Catfish Read online

  ‘There was blood all over her and I bent down to help her, she wasn’t more an a hundred pounds. That’s when the men grabbed me. They put my arms and legs in chains and attached them to a ring around my neck. Then they sat me in the back of a wagon that moved over rocky, rutted roads all day long. No hat to cover my head, no food, no water and the heat pounding on me.

  When they got here—he didn’t know till later it was Jean Ville— they put him on a block in the middle of town. He was only a boy.

  ‘I missed my Mama and my home, the only place I’d ever known. The Man at Kent House was mean, but I was safe with Mama. I didn’t know what would happen to me away from her. And what about Mama? Would she be all right? If she died it would be my fault cause I wouldn’t let her go of her,

  He heard men calling out numbers and, after some time, he was put in another wagon, turned out to be Mr. Van’s. The men who took him away from his Mama, got the chains off him and he waited for new ones, but they didn’t come. Mr. Van went around the back of the wagon with a scooper of water and axed Granddaddy did he want some. He was thirsty. It was dusty and hot. His mouth was so dry he couldn’t answer. He just nodded and Mr. Van handed him that scoop and put a bucket full of clear, fresh water next to him. Next thing he knowed they was going somewhere in that wagon and the man driving didn’t put no chains on him or take the bucket or the scoop back. That was the first clue he had he’d been bought by a good man.

  He cried hisself to sleep every night, but during the day he was too busy to think about his Mama and Kent Plantation. There was some other slaves here back then— old George and a kind woman named, Bessie, who took sympathy on him.

  Granddaddy didn’t know where Kent Plantation was or how far. He didn’t see his Mama for twenty years. By that time he was married and they had Sammy. That was my daddy. He was about three, and she was pregnant with their second, Catfish said.

  “Whew! I tired now. You girls run along, You done wore me out.”

  “Wait, Catfish, you didn’t finish the story. What happened? You said he saw his Mama again?”

  “Yeah, Missy, but I too tired to tell you the rest. I’ll tell you more next time you come around.”

  That was the best invitation I was going to get, so I took it. I was happy he wanted me to come back.

  “Okay, Cat,”

  *

  Catfish seemed different at his own house, rocking on his own porch. I know he was surprised to see me, but I think he was happy, once everyone settled down. He looked old and worn out, and that worried me, but I acted like he was just the same ole’ Catfish who’d danced and chatted with me so often over the past six years.

  I tried to take it all in—the Quarters. There were five little wood houses with back porches that almost touched each other, in a semi-circle around a fire pit in the center of the yard. It looked like there had been six cabins at one time—there was a pile of burnt rubble at the far end of the row. I figured that was where the charred smell that hung in the air came from.

  Between the porches and the fire pit was dirt, and beyond the fire pit was more dirt that led to a small garden with a path on one side. From Catfish’s back porch, past the fire pit and the dirt yard, past the garden with sticks that stood vertically in rows, past the pecan grove with straight lines of trees that looked like huge umbrellas with only slithers of sunlight on the ground beneath them, I could see the cane fields that went on for miles.

  I didn’t go inside his cabin, but from the outside I could tell that none of the houses had more than three rooms, some only two. It looked like, when they added a room, they added to the front of the cabins, where there were no porches, only a set of steps that led to a door and faced South Jefferson Street Extension. The cabins were practically hidden behind more pecan trees and huge live oaks that formed a dense canopy for at least 100-yards to the narrow street.

  I was amazed at how close the five houses were to each other. Someone could sit on each of the five back porches and have conversations with the people on the other porches, never raising their voices. Except for the two houses on either end, there wasn’t enough room on the sides of the cabins to add a room, unless new rooms connected the houses together.

  Catfish told me the cabins were called, “Shotgun houses.”

  “They came up with that name during slave days because the plantation owners said you could shoot a shotgun through the front door and the buckshot could kill a varmint in the back yard. We don’t waste no space on halls. One room goes into the next.” But he didn’t invite me to go inside to confirm his story.

