The Last Road Home (4 page)

C
HAPTER
5

R
oy, Clemmy, and Fancy showed up at daybreak on Wednesday. The women went to the barn to get ready for looping tobacco, and Roy and me headed to the four-acre field that sat between our side yard and the main paved road. The morning sky was a light blue summer color, and the early air felt cool while it waited on the sun.

“Roy, you doing all right?” I got Sally Mule headed between the first and second rows. I had a comfort with Roy, respect for the good man I felt him to be. Since Granddaddy died he'd taught me some things, always patient with what I didn't know. It took him two hours one morning before I could understand the right way to change blades on the disking machine.

He shoved the back end of the tobacco slide around so it was straight. The yellowish leaves were two hands wide with big ribs, heavy, and coated with dew. “Fair to middling, I reckon. You?”

“Be glad to get tobacco season over and make some money, like everybody, I guess.”

“Won't be much longer.” Roy was shorter than me, broad-shouldered with a thick neck. “Junebug, I seen the candy Fancy said you give her. What do I owe you?”

Had he found Fancy coming back in the house last night? I took a second to answer. “Nothing, just wanted to help her feelings since Lightning run off.” I ducked down to roll the cuff on my overalls. “Hope it was all right with you.”

When I stood back up, Roy was waiting, looking at me like he had something to say. “I've knowed you most of your life and feel like we can talk some.” He stopped and wiped his forehead with a sleeve, giving me a good look at his arm muscles. “Now that her brother's gone, I worry about Fancy; she's at the age menfolk are starting to notice, and I don't want nobody sniffing around like some hound dog. She needs to stay like she is 'til a man comes along who'll marry and take care of her. You understand I have to keep my eye out.”

I bent over and snapped leaves with extra force. “I can understand that, Roy. Lightning, Fancy, and me been friends a long time, and I sure don't want harm to come to either one.” I knew what he was edging around, but in no way was I going to act like I did.

“I had a man-talk with Lightning a while back, but I think he got to messing around with them migrant women. Probably why he run off.”

“Well, don't you worry. Now that he's gone, I'll keep an eye on Fancy and make sure nothing happens.”

“Expect enough's said, and you take whatever the candy cost out of my pay today.”

I figured if he'd found out Fancy and me met in the woods last night, he would have said it direct. “Roy, it was for Fancy as a present because she's my friend. If for some reason you don't want us to be friends, I'll respect your word.”

“Not that at all, Junebug.” He kept walking and picking leaves. “I know having to work like a man at your age ain't easy. When a boy gets to be your and Lightning's age, his jisim starts backing up and he gets to having urges. If your granddaddy was here, I expect he'd be having this talk with you. Hope you'll take it as meant.”

I'd never worried with Lightning around, but it was plain that Fancy and me meeting by ourselves could be a different story. “Let's get this field done.”

In the middle of the morning we took a break in the shade, sharing water from a mason jar. We sat without talking for a few minutes. Roy stuck out his hand. “I appreciate you being a friend to Fancy.”

I shook with him. “It can be mighty lonesome living here, and I've always been grateful to have Lightning and Fancy around.”

Roy and me finished the field in a few hours, then went to help the women. I made sure to keep any talking directed at Roy. By the time Grandma yelled for dinner, we were almost done.

Roy, Clemmy, and Fancy sat to eat under the tree outside at the homemade bench, while Grandma and me stayed in the kitchen. After dinner I threw an old quilt and pillow on the floor to doze and give my back some relief. Everybody rested an hour to let the food settle. Grandma shook me awake.

Outside, Roy was walking around the garden to check what was growing, and Fancy picked through fallen pears under the tree to see if any might be ripe enough to eat. Clemmy helped Grandma clean up the plank table and carry the dishes. I listened while they laughed and talked like any two longtime friends. Both had known nothing but tough times, making do with a life that only offered more of the same, yet by luck of color, one was judged better off than the other.

We had the sticks in the barn and hung by the middle of the evening. Grandma paid them for a full day's work even though we were done by three o'clock. I filled an empty slide with pieces of thin dry pine slabs from the woodshed and used Sally Mule to drag it to the barn, preparing for a long night tending the fire to start the curing process. When Roy, Clemmy, and Fancy passed the barn headed up the horse path home, Fancy looked back and pointed her finger down.

* * *

With Granddaddy gone, the tobacco curing fell to me. I'd sat with him many nights and knew how to make sure the drying temperature was right, when to throw in a bucket of water to add some wet to the heat, and, most of all, not to be careless and let the barn catch fire. Many a family had lost everything to a tobacco barn fire that didn't stop with the barn.

After supper and chores, I put a couple of cold ham biscuits and a few comic books in a paper sack, then filled the lantern with kerosene before heading to the barn. Once the pine pieces were burning good in the brick firebox, I added some bigger chunks of hardwood, not too much, just enough to keep the heat low for the first night.

