Yard War (3 page)

Daddy says prejudice is one reason he's thinking about moving us to Kansas City. His friend from medical school has offered him a job at a clinic up there. Mama says she cannot bear the thought of “uprooting” our family like that, and it would just kill her parents, especially her mother.

When we got to the country club, Mama looked at me. “Don't bring up anything about Dr. Mercer and colored people at the dinner table.” Like I didn't know that already.

We usually have Sunday dinner at noon with Meemaw and Papaw, either at their house or the country club. “Meemaw Table Rules” are the same wherever we eat. The food is great, especially at Meemaw's house, where it's fried chicken or roast
beef or pork chops, garden tomatoes, baby butter beans, mashed potatoes, fried okra, squash casserole, English peas, homemade rolls, cornbread, peach cobbler, Meemaw's world-famous chocolate milk shakes, all kinds of stuff. But the rules are a pain. On the way home from Sunday dinner me and Farish always start crackin' up about something or other—we're just that glad to get away from Meemaw Table Rules.

Meemaw and Papaw were waiting in the downstairs restaurant, the Golliwog. Church lasts forever, and by the time we get to the club, my stomach is making outer-space noises and shrunk to the size of a peanut. Everybody knows us, and they all smile and wave when we walk in and we have to stop and chat at a couple of tables before we can sit down. Then, right when we're ready to order, one of Daddy's patients will come over, and when she finally leaves, some people from the church will come over, and I have to keep smiling until they leave, and then, if we're lucky, we can finally get some food.

Me and Farish always order the cheeseburger with sautéed onions and greasy log fries and ice cream pie. All the food is good. And all the people eating it are white. And all the people bringing it are colored, except the manager, Mr. Lonnie. Today, I started wondering why that is.

The waiters smile when they come to the table. Papaw always teases them and they always laugh. They
seem to really like him. They seem to like everybody. But I was watching Shelby, the tall one with the white hair who's been here ever since I can remember. Does he really like everybody? I wonder if he's thinking, You better leave me a big tip, whitey-butt, if I have to smile this much.

Mama says Papaw's bank that he started is the third-biggest in the state of Mississippi. I asked her if that meant he was the third-richest man in Mississippi, and she said him and Meemaw were “very comfortable.” I asked her why, in that case, it was so hard for him to hand over a nickel for a pack of Juicy Fruit. She said the Great Depression taught him the value of a nickel. So I don't know what kind of tips he's leaving Shelby.

I knew I couldn't talk about colored people, but I wanted to talk about
Goldfinger
so bad, I was afraid to open my mouth for fear of it slippin' out. That would be violating Meemaw Table Rule Number One:
Do not talk about movies.
Even if you just watched the best movie you ever saw in your life, you cannot mention it at the table because Meemaw thinks movies are a “stench in the nostrils of the Lord,” and doesn't know why they are allowed to be shown to the public, what with all the violence and women running around half-naked—which I say is the reason to go see 'em.

Rule Number Two is
Do not talk about playing cards.
Even if it's Go Fish. Playing cards leads to gambling and gambling is sinful. After we got back from
Goldfinger,
me and Stokes played Battle for three hours straight, which was a new record. Couldn't mention it.

Rule Number Three is
Do not talk about dancing.
Dancing is bad. I hate going to school dances, so it's no problem not to talk about it.

Rule Number Four is
Pretty much do not talk about anything.
Except school and church.

I couldn't have gotten a word in edgewise anyway, with Papaw carrying on like he was, about the country “goin' to hell in a handbasket” and rock 'n' roll being music for “yay-hos.”

He asked me if I had any thoughts on the subject of rock 'n' roll, and I said I was too busy eating to have any thoughts. Everybody laughed. But by the time they brought the ice cream pie, I couldn't stand it anymore.

“Have y'all ever heard of James Bond, agent double-oh-seven?”

Mama glared at me, and I went back to my pie.

