Gone Crazy in Alabama (10 page)

Once we learned that our great-great-grandfather on the Charles side was owned by his father, a white man, Fern couldn't stop looking at Big Ma. Big Ma knew Fern had something on her mind other than when she could lick the cake batter from the bowl.

“All right, Fern. What you want?”

“Big Ma,” Fern said. “May I ask you a question?”

“You can ask,” Big Ma said. “Don't mean I'll answer.” Our grandmother knew a tough question when she heard it sneaking up.

“Big Ma, why you wear a wig and an Aunt Jemima rag?”

Big Ma wasn't expecting that one. Neither was I. “Aunt Jemima,
what
?” She stopped stirring. “Where's my belt?”

Instead of jumping behind me like I expected, Fern threw her head back and laughed, all teeth and her pink tongue showing. Then Big Ma laughed.

“Little rascal.”

“But why, Big Ma? Why?”

I knew what Fern was asking. She wanted to know why Big Ma covered her hair when she had nothing to hide. Her hair wasn't too short or patchy and balding. She didn't have sores or bumps on her scalp. And even though she insisted we fry our hair to a crisp for Sunday services, she only had to pass the hot comb once, maybe twice, through her own hair on the one day of the week she deemed was proper to wear it without the wig. These days she took to cutting her hair in the back with her dress-pattern scissors to keep it from growing. I used to think it was because she liked wigs better than her own hair or that she thought black people's hair was bad hair. My mother felt differently about hair, which was one reason why she and Big Ma didn't get along. Cecile let her hair grow and grow in thick, natural braids, and she stuck pencils and pens in it.

I didn't understand Big Ma and her hair, but it would have never occurred to me to ask her about it, or ask why ours wasn't exactly like hers. But Fern was suddenly full of questions, starting with Big Ma's wigs, scarves, and hair.

“Fern Gaither,” Big Ma said. “What do I look like I'm doing?”

“Stirring cake batter.”

“That's right. Stirring. Now, suppose you took a big bite of lemon pound cake only to find more of your Big Ma's hair in it than lemon frosting?”

Fern knew when she was being outfoxed and wouldn't stand for it. “That's not what I mean, Big Ma. I want to know why you cover your own hair
all
the time. Except on Sundays. Then you only wear your Sunday hat with the feather.”

“Because,” Big Ma said, “no one needs to know my family business.”

“You mean about your father's—”

“Never mind about my father's people and what's underneath this wig and scarf. Just you never mind! All you have to do is keep your hair clean, braided, and out of the cake batter.” She went on stirring and muttering, and telling Fern to stop asking about things no one needs to know or there would be no cake for her.

I could smell the smoke of something cooking while we were still in the woods making our way over to Miss Trotter's. I hoped no one noticed it until we were actually there, but Vonetta asked, “What's that?”

“Smells good!” Fern said—then quickly added, “And bad.”

“Sure does,” I agreed, pretending it was a mystery when I knew what was happening over at Miss Trotter's. I just didn't want Fern to start crying and pulling my arm for us to turn back to Ma Charles's house. We were here already and I didn't want to stay on our side of the creek. There was nothing to do at Big Ma's than watch the chickens fight over a cricket.

Miss Trotter and JimmyTrotter had a skinned deer roasting on a spit. JimmyTrotter cranked the handle to the spit and the deer turned around and around under a pit of burning coals. As we drew near, Fern, now close to me, close like she used to be, began to buckle at the knee. She was crying.

“Cut it out, baby,” Vonetta said.

Fern wasn't up to fighting back. I could feel her folding into me.

“You cut it out,” I told Vonetta. “She's your sister. Act like it.”

Miss Trotter caught sight of us and waved. “Just in time for barbecue!” Both Miss Trotter and Ma Charles called any meat roasting in an outdoor fire “barbecue,” when barbecue to us was sauce from the grocery store or sweet and spicy red dust on potato chips.

“No, no, no,” Fern meowed into me. She tried to pull me backward. I pulled her forward. “Come on, Fern. You don't have to look at it. You can stay behind me.” And of course Vonetta said, “Come on, baby.” As much as I hated Vonetta's meanness, her taunting was enough to prop Fern up and move her feet forward just to show Vonetta she wasn't a baby. Fern grabbed a fistful of my top and stayed close to me.

