The woman was a tiny sized zero and the donning air of false class was evident right away. She wore a pale green polyester pantsuit and her dingy white blouse was buttoned all the way up with a little bit of fabric tied in a bow. Her light brown wig was parted on the left and it sat a little askew on her pea sized head. Her false teeth clacked as she took deep draws off the Pall Mall unfiltered cigarette while showing us the inside of the old house. She pulled out a small metal ashtray to use and it snapped shut when she tucked it back into her purse. I could hear the wheezing in her throat, a crackling ember deep in her chest.
She had grown up in that old house, got married and then built a brick ranch across the street. Her eccentric brother had never moved away except for the time he spent in the army. The last four years he had wasted away in a nursing home. His sister had minimally kept up the house, wanting to sell it, but unwilling to put it on the market. She said there was a “list” of people interested in buying the place. I knew right away that our white skin and our asking about the local churches could possibly secure us a spot on the qualified buyers “list.” Lord, forgive me.
Ashamedly, I turned on the charm. I asked all about her family and how long she lived across the street. I inquired if there were any good churches in the area. I praised the pink azaleas blooming outside the dining room window. I oohed and ahhed over the quaint craftsman style of the house. It needed a lot of work, but it had good bones. The home had been built in 1928 with the heart pine that had been harvested right off the land. I said anything I could think of to keep her talking to convince her we were decent folks. I wanted her to see that we would be “good” neighbors.
We wanted to start our young life in “God’s Country” as she called it, and we would surely give her old home place some tender loving care. We told her of our dream to have a nursery and grow all kinds of flowers and shrubs. That seemed to appeal to her as her dead brother had loved plants. He had meticulously cared for the grounds while he was still able to work in the yard. Even after many years of neglect, you could still see his finger prints on the landscape.
We had found the charming homestead by exploring a thirty mile radius outside of the city on a dreary Sunday afternoon. The yard was overgrown and there were huge pecan trees canopying over the rusted tin roof. My husband could see a diamond in the rough; this was exactly what he was looking for, an abandoned possibility. There was a mattress leaning in the window, purple iris lining the driveway and a buckled patio of slate forced up by the tree roots around back. This was the perfect home for us…
She started reading down the list. “Soon as Irwin died, Todd down da road showed up at my door saying he was gonna wrap da whole place up with cattle and I told em I won’t gonna have it.” She motioned her arms in a circle. “I told em he needn’t to bother me again, the gall of em showing up like dat…Irwin’s body won’t even cold yet. The farmer down da road says he wants to buy it, but he ain’t never come up with no money. Some body sent some durn Mexicans down here and I told dem it won’t for sale. I won’t bout to let dem take up in the house I grew up in, and me right across da street. And I ain’t bout to let no colored take up here, neither. I wished I knew who sent dem, I’d give dem a piece of my mind.”
I was dumbfounded, like a deer in headlights. The year was 1993, but I felt like I had just stepped into the Twilight Zone. My head started spinning around and my heart started racing erratically. Oh my goodness, what did she just say? Where were we? What year was it? A glaze kind of went over my eyes and I realized I was dealing with something dark that terrified me. I pretended I didn’t hear what she said. I was guilty. I was what is now termed “white silent” but I didn’t know that then. I was in her house. I wanted something from her. And I wanted to get it before she knew that ethnicity didn’t matter to me one bit.
That place was the only one we had found that we could afford and we had grand hopes to have a nursery of our own. She said she was absolutely not interested in selling any of the farm land along with the house, but she would let us know if she changed her mind. I bit my tongue and I smiled. I wrote down our phone number and encouraged her to please call us; we really wanted some land.
On the way back home, I was ashamed. I was sorry that I hadn’t told her what I really thought about what she had said. I wished I had told her that I didn’t want to live across the street from a bigot….although I knew that my prejudice towards her was as great as hers was towards those she didn’t want living across the street. God had to deal with me about that…my prejudice towards prejudice people, as crazy as that sounds. I expressed my concerns to my husband that if we bought the property, someone may just burn our house down. He told me not to worry, that wasn’t going to happen. But in the back of my mind, I really thought that it could. “I despise people like that,” I said. “They make me sick to my stomach.”
The billboard sized sign going into downtown that stood for ten years from 1967-1977 had been gone for only a mere sixteen years, but the Klan’s presence was a frightening ghost of the past still suffocating the county. It sent cold shivers down my spine to think of that kind of evil having any stronghold anyplace, much less one that professed to be a Bible believing community. We had African American friends that we loved dearly; they were like family to us. How could anyone be so full of hate? I had heard somewhere along the way that love knows no color…and besides, God’s “country” includes all races.
