How High the Moon

ella

What was I thinking, leaving home with no shoes?

Running down our driveway and onto the packed and dry dirt road, I hardly noticed my bare feet. I’d heard Granny calling after me, but the words didn’t make sense until I’d already turned off into the woods toward the creek, where the fallen blackberry brambles and knobby tree limbs stabbed and scraped.

“Ella! Your shoes! Your shoes!” she hollered after me.

I tore through the woods, my legs trying to keep pace with my pounding heart. Later, at home, I’d discover deep scratches and cuts covering my ankles and the soles of my feet. One cut was so deep, I’d leave a trail of blood across the porch and clear on into the kitchen.

But I couldn’t feel none of that now—there was just my good news.

I was finally going to live in Boston with Mama.

I pushed a low poplar branch out of my way and arrived at Creek’s Clearing, just before the water’s edge. I’d almost lost my hat twice on the way to the creek. It blew clear off my head. Dirt and broken leaves clung to the dark felt, making it dusty and gray, and I beat at them till they finally came loose. No one in Clarendon County had a hat like mine: a Stetson Cavalry. I had found it in the woods, caked in a layer of dry brown earth. The black felt didn’t have a single nick or worn patch. The gold braid ’round the brim wasn’t frayed at all. I’d taken it home and cleaned it up good as new. Still, some folks took issue with me, a girl, sporting such a hat. I paid them no mind. I was my own boss and did things my way. Just like my mama.

I spotted Henry below, ankle deep in the water with his trousers rolled up, bouncing his fishing line up and down. He insisted it made the big fish take the worm for a sick fish that was easy prey. Heck! How would he know? He never did catch nothing.

“Henry!” I called, waving the telegram high over my head.

Come stay with me in Boston is what it said.

Stay. She didn’t say visit. She said Come stay.

Still, I knew it was a trial of sorts. Mama always said that with all the work she had to do it’d be hard for her to look after me. I was gonna need to prove to her that I had grown up enough to help take care of myself.

“It wouldn’t be fair to you, Ella,” she’d said before. “But one day you’ll be big enough.”

And now, that one day had come. I’d show Mama that I could cook and clean, and even make life easier for her. I was grown now. I wouldn’t get in the way.

Henry stopped bouncing the line and squinted up at me. With one hand on his hip and the other shielding his eyes from the sun, he jutted his chin toward the telegram. “What’s that?”

“I’m going to Boston!”

I ran down to him, slapped the telegram on his chest, and flopped down on the grass. The air had the crisp snap of autumn and its perfectly clear blue skies. Everything smelled clean. I closed my eyes and felt the warm sun on my face.

“Wait. What do you mean you’re going there? To Boston?!”

Just hearing that out loud made me spring to my feet and do a little dance.

Boston was nothing like South Carolina. Up there, colored folks could go anywhere they wanted. And you didn’t have to wait for church to dress in fancy clothes. Fancy was just life. There was all kinds of people, from all over the world. Italian, Chinese, French. And they brought their food with them, too. You could eat Chinese food in Boston. Everything was big and everything was real clean and nice. People there were sophisticated. My mama had been living up there for so long that when she came to visit us in Alcolu, you could see the difference in her a mile away. She’d be walking up the road and folks’d take note ’fore they even made out the features of her face. I mean, sure, she had always stood out from the rest, had always been different from the other folks in our little town but now they gave it a name. She was a city girl.

“Can you believe it?” I spun around. Did a fan kick. An envelope fell out of the side pocket of my overalls.

“Oh, shoot, Henry.” I handed him the letter. “I almost forgot. This is for you.”

Henry’s face beamed when he looked at the letter and recognized the handwriting. His daddy’d been fighting in the war for almost two years and Henry missed him something awful. He saved every letter his daddy sent, and sometimes he’d even sit down on his bed and read ’em all, from the first one to the last, like they was a book.

“Thanks! I’ll read it later.” He tucked it in his front pocket and did his best to hide his smile. Getting a letter from his daddy made him happier than anything, but Henry didn’t want to make me feel bad that I didn’t have a daddy to send me letters.

I pointed to the place he’d stashed the envelope. “Maybe Mama’s ready to tell me about my daddy,” I said.

“Granny already said he’s in California.” Henry sat down on a tall dry rock in the creek and rubbed his heels on its rough surface.

