Adams’ Way

By Lonnie Coleman

Social outcast in small southern town gives refuge to young black girl and the Klan goes on a rampage.
Adam’s Way was dramatized and performed on Broadway as  Jolly's Progress in 1959, and starred Eartha Kitt and Wendell Corey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Classica Libris
• Release date: Nov 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9791220221368

Book preview

Reekie

PART ONE

Chapter 1

In referring to her property and insurance, as she often did, my mother used to make the old joke that she was worth more dead than alive. She always said it, at least before company, as if she expected me to deny it, which I never did. To tell the truth, she turned out to be worth considerable dead, though not so much as she had tried with a heavy-handed air of mystery to make everyone believe. Alive, I can only say that no action of hers I know of was ever prompted by love or prompted love in return.

I should make it plain at the beginning that these sentiments of mine are not engendered by hate or even by spite. She has been dead for more than thirty years, and I am myself now what people used to call an old man, that is to say, past sixty, and a major part of my life has been made independent and comfortable by those qualities that made my mother unloving, and so very unlovable. I feel grateful to her for this independence I enjoy, yet it would perhaps not be such an overwhelmingly important quality of life to me had she not given me so little of it when I was young.

Having been long of a literary turn of mind, loving books more than people, I have decided to set down the following narrative, to help pass the time in an interesting way in this my sixty-third year. One of the dangers in reading books is that it can make the true devotee want to write them. Yet I think this will be my only effort, for I shall try to put into it all I have to say about my experience of life, and when that has been done, nothing remains to make one want to pursue the literary career further but vanity or habit.

My house is situated off the main road about two miles from town, and it gives the perfect isolation I demand for my reading and thought. My mother Julia built it in the 1880’s in what was then the middle of a field. She did this, she said, so that no one could ever sneak up on her. There are trees planted near the house, but beyond the immediate perimeter, there is a bare stretch of meadow before the wood begins. The house is ornamented and ugly, but moderately comfortable, full of unexpected turns and odd-shaped rooms, which seem to have been wrought less by the imagination of the architect than by a shoddy carelessness in his planning. The only addition I have made is a terrace at the back, for I love to sit outdoors, and the front porch has always been useless for this purpose. It is wide and long, painstakingly trimmed in a hideous lacework of wood. It is so appalling to look at, I believe the builder meant it for nothing but a joke, like gargoyles on a cathedral. I like to think that my mother cheated him of his proper fee, and he took this way of paying her back. The porch slants, so that no one was ever able to sit comfortably on it, but felt unwillingly and constantly alert, being pushed always slightly forward in his chair, Julia, unsurprisingly, considered this no disadvantage. She said that the only people who came to see her came to borrow money or make payments on loans, and that the porch kept them from sitting too long or becoming familiar through relaxation. It was also easier to scrub, since the water ran right off, making a quick job for the house girl, so that she could be about her chores indoors.

My life followed a set routine after Julia died. I rose, breakfasted, took a long walk in the woods and roads nearby when the weather was decent, returned to the house and read, indoors or out, again depending on the weather, until it was time to lunch. After lunch I took a nap, then more reading until the house was wrapped in its own shadows, and only a pale last sunlight struck the bare plain between it and the woods. Then I took a glass of gin on a few lumps of ice and drank it slowly, ruminating on what I had read during the day, until Dora called me to supper. Dora was with us for many years, and I kept her on after Julia died. She must be quite old by now, though how old I cannot say; it is so hard to tell with Negroes, and sometimes they don’t remember themselves. She is tall, rather light, efficient, and quiet as a mouse.

Once a week I was accustomed to going into town to pick up whatever supplies were needed and new books I had ordered from Boston and New York. I got no other mail, for I had no relatives that I kept track of, and my business affairs were handled entirely by a bank in Montgomery.

What, the reader will have begun to ask, is there for him in the story of such an uneventful life? But stay, for the routine was broken, and some events occurred that may be of interest. A story began that is not yet finished perhaps, and this at a time when I thought all my stories were long finished and I had nothing in store but a few more books to read and a little more gin to drink. I cannot promise anything like a novel with a hero, for the reader will have seen by now I am a useless and vaguely unpleasant old man with few qualities of the fictional type. Yet every man is the hero of his own life’s story. So I, of mine. But I warn all: I shall tell the truth as I see it; I shall not assume pretty sentiments to make myself more palatable to the many.

