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This appears in a pre-2010 issue of Down in the Dirt magazine.
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Down in the Dirt v067



Order this writing
in the 2009 book


Crawling
Through the Dirt



Crawling Through the Dirt
The Man From Money Mississippi, September 1955

Barry Davis

    I have always prided myself in being useful and good.
They know they can count on me and they call on me often.
That makes me feel good to be liked and wanted.
Niggras like me have been around for a long time.
Good thing, too, since we uplift the race.
We make up for the troublemakers, them with the bad blood, those shifty, good for nothing coloreds.
    Once, they asked me to help with that smart mouthed boy.
Folks ask me bout it, tell me I done wrong by him.
I ain’t done no wrong.
    The way that Northern boy had talked to poor Missus Bryant just wasn’t right.
I heard that colored boy just abuse that poor little woman.
Why, she ain’t come up to my elbow if’n I stood close by her.
‘Cept I never have stood close by her cause that ain’t a colored’s place.
That be the place of her husband, good old Mister Roy Bryant and Mister Roy was crossing that hard Mississippi soil in his truck, going over ta Texas, doing some hauling to help make ends meet.
He was out there trying to feed his family, his poor young bride and their two small chillens.
    That colored boy, high up as he was, must have known Mister Bryant weren’t around or else he wouldn’t have spoken to poor Missus Bryant such as he done.
Coloreds like me respect Missus Bryant. We keep our eyes down when we enter her store, ask peacefully for what we be after and slide the money quietly across the counter before she hands over them goods.
I could describe Missus Bryant to you from afar, but dang it if I knows what she looks like close up.
That just ain’t my place and in my nigh fifty years, I know’d how to keep ta my place.
Black boy from Chicago and all, he don’t know.
    I didn’t see him, I just heard him from the outside.
Talking fresh like they do up north. He showed Missus Bryant his picture of some white girl he claimed to be his girlfriend.
On top of that o’fense he whistled at her on his way out the door with that chicken fried grin on his face.
You don’t do that sort of thing down here.
Stirring up trouble is what it is.
Coloreds don’t need no more trouble.
God gives us all the trouble we need just from making our’n skin black.
    Couple days later, soon as I know’d Mister Bryant came back from his hauling, I hot skipped over to the store and told what I know’d.
I could tell that he was angry and for a minute I thought he’d take it out on me.
Then I volunteered a name and description of the o’fending colored and tole him where to find him – over to old Preacher Moses Wright’s place.
    Now theys call him a preacher when he ain’t really a preacher.
I knows what he talks about in that old white shack he speaks in and it ain’t the word of God.
The devil comes out of Moses Wright’s mouth and some of that devil done got into his grandson.
    I was feeling mighty good about what I had done when Mister Bryant made me feel even better.
    “Uncle, I shure would like if’n you came with us to pick up that boy.
Seeing y’all in the back of J.W.’s truck would calm him a bit.
Thet’s what I figure.
You do me thet favor, Uncle?”
    I nearly burst wit pride then.
    I tucked my head down to hide my smile.
Never smile in a white man’s face lest he think you smiling about him.
That could be trouble.
    “Yessa,” I said.
    “Be out front here in the early morning, round about two,” he said.
“I’m counting on you Uncle.”
    Counting on me – he was counting on me!
It made my head swell as I left that store.
Why, I forgot to pick up the beans my woman ax’d me ta get.
    I didn’t risk it, going to sleep that is.
I was in front of Mister Bryant’s store as Mister Milam pulled up in his truck.
I stood up soons as I seen the headlights, lowered my head and doffed my hat.
    He pulled the truck to a stop and kept the engine a running.
He got out and he seemed real angry like.
I looked at him and grinned my best darky grin then ducked my head back down like it should be around my betters.
    “What ya’ll doin’ here Uncle?” he says to me.
    “Mister Bryant says fa me ta be here.
Says I might calm the boy, seeing me in the back of this here truck and all.”
    I felt him looking me over.
    “That so,” he said as he walked by me into the store.
    A minute later we was all in the truck, Mister Bryant and Mister Milam in the front, me piled in the back, the cool night air running over top my ole brown skull cap.
    Didn’t take long to get to Moses Wright’s place.
I ain’t gonna call him reverend no more cause I won’t call a man what he ain’t.