The doneness of the animal going around and around said it had been cooking for a while. JimmyTrotter cut off pieces from the deer and put them in a pan and Miss
Trotter salted the pieces. She had already been eating the barbecue.

“Come on, girls,” Miss Trotter said. “Come and get a treat.”

Vonetta, eager to please, grabbed a piece of meat and bit into it. She chewed and yummed like the actress that she was.

Fern cried out, “That's no treat! That's Bambi's mother!”

JimmyTrotter started to tell his great-grandmother who Bambi was, but she put her hand up to him. “I know who Bambi's mother is. A make-believe deer in the pictures. You see, young'n, I know. Now get over here. Come on.”

But Fern wouldn't move.

“You,” my great-aunt said to me. “Let go of that girl.” Although it was the other way around, Ferns fists wrapped around the bottom of my top, I loosened Fern's grip on my clothes and pushed her forward. “I don't bite children,” she told Fern. “But I'll give 'em a taste of the hickory switch if they're bad.” She meant to jolly Fern. Vonetta, who wasn't receiving any attention, rolled her eyes.

“Bambi is make-believe. This is a real deer. God-given to these woods to run about and breed.”

“Aunt Miss Trotter, God doesn't want us to kill,” Fern said. “We surely shall not!”

Fern said it the way Big Ma would have been proud of, although Big Ma wouldn't have appreciated that Fern talked back to Miss Trotter. Ma Charles, on the other
hand, would have cackled and shaken her tambourine.

“God don't want us to kill each other, young'n,” Miss Trotter said.

“Fern,” my baby sister corrected. “God don't want us to kill each other,
Fern
.”

Miss Trotter turned to JimmyTrotter. “Boy, get me the biggest hickory switch you can find.”

JimmyTrotter kept basting and salting the meat.

We ate the smoky venison meat except Fern, who ate a piece of bread. Miss Trotter waited for Fern to ask for more to eat but Fern never asked.

Miss Trotter said to Fern, “This animal made an offering to us all and you won't take it. Shame on you.”

Fern shrugged.

“This animal gave us her meat. We'll share it with neighbors. And what we don't eat, we'll freeze for when there's nothing. She doesn't have much fat to her but she gave us her bones and hide. If it were a nice buck, I'd make good use of his horns. Everything the animal gives us is useful.”

Fern thought long and hard like she was at her desk figuring out homework. It would have been nice if she'd said, “Yes, Aunt Miss Trotter.”

Instead, she said, “Wish we could give it all back to her, Aunt Miss Trotter. Surely do.”

That evening Miss Trotter filled a tin pan with sliced venison and wrapped it tightly, placing it in Vonetta's hands to carry. “Take this to your great-granny. She'd surely like to have it. But you don't have to tell her I shot it with Daddy's rifle. No. Don't tell her that. But if you need to tell her something, tell her I brought the doe down with one shot and cleaned out all the buckshot myself. That is, if she's worried about buckshot.”

“I'll carry it,” I said, reaching to take the pan from Vonetta.

“No, no,” Miss Trotter said. “My dear one can carry it. She's strong and eats all of her food.”

Her words were meant to make Fern feel badly, but Fern was in her world, humming and clapping. Almost the way Cecile did when she worked out her poems.

With the pan in her hands, Vonetta curtsied and we started back through the woods and over the creek. Vonetta's politeness lasted only until we were out of Miss Trotter's sight, and then she taunted Fern with the pan of cooked meat. I grabbed the pan out of Vonetta's hand with a swift yank. It was a good thing Miss Trotter had wrapped that pan well. I heard “I hate you, Delphine” all the way home, but I didn't care. Vonetta had to learn how to be a better sister to Fern, and I was going to teach her.

Vonetta pulled out all the stops and told Ma Charles almost word for word about how Miss Trotter shot the
deer with her father's rifle and cleaned out the buckshot. I knew Miss Trotter threw in that bit about her father's rifle to rub salt in Ma Charles's heart. That Slim Jim Trotter left his rifle with Miss Trotter's mother and not hers. That it was probably true that Slim Jim Trotter spent more nights over the creek with Miss Trotter and her mother than here with Great-great-grandmother Livonia and Ma Charles when she was a little girl. But Slim Jim Trotter did make the chair Ma Charles sat in, and that was something.

If Miss Trotter had rubbed salt in Ma Charles's heart, our great-grandmother didn't let on. In fact, she clapped her hands and rubbed them together in anticipation when Big Ma unwrapped the meat.

