Chapter Eighteen
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
Robert Frost
Every night I folded myself into bed in pajama bottoms and in a rust colored ratty old sweater I had had since seventh grade. It covered me in comfort and safety. The dim, greenish light from the panel of my plastic clock radio was the only illumination in my room, though a street lamp shone some hundred and fifty feet from my bedroom window. The volume on my radio was turned all the way down, but once the ambient noise inside the house had settled, if I was still, I could hear it: “Welcome to WBOR in Congaree, South Carolina for the Midnight Jam. I’m your jockey Wilbur Henson taking you along for the ride. Next on the Jam is Mister Cannonball Adderley:
“You know, sometimes we’re not prepared for adversity,” said Cannonball. “When it happens sometimes we’re caught short. We don’t know exactly how to handle it when it comes up. Sometimes we don’t know just what to do when adversity takes over and I have advice for all of us. I got it from my pianist Joe Zawinul who wrote this tune and it sounds like what you’re supposed to say when you have that kind of problem and its called Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.”
They let it go real easy. No need to rush through this music. Mellow. You land on each note and spend a little time with it, giving it the love it deserves. Mercy.
“It’s thirty degrees at the Congaree airport, so if you have to go out you better bundle up! But if you can, wouldn’t you rather stay inside and let your brother Wilbur keep you warm with all the latest great tunes? Yeah, I knew you would.”
Oh, darling, please don’t you cry
You and me, at the dark end of the street
You and me.
“That was Percy Sledge singing ‘Dark End of the Street.’”
Earlier in the evenings I fell into the frequent habit of walking around the block to the Little Store, so-called by people in the neighborhood, shorthand for its proper name, “The Sloan Creek Market.” If you were willing to invest the time to look for something, anything at the Little Store, you would eventually find it. After eight-thirty or nine o’clock at night, I was unlikely to encounter any other foot traffic. Few cars either. This was fine. I could walk among shadows. I could become a ghost. Keeping my head down, looking to my feet, navigating the puddles of black ice in February, of dirty water in March. In April the hazy pastel of the azalea banks at night, the scent of gardenias. I heard my footsteps on the pavement, and on the sandy shoulder of the street. I passed the Hardaways, the Jenkins, the Martins. I took a left onto the narrow gravel street and passed the humble home of the Fairchilds. I turned onto Parkland Street which dead-ends into the Park Elementary School I attended for six years. There is a house inside a wooded lot where lives an old lady whose name I don’t know. Then there is a wooded vacant area with Pecan and Persimmon trees where the neighborhood children used to do battle.
A song by Little Milton is running through my head:
Feel so bad
Feel like a ballgame on a rainy day
Sometimes I do get caught in rain. It’s cold, and quiet. Only the faint ping of millions of soft drops which helps muffle the other sounds. It’s one more part of my cloak against the search of light, the reluctance to be seen. Finally I arrive at the Little Store. I am in no hurry, but I am here to reward myself. A reward for another day endured, another day of school, of classes, without breaking down. I am marking the days on my calendar, a black X over every one. My reward for myself is a 10 ounce bottle of Coca-cola, and a Baby Ruth candy bar. Peanuts coated with sugar and washed down with sugar. It feels like love to me.
I got married when I was fourteen going on fifteen, and I was just as cute as I wanta be. My daddy found this man and told me I had to marry him, so I did. I married this o-o-o-old, dead, puny, moldy man. He was so old… his sister died and we went to the funeral, and afterward the minister came up and tapped him on the shoulder, said “Hey Pops, how old are you?” He said “Ninety-three.” Minister said “Ain’t no use in you goin home.”
And ugla-a-ay! That man so ugly he hurt my feelins. He was so ugly he had to tip up on a glass to get a drink of water. Whew! He’d turn a funeral up the alley!
“That was everybody’s momma, Moms Mabley. And I’m Wilbur Henson coming to you from WBOR, black owned radio in the capitol city.”
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Wednesday March 15th, 1967
Dear Amy,
I promised you I would write, and I am. And I’m writing you on the Ides of March, which our English class has learned all about from a very nice student teacher.
On this Ides of March, I really do hope you are doing well. If you’re not doing that great, I really hope you will write me back and tell me what’s going on with you.
My report is, well, I have made some changes. When I got back to school after Thanksgiving, things kept getting worse. Then when I returned after Christmas I quickly figured out I was not going to be able to stay with the status quo. With the help of my counselor I was able to change my classes and get away from my enemies. Further, I am approved to transfer to another school next year.
Even though I don’t have to face being bullied every single day anymore, this year has taken its toll. I am very withdrawn, and depressed, and I don’t know how long it will take me to recover. It may be that the medical problems I told you about are a permanent condition. If that’s the case my recovery may be a very long time or never. I do feel relieved to be able to attend school without being in a constant state of anxiousness, yet I think I may have stepped over into another state – if that makes sense – from which there may not be any return. My life in 1967 is not what it was in 1965. I’m not the same person. I’m not saying these things as if they were facts, but they are impressions that seem to be true.
I don’t know if you can really follow me here, and I’m sorry to sound so disjointed, but, well, that’s just the way things are. I hope when I hear from you you’ll have something good, some kind of light, for me. Who knows? Maybe I’ll write you again this summer and by that time I will have been refreshed and renewed. I don’t want to sound like all is gloom.
I have thought of you often and I hope you think of me. Maybe we can figure out a way to get together this summer. I’ll have my daytime license so who knows.
Tell your family Hey.
Terry
#####
I don’t recall if I ever met anyone during my walks to the Little Store. All I remember is solitude, and shadows. I may have had my sight so fixed on the ground that I never noticed whether anyone was there or not. If I had seen anyone I’m sure I would have looked for a place to hide – a tree or a hedge or a fence. I was learning to be a ghost. I do remember one night after a heavy rain. Some boys from the neighborhood were driving down Parkland Street and the weather was turning balmy and they were having a happy time. They ran over a water-filled pothole and drenched me, and all laughed about it. That was a bully thing, and I was soaking wet, but I didn’t care very much. I wasn’t going to let them get to me anymore.
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Wasn’t there a movie or something where a type of skin cream could make you invisible? Some old black and white film from the thirties? I couldn’t remember the details – just that there was a man who could not be seen unless he was fully dressed and wore bandages around his head. What an amazing thing! Invisible! What better way to deal with the world around you if you are a reproach to everyone and everything.
X marks on the calendar. February gives way to March, which in turn pushes forward to April. Drip, drip, drip. The trickle of relief, of hope that began to sound faintly in my brain had turned into the slow rotation of a water wheel. Marking the time, passing through it, still in the dark. The comfortable, blanketing dark.
Mrs. Rhame had completed her practice teaching and returned to complete her degree at Atlantic. The ebullient Mr. Warren was back at the helm. Judy Rhame had been a candle lighting my way during this year. She had become for me much more than someone pretty to look at. She had, in a few short weeks, helped to give me focus, a way to use my mind and language to make discoveries.
I enjoyed spending time in that light. It kept me from suffocating. It tried to help me grow. But the pull of the dark was strong. I had found a place there, a place deep and lovely.
ijustcantstopwriting 