Raney (4 page)

IV

Aunt Flossie called last Wednesday
—
said to come by and pick up some fresh peanut butter cookies. She lives in a little four-room house between Listre and Bethel
—
and cooks apple pies for Penny's Grill on the side. Her kitchen
is always smelling
like cinnamon and sugar-cooked apples. Charles can't get over how good her apple pies are. He asked her for the recipe and he don't even cook.

"I'm cooking an extra apple pie," she says. "I'll be done in a few minutes and you can have a hot piece with some ice cream." Aunt Flossie has a way about her that makes me feel free to talk. She seems like she's used to talking, even though she lives by herself. When something hard to talk about comes up, there's a little sparkle in her eyes
—
and she loves to tell stories almost as much as Uncle Nate. I went right over there.

"You know," she said, "
when
Frank and me got married it was like starting to school
—
the things I had to learn. I guess I'd never had an argument with a soul in the world
—
except a few squabbles with Mama." She was making up cookie dough. (Now, how could she tell that Charles and
me
had had a argument?) "I don't know about Frank," she said, "but I don't guess he'd ever argued with a woman, certainly not his mama. We had to
learn
to argue. I'd get so mad at him. We'd stay mad for days, not speaking. I finally figured out that that kind of business scared me. Scared me bad. And that's why I was so mad. Like with old man Wiley's bull, Red
—
us being scared and mad getting run together at the same time."

"Old man Wiley's bull?"

"I shot old man Wiley's bull one time. Named Red. I couldn't have been over twelve. He was always getting loose and chasing us up a tree. Mama told Mr. Wiley to keep his bull locked up, else she'd shoot him. Course I heard all this talk
—
so one day all of us were down in the woods when Red got out and started pawing dirt, throwing his head around, and snorting, and I ran to the house and snuck the shotgun out the back door. Everybody was up a tree when I got back. I
s
hot him. He turned and run and I shot him again. We hated that bull. And the reason we hated him was we were so scared of him. Why, the bull won't
doing
nothing unnatural. And the whole point is
,
we were mad
because
we were scared and I never figured
that
out until me and Frank figured out about our arguments."

"Whose bull was it?"

"It was old man Wiley's bull. One day I told Frank that our arguments scared me and
—
"

"What happened to the bull?"

"Oh, he won't hurt
none
. The gun had birdshot. Ah, the pies are ready."

There's no apple pie in the world better than Aunt Flossie's, especially with cold vanilla ice cream melting down over it.

Uncle Frank died when I was about seven. He was a car salesman. I don't remember much about him. But I've seen lots of pictures of him and Aunt Flossie, Mama and Daddy, and Aunt Naomi and Uncle Forrest, who died sometime before I was six. They all went to the beach, the fair, and the mountains together and took bunches of pictures.

"How old was I when Uncle Forrest died?"

"Four. Three or four, I guess. Frank used to call him 'Woody.' What a card he was. Always kidding. People always liked that about him though. I never saw him embarrassed but once. Did I ever tell you about the time we all went to the beach before him and Naomi were married?"

"I don't think so."

"Well,
me
and Doris were swimming in the ocean when here comes Naomi and Forrest from the bath house. They don't get no farther than about a foot deep
—
where the waves are breaking for the third or fourth time
—
and Naomi is holding onto Forrest's hand and jumping every little wave and screaming like nobody's business when Doris
—
who's standing behind me
—
says, 'Lord have mercy.' I look and there's Naomi just jumping up and down over those little waves, laughing, and one of her breasts
—
just as white as flour
—
was out of her bathing suit and Forrest
—
they weren't married yet
—
was looking off down the beach, like he hadn't noticed. Doris says, 'Lord have mercy, Flossie, one of Naomi's dinners has fell out.' Well, I thought I would die. I started walking toward them, motioning to Naomi, and she just kept jumping up and down. Forrest was pretending he hadn't noticed
—
looking off down the beach. Naomi saw and turned away from Forrest and bent over double and got everything tucked back in. Forrest was standing there embarrassed to death and I said, 'Tell us a joke, Woody.' But the funniest thing was your mama saying, 'One of Naomi's dinners has
fell
out.'"