“The Lord's working on Miss Trotter,” Ma Charles said. “Let's eat.”

When we sat down at the table, Fern said to Big Ma, “Why does Delphine get to say the dinner prayer? I can say it.”

Uncle Darnell didn't have school that night and was seated at the table for supper. He winked at Fern.

Big Ma thought Bible school was “working on” Fern and that Fern had caught the spirit. Big Ma's face brightened and she said, “Bless your heart, Fern. Go on. Bless this table.”

Fern cleared her throat, clasped her hands together, and lifted her turtle head high out of its shell.

Sorry, Chicken

Sorry, Deer

Sorry, Ham

Sorry, Cow

Sorry, Lamb

Chops are better

On a puppet

Or the lamb

They came from
.

Baaaaaa—

But you can say

Amen
.

Uncle Darnell said, “Amen,” and snapped his fingers beatnik style, and I followed suit, adding a “Baaaaa” to my “Amen.” Vonetta almost joined us but then stopped herself, refusing to take part in anything having to do with our uncle.

“The Lord's not pleased,” Big Ma scolded. She pointed to Fern, who was proud of her protest poem disguised as our dinnertime prayer. “And you! Your head's swelling up—trying to act like your no-mothering mother—while the rest of you stays puny because you won't do right and eat what the Lord gave you. Mark my words. He won't let you grow if you can't offer Him a proper thanksgiving.”

Ma Charles thought it was all hilarious. “Go on,
Rickets. That was a good prayer. Baaaaa.”

Fern bowed her head low and grand over her plate of corn and string beans. “Afua,” she proclaimed. “My poet name is Afua.”

“Look. Don't touch,” JimmyTrotter warned. “You see this? See it?” He pointed to his airplane's red painted tail. “That was flown by the Ninety-ninth Pursuit Squadron all over Italy and North Africa.”

We were in JimmyTrotter's room, pretending to love his model airplanes since there wasn't anything new to do or see. He talked on and on about the models his grandfather had given him, pointing out every little detail of his prized World War II fighter jet and the ugly army-green one, a bomber. The fighter jets were his. The bombers sat on Auggie's side of the room. Those, he wouldn't let us breathe on. Nor could we sit on Auggie's bed.

I, myself, was tired of war and anything to do with it.
Didn't they show enough war stuff on the news between the protests here and the shooting, bombing, and dying in Vietnam? We were lucky to get our uncle back from there and luckier to have him almost back to his old self, although Uncle D had long ago stopped telling us make-believe stories. I certainly wouldn't be keeping any model jeeps and choppers to remember the war going on, but JimmyTrotter thought his Red Tail war hawks and his brother's bomber jets were just grand. I was relieved when Miss Trotter called to us for a snack. We all came running.

Fern cheered when she saw that our snack was a slice of pie and warm milk and had nothing to do with animal meat. She sat right down and rubbed her hands together.

“Aunt Miss Trotter . . .” Fern began. Our great-aunt accepted that this is what Fern would call her. She raised her chin.

“Why don't you have a television?”

“Yeah, Great Miss Trotter.” Vonetta threw in the “Great” to get a smile of approval. Ever since she stopped running back and forth between the sisters, delivering their poison pen stories, Vonetta had to work hard for Miss Trotter's attention. “Where's the TV?”

“Who says I don't have one?”

“They mean one that works, Great-grandma,” JimmyTrotter said.

Miss Trotter swatted at JimmyTrotter's head but he leaned a quick left, like he knew it was coming, and she
missed. She and Ma Charles were so much alike I expected my great-aunt to turn to me and say, “Young'n, get me a switch.”

“We have a television set,” JimmyTrotter sang to Fern, all the while smiling at Miss Trotter. “It hasn't worked since George Wallace's inauguration.”

Miss Trotter's face tightened and darkened. “Son, I told you about speaking that name in the house. Next time, go out to the manure pile and say it as free as you please.”

JimmyTrotter laughed a good laugh, pie and milk in his open mouth. He collected himself and said, “Miss Trotter threw a pot at the TV just after the governor stood where Jefferson Davis had once stood, and shouted, ‘Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.'”

“He said that out loud on television with the world watching?”

“Don't look so shocked, Brooklyn. You don't get more southern than Alabama.”