When everybody was finished, me and Papaw and Daddy left the “womenfolk”—that's a Papaw word—and went out to the patio. Daddy said he'd see if there were a couple of guys in the locker room looking for a foursome. Papaw lit up an Old Gold and said he'd be right there.

“It's turning into a real nice day,” I said.

“Yeah!” said Papaw. He likes to give everything a big “Yeah!” I told him, like I always do, that I didn't know why he liked cigarettes, and he said, like he always does, “It's a filthy habit, son. I only smoke a few.”

He propped one foot on the curb, rested his cigarette arm on it, tilted his Sunday hat against the sun, and looked down at the golf course like he owned it—which he kind of does, I guess, since he was one of the people who started this country club.

Then I said, “Papaw, can you imagine anybody naming their kid Ham? I mean, why not Pot Roast, right?”

“Ham?” He just looked at me.

My heart was going to town all of a sudden. I had to just come out and ask.

“Papaw, do you think the Bible says white people are supposed to be the boss of colored people?”

“No, son, I don't. I know there's some that do believe that. But I don't.”

“Have you ever thought Shelby and all them might get tired of waitin' on white people's tables all the time? I bet sometimes they wish they could sit down and eat.”

He laughed.

“It's paid work.” He said it “woik.” He says “woik” for “work,” and “Hawaya” for “Hawaii” and “Colyarada” for “Colorado.” He and Meemaw are both from the Delta, where all the cotton gets planted. I never met anybody from the Delta who said his
r
s.

“We pay the Negroes good, and most of 'em do a good job. Everybody's gettin' along fine.” He patted me on the shoulder. “Shelby gets plenty to eat, don't worry.”

“You think they're happy?”

“Do they seem unhappy to you?”

“No. I've just been thinking about it.”

He patted me again.

“You know, your meemaw and I give a lot of money to the church to help the poor people, here and in foreign countries. The maid gets her bonus every Christmas and Meemaw gives her extra clothes for her boys and girls and such as that. It's all our Christian duty to help the coloreds.” He sounded kind of formal all of a sudden.

“What if there was a colored person who wasn't poor and wanted to join the country club? Would y'all let him?”

“Well, you know, Trip, people tend to want to socialize with their own kind. They have their schools and churches and clubs and so on, and we have ours, and it's probably best to keep it all separate. That's the way we can best help 'em. Anyway, I don't 'spect there's a Negro around here could afford it.”

“Well, what if he was real hungry and just wanted to sit down and eat in the Golliwog? Would that be all right?”

He looked at me like he could not understand why in the world I would ask such a question.

“I tell ya what, you bring me a morally upstanding Negro who's hungry and wants to eat in the Golliwog, and I'll buy him lunch, okay?”

He smiled and flicked the stub of his cigarette into the grass. I always worry he'll catch it on fire, but he never does. “You think we got all that straight? I 'spect your daddy's wondering where I am.”

When we got home, I looked up the word “golliwog” in the dictionary. It turns out a golliwog is a doll with a black face or a white person who paints his face black. And “wog” is a word making fun of colored people. They named the dining room downstairs after the waiters? Are they saying this is where you can eat in the less fancy room and pretend you're a colored person, who always eats in a less fancy room? I thought about Dee, and calling it the Golliwog seemed nothing but mean.

—

Stokes said that snake must have been a cottonmouth. He said maybe we couldn't find it at the creek because it was already in the house under my bed. I can't believe he thinks I would fall for that story. There is no snake under my bed, I checked.

Friday night, I stayed up reading Greek myths,
mostly the one about Jason and the Argonauts and the quest for the golden fleece. That's my favorite. On Saturday, the guys were coming over for a game right after lunch. I jumped out of bed late and went straight to the porch to check the weather.

It was a bright day with a cool breeze, and I thought I smelled corn dogs and elephant ears. It was just wishful smellin'. The fair doesn't get here till next week, and it's a long way from my house. Farish and Ginny Lynn love the fair so much, they made up a silly song about it: “The fair, the fair, it's everywhere! So beware!”

I took a deep breath full of cool breeze and corn dogs and elephant ears and stretched out my arms like an Argonaut smelling a miracle.