A pan of cookies was done
—
and Aunt Flossie wrapped me up a bunch in wax paper and put them in a cookie can.

"Anyway, honey, try not to worry too much about the rough spots."

"What rough spots?"

"With Charles
—
if and when."

"Oh, there ain't
no
rough spots." I couldn't get into all that about Charles. Even with Aunt Flossie. If it got worse: maybe.

"I mean any you might have."

"Oh. Well, Charles is just as sweet as he can be.
We been
working up some new music. We learned three new Carter family tunes last week. I'll let you know if there get to be any rough spots."

"You
be
sure to do that," says Aunt Flossie. "It never hurts to have somebody to listen."

A week or two ago, Charles said he wished he had
a
Aunt Flossie in his family. His aunts are all out
West
, or in Connecticut.

V

Aunt Naomi called me this past Wednesday was a week ago and upset me terrible. She called to find out all about our upcoming trip to the beach: when, exactly, we were coming back, what food she needed to take, and so forth. She also said Mama was upset about the argument with Charles
—
they had talked about it on the phone
—
but that Mama wouldn't say nothing to me about it for the world. She said Mama felt betrayed and couldn't understand why it all had to happen to her.

Well, it just made me sick. I don't know why Charles had to react so. Mama would never hurt anything in the world, and Charles knows it.

Now Aunt Naomi, as well as Mama, has got something against Charles. The problem is that nobody has seen the good side of anybody else
—
in the whole family, since the wedding
—
except, I guess Daddy has pretty much seen the good side of Charles, and has took to Charles better than anybody else. Except me, of course
—
and maybe Aunt Flossie.

So anyway, when we drove to the beach last Sunday (we left right after Sunday
School
), Charles insisted on sitting up front with Daddy, so they could talk about surf fishing. They had these great long fishing rods, and some short ones, tied to the top of the car. I don't know why they don't just use the short ones, which are way less expensive, and fish off the pier like other people. They can get their line farther out in the ocean that way. Those big rods cost a fortune.

I wanted Charles to sit in the back with me and Aunt Naomi so they could get to know each other's good sides a little better, and so Mama and Daddy could sit up front where they could argue by themselves. But oh no. Charles gets up front before anybody else has a chance.
Me
, Mama, and Aunt Naomi sat in the back. Uncle Nate, Aunt Flossie, Mary Faye, and Norris followed us in Aunt Flossie's Oldsmobile.

The funny thing is this: Charles has not gone anywhere with Daddy driving
—
and Daddy don't always chew tobacco when he drives but last Sunday he did; and what he does when he chews tobacco and drives is use a drink bottle, usually a short Coke-a-cola bottle, for a spitoon. When I saw Daddy bringing a Coke bottle to the car I figured it served Charles right for not wanting to ride in the back with Aunt Naomi.

See, Charles has
a repulsion
about anything gooey and slimey. He won't eat boiled okra and he thinks somebody spitting is just awful, whereas I don't see
nothing
wrong with it as long as it's not on somebody.

Sometimes if Daddy takes a chew while he's driving, and a Coke bottle's not around, he'll open the car door at a stop sign and spit on the road
—
which might have been better for Charles on this trip
—
but when he does that, the tobacco spatters up, and the car door gets to looking like a speckled dog until Mama goes out and cleans it off with Ajax.

So Sunday, as soon as Daddy gets settled behind the steering wheel, he cuts off this big hunk of Brown Williamson. I buy him four plugs every Christmas and I buy Mama a bottle of Jergen's lotion. Of course that's not all I buy. Last Christmas I bought Daddy a pair of ceramic bird dogs and I bought Mama
a
off-white shawl which she took back. She takes back most things she buys or you give her. She's always hard to buy for. She'll
tell
you she's hard to buy for. One Christmas, Ferbie Layton told Aunt Flossie that Mama was pretty and Aunt Flossie told me and Aunt Naomi that she was passing along the compliment to Mama as a Christmas present because for sure Mama couldn't return that. If she does keep something you give her, she'll alter it. One Christmas I gave her a free-hanging plaid blouse which she said she believed she'd take up even though we all told her it was the right length. So she finally said she wouldn't take it up. Aunt Flossie said she bet she would. (I think she did, but we never knew for sure.)

