Gone Crazy in Alabama (11 page)

“I don't care what you say. Man has gone too far.” Big Ma whomped her black Bible against the arm of her easy chair and pulled herself up from its comfy cushions. “He should know his place.”

“Amen, daughter!” Ma Charles raised her tambourine and gave it a good shake.

“Forgive man his arrogance, Lord God.”

“Forgive, Lord.”

“Man pushes his arrogant self out, poking holes through the sky; God will sling His arrows back down on man through those holes in a mighty rain.”

“Send your arrows, smite him down, Lord.”

“But the Lord is merciful. Oh yes! He can surely grant man a mercy.”

“A mercy, daughter!” Ma Charles shouted, happy that church was going on in her living room on Wednesday morning. “A mercy.”

“A spacecraft is a man-made thing.”

“Speak, daughter.”

“It may go far, but it cannot reach heaven.”

The tambourine shook and its metal disks rang out.

“It cannot reach the Lord though it will trespass on his holy place!”

Tambourine!

Big Ma and Ma Charles asked all to repenteth: the astronauts, mission control in Houston for thinking they had control, and the TV station for cutting off the morning gospel hour to broadcast the space launch. And yet we all gathered in Ma Charles's living room while I angled for a better picture of the crowds gathered outside the launch pad down in Florida. Pastor Curtis, who had on Sunday proclaimed the Apollo mission an ungodly endeavor, said he'd be taking Wednesday morning prayer service off so he wouldn't miss the liftoff. Even golden-framed Jesus's eyes were on the launch.

“To the right. Yeah, Cousin Del. Now angle it toward the window. Yeah. Keep angling.”

JimmyTrotter wouldn't let us nickname him, but he called me “cuz,” “Del,” and “Brooklyn” every chance he got. I pulled out the left antenna rod as far as it could go and aimed it from one corner of the window to the other.
I pointed the metal rod and froze as JimmyTrotter, my sisters, Uncle D, and Mr. Lucas hollered out, “Hot,” “Hotter,” “To the right,” “More,” “A little left,” and then “Aww!” Watching television in Autauga County, Alabama, wasn't like watching TV in our house on Herkimer Street. At home in Brooklyn, you turned the dial six or seven times to see what was on the other channels. Then you fixed the antenna when you settled on a show. Down in this part of Alabama, one turn to the left and one turn back to the right were our only choices. And if there was an electrical storm, there was no television to watch, period. No radio. No lights. No nothing. During electrical storms Big Ma and Ma Charles allowed only the dark, a candle, and prayer, although my sisters and I played Old Maid and Go Fish.

Finally, a glimpse of the giant rocket, JimmyTrotter's precious Saturn V, materialized out of snow, fuzz, and horizontal lines. We all cheered. The second I stepped away the picture snowed up and the sound crackled.

“I'm not standing here holding this antenna,” I said.

Vonetta seized her opportunity. “I will!” I stood aside and let Vonetta do what she did naturally: cause all attention to be pulled her way. She raised the antenna rods together to start over and arranged the rods in a leaning V.

“That's it! Bravo, cuz!” JimmyTrotter shouted to Vonetta. “We have a perfect picture!”

Vonetta froze, then backed away from the antenna, carefully and dramatically, her arms outstretched in the leaning V shape of the left and right antennae until she sat down. I hated to admit it, but it worked. Furthermore, the picture stayed sharp.

“See, Delphine? I can do things better than you.” She stuck her tongue out and I socked her in the arm. Not hard. Just enough to let her know I was still older.

“Cut it out,” JimmyTrotter said firmly, like he was Pa or something. I rolled my eyes and Vonetta grinned. I'd get her later. JimmyTrotter considered the matter settled. He turned to Uncle Darnell. “Cousin, did you fly in any planes in the army?”

“Don't ask him any of that war business,” Big Ma said. “That's over and done with.”

“Yeah,” Vonetta said, “because he just might—”

“Shut up, Vonetta.”

“Now both of you, stop it,” Uncle Darnell said. “Y'hear?” Now
that
was Pa's voice. Sharp and short. When we piped down he smiled at JimmyTrotter as if he hadn't raised his voice at all. “I rode in 'em. Got evac'd by helo.”

