The Last Road Home (5 page)

C
HAPTER
7

“W
hat do you think about me not going back to school this year?” I'd decided to get it out of the way at supper. We were already eating dessert.

Grandma looked down at the peach pie on her plate and fiddled with her fork. She folded her hands in her lap. I couldn't tell if it was determination or disappointment in her eyes. “Junebug, you're fifteen years old, and the only way you're ever going to be able to do anything other than ruin your back and be old before your time is to get an education.”

Granddaddy said he'd only got through the third grade, but I knew Grandma graduated from high school. She even taught for a year before they got married. “Granddaddy told me one time if you took another man's money, you had to eat his shit. I don't think I'd like the taste of that.” I waited and watched.

She put her elbows, rough and discolored by too many years of bending to work a dirt farm, on the table. “You keep the cussing to yourself. And don't take everything your granddaddy said to heart; times are different now. If you got land and are able to plant and pick, you won't starve to death, but you need to think about ten years from now. If you get hurt and can't farm, how will you provide if you got kids and a wife to look after?”

I knew she was making a point about our situation and the things that worried her. “Grandma, if you'll be upset, I'll respect your wishes and go to school, but with all that needs doing here, I don't see any sense in it.”

Her eyes narrowed, and chilled to the color of steel. “I can manage; been doing it a long time before you were born.” She leaned back in her chair. “You're almost a man now, and can reason with your own mind. I wish you would consider school because you'll understand the value of it one day, but I'm not going to make that decision.” She picked up her knife and raked food scraps onto her dinner plate. “Your daddy was hardheaded about school too. Maybe if he hadn't been, he'd still be here.”

Daddy had been a part-time mechanic, part-time dirt-track race car driver, and full-time bootlegger. I scooped the last of the pie. “Fancy's going back; she likes school.”

Grandma blew out a deep breath, letting her shoulders and the stern look on her face relax. “Good, I'm glad. She's a smart girl. Hopefully, one of these days she'll find a man to treat her kind and be a good husband.”

I put my fork down and slid the empty plate forward. “Grandma, you don't hate Roy or Clemmy, do you?”

“Why on earth would you think that?”

“Fancy asked me the other day why white folks hate black folks. I didn't know how to answer something like that. Do you think people really feel that way?”

She stacked the plates, and then rested her backside against the sink, folding her arms across her chest. “Junebug, you need to understand something. Cruelty and memory have been married together a long time in the South. My grandpa was sixteen when he went to the Civil War, and twenty-one when he came home with one leg and a belly full of bitterness. He died in 1915 when I was sixteen. All those years growing up I listened to his stories and watched his resentment. He was convinced the South fought and died for honor, and he blamed black folks for his suffering. It's a way of thinking that's been passed down since, like blue eyes or red hair or family land.” She turned back to the plates in the sink. “I know you don't think things you see are right, and I'm proud of you for that.” Grandma's words surprised me. I wanted to ask more, but could tell she was done talking about it.

I went to lean on the counter beside her. “Oh, I didn't tell you. Roy and me had a talk. He's on the lookout for anybody sniffing around Fancy, said he thought Lightning had got urges around some of the migrant women and that's why he run off. Wanted to give me advice like he thought Granddaddy would if he was here.” I got a case of the red-face repeating Roy's words.

Grandma smiled. “It's good to have another man to learn from about growing-up matters. He just wants what's best for Fancy.” She looked over her shoulder at me. “You ain't give Roy a reason to worry, have you?”

I headed for the porch. “I promised I'd keep an eye on her now that Lightning's gone.”

Grandma went back to drying and putting up dishes. “Why don't you go get your evening chores done while I clean up?”

* * *

After Grandma went to bed, I got a pouch of smoking tobacco and rolling papers I'd found in Granddaddy's old coat and headed out to meet Fancy. The night carried some clouds, but they were thin and let a lopsided moon make some light. I considered what Grandma said about school. After everybody in my life dying except her, I knew I might not live long enough to get old and unable to work, and I couldn't get a picture of things ten years down the road. Besides, school bored me. I didn't have big dreams of being a rich person or anything. A person with a place to call his own and make do for himself should be satisfied.

Fancy was already waiting. “Hey, Junebug, thought maybe you won't going to show up.”