We hadn't got as far as Paulsen's Gulf when Daddy pulls his Coke bottle up from between his legs and spits in a long string of brown juice. He breaks the spit off by flicking the mouth of the Coke bottle against his bottom lip. Comes clear every time.

Charles squirmed. I wanted to say Charles if you weren't watching out for yourself so much, you wouldn't have to be up there; you could be back here in the back seat getting to know Aunt Naomi a little better, and Mama could be up front with Daddy so they wouldn't have to argue back and forth across the seat.

Then Mama says what she always says at the Oak Hill intersection when we go to the beach: "Thurman, you're going to turn to the right here?"

"Yes I am, Doris."

"You're not going by the interstate?"

"Doris, I'll be glad to let you drive if you want to."

"I just asked, Thurman. Remember we clocked it."

"I remember we clocked it."

"Well, it was longer when we went this way."

"That was early of a Friday morning when the traffic was thick."

"Thurman, the point is you don't have all
them
little towns to drive through on the interstate."

"Doris, I'll be glad to let you drive if you want to."

"Well, I'm just thinking of how not to take so long to get there. I declare," says Mama to Aunt Naomi, "the 'blacks' stop in these little towns in the middle of the street and talk to whoever happens to be on the sidewalk and you can't blow your horn lest one's liable to come back for all you know and cut your throat." (Mama has started saying "blacks" when Charles is around. And I guess I have too.)

"I'll be glad to let you drive if you want to," Daddy says.

"Okay."

"What?"

"Okay, I'll drive," says Mama.

There was a long pause during which the car didn't slow down a bit.

"I'll drive," says Daddy.

"Well then," says Mama, "you shouldn't say you'll be glad for me to drive." There was this other long pause. "When you're not."

Daddy just looked at Charles, shifted his tobacco from one cheek to the other and says, "You got any connector sleeves in your tackle box? I'm out."

Charles said he had plenty.

For the past ten years, every time we go to the beach, we eat at Hardee's in Goldsboro. So when we got close, Daddy says, "Ya'll want to eat at Hardee's?"

"Any place is fine with me," says Mama.

And do you know what Charles has the gall to say? He says, "I'd rather eat at some place we can sit down to order, if it's all the same."

I could not believe my ears.

One reason Charles had to speak up is because he took a course at the college called Aggressiveness Training. It teaches you to say what you want to say when you want to say it. The thing is: Charles never needed any aggressiveness training. He's never had any problem being aggressive. But he thinks it's the modern way or something.

"I want to eat at Hardee's so I can get
a
apple turnover," I said.

Daddy said he didn't care, someplace to sit down and order would be fine with him, but Mama and Aunt Naomi sided with me.

You see, Charles tries out his aggressiveness training when in his heart he really
don't
care. He just wants to keep it in practice
—
keep it working, like when you break up a flower bed in winter just to keep it loose.

We ate at Hardee's.

After lunch,
me
and Charles traded car seats. His idea.

Now. You would think Charles could ride to the beach without disagreeing with Aunt Naomi right there in the back seat. But oh no. It was over a very simple matter.

Aunt Naomi goes to our church but she lives out in the country, close to Hillview Baptist
—
not a Free Will, and while we rode along she told all about them having to let their preacher go.

"After it all got out they didn't have
no
choice but to let him go," says Aunt Naomi. "They say it started out with him praying regular with this woman whose husband got killed in a car wreck. I didn't know her
—
or her husband. She hadn't been around long. I think they were praying every Wednesday night after prayer meeting. She up and moves to Charlotte and nobody thought anything about it until Tim Hodges, who's the treasurer, noticed these regular phone calls on the church phone bill. One was over thirty minutes. He told Lloyd Womble, the head deacon. I guess they kept
a
eye on things and one Friday after the preacher said he was going to see his brother in Franklin, they checked up on him. Called his brother. His brother hadn't seen him and won't
expecting
him. Well.

