BLOOD DONE SIGNED MY NAME
Ain’t you glad, ain’t you glad, that the blood done sign your name.
African American Spiritual, sung by Leadbelly
Mrs. Beal, who ran the boarding house, yelled upstairs for George, which was nothing new. She was constantly calling him for supper, to fix something; or, as she said, “just to look at him.” George was easy going, but behind those baby blues was an intenseness that belied an easy manner.
“Folks, we have to get to eating, everything is going to get cold. Would you gentleman like to dine with us?” She knew they wouldn’t, but it was polite to ask and she sensed trouble.
The two men came to talk with George. Later on she discovered it was about getting involved with the local Klan. She smiled as she watched the men who were like two banty roosters, switching off talking to him. One of them was Pastor Blessing.
Now, there was a name for a preacher and a piece of work. The only name that would have been better would be Christian; although, in the present environment, it might be pushing it. Maybe Pastor Hypocrite would have been better.
Blessing had a big Baptist Church at the edge of town (not sure which type of Baptist). The pastor and his followers had moved out from the heart of town and built a kind of amphitheater as a tribute to white supremacy and to totally separate from what Blessing called the “local perverters of culture.”
The pastor preached fiery sermons and was not above using incendiary sermon titles. One had been printed in the local paper, “Burr-headed Niggers,” and; of course, it was read or heard about by most everyone in town.
Pastor Blessing’s church and private schools had proliferated like blossoms on a magnolia bush - a reaction to the 1954 Supreme Court Decision integrating the schools and the civil rights movement which was slowly making its way South. Blessing fancied himself as the charismatic chaplain to the Klan. He traveled extensively and was rumored to be one of the most influential men in the state.
“We best be going Mrs. Beal,” Harley Corbin said. She smiled again and momentarily thought that they probably didn’t realize how lucky they were—fierce eyes just might be called to action. Mrs. Beal didn’t know many Vietnam vets, none in fact, other than George, but she could see the signs—he seemed to have an anger that was just below the surface.
Although affable as all get out, still there were times when George was on the edge and Mrs. Beal sensed this might be one of those times. It must have been hanging in the air as Pastor Blessing and Harley Corbin chose to make their exit. “Think about it,” was the last word of the two.
George didn’t have to think about it. He was not getting involved with the KKK, those fuckin’ bunch of retards. There were lots of reasons and one had to do with the very core of who he was.
The Klan seemed to be ubiquitous. They held rallies, fish fries, and had booths at the North Carolina State Fair. What was particularly irritating was that they were so accepted, right along side legitimate groups like the Rotary or Lion’s. Their middle name was intimidation. They disguised it, but spreading fear was their purpose. The large billboard just outside town said, Fight integration, Support your Local Klu Klux Klan. How could people be so stupid?
There were rumored to be over a hundred statewide separate Klan groups called Klaverns. They constantly lauded the fact that Klan members were the best, brightest, and bravest. Hence the visit to George, The good reverend had said, “George, we need a Vietnam hero like you to serve with us.” Thank God for Mrs. Beal as George was thinking about throwing them down the stairs.
George might have been taken in by the Klan early on had it not been for Mr. Lee. Craven Lee went to a local orphanage to find a teenager to help with his crops. It was a common practice for farmers to take in some young boys and on occasion girls to help to harvest tobacco, in particular. In return, farmers always gave a nice donation to the orphanage when the crops were sold.
The orphans, who were really not orphans in the strict sense (many were unwanted), often were treated like cattle and worked mercilessly. There were no social services, much less anyone else looking after their interest. No one thought about child welfare laws back then and Craven Lee surely didn’t because he was a decent man. Even though he had a family of boys himself, he thought it would be a good experience for his own family to know an orphan boy and realize how much they had in comparison. Well, that was his thinking.
George didn’t know what it was, but he caught Mr. Lee’s eye when it came time to find a teenager to work the fields. Three older boys were ready for work, but inexplicably Mr. Lee asked about George. At first, he was discouraged from taking George. Miss Velma, the head mistress of Pleasant Grove Church Orphanage, told Mr. Lee that George was not too bright and too slight for hard work. “No matter,” Mr. Lee said, “I want him for a few weeks.”
Mrs. Lee, on the other hand, was not pleased with her husband’s choice. She would much rather have chosen a teenager, than slight twelve year old George. Regardless, here he was and through high school he stayed. Mr. Lee treated him like one of his own. The other boys equally were accepting, the more the merrier seem to be the philosophy.
What had always impressed George, even if he couldn’t put it in words, was the constant laughter that flowed through the Lee house. Mrs. Lee was very serious, but Mr. Lee was laughing and joking constantly. For George, heaven could not have been better.
The orphanage was glum and its inhabitants were always made to feel that they owed everything to their caretakers for being rescued from starvation. It was not that George was ungrateful, but he did chafe under the constant onslaught of going to church and all that went with it. He had learned to play little games in his head. The singing went on forever and the preaching even longer. He rarely paid any attention and could hardly keep himself from laughing when the shouting started.
