A Place at the Table (3 page)

“He needs to check himself and do it quick,” said Hicks, nothing friendly about his tone.

Alice heard someone walk into the store. She looked up front and saw a man with a shock of red hair, vibrant as the skin on a crisp fall apple.

•  •  •

When Granddaddy learned what happened at the store, he did not steer James out to the barn to try to beat sense into him, as Alice thought he would do, but instead ordered him into the cellar to wait until they figured out a plan. James had to be hidden. He had to be hidden until they could get the details worked out. James was no longer safe on the farm. He had to go away. They had relatives in New York City. James would go live with them. There was no other choice. The boy was out of control. He didn’t realize the danger he was in. It was like that time two years before, the only time Granddaddy ever whipped him, when James had walked through the front door of Hicks’s store, on a dare from one of his cousins, even though colored people had to enter from the back. Once inside you could walk all the way to the front if you wanted, but you had to enter through the back.

If Hicks noticed James walking through the front door, he hadn’t recognized the transgression, hadn’t recognized that James was colored, that he belonged with the Stones. But back at the farm, after Granddaddy learned what happened, he started shaking he was so mad. He had used the horsewhip on his grandson. He had torn James up.

But James still hadn’t learned.

And now he had to be hidden and hidden well, because who knew what might happen? Who knew what James might do next if left unchecked and on his own? Even if James were to change his behavior, recognize the gravity of the situation, who knew what
damage had already been done? Somebody might come looking for the boy who attempted to buy white fabric at the store, the boy who dared to give lip to Sam Hicks, the boy who had the audacity to suggest his money was as valuable as a white man’s.

The cellar beneath Granddaddy’s house was cool and dank and lined with packed dirt. They kept turnips and rutabagas and parsnips in there, and big burlap sacks full of potatoes. That evening Granddaddy went down to where James was waiting, bringing his grandson a tin of biscuits, each stuffed with precious bits of ham trim and butter. Granddaddy told James to eat them all. While James ate, Granddaddy emptied one of the giant burlap bags of potatoes, cutting a small hole at the bottom with his knife. He instructed James to climb into the bag, lining up his face with the hole so he could breathe, tucking his legs up under him so nothing stuck out. Granddaddy told James that someone would come check on him as often as possible, to let him out so he could relieve himself, to bring him something to eat, but there might be long stretches in between. James protested, but Granddaddy was stony and unmoved. James acquiesced, crawling into the bag. Granddaddy rolled the potatoes back into it, surrounding his grandson in grit and starch. And then he left James down there while he rode his horse to relatives who lived more than fifty miles away, asking them to send a telegram to New York saying James was coming. If Granddaddy were to send it from Cutler, someone in town might inform Hicks, who might inform the men who had lynched the boy, who might be waiting for James when he arrived at the station to board the train.

Alice was so lonely in bed at night, without James curled up on his cot in the corner of her room. She lay next to Mother, silent and rigid, biting her fist, trying not to think of anything, because there was nothing she could think of that was okay. Nothing was safe. All of this time living in Emancipation, and nothing had ever been safe.

She lay like that for a long time. So stiff, so scared, she did not know how she would ever feel calm again. How she would ever again sleep. But then she must have fallen asleep, because she was dreaming, and in the dream she found the sow. On her own, walking through the woods, she came upon the animal, rooting in mud. She was even bigger and nastier and uglier than Alice had remembered. The sow looked at Alice with her mean black eyes and snorted. And then she was charging toward Alice. She was going to knock Alice down. Alice put her hands out. Alice put her hands out and her nails, sharp as the spikes on a bear trap, sank into the sow’s hair-covered flesh. And then the sow disappeared and it was the hung boy Alice was embracing, the hung boy Alice couldn’t release, the hung boy whose mouth was still stuffed with feathers. And suddenly Alice knew the awful truth. The hung boy was James. It was James who had been whipped and hung from a tree. It was James who was dead.

Every night they listened in fear for the sounds of men riding onto their property, looking for the boy who had dared to claim his worth equal to theirs. But the men never showed up. Still, James stayed hidden in the cellar for three days, until his exodus was fully arranged. When he finally emerged one early, early morning, with only a moment to say good-bye to Alice, James appeared even paler than before. Alice had been staring at her brother since before she could remember, but during that first brief absence—followed by a longer, final one—she must have forgotten how light he really was. So light was he that for a moment Alice believed she was looking at a white boy.

