And that’s it, the absolute dirty truth. I had admired my father for his power and freedom, and I had hated my mother for her oppression. Her struggle to create something beautiful, something with her own mark on it within the small sphere allowed her, to fill us with her good food, and the yard with flowers and fruit and birds and butterflies, I had seen as contemptible, pathetic.
Now and then, when the breeze was just right, I could just catch the scent of roses from the trellis against the house. The birds sang. I leaned back on my arms, face to the strong sun, my legs slowly stirring the water.
So why was I so hard on my mother over the Tashimee Fiesta? It wasn’t like she’d come up with the crazy idea herself. She didn’t write the stupid pageant. The whole idea of it was so absurd, so full of unintentional camp that I ought to love it. If I wrote an article about it, Jerry would eat it up.
As a kid, I had been fascinated by the pageant. Our daily lives were so pale, so lacking in drama. Our churches had no crucifixes, the blood and the wounds deemed unseemly. The history we learned was only dry pages in a book. But once a year, after the orange blossoms bloomed, and then the wild phlox, came the Fiesta and the pageant.
It was a very un-Protestant story. In the days of the early Spanish exploration, a captain, Don Alfonso, along with a priest, Father Hernando and a small contingent of well-armed soldiers, set out from the fort at St. Augustine on the Atlantic coast. They set off into the dangerous wilderness to investigate reports of a cruel tribe of sun-worshipping Indians who sacrificed human victims to their blood-thirsty gods, offering up the still-beating hearts. The arrogant captain brought with him his handsome young son, a youth of fourteen, and his ward, his exceptionally beautiful niece Theresa, a few years younger.
When I thought about it, I could see why they needed to give themselves a history, explain to themselves how they came to be here. Port Mullet was no family’s first destination on this continent. Nobody had ever emigrated directly to Port Mullet. They came from somewhere else first. They came from all over: Ohio, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia. They were white, almost entirely Protestant, heavily Baptist and Methodist. Their ancestors had arrived in some other city, Boston or New York or someplace in the Carolinas. Some of them stayed, some moved to places where there was more opportunity like factory towns, or ranches in the west. But a lifetime of bad luck, or a sudden bankruptcy or even simple despair had driven these people on. They must have been desperate for a fresh start, those who came to Port Mullet in the twenties and thirties and forties and fifties.
The West already long won, had been turned to dude ranches. But Port Mullet was a wilderness. No good roads in, long, difficult miles to the nearest city, abundant mosquitoes, rough terrain, poisonous snakes of several varieties, alligators, hurricanes.
They were a mixed bunch. They brought little in the way of traditions. They found none here. Or none they knew of, the last natives having left or died more than three hundred years earlier.
The Tashimee pageant gave them something more exotic and exciting than the old First Thanksgiving story. Something more suited to the down-on-their-luck folks who ended their wandering here. Who could picture the pilgrims, in their heavy black garb on the west coast of Florida?
And, of course, the pageant served the greater purpose of encouraging tourism. You’ve got to admire the sheer audacity of people whose thinking went like this: New Orleans has its Mardi Gras, and Tampa its Gasparilla, why not some grand festival for Port Mullet?
Their ingenuity was almost as breathtaking as their ambition. But the fabulous multi-cultured atmosphere of New Orleans with its scent of coffee and bourbon, the music in the background, and underneath it all the memory of those exotic establishments once filled with half-caste girls devoted to the service of sensuality, that was one thing. And Tampa’s Gasparilla had that city’s large Cuban and Spanish population with their spicy foods, Catholic mysteries and guilty, exciting abandon before the deprivations of Lent. Port Mullet was Port Mullet. Named for a fish.
My thoughts were rudely interrupted when the back door opened and none other than Josh came out. I didn’t say anything, pretended to ignore him. He squatted down beside me on the patio.
“Well now, Laurie Marie, if you won’t bite my head off for being such an unsophisticated country boy, I’ve got an invitation for you.”
I kept my face to the sun, my eyes closed. “Yeah?”
“How ’bout you and me going out in the Gulf, catching us some fish? Let’s say, Saturday?”
I knew he didn’t like me. And while I wasn’t sure that he had a clue about what I was up to, I knew he was much too interested. This invitation was certainly not for nothing. Well, now, I was interested in finding out just what it was he was so interested in.
