Shiloh and Other Stories - Bobbie Ann Mason [17]
Sharon turned and whizzed down the sidewalk, then skidded to a stop at the corner, twisted around, and faced me.
“Are you going to skate or not?” she asked.
—
My uncle smoked Old Golds, and he seemed to have excess nervous energy. He was always jumping up from his chair to get something, or to look outside at the thermometer. He had found his name in a newspaper ad recently and had won a free pint of Cunningham’s ice cream. My aunt declared that that made him somewhat famous. When I came back that day with the skates, he was sitting on the porch fanning himself with a newspaper. There was a heat wave, he said.
“What did you think of Sharon Belletieri?” he asked.
“She talks funny,” I said, sitting down beside him.
“Folks up here all talk funny. I’ve noticed that too.”
Uncle Boone had been a clerk in the war. He told me about the time he had spent in the Pacific theater, sailing around on a battleship, looking for Japs.
“Me and some buddies went to a Pacific island where there was a tribe of people with little tails,” he said.
“Don’t believe a word he says,” said my aunt, who had been listening.
“It’s true,” said Uncle Boone. “Cross my heart and hope to die.” He solemnly crossed his hands on his chest, then looked at his watch and said abruptly to me, “What do you think of Gorgeous George?”
“I don’t know.”
“How about Howdy Doody?”
“Who’s Howdy Doody?”
“This child don’t know nothing,” he said to my aunt. “She’s been raised with a bunch of country hicks.”
“He’s fooling,” said Aunt Mozelle. “Go ahead and show her, Boone, for gosh sakes. Don’t keep it a secret.”
He was talking about television. I hadn’t noticed the set in the living room because it had a sliding cover over the screen. It was a ten-inch table model with an upholstered sound box in a rosewood cabinet.
“We’ve never seen a television,” my mother said.
“This will ruin her,” said my aunt. “It’s ruined Boone.”
Uncle Boone turned on the television set. A wrestling match appeared on the screen, and I could see Gorgeous George flexing his muscles and tossing his curls. The television set resembled our radio. For a long time I was confused, thinking that I would now be able to see all my favorite radio programs.
“It’s one of those sets you can look at in normal light and not go blind,” my aunt said, to reassure us. “It’s called Daylight TV.”
“Wait till you see Howdy Doody,” said Uncle Boone.
The picture on the television set was not clear. The reception required some imagination, and the pictures frequently dissolved, but I could see Gorgeous George moving across the screen, his curls bouncing. I could see him catch hold of his opponent and wrestle him to the floor, holding him so tight I thought he would choke.
That night, I lay in the cedar-perfumed room, too excited to sleep. I did not know what to expect next. The streetlamps glowed like moons through the venetian blinds, and as I lay there, my guardian angel slowly crept into my mind. In Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories, there was a picture of a child with his guardian angel hovering over him. It was a man angel, and gigantic, with immense white feathery bird’s wings. Probably the boy could never see him because the angel stayed in what drivers of automobiles call a blind spot. I had a feeling that my own guardian angel had accompanied the bus to Michigan and was in the house with me. I imagined him floating above the bus. I knew that my guardian angel was supposed to keep me from harm, but I did not want anyone to know about him. I was very afraid of him. It was a long time before I fell asleep.
—
In the North, they drank coffee. Aunt Mozelle made a large pot of coffee in the mornings, and she kept it in a Thermos so she could drink coffee throughout the day.
Mama began drinking coffee. “Whew! I’m higher than a kite!” she would say. “I’ll be up prowling half the night.”
“Little girls shouldn’t ought to drink coffee,” Uncle Boone said to me more than