Authors: Mercedes Keyes
"I thought you and daddy always felt the same about that? You mean, he felt that white should be with white?" Shanna clarified.
"Yeah... he thought me spoiled and that my daddy indulged me too much. I was done with school early, by sixteen I'd already graduated top of my class, didn't do me a bit of good of course, just left me with nothing to do but get into trouble. I told my daddy my plans and he gave me his blessings, providing whatever funding I needed. He should have never done such a thing, but he was too busy in the political arena and my momma was too weak a woman to deal with a child like me. My discipline came from Ruthie Johnson, our black maid." Gert laughed out. "If Ruthie could get her hands on me, she would have torn my butt up. She was always waiting on me with a switch." Gert laughed until tears came to her eyes thinking about Ruthie.
"Lord she tried to get some kind of control of me, but I was like the wind, one time she got after me, and I climbed a tree to get away from her Shanna." Gert slapped her leg she was laughing so hard she had to stop talking as the funny scene played in her head. "Ruthie was so mad at me, she yelled up at me,
"You think bein' in that tree gone save you, stay up there! I got something for you!"
- well I couldn't imagine what, next thing I know she was chucking rocks up at me, I yelled down,
"You stop chuckin' them rocks at me for you hit me!"
Then I'd duck and dodge because she was trying to hit me and did a few times, with me yelping out when one struck.
"You gone bruise me Ruthie!"
I said, for her to yell up,
"You bes' believe me, I'm tryin'! You get your tail down, cause I'm moving to the big rocks now! You know this drive way filled with'im!"
"
"Momma!? I can't believe it - that you were bad!"
"Shanna, I was awful! I loved Ruthie though, she's the one who taught me all the important things in my life. How to cook, to clean up after myself. She use to say to me all the time,
"I'm your daddy and mama's maid... I ain't yours! Way you going Gertrude, you ain't gone ever have no maid in your life! So you best get up and pick up!"
and I would say,
"I don't want no maid Ruthie... and you shouldn't be they maid either!"
Ruthie would just shake her head and carry on. And I would get up while she was waiting for me, and slip off with two of my girlfriends from school and be gone again." Gert shook her head. "Off I'd go, my father letting me run about, protesting and marching with King. I was young, energetic, impulsive and out to change the world." Gert shook her head thinking back, smiling to herself and the years of turmoil with Bart. "Anyway, your daddy and I argued heatedly most of the time as he came home on leave and would hear rumors of my activities. He tried his hardest to get me to calm down and be like a proper girl should, I told him, I wasn't gonna have no preacher boy, country redneck telling me what I could and could not do." Gert laughed at herself, because she was so foolish and impetus.
"Momma!?"
"It's true. My daddy had spoiled me rotten, to this day I admit it. I was quick as a whip, smart as could be, and lord have mercy... I was the finest thing around and knew it, all the boys wanted me - many a'man as well."
"Oh my goodness momma... you're shocking me?!" Shanna gasped again.
"Well you ain't the only one I've ever shocked! It's true... oh honey I was something. I had me a teeni tini lil'ol waist and big hips and the finest legs. I was the catch darlin'. But you know Shanna, I didn't want to live my life based on my looks. My daddy use to talk to me a lot and he always said,
"My daughter, you've been blessed with a wondrous package - don't let the one that opens it, find that its filled with nothing but - no good rottenness and stink. Don't do that."
" Gert grew quiet again, after some thought, glannced at her daughter, smiling.
"I don't know... with everything that seemed to be happening at once, threat of the war in Vietnam... and being away from each other, was stressful to our relationship."
"Where'd you meet daddy?"
"His father was a Baptist minister and my girlfriend always wanted me to attend church with her. Every now and then I'd go, then one day - I saw your daddy sitting in a pew with his momma and sisters. He was tall, skinny and wearing an army uniform...his dress greens. Ooooh Shanna, he was so handsome, my stomach did three flips and my heart stopped. That was it, I had a feeling I was gonna be with him for the rest of my life."
"You knew that just like that?"
