The Bottoms

12

As we bumped up the trail toward Preacher’s Road, I said, “What favor did you do Mr. Smoote? He didn’t sound like he was real grateful.”

“He don’t like to think about it, son. One of his girls, the oldest one. She’s about nineteen now… we didn’t see her today.”

“Mary Jean?”

“That’s the one. I caught her with a colored boy, son. If you know what I mean.”

I blushed. Daddy had never talked to me about such things.

“I ain’t never told nobody but you. Not even your Mama. And you ain’t never gonna say, ’cause I’m askin’ you to keep your word, and I know you will. I figure there’s some things a man ought to be able to tell his son he don’t have to tell no one else and can’t.”

“Yes sir. Is that why he chained Mose?”

“Part of it. He don’t let that girl out of the house hardly no more. He’s afraid she’ll get with the colored. He figures she’s got a fever for it. I figure she’s just a little slutty to begin with, and that probably wasn’t her first time to dally. Colored or white, I can’t say. I don’t think Mary Jean’s all that choosy.”

I filed that away.

Daddy added, as if reading my mind, “You stay away from that gal, hear? She might have some kind of disease.”

“Yes sir. I don’t want nothin’ to do with her… Daddy, what about the colored boy?”

“She didn’t even know him. She met him down by the river, fishin’. She’d gone down there to do the same. They got to talkin’ about things, and I guess she figured she could talk to him about stuff she couldn’t talk to a white boy about. People figure colored haven’t got the morals whites got. But it ain’t that way at all, son. There’s just as many good coloreds as white, and just as many sorry. Most, white or colored, ain’t quite on one side altogether. They’re a mix. A good person is one where the mix turns out mostly for the better. But she got to talkin’, and he got to talkin’, and well, pretty soon they was doin’ more than talkin’. I was out lookin’ for Mrs. Benton’s cow. Widow lives up on the hill behind Bill. She come to me askin’ for help, so I went to lookin’. What I found was Mary Jean and that colored boy. I run him on. Told him not to come back. Mary Jean didn’t know his name, so that wouldn’t gonna come up. I told her to dress, and I took her home.”

“And told her Daddy?”

“I wasn’t gonna say nothin’. She told her Daddy. Just to hurt him, I figure. She’s got a mean streak in her, but then again, so does her Daddy. He’s walloped her hide pretty often.”

“Daddy, you’ve walloped us some.”

Daddy was quiet for a moment. “You think so? I raised big welts on you, son?”

“No sir.”

“Have I whupped you just to make myself feel better?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I whupped you for things you didn’t do?”

“Once. I didn’t drop that cat down the outhouse. Tom done that.”

“You didn’t tell me that.”

“She was little. She didn’t know no better.”

“So you took the whuppin’ for her?”

“Yes sir.”

“I can admire that. But you’ve been corrected, boy. Not beat. Stung, but not injured. And I don’t spank as a matter of course. I think hard on any spankin’s I give you.”

“There was that time we put salt in your coffee, and you took a swig and we laughed and you jerked us up and got us both. You didn’t consider much on that one.”

Daddy laughed. “That one didn’t deserve considerin’. I knew darn well who done that.”

I turned back to the subject. “So Mary Jean told her Daddy what she did to hurt him?”

“Way I figure it. Bill wanted to kill the boy, but I told him I didn’t know who he was and didn’t remember how he looked. Far as he’s concerned they all look alike anyway, so he didn’t have no trouble buyin’ that.

“And she wasn’t raped. I told him I seen what was happenin’, and it sure wasn’t rape. Not the way she was laughin’.”

“So Mr. Smoote knows you know and he wants to make sure you don’t say ’cause he don’t want folks to know his daughter was with colored.”

“That’s about the size of it. I don’t intend to say no how. And I’ve told him that. I figured I asked a favor of him he’d do it ’cause he owed me. But Bill ain’t smart. Askin’ that boy to help him chain Ole Mose. He didn’t think that one through.”

That night I couldn’t sleep, got up carefully so as not to wake Tom, and still wearing my nightshirt slipped out onto the sleeping porch. I thought I might sleep there, but instead I ended up going out to the well in my bare feet and pulling up a bucket of water and using the dipper to get a drink. I took my time about it, listening to the crickets saw on their legs.

When I got back to the sleeping porch, Mama was there. She was sitting in the swing, wearing her quilted nightgown. I thought I might have awakened her, or that she was going to fuss at me for being up, but instead she patted the seat beside her and I went over and sat down.

“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

She put her arm around me. “Me either. What you thinkin’ about?”

“Nothin’ really.”

“Oh.”

“You?”

“Everything all at once. That’s why I can’t sleep. Sometimes things jumble together. I get to thinkin’ about what I’m going to fix for breakfast or dinner or supper. I wonder if the mule’s gettin’ too old to plow and if the weather’s gonna spoil the fall crop. I wonder if times gonna get any better, and I think about the mistakes in my life, and I think about you and Tom.”

“What about me and Tom?”

“No one thing. Just thinkin’.”

“Mama?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell Daddy about Red?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Why?”

