The Dry Grass of August (15 page)

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Authors: Anna Jean Mayhew

BOOK: The Dry Grass of August
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A man was checking out our car, getting down on his knees and peering underneath. He had on sunglasses, and his hair was so long it hung down under his straw hat.
Mama handed Davie to me. He put his face against my neck, which made me want to cry. I began to shake. I sat on a bench outside the Rexall, trying not to throw up, swallowing over and over until the sick feeling went away.
The man who'd been checking the car spoke to Mama. “Name's Jake Stirewalt.”
“I'm Mrs. Watts, Mrs. William Watts.”
“S'my place over there.” He pointed to a garage. “Be happy to try to fix 'er, Mrs. Watts.You might need a rade-yater. And I ain't got one.”
“Can you get one?”
“Hafta check the Packard dealers. Savannah, Augusta. Might could take a while.”
“Oh,” said Mama. “Well.”
Stell Ann was sitting in a patch of grass across the street. Mary stood at the edge of the crowd, holding Puddin's hand. She waved when she saw me looking at her.
A siren sounded a block away, then a sheriff 's car pulled up. A man in a uniform got out and spoke to Mama. “I'm Deputy Hinson. Is anybody hurt?”
“My son's hand is cut, and my daughter's lip. Everybody bumped heads, but I think we're okay.”
He called across the street. “Bobby Joe? Walk on over here.”
The truck driver lolled against his fender. The front of his truck was crumpled, but he didn't seem to care. He pushed himself away from the truck and wobbled into the street.
“Off the wagon, Bobby Joe?”
The man nodded and folded himself into the sheriff's car.
“I have my way, you never gonna drive again.” Inside the car the man slumped against the window, his hair making a flat gray circle on the glass.
The deputy's leather holster was high on his hip, the gun black and square like Daddy's. Had the deputy ever used it?
He called out, “Anybody see what happened here?”
Stell stood and walked over to Mama.
A man stepped up. “Bobby Joe Tart came barreling out of Grady. Didn't even slow down at the stop sign. Hit this young lady's car. She was on Main, going toward town.”
“Is that right?” the deputy asked Stell.
Mama said, “It happened so fast.”
Mr. Stirewalt walked up. “Okay if we push the car to my shop?”
“Yeah, go ahead,” the deputy said.
Mama said, “Don't work on it until I've talked to my husband.”
Mr. Stirewalt handed Mama a piece of paper. “Here's my number. J and J's Garage. The best in Claxton. You ask anybody.”
People walked away. Talking, looking back at us like they didn't want to let go of the excitement. The deputy asked Mama a few more questions and wrote things down.
Davie held out his hand, palm up, showing me the Band-Aid. “Davie hurt.”
“Yes, but it's fixed now.”
“Kiss it.” He put his hand to my mouth. I caught the dry rubber smell of the Band-Aid mixed with cherry lollipop.
Mary began taking the luggage from the trunk. I put Davie down next to Puddin so I could help Mary pile our stuff on the sidewalk. Mr. Stirewalt and two men pushed our car to the garage across the street.
“Guess we're stuck.” Puddin put her head against my shoulder.
Mr. Stirewalt walked back to Mama. “You'll want to stay at the motel park a couple blocks from here.You can call me tomorrow.” He turned and hollered, “Gaither?”
“Yeah?” answered one of the men who'd pushed our car.
“Take Mrs. Watts and her kids over to Sally's.”
“Will the motel have a place for our colored girl?”
“That's a problem.” Mr. Stirewalt took off his hat, leaving a dent in his greasy hair.
The man named Gaither said, “They's a nigger hauls our trash. You can't find a place for your girl, I'll ask him.” There were damp rings under his arms. His gray work pants were too short for his lanky height, leaving his knobby ankles bare. “Somebody'll keep her.” He smiled at Mary, but his eyes were hard.
An old pickup rattled to a stop beside us. The passenger windshield was cracked. The boy driving it hopped out and handed the keys to Gaither, who tossed our luggage over the tailgate, bumping against me when he turned to pick up another suitcase. He stank from cigarettes and foul sweat.
Mary moved to help with our bags and Gaither said, “I can handle this, girl.”
She backed away, looking down.
He ran his fingers through his thick brown hair, swept back in an oily ducktail.
Mama and Stell Ann got in the cab. Mama settled Davie on her lap, then called through the window, “Get in the back.” Puddin and I climbed in.