“Okay” I answered shortly.
He chuckled. “Don’t get too excited and wet yourself, honey.” Then he quickly switched tones. “I’m looking forward to the pleasure of your company, Ma’am,” he said with an exaggerated politeness as he stood up.
The back door opened again. This time it was Walter. He told Josh to hurry. Josh did, waving goodbye to me cheerfully. Walter shut the door without saying anything to me.
Sometimes, now and then, I get it. I understand why some people want to live here. Sitting with my legs in the warm water, the sun on my face, the smell of Momma’s flowers, and the singing of the birds, I thought I might not want to leave.
In just a split-second I came to my senses. How does anyone write, take photographs or even think in the midst of all this? Maybe it’s just that I’m a masochist. Maybe I like to torture myself with the city’s gray and grime and filth. I don’t know. But I’d be somebody else if I had stayed here, I’m sure of that.
I jumped up and went inside the cool, dark house. Momma was in the kitchen.
“Sorry I flew off the handle about the Tashimee Fiesta.”
She looked at me suspiciously. Then she asked if I wanted some coffee. She poured us both a cup, and we sat down at the kitchen table. I felt that I’d spent more time at her kitchen table in the last few days than I had spent at my own in the last year.
“Momma,” I started. “What about the black people in town?”
She looked puzzled. “What about them?”
“Well, where are they? I don’t see them anywhere.”
“Where are they,” she repeated to herself. “Well, around. There weren’t many here to start with. This part of the state wasn’t big slave-holding country, not like where I grew up. There are black communities in the cities, of course, but I guess there isn’t much to cause a black person to move here.
“I’ll tell you what, though. That black girl who was in your class—Terri, her last name is Hawkins, now—she’s a teller at the bank. I make it a point to get in her line, no matter what folks have to say about it.”
She said the last bit with such pride in her voice. I had trouble not laughing at what my mother thought was a daring stand for civil rights. She was trying to be honest with me, and that felt good, and I didn’t want to ruin it.
We were quiet for awhile. I was noticing how tired she looked, when she started talking again. “Laurie, I don’t know what it is. I try. I believe you’re trying. Why doesn’t it work?” She sounded tired, too. Defeated. I didn’t like to see Momma, who had always given extra meaning to the word “perky,” like that. But I couldn’t think of anything to say. I just shook my head.
“You’re my only daughter. My baby girl. I’m surrounded by these men who don’t really care about me. Your father, your brothers, their friends.”
I couldn’t bear it. I interrupted her. “Don’t say that, Momma. It isn’t true. Everybody loves you. Everybody.”
“They love my hot meals. They love the way I do their laundry. I buy every piece of your daddy’s clothing. He hasn’t bought himself so much as a pair of shoelaces since the day we got married.
“Any of them can walk through my kitchen door anytime, and there’s something good for them to eat there. How much time do you think your brothers and their friends would spend around here, if it weren’t for that? And that’s about all your daddy and I have in common. That we sit across from one another at the table.
“When you were born, that was the happiest day of my life. Finally, I had a baby girl. I wouldn’t spend the rest of my life alone in the kitchen.
“I’d raise you up, and you’d be right there beside me. We’d go to the beauty parlor and shopping together. Even after you grew up and got married, we’d be in the kitchen together for Sunday dinners and the holidays. We’d cook beforehand, and, afterwards, we’d be there alone together, doing the dishes. We’d talk, share things that we couldn’t tell anyone else. And you’d have children, and they’d be all over the house. I could spoil them. Don’t you see?”
I nodded, clutching my coffee cup so hard my fingers hurt. She didn’t seem to expect me to say anything.
After a moment, she continued talking in that far-away voice. “My happiest memories are from when my Momma came to visit me when I was first married. Most of the time, I was lonely. You don’t know. I was all by myself all day in the house with the babies. Momma would help with the ironing, and she’d watch the babies so I could run out and get my hair done.” She was staring into space as she spoke.
“She’d make the biscuits for breakfast, while I fried the bacon and eggs. Then, when your daddy had gone to work, she’d pour us both a cup of coffee and sit down.
