North Carolina School of the Arts
Fiction
shame. The KKK talked a lot
about burning a cross downtown
but they never got around to it.
Jimbob never saw such a yellow
Klan as Connelly Spring’s was.
When he got old enough he was
going to join the White Knights in
the next county, which was a
whole lot higher class.
Then this marshal went and
reported Miss Poindexter’s
NEVER button to Asheville, ^e
got her picture in the papers but
lost her second grade. The school
board had to back down to the
government and take her off
school teaching. They couldn’t
think of any place to put her
except in the library instead.
She still wore her NEVER
button to story hour.
So you could have knocked
Jimbob over with a feather when
he eased into the big old dark
courtroom and who should be
sitting in the witness stand, big as
Irass? It was Trellis. It looked
like even story hoiu" was in
tegrated.
Jimbob tried to slink down to
about angleworm size, to where
nobody Qiat knew him would
know he was integrated in the
same room with Trellis, without a
marshal. The only soul in si^t
besides her was Miss Poindexter,
in the judge’s seat, sitting as
relaxed as a TV announcer. It
was puzzling. In the first place
there wasn’t the least ne^ to
drag a nigger kid to story hour
since her marshal long went back
to Asheville a month ago. The
Jaycees already took a vote to
just let Trellis keep on in second
grade by herself a few years till
^e wore herself out and got old
raough to quit. That was all the
integration, they said, anybody
could put up with in one town.
(But it turned out it was Miss
Poindexter herself that got
Trellis to come! That is an idea of
just how peculiar Miss Poin
dexter was.)
It was all cool and spooky in
there, with the window shades
rolled down against the p jn. sun
and only one light to see to read
by lit up behind the judge’s bench
where Miss Poindexter was
sitting. She had a story book
already open to some story she
was going to read. Jimbob had a
good notion to hightail it home,
for he figiu-ed ^e had never
noticed him coming in. That was
where he was wrong. She must
have heard his tiptoes or
something. She put on her glasses
she wore to see with (she read
without) and said, “Jimbob!”
He had been meaning to hunch
down behind the last row of
benches, but too late. She had
that same type of voice of every
retired schoolteacher there ever
was, and sheriff.
“Just please sir step right up
here in front where we’re all nice
and integrated.”
Jimbob was mortified, but he
did it. At least he did not have to
sit with any nigger. Trellis was
sitting in the witness stand.
Something he noticed when he
got up front in the light was
where the closet door was off the
closet over next to the jury box.
That must have been the very
door Eljay was laid out asleep on.
The closet was the closet Miss
Poindexter kept the library in.
Only it was all emptied out now.
She had all her raggedy
magazines and yellowy toote
piled up in the jury box, and piled
up next to the closet with the door
off was a stack of cinder blocks.
There was even a tub of wet
cement. Jimbob reckoned Eljay
was told to fill in the old closet but
if he didn’t quick sober up and get
busy his cement was going to ^y
up on him.
“Boys and girls,” said Miss P
(but Jimbob £dn’t see any boys
and girls to it, only himself and a
ni^er), “This afternoon we’re
going to read a lovely-special tale
by A&. Edgar Allan Poe, poet and
Virginian.”
Jimbob took a look at Trellis on
her witness chair to see how she
was taking to integration. Not too
hot. She was shiny as a tau* baby
from the sweats, and her witness
seat was too hi^ for her. Pearl
had put her into a big orange
organdy sundress, with white
SMdals to top it off. The sandals
didn’t anywhere near touch the
floor on account of how ^ort-
legged she was. She couldn’t have
budged if she wanted to, her
dress was so stiff with starch.
“The Cask,” said Miss P, “of
Amontillado.”
“Phooey!” said Jimbob (but
not out loud). He already saw
that story on TV.
Miss Poindexter took her
glasses off to see better. Her eyes
were littler with glasses off than
on.
- “The thousand injuries of
Fortunate I had borne as best I
could...’ ” she started. But
Jimbob’s mind had wandered off.
All that story was about was
about two Italian fellas down in
some cellar in Italy. They had a
feud on and one Italian bi^es the
other one over some wine. What
was the use of listening if you
already knew how it turned out?
But somewhere in the middle of
it Miss Poindexter stopped cold
and said, “Boys and girls,”
again.