This story, as I have chosen to call it, began really in February 1951, though its roots go far back in time. It was a cold and cloudy day, and the few hints of spring that had appeared during the preceding week were forgotten as I peered out the side window of the dining room where I breakfasted. Dora had already given me a list of house needs, for it was my day to go into town. The project was no more than one of sour duty. I could not even strike up an interest in the last volume of Gide’s Journal I supposed awaited me at the post office. I longed for the spring, for green things, for green smells and blue skies; I even thought with a certain nostalgia of mosquitoes. I knew the side road before I reached pavement would be muddy and difficult from last night’s rain and the car would be hard to manage. I deplored the wait I should have while the grocery order was being filled. The post office took only a moment, being next door, and there was little to do to kill time. I was seldom inclined to step over to the depot and speak to the idle ones who always congregate there in search of gossip and excitement. Without thinking, for they cannot think, they come there, as if they know nothing of interest can happen in so dull a town, and they must generate excitement by placing themselves close to that part of the town which has contact with the outside world.

I drank the last of my coffee, buttoned my jacket, disregarded the raincoat Dora had laid out for me, and went out to the car. As I did so, I glanced at the grocery list and sighed. Dora had down her usual two bottles of vanilla flavoring. It was the same every week, and I knew she drank it, for we seldom had cake or pie. I never charged her with this, but it always seemed to me such a tiresome evasion. I repeatedly hinted to her that she was free to dip into my gin, but she never availed herself of the offer.

The road was muddy, and the old ruts were hard to find, since they were seldom used. It was with great relief that I reached the pavement, and I drove as fast as I could into Pluma, parking in my usual spot in front of Lon Keiller’s grocery store. I hoped I would see no acquaintance, knowing even as I did how vain was the hope in such a small town. The fates were particularly unkind that day, for as soon as I stepped out of the car and locked it (an act that always offended the townspeople and about which I knew they talked), I saw waiting for me on the sidewalk with his usual large smile Mr. Scarborough, and by his side his friend and companion. I considered both of them quite mad and knew I should have to endure once more the routine remarks, as predictable and uninteresting as the closing words of a Baptist sermon. Yet hoping to avoid them I nodded shortly, Morning, and hastily turned away.

Ah, good morning, Mr. Adams, though it isn’t a very good morning, is it? I was just saying to Mr. Mendelssohn: ‘It is indeed not a good morning,’ was I not, Mr. Mendelssohn?

His companion looked back at him intently and stroked his dark, graying, handle-bar mustache. I have heard him speak only once, though he looks always very thoughtful and will occasionally nod agreement at something said by Mr. Scarborough, with whom he has lived for twenty-five years. Mr. Scarborough touched my arm as I turned to go and came out with his usual bland statement: Mr. Adams, I should like you to meet Mr. Mendelssohn, my spring song.

I could not be polite, We have met, Mr. Scarborough, we have met many times.

You know then what happiness he has brought me? You remember how I languished after Sister passed over, how I could not go near the piano. Then Mr. Mendelssohn appeared at the door one day, asking if I’d like to have my piano tuned. I persuaded him to stay awhile, and since then life has been a continual spring song. Is it not so, Mr. Mendelssohn?

Mr. Mendelssohn looked from one to the other of us with his quick intentness, like a very thoughtful old bird, and gave one short nod. Perhaps you will join us on some future occasion, Mr. Adams, for an evening. We might have dinner, and then afterwards you could sit and listen while Mr. Mendelssohn and I played duets. He plays most delicately and brings out the best in me. I had quite lost my touch before the arrival of Mr. Mendelssohn. Unable to play a note after dear Sister passed on. Quite unable.

Yes, just so, Mr. Scarborough, I said, and nodding quickly to both, made good my escape.

Good morning, Mr. Keiller, I said a moment later, holding out my list.

How goes it, Mr. Adams? he said with the heavy sincerity I find so very distasteful.

It goes well, Mr. Keiller. Will you fill my list while I step into the post office? I am in a bit of a hurry this morning.

It’ll be done p-d-q, Mr. Adams, p-d-q.

I couldn’t bring myself to answer him, but darted warily out the front entrance, wondering if Mr. Scarborough and Mr. Mendelssohn were lurking about to confront me again. They were quite capable of it. I have sometimes had to go through the same routine with them as many as three times in a morning. But they were not in sight. In the post office I dialed the numbers on my box and opened it. It was large enough for books, which enabled me to receive them without dealing with the slow and talkative woman at the window. I find her so tedious I often buy a year’s supply of stamps at one time. There were two folders for me, one from a second-hand bookstore in Boston, another from a publishing house in New York that specializes in history and biography and from which I often order directly. The Gide had not come, nor had the new biography of Washington. I should have to reread something during the coming week before I returned to town. Ordinarily this would not have perturbed me, but today it made me fretful. I stood in the dim light of the post office and spent as much time as I decently could peering at the dull folders. There was nothing in them to interest me. I could have thrown them straight away, but put them instead into my jacket pocket, knowing they might be useful if I wanted to avoid conversation with anyone before I could escape the town.

