Raney (8 page)

It won't
no
picky
matter to me.

While we were cleaning up I saw where Charles got his habit of taking the strainer out of the sink and leaving it out, and turning on the faucet and leaving it on. But I didn't say anything. She was nice to help.

Before we finished cleaning up, somebody knocked on the front door. That durn TEA Club meeting. I felt like I hadn't had time to get my bearings.

The meeting was something, and Millie joined in just like she knew everybody.

There was this woman dressed in rags who brought her baby in a sack on her back. Looked like she'd just walked away from a plane crash with her baby all tangled up in her clothes. What's more, she was cock-eyed. Looked like she was looking in two directions at once. Like those pictures of John Kennedy.

There were more unusual people there. But listen to what the meeting was about: they all, including Charles, and his mama, just flown in from Atlanta, are dead set against the Ferris-Jones nuclear power plant being built north of here.

That takes a lot a gall. These scientists have been working for years to get this plant built and Charles and these, well... a couple of them looked like hippies to me, and there was a doctor and two college teachers who looked like they don't eat right and the one with the baby
—
they all get together and in about fifteen minutes decide that the nuclear power plant has got to go. Has got to
go,
mind you.

They haven't hurt anything at the power plant. And electricity certainly has to come from somewhere.

I was in Pope's the other day and the mayor, Mr. Crenshaw, was talking to Mrs. Moss. He said the power plant was the best thing that ever happened to Listre
—
that it would bring new jobs and make taxes lower.

Now he's the mayor. He's somebody I can listen to. Somebody with a respectable position in the community who
has
to know what he's talking about, else he wouldn't be mayor.

Sometimes I believe these hippies and college professors sit around and frown and complain about what's helping a community most.

Look at the war. These hippies and such were telling the people who knew the most about it how to run it. So we lost. Now they're doing the same thing with this power plant. Do you see the people from the power plant telling the hippies how to be hippies? No, because they don't know anything about it. So they keep their mouths shut.

Charles told me I could come up front to the meeting but I stayed back in the kitchen. After about thirty minutes, Millie did come back and talk to me about how nice Charles and
me
had fixed up the house. She had a glass of wine, but that's the only one she drunk as far as I know. I never thought I'd see wine under a roof I lived under. Live and learn. I won't be a prude; but I do have principles and I will certainly keep close guard on what goes on. We're not going to have any alcohol under this roof for more than twelve hours, and otherwise only on some special occasions of Charles's. And when we have a child we'll have to discuss the whole thing very seriously. I never saw a drop of alcohol at home except in a bottle Uncle Nate brought in.

I told Millie about Charles painting the living room and she thought it was funny about not being able to find any drapes to go with the old paint. She said Charles had a good "role model" for fixing up around the house because Bill, Dr. Shepherd, had always helped her. I thought about Daddy. He's never done anything, as far as I can remember, inside the house. He works outside, but not inside. I don't think Mama wants him working in the house. She certainly never lets anybody do anything in the kitchen.

Charles won't do a thing outside but pull up crabgrass out of the sidewalk cracks once in a while. I don't know why he gets such a kick out of that. I think it's connected somehow to his strange ideas about germs. He buys these big jars of alcohol to clean the bathroom sink with. I've seen him through the bathroom door
—
through the crack. He'll scrub around the hole in the bottom of the sink with a ball of cotton soaked in alcohol. Lord knows where else he scrubs. I'll bet he goes through a bottle of alcohol every two weeks. I go in there some mornings and it smells like County Hospital. I started to ask Millie about that but I didn't. Maybe he got it from her. (It's funny what all you find out about your husband after you get married.)

When they finished the meeting, Charles came back to the kitchen and showed me this letter they wrote with Charles's name signed. Charles asked me what I thought. I said if they all wrote it, why didn't they all sign it? This is the letter. Millie told him a couple of words to change.

DEAR EDITOR:

A state geologist has recently claimed that an area near the proposed Ferris-Jones nuclear power plant is ideal for a hazardous waste disposal site. One of the reasons given is the low population of the area. I suppose the reasoning is that if there are problems, then fewer people will suffer.

It occurs to me that any reason to NOT put something in a highly populated area should also be a good reason NOT to put it in an area of low population.

The sad fact is that problems of nuclear waste disposal are not solved. This generation should not be making decisions that will cause future generations to suffer horrible consequences.

