Whistling Past the Graveyard Read online

  If a record was scratched, it bounced the same word over and over until you went over and picked up the needle. I didn’t want to take a chance of scratching this one, so I reached in and hooked my finger through the hole and slid it out, slow and easy. The label was bright yellow and had a rooster on it. The word SUN was a rainbow over the rooster. Course I was only seven back then and couldn’t read all of the words, but I knew. I knew what it was. Momma had made a record, just like she’d said she was going to! “Baby Mine” was the song. Under the song was Lucinda L-a-n-g-s-d-o-n. Under that it said D-E-M-O.

  “Baby Mine.” Momma had only one baby. Me!

  I got so excited I nearly threw up for real. Momma had a record. She was getting famous. Pretty soon she’d be coming to get me and Daddy.

  We didn’t have a record player at our house. I was gonna have to wait until I could take it to Patti Lynn’s to hear it.

  That night, I wanted to put the record under my pillow, just to be close to it and make sure it was safe, but records scratched and broke too easy—Patti Lynn and I had found that out. We’d told Cathy one of the brothers had done it. Easy enough—those brothers of Patti Lynn’s was always breaking stuff. Instead of under my pillow, I put Momma’s record back in the envelope and hid it in the very bottom of the very back of my summer-shorts and T-shirt drawer. Mamie wouldn’t have any reason to get in there ’cause it was February.

  The next day, I went to school like normal, even though nothing was normal anymore. Momma was famous. She was coming to get me.

  Mamie just seemed happy that I wasn’t still throwing up.

  All day long, I felt like I had bees in my belly. That afternoon Patti Lynn had her momma call Mamie and invite me specially to come over. Mamie thought Patti Lynn’s momma was the most “cultured” woman in Cayuga Springs—whatever that was, it was good, I can tell you that. Patti Lynn’s momma and Mamie played bridge together with a bunch of other ladies. When Mamie hosted, we had to just about clean the whole house with a toothbrush and buy only brand-name snacks from the Piggly Wiggly. I can’t remember one single time that Mamie said no when Patti Lynn’s momma invited me to do something.

  At four o’clock, Patti Lynn and I sat in the purple bedroom she shared with Cathy and played the record. It was Momma all right. I closed my eyes and listened, pretending she was in the room, not just coming from a scratchy-sounding speaker. It was the most beautiful song I ever heard.

  I’d had Patti Lynn hide the record at her house so no one would find it. From that day, every time I went to Patti Lynn’s and we could get the bedroom to ourselves, I played that record. One day that song stopped being on the outside of me and moved deep inside. It was there all of the time, especially when I was feeling particular lonely.

  That night, locked up in the little room in Eula’s house, I fell asleep humming that song to myself.

  Me and Wallace and Eula had breakfast, grits and eggs. I even got to go out with Eula and get the eggs right out from under the chickens. It was fun until one of the hens got mad and pecked me good on the hand. I told Eula I liked the grocery store better, where the farmers brought in the eggs and did all of the chicken fightin’ for me. Eula found that particular funny for some reason.

  Those chickens, flappin’ and peckin’ to keep their eggs before they even turned into baby chicks, told me that every momma wants her baby. Eula’s story ’bout finding James like that just seemed wrong. Could it be true? Or was she just a little crazy, too? The more I thought about it, the more confused I got.

  As we finished breakfast and Eula and I cleaned up the dishes, I studied her. She didn’t act like she had a screw loose. In fact, we had a right nice breakfast, even with Wallace at the table. But that big, new bruise on Eula’s upper arm and the way she was careful not to look at him told me I was right. He wasn’t a nice man at all.

  I really liked Eula and didn’t want to get her in trouble for taking James. Once I got to Nashville, Momma would help me sort out what to do. Momma would know a way to find out who James’ s mother was, then figure out how we could get her baby back to her without sending Eula to jail for kidnapping.

  But that was all for later. Now it was time to go.

  I folded my dish towel and set it on the drain board. “Thank you

  for helpin’ me out and feedin’ me.” I stood tall as I could and headed toward the front door.

  “Stop right there!” Wallace’s voice was extra grumbly this morning, making him sound even more like a bear.

