Gone Crazy in Alabama

  “That’s silly, Vonetta,” I said. “You, Fern, and I are all the same. From Pa and Cecile. We’re what they are. Black.”

  “And Afro-American without the Afros.”

  “If you know so much, why is our grandpa Indian and we’re not?”

  “Great-great-grandfather,” I told her. “And if you were listening with your ears you’d know he was half Indian.” I spoke with my foot all in it although I wasn’t sure.

  “Still Indian,” she both sulked and insisted.

  “Vonetta, I thought you were good at math,” I said.

  “You thought right.” I let the sass slide because I was making a point and didn’t want to get sidetracked.

  “If both ours and JimmyTrotter’s great-great-grandmas were black, and our great-great-grandpa was half Indian, I repeat, half . . .”

  She cut her eyes at me and sucked her teeth but again, I let it slide and continued, “. . . half Indian and half black, then Ma Charles and Miss Trotter are what?”

  “Sisters,” she said.

  Vonetta had cooked up in her head that she was Pocahontas now that we’d heard the story of Augustus joining into his Indian family.

  I sucked my teeth hard. “I can’t believe you, Vonetta. You know your fractions. You know better.”

  Vonetta sucked her teeth extra hard back.

  “Look,” I said. “We come from the Gaither side too. We’re what they are.”

  “Black and proud,” Fern said.

  “We come from the Charles side and we’re what they are.”

  “Colored,” Fern said, because Big Ma preferred to be called “colored.”

  “We come from the Johnson side from Cecile and we’re what they are.”

  Fern said, “Far, far away.”

  “Stack up all the black parts, next to the Indian part—”

  Fern said, “And you got a whole pie.”

  “I don’t care what you say,” Vonetta said. “I’m still part Indian.”

  How I Met My Sister

  Vonetta did what Miss Trotter wanted. She repaid Ma Charles in full. Instead of talking about helping with the cows or having apple pie, Vonetta recited a small bit of our newly learned family history. She made sure she began her recitation with that mean thing Miss Trotter coached her to say: “Great-granny, today we learned our family history from one who knows it.” Once Vonetta began performing the history, not even the threat of a whipping from Big Ma could stop her, especially with Ma Charles egging her on.

  “Is that what that Negro Injun told you?” Ma Charles said. Her twinkling eyes told on her. Ma Charles was more entertained than she was indignant.

  “Why do you call her that?” I asked. “She’s your sister.”

  “That’s none of your business,” Big Ma said.

  “Sister,” Ma Charles said, and now she was indignant. “I didn’t know I had one until the first day of school. I went to Miss Rice’s classroom because that’s where all the coloreds went to learn how to read, write, and not be cheated at the store in town. Picture all of us in one classroom. A handful of kids. Big, small. Dark. Brown. Yellow. Ages five to fifteen. First day of school Miss Rice said to me, ‘Go on, take the seat next to your sister.’ I said as nice as I could, ‘I have no sister, Miss Rice.’ Then she said, ‘Child, go sit down next to Ruthie Trotter, the girl with your face and name. Go on.’”

  “That’s how you met your own sister?” Fern asked.

  “All the colored folk on both sides of the creek knew. No one bothered to tell me.”

  “She’s still your sister,” I said. “Aren’t you whatever she is?”

  Big Ma planted her hand on the table and searched upward. “A mercy, Lord. A mercy at the dinner table.”

  “And that makes us Indians too, right?” Vonetta hoped more than asked.

  “When the census came around, my mama told them to put ‘colored’ for our household. She was so dark they put ‘Negro,’ because black was the only color they saw in her. Even though Miss Ella Pearl, Miss Trotter’s mother, was as colored as my mother, she told the census taker to write ‘Indian.’” Ma Charles laughed a heh-heh-heh. “Next time you go to see the old cows, ask Miss Trotter which fountain she drinks out of when she goes to town.”

  “Now, now, Ma. They took those signs down years ago.”

  Ma Charles ignored her. “This is better than the Lone Ranger and Tonto. Go ahead, young’n. Say it again. Leave nothing out.”

