Mississippi Bridge (2 page)

“Well, it won’t hurt nothin’ t’ try it on. There’s a mirror right over here.” He handed her the hat. “Go on, Miz Hattie, brighten up the place. It be a joy to see you in it.”

Miz Hattie took the hat and placed it on that mop of red hair of hers. She pinned it down with a huge stickpin. Rudine and her mama were still in the store. I seen them watching.

“Now ain’t that fine?” said Mr. Wallace. “Makes you look like a schoolgirl.”

“Well, it sure is pretty all right,” confessed Miz Hattie, primping at herself in the mirror. “It surely is. . . .”

While Miz Hattie was making up her mind about whether or not she was going to buy that hat, I seen Josias Williams coming up the road carrying a small bundle in his hand and all dressed up in his Sunday-go-to-meeting
clothes. Josias was a full-grown man, some ten or more years over, but he wasn’t yet married. He said he just ain’t found his woman yet. Said, too, that was just as well ’cause there were so many mouths already to feed in his family, and that was sure enough the truth. There was a bunch of them living on a fourteen-acre spot of sharecropping land near to our place. ’Cause they were so close, Josias and me, sometimes we gone fishing down on the water Rosa Lee together. Josias and me, we was friends.

“’Ey, Josias!” I called.

He seen me and he smiled that wide-toothed grin of his. “Wet ’nough for ya?” he asked, stepping onto the porch.

I asserted it was and he laughed. “Keep it up ’round here and we gonna hafta start building ourselves an ark, just like ole Noah!”

I smiled up at him, then took note of his bundle and asked straight out, “You travelin’ today, Josias?”

“Yes, suh! Got me a chance to get myself a job. Gonna go lumberin’ ’long on the Trace. Man say I be there today, I’m gonna have me a job!”

“Well, I sho’ do hope you make it, Josias.”

“Oh, I’m gonna make it all right. Spite all this here rain, Lord smilin’ on me today! I knows He is!” Then he laughed and gone on in the store.

I got up and I gone in after him.

“Well, there, Josias,” greeted Mr. John Wallace, “what got you all dressed up on a rainy weekday like this?”

“Well, suh, Mister John, I’m gonna take myself a trip!”

“That a fact?”

“Yes, suh!”

“Now where you get money to go takin’ a trip, boy?”

“Scraped together ever’ penny I could lay my hands on. Had to borrow a little bit, but it’s gonna be worth it, ’cause I got a job waitin’ on me!”

Pa began thumping the table with his fingers. Most times he done that when things ain’t set too right with him. “Now, Josias,” he said, “what kinda job you figure waitin’ on you?”

Josias turned to Pa. “Well, Mr. Charlie, got a letter from my cousin doin’ some lumberin’ down long the Natchez Trace. He said I come on down, man’d hire me on and pay me cash money, so I’m sure ’nough goin’!”

Pa frowned. A lot of men were going begging for jobs these days.
White men
. And here Josias was talking about taking on a lumbering job along the Natchez Trace.

“What ’bout your plantin’, boy?” asked Mr. John Wallace. “Ain’t you got land to crop?”

“Ah, Mr. John, you know they’s plenty of hands at home for that. They ain’t gonna miss me none. Be better I’m off workin’ makin’ some cash money.”

Pa thumped the table again. “What you doin’ talkin’ ’bout cash money, nigger? White men ain’t hardly gettin’ no cash money these days. What? You think you better’n a white man?”

The smile that had been shining all cross Josias’s face sure gone quick. His eyes got big and I know’d he was scared. I had done seen that look before. “Why . . . why, no suh, Mr. Charlie. Ain’t . . . ain’t never thought such a thing.”

“Then what you doin’ standin’ up there bald-faced lyin’ for, sayin’ you done got yourself a job?”

“Why, no suh, I . . . I ain’t lyin’—”

“Then you sayin’ you can get a job when a white man can’t?”

Poor Josias, he ain’t know’d what to say. I’d’ve been him, I’d’ve been in the same fix. Pa was a mean one when it come to colored folks. Josias glanced around at Rudine and her mama. They stepped back, looking scared. Miz Hattie turned from her mirror to look at him. Grace-Anne sucked on her candy stick and stared too.

Then Pa let that hand go. He slammed it hard against the table. “That what ya sayin’?”

“No! No—no, suh, Mr. Charlie! I—I ain’t sayin’ no such a thing! I ain’t got me no job! I was jus’ sayin’ that, poppin’ off my mouth, tryin’ t’ be big! I ain’t got me no lumberin’ job, Mr. Charlie, and I ain’t got me no cash job whatsoever!”

