"Well, I"d stick with punchin" women, ma"am. You"d be no match for the men I hang around. I"m in the Corps, but I guess you could tell that from my uniform."
"You want to punch my shoulder?" the woman asked.
"Pardon me, ma"am?"
"You want to punch my shoulder? I used to win money when mans try to trade punches with me."
"No, ma"am. I might hurt you and cause internal bleeding or something."
"Shoot, man. Who you talking to about bleeding? You go on now and hit Arrabelle"s shoulder first," the woman said, climbing up to the back porch where she and the Marine could be on the same level. Bull saw immediately that he had activated compet.i.tive juices within this prodigiously constructed woman. Making a fist, Bull punched lightly against the woman"s shoulder.
"Hey, you"re solid as a rock," Bull said with true admiration.
"Now, my turn," the woman said, eyes gleaming.
"You want to hit me?" Bull said. "All right, ma"am, but you be careful you don"t hurt yourself."
"Move on down a stair," she directed as Bull followed her orders and descended one stair.
The woman spit on her right fist and rubbed it in with her left hand. It was an effort for Bull to keep from bellowing with laughter. With her fist c.o.c.ked beneath her chin, she backed up against the porch railing, then, hopping like a shot putter, she flew across the porch, left her feet at the precisely strategic moment, and landed a punch on Bull"s shoulder bone at the exact juncture where it met his arm. If he had not been holding on to the railing, Bull was positive he would have been airborne at the moment of impact. As it was, his shoulder was paralyzed by a shockwave of pain that traveled the length of his arm. He fought for breath.
"I fought with lots of mans in my life," she said in explanation. "I beat a few of "em, too."
"You call that punching?" Bull said, regaining his poise under fire. "I thought you were really going to show me something."
"Let me do it again."
"Naw, I"m worried about your hand. If you get hurt then the law"s gonna come and say I have to pay all the doctor bills."
"Watch out for internal bleeding, Dad," Ben said, laughing from an upstairs window.
"Get out of here, jocko," Bull roared, then turning to the black woman he said, "You looking for a little money, ma"am?"
"You givin" it away?" the woman asked.
"I"ll always help the needy and infirm, ma"am. Here"s a dollar. That"ll buy a couple of watermelons and keep you going for a couple of days."
"Thank you, Cap"n."
"Well, you can go now. I guess you kind of make a circuit of this neighborhood getting handouts. It looks like pretty good hunting grounds to me. I"d be doin" the same thing if I thought I could make a living at it."
"This is might fine hunting grounds right here on this step," the woman said. "I just made me a dollar bill sittin" and waitin" for Mrs. Meecham to come down and unlatch the door. I be Arrabelle Smalls, your new maid, Cap"n. You be seein" a lot of Arrabelle "cause she"s a hard-workin" so-and-so and you can ask anybody white or colored and they tell you the same thing."
"Shoot," Bull sneered, "I talked to some folks already and they told me that Arrabelle Smalls was the laziest, most worthless, most good-for-nothing so-and-so that ever spit between two lips."
"Don"t you put no mouth on me, Cap"n. You didn"t talk to no one "cept maybe some crazy man walkin" around with a fool rattlin" around in his head if you hear that about Arrabelle."
"Well, everyone I talked to agreed that you were real nice," Bull said, rubbing his shoulder. "It"s just that they seemed to think you were lazy as h.e.l.l."
"Who puttin" that kind of trash mouth on me?"
"Everybody I"ve talked to in this town."
Lillian Meecham opened the back door and said, stretching out her hand in greeting, "Good morning. You must be the woman that Mrs. Grantham said she was going to send. I"m Lillian Meecham. And this gentleman who is now teasing you is Lieutenant Colonel Bull Meecham, my husband and captain of this sinking ship."
"I"ve got to hit the road, sportsfans. Nice meeting you, ma"am. By the way, Earline Grantham told me you spent a few years in jail for stealing silver out of nice houses."
"Miss Earline didn"t say nothin" about no stealin"," Arrabelle answered.
"You"ll get used to his teasing, Arrabelle. Or else you won"t. But it"ll be there one way or the other."
"That"s a teasin" fool of a man," Arrabelle said, a broad grin breaking across her face. From the smile, Lillian could tell that Arrabelle had thoroughly enjoyed her initial encounter with Bull Meecham.
"What"s your full name, darling?" Lillian asked.
"I be Arrabelle Smalls. I be married to Moultrie Smalls till he drown when his shrimp boat break up in a storm off St. Catherine"s Island three year ago."
"I"m dreadfully sorry about your husband."
"We all got to die of somethin"."
"Sit down while I get us some coffee," Lillian said, gesturing toward the kitchen table.
