Chapter 39. Rippling

The work around the lodge wasn’t hard work. It amounted to little more than doing chores like mowing the lawn and raking leaves. Ray and I hired out for odd jobs here and there; one of which was digging post holes and putting up a fence around a forty-acre property that abutted the Blackwater River. Uncle Buddy dropped us off in the morning and came back in the evening to pick us up. There was plenty of slogging through the bush with an eye out for rattle snakes and water moccasins. The farmer we worked for was a retired Air Force Cajun who had been stationed at Eglin and was at home in the swamps and bayous of the area. He didn’t talk much, but when he did talk, I was sometimes charmed and sometimes taken aback by his callous use of language. He’s say things like, “I am Cajun but I ain’t no Coon-ass… Know what I mean boys?”

I scratched my head, “Naw, can’t say that I do.”

“A Coon-ass is one step lower than a niggah and a Cajun is the best God can do.”

Buddy heard him say that and he feigned outrage, “Hey, watch that talk around us, friend. Max here is a Yankee and he might turn ya in fer dee-scriminatin’ talk.”

“Okay, okay: I meant to say, if ya axe me, a niggah and a Coon-ass is equals.”

It was the kind of talk I had imagined had gone on in the South for a long time and there wasn’t much I could do or say about it. In a way, I felt it was a bit more honest or innocent to be a self-deprecating bigot than to be a covert bigot in a starched shirt and Brooks Brothers’ suite.

Other times we went out with Buddy to the Eglin Air Force Base horse stables; loading the pick-up truck with horse manure to spread around the roses at the motel or Buddy’s organic vegetable garden.

The temperatures dropped to below freezing for a couple of weeks and I had never felt a chill that went to the bone, as I did on that Gulf Coast. It must’ve had something to do with the humidity. I made it to the Sally Thrift Store in Crestview where I purchased an Air Force wool long coat and a pair of Army issued jungle boots along with several pairs of wool socks. I was putting together some traveling clothes, since I had no idea how long Mrs. Nobel. would put up with me. I had begun sneaking wine into my room at the motel, bought with the little cash I had in my pockets. Ray was doing speed, and drinking too, but I kept only to drinking along with a little pot now and then.

I just had no control over alcohol and furthermore, I couldn’t predict what I’d do once I got past a certain point. One such occasion started a ball rolling that I had no idea where it would stop. After a half days work clearing brush around the motel, I took a break. Ray was off in town with Buddy. I had the room to myself and a jug of wine. Mrs. Nobel. was at work also, but Alicia was home. Now, I was not normally attracted to Alicia at all, but the wine got me thinking about her being there all alone in the house. I went over to the house and brought the jug with me. I told myself it was lonely to drink alone and wanted someone to drink with. The door was always unlocked at the side entry. Alicia was inside doing homework at the same dining room table where that first day I’d sworn to Mrs. Nobel that I would not drink or make a move on either of the daughters.

She looked up but couldn’t see that I had a jug with me because I held it below the counter that separated the office from the dining room, “Hi, Max, what are you up to?”

I was slow to speak being careful not to slur my words, “Oh, I was jess takin’ a break and thought I’d say hello.”

Before I could say much more I heard Buddy’s pick-up truck rattle into the driveway and park around back of the place. I spun around, “See ya!” and rushed across the driveway, back to the motel room, jug tucked in like a football under my coat… Whew! I was panting. What was I thinking?

But I knew exactly what I’d been thinking, and it just didn’t make sense to me. Why would I jeopardize all I have going on for me like this? Sheeze! She’s only thirteen. What was I thinking? I asked myself again for emphasis.

Buddy was in his sixties and had suffered two heart attacks. His house was a shotgun style wood-frame affair that was only partially clap-boarded, exposing whole sections of tarpaper between frames. The house might have been run down, the living room piled high with trash and just plain stuff that Buddy wanted to keep, but the organic vegetable garden was neatly organized. Winter was coming on and most everything, but squashes and pumpkins were harvested. The compost bins and beds were in rows with stakes ready for the next planting. His pick-up was a Chevy from the early fifties, all battered with oxidized light blue paint, but the engine purred and the tires had plenty of tread. Buddy was a hefty man but by no means obese. He wore coveralls twenty-four hours a day… apparently slept in them. He and Ray came in the room where I was sitting on my bed with the jug by my feet. Buddy’s eyes lit up when he saw it, “Lemme have a sip off that there jug, Max.”

“Sure,” I passed it to him.

“Might as well… my ticker might give out any time now.” Buddy was a talker, “Sis would kill me if she knew I even had a sip of wine so don’t be tellin’ her, … okay?”