Crickets and tree frogs started up as daylight disappeared. Grandma came to sit awhile, warning me again not to burn up the place. “Sure do miss Granddaddy,” I said.

Even after him and Momma and Daddy died, Grandma still believed God hadn't forsaken us. I was pretty convinced by this time there wasn't any such thing as “
God's Will,
” that most of what the preacher spouted on Sundays was just stuff to scare little kids and give grown-ups a day to promise they'd quit cussing or drinking or treating other folks the way they did.

“What do you think happens after we die, Grandma?”

“Why in the world would you be thinking about that?” She took hold of my hand and squeezed it. “It's a question folks been pondering for thousands of years. I believe when the time comes, and if we've been faithful, our spirit lifts out, and we go to live with God.” Grandma reached her finger to turn my chin toward her. “Remember this, Junebug, a lot of people might choose different ideas, and some don't have faith at all. But the one thing everybody wants, no matter how un-alike they might be, is a happy ending.”

“What does that mean, Grandma?”

“It means nobody wants to think this is all there is.”

* * *

I lit the lantern, set it in the middle of the packed dirt floor, and lay down on the bench, resting my head on a tote sack filled with dried cornhusk. Maybe Momma and Granddaddy had gone to heaven, if there was one, but I had doubts about my daddy after what he did to Grady.

I heard a rustle in the leaves at the side of the barn, and picked up the lantern. A possum would hiss and grin but usually run. I eased around the corner and leaned the light into the darkness.

Fancy suddenly stepped from behind a tree, scaring the mess out of me. I tripped, my big toe hitting the side of the barn wall, pain shot up my leg, and I dropped the lantern. “Goddammit, Fancy!”

“I swear you is the scaredest man I ever saw.” She tried to sound sympathetic and not laugh, but couldn't. “Are you hurt?”

I bounced on one foot to the bench. “What the hell do you think? And what the hell are you doing out here? Your daddy finds you, he'll beat the skin off your ass and mine too.”

She waved her hand in dismissal of such a possibility. “He's just edgy because of Lightning. Is your toe bleeding?” She'd tied her hair into a short ponytail that stuck up on the top of her head like a woodpecker's knot. “Want me to rub it?”

I stuck my foot in her lap. “How do you manage to sneak out without anybody knowing?”

Fancy massaged until the pain eased. “Daddy built on an extra room in the back when Lightning and me got too old to sleep together, and that's where my bed is. I just open my window and hop out. Besides, he goes to bed as soon as it gets dark and snores so loud the wall could fall down and they wouldn't know it.” She moved my foot from her lap and played with her ponytail. “Junebug, what do you think about my hair like this?”

“Better than pigtails, more grown-up looking. Why?”

“I don't know. Ever since I got my monthlies, seems I feel different about a lot of things, that's all.”

“God dang it, Fancy. Why you talking about such stuff?”

She hopped off the bench and spread her arms wide. “Who the hell else am I going to talk to? The only time I get to see anybody other than your ugly face is on Sundays at church or when school is in. Look around, Junebug, ain't no other kids living out this far in the sticks except us.”

“If it's woman things, you need to be talking to a woman.”

“Never mine. I'll keep my mouth shut and be the dumb-ass little nigger you think I am.” She threw a stick at me.

I bounced off the bench and hobbled after her. When I caught up, I held her by the arms. “Sorry, wasn't trying to hurt your feelings.” We stood close, eyes locked.

She broke the gaze and peeped out at the dark woods. “You ever get scared being out here by yourself?”

“Nah, nothing out here at night except critters.”

“We could cast up a spell.” She grabbed my hand. Fancy's eyes opened wide as silver dollars when she was up to mischief.

“What kind of spell?”

“I hid and watched them island migrants once. They drew a circle in the dirt, made swirly lines, and started dancing around talking this crazy stuff. All of a sudden,
whack,
they chopped off a chicken's head and poured blood over the middle.” She lifted her arms in my face. “Whoooeee. That's scary, ain't it?”

“Stupid is more like it.”

“Might be, but some folks swear it works.” She grabbed the stick and drew in the sand. “Heebie jeebie, heebie hoo, yah yah hey, make all the haints go away.” Fancy started making a war dance around the circle.

She was a funny sight. “Wait a minute and I'll run get you a chicken.”

“What you better do is get in here and help me, never know what might be crawling in these bushes.” We held hands and danced 'round and 'round, hooting like little kids. I'd almost forgot what it was like to let go and just laugh. After a few minutes, we calmed down and went to sit.

“You miss your momma and daddy, Junebug?”

