At which point the migrant worker waved his finger in brisk windshield-wiper fashion to repeat, “No, señor, no zapato. Gracias. Parche! Parche! Parche para callo.”
Bending over slightly to lift the leg of his trouser, my father pinched the top of his black socks and almost pleadingly asked, “Socks? Men’s socks?”
Again the windshield wiper which monitored his head movements was set into motion. “No, no, señor. Gracias.”
My father shot me a desperate look which meant that I was to take over now which was all right with me since I had an idea. I asked, “Tiene malos los pies?”
Suddenly he lit up as though he had just received a package from home. “Sí, señorita. Sí!”
After I had sold him a package of Dr. Scholl’s small corn pads, I found my father. “You know, I’ve been thinking. It wouldn’t be a bad idea if you’d let Miss Cox at the high school give all us clerks a simple Spanish course. She’s probably the best teacher I’ve ever had.”
He waved me away. “Don’t let these Españols kid you. If they want to, they can speak our language better’n we can.”
“I don’t understand why everybody in this town insists on saying that! Have you ever tried learning somebody else’s language?”
He bellowed out cigarette smoke along with his answer. “When I say something, I don’t want it contradicted. Understand?”
“But I wasn’t! I was just giving you my opinion ... from experience. Why does my opinion always bother you?”
The pupils of his eyes looked as though they were made out of a guaranteed unbreakable substance. “Don’t you ever make the mistake of thinking you’re too big for me to knock the living hell out of.”
I stood there facing him with unusually impeccable posture, resisting the terrible temptation to step back, lower my head, cast my eyes downward or in any one of a dozen ways transmit a signal of surrender.
I was standing there, not completely certain that I was going to escape injury, when it came to me that maybe my father had inadvertently given me the reason why I hadn’t had “the living hell” beaten out of me for going on five years. Now that I think of it, I doubt that he’s touched me for any reason in all that time. What were his secret fears?
“You answer me!”
That was always necessary for my father—insisting that I verbalize my defeat while proclaiming his victory. Wouldn’t you think he’d know he had won without having to be told.
I offered him an expressionless face. “I don’t know what it is you want me to say.”
“Say, yes, sir. It won’t happen again.”
“Yes, sir. It won’t happen again.”
“And say you’re sorry.”
“And I’m sorry,” I repeated, hoping he could catch just that quality in my voice which made it sound as though my words had been processed through some very large and impersonal machine.
11
AUGUST THE FIFTEENTH was the last, final, absolute deadline that I gave myself. By August 15, I had to break it to them that I was going to Europe. Today, August 15, 1950, I woke with a heavy head and a deep sense of impending disaster.
Although for a month now I had been practicing telling them, practicing a dozen different approaches, there wasn’t one of them that I thought they’d even remotely understand, much less approve of. I told myself that it wasn’t going to be pleasant, but I was strong. I could live through unpleasantness if only I could remember two things: Sticks and stones still don’t break bones, and there is nothing in this world that they can do to stop me.
At precisely six o’clock, Sarita called out, “SUP-per!” and my father, mother, Sharon, and I sat down at the flowered-cloth covered table to pot roast, collards, crowder peas, cornbread, and iced tea in tall festive glasses.
As my father sliced himself a perfectly enormous cut of the pot roast, my mother spoke about how we just have to do something. “I’d run a good-sized ad in the Rice County Gazette.”
“Years ago,” said my father, “I told Quent when he came around looking to sell ads that I’d rather use my money for toilet paper. Least thataways, it wouldn’t be a total loss.”
Sharon laughed at what must be his all-time favorite joke while my mother went on talking. “Tell jokes if you want to, Harry, but remember half of August is already gone and we’re way over-inventoried on summer shoes.”
Sharon bent toward me, whispering about what happened to Arlene Rosen at the recent BBG conclave in Nashville. “Her period came two days early and she didn’t have anything but an old gym sock to use.”