“It’s hard to explain. I guess it’s because your Dad wouldn’t like the idea of Red comin’ around and I don’t want to start no trouble between ’em. They don’t like each other anyway, and yet they do.”

“How’s that?”

“Ain’t nothin’ worse than two friends fallin’ out. Underneath it all, there’s still the old feelin’s they had for one another.”

“I think it’s gone. Daddy don’t like Red.”

“There’s still the old memories, and that makes not likin’ each other all the worse and all the harder. It was me made the two of them not like each other in the first place. Then your Daddy savin’ Red like that, and them both courtin’ me, well, it made things difficult when me and your Daddy got together. They never could patch things up.”

“How do you mean?”

“I can’t explain it. But that’s why your Daddy was mad at Red

… People do foolish things, Harry. Things they wish they hadn’t done, but you can’t take them back. You have to live with them, get over them or work around them.”

“I don’t think Daddy felt foolish about what he was doin’,” I said.

“I didn’t mean your Daddy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Someday, maybe I can explain it to you better.”

“Red still likes you, don’t he?”

“I guess he does. Or did until our little talk.”

“Is it like that with you? I mean like you say it is with Dad and Red?”

“Maybe. A little. Just a little. I think I like some memories better than I like some nows. You know what I mean?”

“I don’t know, Mama… What did you mean talkin’ to Mr. Woodrow about Miss Maggie and his Daddy?”

“Miss Maggie was Red’s Daddy’s mistress.”

“Mistress?”

“That’s kind of… well, Harry, this is embarrassin’. But it’s when a man is married, and he ain’t supposed to be but with his wife, but he don’t always do that. And he’s got him a woman on the side.”

“Miss Maggie was his woman on the side?”

“That was many years ago. She was a young woman then.”

I had a difficult time imagining Miss Maggie young.

“Red’s got a half-brother and a half-sister by her. Or maybe it’s two half-brothers or two half-sisters. I’m not sure. He knows that, but he never acted like he did. He don’t claim ’em. When he was little, that ole colored woman was like his Mama. His Mama was a cold woman, and didn’t have much to do with Red nor his Daddy. I think that’s why his Daddy took a mistress. But it was really more like havin’ a slave than a mistress. I don’t know how else to explain it, Harry.”

“I understand.”

“Harry, you’re gettin’ to be a young man. Figure that’s why your Daddy took you with him today. He wanted your company. Did you enjoy it?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Your Daddy and me got hopes for you and Tom. Jacob come from a real ignorant family, Harry. He don’t want that for you. He wants you to have a chance. Remember that when you feel like he’s pushin’ you a little too hard. He’s afraid you’ll end up like him.”

“I think I could do a lot worse.”

Mama put her arm around me. “So do I, Harry.”

Suddenly Toby barked and a voice called loudly: “Jacob. Come out.”

“Who was that?” I asked.

Mama said, “Sit tight.”

She got up, started through the house. I disobeyed her immediately and followed.

“Jacob,” the voice called again. “Come out.”

Through the windows and curtains I could see there was a brilliant light outside, a moving light, gnawing at the darkness.

Mama pulled back the curtains and looked. There were a dozen men on horseback, dressed in white robes. They were carrying torches. One man was standing on the ground, his horse being held by a mounted rider. On the far side of our road blazed a cross about eight feet tall.

Toby had come up on the front porch, and he was barking in as ferocious a manner as he could manage.

“Run get your father,” Mama said.

I started that way, but Daddy was already coming. He wasn’t wearing any shirt. He was carrying our double-barreled shotgun. He leaned the shotgun beside the door, went out on the porch.

Toby continued to bark. Daddy said, “Hush, Toby,” and after one more bark, just to show he wasn’t any lapdog, Toby went quiet. Mama called him softly and he came inside the house, growling under his breath.

I could smell the gasoline the cross had been doused with. I watched the flames whip at the air like a bloody sheet in the wind.

“You boys done missed Halloween,” Daddy said.

The robed man with the torch said, “We command you now, pilgrim. Tell us where we can find the nigger you arrested.”

“You don’t do worth a damn trying to hide your voice, Ben Groon,” Daddy said. “I’d recognize it anywhere. You don’t command me nothin’. You hear?”

“Turn over this nigger you got, Jacob. You can’t protect him.”

“First of all,” Daddy said, “I ain’t got no one in custody. Second of all, I wouldn’t turn him over if he was on the porch with me. Take that cross with you, and leave out. And by the way, I recognize you, Nation, just the way you sit that horse. And that means them two dumb boys of yours are bound to be with you. So that’s four I know right there.”

Daddy called to me. “Hand me that gun, son.”

I was standing just inside of the doorway. I handed him the shotgun. He took it quickly, stepped off the porch, leveled it at the man he said was Groon, the general store owner. I had a hard time picturing him under that sheet.

“Pull that thing down and take it with you,” Daddy said.

There was a moment’s hesitation. Daddy cocked the shotgun. You could almost hear their butts grabbing at their saddles.

Groon spoke in a cracked voice, “Better go on and take it down. He said he ain’t got no nigger.”