“Just don’t be tellin’ her I even have a jug,” I knew Buddy wasn’t going to say anything. Ray and I were a break for him. Some people get more open to people as they age, and Buddy was one of those folks. I could tell Buddy genuinely liked hanging out with younger folks even if we were hippies. Mrs. Nobel talked-down at Buddy, treating him as though he were an invalid, but I could see that Buddy was more than he appeared to be.

“So, boy, what were you doing up at the house, checkin’ out the young’un?” Buddy passed the jug back.

“Naw, I was just being friendly…” I was busted, and I knew it.

“… Well, t’aint none of my business but Alicia is a bit young fer ya,” Buddy was grinning, but I could tell he was serious and that it was very much his business.

“Aw, Buddy, I’m not into that,” I protested, nonetheless.

“Let me tell ya, if Sis ever catches ya… ya might as well take up residence on another planet!” With that he slapped me on the back, “Speakin’ of horseshit, c’mon, we got a truck-load of it to unload… bring the jug and we’ll go t’ my place afterwards.”

We unloaded the manure from the truck. I was tired, and my back ached from the not so old back injury. I enjoyed the work however, and it gave my mind a break from the haunting guilt of what I might have done had Buddy and Ray not shown up when they did. Furthermore, I knew that Buddy knew what I’d been up to. Buddy, so far as I could tell hadn’t judged me. I marveled at the open-minded kindness these so-called hicks had for each other: open-minded, sure, but I wasn’t so positive how tolerant they’d be if they caught me in my nonsense with one of their ‘young-uns’.

“When I got busted I thought I’d change,” I confided with Ray one evening, “I never wanted to go back to the darkness I was in. Now I’m confused. I might as well go with my feelings.”

“Hey, what’s the problem?” Ray was shaking out the last of his stash from its baggie… enough to roll a very thin joint. “We oughta go down to see my friend Joe and see if he’s got any pot.”

“Joe?”

“Remember him? The other trustee… the black one I worked with in jail. He told me he could get me whatever I needed when I got out.”

Ray borrowed Buddy’s truck and we headed down to the ‘other side of the tracks’.

These are all their words, not mine. I was amused that there really were still places referred to as the ‘other side of the tracks’ where the black folks lived. In polite company it was still referred to as, down where the Negroes lived, but the white trash just called it Nigger Town. I’d been mildly familiar with the notion but there was a definite apartheid still going on in Crestview at that time. Not everyone sympathized with the KKK, but racism was institutionalized and, even though the laws were changing, it ran deep in the peoples’ blood from centuries of it taught in classrooms and from the pulpit. I had a feeling that the same people who treated the help politely, and would frown on redneck racism, were just as disturbed to see colored folks get what they called, uppity.

The houses on the other side of the tracks were, for the most part, well kept. Joe lived with his grandparents and their house was a small one with a small front yard corralled by a white picket fence. The yard had a row of rose bushes, trimmed back for winter, lining each side of the short walkway leading up to a front porch with a swinging bench welcoming the view. As we entered the living room I noted a framed print on one side of a blaring TV of a praying, Garden of Gethsemane Jesus and a framed picture of John F. Kennedy on the other. A piano, with hymns on the music sheet and a well-worn Bible on the coffee table, took up most of the room. An elderly woman greeted us from where she sat in a recliner. She shouted over the noise from the TV, “You boys comin’ for Joseph?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ray answered, “You know where he is?”

“Yes… but so do you if he ain’t here.”

“Is he down at Winnie’s?” Ray took an educated guess.

Her attention went right back to the TV without saying a word.

Winnie’s was just a house turned into a bar of sorts, a juke joint. The living room had four small tables on a bare floor with a counter across the entrance to the kitchen where the drinks were served. Ray and I were the only white faces in the place and all eyes were on us. I was relieved when Ray spotted Joe in the corner nursing a bottle of Ripple.

“Hey, Ray, whazzzhappenin’?” Joe’s eyes were bloodshot.

“I’m okay, what you up to?”

“I’m Ripplin’ Bro.” Joe already knew what Ray was there for. White boys don’t come to a place like Winnie’s unless we’re buying pussy or pot, “Git yo’selves somethin’ to drink and sit yo’asses down.”

I was uncomfortable and half-hoped Ray would get down to business right away and get out of there, but a drink would be good to settle my nerves. Winnie didn’t have a selection beyond canned beer, coka-cola mix for whatever the customers brought in, and, of course, Ripple. Winnie reached down and pulled out a couple of bottles of Ripple from an old rusty red Cola cooler for us and we sat down with Joe while he rolled a joint.

“I ‘member y’all…” Joe slurred as he acknowledged me, “You the one who busted up the doors to the cell block!” He raised his hand to high-five me. I returned the gesture and relaxed, and drew a pull off the Ripple.

He encouraged me to drink, “This here is nigger champagne, Max… it’ll git you Rippling.”