Mr. Lee was always asking him about it and loved to hear in detail what exactly went on at Pleasant Grove Church. “Well, what usually happens is the preacher shouts Amen, Amen and then someone else shouts it, usually Mrs. Wilbourne. And, you know Mrs. Wilbourne, the schoolteacher. She speaks in tongues and shouts and then someone else starts up. Pretty soon, most of the church is going to town.” By this time, Mr. Lee is laughing and shaking his head.
In all the years that George was at the Lee home, he never saw Mr. Lee get mad, but once. It was when Chuck, the middle son, used the word “nigger”. Talk about getting flailed, he got it. George didn’t understand Mr. Lee’s anger because the word was used all the time. It was only after George joined the Army that he honestly knew how demeaning the word was to blacks.
It was just a few days later when he got the full word on why Mr. Lee felt so strongly. Mr. Lee’s father and four uncles had come to Eastern North Carolina from Ireland to work in the tobacco fields as indentured servants for seven years. The arrangement was a little sketchy but what Craven Lee did know was that five brothers had been victims of considerable brutality.
Archie Lee, Craven’s father, was not reticent in talking to his children about the humiliation of those days. Working from dawn to dark, being talked to like a dog—those were some hard years. The day came when their obligation ended. Threatened that the landlord would stop him from leaving, Archie, as the lore goes, told him simply that he would kill him if he tried to stop any of the brothers because their servitude had ended. After all, this was America.
The brothers, all five, banded together with the idea that they would harvest entire crops of tobacco and guarantee how long it would take. Tobacco was labor intensive and work was steady. It was during tobacco harvesting that the Klan tried to recruit the Lees. In the early days, the Klan mainly was supposed to be a vigilante group that rode herd over ne'er-do-wells of all stripes. Soon came the idea of burning crosses and whipping blacks.
This didn’t set well with the Lee boys, who were fiercely independent and prided themselves on live and let live, no way would they be a party to the same inhumane
treatment that the Klan now wanted to impose on black people. During one encounter, an argument ensued resulting in a fight—from that point it became fuzzy. One of the Lee boys had logged in at least some time in prison, directly related to how the culture treated blacks. Archie’s family was not going to foster the same injustices that had befallen them, even though this was not the attitude of the time. He drilled his children in the phrase, “all men are created equal,” from the Declaration of Independence.
Despite their encounter with the Klan, the Lees slowly but surely got a foothold in this new land. A couple of the brothers went West while one of them was killed in a sawmill accident. Archie and Josiah eventually farmed acreage that they managed to obtain just by paying the taxes.
George thought he knew hot; but he never knew anything like this. The sweat was rolling off his body and the smell was simply pungent. Damn, what kind of place is this?
“Hey Cracker, bet you wish you were in them bacca patches, don’t you?”
He looked over at Dryer and smiled. Kenny Dryer was a slight black with light chocolate skin who had a knack for speaking perfect English and switching effortless into slang. He was George’s best friend. Who would have thought it?
Their friendship didn’t start out so great. Almost from the minute they arrived at Bragg, there were fireworks. Both had just come from airborne training, commonly called jump school. They were sitting around the replacement detachment waiting to be assigned when Kenny tried to pick a fight with George.
George had been assigned a bunk next to Dryer, and when he started to put his duffel on it, Dryer threw his down on the same bunk. “This is taken, whitey.” George moved to the next bunk with his duffel and Kenny followed. It was fight time. Both were about the same size. George picked up his bag and walked to the other end of the building. Laughter followed him.
“Motherfucker, don’t want to fight”, he heard someone say. George knew it was only a matter of time. What Dryer didn’t know was that George had been fighting all his life, if not physically, emotionally.
The one thing George soon learned and liked about the military is that he and all the enlisted guys were all in the same boat, all equals. George didn’t have to fight for his “place at the table” any more. Growing up was good with the Lees; but, even then, he was not truly “blood”- not one of them. Even though he was a good athlete and average student in high school, he felt like an outsider. In the Army, he finally felt that he belonged.
George and Kenny were both assigned to the same battalion, company, and platoon, but different squads. The platoon sergeant was the biggest and blackest black that George had ever seen. He had shoulders that went on forever and hands like hams. His teeth were like ivory and so white they sparkled. The day they arrived, the platoon sergeant announced that the platoon had won a reenlistment contest and were going to get a bunch of chutes to jump from choppers all day. This was their prize. What?
“Hey boys”, the platoon sergeant said, “I’m the jumpmaster today and here’s what we do: think of it like you are at the state fair. He must have noticed the blank look on their faces, as Dryer and George were the only ones who didn’t seem to know what he was talking about. George surely knew all about the State Fair. It was a regular outing at the close of the summer. He first went with Mr. Lee. It was just he and “the man”, as he often referred to Mr. Lee. George never quite got why the other boys didn’t go with them. It was this enormous singular treat. They looked at animals and crafts, ate the great food, and Mr. Lee even treated him to one or two of the rides. Mr. Lee said constantly, “Georgy boy, drink in that smell” and then he would bear hug George--one of the few times George felt accepted.
