By
Danny Thomas
I want to waltz in, hollering Git yer gladrags on, ladies. We’re going to the picture show.
But first I want some of Miss Georgia’s lemonade she’s got cooling in the ice box. Being as how it’s July in Wilcox County, we find ourselves boiling in Hades both day and night. Hot under the collar, favoring my back, I’m moving, oh, so slow coming in, letting the screen door close quietly behind me. The womenfolk back in the kitchen don’t know I’m here.
Then I back out the screen door like Miss Georgia would surely tell me so as to slap the dust off my trousers. I drag my feet under the day lilies to clean my shoes best I can, not wanting to to bend down to wipe ‘em. All this time the sun is blazing down like that fiery furnace. Cotton won’t grow until it’s too hot to sleep at night, and I ain’t slept good in quite a while. My shirt clings to me. I take off my hat to wipe my brow, sweat dripping from my fingers.
Tuckered out is what I am, after supervising the gin three nights running. Had to do it. Had to cover for Stabler while he and Zugar went down to Hybart lumber yard, which was for the greater good. It was for all us store owners---for Stabler who is closest to the river, giving him the advantage of boat deliveries. For Baker, closest to the railroad tracks. For me, Morgan, maybe six miles from Baker, but still close enough to the tracks. And for Zugar’s tent store, two miles further down. Why Zugar won’t move his tent to a better spot, I can’t figure. That Hungarian is just set in his ways, but I wouldn’t do what he’s doing, running retail out of a tent like that. These Alabama boys around here would steal me blind. But anyway, all four of us want to get in on that Hybart lumber deal. Wilcox County is growing, specially around Coy and Lower Peachtree, and the cotton is high, which means we got to rid our crop of all those damn seeds. Long hours. Day and night both. Long, hot hours.
Time was, I would have hauled the Hybart lumber myself, but my back won’t allow it now. I ain’t as young as I once was. I’m lucky to have the store, the gin, and my school bus driving job so I can keep my ladies in their finery and take them to Camden for the picture show twice a month. I get tickled watching ‘em scramble when I announce, Okay, ladies. Git yer gladrags on fer the picture show. They got Mrs. Miniver showing in Camden this week, and I bet the ladies will like that one.
Moving under the eaves to find shade, I light up my seegar to consider Zugar’s night letter, which came in yesterday morning, and I know what’s in it because I see through the little window on the War Department envelope. I seen a lot of those already, and it’s only been seven months since Pearl Harbor. I already made several rounds delivering bad news night letters all around this county.
I regret to inform you that your son, Ollie Taylor, died on station in Honolulu….
Miz Taylor’s face was ashen at first. She took the telegram from my hand, read it, and handed it over to her girl, Shirleen, to read for herself, and, while Shirleen was wailing and generally carrying on, Miz Taylor’s face drained of all color as it was, suddenly flushed red like I had slapped her cross the face. Her eyes darted to her daughter collapsed there on the couch. Then to me, who she knows me well enough. Shoot! Ever Sunday I’m setting with my brood of womenfolk just two rows back of her at Lower Peachtree Baptist, and she normally pays her bill at the store with fresh eggs. Sometimes with peach jelly, to which Miss Georgia is mighty partial.
Ollie Taylor got crushed when a concrete septic tank slipped off a truck bed on him. He lived two days while the doctors tried to save him, but he never said a word in the hospital.
We didn’t get that from the night letter. The Army sends the least expensive telegrams at night notifying families their boy gave his life for his country, including precious few details so as to save money and to get the dirty work over with as quick as possible. They hire me to deliver out of the Camden office because who knows these dusty country roads better than a school bus driver? And I make twenty cents for each delivery. Which provides money for the occasional picture show.
It ain’t kind to the families that receive them, but it’s efficient, cheap, and fast. Or supposed to be. A week or ten days later we learned about Ollie from his cousin, who was in the hospital at Pearl, recuperating from the mumps. He wrote his Momma a letter, and she took it to Miz Taylor. Lots of folks read the Taylor’s night letter, and then shyed away, not looking me in the eye, wary of me. But, gosh, it weren’t my fault. Remember, I’m just the messenger.