Mary handed me her pocketbook. She grabbed the sidewall of the truck and put one foot on the bumper, then pulled herself up, holding her skirt against her knees as she stepped over the tailgate. Puddin and Mary each sat on a piece of luggage, and I sat on a toolbox. The truck smelled like our basement when the sewer backed up.
Gaither drove slowly down the street. Claxton looked friendly, the streets swept, store windows shining in the afternoon light. Gleaming railroad tracks ran parallel to Main Street. A woman in a yellow print dress watered flowers in hanging pots in front of a millinery store. Men sat in chairs outside a barbershop. A sign in the window said
MY GRANDMOTHER'S FRUITCAKES FOR SALE. INQUIRE WITHIN
. The barber in his white coat leaned against the doorjamb beneath a red, white, and blue barber pole turning around and around, the stripes spiraling out through the top.
The truck turned in a driveway at a sign:
SALLY'S MOTEL PARK. CABINS. POOL. VACANCY
, and pulled up beside a brick house with the word O
FFICE
on the front door. Gray stone paths connected the cabins, dividing the green lawn into squares and triangles. I couldn't see the pool.
Gaither got out, cleared his throat, coughed.
A woman came from the office, shading her eyes with her hand. Her short brown hair was finger-waved in tight rows.
“Hey, Sally,” said Gaither.
“Hey, Gaither.”
“These folks had a wreck. Jake's got they car.” Gaither unrolled a pack of cigarettes from his shirtsleeve. “This here's Sally Bishop.”
“Hello, Miss Bishop,” said Mama. “We need rooms. At least one night.”
“It's Mrs. Bishop.” The woman looked at Mary. “That your girl?”
“Yes.”
She walked away, her hand to her mouth, the other hand in a fist on her hip. She turned. “You and one of the kids could stay in Cabin Two”—she pointed—“a double bed. The others in Cabin Four—two double beds, a kitchenette, with a cot for your girl.”
“How much?” Mama asked.
“Four a night for the small cabin, ten a night for the big one. In advance, daily.”
“My goodness.”
“Take it or leave it. No place else'll have her, not around here.”
“Do you have a phone I could use?”
Mama and Mrs. Bishop went into the office. A sign by the door said, F
RESH
B
AKED
F
RUITCAKES
. M
ORE CHERRIES, NO CITRON
.
Mama's voice came through the open office window, leaving a message with Daddy's secretary. After she hung up, she said to the motel woman, “My husband's not available. I need to make one more call.” She spoke into the phone, giving the operator Uncle Taylor's number. “Person to person, collect, please.”
She waited a couple of minutes, then said, “Oh, Taylor, thank God you're there.We had a wreck. Everybody's okay, but the car . . .” She blew her nose.“God knows where Bill is. I left a message.” She said something I couldn't hear, then, “Yes, but I need him. I feel so overwhelmed.”
After Mama hung up, I said to Stell, “I hope we stay here. I want to swim.”
“I hope they have a bathtub, not just a shower.”
Mama came back outside and said, “Carry my suitcase over there.” She pointed to Cabin Two. “And take the rest to yours, Cabin Four.”
Mrs. Bishop came outside. “There's another thing.” Her voice was strident. “I could get in trouble for letting your girl stay here, but I can see you're in a mess, so I'm making an exception.”
“We're grateful,” Mama said.
“But there are rules. She's got to use the outhouse, not either of y'all's bathrooms. Behind Cabin Six, through those trees.” She pointed.
“What about bathing?” Mama asked.
“She can't use the pool.”
“I meant washing herself.”
“There's a pump behind Cabin Four.” She coughed and touched her hair. “That's the best I can do. I could lose business if word gets out. There are folks around here . . .” She turned and walked toward the office.
“Yes,” Mama said under her breath. “There are always folks.”
I climbed into the back of the truck and handed our suitcases over to Mary. When I was getting out, Gaither walked up and took my hand to help me. His hand was gritty. I jumped from the bumper and moved away.
“See you around.” Gaither flicked his cigarette onto the lawn. He coughed and cleared his throat again as he got in the truck.
We were unpacking in our cabin when the motel lady brought a folding cot for Mary, a wooden frame with green canvas slung from it, like the one I slept on at Girl Scout camp. She gave Mary a faded bedspread, two sheets, and a pillow. “You won't need a blanket, hot as it is.”
We set the cot up under the window in the kitchenette—a double-burner hot plate, a tiny refrigerator, and a sink. A note on a tattered index card was Scotch-taped to the wall:
Tables under bed.
I looked and found four small folding tables. Mama was going to have to eat her words about never having supper on TV trays.
