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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780802137166 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Grove/Atlantic, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 03/27/2000 |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d) |
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
Red Sky at Night
When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red.
Matthew 16:2
APRIL, 6, 1919
On the afternoon of April 6, 1919, in SugarsSpring, Arkansas, the Sugars Spring men'sbaseball team boasting three of the best hitters andthe very best pitcher in Hampstead or HarwellCounty played the coloreds of Chickenham. Just forpractice of course, since the Hope Cougars, notwishing to blemish their record, sent word by themail carrier that they were down with the fever.They laid out the diamond in Amos Henry's cowpasture as they didn't want to scratch and scartheir new field on the ridge between the schooland the Baptist church. And they didn't want toplay in Chickenham—although Lincoln Bradley,who owned the Chickenham store and an automobile,told them they was most assuredly welcometo—because somehow it didn't set right beinghosted by coloreds. So they settled on AmosHenry,s cow pasture in the valley which was the lastwhite house—if You didn't count the Ardis Youngshacks—before getting into Chickenham, which thecoloreds called Bethel, but which was part of SugarsSpring governmentwise and townshipwise.
The day had dawned cold with a starchedwhite sky, and Jack Frost made an unusually lateappearance, sparing the ridge but spewing a mist ofice crystals on most everything in the valley. CoraEmery—as she was still called even though she hadbeen Cora McRae ever since she married JamesMcRae shortly after coming to Sugars Spring fromher homein Maine nearly twenty years ago—hadrisen in the half dark, pulling coveralls over her thinwool gown, and poured water on her jonquils, now irises, just coming into bloom, and spewed with a thin spray of frozen crystal, so they would escapethe burn of the gold spring sun that by afternoonhad the men on the Sugars Spring team sheddingtheir flannel shirts and rolling the sleeves of theirundershirts above their elbows.
David Ben Sugars, who had come back from the war totally intact, even went so far as to stripnaked—to the waist—causing the young girlswatching to titter, and causing the women to lookdown at the ground or at each other, pretending notto notice how finely sculpted his body was, bronzedeven this early in the year and gleaming with sweatin the heavy air that had fallen on the valley by thetime the game got under way.
Then Mr. Davis Huff, a deacon at the BaptistSugars Spring Church, quietly called David Benaside and asked him if he didn't think it a mite improperto be in a state of such undress with womenfolkaround. David Ben said Mr. Davis Huff wassurely right and he had plumb forgot his manners;so he put on his undershirt and rolled up the sleeves.But he still looked naked somehow.
David Ben hit two home runs, one with nobodyon, and another with the bases loaded. Thenhe rolled down the sleeves of his undershirt, put onhis brown and white checkered shirt, whacked hiscap against his thigh sending out a puff of reddust—fine as gunpowder—and excused himself ashe had to drive his mother to her ailing sister's inHope.
May Ellen Huntley in her grass green dressstepped out from the shade of the catawba treewhere she watched the game alone—like a hunterstalking a five-point buck—and stepped in front ofDavid Ben as he passed. She batted her eyes and saidDavid Ben, I'd surely like to take a little drive withyou sometime in that brand spanking new Model Aof yours.
David Ben, looking like a jackrabbit caught inan automobile's lights, toed the dirt and said surely.Then he stepped around her and walked past thewomen and the girls, nodding his head to thewomen. Miz Abigail Huff sighed and said he sure would be one fine catch if his mama would makehim grow up and if he could escape snares of thelikes of May Ellen who had already led many,young and old alike, to their damnation. And one ofthe women added, not to mention that May Ellenhad utterly destroyed the spirit of her dear fatherwho was a fine man and good minister even if hewas a Methodist. And a woman with a a faded bonnetsaid no doubt only his belief that he could bysome miracle redeem May Ellen coupled with MayEllen's strong resemblance to her dear, departedmother prevented him from casting his daughterout into the world where she belonged. Miz AbigailHuff said I've said the same thing myself. She saidReverend Huntley must find himself saying just likein the Bible alas my daughter thou hast brought melow. The women all nodded their heads in agreementand one of them thanked God that the Lordhad been merciful in not letting May Ellen's mamalive to see her daughter behave like the daughters ofSodom.
Most of the Sugars Spring team got hits and atthe end of the third inning, the score was twenty-oneto nothing—not much of a contest, but sinceschool was turned out for planting and most of thefarmers, after waiting out the wet boll weevilweather of early March, had finished getting theircrops in the day before, there was an air of jollityabout it.
Hoss Richards, one of the fielders and a realblack one, black as shoe polish, kept hollering at thetop of his lungs, I gots it, I gots it, don't nobody getsin my way, I gots this one. Then the ball, each time,slid through his glove like quicksilver. And CabbageTramble, whose real name was Isaiah, kept skiddingon his behind just as he was about to scoop upa grounder, sending up a trail of red dust.
