The Last Plantation (1960, Fayetteville)
The Last Plantation
(1960, Twenty-two miles outside of Fayetteville,
on the last Plantation)
The Wallace brothers don’t realize the things we know, they think we don’t hear a thing, or see a thing, as if we are blind and deaf, as if we are so busy with doing this and that, and singing and caught up in some black spell, they haven’t learned much in their 80-years of life, I suppose, in some ways they are ignorant, in somewhat old fashion ways that is; on the other hand, they are no different than any white men. Perhaps, it is embed into them, like all those little ducks that follow their mother, they follow their old ways, two brothers like two peas in pod. When they start changing things around here, they are going to die, they are twins you know, although they don’t look alike, one looks like their pa, the other looks like their ma, you just got to look at their pictures on the mantel, but the clock in the living room
Mr. Cole Abernathy calls them the old James boys, you know the legend of Frank and Jessie James, because they hang around each other so much; they don’t like the changes coming about here, the three plantations, the Abernathy’s, the Stanley’s, and here, their plantation, the Wallabies. Guess they want to build a road along the three plantations that will take a large hunk of land from the three, take it from the back area that is, and I suppose in time the county will want a part of the front, god forbid if they have to move the house, and this one being the last in line, the last of the six plantations, this is the last one now down the road. But I suppose you can’t ride on a dusty hard old road with holes in it forever, I mean, it is 1960.
We, when I saw we, I mean, Sweet pea and I used to call the two Wallabies slick men, you done got her job, she passed away two months ago; because they are meticulous about things. They like things certain ways, their way, is normally the only way. Mrs. Ella Stanley, next door says they like to show their masculinity, they like to fight, and drink, and watch their younger sister, which is not all that much younger then they, and not much older then me, she’s 67-years old, they watch her like a hawk, to insure no, no good-for-nothing bum comes around and dates her. They been doing that for fifty-years, Gladys is her name, she’s been out of town, down to New Orleans this past week, and you already know Wally, and the shorter one, is Hank, he’s the quieter one.
They all got the same last name.
Earnest Stanley likes the brothers, drinks at the table in the kitchen on the weekends with them. One time he thought Amos made a pass at Gladys, was disrespectful, Hank the taller one, robust, and glary eyed, walked over there, chased Amos up into the hills, he didn’t come out for a week, and then Gladys’s said it was a white man, a bum that insulted her down town, down in Fayetteville. Wally felt bad, and bought Amos a fishing knife, Amos likes to fish a lot.
They go every place together, down to the old grocery store, an’, and you know, just every place.
“Hank was kind of nice to me,” said Burgundy “I got him his whisky this morning, and he drank three shots down like it was being squirted right out from under the cow.”
If you got brothers, you best tell them don’t come around when Gladys is here, they’ll think they got the eye for her.
“No, no, I am not going to do any such thing,” said Burgundy, “but I can tell they ant up to much change taking place here.”
(They, Hank and Wally, are out side trying to get their 1950-Chevy started. Hank swearing away quicker than an auctioneer; “You like the new girl?” says Hank to Wally. “Hey,” he said in response, as he tries to fix something in the carburetor with a screwdriver, “She’s prettier than old fat Minnie Mae; I’ll say that,” said Wally. “Listen up brother, Minnie Mae and I have had our times, old she may be, but she got a way with men, she gets hot as a pistol, and she’s only as old as sis, well almost, she’s 65 I think.”)
See them boys talking out there, out there by the fence, they goin’ work on that old car until midnight I bet unless Wally catches your eye then they goin’ to come in here fancy free and flirt with you-all, and then demand to have their lunch, and whisky, and then have to pay you for a week’ wages and me for a month wages. Their papa left them a lot of money, I means a lot of land, four-hundred archers, and they done sold three-hundred already, in this plantation; that their land and money its goin’ to out live them, I think, or I hope, so I gets to keep my job, and you too honey. Around here, folks work for plantations from da cradle to da grave, or used to anyhow, thinks are a changing. Betty Hightower, from New Orleans done stopped over dhe other day, she’s related to dhe Hightower’s, a nice kid of lady, likes to paint her hair red. Its a mistake honey to think them old fools arent talking about you, they goin’ see which one is bold enough to try and swing you to his bedroom.
