Raney Read Online Free PDF Page A

was a, you know, black. He didn't sound like it when I talked to him over the phone at Myrtle Beach. Charles and his other army buddy, Buddy Shellar, at the wedding kept talking about "Johnny this" and "Johnny that" but I never thought about Johnny being anything other than a regular white person. They were all three in the army, which of course everybody knows has been segregated since 1948, according to Charles, so I guess it's possible they roomed together, or at least ate together.
    He didn't sound, you know, black.
    I'll ask Charles about it when we're on speaking terms and I tell him about how the sound comes through the vent; but if he is a nigger, he can't stay here. It won't work. The Ramada, maybe, but not here.

 
     
    IV
     
     
    Aunt Flossie called last Wednesday — said to come by and pick up some fresh peanut butter cookies. She lives in a little four-room house between Listre and Bethel — and cooks apple pies for Penny's Grill on the side. Her kitchen is always smelling like cinnamon and sugar-cooked apples. Charles can't get over how good her apple pies are. He asked her for the recipe and he don't even cook.
    "I'm cooking an extra apple pie," she says. "I'll be done in a few minutes and you can have a hot piece with some ice cream." Aunt Flossie has a way about her that makes me feel free to talk. She seems like she's used to talking, even though she lives by herself. When something hard to talk about comes up, there's a little sparkle in her eyes — and she loves to tell stories almost as much as Uncle Nate. I went right over there.
    "You know," she said, " when Frank and me got married it was like starting to school — the things I had to learn. I guess I'd never had an argument with a soul in the world — except a few squabbles with Mama." She was making up cookie dough. (Now, how could she tell that Charles and me had had a argument?) "I don't know about Frank," she said, "but I don't guess he'd ever argued with a woman, certainly not his mama. We had to learn to argue. I'd get so mad at him. We'd stay mad for days, not speaking. I finally figured out that that kind of business scared me. Scared me bad. And that's why I was so mad. Like with old man Wiley's bull, Red — us being scared and mad getting run together at the same time."
    "Old man Wiley's bull?"
    "I shot old man Wiley's bull one time. Named Red. I couldn't have been over twelve. He was always getting loose and chasing us up a tree. Mama told Mr. Wiley to keep his bull locked up, else she'd shoot him. Course I heard all this talk — so one day all of us were down in the woods when Red got out and started pawing dirt, throwing his head around, and snorting, and I ran to the house and snuck the shotgun out the back door. Everybody was up a tree when I got back. I s hot him. He turned and run and I shot him again. We hated that bull. And the reason we hated him was we were so scared of him. Why, the bull won't doing nothing unnatural. And the whole point is , we were mad because we were scared and I never figured that out until me and Frank figured out about our arguments."
    "Whose bull was it?"
    "It was old man Wiley's bull. One day I told Frank that our arguments scared me and — "
    "What happened to the bull?"
    "Oh, he won't hurt none . The gun had birdshot. Ah, the pies are ready."
    There's no apple pie in the world better than Aunt Flossie's, especially with cold vanilla ice cream melting down over it.
    Uncle Frank died when I was about seven. He was a car salesman. I don't remember much about him. But I've seen lots of pictures of him and Aunt Flossie, Mama and Daddy, and Aunt Naomi and Uncle Forrest, who died sometime before I was six. They all went to the beach, the fair, and the mountains together and took bunches of pictures.
    "How old was I when Uncle Forrest died?"
    "Four. Three or four, I guess. Frank used to call him 'Woody.' What a card he was. Always kidding. People always liked that about him though. I never saw him