and it shone on the faded gray hood of my truck and made me squint, and the hot wind blowing through the open windows made me sweat as if I were in a sauna. I reminded myself that in another couple of hours it would really be hot.
I had brought my truck back with me when we returned to Uncle Chester’s house from our three days in the country, and I was glad to have it, old and uncomfortable as it was. When I first moved in with Leonard, he had picked me up and brought me here and left my truck back home because it was giving me trouble. Turned out the trouble was burned-out rings and cheap gas and no money to fix it.
But on our return to Uncle Chester’s, Leonard needed a way to haul lumber, so he paid for me to get a ring job and real gas. Now, I was no longer polluting half of East Texas, and felt better about that, and without my telltale cloud of black smoke following me I was less embarrassed to be seen driving it.
We were following MeMaw’s directions, looking for the First Primitive Baptist Church, and along the way I got a good look at the East Section, saw parts of it I had never seen before, realized just how truly isolated I was from the way of life here. Along with decent houses, there were houses next to them without electric wires, houses broke down and sagging, their sides actually held up with posts, and out back were outdoor toilets and rusted-out appliances in which garbage had been burned and not collected because the garbage trucks didn’t always come down here.
Black children with blacker eyes wearing dirty clothes sat in yards of sun-bleached sand and struggling grass burrs and looked at us without enthusiasm as we drove past.
It was near midday and grown men of working ages were wandering the streets like dogs looking for bones, and some congregated at storefronts and looked lonesome and hopeless and watched with the same lack of enthusiasm as the children as we drove past.
“Man, I hate seeing that,” Leonard said. “You’d think some of these sonofabitches would want to work.”
“You got to have jobs to work,” I said.
“You got to want jobs too,” Leonard said.
“You saying they don’t?”
“I’m saying too many of them don’t. Whitey still has them on his farm, only they ain’t doing nothing there and they’re getting tidbits tossed to them like dogs, and they take it and keep on keeping on and wanting Whitey to do more.”
“Maybe Whitey owes them.”
“Maybe he does, but you can be a cur or you get up off your ass and start seeing yourself as a person instead of an underdog that’s got to take those scraps. I’ve always worked, Hap. Be it in the rose fields or as a handyman laborer or raising hunting dogs, and you ain’t never known me to take handout checks because I’m black, and my uncle didn’t either.”
“Most of the people taking handout checks are white, Leonard.”
“That’s true, and I ain’t got nothing for those sonofabitches either. Unless you can’t walk or you’re in temporary straits, there ain’t no excuse for it.”
“One minute it’s things are bad here because it’s the black section of town, and next time you open your mouth you’re saying it’s the blacks’ fault. You can’t have it both ways.”
“Yes, you can. Ain’t nothing one way, Hap. Everything’s got two sides and sometimes the same problem’s got two different answers. It’s the ambition and pride these folks are missing. They don’t want nothing but to exist. They think God owes ’em a living.”
“And some of them just haven’t got jobs, Leonard, and it’s as simple as that.”
“Some of them,” Leonard said. “Some gonna tell you too they got to sell drugs to survive ’cause things are bad, and I say you can rationalize anything. ‘I got to sell drugs, I got to sell myself, I got to eat shit with flies on it.’ You don’t got to do nothin’ like that. You grew up poor, Hap. You ever want to sell drugs or hire out to get your dick sucked
I had brought my truck back with me when we returned to Uncle Chester’s house from our three days in the country, and I was glad to have it, old and uncomfortable as it was. When I first moved in with Leonard, he had picked me up and brought me here and left my truck back home because it was giving me trouble. Turned out the trouble was burned-out rings and cheap gas and no money to fix it.
But on our return to Uncle Chester’s, Leonard needed a way to haul lumber, so he paid for me to get a ring job and real gas. Now, I was no longer polluting half of East Texas, and felt better about that, and without my telltale cloud of black smoke following me I was less embarrassed to be seen driving it.
We were following MeMaw’s directions, looking for the First Primitive Baptist Church, and along the way I got a good look at the East Section, saw parts of it I had never seen before, realized just how truly isolated I was from the way of life here. Along with decent houses, there were houses next to them without electric wires, houses broke down and sagging, their sides actually held up with posts, and out back were outdoor toilets and rusted-out appliances in which garbage had been burned and not collected because the garbage trucks didn’t always come down here.
Black children with blacker eyes wearing dirty clothes sat in yards of sun-bleached sand and struggling grass burrs and looked at us without enthusiasm as we drove past.
It was near midday and grown men of working ages were wandering the streets like dogs looking for bones, and some congregated at storefronts and looked lonesome and hopeless and watched with the same lack of enthusiasm as the children as we drove past.
“Man, I hate seeing that,” Leonard said. “You’d think some of these sonofabitches would want to work.”
“You got to have jobs to work,” I said.
“You got to want jobs too,” Leonard said.
“You saying they don’t?”
“I’m saying too many of them don’t. Whitey still has them on his farm, only they ain’t doing nothing there and they’re getting tidbits tossed to them like dogs, and they take it and keep on keeping on and wanting Whitey to do more.”
“Maybe Whitey owes them.”
“Maybe he does, but you can be a cur or you get up off your ass and start seeing yourself as a person instead of an underdog that’s got to take those scraps. I’ve always worked, Hap. Be it in the rose fields or as a handyman laborer or raising hunting dogs, and you ain’t never known me to take handout checks because I’m black, and my uncle didn’t either.”
“Most of the people taking handout checks are white, Leonard.”
“That’s true, and I ain’t got nothing for those sonofabitches either. Unless you can’t walk or you’re in temporary straits, there ain’t no excuse for it.”
“One minute it’s things are bad here because it’s the black section of town, and next time you open your mouth you’re saying it’s the blacks’ fault. You can’t have it both ways.”
“Yes, you can. Ain’t nothing one way, Hap. Everything’s got two sides and sometimes the same problem’s got two different answers. It’s the ambition and pride these folks are missing. They don’t want nothing but to exist. They think God owes ’em a living.”
“And some of them just haven’t got jobs, Leonard, and it’s as simple as that.”
“Some of them,” Leonard said. “Some gonna tell you too they got to sell drugs to survive ’cause things are bad, and I say you can rationalize anything. ‘I got to sell drugs, I got to sell myself, I got to eat shit with flies on it.’ You don’t got to do nothin’ like that. You grew up poor, Hap. You ever want to sell drugs or hire out to get your dick sucked
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