“Can’t you just let me take my nap?” I wanted to close my eyes and dream of the Vineyard, of the beach in front of my grandmother’s cottage populated with bourgie Negroes.
Uncle Root raised his voice and continued.
“I entered Routledge College in the fall of 1922. I was fifteen, and my father sent me there. The school at Red Mound didn’t go past eighth grade back then—that wouldn’t happen for a very long time. At Routledge, I had a professor who loved himself some Du Bois. His name was Mr. Terrence Carter Holmes, and there used to be all these rumors he was communist. He loaned me his copy of Darkwater and told me to be careful with it. After that, I just kept borrowing every book by Du Bois that Mr. Holmes owned.
“That next fall, there was a rumor on campus that Du Bois would be visiting Atlanta University. The great scholar himself! A friend told me. Robert Lindsay was his name, but we called him Rob-Boy. He was very good people and came from wealthy folks. You could always borrow a dollar if you got in a tight spot. That was some money in those days.
“Rob-Boy and I decided to drive to Atlanta. He was from there, so we would stay overnight with his parents. The last thing we wanted was to be caught after dark by some crackers. We woke early that next morning and after driving in Rob-Boy’s car, with no water or food, we were hungry. We hadn’t thought to pack a sandwich or even a bottle of Coca-Cola. But my hunger didn’t dim my enthusiasm. I thought about the conversations Dr. Du Bois and Rob-Boy and I would have. We’d let him know that we didn’t agree with the bootlicking policies of Booker T. Washington. We wanted to be intellectual, free Negro men, not somebody’s farmers!
“At Atlanta University, we found out where Dr. Du Bois was staying. We ran up the stairs to his building—three flights, I’ll never forget it. We knocked, and the great scholar answered, himself.”
Uncle Root twisted the radio knob, lowering the volume.
I sat up. Despite myself, I was interested. “It was Dr. Du Bois? For real?”
“Indeed, it was him! He didn’t have a lot of hair left.” The old man ran his fingers through his thick silver curls. “And he was shorter than I was, but he had a way about him.”
“Sort of like Elder Beasley at church?”
“Exactly right. He knew he was important, and everybody else did, too.”
“What’d he say, Uncle Root?”
“‘Yes?’ he asked. I had to catch my breath. Those stairs had tired me out. ‘We came to see you, Dr. Du Bois! We came to see the great scholar!’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘now you have seen me.’ And he closed the door in our faces.”
“That was it?”
“That was it.”
“Permission to speak freely?” Since I’d started high school, the old man had allowed me three curse words per week, if I didn’t slip up in front of other elders.
“Permission granted.”
“Dr. Du Bois seems like a real asshole.”
The old man giggled. “Oh Lord! Please, don’t ever speak of him that way in public. I beg of you.”
“I won’t, but doesn’t he sound like an asshole to you?”
“No comment, and you only have one curse word left this week.”
He pulled the car onto Highway 441.
*
No matter how many times I’ve navigated that stretch, there is a feeling. The odor of cow manure. County Line Road and a long, red dirt driveway. The peach trees: an entire continent when I was a little girl. Cotton planted almost two centuries ago, and then soybeans to rest the soil.
Miss Rose sitting on a porch. Beside her, a bushel basket of ripe peaches or tomatoes. The drunkards buzzing, but easily smashed with a swat. Early mornings, she starts singing, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” and that’s your cue to rise. To eat the heavy breakfast that will keep you full all day. Once you’ve helped her with peeling those tomatoes or peaches, there are weeds to be plucked from the garden, from around the vegetables that will show up fresh on the supper table. Fish need cleaning if Uncle Norman comes through with a prize. After dinner, the piecing together of quilt tops from remnants until the light completely fades. The next morning, it starts again. A woman singing off-key praises to the Lord. The sweet fruit dripping with juice. The sound of bugs.
I thought of what Mama liked to say: to find this kind of love, you have to enter deep country.
Creatures in the Garden
Without my sisters and mother, the sameness of the country was grating. There were only two television stations, and both came in grainy. It was hot—so hot—and though there was the air conditioner unit in the living room, the plastic-covered furniture trapped the heat.