Miss Trotter shook her head. “Hard to believe he didn't start out that way, but once he lost that first election he knew what he had to do, and old George's been doing it ever since. Some folks so evil, they'll sell their goodness to do bad.”

“They just want power,” I said.

“They don't care about the people,” Vonetta added.

“Surely don't care about giving power to the people.”

I enjoyed the sound of our voices following one another.
Sounded like a favorite song from the radio they no longer play, so when you hear it, you remember how things were.

JimmyTrotter's grin became devilish. “Y'all want to see the TV? That pot busted the screen something nice. We never got another one to replace it.”

In spite of Miss Trotter's fussing and threatening to get a hickory switch, JimmyTrotter hopped up and went to the cabinet where the photograph of his great-great-grandparents rested. The yellowed doily that the framed photo sat upon draped slightly over the cabinet. The walnut cabinet made the television look like furniture that blended in with the living room set and reminded me of ours back in Brooklyn. That was, until Mrs. called the Salvation Army to haul it away. That was how we got our color TV and a plain television stand. No more wooden cabinet. That was also one of the biggest fights ever on Herkimer Street when Pa came home from work that evening.

JimmyTrotter opened the doors to the wooden cabinet with a fancy flourish so we could see what had been hidden inside. Our mouths were probably open and full of pie and milk when we saw it. The tube had been busted, all right, but like JimmyTrotter described it, there was something beautiful about it. I'd seen nothing like it. The surface seemed smooth and uncut, but the insides cracked in circles that went round and around.

“Charlotte was here!” Fern cried.

“Charlotte? I don't see any Charlotte,” Vonetta said.

“The TV glass! It's round and cracked up like Charlotte's web.” She skipped up to it and traced the glass.

“Ugh! You're such a believer in make-believe, baby.”

“Stop it right now,” I told one. “And don't touch that screen,” I told the other. “Before you get cut.”

Miss Trotter ambled up to the cabinet and traced her hand along the wood and even the glass, which was dusty. Then she picked up the framed photograph of Slim Jim Trotter with Ella Pearl, one of his two wives. She dusted the glass to the photograph, and said, “Afternoon, Papa. Mama,” and set it back down on the television cabinet.

“My grandson got me that black-and-white set for Christmas.” She said it full of pride, and then got a little sad. She was talking about JimmyTrotter's father, who I'd never met. For that matter, I'd never met JimmyTrotter's mother, his twin brother, or his grandmother, either.

JimmyTrotter said real fast, “If I want to see television, I go to Aunt Naomi's. She has a new set. Color
and
stereo.”

“It's not brand-new. It's from Mr. Lucas,” Vonetta said. “I think he likes Big Ma.”

“What was your first clue, Sherlock?” I asked.

“Meanie,” Vonetta said under her breath.

Miss Trotter told JimmyTrotter, “Go over the creek and stay if you like,” although it was clear to me she didn't want him to go. “Just get the milking done, son. Poor
Sophie. Getting onchee with age.”

“Onchee?” we all asked.

“Onchee. Short for onchetty.” All the while Miss Trotter spoke, JimmyTrotter shook his head no behind her back. He didn't have to. I knew a made-up word when I heard one.

“That old gal prefers your touch to mine,” Miss Trotter said.

“You rush her, Miss Trotter.” He said it both teasing and respectful.

“I don't have all day to coax her to yield what she's supposed to yield in the first place. She's a milk cow. She's supposed to milk.”

“That's right, Great Miss Trotter,” Vonetta said. “Lots of us need milk in the morning.”

“That's right, dear one,” Aunt Miss Trotter cooed.

“She'd milk up a storm if her baby calf was here to drink it,” Fern said. “She surely would.”

I took the plates and glasses from the table and left them to fuss about milk and milking. JimmyTrotter followed me.

“Do you think it's a good idea to leave Miss Trotter alone?”

“I asked her if she wanted to come see the launch. I'd even drive my father's car to bring her over—sheriff or no sheriff.” He rarely spoke about his father. And he never spoke up against the sheriff.

“You can't convince her? Not even for the moon launch?”

He shrugged and laughed. “Thought you were catching on, cuz. It would take more than Apollo Eleven to get Miss Trotter to cross the creek.”

“Try, cousin. At least try.”

“Pretty please won't do it,” he said. “Talk about onchee.”

“She'll be all alone while we'll all be together.” I stared him down but Jimmy stayed unchanged. “Onchee” ran on the Trotter side. I said, “If you won't do it, I will. I'll get Miss Trotter to come over to Ma Charles's.”