She laughed a mischievous laugh and I joined in, but not because I found it funny, which I didn’t. If anything, I found both Sharon’s and my father’s suppertime talk slightly offensive, but you can’t go by me, ’cause I’m kinda prudish. Or at least Edna Louise thinks so.
But offensive stories or not, I generally like having Sharon around. For one thing, she’s both very pretty and very sweet which makes me think that I’m mistaken about my parents. Maybe I’m too harsh on them and they’re really not all that bad. Else how could they have had her?
“I brought you some fingernail polish from the store,” she said, whipping it from the back pocket of her plaid shorts. “It’s a new shade. Like you like. See, not too bright.”
“Why do you always want to polish my nails, Sharon? I wouldn’t want to polish yours.”
“Don’t you know,” she giggled, “it’s fun to make things pretty. Will you let me?”
“No, last time you did my nails, you didn’t have any remover to clean up the mistakes.”
With dazzling orange-tipped fingers, Sharon reached back into her hip pocket and brought forth a full bottle of yellow nail-polish remover.
I looked again at the bottle of Rose Dust polish and was about to give Sharon my half-hearted permission, when I heard my mother use my name.
“What are you saying about me?”
“Nothing. It was nothing.”
“What do you mean nothing? I heard you use my name.”
My mother sighed as though I were inexcusably slowing her down. “I was telling your daddy that we oughta write the William R. Moore Company, the Memphis Wholesale Mart, and Cantor & Sons to establish a credit rating for you.”
It sounded decidedly important and flattering too. But why would I need a credit rating? Right off, I thought of one possibility that made sense. If my parents were suddenly killed in, say, an automobile accident, then who else but I would take care of Sharon? Run the store? I felt saddened as though their deaths were imminent and yet I also felt enormously pleased. Never would I have guessed that they’d have that kind of confidence in me. And I’m not going to let them down either. They can depend on that!
My father was pointing an index finger at me as though directing his words to their destination in the centermost core of my brain. “If I call you up and tell you to go down to a certain jobber for a gross of men’s work socks, then I don’t want you to take it upon yourself to buy another thing. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” I answered, not really understanding at all. “Do you maybe sometimes want me to go into Memphis for you? Do a little buying for the store?”
“No, not till you’re there.”
“Sir?”
“Not now,” he said. “Not until you’re already there in the dormitory at Teacher’s Normal.”
My mother interjected. “They don’t call it ‘Teacher’s Normal’ anymore, Harry. They haven’t for years. It’s Memphis State College now.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Wait a minute!” I felt the familiar onrush of rage for having my life controls snatched from me. “What are you all thinking? That I’m going there? To Memphis State College?”
My father blinked and I knew that inadvertently he had given it all away. The controls of my life were back in my hands where they belonged. “Isn’t that where you want to go?” he asked. “It’s cheap and it’s near home.”
“Oh, no, sir,” I answered. “That’s n
ot at all where I want to go.”
“Well, where do you want to go?”
Without hesitation, I said the word. Heard myself say the word, “Europe,” and I was so busy congratulating myself on my freshly found courage that I wasn’t, wasn’t at this moment, frightened.
“What!” shouted my father, and unless I’m mistaken my mother shouted it, too.
“Well,” I said, knowing that after these next sentences left my mouth, “normal” would be a long time coming. “After much thought, I’ve decided to spend my own money—the thousand dollars that Grandmother and Grandfather gave me—going on a little tour of Europe. When I come back, you won’t have to worry. I’ll work part time and go to college part time. I won’t be a burden! I’ll pay my own way. I promise!”
“Who ever heard of such a thing!” screamed my mother. “Who goes there? Nobody. Only soldiers to fight! Where does she get those ideas? She doesn’t get them from me. So where?”
My father turned his attention and his comments toward her. “Calm down, Pearl! Now calm yourself down! What Patricia says she’s going to do and what she actually does is a horse of a different color. She’s going to Europe like I’m going to fly a kite.”