Little Abe Tramble, the pitcher, who was atleast six foot three, threw two zinger strikes to aSugars Spring batter, then threw the next four sowild that not even a catcher for the St. Louis Cardinalscould have caught them much less RoosterMcElroy, their catcher, who must have been all offive foot two. The balls went sailing over his jumpingheight and each time Rooster hollered at LittleAbe calling him a dumb turkey and other namesthat sounded like gibberish.
The women of Sugars Spring, sitting underthe magnolia tree on chinkapin benches that AmosHenry had brought out from his barn, had supperto see to so they gathered to leave. The younggirls in pigtails and long finger-wound curls andstarched cambric dresses said aw Ma can't we staylonger, and the women said not to whine, not tocomplain, as that would get them nowhere in life.So by the start of the fourth inning the onlywomen still under the magnolia tree were CoraEmery McRae, a widow and a Yankee, and MayEllen Huntley, the pretty daughter of the Methodistminister, who did what they damned wellpleased. And Isannah Sanders, who stayed becauseher husband, the Baptist minister and the backupthird baseman, a man old enough to be her father,loved her so much he couldn't bear for her to beout of his sight. And whose red hair sliding outfrom her gingham bonnet burned the eyes of theplayers in the field.
Colored women with homespun dresses andkerchief-covered heads—women so old their bonescreaked as loud as the door hinges on the BethelBaptist Tabernacle Church—sat on stumps and upturned wooden buckets under the stand of cottonwoodsout in left field, a bevy of children,barefooted and dressed in faded oversized clothes,fluttering around them. Their laughter peltingacross the field prompted Miz Abigail Huff, as sheled the women up the slanted rose-colored roadtoward town proper, to say she had to allow thatcoloreds got more enjoyment out of life thanwhites and that maybe it was indeed a blessing, to besimple.
This would not have been a story to be tellingyears later if Samuel Daniel McElroy, Rooster'scousin from Hayden's Landing, had not driven byin a mule-drawn wagon on the way to Pleasant Gilbert'sstore to pick up a gasket Mr. Ernest StoneJunior had ordered for his truck. Samuel Danielbrought the mule to a halt in the middle of the roadand called Rooster who was just stepping up to batto ask him if he wanted a day or two of work cuttingbarrel heading in Saline bottom. And Roostersaid sure as shootin' he did, Then Rooster askedSamuel Daniel if he wadn' at least gonna have atime at bat. Samuel Daniel said he wadn' interestedin playing a clown and a fool such as what Roosterand Abe and the rest of 'em be doin'. And Roostersaid he supposed Sammy Dan had the bodacity tohit the ball clear to burning hell and back. And SamuelDaniel said he would just this once.
And with that, Samuel Daniel McElroyclimbed down off his wagon, told his mule to stayput, took the bat from Rooster's hands, kept hiseyes to the ground to avoid the eyes of any whitewomen who might be still around, and ambled tohome plate which was a pink-flowered flour sackfilled with sand from Amos Henry's white-sandquarry that marked the boundary in right field.
Red Cummings, who Sugars Spring claimedwas the best pitcher west of the Mississippi and castof Red River, took one look at this tall youngman—skinny as a stray dog with shoulders as wideas Red River and eyes as sleepy looking as a Saturdaynight drunk's—and decided he'd have hisself alittle fun. Red turned his head to the left, shot amouthful of spit and tobacco to the ground with theforce of a bullet and said now that we got SammyDan the great mule trainer up here, let's make itworth sump'n. You manage to get a hit offgonna throw at you Sammy Dan and we'll declareyou Chickenham boys the winner. That all rightthe pasture. No one disagreed.
That all right with you Sammy Dan? Red askedwith a smile that turned up the left corner of hismouth but left the right corner sitting there. SamuelDaniel McElroy, who carried another name forhimself inside his head, didn't say a world, didn'teven nod his head. Instead he wiped his forehead—darkand wet looking as molasses—wiped it withthe back side of his hand, looked Red Cummingssmack dab head on in the eyes with eyes no longercarrying the look of sleep, eyes wide open as adeer's, eyes so black they were purple for just onesecond before they cased almost shut again.
Everything seemed to come to a standstill. Thecolored women under the cottonwood trees quitlaughing, and the children grabbed pieces of the oldwomen's dresses and twisted them tight aroundtheir hands, tiny and dark as acorns, or buckeyes, orwalnuts.
The women parading up the road toward townproper were at least a hundred yards away whenthey heard the stillness and stopped and turnedaround. Miz Abigail Huff shifted her slate-coloredumbrella to her left shoulder signifying she wouldstand there in the middle of the rose-colored road towatch. The other women put their hands to theirbonnets to extend their view. The girls said what'shappening Ma. And the women not knowing theanswer said be silent for just one minute please.
The small boys standing around the waterbucket quit their game of splash and the smallestone put his hand in his pocket hoping to keep hispond frog, who often croaked at awkward times,quiet.