“You don’t have to live with her,” my husband mildly assured, “You don’t have to bake her a pie, either. You don’t even have to associate with her at all.” But I knew that I couldn’t live across the street from someone and hide my indignation about the subject. How could I ever pretend that that kind of thinking was okay? I would just have to find the courage to never compromise my convictions and try to set the example that Jesus had laid out for us all. God would have to give me the strength…
She had grown up in that old house, got married and then built a brick ranch across the street. Her eccentric brother had never moved away except for the time he spent in the army. The last four years he had wasted away in a nursing home. His sister had minimally kept up the house, wanting to sell it, but unwilling to put it on the market. She said there was a “list” of people interested in buying the place. I knew right away that our white skin and our asking about the local churches could possibly secure us a spot on the qualified buyers “list.” Lord, forgive me.
Ashamedly, I turned on the charm. I asked all about her family and how long she lived across the street. I inquired if there were any good churches in the area. I praised the pink azaleas blooming outside the dining room window. I oohed and ahhed over the quaint craftsman style of the house. It needed a lot of work, but it had good bones. The home had been built in 1928 with the heart pine that had been harvested right off the land. I said anything I could think of to keep her talking to convince her we were decent folks. I wanted her to see that we would be “good” neighbors.
We wanted to start our young life in “God’s Country” as she called it, and we would surely give her old home place some tender loving care. We told her of our dream to have a nursery and grow all kinds of flowers and shrubs. That seemed to appeal to her as her dead brother had loved plants. He had meticulously cared for the grounds while he was still able to work in the yard. Even after many years of neglect, you could still see his finger prints on the landscape.
We had found the charming homestead by exploring a thirty mile radius outside of the city on a dreary Sunday afternoon. The yard was overgrown and there were huge pecan trees canopying over the rusted tin roof. My husband could see a diamond in the rough; this was exactly what he was looking for, an abandoned possibility. There was a mattress leaning in the window, purple iris lining the driveway and a buckled patio of slate forced up by the tree roots around back. This was the perfect home for us…
She started reading down the list. “Soon as Irwin died, Todd down da road showed up at my door saying he was gonna wrap da whole place up with cattle and I told em I won’t gonna have it.” She motioned her arms in a circle. “I told em he needn’t to bother me again, the gall of em showing up like dat…Irwin’s body won’t even cold yet. The farmer down da road says he wants to buy it, but he ain’t never come up with no money. Some body sent some durn Mexicans down here and I told dem it won’t for sale. I won’t bout to let dem take up in the house I grew up in, and me right across da street. And I ain’t bout to let no colored take up here, neither. I wished I knew who sent dem, I’d give dem a piece of my mind.”
I was dumbfounded, like a deer in headlights. The year was 1993, but I felt like I had just stepped into the Twilight Zone. My head started spinning around and my heart started racing erratically. Oh my goodness, what did she just say? Where were we? What year was it? A glaze kind of went over my eyes and I realized I was dealing with something dark that terrified me. I pretended I didn’t hear what she said. I was guilty. I was what is now termed “white silent” but I didn’t know that then. I was in her house. I wanted something from her. And I wanted to get it before she knew that ethnicity didn’t matter to me one bit.
That place was the only one we had found that we could afford and we had grand hopes to have a nursery of our own. She said she was absolutely not interested in selling any of the farm land along with the house, but she would let us know if she changed her mind. I bit my tongue and I smiled. I wrote down our phone number and encouraged her to please call us; we really wanted some land.
On the way back home, I was ashamed. I was sorry that I hadn’t told her what I really thought about what she had said. I wished I had told her that I didn’t want to live across the street from a bigot….although I knew that my prejudice towards her was as great as hers was towards those she didn’t want living across the street. God had to deal with me about that…my prejudice towards prejudice people, as crazy as that sounds. I expressed my concerns to my husband that if we bought the property, someone may just burn our house down. He told me not to worry, that wasn’t going to happen. But in the back of my mind, I really thought that it could. “I despise people like that,” I said. “They make me sick to my stomach.”
The billboard sized sign going into downtown that stood for ten years from 1967-1977 had been gone for only a mere sixteen years, but the Klan’s presence was a frightening ghost of the past still suffocating the county. It sent cold shivers down my spine to think of that kind of evil having any stronghold anyplace, much less one that professed to be a Bible believing community. We had African American friends that we loved dearly; they were like family to us. How could anyone be so full of hate? I had heard somewhere along the way that love knows no color…and besides, God’s “country” includes all races.
“You don’t have to live with her,” my husband mildly assured, “You don’t have to bake her a pie, either. You don’t even have to associate with her at all.” But I knew that I couldn’t live across the street from someone and hide my indignation about the subject. How could I ever pretend that that kind of thinking was okay? I would just have to find the courage to never compromise my convictions and try to set the example that Jesus had laid out for us all. God would have to give me the strength…
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