“You boys don’t know nothing bout the State Fair do you? It is the best in the world and they have all these rides and this here chopper is just like one of them.” He patted the helicopter. “It will take you up and you sit and look out at the great scenery and just fall out the door and your trusty chute will do the rest and you’ll float to the ground. Just like the State Fair, boys.” He smiled. To George, it seemed a little unreal. Up to now, jumping was an ordeal. With all the equipment strapped to the body, walking or sitting around waiting to jump felt miserable, like having to go to the “john” and “throw-up” at the same time. And, this was just the normal uniform. And this was supposed to be fun like the fair? Wow!
Dryer and George bonded literally in the weirdest way. They both had to display the machismo of excitement about jumping; when, in fact, they were petrified. Jumping from a helicopter was vastly different from a C130 or a 141. On a C130, they’d been taught to make a vigorous exit, literally leaping out. If they didn’t, they could be washed back into the side of the plane and their chute might not deploy—they were working to get all the terminology right. On a C141, all they had to do was step out the door of the plane and go bye, bye. What in the hell to do out of a helicopter?
George did his five jumps at Benning to become a five jump commando. He’d only volunteered for airborne to earn the extra $55 a month and planned to save all his money for a farm. In fact, the Army was part of his big scheme--join up, save money, get out, and buy his own place. He had some ideas.
George and Kenny were seated on one side. When the jumpmaster said go, George fell over the side and his chute opened and he just started floating down. “I could go for this,” he thought. The chopper landed and he noticed out of the corner of his eye, Dryer getting off. The platoon sergeant was giving him no never mind as George had heard constantly growing up. Suddenly, the platoon sergeant grabbed Dryer and threw him into the chopper, stepping in behind him. For what seemed like an eternity, the Sergeant was in his face, shouting. He got out and motioned for George who hustled over. “Get your ass in here for your second jump,” he said. George could have sworn that Dryer was almost white. The platoon sergeant, ordinarily the blackest man that George had ever seen, also looked different.
Sergeant Smith gave the thumbs up and the chopper lifted off. In almost no time, he felt the platoon Sergeant’s foot as he fell out again and his chute opened. Pretty easy. Almost simultaneously, there was a yell and George glanced and saw someone tumbling and at the same time yelling. It was Dryer. His chute was only partially open. George slipped right under him; and, in a flash, thought to himself, that he didn’t know what he was doing. Amazed that he remembered the idea of slipping, moving your chute from right to left. The thump on his chute pushed it down right on his head; and, without thinking, he reached around and grabbed Dryer and pulled him beside him. His eyes were wide as saucers. George held him in a bear hug and they were falling fast. Dryer’s chute had totally collapsed while George’s was mostly opened. George put his face right next to Dryer, “Get your feet together, get your feet together”, he yelled. George didn’t know much about jumping, but knew enough that they just couldn’t plow into the ground, because they would buy the farm for sure. The ground was coming up fast. “Feet together, Feet together.” They hit and George held on tight to Kenny, rolled to one side and then just started rolling and rolling.
George’s whole body was numb. It seemed they were three feet into the sand. Lucky, the sand made it more like a pillow, but hard. He stood up and brushed himself off. Kenny lay there. George nudged him, “Get up, here comes the Sarge.” He struggled to his feet. “Goddamn you soldier, you better spend the rest of your life thanking Hurdle here or you’d be laid out lizard length. He’s saved your ass. Get the fuck to the pick up point.”
George was bone weary. His squad had pulled three straight nights of a tiger and every single night, they were in heavy contact. Kenny liked to remind Hurdle he was now called Sergeant Dwyer. “You may be a three striper but I outrank you, Cracker,” Kenny’s tone was the type reserved when someone is your special friend.
What in the hell kind of last name is Hurdle?” he went on.
“I don’t know Junior; I think the orphanage pulled it out of their ass.”
“I tol
d you not to call me Junior.” Hurdle laughed, “I told you not to call me Cracker.”
“But, that’s what you are, Cracker.”
Sergeant Dryer was quiet for a moment. Just about the end of the whisper, four VC came ditty bobbing down the trail. George opened up with an M60 and Al on mortars popped off a couple of rounds.
It had been this way constantly and none of them had gotten any sleep for days. Talk about relief, when the word came down they were going to bridge detail, they could hardly believe it. Bridge detail, this was like a vacation. Bridges usually were the juncture of places where the VC and on occasion spies slipped into friendly territory. There wasn’t a hell of a lot to do and not much preventive action; it was light duty, quiet, and occasionally a chance to flirt with some Vietnamese school girls, not to mention a prostitute or two, if they had a mind, which George didn’t.
This was the wonderful thing about Vietnam, unspoken, yet true. Camaraderie was what it was all about. After awhile, they all knew the war was bullshit. Do your year and get the hell out. But, while they were there, the feeling that their friendship was special could not be denied. Most didn’t have a clue at the time how special it was or how to verbalize it. Only once they were back in the “world” did it surface. The “civilian world” became the hostile place and the time in Nam the “real” world. Watching each other’s back, telling stories about home, sharing in the future plans was the real world for a soldier in Nam.
