What the River Washed Away Read online

  ‘A friend? I ain’t got no friends Nellie. I gonna get one, ya think?’

  ‘Uh huh. A real good friend. And today I’m giving ya a gift too. It’s for ya birthday, remember that chile.’

  ‘Thanks Nellie. What is it?’

  ‘Ya ain’t able to see it yet, but ya got it, and ya gonna know it when the time comes along and ya needin’ it. It’s called ya strength. I said I was gonna make ya strong, and I have chile. Ya got strength now and ya gonna learn how to be remembering it. How to use it, like it’s waiting to be used.’

  But I ain’t even home a day before Mr Seymour comes stumbling back down the track to our cabin. He’s tall and blond, and podgy like a fat pig. He smells real bad of stale baccy and strong liquor. He’s wearing a cream suit; it was nice once, I guess, now it’s crushed and crumpled like he’s been in it for weeks and don’t even care who knows it. Seems he’s got too many teeth to fit inside his mouth and his fat face is flushed pink like a turkey wattle. When he gets close to me I feel sick in my belly with that sour smell of his, and he’s holding a bottle of bad-smelling liquor, wrapped in a brown bag, that he keeps slugging from.

  ‘Come on Fifty Cents – have a drink.’

  ‘I don’t want no drink.’

  I’m so scared I’ve edged myself stuck into the corner of Mambo’s dresser and there ain’t no escaping it. Mr Seymour ain’t wearing a shirt underneath his jacket and nothing under his pants neither. His belly is hairy and he looks more like a pig with his clothes off than he does with them on. That’s the first time I ever saw a man ain’t wearing no clothes at all, and it ain’t nice either. Mr McIntyre don’t ever do that and I’m feeling as scared as I’ve ever been seeing it. I sure am shaking all over. I squeeze my legs tight so I can hold onto my own water. My eyes squeeze tight shut too.

  He grabs hold of my chin and pulls my mouth open with his podgy pig hands. The bad-tasting liquor from the brown bag is burning down my throat when I need to breathe, and I near enough choke to death on it. I’m about as trapped as a wild dog in a Cajun snare. Seems the more I wriggle, the more he likes it.

  He’s worse than Mr McIntyre. Mr McIntyre is always in a hurry to get on off outta here. That makes him rough, but then he’s gone and I’m glad.

  After that first time, Mr Seymour starts coming down our track whenever he feels he’s got a mind to, and he ain’t got no care that somebody might turn up and catch him doing to me, or that Mambo might even come back anytime, though that never happened. He wants to take his time for his doing, leaving me sore, worn out like I’m nothing but an old rag doll.

  ‘You ain’t nothing but dirty black trash, little girl, and I’ll do what I like.’

  I beg Mr McIntyre to stop him coming, but he says it’s all natural stuff and I ought to be right pleased somebody like Mr Seymour’s finding time to be coming all the way out here to be doing to me. He says he’s just able to promise nobody else is gonna come, and they’ll both make sure I’m kept safe just for the two of them ’cause I’m special.

  ‘Ain’t nobody as good as you, Sweetpea. You’re the best we got, and we’re safe as houses all the way down this track where we can see anybody coming. You’re some kind of find. You’re real special. Come on now, be good to Mr McIntyre.’

  I don’t feel safe at all.

  Four

  ‘Now don’t go putting her down a class, Mrs Hampton,’ Mambo says the day she drops me off at school. ‘Ya gonna find it just as I says, she’s a right fine reader and writer already.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Mrs Hampton says with her tight lips and a funny way of talking I ain’t ever hear before. She looks right disapproving of my Mambo and it’s plain as day she don’t believe her at all.

  ‘Y’all gonna see,’ Mambo sing-songs, and wiggles off right pleased with herself. I’m thinking she knows none of her mumbo-jumbo ever gonna work on Mrs Hampton, so when she finds out how good I am at lessons, Mambo’s gonna be the one with the winning wiggle. That makes Mambo laugh all the way back on the bus.

  Mrs Hampton sure does look strict. She tut-tuts right out loud and hustles me inside like the sight of Mambo’s wiggling behind is something no child ever oughta be in sight of. I get stood out front of her class like it’s the only thing gonna save me. Well, I’m just about able to be putting up with that, ’cause it feels fine having my uniform and looking the same as everybody else. I’m glad I gave Mambo a real hard time to go get it.

