Choices Read online

  His wife brought out Cokes, cookies, and chip-and-dip. I took a few chips but could not swallow a bite. Strangest thing. I had to take what was in my mouth and hide it in a napkin, then put that on the paper plate and hope nobody saw. To keep from thinking about it, I tried to account for the smells in that house. No soap, no sweat, no cooking. What did these people do?

  Then Mr. Henley came in with the results. Everybody listened.

  The four girls I picked were chosen. Besides them, the Belle Notes took one of the mice, the music box, a girl who had no rhythm whatsoever, and the director’s daughter. They did not take me.

  “Sorry,” everyone said. “Try again next year.”

  Well, from what I’ve said about my momma, you know I kept trying. The last year two other black girls tried, too. None of us made it. It was ten years before that choir had a single Black Note. You ever hear piano played only on the white notes? Not much music.

  I used to think my activist days didn’t start till I got to college. The end of the sixties and all that. But now when anybody asks what I did in the Movement, the first thing I tell them is, “I sang.”

  Family Planning (Agnes)

  If you don’t believe what I’m going to tell you, it won’t surprise me a bit. My daddy and mommy were the best people ever was. He didn’t drink, he didn’t hit, he didn’t run around. Every week he had work he brought home his pay. Every week Momma tried her best to stretch it, but it was useless, like trying to fit a crib sheet to a double bed. Not that she had crib sheets. Too many babies.

  There were six of us younguns born fast and hard, not two years apart. I always thought my Momma was old. Lord, she wasn’t but 30 when it happened. Nine years younger than I am now.

  She was 30, my daddy 34, sunk in debt and younguns like quicksand. She was 30 and pregnant. Don’t get on your high horse about birth control now. My people didn’t have money. They didn’t have a doctor. And you can bet there was no Home Valley Clinic where they could go for facts and equipment. You married and took what you got. My folks got too much.

  I was nine at the time, nine then and nine years older than Momma now. I was nosy, too, and our house had real thin walls.

  I was supposed to be asleep, but it was hot (right around the Fourth of July) and too many of us in the bed. I could hear Momma trying to talk soft, but her voice kept climbing.

  “What can I do, Jeb? What can we do? I can’t have this baby.”

  “We’ll make out.”

  “How? We’re not making out now.”

  “Times will get better.” His voice sounded weak.

  “Not for us they won’t. Not for people with seven younguns and mine work uncertain as rain.”

  “The Lord will provide.”

  “You don’t believe that!” she hissed. “You just don’t want to talk about it.”

  Silence, then the smack of his hand against her cheek. He’d hit her! I couldn’t believe it. My heart pushed me to the door to go protect her. Then I remembered I wasn’t supposed to hear.

  A low moan came from their room. Too low. It was Daddy. And Momma was comforting him.

  “Don’t cry now,” she said.

  Next morning they didn’t look any different, but I knew they were. It scared me to find out they didn’t know what was going to happen, that Momma and Daddy were afraid.

  That night I listened again. Nothing.

  Next night the same.

  But the third night I heard Momma’s voice, solid as a fence post.

  “I know what to do.”

  Daddy didn’t answer.

  “We’ll send two of the younguns to my sister Nola.”

  “What?”

  “She’s always claimed she wanted some,” Momma explained. “And Jack has steady work. Factory work is good in Cincinnati.”

  “You mean send them till the baby comes?” Daddy sounded as little as Willis asking that question. Willis is five.

  “I mean till they’re grown or we get hit by a miracle.”

  “Lexie!”

  “I see no other way.”

  “But why two? You’re not carrying double?”

  “No. But I don’t want to send one and have it lonely. And Nola’s not easy. Whoever goes will need a hand to hold.”

  I couldn’t see through the wallpaper and lathing and anyway it was dark, but I knew what Momma’s face looked like: eyes hard, mouth stitched shut.

  “You going to send Agnes?” My heart jumped. “She’s mighty independent. She could manage.”

