The Bernice L. McFadden Collection. Bernice L. McFadden
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now it’s cheery, don’t you think?”
Tass nodded. “Yes, it is cheery. Thank you, Paddy.”
They hauled the suitcases into the house, down the hall, past Hemmingway’s bedroom, and into Tass’s room.
“Why don’t you sleep in your mama’s room, it’s bigger,” Padagonia suggested.
“No, she died in that room … in that bed. I just can’t.”
“I understand.”
Tass walked through the house; there wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere. “You cleaned too?”
“Yeah, I just hit it a lick and promised it one,” Padagonia chuckled.
“This is too much, Padagonia.”
“I didn’t mind at all. This is what friends do for one another.”
They stepped out onto the porch.
“So what’s for dinner?” Tass asked as she looped her arm affectionately around her friend’s waist.
“Fried catfish and tater salad.”
“That sounds wonderful. I’ve gotta call the kids to let them know I made it here safely and then I’ll come over.”
At dinner, fatigue swooped down on Tass and she nodded off at the table.
“Go on home, sleepy-head,” Padagonia laughed, and pointed her fork at the door.
Tass’s eyes rolled open and a drowsy smile spread across her lips. “Sorry,” she managed through a yawn. “Tomorrow then?”
“Tomorrow.”
After a short lukewarm shower, Tass slipped on a flannel nightgown, wrapped herself in a quilt, and shuffled back out into the front room. Through the window, she could see Padagonia sitting on her porch, a six-pack of Pink Champale resting on the windowsill alongside her transistor radio. She was puffing on a black and tan, gazing up at the full moon.
Suddenly, Tass didn’t feel as tired and so she moved the rocking chair to the center of living room, sat down, and listened to Padagonia croon along to the music streaming from her radio.
When she woke the next morning, her entire body pulsated with the aches and pains that come along with spending a night in a wooden rocking chair.
The sun was up and there was activity on the street. She could hear a washing machine churning, the colicky cry of a teething infant, and the mournful howl of a chained dog.
Tass limped over to the window and pulled back the curtain. Padagonia was up, dressed, and muttering to herself as she frantically swept the front walk. Every so often, she would whip her entire body around and glare at the emptiness behind her.
Tass frowned and moved to another window to see what or who was irritating her friend. But the only thing that came into view was the weed-choked vacant lot alongside Padagonia’s house.
Tass was about to walk away when Padagonia swung around again and hollered, “Hey! Hey, you in there!”
The tall grass shuddered and laughter floated out.
“Kids,” Padagonia mumbled miserably. “Y’all better come out from in there! That grass is filled with snakes and rats and God knows what else!”
The laughter continued.
Padagonia rolled her eyes, sucked her teeth, and returned to her furious sweeping.
Tass stepped out onto the porch and nearly slaughtered the bouquet of wild flowers someone had placed in the doorway.
She uttered a sorrowful “Oh,” and bent to retrieve the gift. Of course she thought Padagonia had put them there. But when she walked across the road to thank her, Padagonia gave her a strange look.
“Is it your birthday?”
Tass shook her head.
“Then why would I give you flowers?”
Tass blushed. “But who else?”
Padagonia shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know.”
Tass scanned the row of houses on either side of the street.
“Maybe you have a secret admirer,” Padagonia suggested.
Tass considered the flowers and then decided she couldn’t spend time trying to figure out the who or the why. “I need to go get some food. Come along and give me some company.”
Padagonia insisted on driving her weathered, beaten Pacer. The shocks were shot and Tass swore she could feel every groove, pebble, and pothole the road offered. The radio was on and the broadcaster was talking about a tropical depression forming over the Bahamas.
“I sure would like to go there one day,” Tass commented.
“Where?”
Tass pointed at the radio. “Where he said. The Bahamas.”
They drove happily along until the store came into view and snatched the merriment out of that car.
Tass tried to look away, but couldn’t. With her eyes glued to the store she hissed, “Why’d you have to come this way?”
“Because this is the way to the Piggly Wiggly.”
Fifty years later and Bryant’s grocery store was still standing. Vacant and ghostly, it had survived high winds and treacherous storms, holding onto a life that no longer wanted it—it slouched there, plastered with advertisements and riddled with racial epithets, Bible verses, and swastikas. It stood as a reminder of the then and the now; refusing to die, it clung stubbornly to this world always, loudly insisting upon itself.
Why no one had set fire to it or the city fathers hadn’t demanded that it be bulldozed to the ground was fodder for all kinds of conversations.
Virulently racist whites wanted it to remain as a reminder to black folk that what had happened here could happen again. And black people wanted it to remain for the very same reason.
Padagonia stepped down on the gas pedal and the store became a blur outside of Tass’s window.
That evening, Tass baked four chicken thighs, two sweet potatoes, and made a pot of string beans. When she went to the door to call Padagonia for dinner, her friend was already climbing the porch steps. She had a beaten black pocketbook slung over her shoulder.
“Why do you have your pocketbook?”
“I plum forgot that tonight was bingo. You wanna come?”
“But I just made dinner.”
“We’ll eat it later.”
Tass’s stomach growled. “I gotta eat before I go anywhere.”
Padagonia grunted, “Sorry for you then. Bingo ain’t gonna wait for you to fill your belly.”
“Some friend you are!” Tass cried as Padagonia turned and started back down the steps.
After dinner, Tass pulled the rocking chair out onto the porch and sat down. The street was quiet, and a placid dark sky hung overhead. She was grateful for the serenity.
A mischievous breeze wafted across her bare arms, raising goose bumps. Tass shivered. When she rose to go inside to retrieve her sweater, she saw movement in the tall grass next to Padagonia’s house. Soon, a dark figure emerged.
The two stared at one another for some time, before the stranger raised a hand and waved. Tass waved back and waited for something more, but the man or woman—she couldn’t tell—stepped back into the grass.
Odd, she thought. The sweater forgotten, she