Even so, I wouldn’t want to give Miz Taylor another one. Not with that God awful look she got in her eyes as the color came flooding back into her ghost gray face. She wasn’t looking at Morgan, the school bus driver, the fella that brought the War Department news. She was looking at Ollie in my face just for an instant as I was standing in front of her at the couch. She saw his apparition. Then he was gone. Gone forever, leaving just me in his stead.
I don’t want to bring no more news like that. No, sir.
Miz Taylor took her bad news better than Miz Ledbetter did. I mean, Miz Taylor was stunned. I seen that, and I wanted to get out of there quick as a wink, but Miz Taylor, she recovered after a minute or so. She says to me, Let me put Shirleen to bed.
I can let myself out, I says, easing backwards.
No! she said, sharply. I want…You let me do this first. You wait for me!
She changed right before my eyes, so I stood with my hat in my hand a couple of minutes before she came back out from Shirleen’s room and says, Who else knows ‘bout my Ollie?
That fella at the telegraph office over in Camden, I says.
You ain’t tole nobody else?
No, ma’am, I says, gathering how she’s looking at this.
Her face was nearly crimson. Her brow wrinkled, she looked past me at the wall. Then she squinted and glared at me.
Moving closer, she hissed, Don’t you tell a soul!
I won’t.
And I didn’t, recalling those slits that were her eyes.
Still, she was better than Miz Ledbetter, probably because she still had just the one child, and Ledbetters had three. A boy, Kenneth, same age as Shirleen. Maybe eleven or twelve. Old enough to be some help around the place. And there were the twins, Kendra and Kile. Probably four years old. All three Ledbetter children took their lead from their Momma.
I dropped off all my riders that afternoon, backtracking to the Ledbetter’s. Her husband’s pickup truck wasn’t in the yard. I was hoping I could just hand it over to him, but that wasn’t to be. I put on my jacket, dropping the envelope in my pocket and trudged up her walk, admiring her pink hollyhocks and yellow gladiolas. Her little gray pea gravel walkway looked neat as a pin. I knocked on the screen, and Kendra came to the door.
Momma, she says, smiling, calling back into the house, it’s Mr. Morgan.
Miz Ledbetter came out, wiping her hands with a napkin. Hidy, Mr. Morgan, she says.
She seen the envelope in my hand and swooned before she even touched it. I tried to catch her, managing to throw my back out pretty severe. I was crimped up a whole week after that.
Lucky for her, Kenneth was clost enough to catch her and he pulled her back inside to let her down easy on the living room rug. The little ones thought she was playing and jumped down on her, trying to get on her lap, giggling, pinching, and pushing one another.
Here, now, I says. Git off yer Momma!
I reckon my voice was too loud, and I scared ‘em some. They hopped off, eyes wide, and Kenneth picked her up and dragged her over to the rocking chair. He run into the kitchen and come back with a wet hand towel, which we put on her brow. I took her hand and patted it, saying, Come on now, Miz Ledbetter. You need to wake up and take care of these young’uns. Then Kenneth started the patting routine as I rested my back some.
She was breathing shallow, her skin clammy. I didn’t want to touch her, but I looked at Kenneth, and he didn’t know what to do next. His chin quivering, his eyes pleading with mine.
You’re doing it right, I says, nodding at him. Keep doing that.
I looked around for the little ones. They were in the other room, whimpering. We were one pathetic bunch.
Finally, I says, You go take care of your sister and brother.
He did that, and I kneeled next to Miz Ledbetter. It wasn’t hard to get down on one knee, but I knew I’d have to be careful standing. I let my back relax slowly as I watched her, and I wished I could help her do the same. To just relax and let things happen. I tried to think what to tell her when she came around, but what I wanted to say wasn’t sounding good even to me. I sounded like I wanted just to get away from her. Which was true enough.
Mr. Ledbetter saved me when he come home. I didn’t have to explain a thing because Kile ran outside and told him. Then Kenneth and Kendra went out, and helped the little boy tell it. And they handled it a lot better than their bus driver ever could. Mr. Ledbetter was grim. Quiet and slow moving, like he was worn out from chopping cotton.
But it wasn’t tired muscles that weighed him down. It was knowing Davey wouldn’t be coming back.