  Talk about spinning straw. Suddenly, the little bit of family history Vonetta had first recited spun itself into a long, winding yarn. Vonetta was only too happy to transform her face and her voice into Miss Trotter’s to retell the story of our oldest known ancestor, Augustus the runaway. She found Miss Trotter’s storytelling rhythm, turned her fingers into stars, and thrust her spear into the water. She didn’t spare a single detail as she told how his hands bled and he looked up to those stars and ran away until he got hungry and the water laughed and splashed his face, and when he reached to get the fish he felt two eyes on him. And that was how he found the Indian girl who brought him to her people and they became one rich, happy family and moved west together.

  Ma Charles asked for her tambourine.

  Fern applauded.

  Big Ma was disgusted.

  Even though Ma Charles was thoroughly entertained, she said, “Don’t let her tell those stories about her people. How they brought my grandfather into the tribe as one of their own. When she tells that story be respectful because that is my handiwork in you.”

  To that, Big Ma said, “Your handiwork in my grandkids? It’s all I can do to wash and wring the Brooklyn and Oakland out of them and keep them good proper Negroes—”

  Then Fern said, “Black and proud,” and Big Ma said, “Eat your food.”

  Ma Charles agreed. “Eat your food, Rickets”—her new name for Fern because she wouldn’t eat the food that puts meat on bones—“and you,” she said to Vonetta, “nod and say, ‘Yes ma’am, Miss Trotter,’ because she likes to hear that. Miss Trotter. The Lord knows she paid everything she got to be called Miss Trotter, so call her that. But you’re old enough to know the truth, daughter.”

  I figured when Ma Charles didn’t have a name handy, she called any woman or girl younger than herself “daughter.”

  “You’re old enough, and since we are telling it, we will tell it all.”

  “A mercy, Lord.”

  “They took in my grandfather, a runaway from the cotton fields. He was about ten. At that time, there was trouble down in Eufaula. War with the last of the Creek. She didn’t tell you this part of the history, did she? Hmph. When the last of them was defeated, the governor made the Indians march west to Oklahoma and Texas, and Augustus marched with them. He married the Indian girl, all right, according to their ways when he became a man. Sixteen. Seventeen. She bore eleven of his children over twenty years. Some look more Indian. Some look more colored. Each time one was born, her father said, ‘See how my daughter increases our wealth?’ Hmp.” Ma Charles spat in the house without anything coming out and Big Ma called for a mercy. “My father was the second to the last boy. Don’t let her tell you how Indian he was—he looked just as colored as his pa.

  “Quiet as it’s kept, Indians got good money for their colored. Good money. There came a time when my grandmother’s brothers sold my grandfather and four of his colored children into the very cotton fields he freed himself from.”

  “Can they do that?” I asked.

  “What do they teach you in school?” she asked. “They did that. This is history I’m telling you. The real history she won’t tell you.”

  “Indians wouldn’t do that,” I said. “The Indians were oppressed like us. They wouldn’t collaborate with the Man.”

  Big Ma said, “Delphine, I know your father spoke to you girls about using that Black Panther language down here.”

  “He surely did, Big Ma.”

  “I know he did,” Big Ma said to Fern. “Because he doesn’t want me to have
to ship you back to him in a pine box.”

  At the moment I didn’t care about what Pa told us. I couldn’t believe what Ma Charles said about the Indians. I wouldn’t believe it. “They sold black people?”

  She nodded like this was common knowledge. “Sold some. Kept some. The woolly-haired colored ones were the first to go. I know it because my father done seen it with his own eyes. Seen his father tied up like a mule and his sisters and brothers led away. Seen it when he was but ten or eleven. His mother hid him because his hair was more wool than straight. But he still had seen it all. How his mother fell to the ground begging her brothers and uncles. So when she tells you they were a happy clan, say, ‘Yes, ma’am, Miss Trotter,’ like I showed you how. Don’t call her a liar to her face. The Lord doesn’t love a disrespectful child. She is old and she is kin. But I am equal to her in years. I pulled her pigtails in Miss Rice’s classroom. I can call her a liar, but don’t you do it. Do like I told you. Say, ‘Yes ma’am, Miss Trotter.’ She likes the sound of that. ‘Miss Trotter.’” Then she said it again. “Lord knows she paid enough to be called that. Miss Trotter.”

