Gone Crazy in Alabama (13 page)

Maybe spite was catching. Uncle Darnell had left for school and returned without the milk he had promised. Furthermore, regardless of what Ma Charles had said, JimmyTrotter came over the next morning with far less than the two quarts of milk that he normally brought.

“I don't know what I'm going to do about Sophie,” JimmyTrotter said, probably hoping Ma Charles would take pity. “I might have to take her to town for beef.”

I prayed Fern didn't catch on and that Vonetta wasn't mean enough to explain what JimmyTrotter said about taking Sophie to town.

“You tell your old great-granny: no milk, no eggs,” Ma Charles said. “An understanding is an understanding.”

“Auntie, I brought all that Sophie gave.”

“And it don't fill a bottle,” Ma Charles said.

“It's just enough for one bowl of cereal, and I called it,” Vonetta said.

“I refuse to take the insult,” Ma Charles said. “Take those three drops of milk on back to her.”

“I want it!” Vonetta wailed.

“You'll take nothing,” Ma Charles said.

JimmyTrotter said, “I don't know about Sophie. I expected at least another two months from her.”

“It's because they sold her boy calf to the butcher. For hamburgers,” Vonetta said to Fern. I could have smacked Vonetta. Smacked the smile off her face.

“Vonetta!”

“Stop treating her like a baby,” Vonetta snapped back. She had no idea of how close I came to popping her. “You love to baby your baby.” To Fern she said, “And you stop acting like a baby. Pa and Mrs. can't diaper you
and
the new baby.”

I reached out to snag Vonetta but she was quick and leaped away, laughing.

“Don't let me catch you,” I told her.

“Stop picking on Vonetta,” JimmyTrotter said.

Fern began to cry for Sophie's calf. I held out my arms and she stepped into them. I sniffed the top of her head, which was sweet from coconut oil and tangled from no combing. I rocked her as she cried.

Vonetta rolled her eyes and mouthed,
Baby
. Big Ma used to say there wasn't a human being as unfeeling and selfish as Cecile. I could say the same thing about Vonetta.

JimmyTrotter pleaded to let him have a few more eggs but Ma Charles sat up straight in the pine chair her father made, looking every bit as “onchee” as her sister. “She's doing this to pay me back because all my folks are living and all hers—but one—have gone to glory. I never heard of anything more spiteful.”

“Auntie,” JimmyTrotter said, “Miss Trotter wouldn't do anything to keep Sophie from milking. That's just—” He was too respectful to call an elder crazy but it was Alabama crazy. “She wouldn't do anything like that.”

“Heaven knows what she dropped in the grass. Plenty of weeds around to kill a cow or dry her up,” Ma Charles said. “Pure T spiteful.”

“Auntie, you know that's not true. We depend on Sophie and Butter too,” he said. “There's no cowbane for miles. I always check where they graze.”

Big Ma had heard all the spite and evil going on and emerged from her room. “Mama,” she scolded, “the Lord don't like meanness.” Then she said to JimmyTrotter, “Son, you take as many eggs as you need.”

Ma Charles shook the milk bottle. “That's two eggs and no more.”

“Delphine,” Big Ma said. “Go in the coop and get a dozen eggs.”

“A dozen?” Ma Charles said. “A dozen?”

For once, JimmyTrotter didn't want to be around for the fussing between his aunts. “I know where everything is.” He got up and was out the back door before it would start.

“Should be ashamed of yourself,” Big Ma scolded. “You're no better than these children.”

“It's you who should be ashamed,” Ma Charles said. “Setting the wrong example for your grands. Showing them they don't have to live up to their word. Being disrespectful to your own mother. Raising my pressure.”

“Let's help JimmyTrotter,” I told Fern, although he didn't need our help. I didn't much care what Vonetta did but she trailed behind us. JimmyTrotter had already taken what he needed and was crossing the field, heading into the pines.

He'd left enough eggs for us to gather and bring inside.

“I want my milk for my cornflakes. It's all that stupid cow's fault.” Vonetta pouted.

“Don't call her that,” Fern said. “She's not stupid. She's sad. She wants her baby cow and her baby cow is gone for good.”

“If you call dead gone,” Vonetta cackled in Miss Trotter's voice.

“Vonetta!”

She stood there with cow eyes.