“This one's mine.” Stell sat on one of the beds. “You and Puddin can have the other one.”
Ever since we left Charlotte, Stell had made it known that she wasn't sleeping with Puddin. Maybe because they shared a bedroom at home and Stell wanted a break from her.
Mama came to our cabin to check it out. She looked into the bathroom. “Mary, help yourself to the toilet and the shower. I'm sure the girls don't mind. If that Sally woman says anything, send her to me.”
Mary nodded.
Mrs. Bishop knocked at the door. “Phone, Mrs. Watts. I believe it's your husband.” I hoped she hadn't heard what Mama said to Mary.
Mama's mouth twisted. “Y'all get settled while I talk with your father.”
C
HAPTER 18
I
found the swimming pool through the trees behind the motel cabins. It was small, with chairs and lounges crowding the concrete apron. The piddling diving board had almost no spring and was barely high enough to dive from. I stretched out on it in my bathing suit, rubbing my shoulder blades against the torn hemp runner. Traffic on the boulevard swooshed faintly in the background. A car door slammed shut, and somebody shouted,“See you!” I scratched my back on the ragged hemp, stared at the cloudless sky, and thought about Leesum. If he was as good a diver as he was a swimmer, he'd know what a stupid board this was.
The boards Daddy had built for Charlotte Municipal Swimming Pool were for real divers, like Daddy might have been if he'd had coaching. He could still do a jackknife.
The City of Charlotte had held a dedication for the new boards last Memorial Day weekend, when Municipal Pool opened for the summer. We'd been running late and Mama drove fast, but the parking lot was jammed when we got there. She pulled in behind Daddy's car, laughing. “I've got him hemmed in.”
People were sitting on portable bleachers around the pool, the mayor, friends from the country club, men from Watts Concrete Fabrications. Daddy stood near the high dive, in his blue seersucker suit, wearing a straw fedora with a stained band. He said something to Uncle Stamos, who seemed to fade into the background the way he always did when the two of them were together.
Stell and I sat on one side of Mama, Puddin on the other. Davie kept twisting in Mama's lap. She snapped at him to be still, then glanced around to see if anyone had heard her. She smiled at the mayor's brother, who we knew from the club.
The air smelled of chlorine, cigarettes, and suntan oil. The pool was turquoise glass under the hot sun and I wanted to jump into it, make waves and shout. The still blue water needed breaking up.
“Testing, one, two, three, four” came from the loudspeakers. The squeal of feedback brought a groan from the crowd. “Turn it down, Pete,” a man hollered. Stell Ann raised her eyebrows, put her hand over her mouth, muffling a snicker. Puddin looked bored.
The mayor spoke into the mike. “Good afternoon! I'm happy to have y'all here. Hope you brought your suits!” Everybody laughed as though he'd said something really funny.
“We need this great facility for our young athletes. Can't expect them to train without first-class equipment. Charlotte is now the largest city in the Carolinas, and we have every hope of being represented in the Olympic Games before too long.” There was scattered applause among the crowd. “First order of business is entertainment. Let's hear it for the Myers Park High School Marching Band!”
A drum cadence started. The gates swung open in the chain-link fence surrounding the pool, and the head majorette high-stepped through. The crowd laughed as the band marched in wearing plumed hats, boots, and bathing suits. They halted and marched in place on the pool deck. The cadence changed to a repeated slow beat on the snare drums. A flute played the refrain from “Dixie.” The crowd rose to its feet and sang. I got chill bumps singing about old times that were not forgotten. At the end of the chorus, people started to sit back down, but one of the majorettes stepped up to the mike and sang a verse I'd never heard:
Ole Missus marry Will the weaver.
Willum was a gay deceiver.
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land!
But if she want to drive 'way sorrow,
She can sing this song tomorrow.
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land!
Her voice hung in the air. Then everyone sang the chorus again, more fiercely than before. After the band marched out and the drum cadence faded, the mayor said, “I'm going to turn the mike over to the man who made all this possible. William Watts is president of Watts Concrete Fabrications, the company that built these fine diving boards. A proud husband and father of four, he has his family here with him today.” The mayor tipped his hat to us, then continued. “Two of the Watts girls are already great competitive swimmers, and Bill is often seen at their meets.” Stell touched my arm. I kept my eyes down, wondering if I should look up.The mayor went on. “The Watts family are active members of Selwyn Avenue Methodist Church and Myers Park Country Club, where Bill is on the board of directors, and where he recently achieved elite status by shooting a hole in one on the back nine. Let's have a hand for William Watts!”