  Little Miss Ethel Waters

  The next day while we were hiking across the field, through the pines, and over the creek to see JimmyTrotter, Miss Trotter, and the cows, I told Vonetta, “Don’t tell her everything Ma Charles said.”

  Vonetta said, “You can’t tell me what to say. You can’t control me.”

  “Come in, mission control,” Fern said in her walkie-talkie voice, then used another voice to say, “This is mission control, over.”

  Vonetta told her to shut up and I told Vonetta to shut up. Then Vonetta took a swat at Fern and missed, then I took a swat at Vonetta and didn’t miss. “So there,” I said.

  “I hate you, Delphine.” She rubbed her shoulder.

  “I don’t care, Vonetta.”

  Fern didn’t seem to need my protection. She ignored Vonetta and kept on saying, “This is control. We have control. Over.”

  I said to Vonetta, “Ma Charles is just telling us like it was. That doesn’t mean she wants you to repeat everything she says.”

  “How do you know?” Vonetta said.

  Fern, suddenly back from playing “mission control,” said in Ma Charles’s voice, “Don’t you call her a liar.” She pointed at Vonetta. “You, you, you.”

  “That’s right,” I said, glad Fern paid attention, both now and last night. “Ma Charles said she could call Miss Trotter a liar—”

  “But don’t you do it,” Fern said, clunking her turtle head. “Don’t you do it.”

  “I’m not even going to talk to Miss Trotter,” Vonetta said. “I’m going to ride JimmyTrotter’s bike because I’m good at it.”

  “And I’m going to moo with the cows. Check out what’s on their minds,” Fern said.

  And that was fine with me.

  This time we walked farther down to the shallower end of the creek and wriggled out of our sneakers to wade across. It took longer to reach our great-aunt and cousin but we needed to cool down. Once we made it over the creek and ran through the pines, Vonetta was galloping to the house looking for Miss Trotter. I knew she was going to tell it and I couldn’t stop her. Miss Trotter was eager for every word.

  “Is that what she told you?” Miss Trotter said. “I’d have pulled her pigtails too, if she had enough to pull.” My great-aunt was no better than Vonetta. She only sought to have something mean to say about Ma Charles when she and her sister had the same type, color, and length of hair.

  When she was done being snippy, Miss Trotter said, “I can’t fault her. No sir.” Then I felt badly for thinking the worst of Miss Trotter now that her tone had changed. “Can’t say I blame her at all.”

  I grabbed on to the sorrow in her voice it like it was hope. Maybe for once our great-grandmothers would stop acting like Vonetta and Fern and behave like sisters.

  “It’s not her fault she had no father to tell her about the family. The history. How could she know what is true? How could she know our father?” Then she said to Vonetta, in a voice so sweet I almost believed her, “But dear one, don’t tell her she grew up with no father. No, no. Don’t you tell her that. Don’t tell her how our father’s boots stood outside this very porch before he came in to supper. My mother kept a clean house, so Papa’s boots had to stay out on the porch. I remember clearly, but my poor sister had no fine, happy memories of a father coming home to tuck her in or tell her stories. How can she tell you the right and true history if she doesn’t know it? Poor sister. Dear sister.”

  I was disappointed. I almost believed her pity. I saw through her, but Fern and Vonetta were reeled in. “Poor sister,” Fern cooed.

  “I have all my remembrances of him and how he loved my mama,” she crowed. And then she began to story-talk. “My father walked on land like a man who could walk on all the elements. Land. Air. Water. He was good with the coloreds and good with the whites. He was good with the men, and the women thought he was mighty fine. When he was a boy among his people, he’d wave to the trains passing through the reservation. Wave and wave. When he got to be about JimmyTrotter’s age, maybe older, a man from the railroad went to the Indian Affairs agent and got my papa a pass to work on the railroads. Those same railroads you pass along the way. My papa was long-limbed and scrawny, but he worked hard and caused no trouble. They let him work on the Montgomery and West Point train. He loved his trains. All the railroad companies wanted a worker as fine and hardworking as Slim Jim Trotter. He was what they saw: The coloreds called him a good man, slim as a rail. The whites called him a good Injun. They gave him the hardest work but that didn’t stop Papa, no sir! He worked his way from being on the section gang repairing railroad track, and then he became a fireman shoveling coal on the freight train. Train always stopped in Autauga County, where cotton, the lumber mills, and textile mills were king. Papa rode with the trains. The work was good. He was always gone.”