Charles Shepherd
   

Charles took off work Tuesday afternoon; we took his mama to the airport; and when we got back home we had a little talk which turned into
a
argument.

I merely asked Charles why he has to be friends with these college professors and such
—
why he can't be friends with my friends. He went with me
once
to see Madora and her husband, Larry. And Sandra and Billy Ferrell have asked us over for supper twice and he wouldn't go either time. I know they won't ask us again.

"These
people
think."
he says.

"Think?" I said. "Who
don't
think? Everybody thinks."

"I mean think about something important, something beyond the confines of their own lives."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means getting beyond Listre and Bethel. That's what it means. Raney, the way it works is this: small people talk about themselves; mediocre people talk about other people; and thinking people talk about ideas."

"What does that have to do with anything?" I said. See, what happens is: Charles spouts out this stuff he's read in the library and expects the words to be formed in gold in my head. But I'm sorry.

"It has to do with who I want to be friends with," says Charles. "Madora and
—
what's his name?
—
Larry are not interested in anything outside their kitchen, living room, and bedroom."

"I'll have you know," I said, "that Madora and Larry go to Bethel Free Will Baptist Church. Don't tell me that Jesus Christ is only in their kitchen, living room, and bedroom."

"The problem," says Charles, "the whole problem is just that: Jesus wouldn't have a kitchen, living room, and bedroom."

"He would if he lived in Bethel." I tried to let that sink in. "No matter what your mama thinks."

"Why are you bringing her into this?" (I wasn't sure.) "Raney. Jesus Christ was a radical. If the people at Bethel Free Will Baptist met Jesus they'd laugh at him ... or lynch him."

"A radical? Charles, I had a personal experience with Jesus Christ when I was twelve years old. He wasn't a radical then. And I did not laugh. As a matter of fact, I cried."

"Were you saved, Raney? Is that it? Were you saved and now you're going to heaven and nothing else matters?"

"Charles," I said, and I was mad, "you can run down whoever and whatever you want to, but when you run down my experience with Jesus Christ you are putting yourself below the belly of a hog." I was
tore
up. I had to cry. I walked out of the kitchen, into the bedroom and slammed the door with both hands as hard as I could; and Charles goes out the front door and drives off. And didn't come back for thirty minutes.

VII

We didn't speak Wednesday or Thursday, but had started warming up some on Friday. Then Friday night we went to see a movie
—
some awful thing Charles wanted to see
—
and then Saturday morning the Sneeds business was all over
The Hansen County Pilot.
As I said, Sneeds runs Daddy's store. Sneeds Perry. I don't know him except from when I go in the store. He's always seemed nice.

What he did was get arrested in Raleigh at two
a.m.
Friday night for trying to pick up this woman he
thought
was a you-know-what but instead was a policewoman. They caught him red-handed. And then the whole subject had to come up at Sunday dinner with Mrs.
—
, with Millie, there visiting.

She came back Saturday night on the airplane, which was late, and I could
of
sworn I smelled liquor on her breath. Then we had to wait for all those suitcases, which we loaded into the trunk and carted home and into the guest room again.

Charles had found out that the Episcopal service started at 10:30 A.M. Sunday and that they were having that Eucharist, so they decided they'd go for sure and Millie wanted to know if I was going with them. They seemed like they wanted me to, so I said yes. I wanted to see what the service was like, if nothing else.

The service was the most unusual church service you've ever seen. First of all, I didn't know any of the hymns, and
neither did the regular people there.
You'd expect the regular people there to know their own hymns. They wandered all around on notes that didn't have anything to do with the melody and, all in all, didn't sing with any spunk. And they kept kneeling on these teenie-tiny benches. It was up and down, up and down. I got right nervous looking out the corner of my eye to see when it was up and when it was down.

The priest had a yellow robe with a butterfly on the back. Now that is plum sacrilegious if you ask me. A house of worship is no place to play Halloween.

One of the most surprising things of all was that the very thing you come to church to hear wasn't there. A sermon. There was no sermon. The priest talked about three minutes on hope and people in the ghettos, which may have been a sermon to him, but not to me.

They had the Lord's
supper
, but they didn't pass it around. You had to go up front, kneel down (of course), and get it.

I was a little nervous about drinking real wine in church. But when I thought about it I ended up figuring maybe that was the best place to do it and God would forgive me. It was red wine and about knocked my socks off. It was stronger somehow than Madora's white wine and that expensive stuff that I tried in the kitchen at Charles's TEA party. (That bottle had the price tag on it. Six dollars and something. It seemed like to me it should have cost less because it kind of disappeared once you got it in your mouth.) I want you to know the priest gulped down every bit that was left over at the end. That was an education to me.