I didn't have to beat Vonetta. I knew exactly how to get
her. I planted one hand on my hip and pointed with the other. “That's why you don't have
real
friends. Just sometime-y, fake friends who take your things. But you're too chickenhearted to stand up to your fake friends so you jump on your little sister every chance you get. And your sometime-y, fake friends must laugh at you behind your back and in front of your face because they know you're too chicken to do anything about it. Serves you right. You're selfish, a show-off, whiny—”

“And mean to your little sister!”

“That especially,” I said.

Vonetta seemed to bask in our insults, wearing each one proudly. “I don't care what you call me. I'm getting my milk.”

“Then get it,” I said.

“I can and I will. And it will be for me and my cornflakes.”

I turned to Fern. “Let's play Old Maid.”

“Let's.”

I pulled out the cards and Fern and I sat on the rug with our legs folded. Then I dealt cards to Fern and me, Fern and me, until we had our hands.

Vonetta turned on her heel.

That night, as the Apollo 11 spacecraft continued on its journey back to Earth, Uncle D came home from school and work at the mill. Vonetta didn't speak to him, but she watched him. Saw that he had nothing but his lunch pail,
coffee thermos, and college books. She grunted hard and angrily and marched into the room.

“No milk?” I asked.

He slapped his head. “I knew I forgot something. Look, I'll go—”

“You'll go lie down, son,” Big Ma said. “The world doesn't spin and stop on a bowl of cornflakes. And we'll be lucky the earth keeps spinning like it's supposed to—with men poking through space, hopping around on God's moon. Son, you been working and going to school. You go lie down.”

When we walked over to Miss Trotter's the next day, Miss Trotter was quick to shoo us away. “Get on back.” She muttered something about Ma Charles and said, “Don't you feel this cold in the air?”

I was sweating from tramping through fields and trees in the heat. The steamy, hot air.

Miss Trotter raised a finger to the air and nodded. “You don't feel this cold? Get back over the creek before you get caught in it.”

“Caught in what?” I asked.

“The storm,” JimmyTrotter said. He looked up.

“Dern astronauts, ripping through space, tearing holes here and everywhere.”

Then Vonetta said in Ma Charles's voice, her tambourine-shaking voice, “Cast not thy rod through the clouds,” and then added in Big Ma's voice, “A mercy, Lord.”

“Hear that?” Miss Trotter said. “Even that old sister of mine knows a storm's coming. Don't know why she let you out. Now get going.”

“Can I take the bike, cousin JT? You know I'll bring it back.”

JT?

And he let her rename him with a shrug and a nod.

“Sure, cuz.”

“Tell her,” I said. “Like you told me since the day Papa and I came over. Come on, tell her.”

“Tell her what?”

“‘Call me JimmyTrotter or don't call me.'”

JimmyTrotter smiled. “JT's all right between Vonetta and me.”

“See, meanie?” she said to me.

And she rode the bike while Fern and I skipped over the creek.

Maybe there was something to what Miss Trotter, Ma Charles, and Big Ma had to say about man sending things out of this earth poking holes in the sky, and having wrath hurled back down at him. When the astronauts broke through the atmosphere and splashed down in the Pacific, we were repaid with an electrical storm. Every outlet was unplugged from every socket and the house stayed dark, except for the lit candle in a few rooms, including ours.

Fern and I huddled together, and Vonetta, determined
to not huddle with us, stayed over in her own corner of the room.

I didn't care how mad Vonetta was. I started to miss her so I said, “Come over here with us.”

“Yeah, meanie. Come over.”

Vonetta didn't even bother to say no. She just wrapped herself in her blanket and turned her back to us.

“Be that way,” I said.

“Be,” Fern echoed.

We had electrical storms in Brooklyn but nothing to confirm God's anger. Blasts of white gold blazed through the dark, and we covered our ears to brace for the thunder. First the sound of the earth being cracked open like a walnut, followed by booms big enough to move the house.

Each time the lightning cracked and the thunder boomed, Fern and I hugged tighter. Surely, Vonetta would forget being angry and scoot our way so we could be scared together.

Black Pocahontas stayed wrapped in her blanket teepee pretending to be unafraid. I don't remember the thunder and lightning ending but through it all, we'd fallen asleep.

In the morning when I woke up, Vonetta was gone.