  The mission school is built right behind Pappy’s church and it’s got four classrooms in it, two for starters, one for middles and one for seniors. That’s on account of folks letting their kids start school but then find they’s ain’t able to carry on at it and have to get working or looking after li’l uns. It’s built near as tall as Pappy’s church, though it looks more like a barn to me.

  I’m keen to just slide into that class and sit down quiet-like, but Mrs Hampton holds me back. Some of them boys are sniggering already, and whispering about Po’bean, but I bet they ain’t able to read or write like me ’cause it’s clear as day already that Mrs Hampton’s gone and taken me down to starters, and that I ain’t.

  She holds me in front of the class and tells them I’m a new girl and they need to be welcoming and kind. They gotta help me with my lessons on account of me being a late starter and I don’t go for that at all. But I ain’t saying nothing.

  ‘Now, you sit right there in the front, Arletta, and take a look at our schedule here on the wall. This is how we break up the day for our lessons.’

  She thinks I’m stupid.

  ‘And we start every day with Bible class, don’t we, children?’

  ‘Yes, Miss.’

  Mrs Hampton is walking the floor holding a big black Bible up in front of her face. She’s wearing a pair of thick spectacles that make her look like she’s borrowed her eyes from a frog, and big huge bosoms I’m thinking ain’t never seen no daughter.

  When she asks who can tell her where Jesus was born, every hand in class shoots up except mine.

  ‘Arletta, you must know where baby Jesus was born.’

  But I don’t seem to.

  ‘In a stable Miss,’ spouts some voice from back of class, and I feel right mad I don’t remember that, ’cause Pappy sure told me enough times.

  ‘That’s correct, Charles,’ says Mrs Hampton. ‘Now, who can tell me who built the ark?’

  Every hand shoots up except mine again.

  ‘Arletta, tell us all who built the ark. Don’t be shy, now.’

  ‘Don’t know, Miss.’

  I don’t know what to think about school at all. I sure thought they were gonna be asking what I know instead of what I don’t. Mrs Hampton is tapping out some kinda beat on top of her desk now, with fingernails so long they ain’t never gonna be good in the soil.

  ‘Come now, children, and keep the Lord’s beat; He won’t be wanting any droning in Heaven. Raise your spirits up for the Lord. Ta-taa-ta ta ta – ta ta tiffy – ta-ta. Ta-ta tiffy ta-ta-ta.’

  Them fingernails keep time like Jeremiah gone and take her over. He could keep a good beat too, though I never heard him say nothing about ta ta tiffy.

  ‘Come, children, sing the Lord’s own words: “The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want …”’

  Mrs Hampton sure looks short of a hinge to me.

  The class starts singing what I find out is called the Twenty-third Psalm and I’m gonna have to learn it word for word and sing it too.

  Then it’s time for English lessons and I straighten myself up, real glad we’re gonna get on with what Pappy taught me out on our front porch. I’m gonna do fine here. When she asks if anybody knows what the future tense of the verb ‘to be’ is, the only hand shooting up in class is mine.

  ‘Yes, Arletta, tell us what that is.’

  ‘Future tense of the verb to be tells us what’s gonna happen before it happens or before it might do.’

  ‘Very good, Arletta. And do you know how to say that in proper English?’

  ‘I w
ill be, you will be, he, she or it will be. We will be, you plural will be, they will be.’

  I get told that’s excellent, so I’m hoping there’s gonna be more of that, since it’s stuff I know. The future tense of the verb ‘to be’ is gonna be written up on the board and the class have to copy it carefully into their notebooks. They gotta do it nice and neat ’cause Mrs Hampton will be correcting written work and giving it marks out of ten.

  I’ve already opened the first gleaming new page of my red school notebook. They call them jotters. It smells new too, ain’t like Pappy’s musty papers, and I write down the future tense of the verb ‘to be’ in the best handwriting I got so Mrs Hampton knows I’m able to do something else right. It’s like Pappy’s looking over my shoulder, pleased as punch she’s gonna be seeing it like he taught it.

  ‘Arletta,’ Mrs Hampton says when she notices my writing. ‘Would you like to write it on the board for the other children?’

  I say, ‘Yes, Miss,’ but that’s a straight-up lie. I don’t like to at all but I ain’t dare say so. I hear the class do a little tittering when I get up. They think I ain’t able to do it.

