Hardscrabble Days

By Dolph Spain

Joey Spencers world, Depression plagued, rural, eastern North Carolina, is a world of limited possibilities, narrow horizons, and strong personalities. It is an era when the mere idea of indoor plumbing or TV is science fiction, but the arrival of the bookmobile or Swindells grocery truck is a much-anticipated treat.

Against this background of unique time and place Joeys story unfolds. Some of his experiences are universal the death of a beloved pet, first fumbling attempts at seduction, a sons struggle to please his father but all are freshly seen through Joeys eyes and vivid imagination.

Neighbors and family influence young Joey. Miss Sylvia fills her days with radio serials and the Sears and Roebuck catalog, dreaming of a better life. Valerie has dreams, too -- dreams of killing her abusive father. Malcolm Tetterton hates children, but wants to adopt one to please his wife. And within Joeys family, Arthur Lee walks the brink of madness, Uncle Harold has a shameful secret, and Molly, Joeys mother, has secrets of her own.

Joey shares with the reader the joys and sorrows of his loss of innocence and coming of age during Hardscrabble Days.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 11, 2001
• ISBN: 9780759625532

Dolph Spain

Dolph Spain was born in 1932 in rural, eastern North Carolina, the setting for his stories. This is his first book, which he says was written to help him cope with his Mother’s death. He is a retired educator and lives in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, in the summer and in Miami Beach, Florida, in the winter.

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CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PROLOGUE

JOEY

I HEARD IT ON THE RADIO

MY TRADING EGG

THE TOBACCO SCRAPER

MISS SYLVIA

DANCING WITH VALERIE

UNCLE HAROLD

MADELYN

ARTHUR LEE

MALCOLM TETTERTON

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Image295.JPG

Dan Mitchell Spain and Mabel Earle Cartwright Spain

This book is dedicated to my parents, pictured above at the Cartwright homeplace on the Pamlico River in 1932.

The characters and events in this book are fictional and created out of the imagination of the author. The setting is eastern North Carolina. Certain real locations are mentioned, but the characters and events depicted are entirely fictional.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Without the encouragement and editing skills of my lifelong partner, this book would still be buried and unfinished in our basement. So to Loyd Johnson, I wish to say many thanks for all his help, not to mention his endless patience. I used to tease him that if he didn’t help, he wouldn’t get to meet Oprah.

Many thanks to my friend, Faye Moskowitz, for her suggestions and conviction that the book was worthy of publication. She told me that if she hadn’t thought it was, she would have told me to toss it in Biscayne Bay.

Thank you, Suzanne Fisher Staples, for loving my stories. I love yours, too.

My gratitude to my friend, Irene Vitak, who listened patiently while I read the early drafts to her on those hot summer days in Rehoboth.

To my dear friend and neighbor, Lois Peregoy, my thanks for your careful reading of the drafts and your detailed comments.

And a debt of gratitude to my Mother who never got a chance to read any of my stories, but inspired me to write them.

PROLOGUE

She picked up the pack of Dorals from the end table, moved the Kleenex box to find her lighter, lit her cigarette, and slowly dragged on it until the end glowed red. Tapping the barely formed ash on the edge of the ashtray, she slowly exhaled a blue haze of smoke. As the smoke left her lips, it found the upward draft from the warm light bulb and curled up the lampshade, yellowed from years of use as a chimney for Mama’s cigarettes.

Watching her take another drag, I remembered how happy I was when she stopped dipping snuff and started smoking. Smoking was much more sophisticated, I had thought then. But now with all the reports about how hazardous it is to your health, I longed for the days when she hid her snuffbox and spit can when I brought someone home from college.

You had sense enough to go to college on the GI Bill and get yourself an education, I remembered her saying. While you’re trying to get ahead, I’m not going to embarrass you by dipping snuff in front of your friends.

I noticed her smoking Daddy’s cigarettes soon after that remark. How foolish I was, wanting to impress my college friends with a family I was still a little ashamed of. Such thoughts saddened me now. Had I hurt their feelings trying to make them something they were not, I wondered. They had never mentioned it.

I looked at Mama ducking the half smoked Doral in the ashtray. My, how we change when we get rid of our own insecurities, I thought.

See, I didn’t smoke the whole thing, she said, probably remembering my lectures on the hazards of smoking.

I had stopped bringing up the subject years ago when I realized my comments were in vain. You couldn’t get very far with someone who claimed she didn’t inhale, refusing to accept any arguments about the danger of secondary smoke.

But Mama, the cigarette is only inches from your nose. You breathe, don’t you? I’d say. But it went in one deaf ear and out the other-later into her hearing aid and who knows where. I finally decided to let her enjoy what was left of her life without pestering her about cigarettes.

