Listen Here (46 page)

(October 17, 1952–)

Kathy L. May was born in southern Ohio but spent her childhood in Floyd County, Kentucky. “Some of my earliest memories are of the frequent floods that devastated that area of eastern Kentucky,” says May. “My first serious poem, ‘Rain,' was about those floods.”

May earned a B.S. in psychology in 1974 from the University of Louisville, and an M.F.A. in creative writing in 1987 from Indiana University, where she was the recipient of the first Samuel Yellen Fellowship. In 1997, she won the
Wind Magazine
short fiction competition. Other awards include a poetry grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and a fellowship from the MacDowell Colony. May's work has appeared in
American Voice, Southern Poetry Review, Mississippi Review
, and
Appalachian Heritage.

She has taught literature and writing at Indiana University, Virginia Tech, and Piedmont Virginia Community College. She currently teaches Appalachian literature and creative writing through the University of Virginia's School of Continuing Education.

Her collection of poems,
Door to the River
, was published in 1992 in the Panhandler Poetry Chapbook series at the University of West Florida. Her first children's book,
Molasses Man
, was published in 2000. May lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her husband, Garry Barrow, and their two children.

Poetry:
Door to the River
(1992).
Books for children:
Molasses Man
(2000).

“Kathy L. Mays Web Page,” Presented by America Writes for Kids, [web site]
http://usawrites4kids.drury.edu/authors/may/

from
Door to the River
(1992)

The wooden barrel
at the corner of the house
spilled rain in storms
and my mother washed
her brown hair softer.

Cool and wet, she
listened from the window.
Her eyes were brown as the river
while the barrel drowned
in silver light.

I was five when my father
stacked our beds
on towers of blocks,
hoisted tables to the ceiling
and we left the house
riding in a boat.

But we could have perched on the roof
and floated downriver,
water rushing wide and high,
to the top of a mountain
where the house would tangle
sideways in the trees.

For years the scent of rain
flooded my mother's house.
In a dream we swam
from room to room
when she opened the door
to the river.

from
Door to the River
(1992)

Wearing her best white dress,
she stands unseeing with the others
gathered near the river
where the preacher sways
waist-deep in muddy water,
arms stretched above his head,
eyes closed, chanting.
On the bank the women murmur
in response:
Sweet Jesus, Amen.

When the preacher calls her name
she drags slowly through water
seeping heavily into her clothes.
The chant comes faster, louder.
She trembles in a fever
of longed-for salvation,
shouts
Yes, Oh yes
and he pulls her
hard into the water and she comes up
thrashing, a long high vowel
torn from her throat.

Arms open wide and dripping,
she walks toward the crowd,
shivers in the grip of something
waiting for her as she rises
from the river, sanctified,
wet cloth clinging to her body.

from
Door to the River
(1992)

“Woman Survives After Being Carried Away by Tornado” (newspaper headline, April, 1984)

Easter Sunday walking home
from church in gusty rain,
she saw dogwood blooming
in the hills, white fists uncurling.
Wind twisted her dress
around her legs, tore the raffia
flowers off her purse,
tossed them into the air
like a bridal bouquet.

Running then, she felt a presence
behind her running faster.
Lifted up inside the moving walls
of a tunnel thick with dust,
she flung out her arms
and floated in the current.
From the eye of the storm
the world tilted—
houses, farms, cattle
huddled near the creek.
She watched her shoes fly off
over the trees, crows flapping
toward the horizon.
What was herself soared
out of the body, weightless.

Then drifting down
on a long spiral slide
she dropped to the ground.
Her family climbed out of the cellar,
blind and unbelieving.
They blinked at her
sitting in the dirt,
still clutching her purse,
while all around them
in the swept fields
the wind blew flurries of blossoms.

(February 3, 1902–1974)

Truda Williams McCoy was the eldest of seven children of Charlotte Casebolt Williams and James T. Williams. Born in Pikeville, Kentucky, she grew up there and recalled spending much of her childhood helping to care for younger sisters and brothers. She learned to read and write before starting school and wrote her first poem when she was five years old. She graduated from the local high school and Pikeville Teacher's College.

She married Rex Calvin McCoy in 1924, and two years later their son, Rex Samuel, was born. In 1930, she had twins, Paul Ronald and Judith Diana.

A prolific eastern Kentucky poet, she produced three poetry collections, and her poems were published in more than seventy magazines and journals. She was a member of the National League of American Pen Women.

This excerpt from chapter 4 of
The McCoys
offers an account of Johnse Hatfield's introduction to Roseanna McCoy.

Nonfiction:
The McCoys: Their Story As Told to the Author by Eye Witnesses and Descendants
(1976).
Poetry:
Till the Frost
(1962).
The Tempter's Harvest
(1954).

Harold Branam, review of
The McCoys: Their Story…, Appalachian Heritage
5:3 (summer 1977), 83–86.
Kentucky in American Letters
(1976), Vol. 3, ed. Dorothy Edwards Townsend, 225–27. Review of
The McCoys: Their Story…, Appalachian Journal
4:3–4 (spring-summer 1977), 274–75.

from Chapter 4, Roseanna McCoy

Election day in the hills of Kentucky was always a day to look forward to. It was the only day in the year that everybody met everybody else. Friends and enemies, Republicans and Democrats, the poor and the well-to-do (nobody was considered rich), the respected people of the community and the ones not so well respected. Everybody went to the elections.

Whisky was always plentiful: Sparkling moonshine as clear as the mountain streams, but singing a more potent song. Part of it was brought to the election ground by the voters, but most of it was furnished by the leaders of the two parties in the attempt to influence the voters in their favor. Baskets of food were brought by the womenfolk, so that there was never a lack of something to eat or drink.