(Decatur, Georgia, 1970)

S
ome people think being a Royal Ambassador is just like being a Scout, but boy, are they wrong. It’s better! Cause everything we RAs do, all of the games and craft projects and circle shares and stuff, is in the name of Christ. And as our RA leader Mr. Morgan says, nothing is as sweet as Jesus, not even Coca-Cola. Mr. Morgan even has a T-shirt that has “Jesus” spelled out in fancy letters like it is on the Coke bottle, and beneath that it reads, “Is it!”

Once I drank a whole one-liter bottle of Coke by myself and I got so fidgety my hands were vibrating like our seventy-two-year-old neighbor down the street, Mr. McDade, who Mama says has the shakes. Mama made me run around the house ten times just to get out some of my energy. At least she didn’t hook me up to the zip line, which is what she used to do with my brother Hunter, who’s wild.

Daddy built the zip line a long time ago, as a sort of a combo
Christmas present for all three of us Banks boys. It runs through the backyard, just before the land turns to woods, where all sorts of squirrels and rabbits and frogs live. What the zip line is, really, is just a long wire stretched tight between two trees. And there’s a handle on wheels that runs along the wire. You walk up the hill to the starting post, grab the handle, lift your knees, and whoa! There you go. Sometimes Daddy will give me a big push to start, and that’s the best because then I go
flying
through the air, the wheels squeaking and screaming on the wire. When I’m just about to smack into the other tree either I touch the ground with my legs, sort of bumping to a stop, or my brother Troy—he’s the oldest—will grab me, stopping the flight.

But what Mama used to do to make Hunter calm down was attach him to the zip line using a bungee rope and two carabiners, which are these big clips, one that would hook on to the handle and one that would hook on to the belt loop on the back of Hunter’s pants. Course, he could have reached back and unclipped the carabiner, but he knew if he did he’d be in real trouble when Daddy got home. So Hunter would go along with whatever Mama told him to do. Usually she’d make him sprint up and down the length of that wire for half an hour or so. Mama said that way he could get out some of his energy without getting into any real mischief.

•  •  •

Hunter is also an RA, but he doesn’t take it seriously. He’s only in it for the M&M’s. The other day he got in trouble for not listening during Mr. Morgan’s talk about the Wayne and Evelyn Marshall Truth Tellers Foundation, which is the missionary group we help sponsor. The third time Mr. Morgan caught Hunter goofing off he made Hunter pull his chair right next to his. Then he kept on telling us about our missionaries. He said that Mr. and Mrs. Marshall are originally from Kansas, but they moved all the way to Calcutta
to help run an orphanage for children living on the streets. “And sure,” said Mr. Morgan, “the orphanage provides food and shelter, and that is wonderful, but more importantly, it introduces the poor orphaned children to Jesus. Can you imagine,” Mr. Morgan asked, “growing up without parents
or
Jesus? And I’m not just talking about children in India,” he said. “There are poor, godless orphans living
right here
in Decatur, Georgia, too.”

Then Mr. Morgan showed us the picture of the special boy we are sponsoring, a boy who lives at the Marshalls’ orphanage in Calcutta. He’s my age—nine years old—and his name is Amit Patel. He is dark brown and real skinny, even skinnier than me. The funny thing is, when I looked at his picture, even knowing he doesn’t have a mama and daddy, I didn’t feel sorry for him. That’s cause he’s got a smile like he’s holding onto a wonderful secret. It’s a smile that makes me want to meet him, that makes me think he and I could be good friends.

I want a good friend, a best friend. There are boys in the neighborhood I play with sometimes, but Hunter’s always with us and that makes it not as fun. Hunter says I act like a sissy and then he starts pretending to talk with a lisp, and it’s not fair cause that’s not how I talk! It’s just that sometimes when I get really excited the words get jumbled up in my mouth and they don’t come out good. It’s cause I’ve got too much to say and I don’t slow down enough to say it clearly. Least that’s what Mama says, and she should know; she majored in child development at the University of Georgia, where she also earned her MRS. (That’s a joke Daddy likes to tell, and whenever he does Mama will sort of slap him on the arm and tell him to hush, she was a very good student.)