Davey got shot in the neck somewhere in West Africa. I heard tell he never knew what hit him, but he was doing what they told him. To tell the truth, I never thought much of Davey Ledbetter, but his folks thought he was a good ‘un, and Mr. Ledbetter had made plans to send Davey way over to the Alabama Polytechnic Institute in Auburn to learn agriculture science. All the ways to make the cotton business pay. Davey had been the pride and joy of that family. Now he wouldn’t be going down to Auburn. Wouldn’t be chopping cotton. Wouldn’t be walking past his Momma’s hollyhocks coming in the door again.
I was ashamed of myself for thinking so little of him after he was dead and gone. That won’t but three weeks ago.
Now my seegar is about smoked down, and there ain’t even a hint of a breeze out here. I can’t think about all this any more, but I’ve got one of those War Department envelopes in my pocket for the Zugars, and I have decided I’m not going to take it to them. Not just yet. It’s Saturday afternoon, and I ain’t driving the bus today. I been carrying it around since yesterday afternoon, which was when I should have delivered it. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I need some respite from these infernal night letters. I feel like some kind of Messenger of Death, and that ain’t right. I’m a church-going man, I tell you.
But those gypsy Zugars are different. I don’t need to think more about all this right now. I don’t have to worry about Eddie Zugar tonight, do I?
My back feels pretty good, so I bang through the screen door, hollering, All right, you women. Git yer gladrags on. We’re going to the picture show!
And they’re all over me before I can get into the kitchen. They ain’t much around these parts to celebrate over. There’s school for the little girls. Work for the adults. Housework for the womenfolk. Chopping cotton or running the gin for the men. You have to look for ways to make folks feel good. And we all need something to feel good about. That’s why I ask ‘em to put on their gladrags. So they’ll have a little luxury, something to look forward to.
Our oldest, Nellie Agnes, nearly eighteen, has already told me she wants to see The Maltese Falcon when it comes. She’s been reading in the magazines about Humphrey Bogart. I want to see that one, too.
Katie Evelyn and Beryl Aleen want some of that candy at the theater. Ju Ju Bees are powerful motivation for sixth graders. They don’t care about dressing up as much as Nellie Agnes. Our baby, Miss Lou, loves everything about the pitcher show. She’s a pistol. Nine years old now, but can’t read a lick. When she was younger, if we went to a silent movie, she had to ask me or Miss Georgia to tell her what the captions said at the bottom of the screen. I loved to see her digging down into her popcorn, turning to her Momma, asking, What’d it say? What’d it say? Someday that girl has got to learn to read!
And I’m right. This Saturday night is extra special. One of the best in a long while. We love Sam Spade and his mysterious black bird. The stuff that dreams are made of, right? My ladies always get so excited when they’re in their gladrags. Getting all gussied up changes their whole outlook on life. Works like a charm on me, too because I’m able to sleep restfully for the first time in a long time.
After church Sunday morning I remember Eddie Zugar when I really want to remember Sydney Greenstreet, Wilmer, and Sam Spade. The girls are singing as I drive the jolt wagon from church to the depot. Nellie Agnes sings, I got spurs that Jingle, Jangle, Jingle while Katie Evelyn is somewhere Deep in the Heart of Texas. Their voices ain’t exactly good singing voices, but they love what they’re singing, and I love them for singing like they do. But that reminds me of Eddie Zugar, one of the nicest kids I ever had on my bus. He wasn’t the biggest or the smartest. He wasn’t the best ball player, and he talked a little funny, but a whole lot better than his folks. One time they came out to meet the bus. In fact, it was the very first day I brought him home. They were waiting out by the road, wearing those dark, heavy clothes in that heat. I would have melted into a puddle, but they stood it fine. He got off, and they walked up to the bus and said something I couldn’t understand.
They said thank you, he told me. They said you come in for tea?
Naw, I said. Got to take the bus on back now.
Eddie told them what I said, and Mr. Zugar said something, which made Eddie smile.
What? I said.
My fodder, he says you got no childrens on the bus. Why go now?
Eddie’s was my last stop. I looked back to the Zugars, and Miz Zugar made a drinking motion with her hand and said Vino?