If-in you want to fight with them, you goin’ git to, Hank likes me and now Wally I think likes you.
“But he’s as old as da hills, Minnie Mae, I mean I don’t think he can even get it up, let alone find my bedroom, maybe cant even find the bathroom” said Burgundy, with a kind of chuckling laugh, an eyebrow in the air as if Minnie Mae was kidding.
I swear child, he’ll be sneaking in your room in another week, if-in that long.
“Come on now,” said Burgundy.
You’ll see child, you is but twenty-years old, or is it eighteen (she nods her head to eighteen) but them old coots they think they is nineteen. No matter what you tell them, they aint going to grow up, and the lead in their pencil still works, I know this for a fact.
Burgundy’s face, her nose, a small, semi flat kind of a nose, and her firm strong looking body, went into a spasm “I wonder how much money they-all got left in their savings?” she said smoothly adding to her dialogue, “old Wally looks like he’s in his 60s, not a bad looker, for an old coot, I’ll find out how much he has the second time he sneaks into my bedroom.”
The two women start laughing, and Hank and Wally come into the room at that very moment.
“What’s so funny,” says Hank, looking dead-eyed at the jolly face of Minnie Mae.
Not a thing, not a thing, well I suppose it was thinking something, I told Burgundy here, you both are like old time prize-fighters, jes a little stiff in the joints. And she said, Burgundy said: Wally looks like a rich
man.
“Now Minnie Mae, you girls got to stop talking about us, cleanup the place, and feed the dogs and cook me some fried chicken, and get me and Hank a whisky, we done worked hard enough for a day.”
Sure enough boss, I done told Burgundy you’ll want your whisky every night, helps you sleep.
Written 2:00 AM, Monday; 6-16-2008
(1960, Twenty-two miles outside of Fayetteville,
on the last Plantation)
The Wallace brothers don’t realize the things we know, they think we don’t hear a thing, or see a thing, as if we are blind and deaf, as if we are so busy with doing this and that, and singing and caught up in some black spell, they haven’t learned much in their 80-years of life, I suppose, in some ways they are ignorant, in somewhat old fashion ways that is; on the other hand, they are no different than any white men. Perhaps, it is embed into them, like all those little ducks that follow their mother, they follow their old ways, two brothers like two peas in pod. When they start changing things around here, they are going to die, they are twins you know, although they don’t look alike, one looks like their pa, the other looks like their ma, you just got to look at their pictures on the mantel, but the clock in the living room
Mr. Cole Abernathy calls them the old James boys, you know the legend of Frank and Jessie James, because they hang around each other so much; they don’t like the changes coming about here, the three plantations, the Abernathy’s, the Stanley’s, and here, their plantation, the Wallabies. Guess they want to build a road along the three plantations that will take a large hunk of land from the three, take it from the back area that is, and I suppose in time the county will want a part of the front, god forbid if they have to move the house, and this one being the last in line, the last of the six plantations, this is the last one now down the road. But I suppose you can’t ride on a dusty hard old road with holes in it forever, I mean, it is 1960.
We, when I saw we, I mean, Sweet pea and I used to call the two Wallabies slick men, you done got her job, she passed away two months ago; because they are meticulous about things. They like things certain ways, their way, is normally the only way. Mrs. Ella Stanley, next door says they like to show their masculinity, they like to fight, and drink, and watch their younger sister, which is not all that much younger then they, and not much older then me, she’s 67-years old, they watch her like a hawk, to insure no, no good-for-nothing bum comes around and dates her. They been doing that for fifty-years, Gladys is her name, she’s been out of town, down to New Orleans this past week, and you already know Wally, and the shorter one, is Hank, he’s the quieter one.
They all got the same last name.