The white hoods looked back and forth at one another. Finally one produced a rope, tossed it over the top of the burning cross, dragged it out of the ground and started down the road with it, the cross flinging sparks and flogging flames.

The others left out, except for the man holding Groon’s horse, and Groon himself. The rider presented Groon with his reins, and thundered off down the road.

“It’s one tight brotherhood, ain’t it?” Daddy said. “Groon, step up here on the porch.”

“We done tore the cross down, Jacob.”

“I know. Step up here.”

Groon came over, leading his mount.

“Tie your horse,” Daddy said.

Groon tied it to a porch support post.

“Lift that hood off.”

Groon lifted it, revealing his bald head. He looked half the size he had out there by the cross with the pointed hood on. I realized he wasn’t any taller than me, and only a little bigger. He appeared to be a silly adult who had been wearing a ghost costume.

“Now, come on in the house.”

“Jacob…”

“Just do it.”

Mama put Toby outside as Mr. Groon came in, just in case he might decide to take a nip at his ankles.

Daddy led Mr. Groon through our main room where the kitchen and dining table were. He took Groon into his and Mama’s bedroom, mine and Tom’s room, then out on the sleeping porch, all of us tagging behind, trying to figure what in the world was going on.

We ended back up in the main room. Daddy said to Groon, “See any colored folk?”

Groon shook his head.

“Good. You tell your friends that. Now sit at the table.”

Groon was starting to shake. I was pretty darn nervous myself.

Daddy said, “May Lynn, would you mind gettin’ the cake out of the pantry?”

Mama looked at Daddy as if he had just decided to use her kitchen for an outhouse, but she got the cake out and put it on the table.

“And if I could trouble you for some plates. And some forks.”

Mama got out the plates and forks. She looked at Daddy as if he were ready to be put in a home for crazy folks.

“Now,” Daddy said, still holding the shotgun on Groon, “everyone please sit at the table.”

I did, and Mama did. Daddy lowered the shotgun, opened it. No shells flew out. It was empty. He made note of this to Groon, who let out a sigh of relief.

“Now, Groon. I want you to have some of this cake. May Lynn is the best damn cake baker in these parts. And I want you to note that everything here was made from supplies we bought at your store.”

Groon looked at Mama. Mama tried to smile, but it didn’t quite work.

We all ate cake.

When Groon was finished, Mama said, “You like another piece, Mr. Groon?”

“Yes ma’am, I would.”

I don’t know how late Daddy and Mr. Groon talked, but it was late. I finally tuckered out and drifted to the sleeping porch with Mama. We sat together on the swing there, and when I woke she was gone and I was lying on the swing with a pillow under my head and a blanket over me. The sun was coming up and our rooster crowing. I went into the kitchen. Daddy and Groon were still in there, sitting in front of greasy plates, well sopped of eggs and fatback grease. Mama was pouring coffee.

“You like some eggs and biscuits, Harry?” she asked.

I told her I would, and sat down at the table. Tom came wandering in, rubbing her eyes. Sometimes she could sleep through a marching band. She looked at Mr. Groon, who still sat at the table wearing his robes, his hood pushed back. In the morning sunlight, his hair looked even thinner and whiter and the bald spot was a soft, smooth cream color. I could see liver spots on the back of his hands.

“You got on a ghost suit, Mr. Groon?” Tom asked.

He smiled at her. “I guess I do, missy.” He stood up, stretched out his hand to Daddy. “You won’t have no more trouble from me.”

“Fair enough,” Daddy said.

“Good cake, and a good breakfast, Mrs. Cane. Thank you.”

Mama nodded.

Groon got up and went outside. Daddy went with him. The air still smelled faintly of gasoline and burnt wood. Toby was lying on the porch. He shifted slightly and put an eyeball on Mr. Groon. Mr. Groon leaned forward slowly and extended his hand to Toby. Daddy said, “It’s all right, Toby.”

Toby sniffed at the hand, then lay back down, satisfied.

“Maybe we ought to walk your horse down to the barn, get some grain and water,” Daddy said.

“That’d be good,” Mr. Groon said.

“I’d like you to look around out there. See there’s no colored hiding there.”

Groon nodded.

“Son,” Daddy said, “clean that up, will you?”

He was talking about a big pile of horse manure Mr. Groon’s horse had left. “Yes sir,” I said, and went to get the shovel.

As I went around the house to where the shovel was leaning against the outside wall, I heard Daddy say: “Ben, wasn’t any shells in that gun, but I want you to know, I had some in my pocket.”

Later that day, I walked down the road following the path of the dragged cross. Eventually, I came upon what was left of it. The rope had burned through and the remains of the cross lay in the center of the road. It was a black-charred ruin, but still obviously a cross.

As I stood looking, a sharp wind came along and kicked ash off of it and some of it stuck to my shirt, the one Mama had made of bleached flour sacks. The one that was almost snow white, not from design, but from wear. And even though Mama washed it afterward, using good lye soap, it never came completely clean.

Somewhere, even now, after all these years, and me long grown out of it, I still have that shirt. Folded up in a trunk in storage, moth-eaten and turned yellow, with stains the color of ancient dried blood dotted just above and below the left shirt pocket.

Part Three