Eddie said, If you don’t want tea, you drink wine? My fodder makes good scuppernong wine. Come drink. My parents want to thank you. For what you have do for me.
Oh, that’s nothing. It’s my job.
Even so, they thank you for what you will do. For bringing me home.
Miz Zugar held up a hand as she turned toward the tent, which I had seen but not paid much attention to. A little black and brown goat with nub horns walked up, pretty as you please, and Mr. Zugar rubbed its neck, and it snuggled up to him, bleating softly almost like a cat purring. He gestured like his wife, making that drinking motion.
And I says What the hey! I can stand a couple glasses.
That was the only time I done that, but they waved if they were around the tent when the school bus came by, and I honked if I was driving the empty bus. Nellie Agnes said Eddie was nice, but not smart. He had eight little brothers and sisters, but Katie Evelyn and Beryl Aleen didn’t take to them. Said they talked and dressed funny. Smelled funny sometimes, too, and their clothes had holes in them. Even with his tent store, Zugar’s family was the poorest I knew about.
While I’m driving slow so as not to jar my ladies in the wagon, Miss Georgia has got to be suffering. Genteel as she is, my wife pays an awful price for it. Even when the cotton starts growing, she always wears her face powder to church, plus a long-sleeved dress with black gloves, a corset, and spool-heeled shoes. Nellie Agnes tried for a while to do likewise, which so delighted her mother, but she quit pretty quick.
Daddy, she says, I can’t do what Momma’s doing. I sweat too much in that getup. I was soaking wet when we got home from the depot.
I’m sorry, darling.
She looked anxious to me. Do I have to keep doing it? she says.
Lord, no! I says, hugging her to me.
But don’t you think Momma will be disappointed? Won’t she be mad?
Naw, I says. She might act that way a while, but I expect she’ll understand that the only genteel lady around Peachtree is Miz Georgia Morgan herself.
I offered up a smile to my eldest. That sound all right to you?
Sure does, she says.
So here’s Miss Georgia, hair tight in a bun, powdered and rouged, upright and straight, sitting on the buckboard with me proud as Punch with our girls in the back. It’s Miss Lou’s turn to sing, and she directs us all, Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else But Me, which entertains us as well as the rest of the folks from church who are strolling thataway to see who and what comes in on the train. All of Lower Peachtree lolls about the depot Sunday afternoons.
Uncle Mose Holloman comes traipsing by on Bucephalus, his old white horse, so skinny you can see the animal’s ribs all too clearly.
Howdy, Morgans, the old darky says, his teeth shining brightly as he tips his hat.
Good day, Mr. Holloman, says Miss Georgia.
Mose, I says, setting the brake so the horse won’t go nowhere, Let me borry Bucephalus a while, will ya?
Mr. Morgan, Miss Georgia says in her most regal tone, Whatever are you doing?
Dismounting, I smile back at her, explaining about the night letter in my coat pocket. I got to deliver it today, I says. I been holding it more than twenty-four hours.
Miss Georgia’s always gracious and forgiving when I admit to what she calls a foe pah. This time’s no different.
Uncle Mose, she says, will you take us round the loop? The girls and I owe a visit to the Reverend Mosby, and we might drop in on Pearlie Booker, too.
Oh, goodie, says Miss Lou. Can we have dinner with Pearlie?
I will discuss that with your father, dear.
Do as you think best, I says. Which gives her free rein.
Uncle Mose thrives on associating with the finer folks so he dismounts and holds the horse for me. Bucephalus is awful bony, and I certainly wouldn’t want to ride that ancient steed bareback, but the saddle is tolerable, even though my left leg is tingling by the time I get to the tent that is Zugar’s store. A breeze has picked up a little, and I expect rain here by supper time. It has cooled off some, thank God, and the trees are ruffling and waving. Zugar’s canvas is billowing, and I wonder what life would be like living in a tent year round. I have only seen the inside of his store a couple of times, once after dark, and it was exotic and overwhelming, scented with sweet smoke and cooking smells I couldn’t name.
Once they offered me shish kabob, cooked meat on a stick, which I learned later was kid goat marinated before it was put to the flame, so tasty good it almost melted in my mouth. Zugar never stood still when I was there, and the language problems we had with one another made him seem shy.
