PIGFOOT AND PIGEON HANDS
By
DAVID WASHINGTON
The people and situations depicted in this story are fictional. Any resemblance to persons living or deceased is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 David Washington
The front cover illustration is from a 19th century magazine.
TABLE OF C0NTENTS
Introductory Note
Pigfoot and Pigeon Hands
Talking Points for Bibliotherapy
Bibliotherapy Lesson Plans
Creative Writing Work Page
About David Washington
Other Books by this Author
Connect with Me Online
Introductory Note
Bibliotherapy or literature therapy, uses literature as a means of promoting personal development and the resolution of conflicts. The workbooks in the Kenroy Stories series trace the development of the title character. The stories follow him as he is confronted with various challenges to healthy growth common to our society. Bibliotherapy is not a cure-all, but another tool to be used in the intensive effort required on the part of parents, teachers and others who work with young people. To assist them in arriving at adulthood with a reasonable degree of soundness of mind and a healthy sense of themselves as individuals, of whatever culture or background, capable of coping successfully with the pressures of the modern day and of living a purposeful life is indeed a . difficult challenge.
Pigfoot and Pigeon Hands is a story within a story. The principal issues of concern in it are living things and the environment. The quality of life on planet earth is continues to decline for all of its living creatures on land and sea. Poverty, degradation of the environment, short-sighted greed and a general devaluation of life all contribute to the rapid of diversity of fauna and flora. The issues are both complex and simple. Since all of us are involved in their outcome, there is a need for all of us, even young ones, to see clearly how the decisions we make, both large and small, effect the quality of life for better or for worse.
David Washington
B. A. Psychology, Colby College
M. A. Anthropology, Howard University
Pigfoot and Pigeon Hands
“I can remember a long, long time ago, before I knew any better, wanting to know all about everything. I must have been around four years old. I hit a bird with my slingshot. It fell from the tree and was lying on the ground in our backyard. I picked it up and as I held it in my hand I could feel its heart beating against my thumb. It felt warm in my hand. It looked up at me and seemed like it wanted to say something, but then it died, right in my hand. I wondered what it wanted to tell me. So I went inside and told Granny. Granny knows a lot, and like I said I wanted to know all about everything and especially what the bird might have wanted to say.”
“Granny looked at me a long time, like she was about to say something but then she looked up and started to singing instead of explaining. It sounded something like a church song, but it was like in a different kind of language. Some of the words I could almost understand, the rest I couldn’t none at all. And I thought to myself, as she was looking up and singing like that, this must be the wrong time to bother Granny. Right then she stopped singing and looked at me in a way I can’t never forget ’cause that was the first time I ever seen Granny cry. Then she said:”
‘ “Sit down Kenroy. I know how you like stories, so just sit down and let me tell you one story my granny once told me.”
“And I said, “Granny, you have a Granny?!”’
“Had, Kenroy, she said. “Had, this was a long, long time ago, before you or even your ma was even thought of, long ago. Then she told me about how her Granny had come to Belize, only it wasn’t called Belize back then, but British Honduras. She came here from the Alabama in the US, she said. The son of the clear-skinned man that had owned her mother during the slaving times bought her here to Belize with him. After the War when the slaves were set free was over some of the men that lost came down here and sake of he wanted to keep Granny’s granny, he bought her here.”
“I wanted to ask her what about slavery time, but I was afraid she might start that singing again and I wanted to hear the story too, so I asked, ‘ “What’s the name of the story Granny?” ‘
“The story don’t really have a name, but I guess if we wanted to give it a name we could call it ‘Pigfoot and Pigeon ‘Hands.’”
Itchy, who had been listening quietly to Kenroy, almost fell off of the limb of the black mango tree where they was sitting. The tree, was about the length of a football field behind the Clinic. Kenroy lived on above the Clinic with his grandmother, who everybody called ‘Nurse D’. Itchy and Kenroy had made the tree their after school ‘hangout’ with the appearance of the first ‘big enough to eat’ but still green ‘Black’ green mangos. Now Itchy was laughing so hard tears came to his eyes.
“Pigfoot and what?” he asked grabbing the tree trunk to steady himself.
“Pigfoot and Pigeon Hands, I heard her say. At least I thought that’s what she said. Remember now I was only ‘bout four at the time she told me this, so maybe pigeons have hands for all I know. Anyway, ‘Granny’, I say, so...”
Kenroy too wanted to laugh and was hoping his friend didn’t notice how hard he was trying not to. He leaned back on the limb on which he sat to hide his face from Emanuel, Itchy’s real name. The kids called him ‘Itchy’ because of his Ketchi last name was, Ich.
“So back then the people had pigeon hands?” Itchy asked, trying to imagine what a pigeon hand might look like.