  The chalk snaps right in half first thing and the class get a grilling for giggling. But I get the hang of it after a few squeaky strokes and do my best writing. The class sure is quiet now.

  After my slow start with Bible stuff, it’s clear as day I already know everything Mrs Hampton’s got to be teaching her class of kids about the English language. I take care my notebooks are as neat as can be, my writing just about as perfect as I can get it, so my Mambo’s gonna be showing them all off and calling me a pride and joy just like Pappy. Mrs Hampton even asks me to help out one girl with her writing, ’cause she ain’t getting it at all. Well, that’s real easy for me, since Pappy sure was better at teaching than Mrs Hampton and I just tell her what he told me.

  Somebody outside in the yard starts clanging a loud bell that makes me jump. The class shuts their books and sit straight up. Mrs Hampton wants to see if we got posture. She walks up and down correcting what she calls ‘exception to perfection’ and then we all file out in what she says gotta be ‘an orderly fashion’ and I ain’t got no clue about any of it. It’s break time from lessons and it’s for a whole ten minutes. That’s something I ain’t looking forward to at all.

  But just as I peel off outta Mrs Hampton’s ‘orderly fashion’, ’cause that’s what everybody else is doing, Safi Sucree comes rushing my way.

  ‘Arletta! Ya’s in school! Mom said ya s’posed be comin’. Ya like it?’

  ‘Sure, I like it.’

  Well, I hope I’ll be liking it when I start hearing something I ain’t already know, but I ain’t saying nothing.

  ‘And the uniform, I really like it.’

  I sure like looking the same as everybody else.

  Safi asks me if I wanna be school friends and play scotch. I don’t know scotch, so she says she’ll show me.

  ‘Ya ma okay?’ I ask. Ain’t sure she hears me ’cause them’s just about the loudest bunch of kids I hear since carnival.

  ‘Oh yeah, and Pa’s come back home too now.’ She moves in close and whispers, ‘It worked, just like Mambo said it would work.’

  I say that’s good, and I’m glad to hear it, but I cross my fingers ’cause I don’t know for sure if it’s good at all. ‘No good gonna come of it’ is what Pappy used to say. He used to say Mambo’s mumbo-jumbo ain’t never do no good to nobody, and I feel afraid for Safi and her folks, since she’s just come to be the only friend I got.

  ‘Only thing is,’ Safi says, ‘we got another baby coming.’

  Another mouth for feeding is what her pa calls it, but everybody’s happy they’re all sticking together now. Safi’s ma got real sick when her pa took off ’cause he was all done out with looking after them, and they’d be shouting about it all the time. That’s when her grandma sent her over to see Mambo.

  ‘I’m glad he’s back then, with another mouth and all,’ I say.

  ‘And Pa says he’s gonna get plenty work on all them new gov’ment roads they’s laying down. He says it’s just like hard labour and all, but it’s gonna put food in our bellies and that’s all he ever wants, and that’s hard enough. That’s what he says, and we’re all right glad he’s back and Grandma ain’t mind, neither. Says she’s glad he’s facing up.’

  I wanna know if she went to the train crossing, ’cause we said we might watch it go by after she came to see Mambo that time.

  ‘I went three days running but I know Mambo ain’t gonna let ya off for playing ’cause ya got chores and y’all on ya own. I mean, ya ain’t got no brothers or sisters, my grandma says. I got six brothers and three sisters, and we don’t know what’s coming next.’

  ‘When will the baby come?’

  ‘Too soon, Grandma says.’

  Safi teaches me scotch and I like it ’cause nobody wins it. Ya just do the best ya can and that’s what Pappy said is all ya can do.

  Safi’s my first ever friend and I reckon Nellie’s gone and done just like she said for me.

  Mrs Hampton calls me out of my seat when we get back in class. She tells me to pick up my notebooks and cross over the hall to Mr Parker’s class. It’s the door right next to hers, she says. I don’t like the sound of being in no man’s class at all.

  ‘You already know how to read and write, Arletta, so you can go on over to the next class. Off you go, and keep up the good work, Arletta. You’ve done very well here in school today.’