  At this point JimmyTrotter slipped away and left us with Miss Trotter. He’d been hearing these stories for years.

  “The prettiest sight my papa ever seen was my mama, Miss Ella Pearl, gathering white potato vine. He loved her from the start, brought her to the courthouse in town and married her, and she became his legal wife.

  “But don’t let on you know your great-granny’s shame,” Miss Trotter said. “Don’t hurt an old woman with the truth. No, no, dear one,” she told Vonetta. “Don’t let on you know.”

  I wouldn’t let my sister carry half-true histories back and forth between Miss Trotter and her sister. I said, “Aunt Ruth,” because that was her name. Ruth Trotter.

  “Great Miss Trotter was all I agreed to.”

  “Great Miss Trotter,” I said. “Vonetta can’t repeat all of that. I won’t let her.”

  “You can’t make me do anything. I’m liberated,” Vonetta said. “It’s up to me to tell or not tell.”

  “That’s right,” Miss Trotter agreed. “That’s up to you to don’t tell, like I said, not to tell.” Even with all of that “don’t telling,” Miss Trotter was egging Vonetta on to tell.

  “That’s right,” Vonetta said.

  “That’s right, dear one,” Miss Trotter said. And Vonetta rolled around in that “dear one” name like it was a pink rabbit-fur jacket.

  Since Vonetta couldn’t see she was a bouncing ball being played between the two sisters, I knew I had to do what Pa and Cecile wanted me to do. I had to look out for her.

  So I asked Miss Trotter, “Why can’t you go and see your sister, Aunt Miss Trotter? Why can’t you talk to her?”

  “She’s the one who must beg my pardon. She must walk to my home.”

  “But she’s the only sister you have.”

  “She’s the only one I know about.”

  “That’s why you should see her.”

  “Before the sweet by-and-by,” Fern added.

  For a second Miss Trotter’s pride fell from her face. Then it found its way back to her eyes, cheeks, and mout
h. “We all have to go sometime. It’s the way of things.”

  As sure as Miss Trotter counted on Vonetta to be showy, crowy, and unstoppable, Vonetta couldn’t wait until Ma Charles said, “Well?” Vonetta couldn’t get the story out fast enough, throwing in every pause, hand motion, and “No sir!”

  “Is that what she told you?” Ma Charles said.

  “‘He loved her from the start, brought her to the courthouse in town and married her, and she became his legal wife.’” It was the one of the few phrases that Vonetta got word for word.

  “Truth is, the train stopped in Prattville proper. But Papa didn’t like town so much and he roamed the country until it was time to pick up on the train again. My papa, Slim Jim Trotter, found my mother on her way to teach Bible school. My mother, your great-great-grandmother, said, ‘The Lord put this man in my path, so I married him in the church of God.’”

  Then she said to Vonetta, “Let me see how you’re going to tell it. Go on, little Miss Ethel Waters. Let’s see.”

  I had seen enough old movies to know Ethel Waters was an old-time actress in the black-and-white pictures. Vonetta didn’t know who she was but that didn’t stop her from reciting, “The good Lord put this man . . .”

  By the time Big Ma had come out of her room to see what all the commotion and cackling was about, it was too late. Vonetta already had her instructions for the next day’s performance.

  “Well, I have heard enough of it,” Big Ma said. “Your father sent you down here to play checkers and read a book. Not to stir up stuff.”

  Ma Charles said, “If they want to milk cows and fill up on silly half-Indian tales, let ’em go.”

  Vonetta and Fern hollered, “YAY!” and Big Ma told them to stop gobbling like wild turkeys at a Thanksgiving turkey shoot. That only encouraged them to gobble and strut around, and Ma Charles got a big kick out of that.

  “All they’re doing is getting your pressure up. That’s right. They’ll leave me motherless when your pressure flies sky high.”

  “Off to the sweet by-and-by,” Fern sang.

  Only Big Ma’s pressure went up. Ma Charles was enjoying the evening performances.