I took the tobacco pouch out, and tried to roll a cigarette without spilling more than I got on the paper. “Only ain't coming if it's raining.”

Fancy watched me strike a kitchen match. “When did you start smoking?”

I coughed from the harshness in my throat. “Lightning and me used to sneak a few times.”

“Gimme a puff. How do you do it?”

“Suck on it a little so it goes down your throat, then blow it out.” My head was spinning some.

She took a long pull and got to hacking and spitting. “That taste like shit.”

“Mostly a man thing, women usually dip snuff.”

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “My old granny dipped, spitting that nasty mess all over the place.”

The moist air was warm and the tree leaves lay still, like they were waiting. “Talked to Grandma about school today.”

“What'd she say?”

“That it was up to me to decide what to do.”

“Well?” She'd brought the bag of candy and popped one in her mouth, then shoved the bag toward me.

A heavy odor of rotting leaves under our feet mixed with the sharp woodsy smell of pine. “Don't think I'm going back.”

“Might wish you had one of these days. If you want to have a big farm like Mr. Wilson, learning would do you some good. Every time I go over to help Mrs. Wilson with the cleaning, I wish we had such a house.”

“Too much to keep up. He gets the thing painted every other year, and Mrs. Wilson has to spend a lot of time working on those nice wood floors and cleaning all the time.”

“You might have a wife and some babies to take care of one of these days and need a big place.”

“Reckon I'll have to cross that creek when it shows up.”

She leaned way over, acting like she was trying to see through the trees, the sky suddenly of interest to her. “I might consider marrying you.”

A picture of us in front of the pulpit at the church flashed through my mind. “We'd be dead before we got to ‘I do'.”

“That's true. Plus, I wouldn't want to find you hanging from a sweet gum tree one of these nights.”

I picked up a pinecone lying at my feet and pitched it into the bushes. “I got a shotgun. They might get me, but there'd be some of them riding to hell too.”

“A gun won't do you no good if they burn your house down. With you in it.”

“I ain't scared of a bunch of Boo Boys.”

“Momma said they hung one of her uncles some years back. Got to messing with a white woman. They took a rope and strung him up down by the Neuse River. Nobody found him before he rotted; body fell right off his neck. Said it was the worst thing she ever saw, only his head still swinging.”

“You're so full of shit.” My hand went to my neck. “His body fell completely off?”

“That's the way she told it. Said animals had about eat all the rest of him.”

Raindrops started to hit the leaves, must have been what the trees were waiting for. “You need to head on back before you get wet.”

“You going to walk with me?”

“I guess.” We got up and Fancy grabbed my hand. The inside of her palm was calloused and rough, hands like mine.

By the time Fancy took off across the field to her house, the rain came hard. Limbs of the big trees overhead shed most of the downpour, sounding like the roar of a train. I sat under the tobacco shelter until it eased, thinking about how Fancy and me were much more alike than different. And I thought about Grandma saying how all the things I didn't think were right weren't. But I knew there wasn't a damn thing I could do to change it.

C
HAPTER
8

A
fter a hard frost in late October, I hitched the wagon and pulled corn. Being out in the field let me talk loud and not worry about anybody hearing. “Sally Mule, Grandma ain't none too happy with me right now.” I walked beside the wagon yanking ears of corn off dry stalks and tossing them in the wagon. “She's real disappointed I'm not going back to school, and it makes me feel bad. It's the first time I ever went against her wishes. What do you think?” Sally lifted her tail and farted three or four times, meaning either she didn't care, or she was trying to choke me to death.

On Thanksgiving morning, Grandma asked me to build a fire under the black iron wash pot in the backyard while she went to get a chicken for our dinner. Gray clouds rushed across the sky like they had a storm to get to. She came back holding one by the legs, the chicken squawking to beat the band, pretty sure nothing good was fixing to happen. The hen figured right; one whack from Grandma's hatchet left her head on the chopping block while her legs ran in circles until she flopped over. “How the heck you think a chicken can keep running around without its head? Seems like you'd need a brain to know where you were going.”

Grandma laughed, picked up the bird by the feet, and dunked its body in the steaming hot water.

“Whew,” I said. “That stink could spoil a buzzard's appetite.” We sat on a couple of weathered hickory wood stools and pulled feathers, trying to ignore the nasty odor. I watched Grandma's practiced hands. “How many chickens you reckon you've plucked?”