All in all, it just wasn't
set up
like a church service. I must admit, several people were nice after the service, but most of them had Yankee accents. They were probably people who've come down to work at the new G.E. plant outside White Level.

Charles said he liked it
—
that it was "formal." I didn't see anything formal about it. It was confusing to me.

Aunt Naomi and Aunt Flossie were at Mama's for Sunday dinner, along with the rest of us. Everybody seemed happy to see Millie and she seemed likewise. I was a little tense. For one thing I was worried that the Sneeds business would come up, but I figured it wouldn't
—
not at Sunday dinner.

We got seated, Mama asked Charles to say the blessing; he did; and we started helping ourselves.

I passed the okra to Aunt Naomi. She helped her plate and says, "You want some okra, son?" and passed the bowl to Charles. "We won't get much more this year."

"No, thanks," said Charles.

"No? You don't like okra?"

"Nope."

"Well, I declare. That's surprising. Have you ever had it fried before?"

"I can't remember. I don't think so. I've had it boiled."

"You hadn't ever fried any okra for this boy?" Mama says to Millie.

"We've never been much on okra, somehow," says Millie.

"Well, you ain't had
nothing
until you've had some good fried okra," says Aunt Naomi, and she drops a piece onto Charles's plate.

"I really don't care for any."

"I remember when I was a little girl no older than Mary Faye there," says Aunt Naomi. "I couldn't stand boiled okra because it was so slimy. For some reason, that's the only way my mama ever fixed it. So I know what you mean. Then when I was, oh, about a teenager, I got aholt of some good fried okra. Mercy me
—
better than pop corn, with just a tiny hint of fried oyster flavor. Do you like fried oysters?"

"Sure do," said Charles. He was staring at the piece of fried okra on his plate.

"Pop corn?"

"Sure do."

"Well, then, you'll love fried okra. Go ahead, try it."

"I really don't care for any."

"Aw, go ahead. You'll love it; I guarantee. Then when you go home your mama can fix it for you, can't you, Millie?"

"Sure."

Charles ate the piece of okra. It
was
good okra.

"Now, ain't that good?" says Aunt Naomi.

"It was pretty good," says Charles.

Aunt Naomi gets the bowl and hands it to Charles. "Well, here, get you out some."

"No thanks," said Charles. "I'm just fine. I really don't care for any."

"Well, I declare," says Aunt Naomi. "I'm surprised. I thought for sure you'd love it."

Charles put the bowl back and Daddy asked him if he saw the Braves game Saturday and they started talking while Aunt Naomi says, "I don't know what I'd do without my fried okra. That and turnip salet. Why I could make a meal off turnip salet and cornbread, two meals a day for a month. There just ain't
nothing
any better. Nothing. Doris, your favorite was always cabbage, won't it?"

"I always liked turnip salet too."

"I hate it," said Mary Faye.

"You hate everything," said Norris.

"I do not."

"Do too."

"Do not."

"Hush," says Mama.

"Ya'll
went
to the Episcopal church in White Level?" says Aunt Naomi. She was looking at Millie.

"Sure did. It was really nice."

Nobody said anything.

"Don't they have a priest like the Catholics?" said Mama.

"Yes, they do," said Millie. "I think their duties might be a bit different, though."

"Don't they make them preach in a certain town where they assign them
—
like in the army?" says Aunt Naomi.

"I don't think they do."

"They don't," says Charles.

"I've made many a meal on turnip salet and cornbread," says Uncle Nate. He had his hair slicked straight back, like always, and was wearing a white starched shirt with the collar open. "And Aunt Annie's
nigger, Monkey
—
remember
how he used to all the time talk about drinking turnip green pot liquor?"

That got Charles's and Millie's attention. I was afraid Charles was going to go into his speech about saying "nigger" but he didn't, thank goodness. And Millie didn't, thank goodness. (Charles is sitting there with a big hunk of cream potatoes on his plate, no gravy, two pieces of chicken, a piece of roast beef, a pickle and a piece of cornbread and a roll. No vegetables. He will not get any healthy recipes from Aunt Flossie: only apple pie, fried chicken, and such. It's a wonder he don't get pimples
—
again. You can tell where he had them a little bit when he was a teenager. Pock marks. I can't imagine how he gets his system cleaned out. It looks like somebody who works in a library would have more sense about what to eat. And Charles ain't the type to shun new things. His mother, of course, had just the opposite: a plate full of vegetables.)