Jimmy thought that was cool although it sounded like spy code to me.

“We flew in a big silver plane,” Fern said. “The ride was too bumpy.”

JimmyTrotter patted her head until she wriggled away. “I don't want to be a passenger in a plane,” he said. “I want
to fly them. I'm saving for lessons.”

“With Old Man Crump?” Mr. Lucas asked. He almost coughed.

“Yes, sir,” Jimmy Trotter said. I mimicked, “Yes, sir,” just hating the South in him. I didn't care if he caught me or not.

Both Mr. Lucas and Uncle Darnell shared a laugh about Old Man Crump. “Son,” Mr. Lucas said, “I know some World War Two cats who can show you a thing or two if you really want to fly. Leave Crump and his crop duster alone.”

“You know that's right,” Uncle Darnell said.

“I wouldn't mind getting into an aviation program,” JimmyTrotter said. “I just want to fly.”

Fern piped, “Like a bird in the sky.”

Ma Charles laughed. “Scratch your back for feathers, son. Can't feel a one? I guess God told you.” There was a twinkle in her eyes so I knew she meant him no harm. Of course not. She just loved JimmyTrotter.

“Oh, son,” Big Ma said. “They don't let coloreds fly planes.” Uncle D said,
“Ma,”
but Big Ma wouldn't stop. “And I don't blame them. Say what you want, but a colored man's mind isn't made for flying an airplane. Too many dials and levers. Too many decisions to make. The colored man can be a good many things. A preacher. An insurance salesman. A mayor of a colored town. Educated, respectable things, but he can't go thinking he can do
everything and anything. He can't go above himself. Suppose he makes a mistake up in the air with all the people watching?”

Mr. Lucas said in a low, sad voice, “Ophelia . . .” but JimmyTrotter said nothing.
Nothing
. And if I weren't a little steamed at him for always taking Vonetta's side I would have said black people have the power to be whatever they wanted. I would have said don't let the Man keep you down, even though this time the Man was my grandmother. But JimmyTrotter was happy to be oppressed and that was fine with me.

Uncle D, Mr. Lucas, JimmyTrotter, Ma Charles, Big Ma, Fern, and I all looked toward the TV screen. Our excitement grew as the picture and sound came in clearer and clearer. The camera switched from the Saturn V rocket in Florida to mission control in Houston, a roomful of men in mostly white short-sleeve shirts, and then to the crowd, where our former president and his wife, LBJ and Lady Bird Johnson, stood squinting, smiling, and looking up. We cheered when we saw a black person in the crowd. At last!

Clouds of white smoke seemed to float out of the tall rocket, held up by the hugging arms of a kind of straight Eiffel Tower. JimmyTrotter said the white clouds were there to keep the rocket cool, but I doubted anything could keep that rocket cool.

Every ten or fifteen seconds or so, the mission control
person counted down by “T-minus” and threw in “We are a go,” while clouds of smoke billowed and they showed the rocket from close up and then from far away.

The countdown clock showing on the screen was now closing in on two minutes and counting. I doubted they could stop the launch if they wanted to. The Saturn V rocket seemed too monstrous to be made to heel by the control room in Houston.

I hoped my parents were also tuned in to the launch and counting along with us—Pa and Mrs. by TV and Cecile by radio. I knew my father and stepmother would be thoroughly amazed, and my mother would see the act of man landing on the moon as cause to write an oppressed woman's poem. There was nothing Cecile couldn't turn into a poem. Even so, it was nice to picture all of us watching or listening to the same thing at the same time. But if Miss Trotter showed up on Ma Charles's porch, now that would be something to see.

Everyone was exited but Fern, who folded her arms. “Is this it? Is this the blastoff?”

I knew that “Phooey” look on Fern's face. She probably felt gypped about the event that the news kept promising would be the most exciting thing for mankind to ever witness. As far as she could see, there wasn't any magic. Just a roomful of men sitting at control panels, crowds of people waiting for something to happen, and a tall space rocket with a lot of white smoke surrounding it.

“Hang on,” JimmyTrotter told Fern. “It's coming. Just don't blink.”