  I take my stuff and hang my head low. My collar feels tight and a terrible heat is busting out like it might boil me over. I’m scared of Mr Parker already. I ain’t never meet him before and I don’t wanna meet him now, ’cause I’m sure as hell he’s gonna be just like Mr McIntyre and Mr Seymour. He’s gonna be just like Mambo’s beaux. They’re all the same, with wanting to be doing. Mambo keeps all our clothes hanging over that string so I ain’t able to see nothing, but I hear plenty. That’s what all of them do, except my Pappy.

  I knock on his door.

  ‘Come in.’ He sure got a loud voice.

  I’m too scared to even think about crossing over to Mr Parker’s desk, and I don’t even look up, neither.

  ‘Class, this is Arletta Lilith Johnson. Please go and sit next to Safi Sucree. Thank you.’

  Safi! I swing round and see her waving at me from the middle of the classroom. I go sit with her and we’re both happy. Then I get a mind to take a look at Mr Parker and all my worrying falls right off. He’s just like Pappy. Ain’t terrible old like Pappy, and he’s dressed real fine with his white collar and neck-tie and all, but he sure is an old man, and Mambo always says, ‘Old men stick to what they knows round here or their mamma is on the front step of my cabin to sort ’em out.’

  My first day at school is over too soon, I reckon. I get off the bus and rush home to tell Mambo all about it, but she’s rouging up and ain’t got time to hear it.

  ‘Well that’s just fine that ya liking it. And y’all be sticking with Safi, she’s a nice girl. She’s just like her ma and we been friends since ’fore we were even your age. I’m sure glad ya getting along with Safi.’

  ‘Oh, we getting along all right, and I’m gonna be teaching her stuff too, I know lots she don’t know. She say’s it’s ’cause she’s from a big family, six brothers and three sisters, and another on the way, and they don’t know what they gonna get …’

  Mambo tells me my mouth’s running and pushes me out of the way so she can finish scarleting up her mouth.

  ‘Her grandma says the baby’s gonna come too soon, but her pa’s working hard on them new gov’ment roads, so they gonna be okay, she says. They gonna have food in they bellies, she says.’

  Mambo stands up and squirts sweet-smelling cologne over her long neck and pushed-up bosoms.

  ‘Y’all need to be sticking with Safi then honey, like I says, and it’s about time ya stopped all that talking to folks who ain’t there anyways. Carry on with that shit Arletta, an
d ya gonna find y’self sitting in a loony bin. Ya stop all that girl, ya hear?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I hear ya, Arletta, talking all the time and ain’t nobody there. That’s why I get ya on off to school and all. Y’all needing real folks, instead of making them up and talking to the fresh air. Folks gonna think I got a half-wit for a child. Ya stupid sometimes, but ya sure as hell ain’t no half-wit honey.’

  ‘Oh, but that’s just Nellie. She’s like a friend already Mambo, she’s …’

  ‘Y’all as smart as anybody and smarter than a lot I know of. Eat them craws and corn now, ’fore they go off in this heat and don’t be waiting up, ya got school tomorrow. Ain’t that something, Arletta? My baby’s a schoolgirl now, fancy that. Pappy sure would be proud.’

  When Mambo’s gone I get in front of her mirror and feel real fine looking at myself in my school uniform. All Pappy’s teaching is coming in good and gonna make him so proud of me, he might even rise up before his time. I take it off and hang it careful-like over the string across our room and put on my shabby old frock. I’m growing fast and it feels tight, but I’m scared to ask Mambo to fetch another one in case she gets minded to be taking me outta school. I sit on Mambo’s bed and spread my new notebooks out where I can see them all. I wanna see how well I’ve done and what good marks I got from Mr Parker. There’s one for Bible class, one for English grammar, another one for what they call composition, one for geography, history, math and French. Mr Parker says speaking French can help with getting a job in New Orleans. He says folks do real well down there, so I figure I oughta be thinking about doing what he says. He marked me ten outta ten for my writing, says he ain’t never done that before in his life and I have the makings of a good student. That’s what kids gets called in the classroom.

  ‘Sweetpea, I got fifty cents here.’

  Mr Seymour!

  I ain’t hear him coming and he’s already inside our cabin. I hate him more every day, I swear on that, even more than Mr McIntyre. And he’s coming out here so much now, I’m sore nearly all the time. Ain’t nothing I can do about it. Every time is worse than the last time and I feel my stomach turn over when he walks in. He smells so bad it’s like he don’t know water.