“What He say, Daddy? What He say?

When we were boys, my brother and I had the run of Cypress Street in North Little Rock, Arkansas on our Summer visits down home. We ate like kings and fished almost daily between stints of wrestling and throwing rocks at wasps nests and some, mean-as-hell, blue jays.

Early mornings broke thru a small window above the kitchen sink. It was always lined with the hard-skinned, green tomatoes from Madear’s garden below. Every morning, sipping cooled black coffee from Daddy S.L.’s saucer and crunching bites of beautifully browned toast, coated with runny egg and grits, there was little else to satisfy our boyhood needs.

I am certain that the early morning dew of Arkansas is medicinal. We never remembered our shoes and wore threadbare pajamas when walking Daddy S.L. to his blue and silver station wagon, but we were sorely protected from the 5:45a.m. chill. I think now that his smooth, baritone chuckle was our warmth as we skittered back into the kitchen to argue over the last sip of cold coffee and bites of breakfast left on his plate.  We would be curled asleep beneath the small, press board and vinyl table within minutes of his leaving…every morning.

He returned home at 3:30pm and walked in giant steps thru the curled up grandkids watching the black and white half hour of Lone Ranger and a local BOZO The Clown Show. We made it a good luck charm to touch the dirt dusted leg of his work pants as he swiped by. In the kitchen MaDear hard fried them palm-sized perch and boiled hot dogs and beans for the kid’s dinner. We heard them kiss.

Other afternoons he stuck his head thru the door and called for us to “come run with me”.  On those afternoons we headed down to the ballpark at Whitmore Circle to watch men play baseball. The best part of those “runs” were the Mexican tamale cart vendors who surely over delivered on those one dollar, corn husk wrapped bundles. But, the best thing  ever about those “runs” was a singing ball player, they called, “Big Cole”.

From the dugout Big Cole ran thru, what I imagined were, old songs; rifts of blues and names of women and men who had done him wrong. He was older than the players and rarely made it to the plate. I recall him swatting a slow lobbed ball over the Pitcher’s outstretched glove just once. He couldn’t “run slow”, the men teased Big Cole, and he slung the bat and settled back into the dugout. After awhile he began to hum, then riff on the idea of  finding a woman who could “wait til the bottle run dry”. “What He say, Daddy?” my bug-eyed query brought chuckles from the grown ups.

Again, Big Cole rambled on about Birmingham not being a ham like the one his woman carried under her dress. “What He say, Daddy? What HE SAY?” Soon, recounting stories of thunderous home runs were overshadowed by the salty tongue of Big Cole.

Driving home, Daddy S.L. said that Big Cole was a “Caller” for the Gandy men who worked to straighten the tracks. The heavy loads of trees being harvested  from deep in the woods would damage the rail lines and could warp the creosoled drenched ties. He said the “Gandy Dancers” and work crews from the Penitentiary “throwed” them back in line. Big Cole sang to the men and got everybody on the same rhythm to make the job easier.

Daddy S.L. said that Big Cole hung around places and picked up stories to use in his songs. Later, in July, he drove me to the Little Rock Stock Yards and we parked near the junction where myriad train tracks snaked and fingered alongside the warehouses for delivery. We left the car windows down and a warm breeze had me nodding.

I awoke to a shadowy clanking of iron rods and deep laughter. A White man suddenly shouted, “Gwine up to de quarter head”, and men moved in unison toward a curved section of tracks. I sat up and leaned out the station wagon’s window just as the White man made a jerking arm motion and yelled out to the men.

On the hot breeze a long moan built quickly to a wailing, then nasally passage in Big Cole’s, familiar cadence.

“Aahhh! Aaa-Ooohhh-Oh-Ohh-Oh

Aahh—Two Ol gals was court’n Me

One was blind & One caint see

My Grandma put a switch to me

When I come home wit a kiss on me

Ol boys pull t’gether

Ol boys pull t’hether—HUH!

At “HUH!” the men shuttered, stomped, whipped their iron rods in a hard, short burst and I saw the track jut to the left.

He did it twice more before the White man gestured with his hand and the men halted. On the wind, that carried dry and hot back to the station wagon window, was laughter. Behind the guffaws came a question. “Dem ol gals couldn’t hide Dey kisses, Cole?!”

Daddy S.L. shook his head, chuckled and started up the family car.