Earnest Stanley likes the brothers, drinks at the table in the kitchen on the weekends with them. One time he thought Amos made a pass at Gladys, was disrespectful, Hank the taller one, robust, and glary eyed, walked over there, chased Amos up into the hills, he didn’t come out for a week, and then Gladys’s said it was a white man, a bum that insulted her down town, down in Fayetteville. Wally felt bad, and bought Amos a fishing knife, Amos likes to fish a lot.
They go every place together, down to the old grocery store, an’, and you know, just every place.
“Hank was kind of nice to me,” said Burgundy “I got him his whisky this morning, and he drank three shots down like it was being squirted right out from under the cow.”
If you got brothers, you best tell them don’t come around when Gladys is here, they’ll think they got the eye for her.
“No, no, I am not going to do any such thing,” said Burgundy, “but I can tell they ant up to much change taking place here.”
(They, Hank and Wally, are out side trying to get their 1950-Chevy started. Hank swearing away quicker than an auctioneer; “You like the new girl?” says Hank to Wally. “Hey,” he said in response, as he tries to fix something in the carburetor with a screwdriver, “She’s prettier than old fat Minnie Mae; I’ll say that,” said Wally. “Listen up brother, Minnie Mae and I have had our times, old she may be, but she got a way with men, she gets hot as a pistol, and she’s only as old as sis, well almost, she’s 65 I think.”)
See them boys talking out there, out there by the fence, they goin’ work on that old car until midnight I bet unless Wally catches your eye then they goin’ to come in here fancy free and flirt with you-all, and then demand to have their lunch, and whisky, and then have to pay you for a week’ wages and me for a month wages. Their papa left them a lot of money, I means a lot of land, four-hundred archers, and they done sold three-hundred already, in this plantation; that their land and money its goin’ to out live them, I think, or I hope, so I gets to keep my job, and you too honey. Around here, folks work for plantations from da cradle to da grave, or used to anyhow, thinks are a changing. Betty Hightower, from New Orleans done stopped over dhe other day, she’s related to dhe Hightower’s, a nice kid of lady, likes to paint her hair red. Its a mistake honey to think them old fools arent talking about you, they goin’ see which one is bold enough to try and swing you to his bedroom.
If-in you want to fight with them, you goin’ git to, Hank likes me and now Wally I think likes you.
“But he’s as old as da hills, Minnie Mae, I mean I don’t think he can even get it up, let alone find my bedroom, maybe cant even find the bathroom” said Burgundy, with a kind of chuckling laugh, an eyebrow in the air as if Minnie Mae was kidding.
I swear child, he’ll be sneaking in your room in another week, if-in that long.
“Come on now,” said Burgundy.
You’ll see child, you is but twenty-years old, or is it eighteen (she nods her head to eighteen) but them old coots they think they is nineteen. No matter what you tell them, they aint going to grow up, and the lead in their pencil still works, I know this for a fact.
Burgundy’s face, her nose, a small, semi flat kind of a nose, and her firm strong looking body, went into a spasm “I wonder how much money they-all got left in their savings?” she said smoothly adding to her dialogue, “old Wally looks like he’s in his 60s, not a bad looker, for an old coot, I’ll find out how much he has the second time he sneaks into my bedroom.”
The two women start laughing, and Hank and Wally come into the room at that very moment.
“What’s so funny,” says Hank, looking dead-eyed at the jolly face of Minnie Mae.
Not a thing, not a thing, well I suppose it was thinking something, I told Burgundy here, you both are like old time prize-fighters, jes a little stiff in the joints. And she said, Burgundy said: Wally looks like a rich
man.
“Now Minnie Mae, you girls got to stop talking about us, cleanup the place, and feed the dogs and cook me some fried chicken, and get me and Hank a whisky, we done worked hard enough for a day.”
Sure enough boss, I done told Burgundy you’ll want your whisky every night, helps you sleep.
Written 2:00 AM, Monday; 6-16-2008
posted by Dennis and Rosa Siluk at 11:02 AM
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