  I walked home that afternoon thinking about the story Catfish told. I wanted to write it down before I forgot all the details. It was hard to believe people were treated that way, bought and sold like property, taken from their families, whipped, deprived of water and food. I thought about Mr. Van, who was a kind slave owner, but he still bought and sold people like they were cattle. What did that say about him?

  Looking back I realize that was the beginning of my desire to be a writer. It all started with Catfish’s story. It caused something of a metamorphosis inside me, a revolution of sorts, about the way Negroes were treated. Through the years I would become outraged that nothing really changed, even as laws said they did. I made it my life’s mission to make people see what a travesty this was.

  I sit here today and wonder whether anything has really changed in the almost half-century since my first visit to the Quarters when I was not quite thirteen years old.

  *

  I tried to make friends with the girls in my class at Assumption Catholic where my brothers and I went to Elementary School. No one seemed to like me. I was bullied, criticized and some of the girls from the country tried to beat me up—and they succeeded every now and then. I learned to run, fast, and became a track star in high school, which I attribute to the mean girls who chased me every day. I never understood what I did to make them dislike me, and the harder I tried to please them, the worse they treated me.

  “You should just go somewhere and die,” Megan Dauzat said.

  “Yeah,” Melanie Gremillion said. “You just take up space. No one likes you, anyway.”

  There were lots of incidents. One girl held my head in the toilet and flushed. They chased me, and if the caught me, they’d throw me on the ground and beat me up. They wouldn’t invite me to parties or to their houses for what people today call, play dates; and if I invited them, they’d laugh, or accept and not show up.

  The nuns sided with my classmates and alternately singled me out or ignored me. Sister Adrian pulled me down the hall by the ear. Sister Celeste told the class I peed on the bathroom floor. When I asked why, the only straight answer I ever got was, “We were told to put you in your place and keep you there!” Now I understand it was Mama’s way of making sure I didn’t become conceited—or, at least, that’s what she told me years later when she said, “I did it for your own good, Susanna Christine.”

  I was in seventh grade when everything came to a head at Assumption Catholic.

  A new family moved to Jean Ville when I was in seventh grade, the first Hispanic family in town. They had seven children, five were school age. The Martinez kids came to Assumption on “scholarships” and the eldest, Randy, was in my seventh grade class. He was fifteen, I was barely eleven. Randy didn’t speak much English and couldn’t read or write, but he set his sights on me from the first day. He was big and had whiskers and the other boys were no match for his strength or his pernicious plans. He bullied Jeffrey Marks out of his desk directly behind me and Randy began a series of malicious flirtations that kept me in constant trouble, while he was never blamed. He played with my long hair, shot spitballs at me, popped the back of my training bra and tried to raise my skirt. He wouldn’t leave me along. Each time he was caught, I was punished for, “leading him on,” and Randy got off Scott-free. When I told Mama about the new boy and how he badgered me and got me I trouble she told me I was, “le
ading him on,” too. I didn’t know what that meant.

  One day when the bell rang after recess to signal it was time to return to the classroom, I stood at end of the line of girls and waited for Sister Clement to emerge from the building to lead us up the steps from the dirt yard. It was hot and dusty and I needed to stop at the water fountain inside, so I was fidgety. I was usually second from last in line because Katie Gagnard was the tallest girl, I was next to tallest. Katie was home sick that day so I was at the end of the line.

  Randy ran up behind me without warning and scooped me up like a man would carry his bride across the threshold. In one fluid motion he ran towards the hedges that separated the schoolyard from a ditch and formed a boundary between Assumption and the Gaspard’s house next door. He threw me over the hedges into the trench, then dove over the bushes to land on top of me. I rolled away just in time and I guess he landed in the ditch. I got to my feet, ran through the shrubbery, up the back steps and into the classroom, unaware that I was disheveled with leaves and grass in my hair, my skirt hiked up and dirt smeared across my face, arms and legs. Randy was right behind me, laughing. Looking back I can see how it must have seemed to Sister Clement who, before I could open my mouth to explain, pointed to the door and sent me to Sister Adrian’s office.

