’t get over how much he’s grown. How old is he now?”

“He’ll be a year the end of this month?”

“Has he learned to say Grandpa yet?”

She blushed and giggled. “We’re working on it.”

Don stood up. “Tell your dad I said it’s good thing this little guy looks like you instead of his grandpa.”

While she walked away from us, the Oldsmobile stopped next to the curb across the street headed the other way. The radio was silent and a black man, wearing sunglasses, with gold dangling around his neck, leaned out the back seat window. “Baby, you and me could make some pretty babies together! Come on, baby!”

I could feel Don tense up next to me. I think the guy in the car, and the young mother did too. Because both of them suddenly turned to look at us. Immediately the man stuck his head back in the car, and it sped away.

Under his breath, Don said, “Niggers!”

I was thinking, “
Ass holes
!”

CHAPTER 7

A
UTUMN
O
N
T
HE
N
ORTH
B
ANK

W
HEN WE CROSSED THE
O
HIO
River into Evansville, Indiana, it meant we were out of Dixie. To runaway slaves the Ohio must have been the most beautiful river they had ever seen. Once they crossed it, they were free. That didn’t mean they were out of danger. The north bank was rife with professional slave catchers. And southern Indiana was a strong hold for the Ku Klux Klan. But the north bank was also home to many slave sympathizers. Folks who opened their homes, cellars and barns to those on the run to freedom. When we walked along the Indiana side of the river, we encountered numerous historic markers and heard lots of stories about this network of abolitionists known as the “Underground Railroad”. In Troy, we met the Efingers who, while renovating a house on the river front, uncovered a tunnel that had been part of it.

Of the large rivers that we had come to so far–the kind with barge traffic–the Ohio was by far the prettiest. The water in the Mississippi and the Arkansas Rivers was muddy. But the Ohio was shimmering and blue. Along the shore were bluffs and hills covered with oak, hickory and maples adorned in all shades of orange, yellow, red and purple. While we walked along the Ohio, it seemed like each day the valley got prettier. It was the Iroquois Indians who named it, “Oyo”, which meant “beautiful.” The French changed it to Ohio.

West of Troy, we camped in a roadside park called “Lincoln’s Ferry.” It was where the Anderson River empties into the Ohio. When he was fifteen, Abraham Lincoln got a job on a ferry that crossed the Anderson River
near there. A couple of years later, he built a flat bottom boat and went into business. He rowed passengers and cargo to and from the steam boats in the main channel of the Ohio.

According to a historic marker in the park, it was this enterprise that piqued young Lincoln’s interest in government. When he was seventeen, Abe was sued by a Kentucky ferry operator for operating without a license. Representing himself, Lincoln maintained that since he only rowed to the middle of the river he was not operating a ferry in Kentucky. The court ruled in Lincoln’s favor.

Our camp at Lincoln’s Ferry was on a bluff about thirty feet above the river. It was October 9
^th
. So autumn was really showing its colors. Late in the afternoon, as the sun approached the hill tops, I began to think about the first people who saw the river. Natives who feasted from its waters and hunted game in the surrounding hills. Surely they saw the river as more than just a provider for their livelihoods. Like me, there must have been moments when they paused to simply marvel at the way the sun shimmered across the water. While they watched the sun slip toward the horizon they had to have been awe-stuck by the orange-red rays that splayed across the heavens like giant burning fingers.

On a day like that, with fall dabbed among the evergreens, those natives must have rejoiced in where they were. Especially when the wind was still and Oyo was reflecting all that magic on its surface. Like me, did they ever find themselves with their mouths agape–mesmerized by that spectacle?

And what about young Abe in his row boat? After he delivered his passengers to a big boat mid-stream, he must have had moments like this. While his little hand-made boat plied the waters by the power of his biceps, there had to have been autumn sunsets that so amazed him, he paused and lifted the oars up from the water. With the boat drifting and oars dripping onto the surface, he must have been mesmerized by the spectacle that the Iroquois called, “Beautiful.”

In my travels on foot, in a car, bus, plane and by thumb, I’ve had my heart stolen by the beauty of lots of places. The Rocky Mountains, Pacific Coast, Yellowstone–places like that where you expect to be wowed before you get to them. But Indiana? Never was I so surprised by the beauty of a place as I was with Southern Indiana.

When I was growing up in Oklahoma, our family often drove back and forth across northern Indiana to visit relatives in northeast Ohio. In the 1970s, as I toured America with my pack pony and dog, I crossed Indiana in the north, too. Mostly, it’s flat farm land. Thus, that’s how I’d always thought of Indiana–as flat.

So I was not prepared for the rugged high bluffs, steep valleys, lush wood lands and long breathtaking views of the shimmering Ohio. I had never been in a place with so many waterfalls. They weren’t tremendous tumblers like Niagra, or those in Yellowstone. These were brooks and springs that fell over rocks and ledges down to the river. Most flowed under vines, trees and other vegetation. So, in a car you wouldn’t have noticed them. But on foot you do. In Southern Indiana, there were times when the sound of falling water was all around us.

It was certainly that way at Camp Koch (pronounced Cook)–a Girl Scout camp east of Cannelton. My mother and step-father drove their motor home up from Arkansas and rendezvoused with us there. The camp was in a small dead end canyon across the highway from the Ohio. In the back of the canyon, plunging off a high sandstone bluff, was a long skinny waterfall–the sound of it reverberated throughout the canyon. In the middle of the canyon that stream had been dammed-up into a manmade pond with an arched wooden bridge over it. A picture perfect place to teach Girl Scouts how to swim and row a boat.

At the back of the canyon, in the face of the bluff, were several caves. One behind the water fall was big enough to put a small home in. Carved by centuries of water and wind, the bluff looked like giant fingers had molded the sandstone when it was wet. The sidewalls were steep and forested with switch-back foot trails that led to the top. Vines, as big around as my arm, looped up from ferns and moss into limbs adorned with autumn.

Camp Koch was named after the doctor who gave the land to the Girl Scouts in the late 1940’s. Originally he offered it to the Boy Scouts, but they decided the terrain was too rugged for young boys. So the girls got it instead.