  “Not me!” I wanted to cry. “I don’t like Aunt Nola! I hate Cincinnati!” I bit my hand to keep quiet, so scared I felt sick. And in the middle of that sickness and fear was a big hurt. Momma and Daddy didn’t want me. They would give me away.

  Then Momma said, “No. I’ll need Agnes. She can help with the baby. I was thinking of Eva and Charles.”

  “Not Charles,” Daddy said.

  The hurt twisted in me like a washrag being wrung out.

  “Willis then,” she told him.

  “Why?”

  “It’s got to be a boy and a girl.”

  “Why?”

  Momma made a squealing sound and started to cry hard. I burrowed into my place in the bed. Eva was in the middle. I could smell her hair, a dense smell, like shoe polish. I tried not to think, not to hear, just to breathe forever, in and out, the smell of that coal-black hair.

  Falling (Dexter)

  The first time I laid eyes on Shirley Tackett, I said, “Whoa! I’m going to fall in love with that woman, and I don’t even like the looks of her!” She was skimpy somehow, like the Lord hadn’t had enough dust on hand when He made her. She wore lime green pants, too, and they were baggy in the seat.

  What made me want to meet her then? The set of her shoulders, pure and simple. Here was a woman who had seen hard times and kept right on looking.

  Sid Shepherd knew her, and he took me over to say hello. This was at the Kiwanis Pancake Day—I forgot to say that. Right smack on the courthouse lawn.

  I said, “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Tackett.”

  Shirley just said, “Should I know you?”

  “No,” I told her. “But I’d be proud if you did.”

  Why would a person who sees trouble coming just stand there and hold out his arms?

  I do not know. I was widowed, lonely. I asked her to dinner the next week.

  “Can’t do it,” she said. “I’ve got kids.”

  “Lunch, then,” I suggested.

  “Can’t do it,” she said. “I’ve got a job.”

  “Would you want to do it if you could?” I asked.

  “I don’t have time to think about that,” was all she said.

  It was two months before she’d go out with me, and then she had to be home at nine o’clock.

  “Aren’t your kids a little old to need Mama to put them to bed?” I teased.

  “Old enough that I want to be sure they go to bed by themselves,” was her answer.

  Shirley had a smart answer for everything. Right before Thanksgiving when I asked her to marry me, she said, “Thanks, but I’ve already got a turkey.”

  She did marry me, though, almost a year to the day after we met in the pancake line. I sold my big old house and moved in with her. That was the only way she would have it.

  “I’m not about to pull up my garden,” she declared, “when it’s finally put down roots.”

  I looked all over the 60 x 70 foot lot but couldn’t see any sign of digging.

  “The kids, Senior. I mean my kids.”

  I never liked how she called me Senior, either. True, it wasn’t just because of my age. I’ve been Dexter Campbell, Sr., ever since my son was named after me. But when Shirley called me Senior, it was like she’d said Old Man. It was like every one of the 12 years between us doubled.

  Our marriage started out okay. Shirley kept her job at the discount store. I went on selling insurance. I don’t intend to retire till they lay me out. And I thought we could drive
to work together in the mornings and ride home together at night. Save on gas and have more time to talk. Not Shirley. She said she needed her own car in town in case anything happened to the kids. Also, if she had to stop by Kroger on the way home, she didn’t want to do it with me.

  “I’d rather take a two-year-old to the grocery,” she said, “than take a man.”

  “Why?” I wanted to know.

  “I’ve lived long enough to know better than to tell,” she said.

  You might wonder what happened to her first husband, Roscoe Tackett. I’ve heard two stories. One is he came home drunk one time too often and Shirley got him ready for bed. Then she sent him out the patio door instead of into the bedroom. It was February. He ended up in the hospital and lost three toes on one foot. Got divorced without ever coming back.

  This is not how Shirley tells it. Shirley says they were at a party on Josh’s Hill and Roscoe got so drunk he couldn’t drive home. He wouldn’t hear of Shirley driving, though, because the roads were slick. She had to get home to the kids, so she asked the people who gave the party to keep Roscoe overnight. He carried on when she left but then pretended to fall asleep. Later, still drunk, he sneaked out of the house and stumbled down the mountain. Next morning somebody found him in front of the post office. That’s how he lost his toes and his happy home.