  Sister Adrian took one look at me, bruised and dirty, and called me a, “whore,” and a “slut,” and sent me home, after a sound whipping.

  “And don’t come back to Assumption,” the nun screamed. “We are done with the likes of you. You are a disgrace to our school and our students.”

  When I got home, Mama was changing the baby and Tootsie was hanging clothes on the line outside.

  “What are you doing home so early?” Mama asked without looking at me.

  “What’s a whore?” I asked. She turned her head and lifted an eyebrows which caused a crease to form on her forehead. She slapped me across the face.

  “Don’t you ever say words like that young lady! Where did you hear such vulgarity?”

  “Sister Adrian. That’s what she called me when she sent me home and told me never to go back to Assumption. She also called me a, ‘slut.’”

  “I told you not to say those words!” I just looked at her. What words? I wondered.

  “You must have done something awful,” Mama yelled.

  “I’m not sure what I did. That new boy, Randy, threw me in the bushes and I got away. Then Sister Clement sent me to the office and Sister Adrian whipped me and called me those words.”

  “What did you do to make that boy come after you?”

  “Nothing, I swear. I was just standing in line ...”

  “Don’t swear and don’t lie to me!” She slapped me again. This time I felt my lip split and I tasted blood. “I know better. You are boy-crazy! Go to your room. Wait till your daddy gets home!”

  When Daddy got home he came to my room, didn’t ask questions.

  My hero rode in on a big horse and galloped over me, using a lasso, leather with a belt buckle on the end, to whip me into shape. I made myself into a haystack, tight and round to hide, but the horse took bits out of me and left holes that oozed from the inside out. The light was like sunshine blazing down so hot I began to sweat and a whoosh of urine ran out from under me. The sun fell from the sky and everything went dark and flat as I slid under the protection of my bed and slept, the dust ruffle around the bottom making me feel walled in and safe. The hardwood floor smelled like wax and ammonia and moisture crept up my lumpy stack of bones by osmosis. There was a small glow from the lamp beside my bed, and when I opened my eyes I could see where the holes had sprouted red liquid that pooled on the floor and smeared my face and hands.

  On my knees I crawled across the hall to the bathroom and pulled myself up by hanging on the lavatory. The blood was coming from a cut on my butt where the buckle must have landed. I tried to clean it with a wash cloth and cold water, then someone began to bang on the bathroom door.

  “What’s all the noise?” Mama yelled. I opened the door and stood on one foot, hobbling on the other, holding onto the doorknob. She gasped and shoved me back into the bathroom, followed me in and closed the door.

  “Sit on the toilet,” she said and she lowered the lid. I sat on the open wound on my butt. She started to wash my face with soap and water and became exasperated, then filled the bathtub halfway and told me to get in.

  “Wash yourself with soap, Susanna, and shampoo your hair,” she said. “Then get some clean pajamas on and go to bed.” I did as she said, but it wasn’t easy. I couldn’t sleep, I kept waiting for the horses to return and stampede through my room. I felt tiny and vulnerable.

  In the morning Tootsie brought me aspirin and soup at lunch and I tried to sleep off and on. Daddy came in my room that evening. I was afraid so I cowered in the bed, my neck against the headboard, legs stretched out in front of me. He gently pushed my legs over and sat on the edge of the bed next to my butt, facing me.

  “Are you okay, Pretty Girl?” he asked. He put his hand on my cheek and stroked it. Tears streamed down my face. I nodded. Daddy took his handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiped my eyes, cheeks and neck, then he handed it to me. I blew my nose.

  “I need to explain what’s going to happen. You will not return to Assumption. There are only a few weeks left in this school year and Sister Adrian has agreed to give you a report card for the full year, all A’s, of course. Your mother will get you registered at the public school and you’ll go there next year.”

  “But Daddy,” I started to cry again. “Next year is eighth grade. I won’t get to graduate.”

  “You’ll graduate from the public school.”

  “What about Will and Robby? Will they come with me?”

