Little Altars Everywhere (22 page)

I had to fight from crying. Couldn’t catch my breath. The kids were staring at me, open-mouthed. I could feel the tight fingers squeezing my chest in.

Then Sidda was back in the room, holding something out to me. It was my inhaler. She put it in my hand and I reached out and pulled her to me. My boys looked confused. Lulu stared down at her food.

Vivi folded up her napkin and said, I will shoot my sons’ big toes off before I let them go off and fight in a war.

That’s the thing about my wife—she is crazy, but sometimes the woman can nail things right on the head.

She was the one who eventually drove me down to the Negro funeral parlor. It was drizzling slightly, and there were little lamps on either side of the entrance to the building that made it look like something from long ago. It’s funny—Chaney, Willetta, all of them came to Daddy’s funeral, but I don’t believe I’d ever set foot in their funeral home before. Going to that section of town at night was like being in a foreign country to me.

I asked her, Please Vivi, would you go in there and tell Chaney I’m out here, that I’d like to talk to him?

Then I waited in the Thunderbird with the window rolled down watching all the Negroes walk in and out. Dressed to the nines, some of them carrying umbrellas. Holding onto each other, handkerchiefs in their hands, hats on.

Everyone used to wear hats, I remember thinking. When did they stop? Are the Negroes the only ones who wear hats anymore?

Vivi stepped out of the funeral parlor and came back to the car. She sat in the driver’s seat and stared straight ahead. She wasn’t acting like her normal self, but who the hell was? She told me, Chaney says if you want to talk to him, you’ll have to go inside.

I took out my pocketknife and started to clean my fingernails. Finally I said, Vivi, what should I do?

Her hands were on the steering wheel, gripping it and letting it go, gripping it and letting it go. Then my wife said, I am dog-tired of all this, Shep. It’s got to stop somewhere.

This was the first time I’d ever seen Chaney in a suit. It was tight on him and the pants pulled across the front. He was sitting down holding Willetta’s hands, and a little group of women was hovering around them. Their hands together looked so brown and wrinkled. Those hands looked for a minute like the earth itself.

And for the first time, I thought: Rice.
Those people over there grow rice.

I was frozen. Couldn’t take a step. I just stood there, staring at Willetta and Chaney. The man saw me, saw I couldn’t move. He whispered something to Willetta and they both looked over at me.

If you’ve ever done a kind act in your life, Chaney, please get up now and walk over to me and help unglue me from this spot. I am paralyzed. I’m in the middle of battle and I can’t move.

Somebody was humming and it was sweet and warm in there. You could smell how dressed up they all were. I felt a dizziness come over me and I thought, Lord, I’m going to faint in this funeral parlor full of grieving colored people.

And then there was Vivi slipping in the door. She had on her chapel veil like the Catholics used to wear back then. She took my arm and we walked across the room to Willetta and Chaney. I was standing right in front of him.

Vivi said, I came to tell you how very sorry I am, Chaney. I’m so sorry, Willetta. I want yall to know you are in my prayers.

Chaney looked at her and said, Thank you, Miz Viviane.

He did not include me in the thanks. I couldn’t believe Vivi didn’t say:
We
are sorry. She should of said
We
are sorry. For God’s sake, I thought, she’s my
wife.

Why was she saying, I’ll be waiting in the car?

I looked down at my hands. I was left totally alone
in the middle of those people. Tiny flecks of dirt up under my nails. Can’t a man ever get his hands clean enough? Chaney’s fingers were twined up with Willetta’s. His palms had a pinkness to them I never noticed before. I had tears dripping down my face. I don’t know where all the tears come from. My sinuses are going to be swole up for hours, I thought.

Chaney, podnah, I finally said. Can you forgive me, buddy?

He lifted his eyes, locked them on me, and left them there. I don’t think Chaney had looked at me for that long since I’d known him. And all I could do is stand there and bear it. If he’d stood up and punched me in the stomach, I could not of lifted an arm to defend myself.

He didn’t punch me. He reached up and handed me his handkerchief. It smelled like Clorox. I can still see that old white cannon handkerchief passing from his hand to mine. His bloodshot almond eyes, his full face, that big chest of his bulging out of what I realized was one of my old suits. I couldn’t use that handkerchief until he spoke.

Until he said, Yeah, bossman,
I
forgive you.

He said it like there was a bunch of others who wouldn’t forgive me. I kept on looking at him. Finally he said, Go on now, blow your nose.

I resigned from the draft board a couple of months after that. Figured if I was going to do my civic duty,
I’d do it on the Garnet River Levee Board, something that might benefit us farmers. We got flooding and drainage problems throughout all this part of the country. Hell, the Mississippi, Red, and Atchafalaya are powerful big rivers. You got to pay some attention to the land and water in your own state.