This was one of those quiet nights. George and Kenny Dryer, Jr. were leaning up beside their sandbagged bunker watching the bridge traffic.
Yes, Junior was his name. He was a junior, Kenneth Jones Dryer, Jr., but he didn’t cotton to anybody calling him Junior.
“Know what Cracker?”
“No, what?”
“I’ve thought lots about the time you saved my ass when we first got in Division. Yeah. Really, I never thanked you.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you,” this was George’s way of saying forget it, being uncomfortable with somebody expressing that kind of emotion.
“Really, I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t know how you knew to do what you did. And, I don’t know if I’d done the same for you.”
George didn’t say anything. It was quiet for a minute.
“I’d have to say this. This is the first time a white man ever did anything for a brother. Why’d you do it?”
“I don’t know what the fuck you talking about.” George was saying enough of this, a little too heavy for me.
“Well, think about it, Cracker.”
George smiled because he knew Kenny used the word as a pleasant familiarity not as derision. Their relationship was very good but there were times it seemed a little strained and he didn’t know why.
“Why would you say you the way you are?” Kenny persisted.
“What do you mean?” Might as well engage, George thought. Kenny was not going to let it go.
“Well, most crackers ain’t like you. You the only one who seems to not give a shit. I don’t know. Come on Cracker, what you think it is?”
They were silent for a minute. “I don’t know what the fuck you talking about. Maybe being raised in the orphanage and then going to live with the Lees. I don’t know. Mr. Lee wouldn’t put up with any bad talk from his sons or me.” By bad talk, Kenny knew he meant the “N” word.
Long silence.
Al from mortars came bopping over. Like most of the guys in the platoon, they all had their “homey” things they loved to talk about. With Al, it was the great tractor he was going to buy when he got back to Iowa. Memphis was thinking about opening a barbeque restaurant in San Francisco. Butch boy wanted to marry the Chinese waitress he’d met in Birmingham. Why? “Well, she’d be the only Chinaman in his hometown.” This was the way it was. Men from every place in America. Presently, their world consisted of a broken down wooden bridge outside of Hue, South Vietnam.
“Al, get the hell away from here, can’t you see the Cracker and I are having an intelligent conversation. Or, is it Cracker and me. I can’t ever remember. Did you learn that in English, Cracker?”
“I did, but you didn’t, Junior, should have paid more attention. It is me.” Al laughed.
Al sauntered inside the bunker.
The silence was permeated with some firing on up the road on QL 551. Both men were silent as though mentally preparing themselves for a firefight. The firing stopped and it was eerily quiet.
Kenny said, but more quietly. “Go on, Cracker, I want to know, why you seem to not be bothered by black and white.”
George didn’t say anything for a moment; and, in a sense, didn’t want to answer because he’d possibly have to admit that he didn’t think about it and maybe that was not very good.
“I think that because we always worked together; there were lots of black people working side by side with us.”
“Did you ever eat together?”
“Of course.”
“But, I bet you didn’t go to town or to the movies, did you?”
George thought about it for a long time. “Well, I don’t remember ever going to the movies anyway. Oh yes, I did go see Burt Lancaster in From Here to Eternity. I’ll never forget it. My mouth got as dry as cotton.”
It was black, other than the lights shining in the edge of Hue. “You know what, Cracker, before we leave the Nam; I’m going to save your life. I ain’t going to my maker owing no fuckin’ whitey nothing.” He laughed and patted George on the back.
Scotty popped out of the bunker with an audible expletive spewing out. “I hate this bridge duty,” he seemed to be saying to no one in particular. Only about 5'2", he was a giant in combat and was constantly cleaning his weapon. Unlike the rest of them, Scotty lived for firefights and action. “Don’t you two paratroopers ever get tired of ‘bumpin’ your gums”, he said mostly to no one.
The quietness hung in the air until Kenny said, “If you keep bothering us, the next time, I’m lettin’ your ass drown.” Scotty gave him the one finger salute. It was funny, they were crossing what they believe was a shallow stream. Scotty had the typical infantryman’s load: a 60 pound ruck, his M16 and a bandoleer of ammo including half dozen grenades. He was about ankle high in water and suddenly disappeared. He came up sputtering and then went down again. Kenny grabbed him and held him just above water until a couple of other guys got there. Scotty never lived it down and had to take a constant “ration” for it. But, from then on, he never complained about making sure someone was around when they came to water. George made sure someone assisted the “midget” as they good naturedly called him, “OK, who is in charge of the midget?” It was Nam.
What do you do in the Nam when you are not fighting? Well, you talk and you better believe that George and Kenny talked. George sometimes thought Kenny was obsessed with the whole white and black thing. But, then again, he didn’t have to face it like blacks did, he reckoned.
There were history lessons but George didn’t mind.
