Raney (5 page)

"I saw a whole car load," says Norris.

"They've got as much right as anyone else to walk on the boardwalk," says Charles. Charles has this thing about niggers. For some reason he don't understand how they are. Or at least how they are around Listre and Bethel. Maybe his Johnny friend is different. I can only speak for the ones around Listre and Bethel.

"Well, son," says Aunt Naomi, "I agree they got a right. The Constitution gives them a right. So that's settled. There's no question about that. No argument at all about that. The problem comes with where they want to spend their time. And so long as they've got
their
beach, like Raney says, then I don't understand to my life why they don't use it
—
why they have to use ours. In Russia they wouldn't have their own beach. But our constitution does provide that they can have their own beach. I agree. It's just that they need to stay in their own place at their own beach just like the white people stay at their own place at their own beach."

Nobody else said anything
—
Uncle Nate was asleep on the couch
—
but you could tell we all agreed except Charles. He walks through the screen door on outside.

"I don't understand where he gets some of his attitudes," says Aunt Naomi. "
What's trumps
?"

Monday morning, Mama and
me
cooked eggs, bacon, grits, and biscuits. After breakfast, Daddy, Uncle Nate, and Charles took Mary Faye and Norris fishing at the pier.
Me
, Mama, Aunt Naomi, and Aunt Flossie cleaned up the dishes, put on our bathing suits, got towels and suntan lotion, and walked to the beach. We were all planning to meet back at the cabin for lunch.

About the time we got settled on a nice even spot, along came this Marine with a woman who had a blue lightning bolt tattooed on the inside of her knee. They sat down on this white towel
—
too little for both of them
—
beside some college students. The waves were crashing, so I know they couldn't hear us talk.

"I declare I don't think I've ever seen a woman with a tattoo," says Mama.

"Where?" says Aunt Naomi.

"On the inside of her knee."

"No,
where?
Where is she?"

"Oh. Right over there."

"He looks like a soldier."

"He's a Marine from Camp Lejune," I said. "I can tell by the way his hair's cut."

"I don't see
no
tattoo on her," says Aunt Naomi.

"Wait a minute and you will," says Mama.

"There it is," says Aunt Flossie.

"Well, I'll be dog," says Aunt Naomi. "
Don't that
beat all? A blue lightning bolt. Do you reckon she drew that on there with a ball point pen?"

"Not unless she can draw mighty
good
," says Mama.

"Course a lightning bolt ain't all that hard to draw. I remember from school."

"Now can you imagine," says Aunt Naomi, "Some woman walking into a tattoo parlor with a bunch of men standing around, hiking up her dress and saying I want a blue lightning bolt tattooed right here on the inside of my knee? Can you imagine that?"

"Well, I sure can't," says Mama. "But she looks like she's been in plenty places like that. I mean she looks like she's spent a good deal of her life indoors in some back room."

"Well, she could be
a you
-know-what," says Aunt Naomi.

The woman was pale and skinny with black hair stringy wet from swimming. She lit a cigarette and when she pulled it out of her mouth she laughed smoke at something the Marine said and I could see some of her teeth were rotten.

"Young people nowadays will go to almost any length," said Aunt Naomi. "I don't know what it's all coming to. Who ever heard of so much burning, beating, and stabbing, and my Lord, I can't imagine what Papa would done to me had I come home with a blue lightning bolt tattooed on my kneecap. Why he would
—
"

"It's on the inside of her knee," says Mama.

"Why he would have skint me alive."

Up walked Charles all of a sudden and said we'd better come to the house, that Norris had a fish hook hung in his
nose.
He said that on Mary Faye's first cast, Norris was walking behind her and the hook caught him, as clean as day, in his left nostril
—
with the worm still on the hook.
We followed him to the cottage. I couldn't imagine.

We walk in and there sits Norris in a straightback chair, crying, with Uncle Nate down on his knees trying to see in Norris's nose and Norris trying to hold his head still but not being able to on account of crying.

Norris rolls his eyes to look at us when we walk in. Standing there beside him is Mary Faye, holding a rod and Zebco reel with a line leading to Norris's nose where the hook is stuck in his nostril with a live worm half in and half
out.
It won't
bleeding
though. Daddy is standing behind Uncle Nate, watching.

"I say we ought to take him to the hospital," says Charles.

"Wait a minute," says Uncle Nate, "if the barb ain't in we can pull it right out."

"If the barb ain't in, it would've fell out, wouldn't it?
—
with that great big worm on there," says Aunt Flossie. "He must weigh half a pound."

"You don't need that much worm to catch a fish," says Aunt Naomi.

"I think we ought to take him to the hospital," says Charles.

"I agree," I said. In many ways Charles is very clearheaded.

"Well, if I can just
—
" said Uncle Nate, reaching up toward Norris's nose.

Norris lets out this short yell and puts his hand in front of his face.

Uncle Nate stands up and looks around at everybody.

"Take him to the hospital," says Charles.

"I don't think so," says Uncle Nate.

Tears are dropping off the worm. A drop of blood appears.

"It's bleeding," says Charles. "What's wrong with taking him to the hospital?"

"That's the worm bleeding," says Uncle Nate.

"How do you know that?" asks Charles.

"Cause it's a blood worm. They're supposed to bleed. That's what it's called: a blood worm. That's what it says where you buy them on the pier: blood worms, $2.00 a dozen."

"Gosh, they've gone up," says Aunt Naomi.