  I kept walking out the front door and climbed into the passenger seat of the truck. My mouth was dry and I all the sudden needed to pee—that always happened when I got real nervous.

  The screen door squeaked open and Wallace thundered across the wooden porch. I paid no mind; I just slammed the truck’s door and sat looking out the windshield.

  To keep from peeing my pants, I counted my breaths. One. Two.

  Wallace yanked open the passenger door so hard I was surprised it didn’t come off in his hand. “Get out.”

  “My momma is waitin’. You only need to take me to the highway. I’ll get a ride from there.” My insides was wobbling like Jell-O, but I didn’t look at him.

  The front door squeaked again. “Wallace,” Eula called, her voice meek as a mouse. Even I knew that wasn’t gonna get the bear’s attention.

  “Get. Out. The. Truck.” I could tell he was gritting his teeth, but I didn’t look at him.

  “Wallace.” Eula’s voice was sweet, like she was singing to baby James. “I told you it was gonna be all right, now. She goin’ to Nashville. She ain’t coming back round here. Right, Starla?”

  I am white. I am the boss of what happens here. “That’s right. I’m moving to Nashville permanent. I got no reason to come back.” That didn’t sound quite forever enough, so I added, “I won’t never be back.” I didn’t tell them that I couldn’t never come back.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the big hulk of Wallace step back from my door.

  He’s getting in. He’s takin’ me to the highway.

  But instead of walking around the truck, he went toward Eula. I chanced a peek as he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.

  “You done it. If ’n you didn’t take that baby, that girl could go on her way to her momma and everything be fine. But you done stole that baby. This is on you! You hear me? On you!” With his last words he shoved her hard, flinging her away from him. It was everything I could do not to jump out of the truck and onto his back, scratch his angry bear eyes out. But I knew if I did, I’d never get away from here. And he’d be even madder at Eula.

  Eula stumbled, but kept her feet.

  Wallace started to turn toward me. I snapped my eyes back to the windshield. I had to blink twice ’cause tears kept wanting to get out.

  Breathe. One.Two. “It’s time to go. I don’t want my momma sendin’ the police lookin’ for me.”

  If he was worried about somebody finding out Eula took James, it stood reason that he wouldn’t want the police nosing around searching for a little girl.

  Wallace moved surprising quick. He grabbed my arm and yanked me from the truck so fast I didn’t have a chance to get my feet under me. I ended up on my knees, my arm up by my ear, pinched in his big hand. It hurt, but I wasn’t gonna let him know that.

  Eula’s soft steps came closer, hesitant, like a deer checking if it was safe to come from the woods.

  He pointed at her. “Stay away! You know what needs be done.”

  “No, Wallace! Please!”

  “Get back, woman!” He shook me a little, and I hung there like a rag doll at the end of his arm. “Sometimes I think you’s dropped on your head as a baby! There ain’t but one way out of this now.”

  “She just a little girl, nobody goin’ pay her no attention.” Eula’s hands clasped beneath her chin.

  “She a white girl. You know they don’ ask a colored if a white girl tellin’ the truth afore they strike. They be all over us. Even if they
ask, you done stole that baby.” He shook his finger toward the house with the hand that wasn’t digging into my arm.

  “She won’t tell!” Eula cried, her hands out, palms up, pleading.

  “I won’t!” I shouted. “I won’t tell! I don’t care ’bout no baby!” “I keep her! Keep her in secret!”

  He breathed deep; his whole body shuddered when he let it out. He swung his free hand and landed Eula in the dirt. “This on you.”

  He started to drag me toward the woods.

  “No!” Eula screamed from down on the ground. Her arms reached toward me.

  “I won’t tell! I won’t!” I twisted, but Wallace held firm. My feet dragged in the dirt. “Let me go! I just wanna go to Nashville!”

  Eula crawled after us. Crying. Begging.

  My insides turned to water. I shoulda broken that window and run last night while I had the chance.

  6

  e

  verything after that slid by so fast, it wasn’t much more than a blur in my head. Somewhere, out beyond Eula’s crying and the thud-thud, thud-thud of my heartbeat, I began to hear something else.

