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The Scent of Grapes
By Roz Fisher

When I was six years old, Billy Pete Sample peed in the playground sandbox to impress me. I was embarrassed for him when the teacher spanked his hide. Although I acted oblivious to this act of his devotion, I was impressed and he knew it.

I grew up in a small town in Tennessee called Merry. The neighborhood around me was a cocoon of African-American values and tradition, and I liked it there. We had a house; though small, it was ours. It had a porch swing on it, and in the cool of the evening Mama and I would sit there and swing. Sometimes we talked about missing Daddy, who had died of Lupus two years before. We felt his absence deeply.

Sometimes out there in the swing, I could hear Miz Sugar playing her piano or voices carried by the wind from Bennett Alley to me. Mama didn’t want me playing with the kids in Bennett Alley because she said they had worms. I liked the Bennett Alley kids because they were so free with everything. They didn’t have much, but they were generous. The way they played was free, too. They laughed aloud with gaped mouths, ran hard, and made fun of everything. I wanted to be like them, able to run around with no shoes on and stay outside past dark. Mama didn’t allow me to do such things.

The only kids who lived near me were the off-limit Bennett Alley kids. Still, sometimes if Mama wasn’t home, Billy Pete or Ruby might sneak over. We created a kingdom among the grape vines, and I told them stories. I read a lot, so I knew plenty of stories. If I told them well, my friends would stay for a while. Billy Pete got bored if we sat around too long. Hiding in the grape vines wasn’t conducive to physical activity, but Ruby didn’t mind. She liked to play with my dolls and listen to me read. Ruby was quiet and sweet as pie. That’s until Billy Pete got to teasing her, and then watch out; she scratched like a cornered alley cat.

I had a case on Billy Pete and he knew it. He liked to see me moon over him. He was always showing off by proving how far he could chuck rocks, or how high he could climb a tree, and stuff like that. I guess maybe he had a case on me, too, although he was a year older than me.

I mostly saw Ruby and Billy Pete on the way to and from school. Sometimes on the weekend, one or both of them might sneak by for a visit. Billy Pete worked, doing odd jobs for some of the well-to-do ladies on Tennessee. He seldom went to school. His family depended on his small earnings for their survival. There were five kids in Billy Pete’s family. All of them except Billy Pete and his big brother Marlin were under twelve. Ruby and Billy Pete’s Mama stayed home with the children, with only welfare money to survive on. Sometimes she went to help out in the kitchen if Miz Peachtree, or some other rich white lady, was having a dinner party.

Ruby had to babysit when this happened. Twice, I snuck down to the Alley and sat with her while she watched the little ones. We talked and had a high time of it, pretending to be one of the Shirelles or the Supremes in between changing baby Eddie's diapers. She could dance better than I could, but I could really belt out a song. Of course, my Mama didn’t approve of me singing any "juke joint" music around her.

Ruby and I were singing and swinging our hips, imitating the Supreme’s song "Stop in the Name of Love," when Ruby’s brother, Marlin, came home. I had never seen more than a glimpse of Marlin as he left their house, and he didn’t seem to have any interest in me. I was only a kid compared to him. Marlin was at least seventeen. When he heard me singing and saw us shimmying around, for the first time, he noticed me. He smiled at us and said, "‘Ya’ll sure be making a lot of noise out there, shaking your little hips.'" Then he laughed. I felt kind of nervous getting attention from someone Marlin’s age, but it made me feel like I was hot stuff, you know? Out of shyness, I stopped dancing and realized how late it was getting.

"I better be getting home," I told Ruby. "It’s getting dark, and Mama will skin me alive if she finds out I was over here."

"Why would she do that?" asked Marlin. I could tell from his voice he had guessed why, but was baiting me.

"She doesn't like me to get out of the neighborhood," I stammered.

"Is that so?" Marlin said. "Are you sure it’s not ‘cause a high yellow schoolteacher’s daughter is too good to be hanging around with Bennett Alley folk?"

Ruby and I watched Marlin with eyes like a startled doe.

"I got to go," I said, hurrying to the door.

Ruby followed me to the door with a worried look on her face.

We hugged each other’s necks like we would never meet again, and she whispered, "Is it true?"

I answered, "You’re my best friend, Ruby." I heard Marlin’s laugh in the darkness behind her as the screen door slammed urgently behind me.

The walk home seemed further than it really was, and every noise spooked me. I thought about Marlin’s comments along the way. When I got home, Mama was waiting on the front porch.

"Where have you been, Miss Lady?" she asked.

"Just playing," I answered.

"Playing in Bennett Alley?"

"Yes, Mama," I answered.

"Go get me a switch, Lady." I moved slowly to the task of picking a switch.

If I got one that was too small, I would be sent back until I brought a tree limb. If I picked something too big, I would suffer the pain. Resolved, I searched for an in-between choice.

Mama switched me good. In between swats of the switch, she said, "I told you to stay away from those Alley kids; they got worms, and that place is dangerous."