It was syrupy sweet, but bubbly enough, to allow the alcohol content to make up for the cheapness of it.

We sat there for about an hour talking about our time in jail. Joe spoke of going to Chicago. His reverence for that Northern city reminded me of the way Jamaicans talked of Chicago; like it was some sort of Mecca to aspire to. Then two rednecks came in the door. I recognized one of them and nudged Ray, “Psst, there’s that Cajun we worked for last week.”

Ray’s back was to the door, so he turned to look. The Cajun and his pal were talking in low voices with Winnie, “It’s about a couple of her girls,” Ray whispered.

The Cajun noticed us whispering and came over to our table, “How you boys doin’? He gave Joe a nod and continued, “We come fer a couple of Winnie’s girls…”

Joe’s face was a mask. The Cajun continued as though he needed an excuse, “Ya’ll know, white or black on the outside, it’s all pink on the inside, eh?”

The Cajun laughed but Joe didn’t. His face was still a mask.

After the Cajun and his pal left, two other patrons came to our table. One had a huge Afro and, while the other’s hair was in a net, it was also an Afro. The man with the huge Afro, two-thirds bigger than his head, stood hovering over the table and glowered down at me and Ray. The other pulled up a chair back first, between Ray and Joe, straddling it. His tee-shirt under his jacket had a Black Panther emblem printed on it.

It seemed an eternity before Panther spoke, “Who’s your friends, Joe?”

“They cool. We did time in County,” Joe’s tone was calm, but I could sense tension between them. “This here’s Max and y’all know Ray.”

Panther spoke directly at me, “What was the crackers doin’ here?”

“Looking for pussy, is my guess,” I knew I’d best not say anything more but for the intimidation and I wasn’t sure whether he was talking about us or the Cajun and his pal.

“You guess? Well, where do you know them from?” Panther demanded.

Joe’s mask came back on his face, “Hey, back the fuck off. I told you they was cool.”

“Okay, okay Joe. You never know. See, these white boys don’t come down here but for pussy or pot.” Panther spat-out contempt, “But where are they when the shit hits the fan?”

“Like I said, these guys are friends of mine and they cool…. See,” Joe looked ready for anything now.

“Like Eldridge Cleaver says, Joe, you’re either part of the solution or you’re part of the problem.”

Panther got up out of his chair and walked out the door with Afro.

“Joe, we should get goin’,” Ray lifted his Ripple in a toasting gesture.

“Naw, you guys stay awhile. You Rippling?” He clinked his bottle against ours and we clinked them in unison. “We’ll have one more round, Winnie.”

“You had enough, Joe, now get goin’ back to yo gramma,” Winnie hollered out from the kitchen.

“Naw, Winnie, we ain’t had enough… jess one more round,” Joe insisted we stay seated as he went up to the counter. He came back with three more bottles.

I looked over at Winnie, and I could read the concern on her face, “Yeh, let’s go Joe. We need to get going anyway.”

So we left with the three fresh bottles and dropped Joe off at his place before we made it back to the motel.

The lights were on in the house, but Mrs. Nobel’s car wasn’t in the driveway. Ray pulled on my arm, “Hey, let’s get a sandwich from the fridge.”

We stumbled in the door and I could see that Jennifer and Alicia were watching TV in the living room. On the way to the fridge, I waved at the girls. Alicia came into the kitchen to see what we were up to. I swayed backwards as though I was about to fall but Alicia caught me from around my waist to hold me steady. I glanced into the living room to see if Jenifer was in the line of sight. We fell back on the floor and I rolled her under the table and planted a drunken open-mouthed kiss on Alicia’s lips. She did not pull away. Ray was busy making a sandwich and he hadn’t noticed anything was happening behind him.

“My God! What are you doing!” Jenifer more than scolded.

I let go and looked up from under the table to see Jenifer in the door way to the living room… “Er, we was just funnin’ around, Jen.”

“Alicia, you get upstairs right now! And you get out of here, Max.”

I left the house without a sandwich. Ray was unaware of anything going on. He came back to the motel room with two bologna sandwiches and handed one to me. “What was Jenifer so pissed about, Max?”

“Oh, I don’t know. We’ll hear about it tomorrow.” I turned over with my bologna sandwich pressed under my face into the pillow.

Earlier that afternoon Ray had let a friend, Dave, know that he was going to score some pot. An hour later Dave pulled up in his Volkswagen Beetle. I was passed out but awoke to Dave and Ray arguing over the pot.

“Hey, Ray, you let that nigger rip you off… this shit is all stems and seeds.”

“You don’t like it? You go get your own next time.”

“There won’t be a next time. I’m going back to Chicago tonight.”

I heard that and arose from the bed, “Can I ride with you. I gotta get out of here.”

“Sure, you can help drive. You got a license?”

“No, but I can drive.”