Let the Circle Be Unbroken (19 page)

“Who’s Bud?” I whispered to Stacey.

Stacey stared at the man. “The way Mama’s carrying on, I s’pose he must be some kind of kin or something.”

“So this is Bud!” Papa said, shaking the man’s hand when Mama let him go.

“And you’re David—”

“Sure have heard enough ’bout you!” Papa laughed.

“And I bet wasn’t none of it good.”

“Now I wouldn’t say that,” Papa protested.

“Lord, just look at you,” Mama said with a shake of her head, as if unable to believe that the man was actually there. “You sure are a sight for sore eyes. Mama, you remember me talking about my sister Lottie’s boy?”

“Now how you think I’m gonna forget somethin’ like
that?” demanded Big Ma. “Come here, boy, and give me a hug. You one of mine too.”

The man laughed as he embraced Big Ma. Then Mama introduced him to Uncle Hammer and the boys and me. He was Cousin Bud Rankin. Now I knew why he had seemed so familiar. His picture hung on the wall above Mama’s roll-top desk. Cousin Bud was introduced to the others standing near, then as people began to head for home and Sunday supper, Big Ma asked him how he knew where we were.

“Well, I managed to find my way to your place and there was a man there—”

“Mr. Morrison,” said Big Ma.

“Yes, ma’am . . . huge fellow. Well, he told me y’all was here and I come on down.”

It was decided that Mama would ride back with Cousin Bud. Little Man and Christopher-John chose to go with them as well. The rest of us climbed into Uncle Hammer’s car. Papa pulled out first, followed by Cousin Bud. As I glanced back at Cousin Bud’s car, I noticed Jake Willis standing off to the side staring after us. Despite what Reverend Gabson had said about being suspicious about folks, I found myself wondering about Jake Willis. I couldn’t help it. I just didn’t like the looks of that man.

*   *   *

Cousin Bud was a handsome man with a winsome smile and a pleasant way about him. He was Mama’s nephew, even though he was three years older than Mama. The son of Mama’s oldest sister, Cousin Bud had grown up with Mama and had been like a brother to her. Throughout dinner the two talked practically nonstop, laughing and joking, reminiscing about their childhood, and when dinner was over and we all sat in front of the fire, they began their storytelling in earnest. Soon all the adults joined in, telling stories of long
ago, stories about themselves, about people the boys and I knew well, and about people whom we would never know except through stories. We laughed a lot, remembered a lot, and enjoyed the day.

Then as night came and the hour grew late, Mama asked Cousin Bud to sing. He hesitated at first, saying he hadn’t sung for quite a while, but when Mama insisted, the music slipped from him like water from a well, rising in sweet, smooth sounds to our ears. He sang several festive songs I hadn’t heard before, followed by several more songs in which we all joined. Then, at Big Ma’s request, he sang:

When Cousin Bud finished, no one stirred. He had sung the words with such depth, such feeling, that we were all awed to silence. Finally, Big Ma wiped her eyes and thanked him. “My Paul Edward loved that song, sho’ did. I thanks ya for it.”

Mama smiled proudly at Cousin Bud. “You’ve still got it, Bud. That voice’ll charm anybody.”

“Don’t I wish,” Cousin Bud laughed.

“It’s mighty fine, all right,” Papa said. “Mighty fine.”

“Used to get him into a whole lot of trouble too, that voice of his,” Mama said. “Once he got to courting age, every time I turned around he was busy wooing some girl, singing to her. And wouldn’t just be wooing one or two, but more like five and six at a time. Then when the girls would find out about each other, they’d get mad at him and me too. They figured I knew about all the others and should’ve told them. Some of them even wanted to fight about the thing—me, not him!”

“But you always won,” laughed Cousin Bud.

Little Man looked up, surprised. “Mama used to fight?”

“She ain’t told ya?” exclaimed Cousin Bud. “Well, look right here.” He pointed to a thin line running from his hairline down his forehead to his eyebrow. “That there was put on me by your mama when she was ’bout eight years old. Took the biggest stick she could lay her little hands on and hauled off and hit me with it.”

Mama smiled girlishly. “Well, you made me mad.”

All of us laughed.

