Safe from the Neighbors Read Online Free
Author: Steve Yarbrough
until it resembled pictures I’d seen of the Matterhorn. After turning him loose, he motioned to me. “Guess it’s your lucky day, Luke. Time I get through with you, you’ll look just like Yul Brynner.”
On the booster board I closed my eyes, unwilling to look at my image in the mirror. I heard Eugene hop out of Andy’s chair and my father settling in there. As always, rather than leave immediately, the Calloways would sit and watch us get our hair cut, then Eugene’s father and mine would walk out into the parking lot together. Besides having been friends when they were kids, they were both members of an organization called the Citizens’ Council.
“How about that Meredith boy?” one of the men said while I sat there with my eyes closed.
Mr. Sturdivant was running the clippers dangerously close to my ear. “He’s something, ain’t he?”
“That boy better learn to sing ‘Dixie.’”
“He ain’t gone go to Ole Miss. Ever comes to it, I’ll be standing right beside Ross with my shotgun.”
I recognized Mr. Calloway’s rich baritone: “Ross Barnett is nothing but a fake. I wouldn’t be surprised if him and JFK are in cahoots.”
I waited to hear what the others would say. I knew they were talking about our governor and the president, whom my fatherhad voted for even though he was a Catholic. At that point in Southern history the Republican Party had three strikes against it: the Civil War, the Great Depression and Little Rock Central.
My father was the first to raise an objection: “Arlan, I think Ross knows what he’s doing.”
Mr. Calloway laughed. “I never said he didn’t, James. I’ll wager he knows exactly what he’s doing. It’s you and me and the rest of this beleaguered assembly that’s in the dark.”
This comment seemed to forestall further debate—in the barbershop, he wielded that kind of authority. For a while nobody said anything, then one of the men cleared his throat and asked, “Y’all think the Leopards got a bat’s chance against them boys from Leland?”
By the time I escaped the chair, my head felt about ten or fifteen degrees cooler. I knew I shouldn’t look at the mirror but couldn’t stop myself. Mr. Sturdivant had given me a pair of white sidewalls.
Though the barbershop would later move downtown, it was out on Highway 47 in those days, sandwiched between Delta Electric and Loring Auto Parts. On Saturdays the parking lot filled up. People cut their engines wherever space existed, which in practice meant that you’d often emerge to find another truck parked behind your own. As odd as this may sound today—when life in small Southern towns has picked up speed, everyone eager to rush home and access the world by clicking the Explorer icon—if somebody blocked you in back then, you’d stand around and wait, talking to whoever else was out there, until the owner of the truck behind yours stepped out of whichever business he’d been in. Then you stood around a little longer and talked to him, too. To do otherwise would’ve been unneighborly.
Somebody had parked behind our truck that day. Over thelast year or so, since I began piecing these events together, I’ve often wondered whether things might have developed differently if Dad had simply said goodbye to the Calloways, climbed into the truck and driven away. I say this because I’ve learned that in Loring County in 1962, you only found out who was bidding against you for a piece of sixteenth-section land if his bid was higher than yours, or if, prior to the announcement of the results, he took it upon himself to inform you, which most people were understandably reluctant to do.
Since we couldn’t leave, the Calloways didn’t either. While our fathers talked about the fishing over in Lake Lee, Eugene and I drew a ring in the gravel, then squared off back-to-back and began to grunt and push, each trying to drive the other outside the circle. Eugene was a good bit heavier, so it’s reasonable to
On the booster board I closed my eyes, unwilling to look at my image in the mirror. I heard Eugene hop out of Andy’s chair and my father settling in there. As always, rather than leave immediately, the Calloways would sit and watch us get our hair cut, then Eugene’s father and mine would walk out into the parking lot together. Besides having been friends when they were kids, they were both members of an organization called the Citizens’ Council.
“How about that Meredith boy?” one of the men said while I sat there with my eyes closed.
Mr. Sturdivant was running the clippers dangerously close to my ear. “He’s something, ain’t he?”
“That boy better learn to sing ‘Dixie.’”
“He ain’t gone go to Ole Miss. Ever comes to it, I’ll be standing right beside Ross with my shotgun.”
I recognized Mr. Calloway’s rich baritone: “Ross Barnett is nothing but a fake. I wouldn’t be surprised if him and JFK are in cahoots.”
I waited to hear what the others would say. I knew they were talking about our governor and the president, whom my fatherhad voted for even though he was a Catholic. At that point in Southern history the Republican Party had three strikes against it: the Civil War, the Great Depression and Little Rock Central.
My father was the first to raise an objection: “Arlan, I think Ross knows what he’s doing.”
Mr. Calloway laughed. “I never said he didn’t, James. I’ll wager he knows exactly what he’s doing. It’s you and me and the rest of this beleaguered assembly that’s in the dark.”
This comment seemed to forestall further debate—in the barbershop, he wielded that kind of authority. For a while nobody said anything, then one of the men cleared his throat and asked, “Y’all think the Leopards got a bat’s chance against them boys from Leland?”
By the time I escaped the chair, my head felt about ten or fifteen degrees cooler. I knew I shouldn’t look at the mirror but couldn’t stop myself. Mr. Sturdivant had given me a pair of white sidewalls.
Though the barbershop would later move downtown, it was out on Highway 47 in those days, sandwiched between Delta Electric and Loring Auto Parts. On Saturdays the parking lot filled up. People cut their engines wherever space existed, which in practice meant that you’d often emerge to find another truck parked behind your own. As odd as this may sound today—when life in small Southern towns has picked up speed, everyone eager to rush home and access the world by clicking the Explorer icon—if somebody blocked you in back then, you’d stand around and wait, talking to whoever else was out there, until the owner of the truck behind yours stepped out of whichever business he’d been in. Then you stood around a little longer and talked to him, too. To do otherwise would’ve been unneighborly.
Somebody had parked behind our truck that day. Over thelast year or so, since I began piecing these events together, I’ve often wondered whether things might have developed differently if Dad had simply said goodbye to the Calloways, climbed into the truck and driven away. I say this because I’ve learned that in Loring County in 1962, you only found out who was bidding against you for a piece of sixteenth-section land if his bid was higher than yours, or if, prior to the announcement of the results, he took it upon himself to inform you, which most people were understandably reluctant to do.
Since we couldn’t leave, the Calloways didn’t either. While our fathers talked about the fishing over in Lake Lee, Eugene and I drew a ring in the gravel, then squared off back-to-back and began to grunt and push, each trying to drive the other outside the circle. Eugene was a good bit heavier, so it’s reasonable to
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