“The perfume of the gods!”
I shouted.

And there was Dee, raking by the rose bed. He half smiled at me like, “Hello, weird shouting kid.”

I kind of waved and went inside.

“What's Dee doin' in the front yard?” I asked Willie Jane. “It looks like he's just getting started on it.”

“We just got here, sleepyhead. The Buick wouldn't start.”

“But everybody's coming over to play football in less than an hour. He's not gonna be finished in time.”

“You'll have to talk to your mama about that.”

I thought about grabbing another rake so I could help Dee hurry up, but I decided against it. Then I
thought maybe a Coca-Cola would help him go faster. I took him one and he acted like he didn't want it but drank it down anyway and went right back to work. I wanted to tell him to quit being so slow and careful, but I couldn't figure out how to say it.

When Mama came back from the grocery store, I asked her if Dee could stop working and let me and the guys have our football game. She said we would just have to wait, that Dee needed to finish what he started, and we could play down at Calvin Stubbs's house if we were that impatient.

“Calvin's yard is no good,” I told her.

“Y'all can find another yard somewhere.”

“Everybody else's is too small or has too many trees.”

“Y'all can figure it out.”

“Well, I don't see why he couldn't go work in the back while we're playin' and finish the front when we're through.”

“Because he did the back last weekend, and mainly because I said so.”

“Well, okay…but he's looking awfully tired out there today. Have you seen him? I bet he could use a break. A long break.”

“What? Dee's okay, isn't he?” She looked out the window and brought her hand to her throat. She ran to the kitchen and got a Coca-Cola.

Dee took it from her and drank the whole thing quick like a soldier, handed her the empty bottle, and
snapped his hand back on the rake. When she came back into the house, Mama told Willie Jane that her boy was surely a hard worker, and she hoped he wasn't getting too worn out.

“Oh, he's fine, Miz Westbrook,” Willie Jane said. “Dee's tough. And the good Lord knows we need the money.”

I've asked Mama before why Willie Jane doesn't call her Virginia or at least
Miz
Virginia, as long as they've known each other. Everybody else calls her Virginia. She says the people who work for you are not “everybody” and that's just the way it is.

But Willie Jane doesn't just work for us. She's my other mama.

“I don't have anything to give him when he wants to go see a show at the Alamo,” Willie Jane said.

The Alamo is the colored people's theater. White people go to the Paramount or the Capri or the Lamar downtown.

I asked Mama why Willie Jane has to wear a white uniform to work in our house when we're not a hotel or something, and Mama said it's the proper thing for maids to wear. She said some people have a separate bathroom for the maid like Meemaw and Papaw and at least we don't do that. When you walk up the steps from the garage to Meemaw and Papaw's back door, there's a little bathroom at the top, with a little
commode that looks like it's covered with rust or something.

While me and Mama were eating egg and olive sandwiches, I told her she needed to pay Willie Jane more. She laughed and said she had already gotten that message today.

“You really ought to, though,” I said.

I downed my milk and checked the clock. The guys would be here any minute. I ran outside with another Coca-Cola, but Dee waved me away when he saw it.

—

Oakwood used to be three streets in a row with a creek winding through them and woods on both ends. Now they're chopping down all the trees and adding on new streets. I miss playing in those woods. Once when we were playing hide-and-seek, I climbed so high in a pine tree, everybody gave up trying to find me and went home to supper.

The two best sounds in the neighborhood are the tinkle of the Popsicle truck and the buzz of the foggin' machine that sprays for mosquitoes. We used to stop whatever we were doing and run, get right in the middle of that fog where we couldn't see anything but white and spin around till we were dizzy. It smells pretty sweet. You wouldn't think it could kill mosquitoes.

Stokes lives right next door, and he's my best friend, but I've got lots of others in Oakwood. When there's nothing else to do, three or four of us get together and walk all over the neighborhood, sometimes even all the way to the Tote-Sum for an Orange Crush or a candy bar.

Mrs. Sitwell across the street always waves.