“I never knew her to waste time, other than that. But we’d sit there, fifteen minutes, maybe half an hour. Drinking coffee, watching the birds at the feeder. And she never said it, but I knew she was proud of me.
“She had high standards, you know. For housekeeping, for child raising. And she was proud of the way I was doing.”
Momma quit staring and took a sip of her coffee. “Good Lord, how I miss her. It’s been fifteen years, and I still miss her everyday.”
She looked at me. “I always thought it would be like that between you and me, Baby.”
We sat there for a while in silence. Then I said, “You want another cup of coffee, Momma?” and before she could say or do anything, I went in the kitchen and got the coffee pot. I poured us both some, and then took the pot back in the kitchen. Then I sat back down, and pointed out to her that the cardinal was at the feeder nearest to the window.
I called Sammy’s mother, Mrs. Williams, at her house in Alabama. She was polite, sweet, sounded a lot like Sammy. She said Sammy had called and told her to expect to hear from me. I asked if I could come talk to her in person. She hesitated, and then graciously made it sound as if the invitation was her own idea. I said I’d be there the next night.
I went looking for Momma and found her folding clothes. Mine were mixed in with hers and Daddy’s. I never asked her to do my laundry when I was there. She always just got it and did it, and I had never thought much about it.
“Momma,” I said, “now, please, don’t get your feelings hurt.”
“Why are you saying that?” she asked.
“Because I don’t want you to get your feelings hurt. I told you I have some work to do while I’m here. Well, I’ve got to go on a visit up north of here for a day or two. I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”
“Your daddy will miss you,” she said.
I restrained myself from snickering, or saying something like “Fat chance.”
“I’m going to rent a car,” I said.
She got that hurt look on her face. “I can’t believe that you think no more of us than to think we’d let you make a trip like that in some rented car. Take mine, it’s got a car phone. Your daddy won’t want you on the highway alone without a phone.”
“All right, Momma,” I said. She looked surprised. I knew that after a victory like this, she would figure she ought to try for more. She’d take this to mean I was ready to listen to reason about becoming a police chief ’s wife.
I decided I had to get out of the house quick, before she started after me. I put on my bathing suit, pulled a pair of jeans over, grabbed a towel, and told Momma I was going to the beach.
“Wait a minute,” she called after me. “This trip you’re going to take doesn’t mean you’ll miss the Tashimee pageant, or the parade, does it?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I called back over my shoulder on the way out the door.
I was driving through town when I passed the bank where Momma and Daddy had done business ever since I could remember. I turned around at the next intersection and went back.
When I walked in, I saw Terri right away. The last time I’d seen her, at our high school graduation, she’d been thin and rangy with a huge afro. Now she was magnificently rounded and her hair was a gorgeous, waist-length mass of braids. She was wearing a drop-dead royal blue dress with huge gold buttons that matched her earrings.
I stood in her line and when I got to the front I said, “Terri, do you remember me?”
She smiled sweetly. “Of course I do, Laurie Marie Coldwater. Your mother and I talk about you every time she’s in here. But I wouldn’t have forgotten you, anyway. How can I help you?”
“I’d like to talk with you,” I said. “Can I take you to lunch?”
She looked up at the clock on the wall. “Sure. I get my break in twenty minutes. How about the coffee shop across the street?”
While I was killing time, waiting for Terri, I went into the drugstore down the street. The owner’s wife was still at the cash register, and she was still a huge, talkative woman, but her hair was now completely white. I took a bottle of sunblock to the counter.
She grinned in excitement and started in on “Why, my goodness gracious, if it isn’t...” I tuned it out until she got to the part where she started asking me the questions and I had to reply. You know, “How long are you down for?” and “How do you stand it up there in that big city?”
I replied, “A few more days,” and “Oh, I like it fine.”
“You know,” she said, “I used to feel so sorry for you, poor little thing way up there in that nasty city, but you know, things aren’t like they used to be around here anymore, either.”
“No?” I said, politely.
“Absolutely not. Why my Greta, she’s taught at the elementary school for years and years, you know. And the things she tells me about those Yankee children, you wouldn’t believe. They don’t know enough to say “Yes, Ma’am” and “No, Ma’am” when they answer a question. And some of those little...” She dropped her voice, “Jew children,” and then she raised it again. “You wouldn’t believe how arrogant they are. You just wouldn’t believe it.” With that she handed me the white paper bag with the receipt stapled to the front.