“Yeah, but that’s all I know. I wanna know why they ain’t together no more. And why he went to California in the first place.” I stuck my toes in the cool water along the edge of the creek and wrapped them around a small rock, trying to lift it. “I know I used to say I thought my daddy was doing some secret spy work for the war, but now I’m starting to think…”

“What?” Henry asked.

“Don’t laugh,” I warned.

He raised his eyebrows, a grin already twisting the corners of his mouth.

I took a breath. “I’m starting to seriously think that my daddy is Cab Calloway.”

Henry grabbed his belly and teetered back and forth like an egg on a plate. He almost fell over into the creek laughing.

“What! You mean the jazz singer Cab Calloway? You mean ‘Minnie the Moocher’ Cab Calloway?” Henry hooted. “Ella, you’s crazy!”

“Cut it out! I know it sounds crazy, but think about it. He’s in the jazz world, like Mama. He looks like he could be my daddy, all light-complected and all. And now he’s off in California making movies!”

Henry looked like he might bust a gut.

“Okay, okay, laugh all you want, but how come we ain’t got no pictures of my daddy? Nobody does. What’s that about? It’s ’cause they think I’ll tell everyone and then all the gossip papers will be on our doorstep. But when Mama sees that I’m not a little girl anymore, that I can keep a secret, she’ll open up. You watch.”

Henry nodded and shrugged. He wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes and caught his breath.

“So, you going to be up in Boston for Christmas?” he asked.

I pointed to the telegram. “She said she’ll send for me in a couple months. That’s two, right? So that’ll be before Christmas, yeah.”

“How long you reckon you gonna stay?” He was staring down at my telegram, reading it over carefully and frowning.

“Well, once I show Mama how mature I’ve become, that I can take care of myself pretty good and not get in her hair none, I think…”

Then I stopped. I’d been so full with the excitement of being with Mama, her sweet vanilla smell against my cheek, that I hadn’t thought about how it might all hit Henry. I hadn’t been thinking of the whole picture. Henry and I were cousins, but it was common knowledge that we were also the best of friends. We were only one year apart, me being eleven and him twelve. He knew me better than anyone and it went the same way for me about him. Thick as thieves, Poppy would say. We’d both been raised by Granny and Poppy for most of our lives. Just us and our cousin Myrna. Ever since she turned fourteen she didn’t wanna have nothing to do with us, but Henry and I had never been separated.

And now the look on his face said it all.

“Of course, I’ll have to come back to get all of my stuff,” I said. “And then I guess I’ll come back to visit sometimes.”

“What stuff?” He scowled at me.

“Oh, I don’t know, Henry, but I’ll be back,” I said.

“You’re really gonna go live there? Up in Boston?” He held the fishing pole in one hand and scratched wildly over his whole scalp with the other.

“I think it’s time,” I said. “I think Mama thinks it’s time.”

“Where’ll you go to school?” he asked. He’d stopped scratching and had his hand on his hip.

“There’s schools in Boston, too, Henry.”

“But you don’t know nobody.” He stood, looked into the water, and started bouncing the fishing line again.

“I’ll meet new folks. At my new school, there’ll be—”

“Who’s gonna feed the chickens and feed Bear and—”

“Y’all don’t need me for all that! C’mon, Henry!”

“Just seems like—”

“You’re acting like this ain’t a good thing!”

“Now, c’mon, Ella. I never said that.”

“Then be happy for me!”

“What! What are you talking about? I am!” He finally stopped bouncing the line and looked up from the creek.

We stared at each other for a moment, silent. Neither one of us knew what to say. I finally looked away, down at the gurgling water under Henry’s feet. A single white feather was balanced on its surface. Henry looked down and saw it, too. We watched as the creek carried it past us, over the rocks and away, until it disappeared ’round a curve of trees and brush.

Henry read the telegram one last time. He lifted the fishing pole from the water, stood it upright, and let it lean against his body while he folded the piece of paper in half, carefully matching the corners. A suspender fell from his bony shoulder as he folded it again, and then once more.

“Aw, you gonna miss me, Henry?” I teased, and I smiled at my cousin, then grabbed hold of his fishing pole and shoved him aside. I was better at fishing than Henry had ever been and he knew it. I always caught more fish than he did. He was a good teacher, though. Heck, he had taught me everything I knew. Still, it irked him that he never seemed to have the same good luck. Made a point of reminding me where I had learned my skills whenever he could.