“Sho’ did do it,” chuckled Cousin Bud, remembering. He fixed his eyes on the boys and me. “Let me tell y’all, there ain’t nothin’ in this world worse than having a sassy aunt younger than you are. When she couldn’t have her way, she’d say: ’But I’m your aunt and you hafta do what I say!’ Then I’d say: ‘That ain’t nothin’! I’m older and bigger too!’ Then we’d go to it—”

“And we’d both end up with a whipping,” interjected Mama. “Sister Lottie or Papa, one would wear us out.”

“Sho’ would,” agreed Cousin Bud. Then the smile left his face. “You been home since Mama died?”

Mama shook her head. “Not since Papa passed. With him and Sister Lottie both gone, I didn’t much want to go back.”

Cousin Bud nodded, indicating he felt the same. “Ain’t wanted to go back myself. Fact is, this my first trip back down here since Mama died.”

Uncle Hammer got up and put another log on the fire. “Jus’ what brings you back now, Bud?”

“Well . . . my wife. She’s visiting here.”

“She’s here?” Mama questioned. “Well, why didn’t you bring her with you?”

Suddenly Cousin Bud looked uneasy. “Well . . . she jus’ wanted to come see her folks this trip. She come before me and went on down to McComb. I . . . I come to get her.”

“I thought you married a Northern girl.”

Cousin Bud fidgeted in his chair. “Did . . . but we didn’t stay together.”

“Oh, I didn’t know . . . you never wrote me that.”

“Things just didn’t work out.”

“Things happen that way sometime.”

“Me and Lydia—that’s my wife now—we got married a few years after I got to New York. Got us a daughter fifteen.
Name’s Suzella. I told you in my letters.”

“You didn’t tell me much else,” Mama teased. Then she smiled, pleased for him. “Well, I sure would like to meet Lydia—Suzella too. Try to get Lydia to come back this way, will you?”

Cousin Bud turned to Mama, his look strange. Then he shook his head. “Mary . . . I gotta tell you something.”

Mama looked at him in silence, her head tilted, waiting.

“Course you ain’t gonna wanna hear it.”

“What is it, Bud?”

He rubbed his hands together nervously and stared into the fire.

Mama reached toward him. “Bud?”

He turned suddenly to face her. “She’s white, Mary. Lydia, my wife . . . I married a white woman. She left me and I come to get her back. I—”

Mama’s reach stopped in midair. Cousin Bud looked slowly around the room. No one spoke.

I knew that by his words, Cousin Bud had separated himself from the rest of us. From their faces I could tell that the boys knew it too, for white people were part of another world, distant strangers who ruled our lives and were better left alone. When they entered our lives, they were to be treated courteously, but with aloofness, and sent away as quickly as possible. Besides, for a black man to even look at a white woman was dangerous. A year and a half ago Mr. John Henry Berry had been burned to death, killed for supposedly flirting with a white woman, and his uncle, Mr. Samuel Berry, who tried to defend him and his brother, had lain like a charred log until he had died a few months ago. A white woman was foreign, dangerous, and here Cousin Bud had gone off and married one.

Cousin Bud shrugged and smiled somewhat lopsidedly.
“I told you, you wouldn’t wanna hear it.”

Again there was silence. Then Uncle Hammer slowly stood, his chair scraping noisily against the wood floor. He stared down at Cousin Bud. “You’re a fool,” he said.

“Hammer—” Big Ma protested.

“Coming down here running after some confounded white woman—”

“Hammer, Bud’s Mary’s kin,” Papa said quietly. “Leave it be.”

Uncle Hammer’s eyes met Papa’s, then glanced again at Cousin Bud, who looked away, not saying anything at all. Uncle Hammer kept his eyes on him a moment longer, his look contemptuous, then crossed to the side door and went out.

“Children, I think you’d best go to bed now,” Mama said.

Mr. Morrison stood. “Guess I’d better turn in myself.”

He left and the boys and I went off to our rooms. Soon after, I heard Papa go outside to join Uncle Hammer, and right after that Big Ma came in to bed. Mama was left to talk to Cousin Bud alone.

*   *   *

“How you s’pose he coulda done it?” I asked Stacey the next morning as we did the morning chores. “How you s’pose he could’ve gone off and married a white woman?”

“Maybe he loved her,” suggested Christopher-John.