The men out in the field were thankful theirbacks were to the sun. It wouldn' do for a niggerlike Sammy Dan McElroy to get a lucky hit becausethey were blinded by the sun that was so bright itwas white. Buckner Rose, the first baseman and veteranmember of the team, found himself asking theLord to let Sammy Dan ground out to him. Hewanted to chance to tell his friend Ernest Stone Junior,that nigger you say can outwork ten of uscouldn't hit no further than first base—an old codgerlike me put him out.
Floyd Dillard, the second baseman, alreadyhad his mind on paying an after-dark call to MayEllen Huntley whose sashaying, he surmised, wasintended more for him than for anyone else. And ashis intended—a girl with a well-to-do father anda thin line for a mouth—was visiting cousins inMineral Springs, there'd be no call to explain hiswhereabouts.
William Burl Cane, the third baseman, whoseemed bound and determined to end up sorry eventhough he came from a good and respectable andrelatively well-off family, but who could make a carengine purr, who could split a dogwood leaf with abullet, who could stop any ball that came his wayand place it in the middle of Buckner Rose's glovebefore you could draw in air for a sneeze, wasn'teven thinking about Samuel Daniel, was thinkinginstead of Delie Turner and colored woman withglossy hair and skin the color of pecans.
If this were a made-up story, Red Cummingswould pitch five times, the tension building up andhanging in the air so you could see it and give it acolor. But as it happened, the first ball, Red's special,laded with spit and tobacco juice, zigzagged itsway to home plate. Just as it reached to pink-floweredflour sack, it curved out like a purple martinchanging direction and any real ballplayer wouldhave known it was outside by a mile and let it go by.
But Samuel Daniel reached for it with whatseemed like the slow easy stroke of a man taking aleisurely stretch upon rising the day after the cropsare in—sending the ball heavenward, directly overRed Cummings, over Floyd Dillard, over the centerfielder, over Amos's cow Mischief, heavy with calf,over the barbwire fence that separated Amos's pasturefrom Ervin Robertson's, over Ervin Robertson'scoffee-colored cow pond and into the grove ofpersimmon trees that provided shade for Ervin'streasured Guernsey bull.
Sammy Dan ran around the bases, not lookingat Bucker Rose, or Floyd Dillard, or William BurlCane, or even the catcher whose name no one laysclaim to remember since Sammy Dan—not lookingup, stretching his legs out to giant strides and swinginghis elbows forward and back with the precisionof a machine—plowed into him, the catcher, whostood on the pink-flowered flour sack in the quaintnotion that the ball might miraculously return fromthe distant persimmon grove, plowed into him,knocking out the catcher's breath and front tooth.
Sammy Dan might have redeemed himself,might have alibied himself somewhat had he pickedup the catcher and told him how very, mighty, evenpowerful sorry he was. But he didn't. He simplyceased running, dropped his wide shoulders downever so slightly, walked at a mule's pace over toRooster, told him to be at the logging camp bysunup, climbed onto the wagon and made a softclick-click sound to his mule who lumbered ondown the road.
The women, some of them with parasols, stoodlike wax statues in the middle of the road untilSammy Dan got so close they stepped aside to permithim to pass although they probably shouldn'thave been so gracious. Sammy Dan kept his eyes onthe mule, the mule whose greased neck had attractedenough of the floating dust to turn it thecolor of cinnamon. The girls said goodness Ma,what's the name of that one, he is so strong. And themothers said don't you ever, ever in all your borndays let your father hear you say that. Don't youever even think that.
May Ellen Huntley caught a ride home to theparsonage with Floyd Dillard who jumped out, ranaround his Model T, opened the door for her, ranhis eyes up and down her grass green dress, and saidshe sure was a sight and that he spected he'd probablycome scratching on her window screen sometimearound midnight. May Ellen flashed her whitesmile and with a voice as sweet as a peach but withher eyes looking cold and bard as sapphires said shespected he just better not. Then she whippedaround and walked up the gumwood sidewalk tothe parsonage.
Cora Emery McRae, having carried out herevening chores of laying out hay for her cows, pickingthe hen eggs, feeding the chickens and wiring theCOOP door to secure them for the night, sat on herfront porch steps, the steps of the small white househer husband James had built and that they hadmoved into on their wedding day, sat eating hersupper of cornbread crumbled into a glass of butter-milk,watching her azalea bush soften from crimsonto pink as the sun faded and the sky splattered withcolors in the last light of day, sat missing her husbandwho had died three years earlier but to CoraEmery it seemed like yesterday. And a lifetime.
The Trouble with Friendship
Why Americans Can't Think Straight About Race
By Benjamin DeMott
The Atlantic Monthly PressCopyright © 1995 Benjamin DeMott.All rights reserved.
TAILER
Table of Contents
| 1 Red Sky at Night | 1 |
| 2 Red Sky at Morning | 31 |
| 3 Ransom, Passing | 75 |
| 4 Baby, Leaving | 99 |
| 5 The Choosing of Little Jewel | 149 |
| 6 The Salvation of Cora Emery McRae | 197 |