called me a nigger. And the next thing I knew, I had a rope squeezed tight around my neck and black terror slitherin through my belly like a water moccasin.
“We gon’ teach you a lesson about botherin white ladies,” said the one holdin the rope.
’Cept I hadn’t been botherin her, just fixin her tire. But she didn’t volunteer no other story, and I didn’t say nothin ’cause for sure they wadn’t gon’ be believin me. I figured if I spoke, it would just add to my troubles.
I kept an eye on the boy with the rope, and when he lashed it to his saddle, I knowed what was comin and got real scared. With both hands, I reached up to try to get the rope loose. That’s when they snapped their reins and took off just a-laughin.
The horses trotted at first, goin slow enough for me to run. I was stumblin along behind, my hands still graspin at the noose and me tryin to keep my feet under me. The horses was only maybe ten feet in front of me, and I could hear their feet beatin the dirt. The dust stung my eyes. I could taste it.
Then I heard a whoop and a holler. My feet flew out from under me and I crashed down in the dirt, my knees and elbows skiddin down the road. The horses pounded and pounded and I held on to the noose like a steerin wheel, tryin to pry my fingers inside of it to keep the noose from closin in tighter. The dirt was blindin me and chokin me. My shirtsleeves and the knees of my britches tore away, then my skin peeled back like a rabbit ready for the skillet. I couldn’t hear no more laughin, just the terrible thunder of them horses draggin me down to die.
I expect I would a’ died if Bobby and his aunt, the Man’s wife from the other plantation, hadn’t been drivin down the road right then. I’d about blacked out by that time, and I don’t really remember too much of what happened next. I just know the draggin all of a sudden stopped. I peeked through my eyes, which had swoll up to slits and seen Bobby’s aunt standin in the road pointin a shotgun at them boys on horses.
“Cut him loose!” she hollered. I felt the noose go slack and seen the raggedy end of the rope fall to the ground like a snake with the evil gone out of it. Then I heard them boys ride off laughin.
Bobby and his aunt hustled me into their car and drove me to my auntie’s house. She tended to me with her roots and potions, slatherin a paste on my eyes to ease the swellin. I stayed in her bed a week till the swellin went down and I could see good again. Took about that long for my skin to scab over so I could put on pants and a shirt.
I knowed who done it. And I figured their daddies was in the Klan. But in Red River Parish, colored men had learned it was better to keep their mouths shut than tell what they know, ’less they wanted worse things to happen to their family, like maybe wakin up in the middle of the night with the house on fire.
Lookin back, I figure what them boys done caused me to get a little throwed off in life. And for sure I wadn’t gon’ be offerin to help no white ladies no more.
11
The first time I saw Deborah, I began plotting to steal her. Not for myself at first, but for Sigma Chi, the fraternity I pledged after transferring from East Texas State to TCU as a sophomore. It was the spring of 1965, and I was on academic probation. Deborah, meanwhile, was a sophomore on an academic scholarship, and by the time I met her was also a Tri Delt sorority girl and a “sweetheart” of Delta Tau Delta, our rival fraternity. I planned to make her a Sigma Chi sweetheart, a little inter-frat coup that carried with it the novel perk of adding an intellectual girl to our table at the Student Union.
Deborah grew up in Snyder, a tumbleweed-tossed West Texas town so flat you could stand on a cow chip and see New Mexico. It’s an everybody-knows- your-business place where schoolchildren dream of traveling to exotic places like Lubbock or Abilene. Nothing green grows there outside the produce section at the Piggly
“We gon’ teach you a lesson about botherin white ladies,” said the one holdin the rope.
’Cept I hadn’t been botherin her, just fixin her tire. But she didn’t volunteer no other story, and I didn’t say nothin ’cause for sure they wadn’t gon’ be believin me. I figured if I spoke, it would just add to my troubles.
I kept an eye on the boy with the rope, and when he lashed it to his saddle, I knowed what was comin and got real scared. With both hands, I reached up to try to get the rope loose. That’s when they snapped their reins and took off just a-laughin.
The horses trotted at first, goin slow enough for me to run. I was stumblin along behind, my hands still graspin at the noose and me tryin to keep my feet under me. The horses was only maybe ten feet in front of me, and I could hear their feet beatin the dirt. The dust stung my eyes. I could taste it.
Then I heard a whoop and a holler. My feet flew out from under me and I crashed down in the dirt, my knees and elbows skiddin down the road. The horses pounded and pounded and I held on to the noose like a steerin wheel, tryin to pry my fingers inside of it to keep the noose from closin in tighter. The dirt was blindin me and chokin me. My shirtsleeves and the knees of my britches tore away, then my skin peeled back like a rabbit ready for the skillet. I couldn’t hear no more laughin, just the terrible thunder of them horses draggin me down to die.
I expect I would a’ died if Bobby and his aunt, the Man’s wife from the other plantation, hadn’t been drivin down the road right then. I’d about blacked out by that time, and I don’t really remember too much of what happened next. I just know the draggin all of a sudden stopped. I peeked through my eyes, which had swoll up to slits and seen Bobby’s aunt standin in the road pointin a shotgun at them boys on horses.
“Cut him loose!” she hollered. I felt the noose go slack and seen the raggedy end of the rope fall to the ground like a snake with the evil gone out of it. Then I heard them boys ride off laughin.
Bobby and his aunt hustled me into their car and drove me to my auntie’s house. She tended to me with her roots and potions, slatherin a paste on my eyes to ease the swellin. I stayed in her bed a week till the swellin went down and I could see good again. Took about that long for my skin to scab over so I could put on pants and a shirt.
I knowed who done it. And I figured their daddies was in the Klan. But in Red River Parish, colored men had learned it was better to keep their mouths shut than tell what they know, ’less they wanted worse things to happen to their family, like maybe wakin up in the middle of the night with the house on fire.
Lookin back, I figure what them boys done caused me to get a little throwed off in life. And for sure I wadn’t gon’ be offerin to help no white ladies no more.
11
The first time I saw Deborah, I began plotting to steal her. Not for myself at first, but for Sigma Chi, the fraternity I pledged after transferring from East Texas State to TCU as a sophomore. It was the spring of 1965, and I was on academic probation. Deborah, meanwhile, was a sophomore on an academic scholarship, and by the time I met her was also a Tri Delt sorority girl and a “sweetheart” of Delta Tau Delta, our rival fraternity. I planned to make her a Sigma Chi sweetheart, a little inter-frat coup that carried with it the novel perk of adding an intellectual girl to our table at the Student Union.
Deborah grew up in Snyder, a tumbleweed-tossed West Texas town so flat you could stand on a cow chip and see New Mexico. It’s an everybody-knows- your-business place where schoolchildren dream of traveling to exotic places like Lubbock or Abilene. Nothing green grows there outside the produce section at the Piggly
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