Dark Don't Catch Me Read Free Page B

could make him unpopular: when the Supreme Court ruling ordered desegregation in the public schools, Ficklin called it progress. Of course he didn’t start any campaign to enforce the law — he isn’t a radical — but he did speak out in favor of putting the Negroes on an equal footing with the whites, and that alone was enough to make a lot of folks in the town wary of him. Doc Sell, for one, became not only wary of him, but disgusted with him; and even now, as he watches Ficklin approach, he feels a twinge of fury. He thinks: Fick married himself a goddam Yankee and turned himself into one of these nigger-lovers; and smiling, touching a finger to his brow in a salute, he says: “Hi, boy!” “Hi, Doc. Colonel. Hi.”
    â€œWho you rooting for in the series, boy?” Colonel asks. “Dodgers, I guess. Feel sorry for them. Nice to see them win one.”
    â€œYep!” Sell muses, “you’re partial to the underdog. But I thought you’d be for the
Yankees,
boy.”
    Ficklin is oblivious to the masked insinuation. “You seen Major Post around?” he asks.
    â€œI saw him a while back. Wasn’t an hour ago, was it, Colonel? Wasn’t he over there in Black Patch laughing up a storm with them other niggers?”
    â€œYes,” says Colonel, “but I guess he went on.”
    â€œYou going to Hoopers’ tonight, Colonel?” Ficklin lights a cigarette before turning back to his car.
    â€œI wouldn’t miss one of Thad’s barbecues.”
    â€œWell, I’ll see you there then. Ada coming?”
    As he pauses to suck in some drags on his cigarette, the horn of his automobile honks.
    â€œWife’s in a hurry, eh?” Sell smiles. “All them Yankees rush.”
    â€œYes, Ada’ll be along,” Colonel nods.
    â€œWell, got to get my spouse over to the band rehearsal!” Ficklin waves and starts back to the car.
    Watching him go, Doc Sell says, “Ain’t it just like Fick to hire the uppitiest nigger around to work for him!”
    â€œHmmm?” Colonel murmurs abstractly, thinking. They all know about Ada. Funny I never realized until right now that they all know about her.
    â€¢ • •
    For the most part in Paradise people lead a quiet kind of routine existence that keeps them over-all content. But like people anywhere they sometimes get a hankering for some excitement. A barbecue, like the one the Hoopers are throwing tonight, is one way of satisfying the yen; and there are others with other ways. Maybe the colored get together out at Moccasin Gap and “whup it up” on stumpwater; or maybe some of the poor white “lintheads” that work the mill in nearby Galverton pay a call on Miss Mary Jane Frances Alexander’s establishment, where even if the humping isn’t as wild as Macon tail, it’s cheaper and easier to get at. Individuals, like Hollis Jordan, might work it off by strolling through Awful Dark Woods and belting out a lot of high-sounding poetry for the oaks and black gums to bounce off their trunks; or some, like black Bryan Post, might ease it out of the system by somersaulting clear down Main Street on a bellyful of homebrew beer, while folks standing around gawk and giggle and guffaw.
    There are ways and ways to provide Paradise with this excitement it sometimes craves; and one of the best and most popular ways is to get the band out and playing. When fireworks don’t faze folks much any more and county fairs begin to wear off, the Paradise Bigger Band brings almost everyone back into the fold of 906 citizens of the city; proud and pleased as punch with life in Paradise. Folks say even if the only piece the P.B.B. could play was “Marching Through Georgia,” there’d be a crowd on hand glad to hear it.
    Over at the Methodist Church where Kate Bailey is waiting to rehearse the band, the atmosphere is tense. The members of the P.B.B., all women, sit