Catfish Alley (16 page)

And if that ain't enough, that Reeves woman shows up
the other day with that old woman waiting outside in her car. Asking about my
warehouse and some damn school. That's the last thing I want to hear about. I'll
burn that warehouse down before I turn it into some tourist attraction for a
bunch of Yankees. Let'm all burn in hell.

Dewey walks in from the kitchen behind the bar, drying
a glass. I order another Bud and study my options. I could sell everything and
move, get out of the lumber business completely. Alice's brother up in Memphis
told me if I ever needed a job, I could work for him, but I don't know nothing
about farm equipment. Or, I could sell the house and use the money to support
the lumberyard for a couple more years until things turn around. Me and Alice
could move in with her mother for a while, maybe build a new house in one of
those subdivisions when I get a little ahead.

The thought of living with Alice's mother is just about
more than I can stand. That woman is the orneriest old bitch I ever met. I've
spent the better part of the past forty years of my married life staying out of
that woman's way.

Nope, neither one of those ideas is even tolerable. I'm
going to have to get a loan. I'm just going to have to go down there to the
First National Bank of Clarksville and meet with a loan officer. Hopefully,
it'll be one of the boys I know from high school. One of them will probably do
me a favor. My credit's been mostly good until the last couple years. And I've
never asked for much before.

Yep, that's what I need to do. I finish off my second
Bud. It's all going to work out. Alice will see. And maybe I'll look into
selling the old place. Things are bound to be looking up soon. I've lived in
this town my whole life and I provide a good service for people. Alice teaches
Sunday school at the First Baptist. I even show up there myself on Easter and
for the Christmas program. Yessir, how can a banker — who's probably one of the
boys I grew up with — refuse me? I feel so much better, I tell Dewey to bring
me another Bud.

After a shower and shave, I put on a clean shirt and
think about a tie, but decide I don't need that. Those boys up at the First
National Bank of Clarksville know me. A. W. Spencer and now Arvis Spencer, the
president of the bank, have been working with us Tanners for as long as I can
remember. When I was a boy, I'd go to the bank with Daddy, and sit in a big
soft chair while he met with A. W. Of course, Daddy was growing the business
enough to pay back the advances the bank made him ahead of time. And he ran the
lumberyard before all of the rules about how much you have to pay: health
insurance, workman's compensation, and all of that malarkey. It's enough to
drive a man out of business these days.

Construction should pick up after the first of the
year. I heard rumors that a new contractor's coming to town looking to build a
couple subdivisions with one hundred to one hundred and fifty houses each. This
could be a great boon to Tanner Lumber if I can get that contract. I just need
a small loan to tide me over until then.

I walk up to the front counter and a young girl wearing
a suit greets me real polite-like. When I ask to see Arvis, she smiles in a
snooty businesslike way and asks me if I have an appointment. I am not
expecting to need an appointment to talk to old Arvis, so I tell her no. I tell
her that I just stopped by to chat with him. She smiles again. This girl sure
does smile a lot. She tells me to have a seat. I go over to one of the chairs
in the big wide lobby and I look around to see if there's anybody there I know.
Thankfully, since it's early, there are only a couple other people, who I don't
know, in the lobby. The girl from the front counter talks on the telephone for
a few minutes and then she comes over to tell me that Mr. Spencer will he right
down. He's upstairs in a meeting.

That's more like it. He knows my family. Of course he's
going to want to talk with me. I wait patiently, my cap in my hand. Finally, I
hear the ring of the elevator bell and low voices of men having a business
conversation. I see Arvis Spencer in his expensive suit in the middle of a
group of men that are all dressed like him. One of them, to my surprise, is
black. Now this is strange. Since when did old Arvis Spencer start hiring
blacks at the Clarksville Bank? I'm going to have to have a conversation with
him about that.

Arvis looks up and sees me, so he breaks free from the
group and comes over to shake my hand.

"Good to see you, Delbert. It's been a long
time." Arvis's voice is one of those deep, booming ones.

"Yessir, it has. I haven't had much call to visit
the bank."

"What can I do for you, Del? I've got just few
minutes before I have to be in a meeting over at City Hall." Arvis looks
over my shoulder at the group of men waiting for him.

"Oh, well, I won't keep you long. I just needed to
talk to you about a small loan for my business...."

"Not a problem, my man," Arvis says, clapping
me on the shoulder. "I've got a fine loan officer here who will sit down
with you and help you out." Arvis turns and hollers to a man from the
group who got off the elevator. "Jack, come over here and meet Del
Tanner."

The black man leaves the group and heads over toward
us. What? He has to be kidding! He is going to leave me in the hands of some
nigger for the most important business decision of my life? I don't know what
to say. What is Clarksville coming to? I nod and shake his hand. Arvis says his
name is Jack Baldwin. Then I nod again as Jack says I should meet him in his
office over on the east side of the lobby.

"Arvis," I say quietly, as Jack walks away,
"I don't believe I want to do my business with a stranger. Haven't you got
somebody else who can help me? You yourself used to work with my daddy."

I don't think Arvis realizes how serious I am. He
laughs. "Del, Jack Baldwin is a very good loan officer. He's one of the
best I have. I stole him from a bank in Tupelo, as a matter of fact. He'll take
good care of you — don't you worry."

And without another word, Arvis claps me on the back
again, goes to join the group of men waiting for him, and they're out the door.

What else can I do? I sure as hell can't go to another
bank. Granddaddy and Daddy both dealt with First National their whole lives. I
walk over to the office that Jack Baldwin had motioned toward. I look in and
he's sitting behind a huge desk. I just hope he ain't one of those arrogant
ones that think they're hot shit because they got themselves a big job where
they could tell white people what to do. Why, this man even has one of those
young white girls bringing him stuff. Bet he likes that all right.

