Bastard Out of Carolina - Dorothy Allison [40]
The next time we went over to visit, Grey told me there were five of them downstairs, same as upstairs, with the daddy off working up north and none of the kids as old as he was. The woman kept to herself, wouldn’t do more than nod to Aunt Alma, but the kids started hanging our on the steps again after the first week, running inside whenever one of the uncles’ trucks pulled up but otherwise ignoring the white children.
Sometime in the second week they held a spitting contest, upstairs against down, and Grey won. After that things got a little easier. Grey showed his pocketknife to the boys downstairs and in turn admired a set of tools the oldest boy had from his father. It was only the girl who kept herself aloof, staying with her mama while the boys played out in the yard.
“She’s pretty, if niggers can be pretty,” Grey told me, “but not friendly. Looks like she expects me to bite her neck or something.”
“You call her that and she might bite you. I would.” I was remembering the girl’s intent, determined face. I had heard all the hateful jokes and nasty things people said about “niggers,” but on my own, I had never before spoken to a colored person in anything more than the brief, careful “sir” and “ma’am” that Mama had taught us. I was as shy with those kids as they seemed to be with us. As nervous as the idea made me, I wished that girl would come out so I could try to talk to her, but she never did more than look out the windows at us. Her mama had probably told her all about what to expect from trash like us.
“Boy howdy, you should have heard what Daddy and Uncle Beau said when they came over, the things they called them.” Grey frowned and kicked one foot against the other. “Daddy’s awful mad we moved in here.”
I knew what he meant. Uncle Wade and Aunt Alma had been over at our place the week before, Wade looking worn-down and shabby and cursing Alma to her face.
“Running off with a man’s children, living in that dirty place with niggers all around. My little girls having to go up those stairs past those nigger boys. My wife walking the street past those peckerwoods!” Uncle Wade’s sunburned face was thinner than usual and dark with outrage.
Aunt Alma just laughed at him. She looked better than ever. She was a little thinner too, but that was good on her. Her face was smooth and relaxed, her skirt loose on her soft hips. She didn’t look like she was missing Uncle Wade too much. “That man’s worse than a boy,” she’d told Mama, “wears you out wanting stuff done for him all the time, running after his meals, washing his clothes, hell, washing him and his greasy hair!” Now she just laughed and pushed her bangs back casually with one small hand.
“I’m paying my own rent, thank you, Mr. Wade Yarnall.” She looped a curl around one ear and grinned over at Mama proudly. “I don’t need to listen to your complaints about my life, your nonsense about my children. They’re clean and fed and happy where they are. Nobody’s messing with them. Nobody’s messing with me, and nobody’s gonna.”
“But it’s a scandal! She can’t stay there.” Aunt Carr was on Uncle Wade’s side, but she always had been, Mama told me. Carr had come down from Baltimore to stay with us on her yearly summer visit. “Your aunt Carr was always sweet on Wade,” Mama confided to me one afternoon when we were hanging out laundry. “Back when we were still girls, she thought she’d marry Wade. Never got over him picking Alma. ”
“Hellfire, Anney. Carr an’t never gotten over anything. Girl remembers every wrong anybody ever done her or thought of doing her. Bet you she recites them out loud each night before she goes to sleep, just to keep them straight in her mind.” Uncle Earle was standing at the end of the clothesline with a big paper sack in his arms and a wide grin on his dark tanned face. He put the bag down and hugged me when I ran to him, laughing at Mama’s annoyed expression.
“Come on, Anney. You know what I say is true. Don’t you be giving me that old angry look.” He nudged his sack. “I got enough papershell pecans