He was up ahead, growing smaller with each step. The copper in his hair caught the light and glinted back to her, a beacon showing her the way.
The wind breathed at her back, lifted her burnished hair so that it tickled against the pink of her cheek. On she went, high-stepping through the dry grass, trailing the shrinking figure as he neared the far edge of the field.
“Wait!” she called to him, but her tiny voice couldn’t span the space between them. Heart heavy with disappointment, legs growing tired, she slowed her steps and debated turning back. She trudged a few forlorn steps more before stopping in defeat, a stray tear streaking her dusty face. The little one tucked her chin to her chest and turned for the house, when suddenly the breeze whispered in her ear, sounding like him.
“Come on, Cooter! Come on, Cooter!”
Spirit renewed, she turned to see that he had stopped to wait for her. “Come on, Cooter!”
“I’m coming, Daddy!” she howled back. Knobby knees again kissing the air as she stepped high, high as her heart, the sun again caught the fire in his hair, beckoning her forward.
Maybe she didn’t tell it quite like that, but that’s how the scene played in my mind as I listened. That was many moons ago, yet I can remember the red of her hair and the sound of her laugh—and mine—as she told us her stories. There were, in fact, a handful of them, armed with bag chairs and genealogies and time, both past and present.
We called it “Heritage Day at Payne Lake,” an initial attempt to establish the Talladega National Forest as a heritage corridor. Our small group set up an easel with an oversized pad of paper, and as they talked—sometimes to us, sometimes to each other as if we’d disappeared altogether—we’d take turns jotting notes and asking the occasional question. Mostly, we just listened.
They told of Depression days, when food might’ve been scarce but love was not. They enthralled us with tales of bootleggers and stills and revenuers, of outlaws and runaway slaves and an apocryphal-sounding cave that offered shelter when a body needed to disappear. I say it’s apocryphal-sounding, because many of the claims surrounding its existence and whereabouts were the source of much debate.
No matter. We believed.
I’ve often lamented that I was born much too late. Not that my mind had the time, nor the inclination, to wander as I fixed my attention on Ms. Cooter and her cohorts, but on occasion I do remember feeling the slightest bit jealous that these were not my own stories. Some of my most evocative memories are not, in fact, mine, but those of others who were gracious enough to share theirs with me.
As a writer—if I can take the liberty of calling myself such—I make a lot of stuff up. I’m not entirely sure where some of it comes from, but outside of my wildly vivid imagination, I draw upon little gems such as these for the majority of my creative inspiration. I tuck them away in my memory, much the same as we tuck away quilts and other such relics of our lives and the lives of those before us. They’re like ghosts in the attic, which is where all the good stuff is hidden.
I do believe in ghosts, though not necessarily in the sense that the dead linger. It’s the other kind, the abstract ones, that take up residence and haunt us from time to time over the course of our numbered days. They’re pasted into scrapbooks with brittle bindings or stored face-down in some dresser drawer or sequestered into nooks and crannies, between the pages of books, beneath the floorboards, bottled up tight and stowed away for special occasions.
My two cents may be worth less than two actual cents, but if you’ll permit me to throw mine in, then it is my opinion that, both collectively and personally, we’ve by and large lost the propensity to share ourselves with one another, and also to be still and listen when we happen upon someone who will. There’s much wisdom to be had in a good story.
For instance, I have learned not to leave food out if you live in the woods and have a pet door. To do so is to invite a possum to come a-knockin’.
One also should not dare one’s brother to go streaking as a train is coming through, then steal his clothing and lock oneself in the utility room which does not grant entry into the house proper. Such shenanigans will likely be received with a beat and a knock.
Through stories, I’ve learned that wounds heal, laughter cures ailments, hope endures, love wins. They tell of where we’ve been, so that we can better know where we’re going.
Mary Ward Brown told it true, and much better than I. “I’ve always been glad to be alive,” she said, “and I’ve thought about the things I see and hear. A lot of it is wonderful and I wanted to preserve a little of it, I guess. Things that are tragic are as valuable as those that are good. I mean, whatever’s human is good material if you tell the
truth about it. . . . I think it has a better chance of enduring, the truth does.”*
She hugged me once, Ms. Brown. A lot of folks called her Mary T. She caught me as I walked past and hugged me to her, telling the smattering of people gathered around that I would be helping her with a project. To this day, it is one of the greatest regrets I have, that I was unable to do so. I hope some of her rubbed off on me that day.
Many more moons from now, I want a passel of younger ones to sit, transfixed, as I tell them my stories…my parents’ stories…my grandparents’ stories.
Besides, I think I have the makings of a good old ghost, anyway, and one who yawps, at that.
Whether you come from a long line of storytellers, or maybe just have a good tale to tell, I’d love to hear it. You can tell it in the contact section below, or at thebarbaricyawper@gmail.com.
Happy fall, everyone. It’s a good season for yawping.
*The interview with Mary Ward Brown can be found in Pam Kingsbury's Inner Voices, Inner Views: Conversations with Southern Writers.