The Year the Lights Came On (15 page)

Electricity. The word became a vocabulary of meanings. It had the same delicious aftertaste as of winning a close softball game, and telling over and over the indisputable, to-the-point motion that caught a hitter or runner leaning off the business of the game. We rolled the word around in our mouths—electricity. We separated its syllables with our tongues and pushed the word out in segments:
e-lec-tri-ci-ty.
It was a big word. It did not sound southern, the way we said it.

The right-of-way crew foreman must have known hundreds of waiting, watching children, and he understood the terrible curiosity in those mute onlookers. He did not object to our presence, and we followed the crew with great devotion when we were not working the fields. The way the foreman talked about electricity, it was a mystery as bewildering as the Soldier Ghost who sometimes slithered out of his unmarked grave in the old Civil War cemetery and wandered aimlessly, an oblong, grotesque fluorescence against the spotty black velvet of night.

“You know what electricity is?” the foreman asked one afternoon.

“Yeah. Makes lights,” volunteered Paul.

The foreman laughed easily. “No, son, that’s not it. That’s what it does, among other things. Truth is, don’t nobody on God’s green earth know what electricity really is. Know how to make it. Know how to use it. But nobody’s figured out what it is.”

The foreman was wrong. I knew what electricity was. It was a million-trillion Z’s snatched off an alphabet stack, Z-ing along so fast no one could see just one by itself. And when all those million-trillion Z’s piled up in one place, they shocked you because of their sharp edges spinning crazily about. If you stood beside a transformer and listened, you could even hear the Z’s—Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz, Z’s humming in a monotone pitch. If there was one thing I was certain of, it was the fact that a Z was the sharpest letter in the alphabet. Anyway, a Z looked more like a lightning bolt than any other letter.

*

One day, after the REA right-of-way crew had stopped work, Dover drove Wesley and Paul and Otis and me to visit Freeman at Hixon’s Seed and Fertilizer Warehouse. Dover felt responsible for Freeman and he had heard a rumor that Dupree was ordering Freeman around like a servant. It was not the kind of treatment Freeman appreciated and, apparently, there had been a minor confrontation.

“Yeah, Freeman’s not the kind to like that,” fretted Dover. “And he’s been doin’ good, too. Old Man Hixon said so. Said Freeman was about as strong as any man he’s got. I’m tellin’ you, boys, it don’t take but one snotty person to make a barrel of rotten apples.”

Otis was confused by the rumor. “I didn’t think Dupree had
anything to do with the warehouse,” he said. “That was why Freeman agreed to take the job, first off.”

“Way it’s supposed to be,” agreed Dover. “But Old Man Hixon keeps a lot of supplies stored in there. Coffee, flour, Royal Crowns, Dr Peppers, that kind of stuff, and anytime Dupree wants somethin’, he makes Freeman go get it. Nobody else. Just Freeman.”

“Freeman won’t take that long,” observed Wesley.

Freeman was leaning against the warehouse talking with Willie Lee Maxwell, who worked the sawmills with Freeman’s daddy. Willie Lee was our friend and the strongest black man we knew. Once each year, during ginning season, Willie Lee would be persuaded by the whites of Emery to lift a bale of cotton. Willie Lee would strip to his waist and stand under the cotton scales on a plank platform and four or five men would slowly lower the giant bale, bundled in burlap cord. Willie Lee would quiver and bend under the crushing weight. His legs would fight in woozy, sliding steps for balance, and the muscles of his great arms would leap and tremble as he pulled the bale up on his neck. Suddenly, Willie Lee would draw in a quick, deep breath and his gleaming ebony body would begin to rise. Two steps and Willie Lee would stand straight and drop the cotton bale, bouncing and rolling, at his back. For a moment, as the whites cheered and applauded, Willie Lee would stand proud and triumphant, a black Samson freed of his history of slavery, his wide nostrils fanning as his lungs fought to clear the blood from his head, and his small, dark eyes flashing a wild, primitive brilliance. That was Willie Lee’s moment, and in that moment Willie Lee was a superior, not an equal.

Willie Lee smiled and nodded his hello to our hellos. He started
rolling a Prince Albert cigarette. Freeman told us he had had a second run-in with Dupree and was waiting to see if Dupree’s daddy would fire him.

“What happened?” asked Dover.