Jeffie and the Itchy Penny: Don’t Try This …Don’t

I grew up in Oak Cliff, Dallas, Texas,  just up the hill from the Jack In the Box on Corinth road and down the block from Greater Mt. Pleasant Missionary Baptist Church. Going a little further would land you at the Dallas Zoo or, in the other direction, the entrance to the legendary Dallas Sportatorium. No matter which direction we took back in the day we were guaranteed an adventure.

For my brother, Little S.L., and me there was nobody who took an adventure further than Jeffie Caldwell. Most of the time we walked wherever we wanted to go, so when we finally did get a bike Me, Little S.L. and Jeffie took turns riding and walking alongside it on our journeys.

Most days started with a yell across the neighborhood to find out what was going on for the day. Jeffie was always out before us and he stayed away from home longer and later than we were allowed. The next mornings would be spent sharing fried egg and Spam sandwiches while Jeffie told us what he’d discovered. We sat spellbound on flattened basketballs in the shade of our garage and apple-pear tree as he scared us with his escapes and unbelievable sightings. We learned to tell if he was making stuff up because Jeffie would pick a boring part and start poking a stick at the yellow jacket nest on the underside of the garage roof line. The hornets would swarm, we’d scream, swat, dodge and Jeffie would disappear.

One day there was no response to our yells. Me and Little S.L. went looking and eventually found him down the hill in front of the Jack in the Box. He was sitting on the curb, staring at two, white steel pennies on the pavement between his feet. Every so often he would scratch his unusually dirty palms, then rub them hard against his equally dirty handed down jeans.

“Hey, Jeffie”, we called out to him but he never took his gaze off those pennies. “What’s happening, Jeffie?” also went unanswered and it took a few minutes before he noticed that we had been standing there. Jeffie’s eyes were big, but he kept them closed to slits most of the time because he needed glasses. When he looked up at us his eyes were bugged, bloodshot and a little glassy. He called on me first. “Hey, Buggy, uh, can you do me a solid, man?” Without waiting for my answer Jeffie stepped slowly away from the shiny coins and asked, “Uh, can you pick up dem pennies for me, right quick?”

Little S.L. stepped in front of me and picked up the pennies, but instantly dropped them and yanked his hand away to scratch against his pants. He swore–“SHIT. DAMN”.  Jeffie didn’t say anything. He looked over at me and asked again, “Uh, hey, Buggy Man…can you pick up ‘dem pennies?” Little S.L. kicked at the pennies and said, “There’s something on the back of the pennies that stung my hand, Jr.”

We just stood there for a minute or two or longer, really deciding what to do next. I knew that Little S.L. would never swear in public and certainly not in front of the Jack-in-the-Box. I also knew that Jeffie could come up with some pretty “different discoveries” and didn’t want to pick up pennies that had been dipped in some kind of liquid. “Uh, Jeffie, where you been all morning?” was how I avoided the whole thing…for a minute. “Hey, Man…you know….just walking around and looking around for stuff…you know.” Little S.L. broke in quickly, “Where was you walking when you got dem Burning Pennies, Jeffie?” “I ain’t got no BURNING NOTHING…They Itching Pennies, Steve!”

Ten seconds later, with the pennies flying across the Jack-in-the-Box covered eating area. I agreed with Jeffie. As soon as I reached for the coins a string of pressure covered the tips of my fingers and thumb. Once I grasped the coins a quick, itch-burn-biting sensation came over my hand. I swore…in front of the Jack-in-the-Box.

That’s when the White Manager opened the side door and came out to run us off. Jeffie, showing us in real-time one of his “famous escapes” scooted over to the spot where the coins had settled and spoke up, “Hey Mister, we’re just practicing a magic trick, wanna see it?’ The Manager stopped and laughed at him, “What kind of magic trick has two white pennies thrown in the air for no reason, Jeffie?” (That’s why you didn’t cuss in front of the Jack-in-the-Box) “It’ll cost you two tacos to find out”, Jeffie recovered and the Manager lifted an eye brow and put his hand on his hip. Jeffie looked at the pennies then back at the man and added, “We only get the tacos if you can’t figure out the trick! Okay? Oh, and you don’t tell Rev. Caldwell that we been cussing next time he’s down here.” “Deal” the man agreed and went back inside for the tacos. 