I watched from the back of the truck as Mister Bryant pulled his pistol and banged on the door.
Moses hisself opened the door and Mister Bryant let himself in.
I ain’t heard much of what theys said but a might later, out come the boy.
He looked scared and that’s the first thing he done since coming down here that made sense.
He looked at his granddaddy and his granddaddy looked away from him.
He saw me lounging out in the back of the truck and I smiled at him.
I waved him on into the truck, put my hand out and helped him in.
He had on his shoes and some coveralls with what looked to be his pajamas underneath.
    I put my arms around him as he sat down.
He seemed to relax a bit as I done so.
I didn’t want him trying to run off and my hugging him made him less likely to do so.
He looked up at me, hope in his evil brown eyes.
I looked back at him, telling him with no words that ev’ry thing would be all right.
And I knew it would.
    I held him that way till we’s got to Mister Milam’s place.
Mister Milam parked near a building separate from his house, by the looks of it, a work shed of some kind.
I let the boy go and Mister Bryant and Mister Milam pulled him rough like from the truck.
    We all went into the shed.
Theys sat the boy down on an ole flat backed chair with cotton coming out from where the cloth was ripped.
They started in on the boy, trying to school him, telling him what he did was wrong.
They tried to scare him too, telling him what would happen to him if’n he did it again.
I swears, they didn’t lay so much as a puff of air on that boy.
And you knows what he did?
He just looked back at them men like theys was talking to someone else.
Just looked at ‘em, like he was too high and mighty to listen to such.
I felt good when fine ole Mister Milam gave him a punch to the side of his head.
Mister Bryant nodded at me which I took as my cue to leave the premises.
    For the next hour or two, I stood just outside, in case they needed me.
The sounds I heard, well, they wasn’t for me and that was good.
Those sounds, like a man beating a butchered piece of meat trying to make it tender, they was for that boy.
They beat him and beat him, still he don’t cry out.
I give it to that no good colored, he was tough.
But, it ain’t no credit to him really, that bad blood makes them all tough.
    After a while, they brought him outta that shed.
They held him up by both arms and dragged him to the truck.
That bad blood was all over, running off his face and head, down into his pajamas.
I hoped that Mister Milam and Mister Bryant didn’t get none on themselves but I figure that it could’nt rigthly be avoided.
    I peeked back into that room – that old chair’s stuffing now had that bad blood too.
Mister Milam would most surely have to throw it out.
    Theys tossed him into the back of the truck.
Theys didn’t tell me so but I climbed in behind him.
I looked at him and he looked back at me the best he could.
One of his eyes was alright, with a dark ring of black and purple, but working just the same.
The other eye, well that was bad.
It hang there, just half catching the lip of the socket.
He kinda kept his head back and wheter done on purpose or not, this kept the eye from falling out all the way.
He was bleeding from his head and I moved backa aways from him so’s I don’t get none of that bad blood on me.
I just looked back at him.
I didn’t move to touch him this time, there was no need to.
They fixed him good so’s he warn’t running anyplace.
    Mister Milam went back into the tool shed for a bit then came out struggling with an old stand up fan.
T’were so heavy, the back end of the truck complained loudly once he set it down.
The fan was rusted and weren’t gonna work cause most of the things that make the air – the prop’r name escapes me – they weren’t there no more.
Just a broken down old fan that wasn’t good for nothing.
I rolled thoughts around this woolly sack that passes for my head but I couldn’t figure why they hauled that fan outta the shed.
    Mister Milam and Mister Bryant got in the truck and started her up.
I knew where we was heading before they even got the truck in gear: the Tallahatchie River.
That was the place for a colored like this.
    Wasn’t long fore we reached the river.
They drug that colored boy outta the truck and he didn’t say a word.
They stood him by the truck then Mister Bryant ordered him to pick up that fan.
He was a big boy, a little loose in places from the beating them gave him but tight enough to pick up that fan.
The boy picked it up and theys started him a walking.
    Toward the river we walked – I could smell the dawn water running.
Early morning water surely has a fine smell to it.
We reached the river bank and the smell of the water was powerful strong.
Theys told the boy to set down the fan.
Then theys told him to take off his clothes.