“Aw, Dupree and Sonny was playing around in the store and Sonny kicked over a sack of flour,” explained Freeman. “Anyway, I was carryin’ in some tenpenny nails and Dupree told me to sweep the floor.”

“He did what?” Paul said.

“Yeah, well, I told him I worked the warehouse and he could sweep it up,” Freeman continued. “And you know what that fool did? He threw a broom at me.”

“What’d you do?” asked Wesley, fearing the answer.

“Nothin’, Wes. Nothin’. I just walked out. And Dupree come out yellin’, sayin’ he was gonna get me fired.”

“That’s all?”

“Well, Wes, let’s just say Dupree made the mistake of coming outside the store, where I was. It’s a good thing Willie Lee come along and cooled me off, or I’d of kicked his butt.”

“Didn’t wanta see you get put off a job over nothin’,” Willie Lee said. “Yessir, your daddy’s proud of you havin’ this job.”

“Well, I guess I won’t have it much longer.”

Dover laughed. “Sure you will, Freeman. Shoot, Old Man Hixon’s not too crazy about Dupree, hisself, and he’s not about to fire nobody who’s doin’ the job—especially if he’s not paying no more’n he’s paying you.”

“Yeah,” Freeman said dryly.

“You just gotta stay clear of him,” advised Dover. “Just don’t pay him no mind. Shoot, carry all that ol’ junk for him. Just keep on
carryin’ and smilin’, carryin’ and smilin’. All that smilin’ will get to him, boy. I guarantee it.”

Dover bought a pack of peanuts and Dr Peppers for everyone. He loved Dr. Peppers and he tried to be faithful to the suggestion of having a Dr. Pepper at ten o’clock, two o’clock, and four o’clock each day.

We sat in the breezeway of the warehouse on Anderson 6-8-6 fertilizer sacks and discussed everything from Alvin’s success in baseball to Dover’s chances of becoming a lineman for the REA. We all agreed Dover deserved such an opportunity and Willie Lee declared he would put up a dollar bet that Dover would be wearing spike-boots before spring.

“Well, by granny, now that’s sure good of you, Willie Lee,” Dover said. “And I’m believin’ you’re right. I can feel it.”

“Willie Lee’s going up in the world, too,” Freeman announced. “Ain’t that right, Willie Lee?”

“Naw. C’mon, Freeman.”

“Well, it’s true.”

“Naw…”

“Whatcha doin’, Willie Lee?” Paul asked.

“He’s workin’ weekends down in Elberton with that flying circus,” Freeman answered for Willie Lee.

“Flying circus?” asked Otis.

“Yeah. You not heard about it? Man named Brady Dasher got this flying circus down in Elberton. Willie Lee’s been helping him build this platform for a special trick.”

“I’ve not heard about it, either,” Dover admitted. “What kind of platform you talkin’ about?”

Freeman told us about the trick, interrupting himself constantly to ask Willie Lee, “Is that right?” and Willie Lee would smile his thick, wide smile and mumble his musical, “Uhhuh.”

Brady Dasher and his brother Harold had decided to do something that had never been done and something so spectacular it would reduce brave men to blithering fools: they would land a Piper Cub on a platform that had been fitted on the top of a new 1947 Ford. It would be advertised as the World’s Smallest Runway, and if it worked the Brady Dasher Flying Circus would make headlines from Europe to China, and the airplane and the car would probably wind up in some museum somewhere.

Dover was impressed. “That so?” he said, whistling his amazement. “I never been to a flying circus. Heard of ’em, but I never been to one.”

“You reckon they’ll make it, Willie Lee?” asked Otis.

“Don’t know,” Willie Lee admitted. “They’s crazy. I just do the sawin’ and hammerin’, and Mr. Brady and Mr. Harold do the flyin’ and drivin’. Find out on Saturday. They got a show in Elberton to try it out.”

“I’d like to see that, that’s for sure,” Dover exclaimed.

“Don’t cost but a dollar a car,” Willie Lee said. “And they’s more going on than just landin’ that airplane on top of the car. Got a parachute jump, and there’s Mr. Brady’s little boy, who flies all by hisself, while Mr. Brady’s sittin’ out there on somethin’ they call the struts.”

“A boy flyin’? Now that’s something,” Dover said, ticking his head in disbelief.