When the Manager returned there were two neighborhood boys-workers with him. “Okay, show us the trick”

Jeffie made a big show of waving his hands over the pennies and muttering magic words we knew from comic books, but at the end he said, “The Witche’s Itches to anybody who touches her coins!” Then, to our surprise he picked up the pennies and placed them on one of the round metal table tops. “Now, if the trick works then the magic spell that I just put on the pennies will make your hands itch like crazy when you touch them…go ahead and see it…PICK UP THE TACOS..PENNIES!” Everybody laughed, but one of the boys reached out for the coins. He never made it. He snatched back his hand and looked oddly at Jeffie.

The Manager tried next and quickly dropped the coins and scratched madly at his palms before turning to a smirking Jeffie, who had already reached into the bag for his taco. “Boy”, the Manager whistled out, “What in the world is Rev Caldwell teaching you boys”. Then, he returned to the restaurant and said to get out of the customer seating area.

Jeffie handed us the remaining taco to split and used the paper bag to scoop up the pennies. He rolled the bag into a tight wad and dropped it in the waste can beside the building.

Jeffie was stone-cold quiet at our questions about the pennies. We could see him looking around for a wasp nest to whack, so we put him in the middle and kept walking. Stopping at his sidewalk, we waited for his answer.

Jeffie told us that he had been in an alley looking for cans and bottles to sell when he saw a White lady burying something behind her garage. He waited until she was finished and back inside before digging it up and, instead of jewelry or gold, he found her cat in a shoe box. The cat had those pennies Scotch taped to his dead eyes. He snatched them and ran. Jeffie had made it all the way to the Jack in the Box seating area before figuring out what was itching him so bad.

Finally, when Rev. Caldwell came to the screen and barked out, “Jeffie, was you boy’s cussin’ down at the Jack-in-the-Box?’ we knew it was time to run!

Signs of Death at the Thrift Store

The donation line is almost out the door when I arrive with my trash bags of clothes and old toys. My divorce was nearly four years ago, but the back rooms seemed to hold on strongest to the fodder from that life.

A champagne wedding dress with hand-sewn pearl beading somehow continues to smell just like 1999. The impression from a swollen pinky never smoothed out beneath the silk of a left-footed wedding shoe that peeks up from the crumpled plastic bag as if it were a nosey puppy surprise. This time it has curiously made the trip all the way to the store. I push back the shoe and all of its memories further into the bag. When the line moves an inch I am back to the here and now. Waiting for the donation drop-off and tax receipt for fifteen years of a life gone by, I wonder, pitifully, if someone will know just how much love this little pinky impression represents among a rack of worn down cast offs.

Over the anxious shoulders ahead I see a small woman lifting huge shirts from trash bags and counting them out to the clerk. “Twenty-five, twenty-six”… When she finally stops that number is thirty-two. The shirts are a collection of designer and store brands and each of them laundry fresh and layered in a sweet, closet-pressed aroma. It’s familiar, but I can’t quite place the scent. I think that I’ve worn it before. When she sighs and starts pulling the folded, but pressed khakis from a new bag, the line protests and an additional clerk is summoned to handle the rest of us.

By the time I make it to the front of the line that donor is a slumping, wet-eyed woman in sagging, stained clothes and run-over, low-heeled shoes. The clerk is rejecting a pillow case of men’s socks. The donor looks over and raises an eyebrow, as if to offer the sudden bounty to me free of charge; just the labor of trucking it out to my own car. No Thanks, Lady.

On the counter the shirts are as big as tents and the pants are like flattened bolts of fabric. This was a huge guy! I want to ask what happened that caused her to donate these clothes, but will have to make due with a guess. “I’ll take Weight Loss thru Death for $100, Alex”.

A moment later she drags the sock offerings over to a trash can and leans the humped bag against it before hurrying out the door with a handful of tax receipts and the clerk bellowing, “You can’t just leave that bag in the store, Mrs. Jimenez!” Too late. She didn’t have to add the mumbled, “Bitch” that slapped against the quickly shutting glass door.

“Sir, you gon’ hafta wait a minute”, comes at me from the cursing clerk. She quickly follows to no one in particular, “We ain’t gon sell this shit, anyway. Hell, who dis damn big?” The back up clerk steps over to take my donations. “Megan!”, she admonishes, but I’m not sure why since there is no further apology to me or the remaining donors.

My donated count goes quickly and I’m out on the curb, staring at a single receipt that makes the long journey of holding on to these memories seem kind of silly. In the stroke of a warped, plastic, thirty-nine cent pen, I’m freed from a load of that old life and my version of Rapper Jay-Z’s, “99 problems”. For a moment I’m consoled in my heart with the ragged absence of a spouse in any room of my heart or the sun lit vacant rooms of a quiet house.