"I sure did. He'd been staring at me again, see I hadn't noticed him before and only did that time cause Elaine nudged me, letting me know. I looked up, saw him and thought I was in love. Of course I was too young to even grasp what love was. Anyway, he ask me out to meet him at the drug store, ice cream parlor and I said sure. If you can just imagine how proud I was to be walking on his arm, and how proud he was to catch the prize of the county. From there it began. He told me about his plans for the future, how he always dreamed of a family and a farm and making a way of life that seemed to be slowly disappearing and asked me would I wait for him. I was too young mind you, to understand what he wanted, all I could see was what I wanted. So I shared my own plans of what I wanted to do. That didn't go well. We argued, I said what I said and he turned and walked away from me. Seeing him walk away like that made me feel what my daddy said not to let be found in me...rottenness."
She stopped again remembering more.
"Then, he went off for about 6 weeks, we'd been writing on and off. I'd contemplated breaking it off with him but I just couldn't."
"Why did you wanna break it off momma?"
Gert got quiet again thinking maybe she was telling too much, but couldn't stop now. "I'd met somebody else."
"Who momma?"
Again she grew quiet. "Its not that I'd just met him, I'd always been aware of him, but... at first... I couldn't bring myself to go in that direction that early in the game."
"Who is he momma?"
"I was confused Shanna... so confused. I was living too fast, too soon. I was into too much, seeing too much and .... " She grew quiet again a look of longing and sorrow crossed her face, and her eyes welled up. Shanna didn't ask who again, she just quietly waited, as her mother finally spoke, it was out of order, but she could make sense of it.
"He asked me to marry him, your daddy...when he got home. I - I was feeling guilty and ..."
"About what momma?"
"Things... something I'd done even though I was... his girl." Gert took a deep long breath, a slow resolved one and after a moment went on, "Seeing him so humble ... and me with so many emotions and fears, I said yes. We parked at the top of this bluff in South Carolina, that's where we use to live before your dad and I left the south. There that evening is where I must have conceived Shawn. I didn't know it at the time, that
that
was when he was conceived. I faked it - pretended that I was ... a virgin."
"Momma... you... before my father... had gone with someone else?"
"Yep... in fact, it happened just a few days before your daddy returned home. Anyway, he had to go back in for whatever training came next and while he was gone, I was right back into everything again. I was in trouble all the time, blasting racist if I knew someone to be one, getting into scraps with somebody about Negro rights, and the signs on the doors and shops... 'White Only'." Gert shook her head. "One time me and my friends went out at night, and painted over many of them and wrote, 'Assholes Only.'" Her eyes welled up and she covered her mouth trying not to let it upset her again as it had done back then, "Next day... we heard that a group of Negro teens got arrested for defacing property, two of them beat up ... real bad." She got quiet and looked up at Shanna, her tears pooled and spilled over. "That was a horrible time Shanna. A horrible... horrible set of days. Anyway... it frightened me so, that I snuck out and ... met with him again." Gert remembered back to it, she shook her head.
"Met who momma?"
"I was confused Shanna and I didn't know... which way I wanted to go."
"Who momma?" Shanna persisted.
"I wasn't sure you see, if I loved your daddy... or Edwin Piercey."
"Edwin Piercey?" Shanna looked up, adding a bow to one of the gifts that was finished being wrapped.
Gert took a long breath and looked her daughter in the eyes and said, "Don't ever ever mention that name in front of your daddy... understand me? I shouldn't have even told you. Don't know why I did."
"I won't momma, who was he?" Shanna's curiosity was high.
"Go first and see where your daddy and Jake is." Gert directed Shanna.
While Shanna went and checked, Gert thought back to Edwin... how she had hoped and prayed back then, that he had been Shawn's father... but... by the luck of the draw... he hadn't been, she hadn't known who Shawn's daddy was for the longest. Bart... or Edwin Piercey. Who knows what her life would have been like if things had ended differently. Shanna returned a few moments later. "They're in the barn working on Jake's truck momma...I said you sent me out to see if they wanted something to drink. They're fine, busy."