By sunup most of the voters (men over twenty-one), and younger men were already gathered, dressed in their best “Sunday go to Meetin” clothes and best felt hats. They came singly or in groups, laughing and bantering good-naturedly.

By noon most of the women had gathered, dressed in gaily colored dresses of print calico and wearing soft woolen shawls when the weather was chilly, the middle-aged and older women wearing huge sunbonnets with tails reaching to their shoulders. The young, or unmarried, women usually went bareheaded.

Always at election time there were a dozen or more women (old or married, which was about the same thing), carrying baskets of gingerbread which they sold “one fer a nickel er three fer a dime” in order to make a little extra money for a few yards of calico, a picture for the wall, a vase to hold their flowers.

Among the crowd of men and women were children laughing, talking and munching ginger cookies. When the men became thirsty, most of them retired to a shade and took a dram of white liquor. Any old timer could hook his forefinger in the handle of a gallon jug and, with a peculiar twist of the wrist, throw the jug over his hand, raising it to his mouth with one movement. Women and children resorted to water to quench their thirst. Respectable mountain women didn't drink whisky except (perhaps a small sip) in the privacy of their own homes. No respectable woman was ever known to become drunk, since drunkenness and respectability did not go together.

A crowd of McCoys were gathered on the election ground at one side of the building, talking with their friends. On the opposite side of the building were the Hatfields. Some were drinking in good fellowship and arguing in a friendly way with each other.

“Hey there, don't be stingy with your likker,” called out a voice as a good-looking, sandy-haired young man came up.

“Howdy, Johnse,” they chorused, “here's the likker, don't drink it all, though.”

Johnse took the jug, hooked his forefinger in its ear, and with one movement had the jug to his mouth. He drank long and deeply.

Old Jim Vance winked at another member of the clan and turning to Johnse said, “You're larnin, Johnse, by heck. Twon't be long till ye can drink with any of us old hands.”

Johnse laughed at the praise and asked, “Are ye jealous, Uncle Jim?”

“No,” Vance assured him, “but you're too young to be a-drinkin so much. Put too much likker in a young feller and he's liable to start anything. Likker is something you got to let grow on ye. Take a little at first and after awhile ye can take more and more of it. Come to think of it, likker is a lot like women; you don't want to take too many of em right at the start; go slow till ye learn their ways—then spread out. Likkers fun. So's women.”

“Likker was made to drink,” Johnse replied. “In fact, that's all it is good for, that I've ever heard of.”

Several of the crowd laughed loudly and slapped Johnse on the back good-naturedly. “You're right, Boy. Drink the stuff and don't wait for a snake to bite ye for an excuse.”

“Or put in bitters like the women folks do.”

Johnse was still arguing in a friendly way with Vance when he caught sight of a girl in the McCoy crowd that made him hold his breath in awe.

The girl was tall and slender with a beautiful, proportioned body. She had a fair complexion that had tanned to a pale golden hue during the summer months. Tanned, but her beautiful skin was as soft and flawless as a child's. The most noticeable of all was her hair, red-brown, abundant and wavy. She stood in the path of the sun and the sun turned her hair to a burnished gold.

This was not the first time in his life that young Johnse Hatfield aged nineteen had ever noticed a girl. Far from it. He had been noticing girls all his adult life, but perhaps, this was the first time he had ever really noticed a girl and really wanted her, felt that he needed her and must have her. He did not analyze his feelings at this time, nor say to himself, “Love at first sight.” He only knew that he must meet her.

Turning to his uncle, he questioned earnestly, “Who is she, Uncle Jim? The girl with the red hair—the girl there a-talking to Tolb McCoy?”

Vance looked in the direction of the McCoys and his brow puckered with annoyance as he answered, “That's Roseanna McCoy, Ranel's daughter.” Then he continued, “Ranel didn't use to let his girls come to the elections. He's mighty tight on em from all accounts and I've heard—”

But Johnse interrupted whatever Vance had started to say. “Roseanna McCoy.” He repeated the name softly, musically. “God, ain't she purty!”

“There's other purty girls—,” Vance started to say, but without waiting to hear who they were or where they were, Johnse left the group of relatives and crossed the few yards that separated the two clans, and walked up to where Roseanna stood.

The girl looked at Johnse and then she looked toward the group of relatives that he had just left, then back to Johnse. She knew her family and the Hatfields were estranged. Why did he seek her out? Surely he must know they weren't allowed to talk and be friendly together like other people. However, she waited for him to speak. She was twenty-one and had some freedom.

Johnse was smiling in a friendly manner. Stretching out his hand toward her, he said, “Howdy.”

Immediately the crowd became tense. Hatfields and McCoys dropped their hands to their pistol holsters. Ranel was some distance away, having a friendly argument over who would be elected and had noticed nothing. Gradually, the crowd relaxed and watched for the outcome. Both McCoys and Hatfields were watching, but without Ranel or Devil Anse would do nothing.

Roseanna looked at her people, saw them watching her with disapproval. She looked at Johnse. He was good looking, she thought, and friendly. He didn't look
bad
—but of course he was.
All Hatfields were bad.
She had always known that, so she hesitated to take the proffered hand.

“I am Johnse Hatfield,” he said still holding out his hand. “Won't ye be friends?”

Roseanna didn't hesitate any longer. She took Johnse's hand and stammered, “I guess so—I don't know—I am Roseanna McCoy.”

From that moment on, Roseanna's life was different from anything she or anyone else had ever dreamed it would be. From the moment she placed her slender hand into Johnse Hatfield's, she was never the same. Her heart had gone with her hand….