“I am going,” I said flatly, and I caught something out of the corner of my eye. Sharon was sending me the message: DANGER, with only a quick shake of her head and a pained look on her face.
I gave my sister barely a nod, but I knew that she had read in it my own message of thanks for her reminder to proceed with extreme caution. “The whole thing is,” I spoke directly to my parents, but I wondered if Sharon caught the new tone of conciliation in my voice, “that for an awful long time I’ve wanted to travel ... see foreign places.
“Remember those movies, Three Coins in the Fountain and that other one—uh ... The Last Time I Saw Paris? Know how many times I saw those films?” I could tell that this was no time to ask them to count movie stubs. “Well, I saw them each four times because I just love foreign scenery and now I want to see it for real! Can you understand that?”
My father jumped to his feet. On his face raged a fury so insane that I questioned his ability to control it, even with my grown-woman status. I sucked in every bit of air my lungs could accommodate and it wasn’t until I saw my breasts swell that I understood why.
It must have worked, too, because while his rage was ongoing—“Well, unlike you and your kind, I love this country! I’d kill for this country!”—his potential for violence against me seemed to have subsided. “This is the greatest, most wonderful country on God’s green earth and if you had”—he snapped his fingers as though snapping away dirt—“a single ounce of patriotism, then this family wouldn’t have been ruined by your treason!”
So he’s still with that, is he? Still with Anton. Well, let them be. What do I care? Sticks and stones. I’m not upset. It’s practically exactly what I expected. Sticks and stones ... sticks and—I pressed an index finger against the point of burning, of icy burning just beneath my ribs. My head, my stomach began to revolve. Spinning faster and faster without benefit of a single control.
I got to my feet, slapping my hand across my mouth. To the bathroom. Fast! The room revolved then darkened without blackening. Never, not in my whole life, have I ever fainted. Wouldn’t faint now.
As I threw open the bathroom door and positioned my head directly above the bowl, I heard my mother call my name. “Patricia, don’t you dare puke on that floor!”
12
FOR A WHOLE month now, and for the second time in my life, I’ve become Jenkinsville’s number one topic of conversation. Edna Louise Jackson was one of the first people to ask me about it. “You really and truly intend to go to Paris, France?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what in the world for?”
“It’s hard to explain. I’ve always wanted to travel, you know, see things I’ve never—”
“My daddy told me that he heard that your daddy wrote you right out of his will.”
“Really?” I lied. “I hadn’t heard that.” At least not since the previous night. But it isn’t the threat of being disinherited that’s so hard to bear, although someday if I’m poor and can’t find work, it will be. The really hard thing is what he said to me on Wednesday after driving back in from Memphis.
“Patricia,” he had said in a voice so calm that it was downright scary. “You oughta know that the real reason I went into Memphis today wasn’t to buy goods for the store.”
“Yes, sir,” I answered, waiting for the inevitable verbal ax to come bisecting my brain.
“My main reason for going to Memphis was to have a talk, and I mean to tell you, I had a long talk with Rabbi Goodstein.”
Rabbi Goodstein? The Rabbi Goodstein of weddings, High Holy Days, Brises, and Bar Mitzvahs? I searched for the connection. “Sir?”
“Disinheritance,” said my father, speaking with inordinate slowness, “is too goddamn good for you. After what you’ve put this family through. The public disgrace with that Nazi and now ... now this! This sneaking off to Europe.”
“Sneaking is when you don’t tell. I told. Please just remember that I told!”
My pleading voice, though, must have alerted my mother because she came into the room spewing large quantities of her own special brand of verbal kerosene. “Only reason girls from around here run off is when they have to get rid of an illegitimate baby. Is that why you’re going? You can tell the truth!”
“PEARL!” My father screamed and I could see that he had to restrain himself just to keep from killing her. “You GET the hell on out of here!”
My mother looked shocked that he was now turning his rage against her.