“You can’t imagine, Cracker, how bad it is, not being first class citizens. Having to be looked down on, going to the back door, can’t eat in some restaurants. Makes me want to kill somebody.”
George did understand more than most. He’d always been intuitive even if he didn’t know what it meant. When he’d go with Mr. Lee to sell tobacco, he’d sit around and listen to the tall tales and then he’d think about them. And, there was unbelievable irony in this situation and he grasped it immediately. Here they were in Vietnam, fighting for freedom; and, yet, Sergeant Dryer did not have freedom in his own country. “And, that ain’t right,” George said to himself.
During long moments of lull, Sergeant Dryer and George talked about lots of things but much of it had to do with skin color. Once, Kenny said to him: “You white guys only think about race when it’s called to your attention if ever. Us blacks think about it all the time.”
This stressed George over and over. He thought about gr
owing up in his hometown. The schools were integrated in 1954 but he never saw a black the entire time he was in school and somebody told him that it was the seventies before any ventured into the so-called white high school. He was ashamed to admit that he didn’t even know where the black school was.
Southerners discriminated against blacks simply because they viewed them as second or third class citizens. It was terrible and made George ashamed of himself and these people that he loved. George never thought about being poor or deprived of what others had. Sure, the Lees were poor farmers, but he always had enough to eat and always felt that he was in a place where maybe he didn’t think he was equal but nobody else seemed to notice. And, that was no small thing.
As George thought about it during those star filled nights out by the Hue bridges in Vietnam, his story was not personal, more a broader picture. He really didn’t come in contact with blacks other than working in the fields. In his little town, there was a demarcation line—blacks on one side and whites on the other. They had their own school, stores, etc.; the townspeople never saw them. If need be, the whites could go across the invisible demarcation line, but the blacks could not come across the line to the white community or they didn't.
Now, this is one strange thing, George did not remember a single racial incident. To think about it, this was remarkable. Then again, it was from George’s perspective, not from someone like Kenny. Being born in the South carries with it a kind of schizophrenic personality that never leaves. There are many myths wrapped around Dixie. We talk about the new South; and, yet, there are those who are still fighting the Civil War and in many ways, few things had changed.
George was developing a little routine. Usually, he didn’t eat breakfast. Mrs. Beal was constantly after him for not eating “the most important meal of the day.” Still, he drifted into the coffee shop, Butler and Carroll’s, around seven. Sitting at the counter, he had coffee and read the paper.
Williamstown County seemed to be a little different from the rest of eastern North Carolina. More backward in a way. Why? George didn’t have a clue but was learning quickly. He didn’t question his decision to settle in the county. There really was no reason not too. In some ways, it was a business decision; his chances for buying small allotments of tobacco seemed better. Small farmers were poorer than those where he’d grown up. Maybe it had to do with some bad memories of the orphanage. Mr. Lee was gone and the family was scattered. In a sense, he didn’t have a home and so why not Williamstown. He surely didn’t discount the fact that it was Kenny’s home and somehow, it honored his memory.
He had developed a special bond with Kenny’s Mom, Bessie. Kenny’s insurance money had helped them buy their home and even send his two sisters to college. This gave George a lot of personal satisfaction. Bessie Dryer would often hug George and say things like, “You are our last contact with our beloved Kenny.”
George bought several small patches of land and along with them negotiated the tobacco allotments. He had forty acres of land which could be a big money-maker. Most farmers had little acreage and thus a small government allotment. This would be his first year of putting his plan in motion.
Mostly, Williamstown County used manual labor to harvest tobacco, but George had another idea: one of the new machines, a tobacco harvester. He had seen one demonstrated. It could easily handle four rows of tobacco in a fraction of the time of cropping it by hand. Literally, it could do all the work with a minimum of labor.
Raising tobacco and harvesting it the old way was a hard life. George knew all about it. He graduated early on, maybe about eleven, from being the drag driver to a cropper. The drag driver was mainly reserved for the youngest. The mule pulled the drag or sled as the uninitiated called it. It was like a long box that carried the loose leaves of the tobacco plant from the field to the barn where the stringers tied it on long sticks which were placed in the barn to cure.
By the time he was sixteen, George was said to be one of the fastest tobacco croppers in the county, if not the fastest—a fast cropper was much in demand. In those days, the pay was about fifty cents an hour, with a possible raise to seventy-five cents if you were a good worker.
To crop tobacco, the cropper started from the bottom of the stalk and made sure to pick the two to three leafs that were ripe. A good cropper could literally get all three leaves in one swing of the hand around the plant. It all had to do with technique. To be the fastest, it was also important to make sure that the movement to the drag was expedient; the best row was the one beside the drag, assuming one is right-handed. The cropper would crop with his right hand and then in one motion, put it under his left arm and hold it until he got so much he couldn’t go further and then he’d take it to the drag and lay it neatly in. It would really irritate the people at the barn if it came just thrown into the drag.
What would devastate a cropper in tobacco was the early morning juice off the tobacco leaves. As the dew was still on the tobacco early in the morning when work started, if the cropper kept his mouth open or did anything like talking, by ten o’clock or so, he’d be sick as a dog, throwing up. However, taking too much time being sick was a no-no too.
