were okay with walking; but she admitted to herself, the idea of them walking alone, even just a few blocks, made her worry, and so, hypocrite wuss that she was, she caved and slavishly drove them. At least this line of cars seemed emblematic of what a decent mixed bag the town was. Charles always said, “A town is only as good as its public schools,” even though he’d been sent off to Woodberry Forest because he’d been something of a problem. In the days of integration, most white townspeople had taken their medicine, opened the schools, and dug in to make the system work for everybody. Not like over in the Delta, for instance, where white people had abandoned the public schools and still perpetuated an un-Christian cycle of failure that would mean, everyone knew, that children would keep leaving and one day there would be nothing left in the Delta but vast corporate farms, computerized machinery, and destitute people, black and white.
It was true that a white academy had opened in their town, too, back in the sixties, subsidized by a wealthy backwoods family that had sold their land in the remote north corner of the state to Weyerhauser. Wanting to “protect their heritage,” the family had usurped the university’s name to add dignity and the suggestion of scholarship. University College Academy— double dignified—had opened in an old country store with seven students, learning their reading, writing, ’rithmatic, and racism. Now UCA was still up and running and operated out of a big new steel building that housed both the library and the gymnasium, and three new Jim Walter homes smushed together for classrooms. But at least UCA absorbed the kind of people who would otherwise be banning books and evolution, creating cotillions and sororities, complaining that black kids got all the playing time on the field or the court, and raising hell about prayers.
But the Delta, Mary Byrd thought sadly. You could go over there, to Shaw or Jonestown, and just looking around was enough to make you cry. The most beautiful, haunted landscape she knew, where every built thing in the tiny cotton-crossroad towns seemed from another time, or another country. She understood its hard past, but for her generation to have turned their backs on it—it sucked. They had had a chance to change history. It was as if crop-dusting poison had eaten their hearts and brains and they were all moving or dying out with all the birds and frogs and bears. Nothing alive but beans, cotton, and farmed catfish. A mosquito empire. Everybody loved the blues, loved to go to the festivals, but go to school with them? Ha. Well, easy for her to say; the university had made their hill town an oasis.
For a second Mary Byrd let her thoughts turn small, to the day’s unhappiness. She suddenly couldn’t wait to see her children. She had her catalogs, and the previous day’s mail had brought her favorite: Home Trends: Practical Products for Practical People . The catalog was so lovable and entertaining because it was exactly the opposite of what it advertised. It should have been called Home Crapola: Unnecessary Make-Work Gadgetry for the Sunset Years . Mary Byrd was always enthralled; the main concerns of the catalog seemed to be dealing with bugs, unruly baseball caps, sleep problems, soap scum, and the protection of wall-to-wall carpeting. Random, nameless cooties were definitely the enemy for these customers. Who were they? The terminally lazy, germ freaks, people with that obsessive-compulsive thing, the really, really bored or the really, really old, or hopeful people with stock in plastics? Teddy bear cleaners. A thing that enabled you to wash baseball caps so that, the description said, they came out of the washer “unscathed.” Sock clips to “end one of the world’s greatest mysteries—missing socks.” Mary Byrd knew this wouldn’t do her any good—socks in her house were hopelessly estranged before they even got to the washer. A shower
It was true that a white academy had opened in their town, too, back in the sixties, subsidized by a wealthy backwoods family that had sold their land in the remote north corner of the state to Weyerhauser. Wanting to “protect their heritage,” the family had usurped the university’s name to add dignity and the suggestion of scholarship. University College Academy— double dignified—had opened in an old country store with seven students, learning their reading, writing, ’rithmatic, and racism. Now UCA was still up and running and operated out of a big new steel building that housed both the library and the gymnasium, and three new Jim Walter homes smushed together for classrooms. But at least UCA absorbed the kind of people who would otherwise be banning books and evolution, creating cotillions and sororities, complaining that black kids got all the playing time on the field or the court, and raising hell about prayers.
But the Delta, Mary Byrd thought sadly. You could go over there, to Shaw or Jonestown, and just looking around was enough to make you cry. The most beautiful, haunted landscape she knew, where every built thing in the tiny cotton-crossroad towns seemed from another time, or another country. She understood its hard past, but for her generation to have turned their backs on it—it sucked. They had had a chance to change history. It was as if crop-dusting poison had eaten their hearts and brains and they were all moving or dying out with all the birds and frogs and bears. Nothing alive but beans, cotton, and farmed catfish. A mosquito empire. Everybody loved the blues, loved to go to the festivals, but go to school with them? Ha. Well, easy for her to say; the university had made their hill town an oasis.
For a second Mary Byrd let her thoughts turn small, to the day’s unhappiness. She suddenly couldn’t wait to see her children. She had her catalogs, and the previous day’s mail had brought her favorite: Home Trends: Practical Products for Practical People . The catalog was so lovable and entertaining because it was exactly the opposite of what it advertised. It should have been called Home Crapola: Unnecessary Make-Work Gadgetry for the Sunset Years . Mary Byrd was always enthralled; the main concerns of the catalog seemed to be dealing with bugs, unruly baseball caps, sleep problems, soap scum, and the protection of wall-to-wall carpeting. Random, nameless cooties were definitely the enemy for these customers. Who were they? The terminally lazy, germ freaks, people with that obsessive-compulsive thing, the really, really bored or the really, really old, or hopeful people with stock in plastics? Teddy bear cleaners. A thing that enabled you to wash baseball caps so that, the description said, they came out of the washer “unscathed.” Sock clips to “end one of the world’s greatest mysteries—missing socks.” Mary Byrd knew this wouldn’t do her any good—socks in her house were hopelessly estranged before they even got to the washer. A shower
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