Doesn’t she know better than that? Why, he can never even hear the mention of the word sex in front of me. Sometimes I think it’s because he wants to keep me from something he knows I’ll hate—or will love so much that I’ll be in danger of becoming an alley cat too. But I don’t want to think about that anymore.
After chasing Mother away, he came back with his sharply honed ax. “If you go off to Paris, I’m going to do exactly what I told Rabbi Goodstein I was going to do. For me, you will be dead, and for the dead I sit shiva. You leave, and I swear to God I’ll recite the prayers of the dead over you.”
“I also heard”—here Edna Louise allowed herself a little Jacksonian pause—“that your poor mother cries herself to sleep every night.”
Now that was a bold-faced lie! My mother has never been known to keep her head aloft much beyond ten o’clock. “I hadn’t heard that one either,” I answered, grateful for at least the fact that not one of her questions connected up to Anton. “Well, what else have you heard?” I asked, thinking that France was, after all, a pretty good diversionary tactic.
“Oh ... nothing much ... only ...”
“Only what?” Was the connection now going to be made?
“Only about those Frenchmen.”
“What about them?”
Edna Louise narrowed the sidewalk space between us. “Well, I heard that they engage in unnatural sex.”
My mind was filled with all kinds of questions because probably the closest that I’ve ever come to even natural sex was in the movies. It happened just during that period when Clark Gable kissed Loretta Young so hard out there on the balcony of her New York penthouse that the scene had nowhere to go decently, so in the name of decency it just fuzzed out.
Now, trying to find out the answer to the question that was agitating my brain would mean that I’d have to inform the world (via Edna Louise) just how ignorant I was about sex. Still I knew myself well enough to know that, caught between the fires of this agitating kind of curiosity and a somewhat less than devastating embarrassment, I’d probably opt to quench the curiosity. And so I did, but in a way that was hopefully calculated to convey the impression that I knew practically everything there is to know about the subject, but perhaps, I could accommodate just a bare molecule more.
So I asked, “What spe
cifically do you mean by unnatural sex?”
For one who had gained a reputation for having succulent nipples, Edna Louise began to look surprisingly uncomfortable. Finally her gaze seemed to re-focus as she said, “About the same thing, I reckon, that other people mean when they say”—her head moved toward my ear—ldquo;unnatural sex.”
As I tried to figure out how in this world I am ever going to learn what it is that everybody else apparently already knows (but won’t tell), she again moved toward my ear. And after a long pause, she explained “I’ve heard that Frenchmen have sex almost at the drop of a hat and even if it’s in the daytime!”
“Really,” I answered, never before having realized that the Baptists placed a greater penalty on daytime sex. To some extent, I agree. I mean, who—who in their right mind would want to have sex in the daylight when your body can be looked at like just so much meat?
As interesting as Edna Louise’s thoughts were, they were not nearly so memorable as some of Ruth’s words from long ago. Maybe that’s why now on the very eve of my departure Ruth began resting heavy on my mind. My heart told me to trust its judgment. It was right to see her, but the two blocks down to Nigger Bottoms would be laden with emotional obstacles. Maybe more than I could afford.
The first obstacle was leaving my room. Leaving the relative security of my own room to pass maybe within a few feet of one or both of my parents is not simple. Because to pass them is to automatically provoke them. But because I needed to see Ruth more than I needed to protect myself, I opened the door of my bedroom and walked quickly and quietly through our (thankfully) empty living room and out the front door.
The second obstacle, though, was not to be avoided. Mrs. Cora Jackson, who was sitting out on her front porch, called out as I passed by, “Where you going all alone on such a warm evening, Patty?”
“To the drugstore. I have this cough. Maybe a cold coming on.”
“Drugstore’s been closed for better’n an hour.”
I felt like a caught criminal. “Oh, well,” I laughed a meaningless laugh. “Maybe he’ll be there. Doing something ...”