"What's pot liquor?" says Charles to Uncle Nate.

Uncle Nate had his mouth full, which don't usually stop him from talking
—
as Charles has pointed out to me on the way home so many times that now
I
notice. But this time he kept chewing and didn't answer.

Aunt Flossie answered: "It's what's left in the pot after cooking cabbage
—
usually cabbage. Course I've seen collard and turnip green pot liquor."

"That sounds interesting," says Charles.

"Did he
look
like a monkey?" asks Norris.

"You know," said Uncle Nate, swallowing his potatoes, "Uncle Springer took Monkey to Raleigh one Christmas to sell quail and they
—
"

"Did he
look
like a monkey?"

"No, that was just his name, I reckon. Anyway, they got snowed in and there was a light bulb in the room where they spent the night in somebody's house. For some reason Monkey ended up staying with Uncle Springer in the same room. Anyway, Uncle Springer hadn't ever seen a light bulb and of course Monkey hadn't and they didn't know it had a durn switch on it to cut it off and so before they went to bed
—
I imagine Monkey slept on the floor
—
before they went to bed they put a chest of drawers up on another table and some chairs and so on and put the durn light bulb
—
course they didn't know it unscrewed either
—
they put the durn light bulb in the top drawer and closed it and then went to bed and got a good night's sleep."

I'd heard that story once or twice but I knew Charles and Millie hadn't. It's a funny story but of course Charles
don't
like to hear nothing about niggers unless it's how Martin Luther King laid down in some restaurant or something. As I said, he has this thing.

"Wadn't that terrible about Sneeds Perry?" says Aunt Naomi.

Nobody said anything. Somebody passed something and a few forks hit plates.

"What happened to Mr. Perry?" asked Norris.

Nobody said anything and Norris looked around at everybody. "What happened to Mr. Perry?" he said again.

It flashed through my mind: Sneeds paying one of those women to do what Charles had said for us to do on our honey
m
oon. "He got in trouble," I said. "For being where he ought not to be and doing what he ought not to do."

"What did he do?" asked Norris.

"He solicited something from a policewoman which he thought he was soliciting from a woman of the night," said Uncle Nate.

"A witch?" said Norris.

"I wouldn't say that."

"I think if a man wants to ruin his life in one night by breaking the law, then that's the chance he takes," said Mama.

"Do you think he wanted to ruin his life?" said Charles. "That's not exactly what he had in mind, do you think?"

"That's what happened," said Aunt Naomi. "Now he won't be able to get a job within fifty miles
—
at any place respectable that is. It's a good thing he don't have a family." Aunt Naomi looked at Daddy. "You will have to let him go."

"I ain't decided," said Daddy.

"Daddy, he was arrested," I said.

"You're going to let him keep working out at the store?" said Mama.

"Well, I hadn't thought about
—
"

"Thurman, you read what he did."

"I know I read what he did. He ain't been tried yet either."

"He won't
buying
peaches," said Aunt Naomi.

"Peaches?" said Uncle Nate.

"Daddy," I said, "it seems like he'd hurt business with a criminal record."

"It's a misdemeanor, I think," said Charles.

"What's a misdemeanor?" said Norris.

"Hush a minute, Norris," said Mama. "It's a minor crime."

"What did he do?" said Norris.

"He didn't do anything that would have been a great harm to anybody," said Charles.

I thought,
"Charles,
you talk about
harm,
about
not harming
—
after that on our honeymoon!"

"He broke God's law, that's what he did," said Aunt Naomi.

"I thought for sure you'd fire him, Thurman," said Mama.

"I'm not going to fire a man that ain't been convicted."

We were quiet for a minute.

"Didn't your church group do a thing on victimless crimes?" Charles asked his mama. "It's a pretty interesting perspective."

"Well, yes. The idea was, really, that some acts
—
without victims
—
ought to have a low priority on the list of things demanding law enforcement. That is, those crimes would be attended only after the crimes with victims were tended to. That way people would actually be better protected in the long run, because the police would spend more time solving robbery and assault cases and the like, and institutions like churches and mental health clinics could concentrate on the victimless crimes
—
given the proper support, of course."