Fern moved away from JimmyTrotter and sat closer to me. Vonetta mouthed,
Baby
, and Fern kicked her. I moved Fern to my left side to keep them separated. At least someone kicked Vonetta. That was good enough for me.

The mission control man reported that one of the astronauts said, “It feels good,” although I doubted sitting on a million tons of rocket fuel could feel good at all. JimmyTrotter's precious Saturn V rocket stood ready and Ma Charles shook her tambourine. Before we knew it, the Eiffel Tower's arms were letting go of the rocket and we were all counting down with mission control. Even Big Ma and Ma Charles. All of us.

Five

Four

Three

Two . . .

The next day JimmyTrotter told Miss Trotter he was hopping over the creek to watch more of Apollo 11. “I'll be back in the morning for milking. I'm gone.”

“I'm gone!” Vonetta and Fern mocked.

“Go on, then,” Miss Trotter called after them. “If you call that gone.”

Vonetta wanted to ride JimmyTrotter's bike, and he said, “It's yours while you're here. Ride it all you want.”

“Hear that?” Vonetta said to me.

“Just don't go too far ahead of us,” I told her. “Hear that? And walk it over the bridge, Vonetta. Walk it!”

Vonetta sucked her teeth and ran off to get the bike. She'd better run.

JimmyTrotter smiled. He thought it was funny, the way Vonetta and I fussed with each other. But then, he was used to it, seeing how Miss Trotter and Ma Charles kept up their sniping from the Trotter side of the creek to the Charles side.

Ma Charles was delighted to have JimmyTrotter in the house, whether he was dropping off milk bottles or bringing one of Miss Trotter's remedies that Ma Charles had no intention of trying. I could see the personal victory swell up in her whenever she had her sister's great-grandson under her roof, at her table, or in front of her television.

“Make sure you feed him well, daughter,” she said to Big Ma. “Send him back over the creek with some meat on his bones.” She shook her head in make-believe sorrow. “Poor Miss Trotter. So fragile she can't lift a pot.”

JimmyTrotter laughed and said, “Great-granny feeds me just fine.”

“Now that's how you're supposed to raise them! Loyal and respectful,” Ma Charles said. “That's right, boy. Don't tell on your old great-granny.”

JimmyTrotter gave her a “Yes, ma'am.”

Big Ma set a plate before JimmyTrotter with the same amount she'd heap onto Pa's or Uncle Darnell's plates.

“Why can't I get that much?” I asked.

“I'm trying to grow you into a young lady. Not a horse.”

To that, Fern neighed and Vonetta whinnied and shot in a “Greedy gut.” Vonetta felt safe at the table, seated out
of kicking range, next to her protector, JimmyTrotter.

“Throw another chop on her plate, daughter,” Ma Charles said. “And some butter beans. Some gravy. Can't have her running across the creek eating up all your great-granny's weeds and berries,” she told JimmyTrotter. “Go on, daughter. A nice big piece. We're doing mighty fine on this side of the creek. Make sure you tell your old granny how well you're fed.”

“The Lord don't like ugly,” Big Ma told her mother.

“Any more'n he likes you celebrating the troubles of others, be they rich or poor.”

Big Ma had taken to reading her supermarket gossip news out in the open, and Ma Charles was none too pleased about “these chirrens today.” The constant coverage of the space program had taken its toll on Big Ma, and she missed hearing about other news in the world.

“Don't know why you care so much about the troubles of rich folk,” Ma Charles scolded. “Daughter, I might not agree with men poking up in God's heaven, but that's news. Now, if you had a husband—”

“Come on, son, and watch your 'Pollo 'Leven,” Big Ma said, knocking off vowels like she was knocking off the suggestion that she needed to get married. “May God show them astronauts and their families a mercy.”

JimmyTrotter scooted before the television and I scooted along with him. I wasn't into the space race, but there was no way I'd miss the moon landing.

I almost fell asleep on JimmyTrotter's shoulder but Caleb bayed long, fitful notes and wouldn't stop. We all looked around. A rumbling pounded beneath me. JimmyTrotter sprang up in one motion and ran to the window. Caleb bayed on and on.

Big Ma said, “Boy! Get from that window! You know better.”