Jack Baldwin gets up out of his chair. "Come in,
Mr. Tanner. Please, have a seat. Can we get you anything? Cup of coffee?"

I shake my head and ease myself into the chair across
the desk from Baldwin. I notice he's got a picture on the desk of a
good-looking black woman and two kids. There's a bunch of framed
important-looking papers on the walls. Near as I can tell, this man has won a
lot of awards for his work. But I still don't trust him.

Baldwin asks me what he can do for me, so I explain my
situation as best as I can without letting him know how bad it really is. It
wouldn't do for him to start spreading around town to other blacks that Tanner
Lumber is having problems. They might start taking advantage of me even more.
They always do. Apparently, I don't give him enough information, though,
because he keeps asking the same questions over and over. Finally, I get tired
of the whole damn thing.

"Can you help me, or not?" I ask.

"Mr. Tanner," Baldwin says, real calmlike,
"I'm pretty sure that we can, but I'm going to need more documentation
from you. It's just part of the process. Your business value has to be
appraised by a professional business appraiser before I can loan money on it.
It's just part of the regulations we're required to follow." Baldwin hands
me a piece of paper with a list on it. "If you'll get these documents in
order for us and get them back to me within the week, I'll get that appraisal
scheduled for you."

I take the list and get the hell out of there. Damn!
Back in Daddy's day you didn't have to go through all of this bullshit just to
get a simple loan. Besides, I'm good for it. Why can't it be like it used to be
when two men, two white men, agreed and shook hands? Now that banking is
integrated like everything else, it's just too damn complicated. And to top it
all off, I don't know where half of the shit on this list is. I'll have to go I
tome and get Alice to help me look for it. I hope to God she has a better idea
where Daddy kept all the old records than I do.

Roxanne

At least the front facade of Riverview hasn't been
tampered with, I'm thinking as I walk up the steps to the marble-floored
portico. The massive white columns are still in good shape and the original
ironwork from 1850 is intact. That's a start. The front door is standing open
behind the screen door, letting in the warm October sunshine, and Louisa has
placed some gorgeous gold and deep purple chrysanthemums in pots on either side
of the door.

It's so irritating to be nervous about this meeting.
I've been a member of the Pilgrimage Committee for at least fifteen years, and
director for two. Yet this African-American tour has got me so ruffled up, my
palms are sweating. There's not one woman on this committee who knows any more
about the history of black people than I do. So what am I worried about? It
occurred to me last night when I was tossing and turning again that Louisa is
just trying to get the black vote for her husband. I've heard rumors that he'll
probably run for mayor next year. Wouldn't she just love that?
Ellery Humboldt, Candidate for
Mayor, Establishes First African-American Tour.

I'm surprised, but it matters to me that I get this
right. It was so much easier when it was just one more item on my list of have-to-dos, but since I've gotten to know Grace and her friends a little better, it
does matter. I find that very annoying. I'm still trying to get my head back
into my role as pilgrimage director when a young black man in a white butler's
jacket answers the doorbell. Louisa and Ellery Humboldt have enough money to
employ plenty of people at any function they have. I happen to know
for
a fact that the caterer she uses is Bayou Belle's. The young man who answers
the
door
is tall and
handsome with a brilliant smile and a Creole-accented voice as smooth as butter
— probably one of Belle's
sons.

Belle Robicheaux moved up here from New Orleans in the
fifties and has built a sm
all
empire catering functions like this one. And for an extra fee — which I could
personally never afford — she'll send some of her children to serve and answer
the door.
At least she's making good money from wealthy white people who want to put on
airs.
Now, why did I think of that? That's never
occurred to me before. Usually I'm trying to figure out how I can afford to
have servers at one of my parties. Of course, I'm the one who gave Belle's name
to Louisa.

As I step inside and look around, I have to admit,
Louisa has exquisite antiques. Her collection, along with what was left in the
house after Ellen Davenport died, is impressive. It's been just six months
since she and Ellery purchased the house at auction from the Davenport estate.
I know they have plans to put it on the tour in the spring, but I'm not sure
the restoration can be done by then.

The problem is that the Davenports did some expensive,
but terribly inappropriate, remodeling to the old home. Ellen had Berber carpet
laid in the bedroom she used downstairs and had a bathroom installed that looks
like something out of a catalog for assistive devices. Of course, there's what
she did to the old summer kitchen to accommodate her live-in sitter, and then
there's the new kitchen her parents tacked on to the back of the house around
1940 that's just ghastly.

Riverview is one of the older homes in this area, with
a wide, sloping back lawn that looks out over the Tombigbee River. People will
be interested to hear how it was situated here because the river was the main
thoroughfare to transport cotton during the days before the Civil War.
Riverview is also another one of the homes that wasn't damaged by the Union
soldiers because it served as a hospital during the War. After being neglected
all those years by the Davenport family, it's looking a little shabby. I notice
that the walls and woodwork need some refurbishing.

I'm hoping Ellery Humboldt, Louisa's husband, won't be
here today. He tends to be underfoot a lot, since he's much older than she is
and retired from a lucrative law practice in Connecticut. They've already
hosted at least two parties since they moved to town, and I find him obnoxious.
Too bad Dudley's gone, or I could get him involved in one of those long,
drawn-out conversations with Ellery about his collection of Civil War
memorabilia. Ellery especially likes to wear his vintage Rebel uniform, which
fits him to a tee since he's such a small man. He actually wore it for their
Christmas party, and Louisa was in hoopskirts.