The crowd applauded. Daddy handed his glasses to Uncle Stamos and walked to the base of the diving boards.
“Why's he wearing that old hat?” I asked Mama.
“Shh. He's going to speak.”
Mama seemed puffed up with the importance of the occasion, maybe because Daddy had become someone in Charlotte, a respected businessman. I sat up straighter.
Daddy waved away the microphone. “Can everybody hear me okay?” he yelled, and the crowd called back, “Yes!”
Daddy shouted, “What's essential about concrete?”
Somebody hollered, “What?”
“It's gotta be hard!” Daddy jumped up and down on the pavement and people roared with laughter, every eye on him. He stood at the deep end of the pool, his reflection beside a mirror image of the high dive. “Our shop's just a local outfit, a bunch of guys working on small jobs. When we won the bid for the pool deck and base for the diving boards, I had to hire more crew and go back to school.” He kicked off his loafers and put his foot on the first rung of the ladder to the high dive. “Had to learn the latest about compressive strength, hardening time, accelerators, L-bolts . . .” He stood at the top of the ladder and touched the base his company had built. “This is one of the biggest structures we've poured to date.” He lifted his hat from his head and saluted the crowd. The red stone in his ring glittered. Then with a flick of his wrist, he sailed his hat into the air, grinning as it spun around and landed in the middle of the pool. Laughter filled the air again. Mama shook her head. “That's why he wore his old hat.”
The sun glinted off Daddy's hair. “We designed the base ourselves to support these springboards.” He stepped off the ladder and walked out onto the board. “They have to be anchored with precision or divers won't get all the bounce they need”—he took two steps and the board bent beneath his weight—“for a half gainer with a triple twist.” Daddy flexed his knees and the board went down, rose up. I was proud that he knew what a gainer was. He turned his back to the pool and put his feet at the end of the board, heels lined up with the edge. “Even the simplest dive needs good spring.”
He was silent for a minute and the crowd waited. “A trained diver knows all boards are different, but his stride is the same.” Daddy lifted one foot and seemed to go off balance, spreading his arms to steady himself. I was sure he was pretending. He took four steps back toward the ladder. “The diver takes four paces from the end, then turns.” Daddy pivoted.
“How high is three meters?” He looked puzzled. “Most Americans need a slide rule for that one.” He was tall and solid above the white base, so handsome. I was proud to be his daughter. “Three meters is nine point seventy-five feet, about the height of the gutter on a one-story house. So a three-meter board is ten feet off the water.” He kneeled and put his hand on a bar underneath the board. “The secret to spring is the fulcrum, this bar.As you can see, it's adjustable.” He pointed to a crank. “Proper placement of the fulcrum keeps the bounce under control.” He stood and pointed backward, toward the ladder. “If we moved it that way, the bounce would throw the diver into the next county.” He stood on his tiptoes, arms wide. I looked away, embarrassed by the damp circles at his armpits. He lowered his heels and stood flat-footed again.
“A diver marks his pace from the end of the board so he knows where to start his approach.” He took three long, fast steps and his arms carved circles, then his hands came together and rose above his head. His left leg came up into a tight knee bend, then slammed down on the board and he leaped into the air. His hands came down to meet his feet in a perfect jackknife. For an instant he hung in the air, then his head and hands fell and his legs snapped up. He split the water in a straight vertical, almost no splash. The crowd gasped, exploded with applause.
Mama said, “What a show-off.”
Daddy surfaced arms first, rising like Esther Williams in a water ballet. He slicked his wet hair off his forehead as he climbed the ladder, his seersucker suit clinging to his broad shoulders and long legs.
Puddin jumped into the motel pool, splashing me. I rolled off into the water. She swam over to me in a jerky stroke that wasn't much better than a dog paddle. “Guess what? Daddy's coming!”
I went under and grabbed her feet, heard her muffled shriek through the water. “When?” I sputtered as I came back to the surface.
“Tomorrow. Mama's glad.”
I swam to the side of the pool. Mary came through the gate, carrying Davie on her hip.
“Your daddy be here tomorrow.”
“Puddin told me.”
She put Davie down. “He want to be sure your mama's car get fixed right.”
Davie walked to the side of the pool, holding out his hands. “Doobie, water.”
“You take him in the pool, you got to keep the Band-Aid dry.”
I got out and walked with Davie to the shallow end. We sat on the steps and Davie kicked the water.
Mary pulled a Kleenex from her pocket and wiped her face. I wished she could come in the pool with us and I wished that Daddy would stay in Charlotte.

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