Catfish Alley (9 page)

"You wanted to hear what happened to Zero,
remember?" Adelle says.

These women are maddening! They leave stories
unfinished. They make me wait until the next visit, as if I have endless time
for this. Who would have thought I could ever get so roped into the stories of
old black women?

We settle into chairs in the sunny parlor.

"Do you remember how I told you that Zero got a
nickel for his birthday?" Grace asks.

"Yes, ma'am, I remember. And he was going to start
a savings account at the Penny Savings Bank." I wonder if that bank is
still around. That might be a good place to put on the tour.

"That's right. Well, he was on his way to the bank
that day, with that shiny new nickel in his pocket, when he was stopped by two
white boys. We found out later it was Ray Tanner and one of his buddies."

"Tanner? The same Tanners that run the lumberyard?"

"Yes, Ray Tanner was Delbert Tanner's daddy."

"And he beat up your brother? Why?"

Grace shakes her head and sighs. "Zero was
admiring that shiny new nickel and not paying attention to where he was going.
He looked up and those two white boys were standing in front of him blocking
his way. Later that day, when he was able to talk, he told me that Ray Tanner
said, 'What you doing, nigger? Where'd you get that money?' Zero said he was a
little scared, but he thought they would just go on about their business. He
also told me later that he probably could have made it easier on himself if he
had just given them the money without a fight."

"Given them the money?" I'm appalled.

"They said to him, 'Don't no nigger need money.
You probably stole it, anyhow. You give that money back so's we can find who it
belongs to.' "

"That's horrible! You mean they beat him up and
they took his money? All for a nickel?"

"Well, I reckon mostly they beat him up because
..." Grace pauses and smiles. "He told them that he was saving to be
a doctor and to get out of town so he wouldn't have
to
deal with ... excuse my language ... redneck assholes like them."

Grace and Adelle both laugh. The pride they share for
Zero Clark is obvious.

Grace continues. "My brother never was very good
at keeping his mouth shut or his head down."

"Did someone do something? Did you go to the
police?" I ask. They only laugh harder. "Why is that funny?"

Adelle replies first. "Mrs. Reeves, you'll have to
forgive two old women. Sometimes you learn to laugh or you'll be crying all the
time. There was no point in calling the sheriff. This was a white boy that beat
up a black boy. They wouldn't have done anything. Zero didn't want to call
attention to himself. My papa tried to get him to at least tell the sheriff,
but Zero said he just wanted to forget it."

"My brother never even told our mama what
happened," Grace adds. "He told her that he got into a fight with
some boys at school and lost the nickel from his pocket. Oh, Lord, she was
angry. She didn't whip him because he was already so beaten up. But she did
make him do extra chores for a month. And she didn't let either one of us go to
school for a week."

"So she never knew that Zero was in
nocent?"
I ask.

"No. I believe Grandma knew, though. She always
knew those kinds of things without us telling her. She had a way about her.
Don't you know she had Zero load her into the wagon and she went to town with
him herself? Told Mama she had business to attend to. She and Zero went to the
Penny Savings Bank and opened that savings account after all. It was a proud
day for my grandma and for Zero."

I sit in silence with the two old women. They are
remembering Zero. I'm turning it all over in my mind. Del Tanner must have come
by his mean-spiritedness honestly. His daddy sounds every bit as prejudiced, if
not more. How could he take a nickel, just one small nickel, from a boy who had
so little? All of it is about what black people deserved and didn't deserve.
I'm not sure I can hear many more of these stories. Milly's right. They are so
depressing.

Roxanne

As I set out to pick up
Grace this morning it's raining — pouring rain, actually. I pull on my raincoat
and make sure to grab a couple of umbrellas. Of course, she hasn't told me
where we're going today, so I'm trying to be prepared for anything. I called
her earlier to see if she wanted to cancel and wait until next week. I can't
believe I was actually a little disappointed thinking we might not have our
Tuesday morning together.

"Cancel?" she
said. "Why would we want to do that? I'm not sweet enough to melt and a
little water never hurt anybody."

So, here I go, in a
steady downpour, dodging the deep holes in the gravel drive, squinting to see
through the fog that has settled in over everything.

When I arrive I rush
from the car to Grace's back porch door, hurrying to put
my
umbrella down before I get drenched trying to get in the door. Grace is waiting
for me, as usual, with hot coffee and delightful smells of something baking in
her kitchen. Today's treat is something Grace calls cathead biscuits.

"Why are they called cathead biscuits?" I
ask, trying to fluff some of the water out of my hair.

"I'm not sure. That's what my grandma called them.
I think it's because they are as big as a cat's head. Here's the butter, and
I've put out some of my muscadine jelly from last year. We had the best
muscadines I've seen in a long time."

"I wish I knew how to make jelly," I say as I
slather the biscuit with a generous helping. "It's such a pretty
color." I take a bite and the jelly tastes even better than it looks,
tangy and sweet all at once. "These are the best biscuits I've ever had."

Maybe even better than Mama's, I think. My mind wanders
to Ponchatoula strawberries ... Mama and an old black woman in the Stanleys'
gleaming kitchen, stirring up batches and batches of bright red jam. It was a
Saturday in May and I was thirteen years old, doing everything I could to steer
clear of the sweltering hot kitchen. Mama and her friend, Miss Ethel, were
telling
stories
about their husbands while they worked. The kitchen was filled with the sound
of their laughter and the overpoweringly sweet scent of strawberries. I
volunteered to come with Mama that day, but I had no interest in jam-making,
like Mama thought.