There is a picture book Mama used to read to me called
Little Black Sambo.
It’s about a boy who lived in the jungles of India. Even though I’m in the advanced reading group at school—Miss Lisa says I read at the eighth-grade level—I still like to flip through the pages
of that old book. I wonder if Amit Patel is smart like Little Black Sambo. Little Black Sambo is so smart he tricked four tigers out of eating him. What happened was, Sambo was taking a walk through the jungle and he ran into four hungry tigers who thought Sambo would make a good breakfast. But instead of letting them eat him, Sambo tricks the tigers into chasing their own tails round and round a tree until they run so fast they turn into butter, which
Sambo
then eats, melted on top of a tall stack of hot pancakes.

If I ever meet Amit Patel I’m going to ask him if he’s ever heard of a tiger running so fast it turned into butter. I don’t
think
that could really happen, but then again, there are mysterious and wonderful things that occur every single day. Least that’s what Mr. Morgan says. And I sure don’t think a tiger turning into butter is any stranger than Jonah living inside the belly of a whale.

•  •  •

Everyone
has a best friend but me. Even Mama. Daddy says that Mama and Betsy Meadows are “glued at the hip.” They are so close that we boys call her Aunt Betsy, even though she’s not kin. Aunt Betsy lives down the street, but she and Mama met long before they were neighbors. They knew each other even before they were married. They were both at the University of Georgia together, where they were members of Alpha Delta Pi sorority, which Daddy said had all of the prettiest girls. Aunt Betsy has two boys, identical twins, a year younger than Troy. She says they are double trouble, but they’ve never given me any. And I guess Aunt Betsy’s going to have another baby soon; at least that’s what she was talking about the other day.

It was midafternoon and Mama had finished all her chores, so she telephoned Aunt Betsy and told her to come visit. Aunt Betsy was there in a flash and a minute later the two of them were relaxing on the screened-in back porch, each lounging on one of the two
white wicker chairs made extra comfortable by thick pillows covered in a pretty fabric with big flowers all over it, their feet propped up on matching ottomans. Mama had put two Tabs in the freezer before calling Aunt Betsy, so they’d be good and cold. Aunt Betsy sipped from hers while Mama’s rested by her side. I could see Mama’s handprint in the bottle’s condensation.

I stood behind Mama, scratching her head while she and Aunt Betsy talked. Mama is not a fan of the new “wash-and-wear” hairstyles. She says at five foot two she needs all the lift she can get. The puffed hair on top of Mama’s head is hard from all the hairspray she uses, but you just push through and you can get to her scalp.

“All I’m saying is, after what those boys put me through, I’m praying for a girl. I’m serious, Edie; you pray for me, too.”

“You think you had it bad? You don’t remember Hunter? Mercy! I was on my knees each night praying the next one would be a girl.”

“You were?” I asked.

Mama reached her soft hand around to pat me on the arm. “But I was wrong, sweetheart. The only reason I prayed for a girl was I thought a girl would be easier. But you were an angel, weren’t you, doll? Slept through the night almost as soon as you arrived, only fussed when you were hungry or had a dirty diaper, didn’t mind sitting on the kitchen floor and just playing with Play-Doh all morning, while I did my work.”

“I remember,” said Betsy. “I was jealous. You were a dream baby for sure, sweetheart. While Hunter was wild.”

“Was?”

“Is,” said Betsy.

“He just came out that way. Fast and fearless. Once when he was three or four I left him alone in the living room for half a second, and next thing you know there was Hunter on top of the Mission bookshelf. To this day I don’t know how he got up there. It’s got a glass-fronted case. He must have scaled the sides.”

“Good Lord,” said Betsy.

“Well, he’s on top of that thing and he’s got his little red cape on around his neck and he’s holding his arms out in front of him like he was at the pool and about to dive off the board. I heard myself saying the three words I said most often to him, ‘Hunter, no sir!’ but I was too late. He was already plummeting toward me. I managed to catch him, but I twisted my ankle doing so.”