"I stand," Arrabelle said.
"Please sit down, Arrabelle. We"re going to get to be too good of friends for me to be sitting and you to be standing while we"re having coffee each morning. Now tell me. Where have you worked before?"
"There ain"t much of a place where I ain"t done some work in my years. I been shuckin" the oyster for five year but Mr. Peeples done gone and buy himself an Iron Man and put over thirty girls out of work, some of which been with that sorry man for over twenty years. Before that I headed shrimps when Moultrie Smalls"s boat comes in. I do some headin" now. You can"t even follow my hand I move "em so fast. For that I works for many famblies as a maid and raise up lots of white children for their mamas. Lord, I raise some white childrens that love me so much. Even right now. Hobie downtown at the restaurant one of my babies. The preacherman at the Baptist Church a baby of mine. So his wife is. When I be younger, I pick the tomato, the cuc.u.mber, the bean, the cotton. Anything that need pickin", I pick it. In the Hoover years when I was very young, I do anything to get by. My man, Moultrie, catch the mink, the c.o.o.n, and the otter those years and sell the hide to any mans what got a nickel to his pocket. That was tough in those c.o.o.n and possum Hoover years. For white folks, too."
"I can vouch for those white folk in Alabama, Arrabelle. What do you take in your coffee?"
"A lots of cream and sugar up the spoon just a little bit."
"Do you have any children?"
"I got me a fine boy that you can see up on the store street selling flower to the folk that come downtown."
"With the mule? Selling flowers from the back of the wagon?" Lillian asked.
"That the one. That"s my son. Toomer, the flower boy. For eighteen years he be right there in that alley makin" a nice livin" from his flower, his herb, and his honey. My whole family ain"t never been afraid of no hard work."
"I can tell that by looking at your hands, Arrabelle," Lillian said, glancing down at lined, leathery hands as distinctive as gloves. "And this house is going to be hard work. In fact it"s going to be hard work for both of us. This is an old house in need of repair and we aren"t going to be repairing anything. We"re just going to apply makeup in the right places when the old girl starts to show her spots and wrinkles."
"It smell faintish in these old houses," Arrabelle said, working her nose away from the coffee.
"There"s a lot of dampness trapped because the sun can"t work its way beneath these balconies. Do you cook?"
"Lord, honey, if it moves Arrabelle can cook it. And if it don"t move, she can always throw it in the pot with some greens and hamhock."
"Then you"re my kind of cook. We might have to send Bull out for T.V. dinners a couple of nights a week but he may even get to like southern cooking before he"s toothless, hairless, and being measured for a pine box."
"When the shrimpin" mens bring me the shrimps and the fishes, I"ll fix "em up for you and your fambly. Nothin" so good in the world as mull shrimp with lots of onion and brown gravy."
"When can you start work?"
She lifted her left foot above the chair for Lillian"s observation. "These shoes I got on my foots are the workin" shoes. I told my boy Toomer to drive his wagon by at about five."
"Do you live far from here?"
"Not far. I live down in Paradise behind the jail. You know where almost all the colored folk live who not out on the island. My boy just like to come pick his mama up if he can. You can meet my nice boy when he come."
That afternoon Ben set up his mother"s dining room and kitchen chairs in a straight line, at intervals of three feet, from the back of the paved driveway to the front. He was dribbling a basketball through the chairs, weaving skillfully through the inanimate defenders, the fantasy of crowd-choked arenas lighting up his mind"s eye and his ear filled with the applause of phantom thousands. Perspiring heavily, he looked up when he heard Okra barking at a mule-drawn wagon that pulled around the corner of Eliot Street and was coming toward the Meecham house at an unperturbed pace. Ben had seen the flower boy each time he had ventured downtown on River Street. He had heard the high-pitched stuttering song the flower boy lofted into the fierce August sunlight. But Ben had never studied the features of the black man who was simply a part of the landscape, of no more interest to him than a storefront or a bal.u.s.trade. Now, with the addition of Arrabelle to the household, the flower boy had a name, Toomer Smalls. As the wagon neared the house, he began to have a face.
He was a short man like his mother, extraordinarily dark with a fine high-cheekbone structure to his face that gave his whole demeanor a darkly brooding n.o.bility. On his left foot he wore a corrective shoe and he walked with a slight limp. He leaned far over on his knees and held the reins lightly as he pulled up beside Ben. His eyes were amused and curious.
"That"s just about the ugliest c-c-cat I ever did see, white boy," he said to Ben, pointing a stubby finger at Okra.
"Well, that"s just about the ugliest cow pulling that wagon that I ever saw, too," Ben replied.