Mama leaned back on the sofa, wiggled down in the soft cushion, and felt for the folded towel behind her head. Keeps the hair dye off the fabric, she said, turning to arrange the towel. I know it doesn’t look good, but I hide it when anybody comes.

She laid her head back, getting a far-away look in her eyes. Did I ever tell you about the time Rudolph Jones dressed up like a woman and came to his Mama’s door pretending to be a beggar?

I’d heard that tale many times, but I’d listen once more. Mama got her feelings hurt if she felt you weren’t interested in her stories.

I had listened to them for years, going full cycle in my feelings. When I was little, I sat spellbound when she told tales about the farm on the river where she grew up. The way she portrayed life there made me feel like she was living in the Garden of Eden.

Now, I felt a little ashamed of the times I had found an excuse to leave the room when she began one of those stories. Old fashioned, I had thought when I got older. Why couldn’t she be interested in the present? Why did she have to live in the past?

I leaned forward, not pretending, because I really wanted to hear this story one more time. It could be the last, I had come to realize. She wasn’t going to be in my life forever. Someday she would not be here. I must listen now and remember.

Rudolph was Irma’s brother, wasn’t he? I asked, wanting her to know that I had remembered something about the story. The truth was, I could have told it, recalling every detail, but I wanted to see her face light up with laughter when she went back to that night many, many years ago.

Irma and I were up in the attic at Aunt Melissa’s trying on old clothes. You remember Aunt Melissa don’t you? she said, leaning forward, touching my knee. "Well, I don’t mean remember. I mean, you know who she was, don’t you? She was Irma’s Mama. We weren’t kin, but I called her Aunt Melissa anyhow. I think everybody did.

Where was I? she paused, Oh, I know Irma and I were in the attic when Rudolph slipped up the stairs and almost scared us to death. Irma told him to get back down the steps before she knocked the pea licker out of him. She hesitated until she caught my eye. "You remember that Irma was a little rough talking? Didn’t take anything off of anybody.

"Rudolph backed down the steps where we couldn’t see his head and we started pretending again. Irma liked to play the part of Miss Lucinda Burbage, a pillar in the church. Most folks thought she was uppity. She kept her nose up in the air so high, you’d think she’d drown in a rainstorm. Irma had her down pat.

She’d cough and sputter like she was trying to get water out of her nose. That’s the way she played the part," Mama smiled, drifting back to that day in the attic.

Irma was Mama’s best friend when she was growing up. They had roamed every inch of the woods near their farms and explored every creek that emptied into the river. When Mama got married, Irma and her boyfriend were the only ones invited to her wedding.

Mama told lots of stories about her and Irma, but most of those tales stopped after Irma moved away shortly after I was born. She had met a man while working in tobacco up country and married him. He wasn’t good to her and she should have left him, according to Mama.

Irma! I’ll never forget her, Mama said, dropping her eyes and adjusting her glasses. She nervously pinched at a wrinkle in her dress, smoothed it with her fingers, and went on about Irma.

They found her on the kitchen floor with the gas stove turned on. Don’t know why she did it. You know, as close as we were, she never said a word to me that would lead me to believe that she would do such a thing. Nobody could understand it, especially me. Took me a long time to get over it. Saddest time in my life. I had lost my best friend and didn’t know why, Mama said, looking at me. Seeing my sadness, she faked a laugh and picked up on her story.

"It seems that Rudolph hadn’t gone all the way down the stairs. We heard him snickering at Irma’s imitation of Miss Lucinda. Irma went over to the steps and told him to get his butt up there this minute. ‘We’re going to dress you up like a beggar woman,’ she said, pulling one of Aunt Melissa’s old bonnets down on his head.

"’Looks just like that old woman that came by here last week,’ Irma said, laughing at Rudolph while searching through the old clothes for a dress for him to wear.

’Let’s fool Mama,’ she said. ‘Get that hat off and we’ll take these clothes downstairs. Tonight we’ll dress you up again. You can come to the door like a tramp and ask Mama for some food,’ she said to Rudolph who was already grinning at the idea of fooling his Mama.

I curled my legs up in the chair and took a drink of the hot chocolate Mama had fixed me earlier. It was barely warm now, but I drank it anyway while she lit up another Doral.

She dragged on the cigarette a couple of times, putting it in the ashtray half smoked. "We took the clothes downstairs and hid them outside under the smokehouse.

"After supper that night, we told Aunt Melissa we were going to the front porch. Rudolph had already left the room, telling his Mama he had to go to the outhouse.

"We closed the front door and ran by the porch swing, giving it a hard push in case Aunt Melissa was listening, and went out back to the smokehouse. Rudolph was already waiting for us. He could barely keep still enough for us to dress him. We got him rigged up and told him to go to the front gate and call out for some food.

"Irma and I went back to the porch and got in the swing. Rudolph hollered from the gate. ‘I’m hungry. Got any food for an old woman?’