“Then what you doin’ takin’ the bus for?”

Josias hung his head. “My cousin . . . my cousin he needin’ help on his place. He been sickly all the winter and . . . and now he needin’ me t’ help get his crop planted.”

Pa sneered, just like he know’d that all the time. R.W. and Melvin, they gone to grinning at Josias’s humiliation and started mumbling about how Negroes lie. They was proud of Pa for making Josias admit the truth and they let him know it too. The other men, they done the same.

Josias, he got what he come in for and gone out again. I waited a few minutes, then I gone out too. I ain’t liked the way Pa done talked to Josias. Josias was a nice man. He wasn’t hurting nobody. But I know’d that was the way for Pa and the other men to talk that way to Josias and for Josias to take it. Colored folks seemed always to have to take that kind of talk. One time I seen Pa and Melvin and R.W. and a whole bunch drag a colored man down the road, beat him till he ain’t hardly had no face on him ’cause he done stood up for himself and talked back. That ain’t never set right with me, the way Pa done. It wasn’t right and I just know’d that, but I ain’t never let Pa know how I was feeling, ’cause Pa he could get awful riled and riled quick. Last thing a body wanted to do, blood or not, was to get on Pa’s wrong side. You got on Pa’s wrong side and you done had it.

I stepped out onto the porch and I seen Josias down at the far end leaning against a post. That bundle of his was set next to his feet. He seen me and put up his coat collar to warm his neck, then he crossed his arms and stared out at the crossroads, waiting on the bus. His mouth was
clenched tight. He was looking right different from when he was inside the store. Then he had been scared. Now he was angry. I could see it all over him. I walked down and leaned on the post right side of him. “Josias,” I said real quiet-like. “You got yourself that lumberin’ job, ain’tcha?”

Josias flicked his eyes my way, but he ain’t said nothing.

“You got that job all right. Wish . . . wish you ain’t had to go lyin’ on yourself, Josias.”

Now Josias he looked on me long and hard. “You want me to say different? You want me dead?”

“Wh-what?”

“’Cause I backlip yo’ daddy, make him think I got somethin’ he ain’t got, that’s what gonna happen to me, boy. Sho is. Here he a white man and me black as night. Happen t’ me sure.”

“But you got yo’self a right t’ make some cash money!” I declared. “Shuckies! Ever’body wanna make some cash money, and you got a right much as anybody, Josias!”

Josias just stared at me, then looked back out at the road. He weren’t speaking to me no more.

I moved away from him and gone on down to the other side of the steps and sat on the bench ’front of them store
windows. For some while Josias just stood there leaning against his post, and I sat there on my bench and we ain’t said nothing. It seemed mighty odd, the two of us on that porch and us not speaking. Rudine and her mama, they came out and gone down and stood near to Josias. After a while, Miz Hattie and Grace-Anne they came out too and they sat down beside me. Miz Hattie was wearing that springtime hat. “Jeremy!” called Grace-Anne. “You seen Granny’s hat?”

I nodded.

“It sure pretty, ain’t it?”

I glanced over at Rudine who was looking, then turned back to Miz Hattie. “Yeah . . . it sho is. . . .”

“Go on with you now!” laughed Miz Hattie, and I know’d she was feeling mighty fine-looking in that hat.

“It . . . it’s the truth, Miz Hattie. You do look pretty,” I said, and she thanked me for my praise.

I got up to leave the bench, but then Grace-Anne held out her small paper bag in front of me. “Here, Jeremy,” she said, “here, have some of my lemon drops.”

She was such a sweet thing of a little girl, but I ain’t had my mind much on lemon drops. I reached into the bag
anyways, took a couple of pieces of candy, thanked her kindly, then walked on ’cross the porch to the edge and leaned against a post, just like Josias was doing. I know’d I couldn’t fault Miz Hattie ’cause Rudine couldn’t try on that hat, but I felt bad about it just the same, just like I felt bad about Josias. I wanted to go talk some more to Josias before he got on that bus and left, but he weren’t having nothing to do with me, so I just stood there leaned against my post, watching him and Rudine.