  You’d think in a small town a person would know which of these things really happened. It doesn’t work that way. Trying to sort out the truth from the rumors is like trying to count popcorn kernels as they pop. You might make it to six or eight, maybe even to ten, but then there’s too many all at once.

  As far as Roscoe goes, both of those stories could be true; he was kind of a boozer. I knew him from the VFW.

  What happened with me and Shirley wasn’t like that at all. It started with sex.

  Her idea of a love life was a once-a-week ritual, like going to church or cutting your toenails. Everything had to be the same, from the little glass of wine before to the hour in the bathtub after.

  I thought this was odd, but I figured it would change when she got used to me. After all, she’d lived alone for several years. So had I, for that matter. It just didn’t have the same effect on me.

  After two years of marriage, I began to wonder. “Shirley,” I started, one night when she got home from choir practice, “has it ever occurred to you that people make love on Wednesday?”

  We were sitting at the kitchen table drinking reheated coffee. Shirley wastes nothing.

  “Don’t be disgusting,” she said.

  I had started out teasing, but her words made me mad.

  “Or Thursday,” I told her. “Or Tuesday, or even Sunday!”

  “Senior,” she said, stirring her coffee, “You are not funny.”

  “I don’t mean to be funny.” I took a sip. It tasted like wet cardboard.

  “Well,” she said, clanking her spoon against the saucer, “you can’t expect me to take you seriously.”

  “Oh, yes, I do,” I insisted. “But you never have. You’ve never taken me seriously since the day we met. No matter what I say, you’ve got some put-down. No matter what I suggest, you can’t do it because of the kids.”

  “Leave my kids out of it,” she said. “And keep your voice down. They’ll hear.”

  I was furious.

  “Let them hear! I don’t care! This is my house, too. I won’t tiptoe around like some visitor. I won’t check your schedule every time I want to make a move.”

  “Some of your moves you can keep to yourself,” she said.

  She was eating by now, one of those heavy, sugar-coated pastries called bear claws. It made me sick.

  “Why did you marry me?” I asked her. “You didn’t want a husband. You wanted . . .”

  Shirley stood up before I could finish. She wiped her sticky hands on a paper napkin.

  “Now that you mention it, Senior, I do not know. I’ve been asking myself why I married you ever since the wedding. Maybe it was something in that Kiwanis syrup. Maybe I thought it was better to be bored than lonely.”

  “What?” I stood up so fast I felt like I was falling.

  “And it’s not,” she went on. “It’s not better. You, Senior, are the dullest man God put on this earth. Here’s your ring back.” She slid it right off her scrawny finger. “I wish you better luck the third time around.”

  She held out the wide band that had been my mama’s. I took it.

  “I’ll keep the engagement ring, though, if you don’t mind.” She admired it on her hand and smiled. “Something to remember you by.”

  What I did instead of kill her was grab the bear claws. There were five left in the package. I rubbed one all over her face, shoved another one down her dress, put two in the toaster and turned it on. The last one I put in the center of the table and drowned it in leftover coffee. Shirley just stood there, her stingy little mouth fallen open.

  “There’s a surprise for you,” I said. “Have a sweet life.”

  Without even getting my coat, I went out the back door. Ugly, ugly, ugly Shirley Tackett. And poor Roscoe. It’s a wonder he didn’t lose more than his toes.

  Marrying (Iona)

  You’re going to laugh at this. That’s all right. I quit worrying a long time ago about making a fool of myself. The Lord did that for me, just like He does for us all, from the get-go. So this story won’t tell you a thing that you don’t know.

  When Jake and I was courting, back in 19 and 26, he’d come in from Virginia on the weekend. I looked forward to it. Friday evenings we’d sit on the porch. Saturdays we’d take a ride in his Ford and maybe go to a picture show that night. Sunday meant church and a big dinner before he headed over the mountain. He was digging coal near Pound.