“Boys and girls,” she said,
“this afternoon instead of only
just reading out of our story book
like usual, in honor of our little
darky visitor we’ve got with us
today, we’re agoing to do a nice
pageant of Mr. Poe’s tale.”
To give you an idea of how
peculiar Miss Poindexter was,
here is what she dreamed up. She
dreamed up for Trellis to go and
stand in the closet and be For-
tunato.
Trellis just looked up at Miss P
with her pullet-egg eyes as wide
as they could get. So Miss P had
to say it over again: “Now if
you’ll please just step over to that
cupboard yonder, Fortunato,
we’ll get started on a right nice
pageant for everybody.”
Trellis naturally never budged.
She was either too starched or too
stubborn. Miss Poindexter had to
finally get up from the judge’s
bench and take hold of her orange
organdy sundress by one wing,
like something dead you take to
the outhouse between two
fingers. Trellis slid off her wit
ness seat and walked stiff along
next to Miss P with her starchy
dress sounding like di7 leaves
when you step on them. They
came right up to the closet
together before Miss Poindexter
let go. Trellis turned around still
Wg-eyed as ever, and finally
backed in slow, like a mule.
“Now Seen-yor Montresor,
sir,” (which was Jimbob) “will
yousir be so kind as to take this
trowel,” and Jimbob came up
and she handed him this trowel
out of the wet cement, “and take
and make us a nice neat row of
blocks across the doorsill like in
the story.”
Well, he did it, but he was not
too handy with the trowel. First
three or four licks landed more
cement on his big toe than on the
cinderblocks. And a cinder block
to pick one up is no feather
weight, either. But he finally got
the hang of it and how to tuni
your cinder blocks sideways
when you reach the end to fit. He
worked up a nice sweat on his
first five layers. Thou^ would
not likely ^ any medals for
mason work.
Jimbob finally got to where he
could not reach the cinder blocks
up that high and was going to get
a chair out of the jury box to
stand on but Miss P quick
snatehed the trowel all excited
out of his hand. For all her
Sunday clothes and clean hands,
she finished off his next row for
him herself.
After that you could not get that
trowel away from her for love or
money. Nothing for Jimbob to do
Page 7
but go and sit back down up front,
bored stiff again. He would have
given anything to be back home
in front of TV..It never pays to
miss a good show on TV. His
momma was watehing that time
where Ruby shot Oswald, and
just Jimbob’s luck he was in
Sunday school.
Miss P’s hair pins were coming
loose and Jimbob finally saw her
ears for the first time in history.
They were little-bitty like her
eyes. Her wash-and-wear arm
pits turned into big wet moons of
sweat before she was done. She
shoved her last cinderblock in
with all her snow-white teeth
showing. Her collar had come
unfastened and that made her
NEVER button hang down loose
to where you couldn’t read it.
Then cool as a cucumber (but
all kind of undone) she marched
right back to her judge’s bench
and took up her Poe where she
had left off.
“ ‘I forced the last stone into its
position,’ ” she read, and took a
swipe at a stray hairpin on a
strand of hair hanging down to
her story book. “ ‘I plastered it
up. Against the new masonry I re
erected the old rampart of
bones.’ ” (With a funny stomach
Jimbob sneaked a look, but
naturally saw no bones. It was
only a pageant.) “ ‘For the half of
a century no mortal has
disturbed them.’ ” She took a
dreamy look out in space lUce she
wasn’t all there. The minute she
said, “ ‘In pace requiescat!’ ”
and closed her book, Jimbob took
off.
The late sun outside like to
blinded him, but he could see old
Eljay still laid out on that door
dead drunk. He scooted on out a
hole in the aborviate hedge,
which was pretty near all holes
on account of worms. He skidd^
down an embankment by the
lumber mill to take a short cut
and be home before the World
news Roundup. The depot, when
he went past, was aU boarded up
the way it always is. (The
Railroad put that depot in and
then never laid track. They took a
survey and said Connelly l^rings
was way too steep for anything
less than a diesel, and that was no
run worth putting a diesel on for.)
The whole town is backwards like
that-Jimbob could hardly wait till
he was sixteen and out of school
and in the Marines.