“It’s the truth. He ain’t but four. Mr. Brady says he’s the littlest flyer in the world.”

“Now that’s somethin’ I’d like to see,” Paul said in a voice of awe.

“Yeah, me, too,” echoed Otis. “Why don’t we all cram in the truck and go down there, Dover?”

“Suits me, boys. Get permission and, by granny, I’ll take the whole bloomin’ lot,” Dover promised. “We’ll make us a day of it. May even come back by Wind’s Mill and roast us some hot dogs and marshmallows.” Dover dropped a peanut into his Dr. Pepper and looked up in the changing blue of the late afternoon sky, where invisible Piper Cubs twirled like hummingbirds in fancy acrobatics. “Yessir, we’ll make us a day of it,” he muttered.

Dover had carried us many places, but always with the objections of our parents, who thought of him as an honest, diligent man who was possibly a little crazy. They could not understand why Dover refused to “grow up a little,” as they phrased it. Dover had common sense, but he was also gullible when it came to any adventure of mystery or danger. My mother told us that Dover had once paid a man fifty dollars to teach him the art of reading palms, and everyone in Emery conceded that Dover had, at last, snapped and was a nominee for being committed. He was forgiven only when he became the most popular attraction ever presented at the Halloween Carnival.

The thought of an airplane propeller decapitating us while we were under the care of Dover Heller, did not appeal to my mother. She was astonished that we even wanted to see such put-on entertainment.

“But, Mama,” I promised, “we won’t even get nowhere near that airplane. We’ll just stay back and watch it from the top of Dover’s truck. Besides, me and Wesley’s not been to Elberton for a year.”

Mother finally surrendered to my pleading. I was far more
accomplished than Wesley at winning approval; Wesley was too quick to appreciate parental logic, and therefore too quick to agree. In pure debate, Wesley was remarkable, but he lacked poetic expression when the argument required weeping and chest-thumping, and I always thought he deprived himself of one of life’s most memorable experiences.

Early afternoon, on Saturday, Mother drove Wesley and me to Hixon’s General Store and left us to wait for Dover. R. J. and Otis and Paul joined us, eager for the day. Because Wesley was going, they were permitted to go; Wesley had sense, even if Dover didn’t.

“My mama said she wouldn’t trust Dover far as she could throw a mule,” declared Paul, “but she guessed I’d be all right if I was with you, Wes. Shoot, Wes, if you was a horseshoe you couldn’t bring a man any more luck.”

Otis wanted a Coca-Cola, but refused to go into Hixon’s General Store alone.

“I might bust Dupree up,” Otis said.

“Maybe he’s not in there,” suggested Paul.

“Yeah, he’s there. I saw him,” replied Otis. “Standin’ off in the shadows, hidin’ his sneaky face. Thought I saw Sonny and Wayne, too.”

“Yeah, Wayne’s in there,” Paul whispered, trying to act nonchalant.

“What’s he doin’?” asked R. J., his back to the store.

“Probably lickin’ on a Sugar Daddy, or kissin’ Dupree’s tail,” Paul answered.

“See anything else?”

“Naw.” Then: “Wait a minute. Yeah. Colin’s gonna love this. That skinny little Megan’s in there. Sure is.”

Megan. I had seen her at church, but I had not spoken to her since the day at Sosbee’s Spring. I prayed she would stay in the store. I prayed Dover would drive up. I prayed for the face of Megan to stay buried in my memory.

“Colin? You hear me?” Paul repeated. “Megan’s in there.”

“So?”

“So, I thought you’d like to know, that’s so.”

“What’d I care?”

“I bet she’s butterin’ up to Dupree.”

I could feel Megan’s face begin to slip out of its hiding. Pale green eyes, hair as blond as a full moon.

“Hey, look at Colin. He’s blushing.” Otis snickered.

“Otis, you better watch it.”

“C’mon, Colin, what’s the matter? Hey, boy, you gettin’ red, you know it.”

“Otis, by granny…”

“Stop it,” Wesley said firmly. “No need to go kiddin’ him, Otis. It’ll just make him mad, and he’ll start fighting and I’ll have to take him home.”

“Aw, I was just kiddin’,” Otis said. “She’s not in there.”

“Well, kid about somethin’ else.”

Otis looked at R. J. and Paul for support. Both of them turned away and started kicking at the gravel beside the water oak.