The boy done looked at thems and didn’t move, just looked.
Cain’t follow simple instructions – gots bad blood and stupid ta boot.
    They looked back at him, looked at each other a spell and then Mister Milam pulled his pistol.
The boy looked at the pistol and started unbuttoning his coveralls.
He took those off then worked on the pajamas.
Theys was good pajamas.
I wished my boys had pajamas like those - theys was home sleeping in theys draws covered by some old potato sacks.
I looked at the pajamas real close – theys had mens on horses on them.
White men on fine brown mounts.
I wanted those pajamas and I would have them after all this was said and done.
    Pretty soon the Chicago boy was standing there buck naked to God.
Mister Milam got really worked up, talking about how theys was tired of all them North coloreds coming down here stirring up trouble.
I made sure I nodded my head when he spoke.
Not that I didn’t already agree, I just wanted to make it known to all, including the no good buck in question, that I agreed.
I always found it hep’ful to let white folks knows we be of a like mine on just bout everything.
    Mister Bryant ax’ed the colored if he had relations with a white girl up in Chicago.
    “You ever have relations with a white woman?” is how Mister Milam put it to him.
    Now here theys was, good Christian men, trying to give him a way outta this here mess.
Just mit that it was all made up, which it was.
Just mit they ain’t no white girl gonna lay wit some colored without him making her.
Just mit it – that’s all he had to do.
    He just couldn’t do it, not even to save his own skin could he tell the truth.
I heard him – past his swollen lips and broke teeth, he says one word.
    “Yes,” he say.
I heard him and I would swear to Jesus I did.
He said it.
    Mister Milam couldn’t take no more and I couldn’t blame him.
He walked up to that colored and put the pistol to his head and pulled the trigger.
A chunk of his head came away but he still stood there.
He looked ahead – he happened to be looking near my direction – with one good eye and one bad.
Now the bad eye was hanging down, well out of the socket.
Slow like and I swear this took a minute or two, his legs give way and he fall over.
    Mister Bryant drug the fan over and tied its thick cloth covered ‘lectrical cord round and round his neck.
Then theys call me over and we all grabbed an armful of colored or fan and tossed the whole kitten caboodle into the river.
Likes I said, just where he belongs.
He didn’t float none, the weight of the fan snatching him down quick.
    Fore I gots back in the truck, I grabbed them pajamas and the coveralls and his shoes.
No sense having good clothes go to waste.
Might as well that something good come from someone so bad.
    “Poor Emmett Till,” all the coloreds are crying.
“Poor Emmett Till,” I cry back as I reach into the pockets of Emmett’s coveralls to pull out some bitter root snuf.
Then I smile inside, thinking bout my boy in his new pajamas. And my other boy with the shoes he’s still got a ways to grow into.
    Poor Emmett Till.
I feel for him like I feel for a rabid dog.
Less even, if’n I ponder over it.
I mean, a rabid dog ain’t done nothing to get rabid but run across the wrong critter that was in the wrong way.
Now this colored chile Emmett, theys send him down here filled with the wrong ideas and ‘spect white folks to just nod their heads and move on.
While both the rabid dog and Emmett have to be put down, on’ly the dog is innocent from blame.
    Them Emmetts make the world harder for coloreds like me and I don’t need harder.
Good riddance – may God, Jesus and the Holy Sperit hisself help the white man rid the colored race of bad blood once and for all.
    That’s what I pray and tonight – wrapped in his new pajamas – I’ll make my boy pray the same.
Amen.



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