Mrs.
Stanley was hosting a bridal shower for the granddaughter of one of her friends
and I was dying to see what a rich girl's bridal shower was like. Although Mama
and Miss Ethel were complaining about Mrs. Stanley deciding to have a party on
jam-making day, I was thrilled. Mainly because I got to help set up the trays
of finger foods that would be spread across the dining room sideboard. Each
time I carried in a tray, I peeked into the parlor and listened to the polite
"oohs" and "aahs" coming from the room full of women. I was
so impressed with how sophisticated it all was and I couldn't help but notice
the difference between my own mother's raucous laughter and storytelling and
the sedate interaction of the ladies during the bridal shower. I was especially
fascinated with the bride and her friends. They whispered and giggled over each
new crystal goblet or serving piece. I managed to avoid learning anything about
jam-making that day. And here I am now,
regretting that, too.

"You all right?" Grace asks.

"Oh, yes, I'm fine," I say, almost wishing I
could tell her about Mama and Ponchatoula strawberries.

"I tell you what." She refills her coffee cup
and pulls a chair up to the kitchen table. "After we get done with all of
this running around Clarksville, digging up bones, you and I will have a
lesson. I'll teach you how to make jelly and cathead biscuits. I may even share
my recipes with you."

"I would like that." I'm surprised by this
realization. "So, where are we going today?"

Grace stirs sugar into her coffee and gazes out the
wide window of the kitchen eating area at the rain. "We are going to a
very special place today. The Queen City Hotel."

"Where is that?" I have been in Clarksville
for more than two decades and it still amazes me, the places I've never heard
of. But then, why would I? I don't talk to black people except to give them
instructions on the services I need. Ola Mae has been working for me about
fifteen years now, and I really don't know anything about her or her family.
Today, for some reason, that strikes me as sad. What kinds of stories could Ola
Mae tell?

"The Queen City Hotel building is on the
corner of Fifteenth
Street and Seventh Avenue," Grace says. "Robert Webster built it in
1909, four years before I was born. Robert belonged to the Webster family.
After the Civil War, he got himself a job working at the white hotel as a
waiter. He scrimped and saved for thirty years to build that place."

"What
do you mean when you say he 'belonged' to the Webster family?" I ask,
deciding to take one more biscuit. I'll have to get on the treadmill again this
afternoon.

"He
was a slave. Born into slavery and freed by the Webster family after the War.
He was thirteen years old when the War ended. That's when he went to work for
the Gilmores, the white folks who owned the hotel downtown for white people. He
saw what it was like for coloreds to never have a place to stay. They couldn't stay
at the white hotel, you know."

"Yes,
of course." I guess that just fell out of my mouth, because I can tell
right away it was the wrong thing to say.

Grace
looks at me with raised eyebrows, as if she's thinking I agree with
segregation. She continues, shaking her head. "White folks did not want to
mix with colored people anywhere. Not the hotels, not the restaurants, not the
stores. If colored people hadn't built these places I'm showing you, they might
as well have stayed in the field and picked cotton the rest of their
lives."

Once
again, I am at a loss for words. Suddenly, I feel guilty for being white. And
what am I supposed to do with that feeling? The War is over and the blacks got
their rights, so why do we have to dwell on the past? Of course I know about
slavery and segregation. I just choose not to dwell on them. I prefer to
appreciate the beautiful aspects of the Old South, like the gracious lifestyle,
the lovely columned homes, the wide-skirted dresses with corsets and
crinolines, rococo furniture. Capturing and restoring the beauty of the
Southern plantation lifestyle is my specialty. And I've worked damn hard to get
where I am. People flock from all over the country to see that lifestyle
recreated once a year at the annual Clarksville Pilgrimage Tour of Homes.

This
African-American project is tainting all of that for me and I resent it. Why
did I ever let Louisa Humboldt convince me to do this? I don't need the
Riverview restoration job that badly. How will I ever reconcile the two tours?
People leave the Pilgrimage Tour laughing and smiling and talking in bad
Southern accents. How will people leave this tour? Depressed and feeling
guilty, probably. Maybe this whole tour should have been left to black people
to figure out.

I
can feel Grace watching me with those calm dark eyes of hers, as if she knows
what I'm thinking. Suddenly, I don't have much of an appetite and I put down my
biscuit. Better to press on, get busy. That always works.

"Shall
we get going? I can't eat another bite." I rise and clear the dishes.
"How about if I wash these up real quick before we go?"

Grace
doesn't stop me. She just smiles and pats my shoulder. "Thank you,"
she says. "I'll go powder my nose and get my purse." She takes a
step, then stops. "Oh, and we'll pick up Adelle on the way. Then after we
see the Queen City, we'll go over and see Mattie Webster."

Before
I have a chance to ask who Mattie Webster is, Grace walks slowly out of the
kitchen and leaves me there with the dishes and my thoughts.

On
the drive to the Queen City Hotel I'm lost in the rhythmic drumming of the rain
on the roof of the car and the voices of Grace and Adelle trading stories about
their brothers, Zero Clark and Junior Jackson, in the spring of 1924.

"Yes,
both of those boys turned thirteen that year and they were both itching to get
out of Clarksville as soon as they could," says Grace.

"And
you had gotten all moony-eyed over Junior already," teases Adelle.

I
glance over at Grace, who's nodding her head. She sighs.

"It's
true. I had the biggest crush on Junior that an eleven-year-old girl could
have. Adelle, do you remember that day Mama let me go to town to pick up
something for her at Green's store? I think it must have been sugar. I reckon
she needed it right then, because Zero was working for Green and he could have
just brought it home. But she sent me."