"Come on lets leave this off 'til later, I need to be sitting on the porch watching for your daddy while I talk about this, I can't have him sneaking up and hearing me."
They both exited the house, after putting on sweaters, although spring had sprung the nights were still chilly. They sat on the front porch swing together, keeping their eyes on the 80 X 80 vehicle barn, and with their feet, started the swing to going. Shanna remained quiet, willing to wait for her mother to tell what she would.
"Where do I begin?" She murmured in soft tones, making sure her voice didn't carry beyond Shanna. "I was such an irresponsible young girl. My mind and thoughts off into things it ought not be. In a hurry to grow up and be apart of this messed up, mixed up adult world I found myself in. I lived a double life. The one during daytime - daughter of Harriett and Frank Prescott. Debutante, southern bell and desired by most. Then there was the me of the night. Who snuck out a little past midnight, to rendezvous with my girlfriends, as we met with boys we shouldn't have even been talking to. Negro boys."
"Ach... momma...was... Edwin Piercey black?"
"Yes he was... and my heart was torn between him and your daddy. He was light skinned, high yella - as it was called, and oh so handsome. He stood ohhh, no more than maybe 5'9, but he was athletic, smart, energetic, with dreams that I wanted so much to be apart of. And could sing... oh my lord his voice Shanna, his voice, mesmerizing. It had that Sam Cooke quality about it, and he use to sing to me all the time." She stopped, looking towards the 80 X 80, "It was so innocent and sweet at first. Planning on how we was all gone rally forward behind King, and we would be the start of changing how the world saw - black and white. Things started to heat up between us, and he heard about your daddy. That I was seeing him. He was so put out, upset with me. Wanted to know why I was still meeting with him, since I had my army white man. I can't explain it Shanna, he tried to get me to stop coming to meet him but I couldn't. I did the most daring thing ever, and showed up at one of their secret night meetings."
"Whose meetings?"
"The Negroes at that time in Greenville, had a little meeting place where-..."
"Where is that momma?"
"South Carolina... - they would meet and make plans for gathering as many blacks together as they could to show themselves in numbers to say basically... its our turn. I showed up at one of those meetings because... well, he wasn't where we always met."
"How did you know where they met?"
"One night when I was supposed to be going into the house, I didn't... I followed him, them... and ummm... that's how I discovered their meeting place. Oh you could have heard a pin drop on the sand when I opened that door and stepped inside. I scared them so bad, that when he saw me, he leapt up and rushed to the door, grabbing my arm and took me outside, asking me what I was doing there."
"You was suppose to meet me."
She remembered saying.
"I told you I wasn't gonna be meeting with you no more... any body else know about this place?"
He had asked panicked.
Gert shook her head saying,
"No... of course not - I would never tell anyone where this place is... you know me... please Ed, I come all this way by myself in the night, through the woods to find you... don't send me away."
She pleaded with him.
"I swear before God... if you don't get me killed, you gone get yourself killed. Stay right here... I ain't got no choice, I'm gone have to walk you home."
"And he did... and I - basically, pleaded with him to make love to me, to be the one my first time."
Shanna sat stunned staring at her mother's profile, Gert glanced sideways at her, then shrugged. "I did... I admit it."
"And... did he?"
"You damn right he did... he wanted me. He was in love with me and I was in love with him. It was a desperate kind of loving that you know... may be the last time, filled with the kind of passion, only two people feel that knows... what they are doing is forbidden. Even though we tried not to, it happened two more times, even after I'd given myself to Bart." Gert laughed at herself. "What a brazen hussy I was. I couldn't make up my mind you see... because, truth is... I wanted them both. I knew I couldn't have them both, so... I'd made up my mind that I would break it off with Bart. He'd already gone back once again, and I wrote one letter after another trying to figure out the best way to say it... to break it off. I never could. Then... I started feeling different. Didn't known why. But Bart was gone, and ... Edwin... he just... he just up and... didn't show up anymore. I went back night after night after night... oh I would say for at least two weeks. He never showed himself to me again. He went - missing."