Old Lyndon Baines decided not to run again. Said he was going back to Texas. Said his daddy once told him that down home the people know when you’re sick and care when you die. I never really thought the man meant to keep us in that war for so long. I feel for him. He ain’t never had Chaney forgive him. There’s a lot of us on Judgment Day that will be ripped outta our E-Z Boys and thrown into a hell we never dreamed of.

These days, years after my time on the draft board, I’ll sit up at night and watch the Gulf War on CNN. And I’ll be damned if I can get to sleep, even hours after I turn off the TV. So I’ll lay awake and talk to the Old Podnah. I wouldn’t exactly call it praying. I just lay there and talk to Him. And sometimes when I listen close enough, I can hear—past the wheezing in my chest—the sound of a heartbeat that isn’t coming from my own body at all, but from the fields outside, from the dirt, from the old Louisiana earth.

Chaney, 1991

I
be takin it easy in my twilight years. I sit out here under the mimosa tree with my ice tea and work on my scrapbook. Oh, I got pictures of it all. Miz Siddy call me the family historian. That what she say. I got pictures of her when she was the Mardi Gras Queen, her hair all long, wearin a green sequin gown. Pictures she done sent Letta from when she was gone to Europe and Paris. That child done been more places than any of us here at Pecan Grove, her Mama included. Done been ever’where and done ever’thing.

I got me clippins of what-all Mister Big Shep done on the Levee Board. He a big man in drainage. Got my own picture with my grandson, Macon, holdin that seventy-pound squash we growed in my garden. Man come out from
The Monitor
, took our picture, put it right up there in the newspaper. Got me the clip where Mister Big Shep done got one of his DWIs up on Davis
Street. Got me the big write-up they done on Mister Baylor Senior when he passed.

But I don’t need no clip to put me to mind of that.

Mister Big Shep called me from the Louisiana Savings and Loan the day after they put the old man in the ground. When the phone rang, I be just settin down to my noon meal. Coolin off in the kitchen with a ice rag on my neck in front of the fan. I member lookin over to the windowsill at a sweet potato Letta got growin in a jelly jar. Toothpicks stuck in the side to hold it up, roots spreadin down into the water. Letta love it when them sweet potatoes shoot green leafs out the top. She get them to spread out all over the TV.

Mister Big Shep say, Chaney, could you come down here to the bank and pick me up?

Man cuttin into my lunch time, ain’t no rest for the weary. I say, Your truck broke down, bossman?

He say, Don’t ask me no questions now, podnah. Just get your butt down here. Please.

Somethin must be bad wrong. That man don’t never say “please” to me. I grab me a chunk of cornbread, get in my truck, go down there to fetch him. He be settin up in that air-condition bank with his legs crossed like he don’t hardly never do. Look pale as a ghost. His own truck parked right out on the curb, but when I see that man try to stand up, I know why he done hollered for me. His hands both shakin and he havin so much trouble breathin, got his wheezer clenched tight in his
fist. Tryin to act like things be hunky-dory, but when he stand up, he like to fall down. I reach out to steady him but he pull away. The man got tears in his eyes and he walkin all whompa-sided. Lord, I be thinkin, Mister Big Shep better not be drinkin this early in the day or we all in trouble!

We get on out to the truck and then Mister Big Shep haul off and start to cryin like a baby. I don’t say nothin, no way. Act like it be a regular thing for a grown white man to be slobberin all over hisself in the cab of my pickup truck. He choke up and stop hisself, put his hands on the dashboard like he holdin on for dear life.

He say: Chaney, My Daddy done died and left me a one-hundred-thousand-dollar debt to pay off. That’s what the bastard done left me!

Then he take out that wheezer and pull some breath out of it, stuff it in his shirt pocket and light up a Camel. He keep those Camels in his shirt pocket, right along with the wheezer, back in those days. (I still smoked my L&Ms on the sly, so I can’t put the man down.)

Now I ain’t never heard nobody talk that much money before. Not real-like. Oh, sometime the phone ring and Letta say, I answer it! Might be a man wantin to give me a million dollars! Somethin like that.

But Mister Shep not jokin.

I ax him, Boss, where you want me to take you? You want me to run you on back to the house?

He say, Hell no, the last thing I want to see is Viviane and the kids.

Okay, I say, then where we goin?

I shoulda knowed better than to ax him. The man don’t know what he want. He a lost sheep settin in the cab of my truck. So I head out Jefferson Street like I got good sense.