That got a grin. “Let's say I could stuff a lot of pillows.” She glanced at the darkening sky. “I remember the first time Momma made me help, must have been six or seven. I'd named all the biddies and played with them from the time they were little, especially a favorite hen I called Big Red. She wasn't nothing but a pet. One Christmas Big Red was the one Momma picked to eat, made me sit while she chopped off her head and plucked her. Reckon she did it to show me that on a farm, animals were just food. I cried so bad over Big Red it was pitiful, and wouldn't eat a bite.”

Grandma stopped and looked out across the field. In spite of the story, I wondered if maybe she'd been happier then. Like mine, her childhood seemed to have started out good, but things hadn't worked out the way she expected. I felt the same loneliness in her that I did in myself. We could both maybe identify with that headless chicken.

In the middle of December, we took the truck to Apex to buy fertilizer, tobacco seeds, and other supplies we would need for spring planting. All the store windows on the street had decorations, some with angels or a Santa Claus, and the streetlight posts had big stars on top. The sound of Christmas music played every time one of the shop doors opened, happy tunes like “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” or “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.” People crowded the sidewalk, laughing and talking and shopping.

Over the summer I'd saved up seventeen dollars, and was determined to get Grandma something for Christmas. A little ways down the block was Miss Adam's Dress Shoppe, and I spotted a pretty blue Sunday frock in the window. The walls inside were painted in bright blues and whites, and it smelled of fresh pine from a decorated Christmas tree. The lady working behind the counter looked up. “Good morning, young man. Can I help you?”

I pointed to the window. “Wanted to ask how much that dress might cost; looking to buy something for my grandma.”

She walked over to lift the price tag. “Who's your grandma?” The lady was dressed like she'd stepped out of a hatbox, prim and proper, not a working woman at all, and still had her good looks.

“Mrs. Rosa Belle Hurley.”

The lady's shoulder-length brown hair fell across her face in a way that reminded me of my mother. She had a bright smile outlined with red lipstick, and fingernails painted to match. “Oh, I know Miss Rosa Belle. Is she doing well? Real sorry to hear when your granddaddy passed. I'm sure it's been hard on y'all trying to farm shorthanded.”

“Yes'um. We're getting along pretty good.”

“Let's see.” She studied the tag. “Says here this dress is ten dollars even.”

I stepped to get a closer look and rubbed a sleeve against my cheek. “Since you know her, do you think this might be something she would like?”

“I believe she would be real pleased.” She gave me a big smile and a pat on the shoulder. “And, unless she's changed a lot, should be about the right size.”

“Okay, I'd like to buy it then.”

“Let me wrap it for you.” She folded the dress and put red-and-white-striped paper all around the box, then added a green bow. I started imagining the look on Grandma's face when she opened the present.

It was a day to let my troubles go. I hadn't been to the drugstore since the lady wouldn't sell Fancy an ice cream cone. I ignored the lady behind the counter. They had lots of perfumes and lotions, and I sniffed several. One smelled like vanilla and that stirred another memory of my momma.

Momma had always been happy at Christmas, but then she'd been happy at birthdays or Easter, or when we would enjoy a quiet morning sitting together on the porch steps watching a bright sky and feeling a gentle breeze. Momma's blue eyes would get that particular sparkle and a person couldn't help but feel better. I remembered one day she was playing the radio loud while she cleaned the house, and when I walked in from outside, she grabbed my hand. “Come on, Junebug, let's dance!” We laughed, jumping around and making fools of ourselves, until we had to sit down on the floor. Her happiness would flow out like a circling wind and wrap me up, pulling me into her joy, letting me know it was okay to be alive and be silly. Daddy was the only one I ever saw who could make Momma's eyes water. I think he would sometimes be mean to her on purpose just to show us life was serious and hard, and not to be wasted being childish. My momma was too gentle to die.

On a shelf in the back I spotted a silver cross and chain in a nice box. The label said three dollars, and I thought it would suit Fancy. After picking out ten comic books, I carried everything to the lady in the front.

“You know, for a quarter more, I can engrave a name on the cross,” she said.

I could spare a quarter. “That would be good.”

“What name would you like?”

“Fancy.” I stared right at her. I knew she knew, but if she made one bad remark, I'd let her have it. She didn't have any comment, just used her machine and added the name. “Could you wrap it for me, please?” The lady refused to look at me until it was finished.