  Wallace heard it, too, ’cause he stopped dead still and his head snapped up. I could hear the roughness of his breath as it rushed through his nose. His hand gripped my arm tighter and his eyes narrowed to slits.

  The sound rose and fell, swelled and shrank, until I recognized it. Dogs . . . huntin’ hounds.

  Quick as a rattler, he reached down with the hand that wasn’t holding me and jerked Eula up off the ground. She came to her feet like she was one of those string puppets. I was pretty sure if Wallace let her go, she’d have gone flat back on the ground like just like a puppet, too. Her crying slid to whimpers.

  Wallace’s eyes was crazy, with so much white showing they looked like cue balls.

  I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out.

  Before I could blink, he drug the both of us toward the house. He started moving while I was half on the ground; I didn’t have a chance to get on my feet, and Eula wasn’t even trying. My shins slammed into the steps, tearing chunks of skin off and setting them on fire. I sucked in a breath to keep from yelling out with the pain; all bullies got worse when you let them know they were hurting you.

  Eula’s dragging feet caught the rug in the living room. It rolled up like a butter curl behind us. Wallace shoved us into the little bedroom where James was sleeping.

  We landed in two heaps on the floor.

  Just before Wallace locked the bedroom door, he warned us we’d both be sorry if we made a sound. I believed him. From the look on Eula’s face, she did, too. I’d seen her scared of Wallace before, but there was something sharp and new to this scaredness.

  I started to see stars. I sat there for a second, sucking air back into my fear-pinched lungs.

  Eula scooted on her backside until she was shoved in the corner beside the door. She pulled her legs up to her chest and held tight with both arms. Her eyes didn’t look like they was seeing anything around us. Somewhere deep in her throat, a thin, little whine rolled around, almost too quiet to hear.

  I looked down at my scraped shins.That just made them hurt worse. It also made me wonder what Wallace would do next. I couldn’t think about that. If I let fear get locked in my head, I wouldn’t be able to think at all. And if I couldn’t think, and Eula was all messed up, we were goners.

  I’d been so surprised by Wallace’s viciousness that I didn’t fight my best—and Eula was too scared to fight at all. I had to do better, be faster, smarter. Meaner.

  Mamie had smacked me before, and I’d been knocked down in a fight on the playground, but I’d never been jerked around and dragged like I wasn’t even a person at all. I wondered if Wallace treated Eula like this all the time. Maybe she had tried to fight once—Wallace was so big, and poor Eula wasn’t more than skin on bones, she couldn’t beat him, or even get away most likely.

  “Eula?” Her eyes were like glass. I’d never seen a grown-up woman so helpless and scared. She’d just switched off, like she wasn’t even on the inside of herself anymore.

  The sound of the hounds yippin’ and howlin’ was close now, maybe even in the yard. I jumped up and looked out the little window, but couldn’t see nothin’ but trees and a couple of squirrels scared up ’em by all the barking.

  Kneeling back in front of Eula, I asked, “Who’s comin’ with the dogs?”

  Her eyes stayed empty.

  “Eula?” I touched her cheek and turned her to face me. There was a muddy place where her tears had mixed with the dirt from when she’d been knocked to the ground. “Who’s comin’ with the dogs?”

  I heard Wallace’s grumbly voice mixed in with the yappin’ of the dogs. But I couldn’t hear any other person.

  “Eula!” I said, more of a sharp hiss than a yell. I couldn’t yell until I knew who was outside.

  She blinked. Then her eyes shifted and looked at me.

  “Who is it? Who come with the dogs?”

  She swallowed hard, like there was something blocking her throat. “Prob’ly Shorty. He come by most days.”

  “He huntin’?” Which would mean he had a gun he could use to fend off Wallace once he got to rescuin’ us.

  “He don’t hunt, not no more. Not for years. Just got the one arm.”

  Dang, most likely no gun, then. I chewed my cheek for a second. “He white or colored?”

  Her brow wrinkled and she looked at me like I’d gone crazy. “Why would he get dragged behind a car and had his arm tore off if he was white?”