Fore long, Mister Big Shep say, Chaney, why don’t you just drive us around? Just take us for a ride, okay podnah?

Well, I carry us on out to Madewood where his Daddy used to farm. Out on Bayou Latanier where all the Dutchmen farm. All thick with pecan trees. Mister Vanderlick be farmin over there, we help him with his harvest from time to time when he in a pinch. I drive down the turn-row till we get to the bayou. Then I stop the truck, open the door, and get out. Mister Big Shep just stay settin there like he froze to the seat.

I ain’t got no air condition in my truck like he do in his. I open his door, say, Come on out, Boss, it be cooler out here.

We go set under that big old pecan tree by the bayou where Mister Baylor Senior used to pull up his black car and eat his biscuits, drink ice tea Miz Hallie done packed him. It was shady and we sat there and Mister Shep just go on and cry and cry. He be pitiful. He take his handkerchief out the pocket of his khakis and wipe his nose. He say: Chaney, what am I gonna do? I can’t farm this family one-hundred-thousand dollars outta the hole. I can’t do it. I need me a goddamn drink.

That what he all the time be sayin: I need me a drink. The man be suckin on the juice since he was a teenager. I can’t talk, cause I used to be sippin my cold Jax beer back then myself. But Mister Big Shep, he talk about a drink the way some men talk about wantin a woman.

I tell him what Letta be tellin me all our life, say: Mister Big Shep, you gotta turn it over, is what you gotta do. You gotta give it to the Lord.

He pull out another Camel, take a puff, then snuff it out on the ground with his boot. He got on his dressy boots. That cigarette paper so white there in the good sandy soil. That dirt by the bayou be what we call our “ice-cream dirt.” Good ground. Easy to work.

He say, We used to play down here, huh, Chaney?

Yessir, I tell him, we play down here all the time when your Daddy be workin this place.

He say, Chaney, podnah, I’m thirty-three years old. I got four kids and a crazy wife. I should of went to Tulane. I should of been a goddamn sonovabitch lawyer.

Oooh Lord, I hate it when they start to talkin like this. You don’t hear no black men rattlin off all they missed opportunities. They didn’t have no opportunities
to
miss! I just want to slap Mister Shep upside the head and say, Pull yourself up, boy! Quit bein such a titty baby!

He be black, I mighta done it. But you don’t talk like that to a white man, no how, no way.

Boss, I tell him, You gotta quit feelin sorry. You got
you three plantations to farm. Your Daddy done built you a brick house. You white, you a man, and you got chilren what need you. You got you some good soil.

If I could, I’d give you this land, Chaney, he say. You’re the farmer.

Shoo, I say, I don’t want it.

He let out a laugh, say: Shit, it’s pathetic! I couldn’t give this land away if I tried to! No one would touch it. No. They’re not gonna let me walk away from my Daddy’s debt.

You oughta thank the Good Lord you got two legs to stand on, I tell him.

He go on whinin. Son of a goddamn bitch, he say. Only thing I could do with my inheritance is run off into the night.

I been workin with Mister Big Shep my whole life, and all I can say is, he sure be takin his time growin from a boy to a man. He done had ever’thing a man could want. His Daddy done bought him a convertible Buick when he wasn’t but eighteen. Many a time I sat in that outhouse and wiped myself with newspaper wonderin where justice was at. Many a time I axed the Good Lord why Mister Shep was the boss and I was the nigger.

But lookin at him snifflin by that tree, all my envy just fall away, and I get to feelin light-like. Feel like someone reach and take a heavy coat off my back.

I feel that hot air, swat a fly offa my face and think:
Ain’t a thing he got I need. Ain’t a thing he got that I want. He ain’t nothin but a sad, scart white man, can’t even breathe worth a damn. Me, I got a strong body what my Letta love, and I done learnt to roll with the punches from my Daddy. That’s one thing I know, is how to roll with the punches. Mister Big Shep, he ain’t learnt nothin from his Daddy but smokin and drinkin and how to sign a check. I go to church on Sunday, sleep good at night, and when there’s a rain comin in, I stand out on my porch and smell the earth I been workin. Even if I don’t own it, it’s still mine.

Get up, Mister Shep, I tell him. Quit your cryin. Your people done had this land too long for you to lay down and die now.

He look up at me like a little boy, instead of a man only two–three years younger than me. Then he stand up, straighten his khakis, run his hand through his hair.

He say, Let’s get on back to Pecan Grove. We’re wasting time down here.

Maybe I oughta not tole the man to stop cryin. Maybe I shoulda just let him set on that bank under that tree, cryin till he couldn’t cry no more. Sometime I think about that. Think about maybe Mister Big Shep heart done got all hard cause of tears he ain’t cried. Tears bricked up in there and turned hard. Dammed-up rain that couldn’t water what needed it.