Grandma was waiting on the sidewalk. “Gracious, Junebug. You've been spending money.”

“Had a little bit saved.” She had a couple of big bags herself. “Looks like you bought stuff too.”

“Just things we might need.” She hooked her arm through my elbow. “You ready to go?”

“Yep. Wanna let me drive?”

“I'm old, not dumb. You'll get your chance next year.”

A few days before Christmas, Grandma cooked a big ham, a whopping bowl of collards, a plate full of hot-water corn bread, and three pies. We took them to church on Christmas Eve to share in a community get-together to celebrate the Lord's birthday.

I woke up before sunrise Christmas Day, and shivered in the cold like I was wearing iron underwear. I added more wood to the potbelly. A couple of wrapped packages were on the couch. I got Grandma's dress and laid it beside the others before going to do my chores. A crisp cap of frost lay over the grass, and when I breathed, the frigid air made it look like my mouth was on fire. The morning horizon was bright, colored that deep blue you only see in winter. I opened the gates so Sally Mule and the cow could get to pasture, fed the pigs, and promised the chickens nobody would lose their head today so they should rest easy. Since it was a Saturday I wondered if Fancy would show up tonight.

When I got back to the house, Grandma was dressed in her wool sleeping gown and standing at the stove. “Looks like Santa Claus did find us out here in the sticks.” She hugged me, her silver hair falling down around her shoulders. “Merry Christmas, Junebug.” The smell of biscuits, ham, and bacon cooking made my stomach growl.

After breakfast, Grandma washed and I dried before we went to sit in the living room. The oak wood burning in the stove gave off just the right comfort. “You go ahead and open yours,” said Grandma. She pulled up her favorite rocking chair, the same one she'd rocked me in the night Momma and Daddy died.

In the first box were two pairs of Roebuck jeans, a new pair of bib overalls, and a flannel shirt. I held them up. “Thanks, Grandma, these clothes will look real good.”

“Well, I hope they work with what's in that other box.” She leaned forward in her chair.

I tore off the Christmas paper. Inside was a new pair of brown brogans with thick soles and treads on the bottom. “Gosh, Grandma, you spent too much money.” I ran my hands over the leather shoes, quickly pulling off my old ones that had two holes in the toe. “You shouldn't have done all this.”

“Glad you like them. Should be one more thing in there.” I turned the box upside down. Something plunked on the floor. It was a big buck knife. Each pull made a strong
click
when I popped the blade up and down. Every working man needed one. It fit comfortable in my pocket. “Grandma, I don't know what to say. Thank you, thank you.” I got up and squeezed her around the neck.

“You're welcome. Should last you a long time if you don't lose it.”

“Don't worry about that.” I picked up the last box. “This is for you.” My hands were shaky. It was the first present I'd ever bought with my own money.

She looked surprised. “You ought not to have done this.” Grandma carefully removed the paper. “I can save this pretty wrapping for next year.” She lifted the dress out. “Oh, Junebug, it's so beautiful. This is the first store-bought dress I've had in years.” She stood to measure the size to the front of herself. “It looks like it will fit just fine.” Her grin was wide as a river. “Reckon what I'll be wearing to church tomorrow?”

“The lady at Miss Adam's Dress Shoppe said to tell you hello.”

“I'll stop in and visit Susan the next time we go to town.” Grandma searched around in her bedroom bureau until she found the old Brownie camera, and took some pictures of me. “Merry Christmas, Junebug; this is one of the best I can remember.”

I leaned my head into her shoulder and wrapped my arms around her back. “Wasn't for you, I'd be in an orphanage somewhere. You should know how much I appreciate everything you do for me.”

She held me. “Don't you fret, we're going to have lots of Christmases together.”

Later in the afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson stopped by to visit. Right after they got there, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson came for a few minutes and brought Grandma the prettiest poinsettia I'd ever seen. It made the house really feel like Christmas. After that, the preacher and his family visited, and we had a houseful of folks. They stayed and talked for a couple of hours.

It had been a wonderful day, and I was tired by the time everyone left. “Grandma, I'm going to lay down.”

“
Junebug, you better get up and see what Santa Claus brought you
.” I heard my daddy's voice and knew I was dreaming, but I couldn't, and didn't want to wake up.