I got up and poked the fire. “Miss my momma.” I'd clung so close to Momma I didn't know where she ended and I began. At bedtime, she'd sit in her rocking chair, me on her lap, and count the spaces between my knuckles to quiet my mind. If I'd had a bad day she would say, “Junebug, days are like Christmas presents, you get to open a new one every morning.” Good days were hard to come by after she died. I looked at Fancy. “People are always saying time heals everything, but that's just bullshit.”

Fancy came to stand beside me, leaning against my arm. “How can you not be sad and lonesome all the time?”

I stared at the red coals. “A man has got to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Grandma helps, and Sally Mule and me have long talks when we're working.”

“Well, I'm here if you need somebody to talk to, Junebug. I can listen good as a mule.”

I grinned. “That's true, but the mule don't talk back.” I managed to dodge the swing at my head.

She walked off, shoving my hand when I tried to pull her back. I managed to grab hold and tickle, eventually getting her to smile. “You know I'm just playing.”

Fancy put her arms around my neck. It scared me. The moon had moved to the right and lower. “You need to get on back. Your daddy catches us out here, you'll need one of them spells to heal the welts on your butt.”

“Okay. You better stay and mind the fire.” She let go.

“Holler real loud if you need me.”

“Oh, don't worry. People in the next county will hear if a haint tries to grab me.”

“I'll keep an ear out for you.”

She faded into the darkness. Twigs and dry leaves tracked her as she walked. I went a few steps up the trail, listening as far as possible, then crept quietly behind, stopping at the clover field, keeping watch as she ran to her house.

C
HAPTER
6

A
ugust brought hot days and hard work. Since there was just Grandma and me, it was pretty much sunup to sundown. Her stamina made me embarrassed to feel tired. The only time we got to rest was Sundays or when it rained. Saturday night's meeting with Fancy got to be regular. A couple of hours alone with her made life more tolerable.

On Labor Day, the Wilsons invited the community to their house for a pig picking. The menfolk in the crowd stood in one group and the women in another. I walked over to join the men. They sipped shine whiskey from glass jars. Mr. Burley Mason said to the group, “How can a nigger tell when she's pregnant?” Somebody asked how. “When she pulls out her tampon and the cotton's already been picked.” That got a big laugh all around. Arthur Mills started another one, but I moved away. They were loud enough I knew Roy and Clemmy could hear. I'd listened to that kind of talk all my life at corn-shuckin' parties, hog killings, even standing around the churchyard. It was hard to understand how they could hate the people not a one of them could make a living without. Or maybe understanding that was why they did hate them. I glanced at Roy, but he sat with his head down studying his cooking fire. Clemmy busied herself with table chores, and Fancy stood way at the edge of the yard. Made me wish I could protect them, but all I could do was keep my mouth shut, pass and repass.

Roy had been up all night smoking the hog over hot wood coals in a pit dug in the ground. The pig was ready by sundown, and everybody helped themselves. I took a plateful around to sit in the swing on the porch, sick of listening to foulmouthed farmers with their guts full of liquor.

Fancy followed and sat on the steps. “This is good, ain't it, Junebug?”

My mouth was full of pig and potato salad. “Your daddy sure knows how to cook a hog.” By the time we went for seconds, the stars were out bright and a breeze stirred the humid air enough to keep mosquitoes away.

Fancy finished her plate and sat staring up at a bottom-lip moon. “What's your dream, Junebug?” Crickets scratched loud and lizards darted through the grass searching for them.

“About what?” I was so full I was miserable.

“I don't know, the rest of your life. What do you want to be?”

“Never thought much about it. I'm not much for rules, so that don't figure to work out any better with a public job than it does in a public school. I like farming pretty good, don't have to be beholden to other folks. What's yours?”

She hugged her knees and bent her head to rest her chin on her arms. “Like to see something of this world, wear pretty clothes, be something other than some house nigger walking around with babies on my hip, bowing and scraping for white folks. Don't know how it'd ever happen, though. Sometimes my life don't feel any different than them slaves I read about in school.”

The hurt in her voice was plain. I realized I had no idea what it was like to see the world through her eyes. I moved to sit on the steps. “If a person can't dream, how can they ever have any hope, Junebug?” She squeezed my wrist. “I like that I'm able to talk to you.” When Fancy turned her face up, tears filled the corners of her eyes.

“If any person could make a dream come true, Fancy, it would be you.” I wanted to tell her it would be all right, but I didn't know if it would be the truth.

* * *

Early on a Friday morning three weeks after Labor Day, Grandma and me packed the truck bed with sticks of cured tobacco, covered them with a wide piece of burlap, and headed to Durham. The crop had turned out good, the leaves golden and pliable. We expected to get a decent price.