“Just hold your horses Emanuel, I’m going to get to that.” Kenroy said it in the way his Granny always said it to him and allowed himself a chuckle.
“Granny said, ‘Let me tell you ‘bout Pigfoot first, only Pigfoot wasn’t his real name, according to Granny’s granny. Granny said she figured out after she had become a nurse that the man they called “Pigfoot” must have had a clubfoot.”
“Clubfoot, what’s a ‘clubfoot’?” Itchy asked, holding back a laugh, thinking it must be something Kenroy, who still loved . hearing and telling stories, had made up.
“Well, according to Nurse D., Granny I mean, it’s when somebody may be born with a foot that curved back towards the heel of their foot so it reminds you of a club or a heavy stick. I remember that was exactly what she said
‘cause right away I started to feel sorry for poor Pigfoot. The only thing is that Granny’s granny tell she that to the people back then Pigfoot’s foot reminded them of a pig’s foot. But nobody made fun of him and he was not much worse off than all of the black people was back then. Matter of fact, according to Granny he got be much better off than some of even the people that used to own slaves.”
“How he do that, Kenroy”, Emanuel, quite curious to know the secret, asked. “Well, that’s what the story was all about. Only, I don’t quite remember everything exactly as Granny told me it, but I can tell you the part I do remember.”
He began to picture it in his mind the way he had at four years old when he heard it.
“Couldn’t read nor write, this Pigfoot,” he could hear Granny say. He was seeing in his mind her Granny telling his Granny. “Smart as a whip, even from boyhood and loved animals, all kinds, but ‘specially birds. Birds to Pigfoot were his kind of people. Folks used to say Pigfoot lived in a bird’s world. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. Maybe he just felt freer in the company of birds and strangely enough the birds seem to accept him into their world.”
“In those years after the War, according to Granny the blacks weren’t slaves no more but they wasn’t what you could call free neither. After they had waited a while thinking they was going to get 40 acres of land and a mule to plow like the government had said they would, they saw after a while it wasn’t turning out like that. So they wander around from place to place until some of them just went on back to the plantations they had worked on as slaves. Granny said it was sort of like the Israelites who wanted to go back to Egypt sake of all the food they had before they’d gone out with Moses. And when the pigeons came it was really like in the Bible when God sent the birds for the people to eat while they was out there in the wilderness hungry.”
“Wait a minute Kenroy I know you making this up now. You always like to tell stories you make up by yourself. What birds? What pigeons?” asked Emanuel, incredulous at his friend’s imagination.
“I’m not making it up this time. If it was anyone made it up it had to be Granny, and my Granny don’t believe in making up, she always be telling the truth when she talk to me. I telling you what she said. And she said her granny told her that one day back then the people started hearing a noise that sounded like thunder getting louder and louder. The sky became dark even thought it was daytime and it was a clear day. When the people looked up toward the north they saw coming so many bird that they filled the sky all around. There were so many birds it took all day for them to pass by.”*
“Pigeons, Kenroy?!”
“Pigeons. I’m telling you what she said her Granny told her. I think she said they were called ‘passing under pigeons’ or something like that, I’m not too sure about the real name she said. But then she said everybody started to hunt the pigeons for food. It was hard to afford meat so they ate the pigeons. There were so many it was easy to kill as much as you want and then some. It was like in the Bible when God sent so many quail birds to feed the Israelites when they was hungry for some meat after all that manna, she said.
“Man o’ man, I wish I could see so many birds. I wonder why they don’t pass by like that nowadays.”, Emanuel asked in sheer amazement.
“Well, that’s exactly what the story was all about. You see, when Pigfoot saw how fast the people greedy up the pigeons he started to warn them not to kill so many or they wouldn’t be none left after a while. They said he was crazy and laughed at him and said no way they could kill off all the millions and millions of pigeons.”
“Did them kill them all?”, Emanuel asked, already starting to worry over how the story was going to end.
“Hold your horses Itchy, I’m getting to that part. Anyways, Pigfoot decided he would do something to try and save them for the future generations. He started to capture all the ones that was wounded without being killed by the hunters. He would go out into the fields looking for wounded birds. When he found one he picked it up in a cloth. They would be shaking and trembling in his hand like my one did. He would rub its feathers until it calmed down some and then he would take it to a secret place he had for them in the bush. He knew how to nurse and feed them back to healthy again. He felt real happy when he would find a female one ‘cause he knew they could breed more baby pigeons, so he took special care of them and their eggs.”
“Hey, wait a minute, what you call a female pigeon?’, Itchy interrupted Kenroy.