In the next moment I’m being bumped in to by a Mother and daughter team exiting the Thrift Store and pulling open their bags of goodies. I slide to the right and step toward my car and am surprised to see the ladies in tow. We’re parked together and enter our vehicles with a smiling nod. When I start the car and check the mirrors preparing to pull out of the spot I’m frozen at the image of my just donated wedding dress being pawed over in the adjacent car. Each woman has taken tight hold of the garment. Their hands are quick and deft as they begin to pull at the small ivory orbs. Each pearly globe protests for merely a moment before gently and obediently falling away from its’ lovingly placed spot along the bust and neck line.

The ladies look up briefly, smile and stuff the dress aside, then slide an excited hand into the bulging, overpacked store bag. I pull away from the carnage not wanting to confirm if it will be that little, hump-toed shoe…next.

 

Jas. Mardis is a 2014 Inductee to the Texas Literary Hall of Fame and an award winning Poet and Radio Commentator.

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Putting Home on the “What-Not Shelf”

This year’s pilgrimage to my Grandparent’s house brought sadness that surpassed the dire feelings from when it was destroyed once before by a tornado.

That year the local news and USA TODAY broadcast pictures of the house on Wolfe Street. It had been lifted entirely off the foundation and turned 90 degrees in what looked like a thumb in the face of the neighborhood. Inside, my Granddaddy S.L. and middle sister, huddled, screamed and fretted out the freak storm. Water spewed out of the broken pipes at the rear of the house. The small porch hung like a ball cap toward the neighbor’s window. Outside, the wind raced thru the canyon of backyards but only touched, for twenty seconds, the little house at 3310.

The house was saved and rebuilt with Government Relief funds to nearly new. The reporter’s came back and the neighbor’s wondered aloud just why it was the only one saved…the only new house on the block. New trees were planted as well, but someone came in the night and pulled the saplings out of the ground. Maybe in private protest for a good thing that did not carry over to their untouched dwelling. Maybe, just hating.

Two years ago Granddaddy S.L. carried his greatest stories to the grave. A year or less before he passed I had driven down and spent a weekend with him at 3310 S. Wolfe Street. The house was a shadow of itself when I arrived and found the screen door ajar and sagging on the hinge. Before entering or knocking, I retrieved my tool box, tightened screws and stapled down the fraying screen. He emerged from the kitchen to the sounds of those repairs and gave a joyous grin. He was once photographed and used in a Carnation Milk advertisement while young and living the life in St. Louis. As kids we loved seeing that picture on the What-Not Shelf, along with the tokens and trinkets of our lives, in the parlor. Here it was again.

It was a good visit for the both of us. No one bothered us for those two days and we sat and talked and laughed and lied until we nodded asleep on that familiar porch in the setting evening light. We awoke to actual lightening bugs, went inside, and did the same a few minutes later, sitting in the parlor.

He remembered that on Music Nights during Summer visits  I always picked the 45 RPM by Wilson Picket: “634-5789“. The stereo still played. All of those vinyl records were still there after forty years. We played the music and talked about those Summer vacations with spent taking turns playing the records and napping on the heavy quilt pallets with siblings and cousins. We talked about fishing and all the dreams that he and MaDear had for us. Then, he told me something that made looking at this house right now from the curb such a hard pill to swallow. He said, “James Chris, Luevenia always said that you could make this house laugh like nobody else. You can still do that, Son”.

From the curb that little, pale green house at 3310 South Wolfe is padlocked and dark around the edges. After Granddaddy S.L.’s death my Aunt tried to live there but returned to public housing a year ago with her very ill and diabetes-blinded husband. Her son has taken on the task of slowly recovering and repairing the house, but he is in the richness of his career with travels and seminars and his star rising. We are all gone back to Texas, just like at the end of Summer vacation. Our children never knew the slam of that screen door or the sounds of early R&B, old gut-bucket Blues or the lilting cajoles of Minnie Ripperton from the stereo in the parlor with the plastic covered, white couch. It all seems ridiculous to them with their mobile-minded world in our houses that make this one look like a garage.

Putting my car into gear and preparing to drive away I am struck by a thought of that over-burdened What-Not (to touch) shelf from the parlor above the box stereo. I left the engine idling and walked down from the curb for a look through the uncurtained, front window to see that it still hung there. Along the top shelf are the fading Polaroids of the dwellings that we had called home over the years. Everyone sent home snapshots whenever a new home was purchased. Right there, just behind the paling images of those house photos, is the age-browned corner of the old USA TODAY banner. There is no electricity, but at that moment a burst of afternoon sunlight races into the house from the barren windows, then faltered slowly and darkness reclaims the dust particles like wayward children.

I got back to the car, staring at the familiarity of this forever changed place that has always stilled my heart. I smiled knowing that it’s going to be alright. That paper has to be from the Tornado story. The story of how this old house, the people and everything in it, has been turned around…once  already.

Stuck on Pretty

Two things happened when I was young that keep my head turning well into my current set of years. Others have tried and failed to point this out to me over time in various ways and with obvious examples. However, it seems to have registered when a friend left a parting note on my beside table that read: Call me when you stop being STUCK ON PRETTY.

When I was fourteen, after the divorce, we moved to an apartment complex on Avenue B in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. It was in the immediate reflection of the newly built revolving ball of Reunion Tower and the shadowy life among a thousand instantly encountered neighbors. Suddenly, the long, curvy legs of girls were everywhere and not just  Mickey’s sister three houses away or Chilli-Wayne’s sister from across the street.  Before Avenue B  girls were glimpsed coming out of Stafford’s Grocery, getting off the City Bus or emerging from cars in the Church parking lot on Sundays. Now, the world was full of them, smiling and shined up like new pennies with hairstyles and laughter and eyes looking you over like a menu item.  Even now I cannot list the excellent dangers that I was warned waited for me in the recesses and fenced corners of apartment life.

     Even so, among all of these shiny pennies, there was Ruth. She ran the register for the Mr. Cut Price grocery store at the end of the street, down the hill and across Corinth. Never once had anybody called her a girl. Ol’ Rufus used to say about women walking past the Barber Shop window, “Damn, she so pretty…I almost cussed!” Everybody, boy-to-full grown man, cussed when they talked about Ruth down at Cut Price’s. To most women she was a “yella-Whore” with envied, long, black, wavy hair that laced her face and frame in a way that made young boys believe what they read in the long stories from English class and Sepia Magazine: Mermaid. Siren. Dorothy Dandridge. Yes.

By that first apartment Winter, all the shiny legs and smiling glances were gone to ground and I was stunned into adolescent wondering. Going to Cut Price’s for some lunchmeat and sandwich spread, wrapped warmly against the biting wind in a wool cap to shield my huge ears, I entered the empty store and quickly gathered it all before heading to the counter. I had not considered the magic of Ruth’s full attention in that empty space. So, when she did not ring me up right away I looked up to see her bounty in the full on look into my face. Even now, all these years gone by, I can only type out: “My Lord”.

Ruth smiled with every part of her being. She poured herself out like it was the only other gift you’d ever receive, beyond the salvation of Christ.  She stared at me for a few seconds, maybe it was a few minutes…maybe she’s still staring at me– then tilted her head and reached for my face over the counter. I thought a thousand things and said not a one of them. Touching my face Ruth said, “You got the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen on a boy. You’re gonna kill ’em wit that smile, too, Baby.” Then, she pulled my face forward and kissed my forehead.  I’m sure that I eventually made it back to the apartment, but I didn’t wake up from that moment for at least a full year.

There was another year when Sanger Harris, In Time Fashion and Flagg Brothers Shoes were still in business. You got to these stores via a pass-thru street where the Oyster Bar was located.  That same year blue jeans were bell-bottomed with cuffs and variations of design adorned the back pockets. My pair were the new, pre-washed style and had multi-colored strips of leather in a cross hatch pattern on the pockets. It helped that my butt was not wider than my shoulders and that my stomach was secondary to my waistline. Hard to imagine now, but just keep thinking six pack. My shirt was a dulled, white nylon with a thick collar and folded back cuffs. My shoes were platform style with a two-toned, slanted heel and I had a new haircut, freshly sprayed with Afro-Sheen and Bay Rum.

It was Saturday morning in Downtown Dallas and I was feeling no pain standing on that corner waiting for the crosswalk light to change. That is when a lady emerged from The Oyster Bar and swayed over to me smiling her “Hello”. I looked down at her from my platformed stance and smiled back. In response, she raised her hand and asked me to help her step down off the high curb and across the short street. After lifting her up the steps on the other curb I turned toward Sanger Harris but she didn’t let go of my hand. When I turned back to her she looked up, smiling again, and said, “Baby, you look so good that I’m going home to throw rocks at my husband!”, then she winked and sashayed on her way.

Who wouldn’t want to know those two random moments in a lifetime? Who wouldn’t want to know that such lightening strikes could be immediately possible again and again…and again? Who wouldn’t keep a wool cap at the ready on a cold day or be ready to help a smiling woman off the two-step curb on a busy Downtown morning? Who wouldn’t want their face touched by the prettiest woman in the world…again?   And who, tell me, who, wouldn’t keep one eye always on the lookout for her?

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Stuck on Pretty is excepted and/or rewritten for the 3daysinthecity blog from the short story collection, That Boy, There, by Jas. Mardis

Grasshopper Pie for the New Year

When I was six my girlfriend was a seventy year old widow who lived next door to my Grandparents on Cypress Street in North Little Rock, Arkansas

I was standing on the porch and yelling out, “Hey There, Boy” and waving my arm to everybody passing by. It was a move learned from a man known as, Black Johnny Pace. He did it as a joke on an impressionable kid. Daily, staring out into the world from the sagging screened in porch, I practiced it in earnest.

After about a month of “Hey There Boy’n” I was confronted by a frail, light-skinned woman with wavy, black hair in a ponytail, freckles and a quick wit. “Hey boy, Yourself”, she quipped back and yelled for me to, “Come-heah, boy!” Even at six years old that was a walk of faith and possibly, certain torture, since it would be walking across the grass of Mr. Elmer Cooney:  a known and proud fool of a man, and incidentally, her son-in-law. With a look back into the house and a nod from my Grandma Dear, I went.

Mrs. Tucker, Mr. Cooney and Jas.Mardis The contraption that I am holding was made by Mr. Cooney to automatically catch fish while he slept on the bank. It’s known as a rattle-trap.

She told me that her husband had died and that she would be living here for a while. “So”, she added, “I need a boyfriend that can catch some grasshoppers and talk to me for a little while on Sat-ta-days“. I liked catching grasshoppers so I agreed to the deal. “But“, she said pointing her papery finger straight at me, “I ain’t no hey boy! I’m a Misses Tucker!”

She left the porch and returned from inside the Cooney house handing me two small mason jars with holed lids and instructions to split brown ones from green ones in different jars. It took no time to fill up the jars. I quickly returned them to Mrs. Tucker and was told with a wink to come back later.

I was playing in the yard with my brother and some other boys when I heard Mrs. Tucker’s strong, high-pitched yell, “Hey There, Boy” and remembered to come back to the yard. Breaking away from the boys I ran to that porch and was nearly waylayed by a bugged-eyed Mr. Elmer Cooney coming out of the screened door loaded down with fishing gear. He grinned an evil smirk and told me that I did a good job catching “dem hoppas“. Mrs. Tucker saved me by shooing him out before walking me into the kitchen where a big green pie sat on the table.

I asked, “What is that?” and she sat me down and started cutting a big slice as the first part of her answer. It really was a good pie and, at that moment, probably was the best pie I had ever eaten. My Grandma MaDear cooked fish and all kinds of cakes, but no pies, so this was a treat. “You like it, boyfriend?, she asked with a big grin. “Yes’ Ma’am” is what I tried to say but it came out mushed and green with pie. “That’s my famous Grasshoppa Pie“, she smiled, “I used to make that for my husband with leftover grasshoppas from fishing.” I wanted to stop eating but that pie was cool and sweet and, looking at the remains on the plate, I couldn’t see any wings or long, bent legs.

Mrs. Tucker talked to me while I ate and we were joined by her daughter, Mrs. Cooney who thanked me over and over as I ate. She even offered to cook me pork chops and I thought that they were the nicest ladies that a boy could ever know. All of a sudden there he was again, stumbling into the room. He talked loud, like he was going to fight you at any minute. He grabbed a white apple-hat off a peg just inside the room and leaned heavily against the door jamb as he stuck it on his head, grinning.

“Next time get some red ones so she can put a cherry on top!”, Mr. Cooney chuckled at me from the door before leaving again for good.

I hunted grasshoppers for an aging Mrs. Tucker well into my teens and each time received a sweet, green pie later in the day. It took years to figure out that my efforts always resulted in hours of peace and quiet as Mr. Cooney left and went fishing. It was later still before I realized that no matter where I looked grasshoppers just didn’t come in the color red!

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Grasshopper Pie is reproduced in part for the 3daysinthecity blog from the short story collection, That Boy, There, by Jas. Mardis

This Ain’t Holiday’s Solitude…SDCC Exhibit is a Gift

There are things that happen in the world around art and the expression of ideas and desire and perspective that you really should see to believe. Once seeing those things, expressions…art, you should run right out and tell everybody you know. Then, with your core friends and acquaintances in tow, you should encourage them to tell everybody else to go by and see that art for themselves. The current lingo for such an action is “going viral”. However, for this moment,  in a season of Christmas and the idea of giving the gift that cannot be matched, let’s call it “sharing”.

Over in the Othello Beck Gallery at the South Dallas Cultural Center you will find such a dynamic exhibition worthy of sharing. In fact, you should gift this show to family and friends and even a worthy stranger. The exhibit is titled, “Nesting” and is the excellent work the established Teacher and Artist, Ann “SoleSister” Johnson. Her introduction to the visitor of this small gallery talks about transitions and students and how choices have invited/welcomed solitude. I’m sure that when you read her description it will translate differently, but the effect of the show is where we will find agreement. It’s also where the friends with whom you share the gallery visit will find reason to thank you.

I’m only worthy to praise this excellent body of work. I’d never critique it. As a casual observer I found this small effort suddenly explode into a crisp and absorbing discussion on the thought of solitude in the midst of others. Terrific.

Everything from tablets, touch screens, headphones and personalized playlists have jaundiced us into versions of connectedness. Walking among these orbs you create a bridge between them through your attention and simplest observation. Your presence as a bonding agent…Terrific.

Each person can choose a path to walk and explore these “worlds”, then go get coffee and spend an evening talking over what you discovered.

Take the kids and lift them up for the surprises deep within the orbs.

Ann Johnson’s exhibit on solitude is refreshing and surprising and calming and dynamically a bonding experience.

 

*”Holiday’s Solitude” is a reference to the great Ms. Billie Holiday’s tune, “Solitude”

 

3400 South Fitzhugh   Dallas TX 75210
Phone: 214.939.2787

Texas Literary Hall of Fame Induction

I am honored with the news today that the Texas Literary Hall of Fame has selected me for induction this year.

2014 Members
Laura Bush
Deborah Crombie
Jas. Mardis
Larry Swindell
Jim Wright
Lawrence Wright

Texas Literary Hall of Fame.

How to buy my anthology, KenteCloth: Southwest Voices of the African Diaspora. I received a 2000 Pushcart Prize for my contribution to the anthology.

 

 

On The Bus: My Uncle is Dead

Saturday–In Limbo, USA— I am too late for the train that will take me from my house to the station where the bus that can get me to the airport is waiting. It’s not just for me, but for those trying to get out of the city. Some are starting new lives. Others are escaping old lives. As for me, I am part of an ending to a life, but first I must get on this train, then a bus, then a plane. At some point later the order will be reversed: plane, bus, then train. At the hospital the elevator will be waiting like a death cab service and I will be delivered to my last Uncle’s bedside and final surrender. For now, I’m back in my car at the Carrollton (TX) Rail Station parking lot and reading a string of text message alerts on his condition: Dire. Get Here. Not Good. James Jr…He’s laughing and mumbling about, “A Swell Looking Gal”…WTF? Now, I’m laughing.

My Uncle “Heavy” was the first born to my Grandmother, Adla and Grandpa Herman. He is the last of her nine children to hear death’s bone-rattling knock at the door. This is it. His heart is surrendering to 93 years of joy, laughter, military service and societal norms that can crush a man’s spirit like a paper cup. He has served his family, his country and his time well on this earth. His marriage did not produce a single child and his estranged wife passed away two years ago after years of caring for an elderly parent and never getting back out to San Francisco, CA. My father died while living with this Uncle, his brother, who was away on a trip back home to see his distant wife. Since that time we have grown closer. I am the eldest man following his impending death. He is the first of nine. I am the first son in the next generation.

Over the years I have learned nearly every aspect and horizon of our family’s story. Everything from sharecropping to the hopes of his Grandmother. She was one of the registered Negro nurses during the Ark-La-Tex Oil and Baby booms.

Among those stories were the amazing years when his health failed and began to claim parts of his mind. Each time, I triggered his remembrances by recalling stories from the books of his youth. Chief among those hard won books from the drugstore book mobile was Erskine Caldwell‘s, “A Swell-Looking Gal“!

It became his most often regaled story when his mind began slipping during our long distance talks.  I found the Caldwell anthology and made DVD’s of me reading those stories. I later discovered that he had invited friends over to watch those “readings”. On another occasion my phone number on the DVD label was how I was alerted of one of his strokes.

My hands shake on the heated steering wheel.  It is becoming obvious that I will not make it to him in time. His eyes are closing even as the memory of his stories wash over me. I take comfort in knowing that he is losing this battle with some fondness in his heart.  He is talking up the angels from his hospital bed. Those around him don’t understand what he is babbling about.

Ahead of me the platform’s lighted sign flashes an alert of  “6 Minutes” before the next train.  I’m not going to make it to him before his laughter subsides…before his breath surrenders…before those around him shake their heads shamefully at the wandering places that death takes the mind.

“4 Minutes”…I exit the Jeep and head for the landing. He has never seen this car. The last time we rode together was in a bright orange model.  He squeezed his huge 6’6” 320 pound frame into place and chuckled,  “You know, James“, you couldn’t hide the Constable’s daughter in a jalopy this bright!” We laughed, as he used to say, “Hard enough to scare Jim Crow!”

“2 Minutes”…the distant whistle of the train reminds me that he was forced to leave home in the dead of night after a fist fight over wearing his Army Airforce uniform “one time too many” in town. He was already a hero and nobody could take that away from him. “I spilled a White man’s blood on the sidewalk of the RIALTO Theatre“. Nobody came to the racist boy’s side of the fracas. Mr. Wheeler Jones, who sat on the town’s Grand Jury, arranged for his late night train ride as being the best thing for Eldorado, Arkansas. It would be years before he dared to return “home”.

“1 Minute” and the train is humming to a stop right on the yellow stripe just beyond my toes. Stepping over that line and entering the train is like a rite of passage. I settle into my new role that the next text message will announce my arrival into. It does not come during the thirty minute race of this train thru the city. Instead, I am folded into my forearms on the shuttle bus when the phone starts to ring the tone that signifies Cousin Lois is calling from San Francisco. Her voice is a resignation that comes with sitting watch over life and death. Her sadness flows underneath her words like the undertow of the River Styx. My Uncle used to say that the boatman never rows on that journey, he just steers. In likewise fashion she steers me into my new role for the Mardis clan:

“Cousin J.C.?”
Yes…
“Where are you, Dear?”
I’m on the bus…
“Get here soon. He’s gone. I s’pose you know what needs to be done“.

For Ermon John Mardis

 

Jas. C. Mardis is an awarded Poet and Writer who was inducted into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame in 2014. He is also an accomplished Fabric Artist and Quilter.

 

Re-Touching Home

Memorial Day–The road back home is long and winding in the best of times. It reaches back to when everyone is alive and the days of family are rich with history and love and burning pots full of food churned up from the very land on which you stand. It is a breath of life, carried on the wind between plowed fields, that shakes off this mortal coil and reminds your heart and soul of days and nights gone horribly and mightily past.

“Oh, My Lord…Bless My Soul!”, is how MaDear would greet the slowed, rolling, humming stop of my green Monte Carlo at the curb in front of their house of the same color. She would rock herself back in that lawn chair and tap her “slapping hand” against the screen door before alerting Daddy S.L., “Junior’s here, Daddy. He’s come back for the cleaning, Baby.”  Soon, the trucks and cousins and shovels with plants and flowers and trinkets would arrive. After a bite of salt pork, grits, coffee and laughter we would be on our way to the grave yard cleaning and memorial. One year there was a child with a newly learned snare drum regurgitating “taps”. Every year there were our voices in homage and praise.

Home: a place where history is not yet something that is behind you. Not yet a destination that you have to remember how to get back to…not yet a place in the stories that are told to your children on nights when sleep is not the water that surrounds their beds.

Down Home: a place to remember out the lives of the dead and pay homage to their walks of glory and triumph and pain and service.

Gone Home: a place to rest and lay your burdens down and wait for the rumbling thump of those still alive to come yearly and build up the ground above your bones.

Back Home: A place to listen to their version of your life’s journey and wait for the gentle, simple questions from children as they understand what these names on these rocks really mean.

Touching Home: A place of rest that awakens your bones when a child of your bloodline reaches out and cleans away the dust of your headstone for the first time and says, from his heart, “Hello, Grandpa”

Hello GrandPa