Sounds Like Home: Growing Up Black and Deaf in the South

5. Make Me a Child Again

5 Backward, turn backward, 0 Time, in yourflight, Make me a child again justfor tonight! Elizabeth Akers Allen, "Rock Me to Sleep, Mother" THO UGH Mama had taught-or tried to teach-all of us not to chew tobacco, use snuff, or drink, some people always have to do their own thing. So it was with Frank. The first time my brother Frank came home high (our word for "drunk" in those days) was a winter night when he was about seventeen. Mama sat by the fire with her younger ones and the teachers. The door opened suddenly and he came through the door and headed straight for his room, not looking at anyone. There was a strange odor floating around after he passed by-sharp and strong. Everyone stopped talking and sat listening. Most farmhouses had an outside door in just about every room. The boys' room had a door opening onto the backyard. We heard the back door of the boys' room opening and then the sound of retching. Miss Staten said she believed Frank had had too much "tea." Mama jumped 55 56 A BOUQUET OF ROSES up, hurrying toward the boys' room with me right behind her. Frank was lying on the floor with his head out the open door, sick to his stomach. The smell of bootleg whiskey was very strong and sour. Mama held his head and wiped his face, then told him to get up from there and go to bed before he caught his death of cold. He said dying was no trouble, then started singing, "I'm sitting on top of the world." This was my first experience with seeing someone drunk, but not my last. I never saw Bennie high but once. We were sitting on Aunt Mary's porch one Sunday evening when Bennie came up the path walking straight and stiff. I didn't know what was wrong with him. Mama and Aunt Mary had him to lie across a bed and drink salt water. We left him there asleep and he showed up at home the next morning with a big hangover and a sore stomach. Eunice was by this time in high school, having graduated from the seventh grade at Iron Mine Elementary. The high school hadn't let out yet, but our school had closed for the summer, and Eunice asked if I could go spend a week with her in town and go to her school to visit. I was beside myself with joy when Mama said it was alright with her; I never thought Papa cared whether I came or went. All week I looked forward to my upcoming trip. Finally, Friday arrived and Eunice was home again until Sunday. I couldn't be still, picking out clothes and packing them in Eunice's suitcase with her clothes. So the time ofdeparture came. Bennie got the truck keys from Papa and put the suitcase in back. I ran to kiss Mama and Sam goodbye, but before I could get to Papa, he laid his eyes on me and wanted to know where I thought I was going. Mama spoke up and said I was going to spend the week with Eunice. "For what?" he demanded. "Well-I-I," Mama said, "Eunice asked if she could go and I thought it would be alright." Make Me a Child Again 57 "She ain't going nowhere, got no business down there." "Papa, let her go," Eunice pleaded. By this time I was in tears, all my bubbles of happiness busted. Bennie got out of the truck and silently set the suitcase back on the porch. Eunice opened it and started taking my clothes out. My tears turned to shrieks. "Put 'em back, put 'em back!" I screamed, jumping up and down while Papa sat there as staid and unmoving as Chief Sitting Bull. Eunice lifted out my prized red silk pajamas. I snatched them and put them right back. If I couldn't go, my clothes would. "Well Ben, can she go?" Mama asked for the umpteenth time. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down furiously before he jerked up and said he didn't care where in the devil I went. I guess it was my shrieks and screams he wanted gone. So we were soon in the old truck bumping down the road. My big brother and sister started giving...