I couldn’t tell if he was boss or she was. Miz Zugar had some gentility in her ways, too. She often sat conversing with me while Mr. Zugar came and went, quietly handling things, bringing a tray with glasses when she indicated. He bowed and smiled, fetched what she wanted, removing what was no longer necessary. Cleaning any spill, directing the children, impish ragamuffins in tattered shirts, barefooted, agile gypsies, silent as Hungarian mice, except for Eddie, who she would allow to translate when she wanted my opinions. Eddie acted like his father, quietly industrious and shy, but he usually warmed to the task whenever she said, Eddie, come. Talk for us.
Suddenly I am ashamed of how poor prepared I am for bringing the terrible news of Eddie’s death to the Zugars. I can’t figure how to go about it. I could tell her like Miz Taylor, who steeled herself with the secret I had delivered. But I don’t think Miz Zugar is a tall like Miz Taylor. Or I could tell her like Miz Ledbetter with smelling salts and cushions to fall down on. But would Miz Zugar even understand what I’s saying? Or I could relate the tragic information as I would for Miss Georgia, in structured, formal terms without emotion. You know, clean like that. I don’t know. I got to come up with something pretty quick.
I tether Bucephalus at a little sweet gum, and he promptly nods off where he stands. Turning to the velvety blue draped entrance to Zugar’s store, I am greeted by the youngest Zugar, a dark-eyed little tomboy beauty wearing a dusty brown skirt and an old loose-fitting yellow blouse much too large. She has luxurious black hair with eyes to match, and she motions for me to wait, disappearing inside the tent. I hear murmuring inside the tent. What could she be doing or telling? Sounds like more than just, Momma, the school bus driver’s outside.
After a few moments the little beauty returns, dressed this time in a bright green dress that brushes the ground as she walks. Did she change clothes for me? What gives with these Zugars? Silently, she comes forward, grasping my left hand to draw me inside the blue velvet. Once inside, my eyes take a few seconds to adjust to the shadows and flickering candlelight. The rugs and cushions, low tables and tapestries, vases at once ornamental and practical, are mysterious and new to me. The Zugar children appear from various panels and curtained crevices, maybe all eight. I don’t have time to count ‘em. Each smiling and studying me silently. What do they make of me, I wonder. They are not the poor tattered young ‘uns I’ve seen before. Now each wears rich, vivid colors, silken slippers, the girls with sparkling earrings, feathers in their hair. The boys in ballooning trousers with scarves wrapped around their waists or on their heads. I remember that picture in Miss Lou’s history book where she had me read out the caption, Cossacks on the steppes.
Mr. Zugar comes in carrying a brass tea service on a platter, that bashful smile on his lips, making eye contact with me only briefly, setting the platter on an ottoman before me. He, too, is dressed in finery, a vermilion sash at his waist. He glances at the tallest of his daughters, who replaces my young guide, her sister, drawing me by the hand to a large cushion before the tea service. Zugar retreats through the rear of the tent as his wife enters like an empress, a long silvery gown hiding her feet. Her hair, piled upon her head in an intricate knot, shows her fine shoulders, a lovely, delicate neck. Her fingers glitter with rings on each finger, bejeweled with the colors of emerald, sapphire, and ruby. Her earrings bedazzling.
I’m speechless until I remember that, without Eddie, I have horrible work to do.
Miz Zugar, I need to…There’s something I should….
A sudden look and upraised hand.
Stop, Morgan, she says. We know. You bring letters of the night. First to Taylors. Then Ledbetters. My children, my husband, she waves her hand to them. Now you bring letter for Eddie.
But that’s my job, I says. I’m the school bus driver. That’s all. Now I got this, I says, holding up the envelope.
She shakes her head.
No, Morgan.
Chin held high, she searches my face for words as she pours the tea, offering it to me with both hands, then prostrating herself on the carpet, as do husband and children. I’m shifting uneasily on the cushion, not just because of my back, but because of this solemn celebration I’m witnessing.
This ain’t what I came here for.
Yet I’m savoring this foreign elixir, this precious offering here in my cup.
The End