After a while I seen more folks coming up the road. It was that boy, Stacey Logan, with his grandmama and his sister, Cassie, and them brothers of his, Christopher-John and Little Man. Stacey, he was ten, same age as me. Cassie, she was ’bout seven and Christopher-John, maybe five, and Little Man no more than four. Their family owned a whole bunch of acres just west of us and that was something, them being colored. Folks said they’d been owning that land for near to fifty years, but them having land, when we was tenants ourselves living on somebody else’s place, ain’t never set too well with Pa. Being tenants wasn’t bad as being sharecroppers seeing that we owned our own mule, paid
for our own seed and such, and paid our rent for the land in cash money ’stead of crops; still, we ain’t owned the land we farmed like the Logans done. Pa, he said it wasn’t right for Negroes to have more than white folks, said that ’cause of that land them Logans had got the big head and walked around prideful all the time, thinking they was good as white folks. ’Cause of that, Pa, he ain’t never took a liking to them. Me, though, I did. They was a fascination to me. They had a way ’bout them.

On this day they was looking like they was traveling too. Their grandmama was carrying a satchel in one hand and an umbrella held over herself with the other. Stacey, he was lugging a burlap sack and the rest of them younguns was each carrying a tin can and all four of ’em wore hooded calfskins to keep water shed of’em. I perked up some seeing them coming. They stepped up to the porch, and I give a nod. Their grandmama—Caroline her name was—she give a nod back, lowered her umbrella, and gone on down to the other end of the porch to stand with Josias and Rudine and her mama. Stacey, he spoke, but them other younguns ain’t said a word, like one body of them speaking was
enough. They just looked at me and hurried on down the porch after their grandmama. Stacey was ’bout to follow, but then I got up my voice and I said, “’Ey . . .’ey, Stacey, y’all travelin’ today?”

He give me a look like it wasn’t none of my business, but he done answered me anyway. “Big Ma, she is.”

“Where she headin’?” I asked. It wasn’t that I was curious to know. I was just up there holding conversation. Stacey, he give me another look.

“Big Ma’s sister, she low sick. Big Ma goin’ down t’ tend to her.”

“Well, I . . . I sho hopes she be all right . . . get well right quick. . . .”

“Thank ya,” he said, then he moved away. “I gotta go.”

I give him a nod and he gone down to the other end of the porch to join the rest of his folks. Wasn’t long after that the bus coming down from Jackson showed up. The bus driver got out and gone into the store and when he come back, he spoke right polite to Miz Hattie and Grace-Anne and said they could get on the bus.

“Jeremy, help us with these bags, will you, child?” asked Miz Hattie.

“Yes’m, sure thing!” I answered quick, happy to do it. I took up a piece of their baggage and the bus driver, he picked up the other and we all got on the bus. The bus was near to full, but Miz Hattie found two seats right near the front. The bus driver, he seen Miz Hattie and Grace-Anne settled down, then he took their money for the ride, wished them a fine trip and stepped out again. I stayed on a minute to talk to Miz Hattie and Grace-Anne, but I could hear the bus driver outside as he took the colored folks’ money and told them they could get on now. Once those folks had done paid their money, the bus driver stepped back to the porch and stood there talking to Mr. John Wallace. Josias, Rudine, and her mama got on and gone straight to the back. Stacey’s and them’s grandmama got on last and all the younguns was with her, helping her with her satchel and that burlap bag Stacey carried. Their grandmama gone on past me. So did Christopher-John and Little Man. But then as that Cassie come up, she stopped, and she said: “Wait up there a minute, Big Ma! Here’s a seat. Here’s a seat right here!”

Everybody on the bus turned eyes on them. Their grandmama Caroline looked around, seen them eyes, and she let
loose on Cassie. “Hush up, girl!” she snapped. “Ya hush up and come on!” Then she turned and kept on to the back of the bus where all the other colored folks was seated.

But Cassie she ain’t let up. She ain’t moved. “But what ya wanna sit all the way back there for, Big Ma?” she cried. “Can’t see nothin’ from
waaay
back there. This here seat much better’n . . .”

Stacey, he come behind her and he give her a good poke, then he grabbed her hand and jerked her on. She yanked back, fussing furious. “Boy, what’s the matter with you?” she screamed. “You got no cause to be hittin’ on me . . .”

“Girl, hush!” Stacey hissed at her. “Them’s
white
folks’ seats!”

He said that to her and his eyes fell flat on mine, and I could see he was powerful angry, just like Josias. Cassie, she looked back at that seat she had been wanting for her grandmama, then she looked at me too, and followed Stacey on down the aisle to the back of the bus. I turned back to Miz Hattie, who done shook her head and sighed. She made Grace-Anne turn around and stop staring, then she said her good-byes to me and wished me well. “You be good now,” she said.

“Yes’m,” I assured her, and I gone to the door.

“’Bye, Jeremy!” hollered Grace-Anne, waving that little hand at me.

I looked at her with them shining little curls and I give a wave back and smiled. “’Bye,” I said. “S-see y’all when ya get back.” Then I got off.