The Reading Lessons (24 page)

~ The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allen Poe

Hadley was proud of himself. Over the course of two weeks time, he’d survived rape, incest, and a pact with the devil with an uncommon amount of aplomb. To be on the safe side, though, he didn’t congratulate himself until he turned the final page of
The Monk
. It officially became a worthy accomplishment then. Hadley didn’t touch Lucinda once.

“I think I’d like to read
The Arrow of Gold
next,” he told her, when at long last the temptations of The Monk were past.

Lucinda was predictably abhorred. “Dear God, why? It sounds hideously boring.”

“It’s very popular, Lucinda. Never mind, I’ll read it on my own.”
The Arrow of Gold
seemed like just the ticket after two weeks spent in a lurid triangle with a lust-crazed priest and Lucinda’s pink fingernails running down his arm.

“Since when do you read books on your own, Hadley?”

“Since tonight, when I start
The Arrow of Gold
.”

Lucinda wiggled in next to him on the window seat. “Will you never forgive me, darling?”

“Sure,” Hadley said. “You’re forgiven. What’s next on the list?” 

“
Candide
. I’ve read ahead, and it’s delicious. The chambermaid, Paquette, gives syphilis to a gentleman called Pangloss.”

“Nice,” Hadley said, half-heartedly, because he really didn’t long to read dirty passages with her the way he used to. 

Lucinda slapped at an old stain on his knee. “Pangloss is a philosophical man, yet he foolishly forgot the most important rule of all: An aristocrat should never lie down with the lower classes
.
”

Hadley saw no point in remarking on this. He opened
Candide
and began reading it out loud, fully resigned to the torture that lie ahead. He hadn’t stopped wanting Lucinda, of course, and he reckoned he never would. In recent weeks, however, he’d gotten better at keeping his feelings to himself. If he wasn’t mistaken, she didn’t like it so awful much now that he’d learned to hold his horses.

The previous Sunday, she’d snatched up his hands when he came in from Flora’s and proceeded to feverishly examine his cuticles. “Whose house have you been painting?” she demanded to know. 

“It’s my day off, Lucinda. I don’t have to tell you nothing.”

Lucinda threw his hands away in disgust. “You’re a wicked man, Hadley Crump. I hate you!”

It smarted a little, hearing that, but it was just as well. As Hadley fell into Candide, he said a silent prayer that someday he’d build up a strong immunity to dirty books. 

###

“In olden days, the arrival of the painter was cause for big celebration,” Hadley explained on Sunday while adding another coat of blue paint.

“I can believe that,” Flora said. “Ever since you started painting, Daddy’s been celebrating with an old bottle of Guckenheimer’s he was saving for a special occasion.” 

Hadley had strong notions about the effects of paint color on a home. The right shade of color could add spice, bring harmony, or make a man want to put a bullet in his head. The color he used in the sunroom tinted everything from skin to sunlight a soft hydrangea blue. 

“I think the walls of a home say a lot about a person,” Hadley said. “For instance, choosing red paint for this room announced to everyone what a game young woman you are, Flora. You aren’t afraid to try new things, even if they are uncomfortable. Maybe your daddy’s reaction to all that red was really more a fearful reaction to your independent nature. Maybe painting the porch blue is his way of trying to go back to a safer time when you were still his little girl.” 

Hadley’s ears got hot when he saw how closely she was listening. “Then again, maybe he just likes blue.” He shrugged and laughed at himself. “Sorry, Flora. Gardeners have a lot of time on their hands to think.”

“Actually, you might be onto something there. My mama liked everything sunny yellow and that suited her to a T.” 

Flora sure did look beautiful with hydrangea tinted skin. 

“What color are your walls, Hadley?”

“White. White’s the safest color for folks like me who are afraid to make a choice.”

###

The subject of color came up again the following Sunday when Hadley and Flora started
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
. 

Hadley hadn’t ventured out in public with Flora since the day they had coffee at the High Point diner. Mama insisted that no one would ever guess his “dual nature,” but Hadley listened to the radio every day. Shoot, if Lucinda’s maids cleaned half as well as they gossiped, they’d have polished the knobs off the doors long ago. Every time a Negro came to ill, Hadley got an earful one way or another. 