"We got out of the swing and Irma called for Aunt Melissa. ‘Mama, there’s an old woman at the gate yelling for some food.’

"Aunt Melissa came to the door. ‘Come a little closer,’ she yelled at the dark figure huddled behind the gate.

Irma and I were almost bent over with laughter, but we didn’t let on that we knew who it was at the gate. Rudolph limped toward the house, pretending he was crippled. Mama leaned toward me and rubbed her hand over one of her legs.

"Rudolph was at the steps now. ‘What’s your name?’ Aunt Melissa asked, moving closer to him.

’Clara May Gibbs,’ Rudolph answered in a voice that he must have thought sounded like an old woman. It was more like a bull frog with a bad cold. Mama laughed and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"’You’re not from around here, are you?’ Aunt Melissa asked, playing our little game to the fullest.

’No Ma’am. Come from over near town. Got ten children to feed and ain’t got no money,’ Rudolph said, sounding like a screech owl this time.

I guess I looked like I wasn’t paying attention, but I was really trying to figure out what a screech owl sounded like when Mama stopped telling the story and pushed herself up to the edge of the sofa.

You sure I didn’t already tell you this story? Mama asked. She needed some reassurance that I was listening and was still interested. She fumbled with the pack of Dorals, but didn’t take one.

No, Mama. Well, not exactly the way you’re telling it tonight, I said, forgetting about the screech owl and not wanting to hurt her feelings.

Well, Mama said, pushing the Dorals away from her and settling back down on the sofa. "Aunt Melissa rubbed her hands together and said to Rudolph, ‘You stay right where you are. I’ll go see what I had left over from supper for you to take to them ten young’uns.’

"’We fooled her,’ Rudolph said in a loud whisper as soon as the door slammed behind Aunt Melissa. Then he jumped up and down with so much excitement that his bonnet almost fell off.

Wonder if Rudolph still remembers that night? Mama asked, staring across the room at nothing. I’ll have to ask him if he comes to church homecoming next year.

She coughed, fiddled with the half smoked cigarette in the ashtray. Where was I?

She cleared her throat and picked up a Kleenex. "Oh, yes. Rudolph was jumping up and down thinking he had fooled Aunt Melissa. Irma and I weren’t real sure he had, but we laughed with him anyway.

"Pretty soon the front door flung open and there stood Aunt Melissa with a shotgun pointed directly at Rudolph’s head.

’Mama it’s me! Mama it’s me!’ Rudolph screamed, snatching the bonnet off his head and ripping the buttons off the dress until it fell down around his ankles. He stumbled toward the porch, got his feet tangled in the dress, and fell sprawling.

Mama sat up on the edge of the sofa and almost lost her breath laughing. He’d probably be embarrassed if I asked him about it at homecoming, she said, coughing and trying to catch her breath, but still laughing.

Aunt Melissa roared ‘til she almost split her sides. Irma and I almost wet our pants, we all laughed so hard, Mama said, throwing her hands up and laughing like she was still on that porch with Aunt Melissa and Irma.

I laughed too, but I really wanted to cry. Mama hadn’t been feeling well since the operation to fix her bladder. I had asked the doctor if he was real sure about operating on an eighty-three year old woman. No problem, he had said. If it were my Mother, I’d do it.

Mama had insisted on the operation and that’s putting it mildly. What she actually said was, I’m going to do it if I die on the operating table and you can be here or not. Well, with that ultimatum, you know where I was.

Mama pushed herself up from the sofa and headed for the bathroom. I watched her walk down the hall touching one wall, then the other to keep her balance.

I sat there thinking about all the years I had listened to her stories, wondering when I was going to get around to finishing the ones I had started about my childhood.

Mama came back and eased herself down on the sofa. She took a Kleenex and blew her nose. Do you remember the story I told you about Joey Washington?

How could I forget that one? Although she didn’t tell me the full story until I was probably in my twenties, I had heard bits and pieces all my life, but I wasn’t in the mood for it tonight.

Can’t forget that. I’m going to include it in the stories I’m writing, I said. I remember every detail.

It’s good that you remember the stories of your childhood, but the important thing is to write them down. I wanted to write mine, but never got around to it. Nobody would probably read them anyway, she said and laughed.

It would be a shame if you never finished them, she said, looking at me and shaking her head.

I know, Mama, but when you have a classroom full of kids everyday and go home at night to make more lesson plans and grade papers, you don’t have much time to write. They’re about finished, though. Need some editing and I haven’t decided how to organize them. I don’t have a good beginning or an ending yet. I’ll get around to completing them when I retire.

That’s what everybody says. Get around to something when they retire. Sad thing is, by the time they’ve finished working, most folks have forgotten the things they said they were going to do, or they’re too old and don’t feel like doing nothing.

I promise. I won’t forget. I’ll write lots of stories and dedicate them to you.