I wish somebody could tell Mister Big Shep how good he got it. I been knowin the man since we was lit
tle playboys together. Since my daddy and uncles was workin for Mister Baylor Senior. I been knowin the man since he was three–four years old. And I ain’t never known him to be satisfied.

Oh sure, he might have him a minute or two at twilight, after he done had his highballs and come drivin down the lane, say, Come on Chaney! Ride on back with me to look at the fields.

It’ll be gettin dark, way after my worktime unless we be harvestin. But I get in the truck with him, and he got that glass of whiskey in his hand. And we ride on back there and look at the beans or rice or cotton or whatever we got in the ground. And you can see him startin to settle down for a minute. But that don’t happen much. And when it do, it don’t last long. Mainly what happen is the man worry hisself sick till he can’t breathe most every day of his life.

These days seem like he pullin that wheezer outta his shirt pocket and suckin on it every time I look over. When he breathe sometime he sound like a Mack truck in his chest stuck in the mud. That’s how bad it is. Sometime when I get up to pee in the middle of the night and step out on the porch to look at the stars, there he be—settin up, the light on in his room down the lane. I can see him in the easy chair next to the window, fightin to get a breath.

He ain’t even got Miz Viviane in there with him. He don’t sleep with her since she done move out that room years ago and took over the chilren’s little
schoolroom. I had to go up to the brick house and take the blackboards down off the wall in that room. When them kids come home and seen they blackboards and desks out on the carport, they look around so lost. I just stared at the ground to keep away from they eyes.

After that, Mister Big Shep and Miz Viviane act like bidness people in that brick house. When Miz Viviane tell me to do somethin, she say, Get it done before
The Master
come home. She made it up to call him The Master. I ain’t never called him that and don’t plan to.

Pecan Grove a beautiful place. Quiet and green and full of sweet dirt. Oh sure, they was a whole lot more trees years ago. Whole grove of old pecan trees fore Mister Big Shep done ripped them out to plant the rice and soybeans. Me and Letta used to pick those pecans and sell them down the road at Mansour’s Grocery. After Mister Baylor Senior died, Mister Big Shep come back here all young and sad and bustin to pay back bills, ready to tear up anything got in his way. He dig in the earth and pull them trees out by the roots—took near-bout every bit of shade off this plantation. He say he could get a whole lot more for rice and beans than for any old pecans.

I don’t judge the man for that. I don’t judge the man for any of it. Judgin up to the Good Lord hisself and nobody else. Bossman punished hisself enough, the way all that dust blow through his house and into his lungs after he pull up them trees by the roots.

I don’t worry much. You can’t. I done worked hard
to help Mister Big Shep pay off his debt. Shoo, there was times when I just wanted to knock him to the ground. (And I coulda done it easy, cause I always been a stronger man than him, ever since we was little.) Times when he cuss at me in the fields or when he say somethin smart when he handin over the payroll on Fridays. Or when he sent my baby brother overseas to get his jaw blowed off, tellin me it was Lincoln’s “big opportunity.” There’s a lot I coulda said to that white man.

I set under my mimosa tree and think on things and mostly I don’t worry about Mister Shep or none of the Walkers. Some people, they is gonna be unhappy no matter what. You could give them ever’thing you have. Take the blood out you own body and give it to them and they’d still be miserable. That just be the way it is.

Oh, Pecan Grove full up with beauty. I got my vegetable garden full of tomatoes and string beans. Letta got flowers ever’where you want to look. Zinnias, hibiscus, hydrangeas. She got something growin outta most every empty coffee can we done used in our life. She even got flowers growin outta a pair of Mister Big Shep’s old boots he done throwed out. I bet there ain’t no more peaceful place on the Good Lord’s earth than here at Pecan Grove. Ain’t no violence, no noise, no shootin, no drugs, like up on
Miami Vice.
I watch the TV, I know what’s goin on. No drugs here. Just my blood pressure pills and what Letta take for her iron.
Things might be different up at the Walker house, but I be talkin bout
my
Pecan Grove.

We done had us a good life here. A hard-workin life. And when we could, we done had us some parties! Catfish cook-ups like you never saw. Settin out in the yard till way after dark, laughin and laughin. We done good with the hand the Good Lord dealt us. We done loved each other, uh-huh. We done raised two girls, and five grandchilren, and we got a great-granbaby gonna need tendin pretty soon. That is just the way life happen. We done lived down the road from sadness all our lives. But you gotta know what sadness be yours and what be somebody else’s, is what I say.