I cried for an hour before she told me to hush or she’d give me some more. Later, as we were cleaning the kitchen after dinner, I asked, "Mama, are we better than the Bennett Alley people?"

My Mama’s toast-colored cheeks turned red and she answered me with a sigh. "No, we’re not better, Lady. God created all people equal, but some people do more with what God gave them than others." With a furrow in her forehead, she said, "Some of those people have just found themselves on hard times, but others are just lazy. The point is, I don’t want you hanging around the riffraff who live there. I don’t want you to get hurt. I know you and your friend Ruby play sometimes, Lady. I’ve seen you out the back window, and it’s okay if she comes over here, but don’t you ever go back to Bennett Alley again! Do you hear?"

"Yes, Mama," I answered with glee. I had won a small victory. Ruby could come over and play without us hiding in the grape vines. I remembered our parting sadly, and hoped she would come soon.

She did come. Her family didn’t have a telephone in those days, so I couldn’t call her. I had to wait to see her at school. When I saw her, I told her that my Mama said she could come over and play, like I was giving her a present.

"Even though I’m an alley cat?"

"Ruby, my Mama didn’t call you that and I never would." Ruby was too sweet to hold onto a grudge.

"All right," she agreed. "I’ll come on Saturday after chores."

I waited all Saturday morning. Ruby didn’t show until almost three. We played with my Chatty Kathy doll, jumped rope and played hide and seek.

When Mama called me for supper, I ran in to ask if Ruby could stay. Mama’s face had a "no" look to it and I said, "Mama, Ruby probably won’t have any supper at home, could we give her an apple?" Mama smiled at me and told me to invite Ruby in for supper, and for us to go wash our hands and face.

As I got ready to run to tell Ruby, Mama grabbed my wrist and whispered, "Don’t use the same towel." Ruby seemed a little uncomfortable sitting at our table, but she was clearly impressed with the spread. Mama had cooked ham and green beans and sweet potatoes and cornbread. Ruby ate with temerity. We had strawberries with cream for desert<<,>> and Ruby looked at the strawberries dreamily and said, "Do ya’ll eat like this every day?"

Mama smiled and said, "No, not always." Ruby ate each strawberry like it was precious. It became a habit for Ruby to have dinner with us on Saturdays, and Billy Pete usually showed up for desert. He was too shy with Mama to sit through a whole meal with us females. If he came by, we ate ice cream in the porch swing and talked while savoring the sunset. Those were flawless days.

We grew. Ruby started to come to school less because of her clothes. She got teased by other kids because sometimes hers didn’t fit. The Bennett Alley kids were always picked on. Billy Pete could fight like a champ, but Ruby had such a tender heart. It hurt me to see it. I talked to Mama about it, and we made it a practice to take Ruby shopping with us before special occasions like her birthday, Easter, and Christmas. She loved shopping, and always tried to reciprocate by making us cards or handkerchiefs with our initials on them. I still have those handkerchiefs.

Ruby was an earnest student, a little slow on comprehension, but she loved to read and was an astute mathematician. She knew for sure how much three-fourths of an orange was. We went through elementary and high school together. I had a lot of boys interested in me, but Billy Pete would as soon fight them as look at them, if they hung around too long. I found it to be only a minor nuisance, because I really was impressed with him more than any other boy I knew.

When we got to high school, things started to change. Ruby was sweet, but she wasn’t as interesting as Barbara Southern and Mavis Chambray who were on the pep squad. Ruby had to work after school, and couldn’t join the Merry High School pep squad with me. I seldom saw her at school. We rarely had Saturday dinner anymore. She worked, and I was usually at the football or basketball game. Sometimes we arranged to meet at the dance after the game, but she wouldn’t come unless I invited her. Billy Pete played on the basketball team. He had found his niche and was a real star. I was as proud of him as if I had created him.

Ruby started hanging around with a different crowd. Girls from Bennett Alley, mostly. Those girls wore lots of makeup, and my crowd called them trampy as though it was their first name. Barbara would say, "That Trampy Gloria Reed, or that Trampy Lily Mae Carter," but they never said anything about Ruby to me. I tried to talk to Ruby about the people she was hanging around, but it pained me to silence when she said, "Us alley cats got to stick together." We had a real falling out about it.

Ruby met Claude Jeffrey. Claude played in a band, when he wasn’t in some kind of trouble. He was a light-skinned, pouty fellow with large hands and a filthy mouth. He tried to touch me once. When Billy Pete found out, he tried to punch him into next week. Claude directed his attentions elsewhere.

After graduation, I would be going to Tennessee State University in Nashville on an academic scholarship. Billy Pete had decided to join the Army. Ruby told me she had been accepted at Long College, but wasn’t sure she would get to go because she needed to work and help out her Mama. Her Mama’s health had gotten poor, and she still had a younger sister and brother at home.

I said to her, "Oh, Ruby, I bet you could go to school part-time while you work." She answered, "Yes, maybe so."