“Yeah I know now, but then it sounded like Granny said pigeon hands instead of pigeon hens!”, Kenroy said, as they both had a good laugh at this childish misunderstanding. “And you know what, I was seven years old when it came to me. But the not so funny part is that Pigfoot turned out to be right. The people did kill off all the millions and millions of passing under pigeons.”
“What you mean Kenroy, there’s plenty of pigeons all about. The other day I went to the City with my pop for him to testify in court about Big up. Afterwards, while he was in the bank depositing money for some family down in San Miguel, I saw lots of pigeons camped out on the roof of the courthouse and in the park.”
“Yeah, but not this kind of pigeon. Granny said the last one of this kind of pigeons died in a zoo a long time ago. Even the ones Pigfoot had raised somebody stole. She said it hurt Pigfoot so bad to lose what he had tried so hard to save he liked to died of a broken heart. But instead of dying broken-hearted he taught himself to read and write and became kind of a preacher. Only instead of preaching about going to heaven like other preachers, he went around visiting people talking to them about how we need to show God we can take better care of things here on earth, like the plants and the animals.”
“Hold on Kenroy, I think I can hear my momma call. Yep, see you tomorrow at school.”
Quick as a cat, but really much quicker than that, Itchy was down the tree, and on the run. Kenroy, who had not heard a thing, stayed a while longer in the tree, trying to remember the rest of the story about Pigfoot and the Pigeon hens. After a while, he decided to go inside and ask Granny, hoping she too had not forgotten. He found her downstairs still in the Clinic, cleaning up the waiting room.
“Kenroy take this dirt out for me and be sure to wash
your hands afterwards.”
He did so, quietly, still trying to remember the part of the story he had forgotten. When he came back he couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“Granny, you remember a story you told me a long time ago called ‘Pigfoot and Pigeon Hands.”, he asked.
“I remember one I called Pigfoot and Pigeon Hens, but maybe you remember pigeon hands since you must have been around four years old at the time, which, by the way wasn’t that long ago to somebody my age, even if it seems so to you. But, what about it, I’m a little surprised you still remember that when you can’t seem to remember what time you supposed to come help your Granny clean up around here.”
“Sorry Granny. I guess my mind was on Pigfoot.”
“What’s all this about Pigfoot all of sudden. You didn’t go out and kill some poor bird again did you?”
“No, Granny, I promised you back then I wouldn’t never do it again and I’m keeping my promise up to now. Itchy wanted us to kill some birds for fun so I started telling him the story about Pigfoot, but when I got to the part where Pigfoot starts to preaching I couldn’t think of what happened after that. He had to go anyway, but I still was wondering what had happened in the end of the story.”
Nurse D. sat down. and listened with interest as her grandson talked. He was eleven years old now. A lesson she had taught him so ‘long ago’ had stuck with him. It made her feel that her efforts to instill certain values that she held dear in him were not entirely in vain. She often tried to do so by means of stories and had found that method often worked best. ‘Everybody loves a good story,’ she thought to herself as he finished talking.
“Well, Kenny, there really isn’t too, too much to tell after that, as far as my dear grandmother related it to me. One thing though Big Momma did mention was she said Pigfoot, even though he was born with a handicap, never felt sorry for himself. He used to say self-pity was like a trap laid by a bird-catcher. So instead of feeling sorry for himself, he kept busy in helping others.
“Help others? How could he help other people when he was so poor and cripple himself. I don’t see how he could help somebody else, Granny,” Kenroy asked, feeling sorry for Pigfoot.
“I said Pigfoot was lame in his foot, but that don’t mean he was cripple up here,” she said touching the side of her head with her pointed finger. “You see, not only did he raise his pigeon hens, he would give some away to poor people to raise for themselves and have food on the table. Some did that way, but again some would just greedy up what he gave them and come looking for more. Still he was patient with them tried time and again to teach them the wisdom of ‘living at home.’
“Living at home, where was they were living Granny?”
“That came fro something Dr. Carver went around teaching the poor farmers in Alabama back then. By ‘living at home’ he meant not having to depend so much on buying from the shop and instead to grow your own vegetables and raise your own animals for meat. He meant we don’t have to ruin the farmland with the kind of crops we grow just for money or to kill off the animals, birds and fish, so fast that they don’t have a chance to reproduce more animals, birds and fish. Pigfoot had listened to Dr. Carver and got the sense. He went about doing it and trying to help his poor neighbors to ‘live at home’ too.” Nurse D. was finished cleaning and ready to head upstairs to get supper going, but looking down at Kenroy, she could see it coming.
“Granny who was Dr. Carver?”, Kenroy asked.
“I knew you were going to ask that, let me sit down cause Ok, Dr. George Washington Carver, one of America’s greatest scientists. But let’s go upstairs I have to get tea ready. We can talk about him at the table.”