"Well, suppose it
is
the worm," says Charles. "What can you lose by taking him to the hospital?"

"The worm or Norris?" says Mary Faye.

"Norris,"
says Charles.

"If Norris goes, the worm goes," says Aunt Naomi.

"To start with," says Uncle Nate to Charles, "you're going to lose about fifty dollars. Second, you're going to lose a chance to do something for yourself instead of some overpaid doctor doing it."

Charles walked out the door. Again.

Then Daddy took over. "Now, wait a minute," he said. "Everybody sit down. No. No, not you, Mary Faye. You stand right there and hold the pole, honey." He pulled a chair in front of Norris's chair and sat down. "You all go on about your business. I want to talk to Norris a few minutes. Let me have the rod and reel, Mary Faye. Now, Mr. Norris. I'll bet that nose hurts,
don't
it?"

Norris nodded his head.

"Why don't you stand up real
easy.
"

Norris stood up, stretching his neck out and holding his head still like a dog smelling a dead snake, his hands hanging down by his sides with his fingers spread like he was afraid of touching something gooey
—
or like he
had
touched something gooey.

"Okay," said Daddy, "I'll tell you what let's do
—
do you want to get that old worm out of there?"

Norris nodded his head up and down, easy.

"Now the first thing I want you to do is give me your hand."

Norris reached out his hand and Daddy took it in his hand and massaged it around and around. "Now you just relax. We'll get that old worm right out of there in no time flat. You think about that little sting as a mosquito bite."

Norris nodded his head up and down. A tear dropped.

"Now you take
holt
of the line right here
—
that's right. Right there. That's good. Now you just move your hand up along the line until it gets up to that little hook. Okay. Now. You relax and I'm going to wrap my hand around your hand and help you out a little bit."

Norris nodded up and down, slow. His eyes were getting bigger.

"Hold your head real still and we'll
—
"

Daddy nudged up and then down, and that hook came right out
—
as pretty as you please. Aunt Flossie went over and hugged Norris and he started bawling and his nose started bleeding but we put some cold towels on it. Mama got a little alcohol on some cotton up in there and then some Vaseline. Norris cried with the alcohol but calmed down with the Vaseline.

We ate banana sandwiches for lunch. Then
me
and Uncle Nate went along with Daddy and Charles to watch them surf fish. First we stopped by the fish market and bought some fish to cut up and use for bait; then we drove to this spot where Daddy said the blues might be biting.

They'd cast far out with a piece of dead fish on the hook, then stand there for ten or fifteen minutes before winding in the line to check the bait, which was smoothed down and considerably smaller than when they first threw it out. Charles said the sand and current did that. He let me hold his rod for a while, then he asked Uncle Nate if he wanted to hold it for a while, but he said no, and at about three o'clock Uncle Nate left
—
said he was going to walk up to the boardwalk and try to find a newspaper. We fished until about five and caught one fish. Daddy caught him but he was too little to keep.

When we got back to the cottage, Mama and the others had been swimming. Everybody was sunburned except Daddy. He wears all his clothes at the beach, all the time, every time we go.

Uncle Nate didn't turn up for supper and I could tell Mama was worried. We had cold fried chicken left over from the trip down, tomatoes, hot snap beans, and fresh hot biscuits, and had finished and been sitting around talking for a while when in walked Uncle Nate: drunk. But I didn't think he was terribly drunk because he looked decent, except he had one sleeve rolled up and the other rolled down and unbuttoned.

"Nate," Mama says, "what in the world have you gone and done?"

"Nothing, Doris, nothing in the worl' but been fishing."

"I declare," says Mama, "you'd think you could come to the beach with your own family and behave yourself."

Daddy walked out on the porch with his oatmeal cookie.

Charles was over on the couch reading a
Time
magazine. Uncle Nate went over and sat down beside him.

"Where'd you go to school, boy?"

"Atlanta."

"They teach you the stays and capols?"

"The what?"

"The stays and capols."

"No, I don't think so."

"You don't think so? You don't think so? Wha's capol of Missesota?" He was drunker than he looked.

"Missesota?" said Charles.

"Minnesota."

"I don't know."

"You don't know! You don't know! St. Paul.
Hell no, they di'n teach you no capols." Uncle Nate looked around.

"Nate," says Mama, "there'll be no cussing in this beach cottage. You have done enough damage getting drunk in front of these children. It's bad enough without you cussing in the very cottage Al Douglas has been nice enough to rent us at half price."

Uncle Nate looked at her and then turned back to Charles. "Montgomery Alabama, Phoenix Arizona, Little Rock Arkansas, Sacramento California, Denver Colorado. Hell, I know 'em every one."

"Nate," Mama says, "now I have told you
—
"

"Name a stay," Uncle Nate says to Charles.

"Florida."

"Tallahassee. Ha. See? Capol T-a-l-l-a-h-a-s-s-e-e. We had to learn to spell them too. How come you din have to learn the stays and capols?"

"What good is it?" asks Charles, pushing up off the couch with his hands and slipping away.

"What
good
is it? What
good
is it? Why, hell, if you're traveling through Miss'ippi and somebody says 'what's the capol of this stay?' you say 'St. Paul.' You know something about the stay you're in. What
good
is it? What
good
is it? Hell, why
come
you learn anything?"

"Nate," says Mama.

"Well," says Charles, "I'm just thinking why not write it all down on a piece of paper, put it in your billfold, and then spend all that time learning something else. Then when somebody wants to know a capital, pull out the piece of paper and read the answer."