“My great-granny likes being left to herself. But I'll pay money to see you get a woman who knows her mind to change it. Go on, Brooklyn. Let's see you do it.”

“Fine.” There was nothing better than a dare. I went marching up to Miss Trotter.

“Aunt Miss Trotter,” I said. “Come with us and see the men land on the moon.”

Aunt Miss Trotter chuckled. “Nothing wrong with my vision. I can see clear up to the moon from the porch. I can see all the comings and goings and shooting stars.”

Good thing I didn't have a mouth full of pie. I laughed out loud at the thought of her being able to see what was happening on the moon.

She turned to Vonetta. “Young'n. Go out to the tree . . .” She didn't even finish her instructions. Vonetta was too happy to run out to the tree and scrap around among
the twigs for a good licking stick. I heard her yell, “Ow!” Vonetta wanted me to get a taste so bad, she whacked herself with the twiggy candidates to get the one with the nastiest sting.

She galloped over to Miss Trotter with her switch. “Here, Miss Trotter. Get her.”

“Don't you worry. I'm going to get her.”

Unlike Vonetta, I knew my great-aunt was joking. She was so much like Ma Charles it hurt.

I coaxed and begged her to ride with JimmyTrotter in the station wagon and come over to see the men take off for the moon. I must have begged her ten different ways.

“Please, Miss Trotter.”

“Please,” Fern sang.

Vonetta only joined in because singing was involved and she had to make her voice louder than Fern's.

“Come with us tomorrow morning to watch the men land on the moon.”

“There's nothing over there I need to see. No, sir!”

JimmyTrotter mouthed, “Told you so.”

Miss Trotter chuckled and said, “What do you get if you poke a bear with a stick?”

Fern raised her paws and growled.

Vonetta said, “You get outta there fast!”

“Mark my words, young'ns. You poke a hole past this earth, you get something back.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like that angry bear.” She pointed to Fern and Fern growled on cue. “The earth doesn't take to being poked. Not its sky or beyond its sky. No, sir! The earth doesn't like it.”

JimmyTrotter rolled his eyes.

Miss Trotter uttered a “Hmp.” “Boy, I won't stop you from chasing your heart's desire. No, no. I won't deprive you of things that fly. It comes to you naturally.” She said to me, “But I won't go marching across that creek to her mother's house.” I was sure she meant our great-great-grandmother Livonia's house. “She'll have to walk to me. I won't walk to her.”

“But why, Miss Trotter? We'll all be there,” I said. “All of us, together.”

“Yes. All of you. All her generations. Daughter, grandson, great-grands.” She shook her head willfully. “I won't go so she can talk to me as if I'm a beggar looking at her generations, when she knows I hunger for my own. No. I won't go sit in her mother's house.”

Talk about onchetty. Those were her final words.

When we left, she said like always, “Go on and good-bye, if you call that gone.”

Jimmy Trotter said, “Pay up, Brooklyn.”

As soon as we got home, I said to Ma Charles, just to see her reaction, “We asked Miss Trotter to come and watch the astronauts take off for the moon.”

Ma Charles perked up like I knew she would, which told me I had to try harder to get Miss Trotter to cross over the creek or go around on the road.

“Coming here? My sister?” She turned to Uncle Darnell and said, “Kill a chicken,” and to me she said, “And you pluck it and clean it. I know you know how.” To Big Ma she said, “I want her to be stuffed till she can't walk, so start on a cobbler and drown it in sugar. Daughter, drown it good. I won't let hers be the last hospitality offered, showing off with her barbecue venison. It's a shame we don't have a hog to kill and butcher. A crime and a shame.”

“Hooray for Wilbur!” Fern cried. But no one paid her any mind.

But now, seeing my great-grandmother excited, I felt bad and said, “She's not coming.”

Then Ma Charles felt bad about getting excited. “It makes me no never mind if she stays on her side of the creek.”

Big Ma started to fan herself. “See what you done?” she scolded me.

“Yeah,” Vonetta said. “See, meanie?”

“See what?” Fern asked.

Big Ma wagged her finger at me. “You can't get my mother's heart to racing. She's an old woman.”

Ma Charles rocked herself like a child on a hobby horse, wearing the mile-long pout I was used to seeing on my sisters. “I knew she wasn't coming,” she said. “I knew it.”