He shrugged.

I leaned over and gave him a poke in the ribs. When he pushed my hand, I poked the other side where I hit a tickly spot and he let out a short unexpected laugh. I gave a tickle to his armpit before he could block me and he laughed some more. Soon I was poking and tickling him all over and we were both laughing.

“Stop!” He waved his hands and shook his head. He was trying to fight his smile. I stopped and looked into his face, making him meet my eyes. When he finally did, he said, “Yeah, of course. Of course I’ll miss you.” He handed the neatly folded telegram to me. “I think it’s great, Ella. I am happy for you. What you think you’re gonna do there?”

“I don’t know. I’m sure Mama will think of some fun stuff for us to do.” I waded out a little farther into the cold creek. “Maybe we’ll go to a restaurant!”

“Yeah,” Henry said. He was trying to smile for me, but was still chewing on his lip and frowning a little.

“Heck, just getting to stay with her at her house will be great, you know?” I tried not to show it, but the thought made my heart jump.

“I wonder where she lives,” he said. “What her house is like. You think it’s big?”

“I don’t know. Granny says Boston’s a big city and that when the cities are big, the houses are small. Either way don’t matter to me.”

Something yanked on the line.

“Henry! Grab it!” I shoved the line into his hands. He staggered a bit, battling the strength of the fish. The pole curved. Henry held on tight. As he reeled it out of the water, a two-foot-long largemouth bass flailed about wildly.

“Whoa!” I heard myself say. “Can you get it?”

Henry’s legs straddled the rocky creek’s edge while his feet gripped the jagged stones. The muscles of his skinny arms tightened, struggling to keep hold of the big fish.

“Oh, man!” he exclaimed, face twisted tight.

Finally he had it high enough out of the water that he was able to fling it over to the rocks, near me, where it thrashed some more.

“Dang thing’s really moving!” he shouted, half at me, half at the fish. He kept reaching for it, then drawing back, unsure of how to attack.

“You gotta just grab it, Henry!” I shouted.

“I know!”

The largemouth escaped his grip a few times before Henry finally managed to free the hook from its mouth and toss the fish into the bucket he’d brought from the house.

“Nice job!” I told him. He laughed and wiped the sweat from his face with his handkerchief.

“Man!” He panted. “It’s big.”

“Sure is.”

A large cloud blocked the sun, giving us a needed moment of shade.

“Just think, Henry. After I been up there a little while, you can come up and visit. You can visit all the time!” I said.

He thought about it a moment. “I’d like to see Boston,” he said.

“Of course you would! Get outta this boring ol’ place!”

We watched as the bass’s thrashing slowed, then stopped altogether, its gaze fixed on somewhere far away.

After reeling in his big catch, we were ready to head home.

“I think, if I had my choice, I’d definitely be a Tuskegee Airman.” I stopped to lean against a tree and pull a burr from the bottom of my foot. “Getting to fly them fighter planes? You kidding me?” With my arms outstretched, I flew through the woods.

“They’re airmen! Ain’t no girls flying fighter planes,” said Henry, trying to keep up with me.

“I’d be the first one, then!” I called over my shoulder at Henry, only half paying attention to where I was headed, so it wasn’t until I was already close to him that I saw the boy.

Sitting in the V of a large oak tree was a white boy I’d never seen before. Must’ve been about fourteen years old. He had the look of someone who’d just smelled something bad, and there were little craters on his cheeks. There weren’t any white folks living over on this side of the tracks except for the Parkers, who owned the local store. Folks passed through, but it was unusual to see a white boy just plopped down in the woods like that.

“The first what?” he asked.

I looked down. “Oh, nothing, sir,” I said. Henry was quickly by my side, walking fast. His hand at his side motioned me to keep on walking. I followed Henry, but the boy jumped from the tree and began to follow us.

“Where’d you get that hat, girl?” he asked, thumping the back of my Stetson.

I was stepping on thorns, but didn’t dare stop. “Found it,” I answered.

“Stole it!” he barked in my ear, then thumped my hat again.

“No, sir,” I said. I was trying to move fast, but he was moving faster, and with little effort. He walked alongside me, smiling now.

“I said, where’d you get that hat, girl?”

I kept walking.

“Answer me, girl!”

