Meandering by moon

Meandering
by
� moon_grace

When I was ten there was a war in France. We didn't have no radios or televisions.
News came from the neighbors or sometimes papa brought home a second-hand
newspaper from the mill. He always said news from the world creeped into the house
but the goings on behind doors in the neighborhood CRACKED like lightening. My
mother was the biggest gossip. She used to tell me she wasn't, but I know she was and
I told her so.

It's always been a peculiarity to me that a flapping tongue can flip quicker than any
eye can 'cypher a page. I've seen a lot of tongues fly in the breeze faster than their
brains could consider what their tongue should or shouldn't be flapping about.

Now, for some it WAS good that tongues were quicker than a reader's eyes 'cause
half of Durham County couldn't read anyhow and besides, according to my mama,
what good was it to know about the world's affairs if you didn't know what affairs
were going on in your own neighbor's houses?

One day I came home from school and as usual I had to pull Cleo along behind
me. I always had to take her by the hand to get home or she'd make us late. Papa
always said that if there was a race between Cleo and molasses, he'd be hard put to
place his bet. Poor sister Cleo. You know she died last year from Alzheimers. I miss
her. I really did love Cleo but Lord's the truth, if I thought I could have gotten away
with it, I'd have pulled her by every single hair on her head to get home on time.

When we finally got home and come around the yard, I knew something was wrong.
Mama wasn't on the back porch turning bags. Back then, every week a man came
around with a horse and wagon and brought tobacco bags from the Bull Durham
Tobacco Company. He paid mama to turn them right side out and run a string through
them. Anyway, as I was about to tell you, mama wasn't on the back porch. I went in
the back door to look for her. Cleo slammed the door when she followed me in. Cleo ALWAYS slammed doors. I know mama must have heard it cause she hollared at me,
"Vera, don't take off your coat. Luther's sick. You got to run down to the insurance
company and get the nurse."

In those days, mama was smart cause she used part of her bag money to buy us
insurance with a company that sent a nurse when you got sick. We'd never sent for
the nurse ever before so I knew Luther must be sick for real. I was not about to drag
Cleo along every step of the way either, so I pulled Luther's wagon up under the
persimmon tree and told Cleo to pick up all the persimmons on the ground so we could
make a pudding.

Did you know Luther's ninety-one this year? He still calls me every year to see if I'm
bringing a persimmon pudding to the family reunion. After fifty-eight years of me
bringing a persimmon pudding to the family reunion, you'd think he'd know. He
forgets.

Anyway, I ran all the way down town for the nurse. She was a nice lady. I wish I could remember her name. I remember her hat and navy blue cloak. I always wanted to be a
nurse after that, but Papa wouldn't let me. He said, "No daughter of mine is going to
wash-up a grown naked man." I reminded him of those very words when he got sick
and had that colostomy that I had to irrigate and it was me, "Good Old Vera" who
wasn't "going to wash-up a grown naked man" giving him a bath every night the
last year he lived.

Anyhow, the nurse came and it didn't take her long to tell mama, "Why that boy's
got the influenza. You've got to keep the other children away from him. This flu kills
people, the soldiers are dying from it in France." Like I said, news of the world
creeped into our house. We hadn't heard of no flu from France.

Next morning, I pulled Cleo to school. I didn't want to go but mama said there was
really nothing I could do and, besides, Cleo was too little to walk to school by herself
and mama couldn't watch Cleo and take care of Luther, too. We got to the school yard
as the bell rang--late again, thanks to Cleo. I was teeth-spittin mad. I was just before
smacking her good when Old Lady Williams came out toward us holding her
handerchief in front of her mouth and waving her other hand at us. She hollared,
"Go back! Go back! You go home! Your brother's got the influenza, you can't come
in here!" It scared us both real bad. It was the only time I ever remember Cleo running
as fast as me.

Yes sir, news about neighbors traveled faster than God's lightening. It had not been
twenty-four hours since we knew Luther was sick and now they knew about it all the
way across town at the school. I was so ashamed that they wouldn't let us in just
because Luther was sick. He couldn't help it. Me and Cleo weren't sick, but everybody
acted like we were.

That night, Papa brought home a NEW newspaper. Across the front page it said,
"Luther Edge - First Boy in Durham County to Get Influenza." I thought I was ruined. Not
only were tongues wagging about us but now everybody that could read would see about Luther, too. I knew then that they'd probably never let me back in school. I
wasn't miserable for too long though cause after a few days, we didn't matter to people anymore. A lot of people got sick. People who didn't even know Luther got sick. It was
an epidemic. Soon, people were dying and counting how many were dead. Mama sent
me to a lot of graveyard funerals that winter in her place cause she had to stay home
with the others.

I was always healthy. I didn't get the flu but Cleo got a light case of it and Luther
almost died but he didn't. He did go later to the hospital for six months. I had to do
his work and mine and turn mama's bags. I used to slip into his room at night and
breath his air when everyone was asleep. I figured the flu had to be better than carrying
water buckets to the house.

Not long after Luther got sick, they called for volunteers to carry food to the people
shut in. I volunteered. I figured it had to be better than just staying home all the time.
Besides, they'd done closed the school. Mama let me go, but she wrapped a scarf
around my face to keep the germs out. I went to the mill. They'd turned part of it into
a soup kitchen. They handed me two lard buckets of soup that had lids on them. I
carried one in each hand to houses where people were sick. Other neighbors took the
oup in. They carried in firewood and coal,too.

I remember one day, a lady told me all she needed at one house was two buckets
instead of four. When I asked what happened to the people, she said, "Well the father
died last night. The mother probably won't make it through today and the children are
sick, coughing up blood." I hadn't ever seen a dead person. I asked if I could go in and
she let me go. Back then, you laid up your dead in your house then took them to be
buried. There weren't any funeral parlors. It sure was cheaper to bury people then. I
think it is a sin to spend a lot of money burying people. I was reading in one of those
magazines that a man had himself buried in his car. That's ridiculous.

What I was going to say was, I went in the house and pulled the covers back and there
was the old man just laying there dead. I didn't hear the mother, but I heard the children coughing. That house was like ice. I walked by the door where those children were, and
all of them were laid up in the same bed. The only fire lit in the whole house was in the fireplace in the children's room. It was still cold in there. When I walked by the door
where the mother was, I looked in and she didn't have no heat at all in her room. I didn't
know if she was dead or not, so I tip-toed past the door. I didn't want to bother her.

That man was the first person I ever saw dead. I never told Mama and Papa that that
woman let me see him. It was my secret. You don't tell secrets. Anyway, that stuff's
not important now. It was a long time ago. Let me tell you what Mamie Biship told
Annie Mae about that Lewis girl across the street.......

moon_grace.