“Sometimes I don’t know what to believe,” I said. “I never would have believed that there was anti-Semitism in this town.”
“Why, honey, what are you saying? I don’t have anything against the Jews, it’s just the ones that don’t teach their children how to behave. You’re calling me names. Your momma and daddy are going to be real disappointed to hear about this.” She was agitated, pulling at the glasses that hung from a chain between her gigantic breasts.
“I’m thirty-five years old,” I answered wearily. “You can’t keep threatening a woman my age with her parents’ disapproval.” I walked out with my head held high. As I stepped out on the pavement, I thought about Sammy’s sweet voice asking, “Did you tell your Momma about me?”
Terri settled in across from me gracefully, handling her pocketbook with an elegance I don’t ever hope to match. That’s why I always carry a backpack—a real backpack, worn around the edges, not a dinky little designer one. It may not be graceful, but there’s something solid about the way it bangs against my back when I throw it over one shoulder. It lets me know that that’s the sort of girl I am, not the sort who can tuck her tiny gold-colored purse on her lap like Terri did. Me, I’d spill food on it, or forget it, get carried away laughing and it would fall on the floor.
Terri was friendly and talkative, just like we were two old friends. We talked about our school days and her work at the bank. When I asked her what had happened to the black kids from our school, she laughed as if I had said something funny. “All twelve of us? Am I our keeper?”
I blushed, and felt silly. I was the big city girl, and yet I had the distinct feeling she knew a thing or two I didn’t.
“Well, let’s see. Just like you white folk—” and here she laughed again “—we went all sorts of ways.” She was able to eat and talk and smile at the same time, and to look classy doing it. I was impressed. “You want me to say that some of
us
,” and I was definitely the butt of her humor, “moved to the city and became drug dealers and pimps?”
“Of course not,” I gasped.
“Too bad,” she answered, “because that’s what my brother did.”
She laughed, but there was something kind in it, and I began to realize that she wasn’t laughing at me, but genuinely found the ironies humorous. She was also compassionate enough to go on talking when it was clear that I was frantically searching for the proper reply.
She did give me the run-down on what had happened to the black kids who went to high school with us, as varied in direction as the rest of my classmates. David, the center on the basketball team, had moved to Washington D.C. and was an accountant. Sheryl was a real estate agent. Which reminded me of some more questions I had to ask, even though I risked looking like a fool once again.
“Where did your family live when you were in school?” I asked.
“Take a guess,” she answered, and again, she chuckled as if this were really funny.
“Okay, where do you live now?”
“Not on Piney Woods Road, that’s for sure. I’ve got a condo by the beach, over near Miller’s Inlet.”
“Do you mind me asking you these questions?”
“Good heavens, no. You want to find out how the rest of us live, I’m happy to oblige.”
She told me, too. She said that during high school her parents had lived out on Piney Woods because her mother was a nurse in a hospital up north a bit, while her father taught school in Tampa. Port Mullet was about midway between, but no houses in Port Mullet seemed to be available at the time when her folks were looking. Again Terri laughed. Her expression changed, though, when she told me how much she had hated living on Piney Woods. Her parents had a nice house in Port Mullet, now, and Terri had no trouble buying her condo.
“So, you’re saying there’s not a race problem around here nowadays?”
“Well, no, I can’t say that. Haven’t you heard the Klan even adopted a highway around here? There are folks filled with hate everywhere. But God’s love is winning them over, bit by bit. That’s what I believe. I tell you, hate ends you up like my brother, or like Willy, remember Willy? One good-looking boy, he was. Mmm- mm. Well, he’s a member of this group and they all believe that blacks and whites got to be totally separate, because any time they get together, the blacks will get the short end of the stick. Me, I just do what my mother and father always told me. I just love everybody, and keep faith in my soul that love will win out. I got a good job, and good friends, and a good apartment, and I love everybody. That’s the ticket.”
I asked her if she’d heard of Elijah Wilson, and she said no, that didn’t ring a bell. I was feeling that she thought I was sort of backward, not knowing any more than I did about the black community in my own hometown. I wanted her to know that I wasn’t like that, that in the city, my friends came in all colors. So I told her about Sammy.