Grandma pulled the truck into the wide double doors of the Liberty Warehouse, and we unloaded. The smell of piles of dried tobacco made my nose burn. Selling began about noon. An auctioneer moved down the aisles, shouting in a rapid singsong voice, saying words I couldn't catch. Buyers walked behind and bid on the stacks. When it was over, Grandma went to the cashier to get a check for almost a thousand dollars. “We'll go to town tomorrow so I can pay what we owe.”

At King's Hot Dog Stand across from the Durham Bulls Park, we celebrated by buying two hot dogs apiece and Cokes to wash them down.

The next morning after breakfast we started to Apex. When we passed the Wilson place, Fancy was out by the road playing hopscotch in the dirt. I touched Grandma's arm. “Can we take Fancy with us? She never gets to go anywhere.”

She slowed and stopped in front of the driveway. Fancy stood back. Grandma leaned across me to talk out the passenger window. “Fancy, you want to ride to Apex with me and Junebug?”

She broke out in a big grin. “Yes'um, I sure would.”

“Go ask Clemmy and Roy. Tell 'em we'll be back before too long, and see if they want anything while we're in town.” Fancy took off running.

“Thanks, Grandma, feels good to do things for other folks, don't it?”

She smiled patiently.

Fancy came back, changed into a clean dress and some shoes. “They said it would be fine if y'all didn't mind. And Momma sent a dollar for a five-pound bag of sugar, if it's not too much trouble.”

“Get on in. Junebug, why don't you sit by the door and let Fancy in the middle?”

Down on Highway 64, Grandma stopped at a Gulf station. Fancy and I stayed in the truck while the man pumped gas. “Junebug, can we go in the store?” she asked.

I looked at the five or six oversized farm boys standing outside the front door. “We need to be going so Grandma can get to Apex.”

In town, Grandma was feeling generous, and gave Fancy and me a dollar each to spend. We headed up the street, leaving nose prints on glass windows. I started in the drugstore door, but Fancy stopped. “Junebug, I don't think I'm supposed to go in this way. Have they got a colored door?”

It hadn't occurred to me. I went around the side and checked. “This is the only way in. Come on. This lady knows me and I think she'll be all right. Won't nobody say anything.”

I nodded to the woman behind the counter. She gave a hard eye at Fancy. Fancy stared at the floor. I decided on three comics and an ice cream cone. Fancy thought she would get her momma a small tube of red lipstick and a cone for herself.

The schoolteacher-faced lady leaned over the counter and frowned. “Son, I can sell you the ice cream, but not her. You buy 'em and take them outside if you want to.”

Fancy flushed, handed me her dollar, and left. I could feel the red burn up my face. I was embarrassed for Fancy.

Outside, we walked a little ways, then sat down on the concrete curb to eat the ice cream before it melted. Fancy wouldn't look at me, and when she spoke her voice was aimed at the pavement. “Why white folks hate black folks?”

I studied the bank across the street.

“I sure do get tired of it, Junebug.”

“I don't think it's really hate, they just do what's expected.” It pissed me off that I was making up such shit. I should have thrown the ice cream at the woman's face. “Things will change one of these days, Fancy.”

The muscles in her jaw were clenching and releasing, like she was chewing a mouthful of disgust. “Been like this a long time before we was born.”

Cars passed up and down the street in front of us. Nobody lifted a hand.

“I can't wait to get back to school. Get to see some of my friends.” She put a little extra on the “my.”

Maybe Fancy was tired of being around white folks. I tried to change the subject. “Got a boyfriend in school?”

“Oh, some boys are always playing and teasing, but I don't pay them no heed. I might get a boyfriend this year, though. Did you have a girlfriend last year?”

“Most girls act too stupid.”

White cream was all over her mouth. “Well, I'm a girl and I damn sure ain't stupid.”

“You're different.”

“Because I'm colored?”

“No, because we're like brother and sister, almost family.”

She pulled her head back, giving me a look that said she didn't believe me. “Well, Junebug Hurley, you really feel that way?”

“Sure.”

“Then you can call me sister.” Her red tongue licked the stickiness from around her lips.

“I'm going to call you Fancy like always. Let's get down to Salem's. Grandma is probably ready to go.”

She hopped to her feet and grabbed my hand. “Let's go, brother.”

I jerked my hand back. “You can't do that out here in public!”

Fancy stood staring. A crooked smile worked its way bit by bit across her lips. “Why, Junebug, you got more than them two faces I see?” She slowly lifted the ice cream cone and slammed it into the gutter.

I yelled after her, “Don't be stupid, you know what I mean.” She walked with her nose up like she smelled shit, refusing to turn around. When Fancy was pissed, she could ignore a person like nobody's business.

I slapped myself on the leg, “Okay,
sister,
you got me.” I didn't have the courage to stand up to my words and she knew it. I trailed behind like a whipped dog, head down, hands stuffed in my pockets, moping. I doubted another bag of candy would make up for this. We spent the entire ride home with her making sure we didn't touch each other.