"Saturday, when the preacher got back, Tim and Lloyd paid him a visit. Asked him where he'd been and he said to see his brother. And of course they had him. Just plain had him."

"They certainly are a trusting bunch," says Charles.

"Well, yes," says Aunt Naomi, "they trust in the Lord, of course." She was looking straight at the back of Charles's head. "Now the funny part was that Emily, the preacher's wife, didn't get mad at the preacher
—
that I know of. She got mad at Tim and Lloyd because they wouldn't believe it when the preacher said he was sorry. She said
she
believed he was sorry. But what else would the man say
—
caught red-handed. Tim and Lloyd felt obliged to bring it before the church and the church voted him out. He had to move."

After a minute, Charles says, "It's possible that Jesus would have forgiven him. After all, he forgave a prostitute."

That took the cake. I've been going to church since I was born and I don't remember anything about Jesus forgiving a prostitute.

Besides that, a prostitute is not married like the preacher was.

Aunt Naomi just looked out the window, then hunted through her pocketbook for some chewing gum and said, "Well, I don't know about that."

We stay at Mr. Albert Douglas's cabin at the beach every summer. He rents it to us at half price and it's only two blocks from the ocean. We found the key on the nail in the stumpy tree, beside the back door and let ourselves in. Everything had been left in order. We opened all the windows to get rid of the closed-in smell. There was a nice breeze.

Uncle Nate took Norris and Mary Faye for a quick look at the ocean while the rest of us unpacked. I insisted me and Charles get the couch
to
sleep on since we'd probably be staying up later than anybody else.

We had barely got settled when Uncle Nate's asthma started acting up. It usually does at the beach. He sat down on the couch and said he'd sit there for a spell. He was breathing fast, pulling back with his shoulders on each breath, and giving a little wheezy cough every minute or so. His hair was slicked straight back with Vitalis and he was wearing a starched white shirt as usual.

Norris and Mary Faye came in begging Charles and me to take them to the boardwalk. I kind of wanted to go to the boardwalk myself. I like the hubbub. So Charles and
me
took them. We all got
a
ice cream cone as soon as we got there, but before Norris took the first bite, his scoop fell out. Vanilla
—
he won't eat nothing but vanilla. He started to pick it up.

"Stupid," said Mary Faye.

"Norris," I said, "ask the lady for another scoop. Don't pick that up off the boardwalk." He already had most of it up. He let it drop back. The lady saw what happened and had him another scoop ready when he reached up his cone. I got some napkins and wiped off his hand.

We walked along the boardwalk. I looked back to check on Norris. He was walking along, looking back over his shoulder at this little boy with a stuffed giraffe. His ice cream cone was tilting more and more.

"Norris, don't drop your
—
"

That scoop fell between the planks and left just the slightest bit up top. Norris squatted down and looked.

The lady made us pay this time. I guess she was worried about going out of business.

Charles bought me a necklace from one of those little jewelry stands. I told him it was too expensive but he bought it anyway and had "Love, Tiger" wrote on it. He does little things like that, that a lot of men never think about. I tried to get him to ring the bell with the sledge hammer, but he wouldn't. Norris wanted to but I wouldn't let him. He would have been disappointed. I did let him and Mary Faye ride the bumper cars three times. They got the bottoms of their feet so black Aunt Naomi made them wash them off with soap at the outside shower before she'd let them come in the cottage.

We had pimento cheese and monkey meat
—
that's luncheon meat
—
sandwiches and potato chips for supper. Then after supper while Daddy was unfolding the card table for Rook, Aunt Naomi wanted to know how thick the niggers had been down at the boardwalk.

"Not very," I said. "They hang out mostly over at Wright's beach." That's the nigger beach. "I don't think I saw over one or two."