  “No. Will has two more years and Robby four, and you’ll be in high school in one year, so it’s no use to move them.”

  “But the nuns ...”

  “I know. But I promised your grandmother I’d make sure you all got a Catholic education. Assumption only goes through eighth grade, so you would have to go to public school in ninth grade, anyway.”

  “But I don’t know anyone.” I couldn’t stop crying. I was confused and felt betrayed but I didn’t understand why, at the time. And I was sick and humiliated and Daddy acted like everything was normal, that I wasn’t recovering from a brutal spanking. It was confusing to an eleven-year-old.

  “Just think how much better it’ll be. When you start high school, you’ll already know all the kids in public school. Now, don’t cry anymore. It’s going to be alright.”

  I knew it wouldn’t be alright, but at least Daddy wasn’t mad at me anymore, and it didn’t look like I was going to be punished for getting kicked out of school. Anyway, I didn’t have to go to school the last three weeks. That was something. I didn’t hear another word he said.

  Chapter Three

  The Quarters/Mama

  1963

  I RAN AS FAST as I could while Alice and Megan chased me to the back corner of the school grounds where I was trapped by the fence. I had nowhere to go so I waited a few seconds and they jumped on me, threw me to the ground and beat the crap out of me. I was still alive when the bell rang after noon recess. The girls ran off and I got up slowly, dusted myself off and felt around for injuries. I was late entering class, but it wasn’t the same as at Assumption where the nuns would call me out. Mrs. Gautreax took one look at me, reached in her purse for a handkerchief and sent me to the bathroom to clean up.

  The brush burn on my cheek and cuts on my legs were minor. I’d had worse. I’d been at the public school for six weeks and these beatings were regular events, but I was tired of them. Nothing I could do or say would persuade the girls at my new school to include me, and I had come to grips with that. What I couldn’t get accustomed to was the country girls attacking me.

  After school that day I stayed back and asked Mrs. Gautreax if I might help her during recesses. She was kind, and her hands were fu
ll with thirty rough eighth-graders, but she agreed and I began to clean the blackboards, grade standardized tests and run errands in the building during breaks.

  The high school band teacher, Mr. Goudeau, was the best man I‘d ever met, other than Catfish. He agreed to let me spend lunch recess in the band room where he helped me learn to play the clarinet. I told him I wanted to become a majorette and he explained I had to learn an instrument and march with the high school band for one year before I could try out for one of the five coveted spots on the twirl team.

  Troubles at school were minor compared with home where, if I came home with bruises Mama would scream and yell at me.

  “I don’t understand why you can’t make friends. What’s wrong with you?” she’d say and when Daddy came home she’d complain about me to him and he’d come in my room angry.

  “Don’t you understand I’m trying to earn a living in this town, and I’m running for mayor. You can ruin me with your troublemaking ways,” he’d say and, if I was lucky, he’d spank or slap me. If he’d been drinking, well, that was another story.

  If that wasn’t enough my older brother, James, hated me and tried to turn Robby and Will against me. Boys against girl, he told them.

  “Get her,” James would scream at the two younger brothers I loved more than anyone—at least that was true before I started going to the Quarters. They’d chase me and trip me. We were playing chase in the yard one day and James hid a yard rake, the kind with iron firs, under a pile of leaves. I chased Robby and he went around the pile but I went through it, a short cut, I thought. I stepped on the rake and two of the teeth went through my foot. I had a tetanus shot and antibiotics for two weeks.

  My life was miserable everywhere I turned.

  The day I met Marianne was the best day of my life. I liked her immediately and it seemed, she eventually took a liking to me. By the time Catfish finished his story during my first visit, we had developed secret looks and giggles in a sweet conspiracy of sorts. After Catfish shooed us off to the barn, we began to share all sorts of secrets we’d stored deep inside and couldn’t tell anyone. I guess we felt safe—in part because neither of us knew the people in the other person’s life, and because we shared a loneliness that we didn’t need to explain to each other. Marianne didn’t have girlfriends, either.