I stepped out again into the gray light of the street and back into the grocery store.

Forget something, Mr. Adams?

I thought you might be ready for me, I said without conviction.

Now, Mr. Adams, wasn’t more than five minutes ago you left me with the list. I’m pretty fast, and when I say p-d-q, I mean p-d-q, but you’re rushing things a…

Quite so, Mr. Keiller. I’m sorry. I’ll just step out for a moment.

If you want, you can pull up a box and make yourself comfortable by the stove while I…

Not wanting to look like a cover of the Saturday Evening Post I said, Thank you, Mr. Keiller, most kind, but I have another errand. And I was out the door again. I looked rather frantically in both directions. Coming one way was the Baptist minister, Mr. Furze, and coming the other were Mr. Scarborough and Mr. Mendelssohn. The thought of an encounter with either party was more than I could deal with. I plunged into the street toward the depot and was nearly struck down by Emma Ford in her old car which she had taken to driving most fiercely since her retirement from teaching. As soon as I crossed the tracks, which ran through the center of town, my attention was engaged by two figures waiting on the platform, evidently for the ten o’clock train.

One I knew, had known all my life, had even been married to for a day. The marriage was not consummated though, as that tiresome phrase has it, for Portia’s parents telegraphed us: Come Home Children All Is Forgiven. We went and were met at the door by the father with a pistol. He locked Portia in her room, threatened me, and annulled the marriage. He was later, ironically, shot with the same pistol. But I mustn’t digress. Here now stood Portia, forty years after that strange day, forty years thicker in the body and older in the face, the fair and delicate young maid become the dry and dowdy old matron. She was dressed in a raincoat which she hugged tightly to her body, and she wore on her head one of those unattractive kerchiefs women have affected lately. Since she was ever meticulous in matters of dress and behavior, this fact alone was indicative that she had dressed in a hurry and that the business at hand was of some moment.

The other figure was one I did not recognize. She was a Negro, wearing a shabby cloth coat with a skimpy bit of imitation fur at the collar. She was very black, and as I approached near enough to have a good look at her face, I noted that it wore an expression of sullen resentment, softened but not made more appealing by an overall cast of stupidity. Between the two like a flimsy but necessary token barrier sat the girl’s suitcase, one of those cardboard affairs that dissolve in the rain.

I was so overcome with curiosity at this odd pairing I forgot my bad temper of the morning, disregarded my custom of distant, mocking politeness to Portia, and spoke. Good morning, Mrs. Bates, what errand brings you out before noon?

I had surprised her, it seemed, for the look she turned on me was a mixture of anger and distress, and her words were, David Adams, go away instantly. I cannot speak to you! She tossed her head, as if not facing me would make me disappear. I noticed a group of curious men lounging near the steps of the platform, not speaking to one another, obviously alert to the little scene being played before them. The girl lowered her head and looked even more sullen and resentful.

Portia, certainly this is no way to speak to an old friend, I said, loud enough for her to wonder if the men heard and to feel obliged to tolerate my curiosity.

When she spoke, her voice was just as angry, but it was desperate too. David, go away, please. I’m trying not to have a scene for the town to talk about. God knows, you’ve furnished them plenty in the past. Don’t now. Don’t!

What we said had evidently penetrated to the girl’s mind, for she lifted her head, sniffed harshly like an animal and blinked her eyes, waiting to see what would develop.

Ah, Portia, I said, beginning to enjoy myself, it’s quite like old times, your calling me David. You must be in a tight spot. Is there anything I can do to help? I know you like to handle things your own way, but you must allow old friends the satisfaction of assisting you occasionally.

The girl stared at Portia as if she expected her to strike me.

Mr. Adams, you are wicked, you were always wicked, and you are now being more wicked than ever! was all Portia dared.

You have no idea how ridiculous that sounds.

If you don’t leave instantly, I…

It’s no good, Portia. You can’t scare me off and you know it. The only way you can get me to leave is to tell me what’s going on. I’m overcome with curiosity. Tell me. My new books didn’t come today, and it will give me something to think about.

Think about your sins, I’ll tell you nothing! she exclaimed with a glance at the girl.

I rocked back and forth on my toes and heels, crossing my arms. We all three, in fact, because of the coolness of the day, stood hugging ourselves for warmth. You can begin by telling me who this girl is.

The girl’s panic at having attention directed to her revealed her extreme youth. She moved her arms, and something awkward in the gesture