“I want to see them, Aunt Ophelia.”

“You'll see nothing. You know what it is.”

“See what?” I wanted to know.

“Klan riding,” JimmyTrotter said. “Sounds like a dozen of 'em.”

“Riding horses?” Fern was excited.

“Get from that window,” Ma Charles said to Fern. “It's no Wild West show.”

“I want to see the horses,” Fern said.

“And I told you”—Big Ma was firm—“there's no horses to see.”

Before I had sense enough to stop myself, I was in the window—not even crouching, but every inch of me standing tall. The riders had long ridden past us and into the pines. It was too dark to see horses but I could still feel their hooves punching the ground our house stood on. I could see white ghosts moving in the night, and torches against the black. I could see the sheets. White sheets.

“Get out that window, gal! Get out!” Big Ma shouted at my back.

I might as well have been twenty-one and not twelve. In my bones I knew I had outgrown my fear of Big Ma and that there was nothing she could do to me, but I stepped away from the window. I was both afraid of the Klan and fascinated by them. They weren't in a newspaper article or on the evening news; they were here. I felt them pounding their horses' hooves into our land, and saw them riding past the fields and into the pines. The way Caleb sang, loud and sad, I couldn't tell if he was baying at them or if he wanted to be with them. It was a long, sad song.

“JimmyTrotter.” Ma Charles's voice had lost its cackling. “Don't worry about your great-granny. None of this is new to her. She knows what to do. She'll be all right.”

“Yes'm.”

There was no sympathy for me. Big Ma scolded, “Delphine. I can't understand why you went running to that window, looking for trouble. I don't care what kind of power they're shouting about in Oakland and in Brooklyn. You don't know nothing about nothing down here.”

“Besides,” Ma Charles said, “no secret who's underneath them hoods and sheets.”

“Ma,” Big Ma steamed, “I'm trying to tell her something to save her life while she's down here.”

Ma Charles behaved as if she didn't hear and that in itself was funny, but I didn't dare crack a smile. “Just count all those who have horses in this one-cow town.”
She said “hoss” with no
r
.

Fern said, “Two-cow town,” but no one was listening.

“There's a way to stay alive and a way to be dead,” Big Ma said. “Your father surely didn't send you down here to be among the dead. He surely didn't.” Fern mimicked her.
He surely didn't
. “That's one phone call I don't intend to make to your Pa: to inform him his child is among the dead, strung up or shot up by the KKK. Girl, don't give me cause to make that call.”

Ma Charles shook her head and said, “Poor Caleb. Only reason that dog carried on is he sniffed out his litter kin when the Klan rode by. He was just barking and pining for his brother and sisters. That's all.”

JimmyTrotter nodded in agreement. “It's been years but Caleb most likely smells them whenever the sheriff drives by.”

It took a few seconds for me to hear what Ma Charles and JimmyTrotter were saying. Saying as calm as they might say Mr. Lucas grows pecan trees.

“The sheriff's the Klan?” I asked. My voice loud, excited. No wonder cousin JimmyTrotter had given him a bunch of “Yes, sir”s.

Ma Charles nodded. “All the Charleses on the white side are Klan. Then there's my Henry's people.” She beamed. “The colored side.”

“Ma!” Big Ma said. “Yawl stop talking about this. No one needs to know this stuff.”

It was all still swimming in my head faster than I could really grab hold of it, let alone accept it. “Our relatives are KKK?”

“That's not your relative,” Big Ma said. “Just let it lie.”

Ma Charles said, “If the bloodhound don't let it lie, why should she? That's not a lazy dog. That's a sad dog. Miss his kin. Calling out for all them pups he nipped at.” Then she said thoughtfully, “Maybe I'll call Davey Lee. See if there's a female for Caleb.”

“You mean have the Klan come over to this house?” My head was spinning. My heart was beating fast. This was crazy. Alabama crazy.

Ma Charles did me the way she did Big Ma. She went on like she didn't hear how crazy it all sounded.

“That poor dog needs a wife like you need a husband.”

“A mercy, Lord. Throw me down a mercy, please, Lord. She's going to wake up every Trotter, Charles, and Gaither with this old stuff.”