Stacey whirled around. “Boy, you get that outa your head right now! Can’t love anybody white and don’t you never try! The man’s just a fool like Uncle Hammer said.”

Christopher-John, startled by Stacey’s attack, dropped one of the eggs he held. He looked down at the broken egg, then back up at Stacey, his eyes growing big. Christopher-John did not like to rouse anyone’s anger and especially not Stacey’s. Both he and Little Man idolized Stacey, and to incur
his anger was a hurting thing. “I—I didn’t mean nothin’,” he mumbled weakly. “I jus’ thought . . .” His voice trailed off.

“You’d better clean that up,” I said when Stacey, without a word of consolation, only glanced at the egg and continued milking the cow, Nadine.

Obediently Christopher-John carefully put the good egg he still held into the egg basket, and taking the shovel, scooped up the broken egg and took it off to the hogs’ slop. When he returned, he went quietly back to work, but Little Man said: “One thing I know. Uncle Hammer sure ’nough’s mad. He so mad Papa told him to jus’ hush.”

I looked up. “When he tell him that?”

“On the back porch when they was washing up this morning. Papa said: ‘He’s Mary’s kin and you gotta respect that.’”

“What Uncle Hammer say?”

“Said: ‘Ain’t gotta respect no fool.’”

“What’d Papa say to that?”

“Said: ‘Then respect Mary.’ Then Uncle Hammer, he nodded and didn’t say nothing else.”

I turned to Stacey. “What you think? You think there’ll be trouble between Uncle Hammer and Cousin Bud?”

Stacey continued to milk. “What I think is Cousin Bud best stay outa Uncle Hammer’s way or—” He reached for another bucket and didn’t finish.

“Or what?”

He turned slightly to look at me. “Or leave. Now that’s what he oughta do. He oughtn’t’ve come here in the first place.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have come, but Cousin Bud was here now and Mama tried to make him feel welcome. At breakfast she talked with him about old times and nothing was
said about last night. Papa, Big Ma, and Mr. Morrison also joined the talk, but Uncle Hammer said nothing at all; and despite the constant chatter his silence made the breakfast tense, and I for one was glad when it was over. After breakfast while Little Man and I did the dishes, Cousin Bud remained sipping one last cup of coffee and talking with Mama. Little Man and I worked quietly, listening with avid curiosity.

“You know, Mary, maybe it’d be better if I went on and left today.”

“I thought you were planning on staying until Wednesday.”

“Was. But you know Hammer don’t like me being here.” “Don’t you mind Hammer.”

“I understand why he feels ’bout me like he do . . . that’s why I’d better get on outa here.”

Mama sighed. “It’s been so long, Bud. Wait at least until tomorrow.”

“All right, you think it’ll be all right. . . .” He laughed softly, but the sound was sad. “I guess I’ll never quite get over it, how people take the news I’m married to a white woman. Lord, I get to feeling so guilty ’bout it, like I stuck a knife in somebody or something. Lydia, she feels the same. That’s why she’s gone, just couldn’t take it any longer. But who’d we ever hurt ’sides maybe ourselves and our little girl?”

He was silent a moment; Mama didn’t speak.

“You know, Mary, it ain’t all that awful being married to somebody white. I mean it’s awful ’cause of what folks say and think and what some folks’ll do, but when it comes right down to it, they’re just folks like us.”

“No, Bud, not like us.”

“Mary, you’ve always been reasonable. Most times Lydia’s
just a woman to me. She ain’t got no color at all. And she’s a lovely woman, a good woman. It’s just that this thing’s been as hard on her as it’s been on me.”

“Don’t expect me to understand about you and this woman,” Mama said testily. “Just don’t expect me to understand.”

“Well, what’d I do that was so wrong? Marry a woman I loved, that’s all!”

It was an angry, frustrated outburst. Mama did not respond to it.

“And I did love her, Mary. Still do.”

“What will you do when you find her, Bud? You don’t really expect to just walk up to her on the street or march up to the front door of her family’s house and tell her to come back. They’ll lynch you before you’ve even got the words out.”

“I’ll . . . I’ll think of a way. I just need to talk to her, that’s all. I can talk to her, she’ll come back.”

“You said you have a daughter. What about her? Is she with Lydia?”