There was always method in the madness of the tobacco. When the dragged filled up, it was driven to the barn, but the croppers didn’t wait for that; a well-oiled operation, had two drags moving, one arriving just as the other one was dispatched to the barn. When it got to the barn, someone took it out of the drag and laid it on this long wooden bench where it was picked up by the handlers and handed to the stringers. This is an operation! The stringer had the tobacco stick stretched across something like two saw horses, made especially for this operation. The stringer tied the tobacco in bundles of four to eight leaves from about six inches back in the stick to six inches from the other end. As soon as the stringer was finished, someone removed it and stacked it in rows on the ground to be ready to go into the barn for curing when the day was done.
George was thinking about these very things when a local sat down beside him. “George, how are the plans coming along?”
“Good,” he said without volunteering anything else.
“Still thinking of getting the new fangled machine for the tobacco?”
“I think so.”
Long pause.
The local whom George had seen often in the coffee shop, seemed to want to say something but didn’t know how to get it out. “You know you could get you some niggers who are pretty good croppers and you don’t have to pay them hardly anything.” George looked at him while thinking how stupid these people are. Maggie poured him some coffee. She smiled at George and as though being a part of the conversation said, “You know, George don’t like the word, nigger”.
Maggie instantly hated she said it. She really liked George—he didn’t have a clue how much. Not only was he different, but always a gentleman. Every morning, her emotions were glued on the door, hoping he would show.
Maggie moved on with her coffee. The local didn’t respond, but simply walked back to his booth next to the window where three other men were seated.
George took a deep breath. He had said jokingly, one night when Maggie had used the “N,” word, “You mean black, don’t you?” George remembered she had looked at him intensely. He had already gained a reputation as the outsider and simply a little strange. He didn’t mingle; they never saw him at night. A hard worker with different ideas was an anomaly in Williamstown County.
Nothing was planted on his farms but George was asking questions and talking to people. Mainly he spent an inordinate amount of time in The Bottoms, the black part of town. The white folks didn’t like it. Things were changing and outsiders like George were bringing it on. All they knew about him was that he was a Vietnam vet and was spending time with nigger veterans in The Bottoms.
George heard the word, nigger-lover bandied about. Maggie came back over and poured some more coffee. “George, I like you.” She paused as if not knowing what to sa
y or do or where to go next. “But, I think you lettin’ yourself in for trouble. The Klan is just too powerful here and they don’t like it when somebody has a different idea.” She just wished he would get on out; she could sense trouble brewing.
George grinned and kind of nodded. In his mind’s eye, he didn’t know where to go with it either. Most people were beginning to see Vietnam vets as crazy or victims mostly based on the movies.
George didn’t know how to respond to Maggie, he didn’t know her all that well but liked her. She was dark with olive skin. She had small breasts. It made him smile to himself when he thought of things like that. In the Nam, they would talk about breasts, shapes, sizes, wants and desire—mostly in fun but it was about women most of the time. Dryer had a way with his speech. “Man, more than a mouth full is wasted anyway”.
Maggie had bedded most everyone in town according to the gossip. She seemed to know everybody and treat everybody the same. Not a bad thing in a small town. George often smiled at her attempts of being an armchair psychologist. “Well,” he thought, “She is going to the junior college studying psychology. Why not?” She had told him the names of all the Klan leaders in town—all unsolicited as if he needed to know. The only persons he recognized were previous visitors: Pastor Blessing and Corbin, who owned the local hardware store.
What attracted George to Maggie was her piercing eyes. She had this funny way of looking at you but not seeing. And, then, when she wanted too, she could focus and suddenly you were the recipient of her full attention.
The Army taught George to confront things; sooner or later, you had to face the enemy. For soldiers in the Nam and probably all wars, the military could easily become the enemy, the military bureaucracy. It helped in Vietnam to be able to bad mouth the higher-ups. In the civilian world, there was not a common enemy or maybe there was-racism. If you didn’t deal with a bigot, things only got worse.
At least that’s what he believed. He made a decision. As he drained the coffee from his cup, he remembered a movie with Glenn Ford, one of his cowboy heroes. Glenn, a rancher, was confronted by a cattle baron who wanted his land. He knew immediately that he had to deal with the situation. Ford challenged the cattle baron; and, in his case, whipped the toughest of the tough. George wished it was that easy.
Maggie looked at him long and hard, willing him to leave. He stood and glanced at the four racists staring at him as he walked toward them.
“Want something, nigger lover?”
George grinned and said, “No, not really but wonder if I could speak to you alone.”
“Say whatever you want to say.”
“No, really, could I just speak to you alone,” he fixed his eye on the one who had approached him earlier.
“Say it, mother fucker.”