Ruby told me her date for the prom was going to be Claude Jeffrey. Before I could stop myself, a deep frown crossed my face. Ruby said, "Why are you looking like that? Claude has been nice to me, and I think he really cares for me."

I remembered Claude’s cold clawing fingers and I rubbed my arm self-consciously. "Do you really like him, Ruby?"

"Yes, I do," she whispered with her eyes closed.

Biting my lower lip, I asked, "Does Billy Pete know you’re going with him?" Ruby’s eyes flashed open like impending clouds, and her voice came smooth as a relentless glacier as she replied, "Billy Pete isn't my Daddy. I choose for me, and I choose Claude".

I saw them at the prom from across the room. Billy Pete was angry about Claude, but he chose to ignore them. I asked him to let me invite them to sit at our table. He said, "No."

I felt that something was ending. I wanted to hold onto it for a while longer. I wanted us to be gay and forever young, and to love each other in this new kingdom of sparkling white Christmas lights and silver banners. The theme of the prom was Silver Rhapsody because our school colors were silver and blue, and somebody on the planning committee must have been in love.

Billy Pete and I danced near Claude and Ruby once. The fruity smell of liquor wafted from Claude, but I didn’t say anything to Billy Pete. Ruby’s face, when our eyes met, was the look of someone sad trying to seem happy. It made it hard for me to swallow.

I followed Ruby to the bathroom. When I got in the door, she was splashing cold water on her face.

"Ruby, are you okay?"

"Yes, Lady," she answered gaily. "Claude and I are going to leave now. There’s a real hot band playing over in Milan, he says," she giggled.

"Ruby, why don’t you stay here with Billy Pete and me so you don’t have to miss the crowning of the queen?"

"I know who the queen’s going to be, and it isn't me. Claude says I’m his queen." As she turned to leave, she said, "Wish me luck."

"Good luck," I said and squeezed her hand. Her eyes were luminous as she smiled goodbye.

Billy Pete and I left the prom later with Mavis Chambray and her date, Earl, in Earl’s car. Mavis and I argued with Billy Pete and Earl about whether we should go up to Lover’s Leap or Mr. Carol’s barbecue shack. The good-natured argument was just getting heated when we noticed the lights of an ambulance and some Sheriff’s cars ahead.

I felt hot and cold all in an instant. There was a wreck on the train track, and three people had been killed. As we got closer, we recognized some parts of the car as Claude Jeffrey’s. We knew that Lily Mae Carter and Scooter James had been with them, so maybe Ruby had survived....

Billy Pete looked fine in his uniform; like a hero. I knew that Billy Pete could have gone to Long College if he wanted to. His coach would have helped him.

He wanted to escape Bennett Alley. His face looked older than it had three months ago, before the accident. I was blushing at the adoration on his face when he touched his chest and said, "You’re in my heart, Lady. I’ll love you until my light goes out."

I trembled at his words. I knew I loved him and that frightened me.

"Maybe when I get back," he said, "I’ll be able to offer you something. Maybe...."

"Oh, Billy Pete," I interrupted, looking at the smoothness of his dark cheek; "you’re going to meet all kinds of pretty girls in your travels. You’ll forget all about me in a month," I laughed.

Billy Pete looked at me with distant eyes and said, "No, I won’t forget. I know you’ll be going to college soon. I’ll come to visit you and I’ll write every week. Will you write back?"

"Of course."

Billy Pete bent his head to one side and said, "Those letters will be my link with everything I have ever loved, because you know my family won’t write."

When Billy Pete mentioned his family, I thought of Ruby and our days in childhood sunshine, fragrant with the smell of ripe grapes. My eyes filled with tears and I held his hands in mine and slowly stroked his palms with my thumbs.

"I’ll write,Billy Pete." I took him to the train the next morning and kissed him goodbye.

What people said about the Bennett Alley kids being no account and never amounting to anything wasn’t true. No one proved that better than Lily Mae Carter. The accident changed all of us; Lily Mae most of all. She lost a leg in the accident, but she ended up going to Long College and graduating Cum Laude. She left Merry and went to the University of Tennessee, where she was one of the first Black women to get a Ph.D. She has since become a social activist and champion for the rights of the poor and disenfranchised.

I never heard from Billy Pete after he left; no one did, but his Mama got allotment checks until she died. I don’t blame him anymore. In a way,I’m just one more connection to the pain of life in Merry for him. Like Ruby, I think he always felt our differences.

The differences between knowing when your next meal will be and not knowing, create between people. The pain always separated us.

I’m married now, and teaching African American history to young African American kids with big dreams who don’t remember that Bennett Alley ever existed. I don’t talk to them about that. When they tore down Bennett Alley’s last shack, no one was happier than I. I said my final goodbye to Ruby there. However, Billy Pete has been harder to put to rest. I’m happy with my life and have few regrets, but it only takes the scent of ripe grapes to stir bittersweet longings.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow...