1926
I was bent over in the garden with sweat streaking down my face when I heard the noise. My face and hands were covered in black dirt that made my skin soft to the touch. The May sun was overhead and beating down on my back and I could feel the soreness of my neck from not only bending over but from the layers of blisters that had accumulated over the years of field work. A couple of my sisters were picking strawberries and I was tending to the tomato seedlings that Mama had told me to set out the day before.
I was the oldest boy; I had two sisters that were older and one younger. My brothers were all younger than that youngest sister and the baby was four. Daddy always said that he and Mama had to warm up before they had any sons, notably any sons that took after him. I was more like Mama’s daddy, who died soon after she got married and had my oldest sister. Mama told me that I looked like her daddy too. I’d been told that I had ears that stuck out too much from my head and a nose that couldn’t help but get into people’s business. There were no mirrors in the house and all we did was work, so there was little time for vanity. All the children, save the youngest two, were awake before sunup and worked near till sundown. When we had school Daddy would make us go because he wanted us to be learned and not be ignorant. He always said that they would manage without us while we learned to count or read or write.
There was a breeze I remember and it blew off my straw hat that wasn’t sitting on my head in a position to cover my neck. I moved to readjust it and felt the searing dissipate some. I placed my hand on top of my hat and looked up to see a man I’d never seen before, which was highly unusual.
He was dressed nice – in Sunday clothes and it was in the middle of the week. He took his hat off when he saw my sisters and held it in front of his waist while we gazed at him in bewilderment. He told us he had moved from Earl, though none of us were exactly sure where that was. Later we argued about whether it was before or after Shelby. I said after, but my sisters were adamant that it was before. We asked Daddy and he said they were right; in order to get to Shelby you drove through Earl. We couldn’t imagine what on earth he was doing up there and for some reason forgot to ask.
The strange man put his hat back on and told us that he was going to be the preacher at the church we went to across the River. We were Presbyterian in those days and believed in strict Calvinism: we knew that by his coming to our house and standing over us while we labored in the garden that he was like an Old Testament prophet come to enumerate our failings and cast the judgement of God upon us. I muttered something about it being good to have met him and my sisters both said likewise. The man said that he called into the house but no one came so he figured he would poke around some.
“That’s fine,” I said, shifting weight from one leg to the other and rubbing the dirt from my hand onto my pants.
“It’s quite a view y’all gots up here,” the man said.
“It’s nothin’ to be ashamed of,” I said, looking around. I noticed my sisters and the man doing the same.
“I was hopin’ I’d get to meet some more uh y’all,” he said at last.
One of my sisters asked, “are we not good enough?” in a flat way that indicated she was pulling his leg. The man grinned with one side of his mouth and said, “Nah, y’all are fine, but I was hopin’ I’d get to introduce myself to yuh folks.”
“They’s gone. Daddy’s in the barn and Mama oughtta be in the house,” I said.
“She probably in the root cellar.”
“Yeah, she probably was,” the other sister agreed. “She told me she was gonna sort out what was fit tuh keep and throw out the rest tuh the hogs.”
The man smiled. “There’s always work to do, ain’t they?”
The four of us chuckled and I kicked some dirt, accidentally knocking a tomato seedling over and had to set it back up.
“I reckon I better get goin and get out uh y’all’s way so yuh can get back tuh workin,” the preacher said.
I told him that he didn’t need to worry about it any, that we were due for a break in a minute and could stand to get out of the sun. We walked over to the mangled magnolia diagonal from the house. The branches were like leaping dancers with their arms flung skyward and their legs stretched across the continent. Daddy said that when he was a boy the tree was struck by lightning and died for a spell. He said after two springs the tree grew so much it was making up for lost time.
The magnolia was enormous. Its branches reached to the ground in some places, obscuring the sight of any who sat underneath it. The half of the tree facing the house was the side that had been hit by lightning and the branches were angrily flared in all directions. That was the side we sat under.
Once in the shade and with the sun not baking us or baring into our eyes, I was able to get a better look at the visitor. He was dark haired and the color of his eyes were like none I had ever seen. I thought most people had blue eyes and a handful brown; I hadn’t any idea what to make of green. He spoke to my sister and they were picking him for information. Was he married? How long had he been here? What were his hopes for the church? Had he been going around meeting other congregant families too or were we special?
I watched him as he answered their rapid questions and he didn’t attempt to hide his amusement. I realized that I didn’t know his name. For some reason my sisters weren’t asking him that. I waited for an appropriate place to ask, but ultimately gave up because while one asked the question the other had a chance to think of one and ask herself. I told them they were making him dizzy and that I had a question for him too. They stopped talking and all looked to me.
“My sisters have been askin’ you everythin under the sun but what’s yuh name?”
He smiled. “Willard Burgess.”
“I don’t know no Burgess,” though something made me think that maybe I should know one.
“We from North Carolina but I gots some kinfolk down in these woods and they told me about y’all needin’ a preacher. I’m also tired of sittin’ in Earl.”
“Surely you do something else,” I declared, ignoring his reference to Earl. I was wary of someone from so far away and didn’t like his constant bringing it up.
“Well, I do.” He smiled. “I do some work fuh my uncle. You might know him; his name’s Jack Burgess.”
“Jack Burgess yuh uncle? We love Ol’ Uncle Jack,” one sister said and the other nodded.
“Yeah, Uncle Jack is a fine ’un.” I had forgotten he was a Burgess; everybody just called him Uncle Jack
Willard smiled and said that everybody seemed to like Uncle Jack and that it was good to come somewhere new and have the neighbors all like your family. We sat under the tree a little while longer while my sisters pestered Willard about how long he was planning on staying. He seemed to be in a pleasant mood when he told us he had to get on his way, but that he’d come back and see us sometime if we wanted. I simply said it was good to meet him and that we’d see him at church Sunday, but my sisters all but clung to him and said that they would think of him always. They didn’t say it in so many words, but it was clear to all present that they would be fighting over who got in Mama’s washtub Sunday morning to get in the cleaner water.
My sisters, Mary Louise and Evelyn, did nothing but talk about Willard until we saw him Sunday morning. They sat at the supper table the night after the afternoon he visited and talked the ears off of us all. Mama said that she hated she hadn’t been able to see the new preacher, especially since he was such a handsome young man. At first, she was aggravated because she didn’t want him to think her rude for being in the root cellar (she popped me on the head and said, “you shoulda come tuh get me”), but after hearing about him for two or three days, she was ready to strangle Mary Louise and Evelyn for being disrespectful and lusty.
The two of them started whispering to each other the same things they had been saying out loud. By the fourth day any discussion of Willard Burgess was forbidden from the table and Mary Louise and Evelyn communicated through eye movements, blushes, and giggles. Daddy was less upset, but he still didn’t like the way they were talking. He said it wasn’t proper for young ladies to say such speak and Mama agreed with him. She always had a horrid story to tell about someone who had been upstanding and, through their own moral failings, had succumbed to a desire for despotism that ended in ruination.
I was proven partially right on Sunday morning: Mary Louise and Evelyn bickered over who would get in the washtub first for the chance to wash with soap. I don’t want to imagine how Sunday would have gone if it hadn’t been our week to wash; determination, frustration, pleas, maybe a tear or two, the possibility of vengeance. I couldn’t decide if Daddy would give in or not. He probably wouldn’t on grounds of it being more work for Mama.
After speaking to the expected people, we made our way to our pew. Everyone jumpy as a jackrabbit waiting for Willard to start. He was out in the yard shaking hands, introducing himself. Mary Louise and Evelyn, both grabbed each other with poor subtlety upon seeing him. Dozens of worn shoes rubbed the unvarnished oak floors of the church as sixty people pushed their way to their pews in anticipation of hearing this exciting man preach for the first time.
Once the hymns were over and the sermon began, I was able to watch him with more ease. I sat with my feet flat on the floor, my hands folded in my lap, and my head upright and set in front of me. Willard was brooding, that was true, but there was something about his face that reminded me of a printout of one of those moving picture stars I saw in a magazine at the post office once. It was a profile and the man in the picture looked full of himself, though to me it seemed justified. If Willard Burgess was caught in a profile, it would have the same effect. He had a slim yet defined jaw that punctuated his sentences and made his points for him. His eyes sang like the Psalms when he spoke of forgiveness and the paths of righteousness. He remained collected throughout, never getting overly excited in volume or manner, to which I knew would do nothing but win respect with the congregation.
I spent the entirety of the sermon watching him and feeling something I had never felt before. It was like floating with a breeze that followed the hills around the house or the feeling when the calves are playing, chasing each other and stumbling over rock, their tails high in the air and uncontrolled. It didn’t surprise me that I was only nervous later, after the service and dinner had ended and I was sitting out on the porch under the swirls of the sky.
Dinner had been a blur and, sitting on the porch after supper, I was able to identify the feeling I got from the day he came by the house, why I was quieter than usual and glad Mary Louise and Evelyn had been getting all the attention. I knew that I wanted to see him again, but I could not think of how and, fiddling with a weed between my fingers, sat and wondered of a way in which I could. The thought that Mama might invite him over to eat because he was new, and a bachelor, made me glad that Mama and Daddy were that way. I used to have to suffer through suppers with the last preacher and thinking of how many that was made me hopeful for how often Willard Burgess would be coming to the house.
I let the weed fall to the lush ground in eight or ten pieces and looked up at the sky. It was dark outside but the sky was bright. The stars were like bits of crystal dangling from a chandelier and the wind was blowing the clouds so that they were speeding past. I remember it being the first time I thought about my life; seventeen and had never given it a second thought. I couldn’t see past the falling wooden fence and the house that didn’t sit straight, past the dirt road to the house or the cows that spent the warm nights lowing back and forth. The beeping guinea fowl and the old smelly goats. I scooted off the porch rail and made my way over to the edge of the garden with its neat little rows of plants with budding flowers. Soon we would have all the crookneck squash and bursting, round, fat tomatoes all come in in a rush. Mama would be pickling and frying every day and night until late June when the squash plants would flare up and the tomato would be overrun with Japanese beetles causing them to bend and break.
May passed into June and I was able to see more of Willard Burgess than just at church. I was right in thinking Mama and Daddy would have him to eat and he did often. Mary Louise and Evelyn were convinced that he came to see them and they would try to find cloth in any hiding place it could be in the house and make something out of it. Mary Louise was able to find an old ribbon that she alternated between her hat and different places on her person. She would tie it around her waist sometimes, once it was on her wrist, but it was usually in her hair in some fashion. Evelyn was luckier; she used azaleas in her hair and made a flower crown out of old twine and magnolia blossoms. She put the flower crown in the root cellar to keep it cool in the hopes of it lasting longer. Mary Louise would tease her about having to work hard with the flowers while she just had to think of somewhere new to put her ribbon.
Willard always told them that they had dressed up too nicely for just him. Every other week or so he would pretend that someone else was coming and Mary Louise and Evelyn would squeal with shrieks of laughter. When they did this he would look over in my direction and wink. I would smile and then look down at my plate, though the longer he came I got more confident and would smile back before looking down, but not as low before. It was little victories like this that made me glide through the days, working in the garden or helping Daddy with whatever needed to get done.
The garden was mine now. Daddy said he needed my help doing man’s work and that I should leave the garden to Mary Louise and Evelyn, but I did a better job at hoeing and tending than they ever did, and he noticed, so he let us split our time up. Mine was split between working with Daddy during the day and going to the garden in the early mornings and evenings. Mary Louise and Evelyn picked if there was need, but spent most of their time in the house with Mama canning and cooking.
Willard continued to come by and one night he said that he was soon to be teaching a class on church membership and hoped that a few of us would join. Mary Louise, Evelyn, or I had yet to join the church and it seemed like an appropriate time seeing as we were all about grown. He said that we didn’t have to give him an answer right away, though we all did. Mary Louise and Evelyn were first of course and when I said I would come too he smiled at me and said that he was glad and had been hoping I was going to.
The rising part of the summer continued in a similar pattern: I worked all day and Willard came by to eat one night during the week, we went to church on Sunday and then stayed afterwards to have an hour-long meeting about what it means to be a church member, a godly man or woman, and when the meeting was over some of us would stay and talk.
Willard and I never spoke to each other alone and yet when he was leading the class or at the front behind the pulpit on Sunday mornings, I felt as if there was no one else around. I felt as free and proud as a robin in the morning; I walked on lily pads and danced like a calf.
Just before the dog days, at the high end of summer, I went for a walk. It was Monday evening and I was feeling unnerved from the attention Willard had been giving me. The past couple weeks he had been maintaining intense eye contact, the kind that makes your heart flutter and snatches away your appetite. From the pulpit I was sure he could see me squirming and I feared he was enjoying it. In fact, at this point I knew he was. He had come up with idea of him tutoring me one-on-one. I was to go to where he lived with his uncle Jack down the road on Friday nights and it was there under the big open sky that we sat and got to know each other. The topic at hand was always discussed, whatever that may have been, but we always managed to talk personally.
The Broad River was not far and I managed to get there quicker than I realized. It was muddy and large, flat rocks were out in the river like pearls on a string. I made my way to the spot I liked best – it was out in the open, the sun was behind some clouds and it was sneakily setting below the treetops. I sat on a rock that resembled a chair, undoubtedly from generations of lovesick people coming to find solace from tortured thoughts at the river’s edge.
I sat thinking. I was utterly absorbed in what we had done the day before. It was after church and the first Sunday that the membership group didn’t meet seeing as we all were admitted. Mary Louise was trying to get engaged to the neighbor and Evelyn was starting to panic that she would be an old maid even though Mary Louise was only two years older than her. She had gotten in her mind that she wanted to get married at the same time as her sister. They, along with the brothers and sisters and Mama and Daddy, had already said they were going to leave. Those who lived on this side of the River were slowly milling down to the Ferry to take them back across. The handful of people who lived on the side of the River as church had already been long gone; they had kinfolk they had to cook for. We did too, which was why they had all left. I stayed under the presumption that I would help Willard tidy up and we would take the Ferry together.
The last stragglers had gone and Willard waved me back into the church. I followed him holding my hat. Not the straw, my Sunday hat that Mama’s daddy had worn when he was a young man. The leather on it was worn and cracked in places but it fit better on my head than anything bought for me or handed down from Daddy. We began with gathering the music sheets and stacking them on top of the piano. It was the only new thing in the building; a wealthy woman from Gaffney had died and left her piano to the church because her uncle was killed in the War and buried in the cemetery. While doing the music, we saw that a purse had been left. We both knew whose it was, we decided we would take it back with us so it didn’t have to sit in the church all week.
We were standing in the middle of the church, in the makeshift aisle while bluejays flew in and out. Laughing and talking, we looked up and noticed that a hummingbird was flying into the ceiling. I rushed to close all the windows while Willard searched for a broom in the closet.
“I found a broom,” triumphantly he returned.
“And I gots all the winduhs closed.”
“We’ll need one open to get it out.”
“Oh, yeah, I guess we will,” I went over to open a window.
“Now, what we’re gonna do is try to guide it down and then out the winduh,” he said with one hand on his hip and the other holding the handle of the broom.
“Aright, well, what should I do?” I asked.
“Guide it out,” he said and laughed. “This’ll make for a good story.”
I smiled too. “Yuh right.”
“I’m gonna climb up on the piano and start wavin’ the broom around and see what happens,” he said stepping up onto the stool and then the top.
“Please be careful,” I said, gently putting my hat back down. I had picked it up before we saw the hummingbird and thought ourselves free to go.
“I will, I will,” he said with exasperation.
Waving the broom didn’t move the bird towards the window. Instead, it went to one of the closed windows on the other side of the room and kept butting its beak into the glass. I snuck over on all fours underneath a pew. Laying under a window I could see it still there and unlatched the lock on the bottom. It darted away for it was scared. I popped up from the ground.
“Where did it go?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, look for it I reckon.”
“I think it might have flown out the other winduh.”
“Do you think?” I was hoping that it wasn’t free yet; I wanted to prolong our stepping outside into the early July midday sun.
“Pretty sure.” Willard had stepped down from the piano and the thought sneaked into my mind that he may have been watching me during the whole exchange with the hummingbird.
“We got really lucky with that. It coulda stayed in here for hours.”
So, he thought it was a good thing. Suddenly I felt that I wanted to leave and be at home. He went to the closet to presumably put the broom back. I turned from the door leading to the hallway and went to get my hat. I had forgotten where it was and I was quite disoriented so it was no surprise that when he got back, I was still trying to find it. Thankfully, I located it beside the purse. When I turned around, he was there, standing as close to me as a nanny goat stands with her kids.
“It’s been good getting’ to know yuh. You’ve been a real friend to me since I moved here.”
I was frozen. As my heart beat faster it started edging slowly out of my chest cavity, pushing against my ribcage.
“I never had a friend like you at home,” he continued. I could smell his breath, unidentifiable, unforgettable.
“I haven’t either,” I whispered. My chin was tucked down because I could feel myself shaking and didn’t want him to notice.
He reached out his hand and lifted my chin up. Looking in his face, I saw a gentleness I had never seen before. The green of his eyes was like the June grass, knee-deep and drenched in dew. Life was in those eyes and as I looked up, I noticed he had tears at attention in his left eye. As one fell, I wiped it away as gently as I could. Willard still had his hand on my chin and he put his finger on my bottom lip. My lips smiled underneath his sturdy finger and before I knew it his hand was on the other side of my face, pulling me to him, our mouths meeting in a burst of ardor. Suddenly, my mouth was a magnolia blossom swarmed with bumblebees. As he pulled away, he shuffled his feet and said we should probably get going lest we want to get my family worried.
Sitting on the riverbank, the sun had set and the breeze blowing was full and so warm it made me cold. I could hear the rustle of the trees as they swayed in the wind. I realized that it was soon to be a thunderstorm and thought I should make my way back.
I was conflicted on what to think about first. Making my way back up the bank and onto the road, I didn’t know what would happen when I saw Willard again. I knew that our time in church had been enjoyable, but I didn’t know if I should tell anyone. I trusted Willard and everyone liked him too, respected him, even. He was set to baptize a baby at the end of summer and had told me how looking forward to it he was. I stopped. Was that a kiss? I decided it couldn’t be, only men and women kissed. That was what Mama and Daddy did before he went outside and when he came back in for the day. I doubt that their kisses ever felt like mine. Mine. I had never been kissed and that surely was not one. But it had to be. There was almost no way around it. Maybe Willard didn’t mean to kiss me. It could have been an accident. Men don’t kiss, I knew that and Willard must too. Or maybe they do.
I made it to the road and turned into the yard. The moon was shining now, down on the magnolia. The blooms reflected the light and it made me think of something Daddy always said. He was always talking about the light carrier. He said it about Willard when he came to the house to eat for the first time; he said that we had to look after the light carrier. He was carrying God’s light into the world and we were to never say anything bad about him. Mama had a story about a light carrier that did something “unspeakable” and she couldn’t tell us because it was too bad to share. As I stepped onto the porch, I wondered what sort of story Mama could tell about me and Willard in the church after everybody else had gone and were chasing that hummingbird out. Would Daddy say something about not saying anything against the light carrier, or would he permit it this time? Were any covenants or laws broken? I wasn’t sure, but as I crept into the house on the balls of my feet it didn’t really matter to me whether it did or not; I, like the magnolia blossoms, had found a light to reflect off me and I wasn’t going to let it go.