JOEY

C u t h i s d i c k o f f! echoed throughout the woods.

Molly and Irma shivered at the sound, creeping closer to the yelling mob swarming around the frightened colored boy, bound to the rugged cross of pine saplings.

Let’s get out of here!! Molly whispered anxiously, tugging at Irma’s shirtsleeve. I can’t believe you brought me here to see this. That’s Aunt Rosie’s boy, Joey. What’s he done to be here with this bunch of crazy drunks?

They’re just teasing him. We came this far and we ain’t going back, Irma said, pulling Molly behind the big oak where she was hiding. I want to see them torment that nigger a little for what he did to Cousin Thelma. If they just turn him over to the law, he may go scot-free or at the most get some prison time with parole in a few years. Poor little thing, barely ten years old and that black buck raped her.

Raped Thelma Gilbert? I don’t believe that, not Joey Washington, Molly said, ready to argue until Irma clamped her hands over her mouth and told her to shut up before they got caught.

Let me at him!! Thelma’s daddy yelled angrily, yanking the boy’s pants down to the ropes tied around his ankles. He took his hunting knife from the case strapped to his belt and slapped the boy’s parts with the handle. Joey shrieked in fear and pain. Shut your fucking mouth or I’ll cut your tongue out, too, the man said, shaking the long, sharp knife in the boy’s sweating face.

The angry mob moved closer to the terrified boy whose sorrowful screams pierced the air and echoed throughout the deep woods. Cut it off!! Cut it off!! they yelled—their speech slurred with the liquor they had been drinking since early morning.

The boy’s screams rang in Molly’s head. She froze behind the oak and covered her ears. How could she get out of here without getting caught she wondered, looking around for a way to escape the horror that was unfolding in front of her.

Rip his balls out!! someone yelled and the enraged crowd joined in. Rip ‘em out!! Rip em out!!"

Thelma’s oldest brother, Grover, moved forward, snapping open the switchblade knife he waved in the air. It’s my turn, you fucking son-of-a-bitch!! he yelled and grabbed the boy’s balls in a tight knot in his fist. The boy’s horrible scream trailed to a crying moan when the sharp knife slit through the taut skin and one of his balls dangled between his legs. Come here dog. Eat this black mountain oyster, Grover yelled at one of the dogs.

The mob roared with laughter. Somebody pushed one of the dogs toward the dangling, bloody ball. The smell of blood lured the dog closer. He grabbed the ball and tore it out the boy’s body. Red, warm blood gushed from the gaping wound. Fry that cut!! someone yelled. Don’t want him to bleed to death. We ain’t finished with him yet.

Sparks rose from the fire heating the rods of iron and crackled in the air when Grover Gilbert pulled one of the hot pokers from the glowing coals. He jammed the glowing iron rod into the boy’s crotch. It seared the open flesh until the blood stopped running down his legs. The boy’s screams faded into a whimper. His strength was waning, as was his hope.

Hey, little brother, the other ball’s for you, Grover yelled to the twelve year old, hanging back from the crowd.

The younger boy hung his head and stepped back. His brother yelled at him, You God damn sissy, get over here and cut this nigger’s ball out. You owe it to our sister.

Hesitantly, Wilbert Lee took his brother’s knife. He moved reluctantly toward the boy, not looking at his face, quickly cutting the other ball loose. It fell to the ground. Wilbert Lee cringed and backed away.

Pick it up and toss it to the dogs. Show these men that you’re a man and not a fucking queer, Grover yelled, pushing his little brother back toward the moaning colored boy.

The dogs had already had a taste of blood. Before Wilbert Lee could pick it up, one of the dogs had it in his mouth and was gone. Wilbert Lee looked sheepishly at his brother jabbing a hot poker between the boy’s legs. You’ll never mess with another white woman now, he spat in his face, or a black one either, as a matter of fact, you son-of-a-bitch.

Molly listened and prayed that it was all over. Maybe they would leave now and she could help Joey. She peeked around the oak, hoping to catch Joey’s eye and let him know that she was there to help when the mob left. She thought their eyes caught for a fleeting moment. His lips moved, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying or even if he was trying to say something. She jerked back behind the safety of the oak. Tears filled her eyes. She shivered and water crept down her leg. She tried to hold back the flow of warm pee that filled her shoes, but she could neither stop the pee nor the tears.

You poor baby, you shouldn’t be here, Molly thought, rubbing her stomach. She was three months pregnant with Darden Spencer’s baby. She knew it was his, since she had never had sex with another man. He had said he would do the right thing and marry her. They had gone to Englehard just last weekend and gotten married.

She had left Darden at the farm today, helping Papa and her brothers get the ground ready to plant the corn. None of them would have any part of what was going on here, especially Darden; he was too gentle a man for this kind of meanness. At least, he was gentle with her.