  My stomach went sour and I tried not to think about someone’s arm being tore right from its socket like that. It seemed there wasn’t no limit to the meanness of some people. I felt sorry for that man, but even sorrier for me and James and Eula. A man like that wasn’t gonna be interested in making Wallace mad by rescuin’ white children.’Sides, with only one arm and no gun, he wouldn’t have a chance against the bear.

  I flopped backward and looked at the plank-board ceiling. If only Eula hadn’t taken James. Then Wallace would be happy to take me out to the highway and never see my white face again; he wouldn’t be so scared of Shorty findin’ out I was here and blabbing it all over. Or even if James had been a colored baby.

  A while passed before the dogs seemed to settle down.Then I heard one of them snufflin’ and rubbing the underside of the floor. There wasn’t any latticework to keep animals from getting underneath the house. If only dogs could save a person—they don’t care if you’re white or colored.

  I finally sat up and made myself ask,“What did Wallace mean when he said you know what’s got to be done?”

  Eula looked like she’d switched mostly back on. “He calm down now. Everythin’ goin’ be all right. You see. Just goin’ take some time.” She nodded and breathed an “Uh-huh.” Then a few seconds later, she whispered, “We be fine.”

  She crawled over to James. Her gentle hands smoothed his blanket as her hunched shoulders curved over that baby. I felt like I’d turned invisible and started to wonder if she was going away in her head again.

  “Eula?”

  She started humming, soft and low and oh so sweet. Her head tilted sideways and her eyes stayed on James. It was like she thought she could make the rest of the world go away by just ignoring it.

  And right that minute I understood; there was something broke deep inside Eula. Like maybe she hadn’t been able to feel right in her world the same way I never felt right in mine—her without a baby and me without a momma. And I wondered if baby James could fix her.

  No. Not in this world. Nothing good could come of a colored woman and a white baby. Wallace knew it, sure as day. He’d called her stupid, but she wasn’t stupid. She was just empty. Empty and needing a baby to fill her up.

  I crawled over behind her and rested my cheek against her back. Her bones was sharp under her skin. Her humming vibrated in my head.

  I patted her on the shoulder. “We are gonna be fine, you and me and James.
We just gotta get away from Wallace.”

  The humming stopped like somebody’d pulled the plug on the radio. Her body snapped up straight and I could swear she was holding her breath. “What’d you say?”

  “I said we’ll be fine once we get away from Wallace.”

  She turned around so fast that I fell backward onto my elbows. “Now you listen here. I ain’t never leavin’ Wallace.”

  I felt like I’d been punched in the chest. After the horribleness we just went through, I couldn’t believe she’d stay. “Why not?” “You don’t understand nothin’, so don’t go talkin’ like you do. You just a child, you don’t know nothin’ about bein’ a wife . . . or a colored woman.”

  “But he’s so mean to you! You can come with me to Momma’s. She’ll help you get a job in Nashville. You don’t need Wallace.” “Wallace, he take care of me.” Her face got softer. “He always take care of me.”

  “But—”

  “Shush now! You don’t know him. He jus’ worried ’bout me. He a fine man. I wasn’t nothin’ till he with me. Nothin’ but a throwaway.” She sat there for a minute and her eyes got all faraway. “I was sixteen when we met . . . and so shy.” She shook her head and sighed. “So shy I couldn’t look a man in the eye—even an ugly one.” She leaned close and chuckled, like we was sharing a joke. “And Wallace, ahh, you shoulda seen him; the girls all hovered round him like butterflies round a flower. And the men, why, they step right careful round him. Nobody mess with me once I with Wallace.”

  I wanted to say that nobody needed to ’cause Wallace was doing enough messing hisself. But the way she said it made me think she’d seen a world of hurt even before Wallace. So I just clamped my jaw tight. “I didn’t think he even know I was breathin’. But one Saturday night up in the balcony of the movie house, he come and sat right down next to me—even though there was plenty of empty seats. He smiled so handsome and handed me a bag of popcorn.” She smiled in a remembering way. “I was so nervous I couldn’t even eat it. Took it home and ate a few pieces every day for a whole week.”

  I decided I would never, ever eat popcorn again.