“What do you think of people who are part white and part Negro?” he asked Flora. They were sitting side-by-side on the porch swing, holding hands in the place where the folds of her dress bunched up against his pants leg. 

Flora was sniffing the chrysanthemum he’d brought from Wisteria Walk. “That’s a funny question.”

“Well? Do you like them?”

“Let me see, I like myself so I guess I do like them.”

Hadley looked closer at Flora’s caramel brown skin. It was much darker than his own, but it was pale compared to Tilly’s. It was the color of a candy apple when she blushed. “Was your mama a white woman, Flora?”

“No, but her mama was. Does that bother you?”

“Not me, no.” Hadley tugged on the rusted links that attached the swing to the roof. There was a grinding sound coming from somewhere and every time they swung forward, the chain objected. “Does it bother you, Flora?”

“My mother had a hard way to go. Someone set her family’s house on fire the day they passed the White Drop Rule.”

The chain whined as Hadley moved the swing back and forth with his foot. “That’s sad.”

“Why did you ask me about this?”

Hadley had been dreading this for weeks. He hadn’t known Flora long, but he couldn’t imagine his life without her. “My daddy is a white man.”

“Well then, I see.” Flora pressed the flower to her nose and closed her eyes. “I’m disappointed.”

Hadley closed his eyes, too. “I should have told you right off. I know that. But . . . ” 

How could he explain? It wasn’t right to put a nice girl like Flora in danger when she didn’t even know she was in danger, but he didn’t want to lose her.

Flora gave him a little thump. “I will not take
but
for an answer,” she growled. “That’s what Mr. Langston Hughes always says.”

“I’m awfully sorry.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t like you, is that it?”

“People never look at me the same way once they know the truth. Happens every time.”

“Listen to me.” She turned him by his chin so they were stuck there face to face. “I’m not disappointed that you’ve got a white daddy, and I understand why you’d be hesitant to tell people the truth. I’m just disappointed that you couldn’t tell that I’d never use something like that to hurt anybody.”

“You mean you’re not gonna kick me out of your life?” he asked.

“Not for that, Hadley. Never for that.”

Hadley wanted to kiss her worse than ever, and yet, now that the cat was out of the bag, he needed to know that she understood the ramifications of what he was telling her. It was one thing to live your life without judgment, another to live in a world that was full of it. 

“This is no small thing, Flora. I’ve had rocks thrown at me, it makes some folks so mad when they see a white Negro walking down their street. There are men out there who would kill me for sitting on this swing with you if they knew about my white side.” 

Flora nodded bravely. “You’re just going to have to learn to trust me. I know real trust takes time to grow, but if you give me a chance, you’ll find I’m up to it.”

“I know,” he said. “You’ve got apple-slice ears.”

Flora touched her ears and blushed.

“My mama believes you can tell all there is to know about a person’s character by their ears. Apple-slice ears indicate a trust-worthy and upright soul.”

 “So when do I get to meet your mama anyway?” Flora asked.

Hadley ran a finger around the edge of her ear. “Do you want to meet her?”

“Now what do you think? She’s the one who made you, isn’t she?”

“According to my mama, making babies ain’t nothing special in our family. Everyone does it.”

Flora held up her chrysanthemum. “What’s this mean?”

“Truth,” he said.

“I like the sound of that.” Flora popped up off the swing so quick, he was sent flying. “Stay put, now. I made us a treat.” She slid the flower over her apple-slice ear and ran inside the house.

Hadley had learned that Flora wasn’t a girl to carry on about things that couldn’t be helped. Her biggest flaw was his saving grace: Flora took to every adventure with a chipper sense of faith. 

“Here you go,” she said. She handed him the palm tree spoon and a little red bowl of applesauce.

“What’s on yours?” Hadley asked, as he slurped the treat off his special spoon. Flora was eating with a little spoon too.

“Davy Crockett.”

He turned her hand so he could see it. A wilderness man stood before the silver-plated mountains of Tennessee with applesauce running down his legs. “How’s he taste?” 

“Yummy. And your palm tree?”

Hadley gleefully popped Florida into his mouth. “It’s even better than I thought it would be.” 