“Sir?” I didn’t know why he kept asking me that or what he wanted me to say back. I’d already told the truth. Henry was leading us to the road. We’d be there soon and then, out in the open, the boy might go on home.

“How old are you?” he asked, flipping my braid, then thumping my hat once more.

“Eleven, sir,” I whispered.

Thump.

I saw the road out in front of us and felt relief flood my body. I couldn’t wait no more. I ran. Took off for the road and down it for home. Henry was right on my heels.

“Hey!” I heard the boy call.

I don’t think he followed but I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t look back.

ella

“Let’s race!”

Amie Stinney, all of seven years old, was big on racing us older kids. Could’ve had something to do with the fact that we always let her win. She got to thinking she was a superhero. She’d shout out the challenge and those little twig legs of hers would be off and running before she even got the words all the way out of her mouth. Still, we took off after her, laughing and shouting, but never going full speed. With her scraggly braids flying, she’d get so excited that she was about to win that she’d start giggling and shrieking uncontrollably. Most of us would have to stop before the finish, we’d be bent over laughing so hard.

“It’s okay, Amie!” we’d say. “We’ll get you later!”

“Whatever you say, slowpokes!”

We always ran into Amie and other kids from school on the last stretch of road before the schoolhouse.

Amie’s older brother, George, was fourteen, and sweet on Myrna. I thought it was kinda funny ’cause Myrna was taller than the other girls and George was shorter than the other boys. That didn’t stop them from constantly trying to sneak glances at each other and grinning. Like nobody else knew! Please!

George was a straight-A student like Myrna, and kinda bashful, like she was. His brother Charles, and his other sister, Kathrine, went to school with us, too, but mostly it was George, and his little shadow, Amie, that we saw, on account of George’s crush on our cousin.

Just as we were about to go into our classroom, I realized I’d forgotten my lunch.

“Henry, you got your lunch?” I asked him, pulling open his book bag to check if maybe mine was there, too.

“I think Myrna picked ’em both up.” He turned just as Myrna sauntered up to us with her best friends, Loretta Rollins and Peggy Woods.

“Here.” She tossed Henry’s sack lunch at his feet, then did the same with mine. “Next time, I’ll leave it and y’all just gonna starve.” She linked her arms with the girls’ and walked on.

“Myrna!” Henry sucked his teeth and gathered the orange that had rolled out of the bag.

They didn’t as much as turn around. Noses high. Hips switching.

Close on the girls’ heels were George Stinney and his buddies, Fred Turner and Ben Jackson.

Since Myrna turned fourteen over the summer all she did was hang around with her friends. And wherever the girls went, the boys wound up there, too. Circling them like turkey vultures over a squashed squirrel.

I rolled my eyes and headed on into class.

Later, at recess, I was playing jackstones with Gloria when I heard Pookie Rogers talking about me.

“Show Ella! Show Ella!” she was saying. I turned from the game to see Pookie and a couple other kids huddled over Ben Jackson’s new magazine. Ben’s big brother worked weekends at a newsstand in Charleston and always came home with the magazines that didn’t sell and had to be moved out to make way for the new ones.

“Show me what?” I walked over to the group and, as I did, they all looked up at me. Staring at me like I was a two-headed chicken. “What?” I asked as I pushed my way through to see the magazine on Ben’s lap. It was open to a photograph of a girl about my age with peanut-colored skin like mine. Her brown hair was brushed out straight, but it didn’t quite lay down flat like white people’s hair. She wore a pearl headdress and a ruffled satin blouse. Arms folded over the side of the chair she sat on, she stared dramatically off into space.

“She look just like you!” Pookie spat.

“Does not!” I said, and leaned in to look again. There was another picture of the girl on the opposite page, smiling this time, with Shirley Temple curls in her hair. She was playing dominoes with a black man in a fine suit while a well-dressed white woman looked on and smiled.

“That’s her pa, and that white lady is her mama,” Ben said. “Can you believe that?”

“She’s a prodigy,” Fred said.

“That like a donkey?” Pookie asked.

“No, stupid. Means she can play the piano real good,” said Ben. The bell rang for us to get back to class. “But she’s definitely a zebra. A zebra playing a piano! Sounds like a circus sideshow!” He laughed, and as he stood, he looked at me and winked. They all followed him in. Pookie, bringing up the rear, looked at me over her shoulder and giggled.