  Anyway, Jake and I liked each other’s company, but I didn’t love him. I enjoyed his stories and his banjo picking. I didn’t like his kisses, though. His mouth made me think of wet socks.

  Well, one night we was parked in front of my Daddy’s house, and Jake sort of mumbled something. He had this habit of parting his moustache with his thumb and forefinger over and over when he talked, and his voice would sink down in his throat. I knew he was asking something. I thought it was could he take me to meet his mother at Thanksgiving.

  Jake’s mother was a strange-turned soul or I would have met her long before that.

  I had barely said “Yes,” when Jake grabbed and hugged on me and kissed me a big slobbery kiss. Then he said, “Come on, Iona honey, let’s go tell your mommy.”

  I swear to you I did not know what had happened till we stood in this kitchen. He mumbled something to Mommy, and she said, “Speak up, Jake. I can’t hear you for your toothbrush.” Then he told her slowly, and I found out I had agreed to marry him.

  Jake was so happy I couldn’t tell him different. We was married 42 years when he died, and I never did tell him. Never liked his kisses either. But he was a good man, Jake was, clean-living and honest. I just wish he’d learned to speak up.

  Making Something of Yourself (Daryll)

  I’ll be 18 next month (the day before Thanksgiving), and I’ve got to make some choices. It looks like I will graduate in May. By some miracle, my mom says. Then what? I can’t go to college—it would be like high school only worse. Besides, there’s no money, and I didn’t do anything to win financial aid. Not only were my grades LOW LOW LOW, I can barely get a basketball through a hoop. In Kentucky that’s a crime.

  But I never liked chasing things that bounce. Or roll. Or fly up and hit you in the face. I’ve thought it was dumb ever since my daddy gave me a little blue football when I was three. “Wildcat,” he’d say. “This one’s going to be a little wildcat.”

  Well, I wasn’t, but he didn’t stick around to find out. For years I thought he ran off just because I couldn’t throw a football. Nobody told me any different.

  What I like to do is work at the Dixie Cafe. I started in grade school, sweeping floors, taking out the trash. My mom worked there till she saved eno
ugh money to go to beauty school. “I left Dixie grease behind,” Mom says, “and took up hair oil.” Anyway, she liked working at Faye’s better. Me, I can’t stand the smell.

  The Dixie smells wonderful: burgers, coffee, cigarette smoke, collard greens. You can order scrambled eggs from 5:00 a.m. till midnight, so there’s a layer of breakfast smell, too.

  But what I like best is the talk, which I hear while I bus tables and mop. Sometimes I wash dishes, too, if Missy doesn’t make it. She has four kids, and one of them is always sick.

  I come in right after school and work till 7:30. That’s the latest Mom will let me stay on account of my homework. And chores. And, she says, “on account of I just want to look at you.”

  “Look at Peaches,” I say. Peaches is my sister. “She’s not as cute as me, but . . .”

  “Oh, go on, Daryll,” Mom says. “And don’t get the bighead.”

  The thing is, Mom doesn’t want me to stay on at the Dixie when I graduate. She says I should “make something” of myself. I tell her I am something. I’m a guy who likes to bus tables and listen to people talk. Mrs. Elam, who runs the Dixie, says I could work up to cashier if I came on full time in June. That would be more money. Mom could be proud of that.

  But still she says, “I can’t see what you like about that wilted old restaurant.” Wilted, that’s what she calls it. No hair spray, I guess. What I like is Mr. Welch and Mr. Dearborn coming in every evening to sit in their booth by the jukebox. I like one of them ordering the fish and the other asking for the special. I like Mrs. Grady and her daughter who only come on Tuesdays because that’s Mr. Grady’s bowling night. I like Angela Ann who stops in for coffee and cobbler on Wednesdays after she’s met her Girl Scout Troop. Angela Ann’s about a million years old and still goes by that little kid name. She groans when she talks. “Oh, oh, oh,” she’ll say. “I spent 45 minutes teaching my girls square knots, granny knots, and clove hitches, when the only thing they want to tie is the marriage knot.”