###

The following week, Hadley invited Flora to go on a picnic and meet his mama. “I could skip First Street Meth if you’d like and go to church with you?” Flora offered.

Hadley tried to picture himself walking into Rocky Bottoms with a girl. He could hear the sound of a hundred asses turning in their seats to look at Flora. Bottomites traditionally spoke their minds in church. Each and every Sunday was a revival. When Edgecomb Nagle brought that creole lady a few weeks after his wife died, there was nearly a riot. As a general rule of thumb, you didn’t want to subject a person to the scrutiny of Rocky Bottoms unless you were mating for life. 

“I think we best stick to meeting Mama for now.”

As it turned out, the Reverend Blackmon chose this particular Sunday to join the Young Men’s Bible Study at the park for some spareribs and horseshoes after he finished up preaching. Once the YMBS spotted Hadley with Flora, the jig was up. More than a few horseshoes were thrown off course by the gawking men of the bible group. 

Mama gave them the evil eye and shook her finger at Wilkee Brown who was staring worse than all the rest.
“Stop judging that you may not be judged; for with what judgment you are judging, you will be judged; and with the measure that you are measuring out, they will measure out to you.”

Hadley gave Mama the evil eye. “Huh?”

“Matthew 7:1-3.” 

The study group was picnicking under the pavilion officially known as
The Mami Thomas Pavilion.
Unofficially, it was called
The
Negro Tables
. Hadley had spread his tablecloth nearby on the picnic grounds. Everything was going fine with Mama and Flora until Mama decided to take her bread crusts down to the pond for the ducks, and the reverend cornered her near the water. 

“You got to forgive all the staring,” the reverend said to Mama. “But tensions are running high right now. Didn’t young Hadley hear about that nigger over in Doddsville who got hanged for asking a white woman in marriage?” 

“Hadley isn’t asking anyone in marriage, Reverend Blackmon,” Mama said in Hadley’s defense. “And Flora isn’t white.” 

“No, but Hadley sure do look white sitting there next to her.”

Mama got shamed then, which didn’t happen often. When they first met Reverend Blackmon, Hadley was nine years old. They were new to the church, so naturally there were a lot of questions. A lot of sideways looks. Mama didn’t tell Hadley until he was almost grown that Reverend Blackmon had pulled her aside that first day and asked her about her white son. They didn’t want white people coming to their church, but he said they would accept Hadley, provided his daddy really was out of the picture. Mama promised that he was far out of the picture, and the church graciously decided that Hadley was colored and never brought it up again. Until now.

Hadley was fuming mad. Yes, he had heard about the Doddsville nigger. He’d also heard about a nigger in Russum who got dragged through a cornfield on account of giving someone the wrong change at the hardware store. As far as he was concerned, as long as there was a chance in life that he might get dragged across a cornfield or strung up by his neck, he would just as soon it was over a woman. It was a pity that the YMBS had to show up at the park on this particular day. He and Flora had spent every Sunday in this same spot for weeks and never run into anyone from church.

Mama fidgeted with worry the whole afternoon, but it was clear she liked Flora. The first thing she did was steal a peek at Flora’s ring finger. “Well ain’t you pretty,” Mama said. 

Flora was a hit in every way, and not just because she was single. She took a stroll past
The Negro Tables
and said hello to people who would never in a million years say hello back. She brought chess pie and Swiss cheese and a bookmark she’d made for Mama using two of Caesar’s yellow feathers. Flora took to Mama like she took to eating applesauce with a Davy Crockett spoon, and Mama couldn’t help but take to her, too.

“She’s real nice,” Mama said when he walked her home after the picnic. “And she gave me six cans of peas, too.” 

Hadley was so proud of himself for having the good sense to know someone like Flora, it was a wonder his shirt buttons didn’t shoot off his puffed chest like bullets. 

Mama said, “You be careful you don’t muss up things with this one.”

“If by
mussing up
, you mean Lucinda, I’m pleased to inform you that I am almost entirely out of love with her.”

“It’s the ‘almost’ part that scares me. Do you care about this woman?”

“Can’t you tell?”

 “You look happier than I’ve seen you look in a great many years.”

“Thank Flora for that, Mama. I do.”