I turned to Gloria. “I don’t look nothing like that zebra,” I said.

“No, Ella,” Gloria said, shaking her head. But she didn’t look me in the eye when she said it. She quickly gathered up the jackstones and went inside.

We were on our way home from school with a bunch of other kids when we spotted a stretch of wild blackberry bushes, heavy with full, black fruit. It was pretty late in the season, so we considered it a real treat. Henry, his buddy Franklin, George, and some other boys all yanked off their hats and started loading them up. I pulled off my Stetson and did the same.

“Spiffy hat there, Ella!” George pointed at my Stetson and gave me a thumbs-up.

I smiled and, without meaning to, stroked the soft felt, tracing the perfect gold braid. As I turned back to the berry bush, I saw something moving on the ground. Something small. Barely anything. I popped the two berries from inside my hat into my mouth and returned the hat to my head, then knelt down, trying not to make too much commotion, and gently nudged my hand under the striped black-and-yellow caterpillar there. I eased him up onto my hand. His tiny feet were moving steadily, long body undulating. I quickly brought my other hand around to catch him if he should move too quickly for me.

“Whatcha got there?” Franklin asked. I turned slowly, trying not to startle the fragile creature.

“It’s a monarch caterpillar,” I said. Heads leaned in for a look.

“Oooh!”

“You sure?”

“It’s pretty.”

“It’s fat.”

A swift hand appeared before I had a chance to register it and knocked the caterpillar from the back of my hand onto the ground, followed by a foot, crushing it.

“Now it’s dead.” Ben laughed and walked past us to gather more berries.

“Aw, Ben!”

“You so mean!”

“Gross!”

Then they all went back to picking berries.

I could feel my blood boiling. I hated Ben Jackson. I swear he thought the sun came up just to hear him crow. He always had to be the loudest. Always had to be the funniest. Couldn’t let nobody else shine. Not even a baby butterfly. Now I hated him even more.

I walked past Ben to where Henry had been gathering berries.

“Dang,” Henry said, mouth full of berries. “They sweet!” I saw his fingers reach for a lighter-colored berry.

“Don’t pick the ones with red in ’em!” I slapped Henry’s fingers from the underripe berry. “Here!” I tossed a plump berry up high over his head.

He caught it in his mouth and pointed at himself. “You see that?” He grinned.

I laughed. “I can do it, too!” I grabbed a berry, tossed it up, and readied my gaping mouth under it. It bounced off my chin. “Darn!” I found it on the ground, dusted it off, and tried again. It bounced off my forehead.

“Aw, c’mon, girl!” Ben crowed. “It’s easy!” He grabbed a berry, effortlessly tossed it up, and caught it in his slimy smile. He winked at me and chewed, his mouth open a little so I could see the dark juice staining his teeth. “Besides, if Henry can do it, then you can!” He turned to the other boys, laughing, pleased with himself.

Henry, with his back to Ben, said nothing. The deep furrow of his brow told me he was going to try to ignore him.

I reached into Henry’s hat for another berry.

A few of the other kids were trying it now. I grabbed another, and another, until finally one landed on my tongue.

“Yes!”

Henry held the brim of his hat by his teeth so he could offer up applause. He let out a muffled “Woohoo!”

Ben shrugged and snorted. “Good job there, zebra,” he said under his breath.

I didn’t say anything, but my neck and cheeks felt like they were on fire.

“Shut up, Ben!” Henry said.

Ben quickly wheeled around and walked straight to Henry. Stood over him. “What you gonna do, pip-squeak?” Ben, a full head taller than Henry, was close enough he could’ve kissed him. “Huh?” Henry looked down and backed up a step.

George grabbed Ben’s arm and pushed him away from Henry. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked him. Over his shoulder George said to Henry, “It’s all right, little man. Don’t mind him.”

Everybody went back to picking berries. Loading berries in their hats. Tossing ’em in the air and catching them. All but me and Henry. I could hear Ben laughing. Henry stared into his empty hat, nostrils flaring.

“I think most of them berries is red, anyhow,” I said. “We done ate all the good ones.” But Henry was already walking back toward our house.

Bear hobbled down the driveway to meet us when we got home. Tongue hanging, tail end wagging away.

“Hey, boy!” We dug into his thick fur and scratched him good.