The chatter in the shop froze, not a dish rattled. He lowered his voice. “I don’t want any trouble. I’m just trying to get started here. I don’t want to fight, but,” and he paused and looked back toward Maggie who was staring at him intensely, “But, if I have to fight you and he glanced at all of them, I’m not going to fight. I’m going to kill you. I’m going to fuckin’ kill you. You can count on it.” He turned and walked away without anyone saying a word.
First squad had moved into the South end of the ville. George was walking point. Although this was a “free fire zone”, the village still had to be purged—could be either rice or possibly even a weapons cache. A ploy of the VC was to hide rations and weapons in burned or abandoned villages for later use. Intel turned up various VC schemes to hide supplies —sometimes even in graves.
The most ingenious hiding place had been a big elaborate Buddha in a pagoda. Most GIs were reluctant to search religious monuments. Under the big Buddha, however, they found five AK 47s and enough ammunition for an Army. So much for religion.
George entered each building and checked for booby traps. Second squad was snaking its way toward the ville when suddenly, Sergeant Dryer, in third squad as reserve, thought he detected movement at the far end of the village. If so, George could be walking into a trap. George needed to hold it in place for a bit, but he didn’t have a radio. Kenny watched him from the crest of a hill. He was sure he saw something as he scanned the area again with the binoculars. Nothing but he could feel it in his gut.
“Lieutenant, I think I saw movement in front of first squad.”
“What was it?”
“I don’t know, but if there’s somebody, Hurdle is walking into a trap.”
“Too late”, he said, “looks like he only has a few more hooches to check out.”
“But, shouldn’t we do something?”
“Like what? Call in some artillery”.
“Hurdle knows what he’s doing.”
Mother fucker. Dryer ignored the Lieutenant and picked up his M79 grenade launcher and leveled it at George’s position. He fired about twenty meters in front of him causing George to instinctively dive to a corner of the building and open fire.
Suddenly a trap door popped up in front of Sergeant Hurdle and three figures sprinted toward the wood line. George fired again and one of them went down while the other two scampered safely into the trees.
“I saved your life, Cracker, I told you I would.” Kenny laughed.
George smiled. Kenny strutted like a peacock.
Three days later, Sergeant Kenny Dryer was killed by friendly fire. George could hardly believe it. They were still in the same AO, and were putting artillery on a village. A short round got him and two other members of his squad. Friendly fire happened much more than anybody wanted to admit. The Lieutenant reported the incident as killed by the enemy. It was almost standard practice. Who wanted to be killed by their own people? A person was just as dead.
For the first time in that sorry war, George was distraught about his friend. He was angry at the artillery, at his friends, at Kenny for getting killed. He hated God. How could something like this happen? They left him alone.
It had been two weeks or more when the word came down. Sergeant Hurdle was to escort Dryer’s body to North Carolina for burial per the family’s request. George said no.
“Sergeant, this ain’t no fuckin' democracy,” the Major said. Major Sanford was the XO and a no bullshit sort of guy. He hated most everybody and more or less ran the battalion.
The trip to Williamstown, North Carolina was a blur to George. He had gone by way of Dover, Delaware where the Army morgue was housed. From there he was to accompany Kenny’s body to the funeral. He was in a daze. The big briefing took place in a movie auditorium where he, along with fifty or so others, had it impressed upon them how important this job was—never leave the body till you deliver it to the funeral home. Deliver it, an “it.” George wasn’t sure he could do this and thought to himself, I ain’t going back to the Nam, no way.
The train ride to someplace-George didn’t know was not very eventful. George slept in a sleeper car next to where Kenny lay. He wanted to cry but was numb instead. What was he doing here, should be back in Nam. What could he say? Was this a cruel joke? The emotions ran from anger to a kind of depression that fell over him. He expected it to linger and it did.
George didn’t think that he had ever been to a black funeral. Was it different than any he’d known, growing up? He didn’t think so. He didn’t know how to act as he stood around in his pressed uniform.
Kenny’s Mom and Dad cried and said things like this must be God’s will, did he suffer—all the things that George guessed people needed to say. Please God, let this be over. He guessed this was all honoring Kenny; and, if that were the case, he would have to stand it.
There was a liaison officer from somewhere. George disliked him immediately—fuckin’ butter bar. When he asked George where his medals were, George thought about punching him. The truth was that George had refused to put them on as an act of defiance and respect to Kenny. One night they had talked about medals and how bogus they were. When you did something important
, you got shit. When you were kind of present for duty, they slapped one on you. George had plenty. Kenny said he’d never wear them once he escaped the Army.
Mercifully, the torturous funeral experience ended. He could have had a leave, but decided to get back to Nam. He needed to be with his men, kill some VC, and suffer.
The Klu Klux Klan owned Williamstown County, everybody knew it. They intimidated the various officials and preached a gospel of hate and more hate. To some, it was ignorance; but if it didn’t bother them personally, they chose not to speak up.
A Klan Klavern is an insidious thing. Most southerners rarely admit they are in sympathy with their goals. The Klan was a domestic terror leech on the side of the status quo. Unfortunately, many still viewed them as a benign vigilante force or a Friday night beer fest at the Elks’ Club. But, these bullies were far from harmless. Their bullying and intimidation extended everywhere and even those who professed wanting to do right accepted who they were. George didn’t know how it all might play out.