There was no Vonetta in the bathroom, only signs that she had just been there. Her face towel was damp and she'd left a fresh gob of toothpaste on the sink's porcelain. I stuck my head in every room in the house but there was no Vonetta. Boy, was she going to get it from me. I didn't care how angry she was with Fern and me. She knew better than to go marching over the creek walkway to be with her beloved Trotters.

But just to check that she was really gone, I ran out to the henhouse. No Vonetta. I looked up to the cradle of my pecan tree, expecting to see her grinning down to show me I wasn't the only one who could climb a tree, and then I was really angry at her. I felt myself breathing fast and
heavily. Wait until she comes walking into the house. I'd make her sorry she left without telling me. Boy, would she be sorry.

I had been shaking my fist, thinking of all kinds of punishments for Vonetta. Then I stopped. Something about the side of the henhouse caught my attention. I looked for the something without really knowing what I was looking for. Then it came to me: Last night, before we went inside from having been over the creek, Vonetta had leaned the bike against the henhouse. The bike was the missing thing. The bike was gone.

From there I saw fresh bicycle tracks baked into the dirt. I followed them, expecting they'd lead me to the pines toward the creek, but they stopped at the road. She hadn't gone toward Miss Trotter's home. She was headed in the opposite direction!

A queasiness came over me and I felt weak-kneed. As sure as anger rose up in me, a sick feeling took it sliding back down.
My sister. My sister. My sister is gone
.

“Vonetta! VON-ET-TAAA!”

Big Ma came outside through the back in her housedress and Mr. Lucas came out on his porch and leaned against the post.

“Delphine. What do you mean by this noise? Waking up the neighbors. Lord, here he comes.” Big Ma started to pat her scarf and wig in place and fluff her housedress.

Mr. Lucas was on his way over. His walk was more
urgent than Big Ma's. He must have heard my panic when Big Ma could hear only noise. I tried to tell Big Ma Vonetta was missing but she could only fuss about Mr. Lucas coming and I had to yell at her to make her hear me.

“Quiet! Quiet, Big Ma. Quiet! PLEASE.”

“Girl, who do you—”

“Vonetta's gone, Big Ma,” I said quickly. “Vonetta took the bike. She's gone.”

Big Ma shook her head to the contrary. “Gone, nothing! That child rode that bicycle across the creek to fool with her cousin and Miss Trotter.”

“That's what I thought. But look! See the tire tracks, Big Ma? They're going the other way. To town.”

Big Ma looked down at the dirt tracks. She saw where they were headed. I heard a small but deep moan seep from her. Big Ma stepped away from me and started turning in circles, wringing her hands. Mr. Lucas was there to catch her and make her stop turning in circles. But she pushed away from him and tried to gather herself. Even though she'd heard me and seen the tracks, she asked, “What do you mean, Delphine? What do you mean?”

“She's gone, Big Ma. She was mad all last night and took off this morning.” This was bad. Worse than the sick I felt coming on. So bad Big Ma didn't threaten to beat the daylights out of Vonetta when she got home.

“Why was she mad, Delphine? And where could she've gone?” Mr. Lucas asked. “A child either runs away from
something or runs off to where they want to be. Or to what they want to have.”

I didn't answer the first question. Only the second, although I knew the answers to both. “Milk,” I said. “She went to get milk.”

“All right, all right,” Mr. Lucas said calmly. “That's down the road, less than two miles from here. I'll jump in the truck—”

“Truck's gone,” I said. “Uncle Darnell went to work early.”

“Call over to Miss Trotter's,” Big Ma said, finding herself. “Miss Trotter's got that old car.”

“JimmyTrotter can't drive the station wagon,” I said. “The sheriff said he better not drive it without a license.”

“I don't care a fig about Davey Lee Charles,” Big Ma said. “I'm going to get my grandbaby.”

Mr. Lucas tried to calm Big Ma down but Big Ma couldn't be calmed. She spoke against the white man who was her cousin. And the law. And the Klan. Big Ma could not be calmed.

Mr. Lucas said, “You tell JimmyTrotter I said to drive the car over and I'll take it into town. Fastest way to get the car here. The sooner for the little one”—he meant Vonetta—“the better.”