By going straight through the
cannery he got home before his
daddy did and got a good seat in
front of the TV. You had to sit up
close to see anything. Connelly
Springs has got the worst TV
reception in North Carolina. Put
a fifty-foot antenna up and you
will still get ghosts.
Robin Kaplan
Winter Exam Schedule
Journal Continued:
Italian 102-S
319
MONDAY 10:00-12:00
Artom
SS100 Sem. C
L&M102&302
329
Belnap
Miller
L&M202
327
WEDNESDAY 10:00-12:00
Shaffer
L&M402
320
(All M & Th 10:50 classes)
Shaffer
English 100
313
Fitz-Simons
MONDAY 2:00-4:00
English 102-A
315
Johnston
Music Hist. 202
327
Italian 102-A
319
M. Johnson
Artom
Music Hist. 302
329
M.Johnson
WEDNESDAY 2:00-4:00
TUESDAY 10:00-12:00
(All T & F 1:35 classes)
English 102-D
327
(All M & Th 1:35 classes)
Johnston
German 102 A
313
French 302
317
Stiener
Coleman
German 102-B
327
Italian 102-B
319
McDowell
Artom
American Novel
320
Johnston
THURSDAY 10:00-12:00
TUESDAY 2:00-4:00
(All T & F 11:45 classes plus
Italian 102-S)
20th Century British and
American Drama Old Bookstore
Frohn
Italian 302 319
Artom
(All M & Th 11:45 classes)
Italian 202 313
Baskin
Art History 320
Jeffries
Film Old Bookstore
King
THURSDAY 2:00-4:00
(All T & F 10:50 classes)
English 100 L 313
Johnston
Phys. Science 209
Bordeaux
French 102 317
Coleman
FRIDAY 10:00-12:00
(All T & F 12:40 classes)
Marriage, Section A
C.Johnston
World History
Social Ethics
Ruark
Ecology
. Stone
311
315
313
210
Van Hoven
FRIDAY 2:00-4:00
(All M & Th 12:40 classes)
Marriage, Section B 311
C. Johnson
French 202 317
Coleman
Anatomy 210
Van Hoven
’ Thought Sem. B
older. Their hands were big and
worked, some of the strongest
hands I’ve seen. They were all
dressed in the traditional
costume with peasant blouse,
vest, long skirt, and apron. What
a spirit they had to them as they
bargained and handled their
fruit. Bev and I found three
tomiatoes and two plums in
perfect condition on the ground.
Wright bought a huge, fat, juicy
piece of sausage, and we sat
down in the mid^e of the market
and had a feast. What bli^!
Wandered around for a while and
came upon a young couple about
to be married waiting outside a
tiny little church. The bride was
all dressed up and smiled and
waved at us. Went back to have a
look around our castle and found
two stoned American G.I.’s under
the drawbridge. Tljey were in a
rather anti-American Army
mood, and when they found out
we were poor and hungry they
offered to steal three cases of sea
rations for us. We were elated,
and agreed to meet that night. At
nine they came, carrying three 29
lb. cases, each containing 13
complete meals, prepared in the
year 1964. Hiding in the shadows
of the stone wall, we opened one
case to see what we had gotten.
My God it was like Christmas.
Out tumbled these dark green
cans that said Peaches, Boned
Chicken, Beef and Potato, and
on and on. Each dinner had a
little packet of four free
cigaret^, and - wonder of
wonders - a tiny roll of soft toilet
paper. Our friends showed us how
to use the little can opener and
gave us some advice on the meals
that weren’t good. We thanked
them and went back to the room,
clutching our loot. Next morning
we got up early and went outside
by the garbage cans to break
down the cases and divide them
up. There were paper and cartons
all over the place, and shouts of
delight as we came upon a dif
ferent food like Fruit Cocktail or
Peacan Roll. We attracted quite a
crowd, most of them travellers
like us. The cans were very heavy
and we had more than we could
carry in our packs. We kept as
many meat and fruit cans as we
could, and gave the rest, in
cluding all the B-1 cracker units,
to the kids standing around.
Everyone was getting a big kick
out of it. It was like a bread line,
and finally all had an illegal can
of U.S. sea rations. Having done
our dtjity, we left our castle, and
with our backs breaking but our
spirits high, we headed for
Munich.