Goodbye Broad Creek Village

Goodbye Broad Creek Village

    

I watched glumly as Aunt Pearl put on her makeup and fluffed up her hair.

 

“Can’t I go with you, Aunt Pearl? Please?”

 

“Clara, honey, you would be bored to death. I’m just going over to Carol Martin’s to give her a permanent. She doesn’t even have a television. You stay here and look after your baby sister. We’ll have breakfast together in the morning.”

 

Mama came into our room. “Pearl, stop treating her like a baby. She doesn’t need to be coddled. When will you stop spoiling her?” Aunt Pearl tried to argue with her, but as usual Mama had the last word. Aunt Pearl went to Carol’s.

 

It was time for bed.  Ivy and I were washed and ready for bed but I’d refused to go to sleep until Aunt Pearl got home. Suddenly there was there was a crash. The glass that had been the window of our front door was on the floor. Daddy’s drinking buddy Harold Ray Sheppard was on the front porch. He was bleeding. He was drunk and he wanted to fight.  

  

As he stood there – wobbling – his arm hung at his side and more blood fell onto the porch.

“Get him away from here, Virgil!  Get him away from the children!”

 

I watched as Daddy walked through the glass in his bare feet. He took Sheppard by the arm and led him away from our front door and up the street.

 

“Clara, get the broom and sweep up that glass before Ivy cuts herself.” 

 

When I was finished,  Mama was standing beside me with a pan of soapy water and some old rags  “Let’s clean this up.”  I knelt beside Mama on the front porch. Together we cleaned up Harold Ray’s blood.

 

Mrs. Evans stuck her head out of her front door. She didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see us on our hands and knees scrubbing the stoop.  “Everything okay, Rose?”

 

“Yes, Blair, just a little accident. Hope we didn’t wake you up.”

 

“No problem, Rose. I was up watching my show. If you don’t need any help, I’ll get back to it.  That little girl of yours is sure getting big.” She said it like there was nothing unusual about us cleaning blood off our front porch.

 

I waited until Mrs. Evans had gone back into her house before asking “Mama, why did Harold Ray break our window?”

 

Rose shook her head and dropped her rag into the pan of water. “He was just drunk, Clara.  People don’t need a reason to do things when they’re drunk.”

 

“Is he going to come back?”

 

“No, your daddy is making sure he won’t come back. You go on inside and make sure your sister is okay. I’ll finish up out here.”

 

I left Mama on the front porch and went inside to find my baby sister in the middle of the living room floor crying. I wanted to sit down with her and cry too.  Instead I put her arm around her. “It’s okay, Ivy. He’s not coming back. He was just drunk. Daddy is making sure he won’t come back to hurt us. Come on. I’ll tuck you in. This will all be over in the morning.”

I stayed awake for a long time listening for her Daddy to come home, but he never came back.  When I woke up Mama was sitting in the living room with Aunt Pearl and Mrs. Evans. Mama looked like she had been crying.

 

“Mama, where is my Daddy?

 

“Clara, your Daddy won’t be coming home. I know this is going to be hard for you to understand but…” She started crying again.

 

Mrs. Evans lifted me onto her lap. “Honey, your Daddy went and got himself killed last night.”

“Blair!” Aunt  Pearl gasped. “You can’t just…”

 

“Pearl, this little girl is going to have to grow up fast. You can’t sugar coat it for her.”

 

 Things happened real fast after that. The next day Mama told me we were moving down to Pungo Creek. “We are taking your Daddy down there to bury him and that will be our new home.”

 

I was confused. This was our home. Home was the green and white house on South Woodlawn Avenue with the gumball trees in the front yard where Daddy and I had stretched out on an army blanket and eaten bologna sandwiches. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.  I walked from room to room. I stood in the bedroom where Mama and Daddy had slept in their big double bed.  The bed had a metal headboard with hundreds of tiny holes just the size of the tips of my fingers. Daddy and I had played a game. He would place his hand behind the headboard and cover one of the holes with his finger. I would try to touch his finger on the other side before he could move it. I liked the sensation of touching Daddy’s fingers through the headboard.  I missed my daddy. My heart felt empty.  I went into their closet.  It was empty but I could still smell Daddy’s Old Spice after-shave lotion. I sat there in the dark inhaling the last scent of my Daddy until Aunt Pearl came and found me.

 

I walked around the front yard picking up gumballs. I filled the pockets of my yellow dress - the one with the sash that Mama could never tie just right. She always ended up taking me next door to Mrs. Evans’ house. “Blair, will you tie this girl’s sash for me? I don’t know why it always looks cockeyed when I do it.”

 

 I wondered who was going to tie my sash at the place where we were going…the place that would be my new home.

 

I was miserable when I learned Aunt Pearl wasn’t going with us. I heard her tell Mama that she was moving in with Carol Martin. “I just can’t go, Rose. You know what happened. How can I go back there and act like nothing happened?”

 

Mama refilled her glass from the bottle next to the sink. She didn’t offer any to Aunt Pearl.

 

“Nobody remembers any of that stuff, Pearl. Life goes on. You always take things too personal.” I sat very still, hoping they wouldn’t notice I was there, but Aunt Pearl spotted me and signaled for Mama to be quiet.

 

“If Aunt Pearl ain’t going then I ain’t going neither.” I stomped my foot just in case they had missed the significance of my statement.

 

“Damn, Pearl. She’s just like you. Look at that bottom lip. It’s stuck out a mile like yours always was when you were feeling sorry for yourself. She’s more your daughter than mine. Just like Virgil was more of a husband to you than he was to me. Maybe she should stay here with you.”

 

“Rose, that’s the whiskey talking. Hush now. She’s upset enough.” Aunt Pearl opened her arms and ran to her. I buried my face in her sweater and cried.

 

“You promised you would never leave me.”

 

“I’m so sorry, baby girl. I am so sorry.”

 

I couldn’t understand why Aunt Pearl wasn’t going with us. What had happened that was bad enough to break her promise? I tried to be mad at her, but I couldn’t. On our last morning together I was sitting next to her on the sofa. She had her arm around me. She didn’t say anything. She just held me close to her. I saw Mama standing at the door watching us with an odd look on her face “Benjamin will be here any minute. If you don’t want to see him, Pearl, you better make yourself scarce.”  Aunt Pearl kissed me one last time and then she was gone. The hardest thing about moving was leaving Aunt Pearl behind.   Not only had she made my childhood sweet, she had shielded me from my Mama’s insanity.  

 

 

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