While he comforted Big Ma, I turned to go inside the house. I might have even taken a step. But a hand grabbed my arm and I stopped where I stood.

Mr. Lucas didn't say a word. Both he and Big Ma were frozen, not speaking, but looking off and upward. Big Ma's hands covered her mouth. I turned to the direction that Big Ma and Mr. Lucas's eyes were fixed. Overhead but in the distance, toward town, where Vonetta must have ridden that bicycle, half of the sky was bright, and pushing against the bright was a darker blue.

Darker blue, then gray. Or was it smoke? It was growing like a smoke cloud from the sky to the ground. It seemed alive, angry and moving.

My pecan tree leaves flickered toward it, even though the dark thing was far away. But it grew dark. Darker. Then we heard the sound of gunshots. At least ten in the air.

“The warning.” Mr. Lucas's voice was even, the way cops talk to people standing on a ledge threatening to jump. “Go get your baby sister,” he said to me and eased the grip on my arm. “I'll get Ma.” He took Big Ma's hand from her mouth and said, “Ophelia, go down in the root cellar.”

“But—”

“We got”—he paused and looked at the dark—“less than ten minutes. Go. Now.”

Big Ma seemed dazed or hypnotized by the dark out there. She kept looking at it while she moved slowly down the root cellar. Then Mr. Lucas said, “Go, Ophelia. Now!”

I asked Mr. Lucas nothing. Just did what he said.
Picked up Fern, who was heavier than she looked, and started back toward the doors to the cellar. Mr. Lucas had Ma Charles wrapped in her blanket, half leading her, half carrying her. “No time. No time, Ma,” he said. “No time.”

We headed down the cellar. He turned to me and said, “Still have about six minutes. Maybe five. Let's grab all the hens we can. No time for the eggs.”

“Caleb,” Fern said.

I could feel the wind. The pecan tree leaves all swayed to one side. Caleb didn't have to be told where to go. As soon as I loosened him from his chain he trotted down the steps to the cellar. Mr. Lucas started grabbing hens and almost threw them down the cellar. I did the same, chasing, grabbing, and throwing them down. With clipped wings, they couldn't fly far but they could still fly a little. I didn't ask a thing. I just did what Mr. Lucas said. There was no time to think or ask. I didn't know what the dark was about, but it was growing darker and windier. I looked up at it. We were running from a dark monster. I could barely breathe with the wind whisking up and around my nose. The dark was far away but I could feel it pulling. The dirt on the ground kicked about, sweeping and stirring. And then Mr. Lucas grabbed my arm. Between us we had the last of the hens, and we went down into the cellar. He closed the metal door and took the iron bar and pushed it through the holes that linked one metal door to the other. It was pitch-black in the root cellar, and it smelled
of chickens, potatoes, turnips, onions, dirt, and breath. Big Ma no longer asked for a mercy. Instead she called on “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” over and over without stopping.

The chickens hopping everywhere in the dark were too much for Fern. “Get away, hens!” she cried out. “Get away!”

Caleb bayed and Ma Charles told him to hush but Caleb kept making his noise and the chickens squawked on and on.

“It could shift at the last second,” Mr. Lucas said.

“Maybe it shifted before . . . Vonetta . . .”

“We'll just hold on,” Mr. Lucas said, not letting me finish, and that was best. “We'll just hold on.”

I grabbed Fern, and Fern held on to me and Caleb.

Then everything shook. I kept my eyes closed but I could hear the noise of things flying, crashing, falling, knocking against other things. Glass breaking. Rain shooting. Horrible, horrible noises.

“Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!”

The storm door clanked fiercely like murderers were at the door, tugging and shaking to break in. Chickens squawked something terrible.

Through it all, Fern cried out for Vonetta. “Vonetta! Vonetta! Where's Vonetta?” I couldn't answer her. I could only cry. We were all in there crying. Big Ma, Ma Charles. Even Caleb.

Mr. Lucas spoke first. He put a name to the darkening,
the shaking in the air and in the ground and why everything around us was flying. Breaking. Slamming. Falling. “Tornado!” Mr. Lucas yelled. “Tornado's passing.”

I couldn't see what was outside but I felt it pounding on the root cellar door. I heard it tossing things about. And I knew. I knew my sister was out there. Out there pedaling on a bike. An old bicycle was all she had out there. My sister was out there.