"This ain"t no cow. This h-h-here is Man-O-War, winner of the Ken-tucky Derby."
"It sure looks like a cow to me," Ben said noticing the man had not smiled yet. "But this ain"t no cat. This here n.o.ble beast is Rin-Tin-Tin, star of stage, screen, and T.V. set."
"I ain"t never seen no white boy b-b-bounce no basketball through no sittin" chairs. And I seen me lots of crazy white boys."
"You"ve never seen a white boy that can dribble half as good as I can. Your name"s Toomer, isn"t it?" Ben asked.
"That"s what my mama called me."
"My name"s Ben Meecham, Toomer. I live here at the house. I met your mama this morning and she seems like a real nice lady."
"She sure raise a fine boy," Toomer said, breaking out finally in a huge smile.
Reaching in the back of the wagon, Toomer chose a bunch of wilted flowers wrapped in Spanish moss and said, "Give these flowers to your mama when she gets home."
"Mom usually likes flowers a lot better when they"re alive."
"Sa.s.sy ol" white boy, ain"t you? Just put these things in a little water and they"ll come back g-g-g-good as when I pick "em fresh this morning."
Arrabelle and Lillian walked out of the front door. Lillian was dressed in a white summer dress and sandals. Her fine, tanned skin looked coolly fresh even during the hottest days of summer. The bridge to the islands was opening for a two-masted schooner that was maneuvering down the inland waterway. "I wonder who s-s-stole my boat," Toomer said, winking at Ben.
"Miss Meecham," Arrabelle said, "this here is my boy, Toomer Smalls."
"The pleasure is all mine, Toomer. I"ve seen you downtown many times and I always planned to stop and chat but something always interfered."
"How you, ma"am," Toomer replied, averting his eyes from Lillian.
"Toomer wanted me to give you these flowers, Mom," Ben said, handing her the wilted bouquet.
"Why, Toomer, you sweet thing. I can"t take these. Let me pay you for them."
"No, ma"am. I was gonna toss them over the bridge when I w-w-went home, anyhow. You just put "em in s-s-some water."
"Well, they are lovely as they can be, Toomer. Bless your heart," Lillian said.
"They almost look real, don"t they, Mom?" Ben said.
"Hush, Ben, don"t be silly. Anyway you need to be getting my good chairs back in the house. What if it starts to rain?"
"Toomer grows most all his flowers right at his own place on the other side of the bridge," Arrabelle said. "It so pretty where those flowers be. But I so shame for anyone to see where Toomer lay his head. That boy won"t build himself no decent house to live in. I not even tell you what he live in, it make me feel so bad."
"Toomer, tell me some way I can repay you for the flowers. Let me fix you up an apple pie over the weekend."
"Here, Mrs. M-m-meecham, you go on and take another bunch," he said, reaching back and lifting another moss-wrapped bunch from the back of the wagon.
"Why do you wrap them in Spanish moss?" Ben asked Toomer.
"Hold in the moisture better than any ol" thing," Toomer replied.
"What you doin" this weekend, son?" Arrabelle asked.
"I"m goin" up the river to catch some shrimps and crabs. Might even do a little fishin"."
"You bring me back some nice flounder I can fix up for this fambly. And a couple pound of shrimps," she said, then turning to Ben she said, "You ever been fishin" much, Ben?"
"Not in salt water."
"Toomer," Lillian said, suddenly. "Could Ben go along with you and just watch? It might save my dining room chairs and he doesn"t know anybody in town yet. It would get him out of the house. His daddy"s a Yankee and never encouraged him to partic.i.p.ate in any outdoor sports like hunting and fishing. The men in my family when I was growing up would rather spend their time in the woods than anywhere else. Ben doesn"t know what it means to be a southern man."
"You want to go, dribblin" man?" Toomer asked.
"Sure," Ben said, spinning the basketball on his finger, holding the spin for thirty seconds, showing off to the three observers who fixed their eyes on the ball and waited for it to drop or for Ben to lose control.
"You can look at Toomer"s ol" nasty boots and know that boy"s been way back up in the woods," Arrabelle said.
"I"ll show you somethin" come Sat.u.r.day n-n-night you"ll never forget. Sat.u.r.day the full moon time, ain"t that right, Mama?"
"That better be right, son, or the world be done ending fast."
"I saw a fallin" star last night, Mama. It look like it was gonna hit right on top of my head. It scare me so bad."
"I feel so hurt up inside when I see one of those thing," Arrabelle lamented.
"Why, Arrabelle?" Lillian asked. "Falling stars are beautiful."
"That ain"t no star really, chile. That"s tear of Infant Jesus falling on account of a sinful, hateful world."
The black woman climbed up on the wagon and took a seat beside her son.