For George, it played out in the worst sort of ways. Although he lived at the Boarding House, he spent most of his days working his plan or investigating buying other acreage to put his plan in motion. George intended to be the biggest tobacco farmer in the area. He didn’t know the politics of the county.
It had been Maggie who kept George informed, even if he didn’t want to be. Maggie was a kind of town crier, “The school is going to be integrated this year.”
Hadn’t that already happened? Here it was fifteen or so years down the road and Maggie is telling him the school is about to integrate. What is it with these people?
The morning it happened, George didn’t even know it was coming down. Suddenly, there were all these people in the street—newspaper people, kids everywhere.
The school was a block back at the end of Main Street; it was old time brick and mortar. A car came through the end of town from The Bottoms and stopped across from the Boarding House. A neatly dressed, black girl got out with an adult and started walking toward the school. She had on one of those long dresses with a long white bow. Kids began to taunt, little kids, young teenagers. It was in a way that only kids can be cruel. Many had cameras. Some of the kids were spitting on her. The shouts were “Nigger, go home.” People were throwing things. Where were the adults? The Sheriff? What about the school officials? George stood on the porch watching it.
Shocked to his core, he made a decision as he stood watching the debacle. Memories of rejection flooded over him—even when he didn’t have too, it seemed he was always fighting for his spot. Well, all but one place, Vietnam. It was there where all were equal, the camaraderie, the sense of watching each other’s back. No wonder they never got over it, for many, it was the only time they had ever had such a thing.
When George saw his Vietnam compatriots dressed in those old fatigues at parades, he understood exactly. Although he didn’t go to many memorials or parades, he got it—those guys were trying to recapture that which they had known in Nam.
The call came early one morning from Darlene. Scotty was in jail in California and needed some help.
What happened?
Scotty had been harassed by some locals while he was reading meters for PG & E, the gas company. He then enacted a little payback.
Like what? Well, he reduced their low rider to rubble by emptying two full magazines from an M16 into it in the middle of the night. He didn’t want to hurt anyone.
George flew out to Oakland and bailed him out.
Scotty had been his fire team leader. Mad Dog was what the guys called him. He was fearless and relished firefights. His transition to civilian life had not been smooth to say the least, even though he’d married his high school sweetheart. If the squad had seen one picture of her, they had seen a thousand. They knew her. All Scotty talked about in Nam was going back to the “world”, marrying his girl, and moving to California—his girl and the California sun were an oasis in the middle of his desert. It was a fantasy. The “world” never lived up to its billing.
Like most combat vets, Scotty couldn’t get his life together. Nobody’s fault really. Landing the job with PG & E was a big break and Darlene said he was actually settling in. George remembered the late night calls from Darlene over the years when Scotty went crazy. She was religious and didn’t believe in divorce. George hoped she’d hang in.
Most of the time, George could talk some sense into him. Drinking and smoking a little weed, not to mention guns everywhere, seemed natural to Scotty. Darlene said he slept with a loaded 45 under his pillar. She worried for the kids.
Now, they were way up in Weaverville where everybody could raise a little cash crop of marijuana and survive. Scotty seemed a little more content. Most of the charges had been dropped as the police were pretty much in empathy with him. He merely had shot up the car of a bunch of punks, anyway. The other charges were reduced to a misdemeanor and a fine. He even got to keep his job with PG & E. Being a pole climber in wielded out Northern California was not all bad.
The night it happened would be one the people in the county would long remember. The first blast went off at Bill Johnson’s feed silos. It shook the earth and woke up everyone for miles around. It sounded like a bomb. Bill Johnson was the son-in-law of the Sheriff and a leader of the Klu Klux Klan Klavern and probably the biggest racist in town. He had made a small fortune with his five silos, storing feed. An hour later, the Benfield General Store went up in flames, and then it was Harley’s Hardware. Next came the Elks Club and finally the Wakefield Chevy dealership. All the places belonged to Klan leaders.
When light finally made its way to Williamstown, people were in shock. George arrived at his usual time for his visit with Maggie and sat at the counter as she recounted the theories of the night. A few people drifted in. “Got to be something planned and coordinated,” she said. “What do you think?”
George pursed his lips and looked past Maggie and was silent. Finally, he said, “I don’t know. You know me, I try to mind my own business.” She looked at him with one of those mordant looks.
The Mayor stepped to the podium. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” he said, “We are here today to honor the memory of Kenny Dryer, one of Williamstown County’s most revered citizens who lost his life in Vietnam. Our special guests today are first and foremost all his family. We are also pleased to welcome our Governor and Superintendent of Education and all our good friends from throughout the State who have come to share in this great event. ”
The Mayor proceeded. “The Kenny Dryer Middle School will be one of the most innovative in the State and we hope a model for all.”
The sun was high. Maggie squeezed George’s arm and glanced at Scotty and Marlene who had flown from California for the festivities. She smiled at George. He smiled back.