No Color Is My Kind by Thomas R. Cole

Author:Thomas R. Cole [Cole, Thomas R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 1997-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

chapter SIX

Rabbit Returns

Many times I’ve thought, especially as I’ve grown older, about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And I’ve said to myself: I do not believe in an eye for an eye; I do not believe in a tooth for a tooth. . . . I believe if you borrow my tooth, I want your whole set. I want your whole set.

Eldrewey Stearns

Eldrewey’s long absence in the country left him with lifelong feelings of isolation, powerlessness, and rage. Wrenched away from his parents, this impulsive “wise child” never recovered the sense of stability and nurture he needed to experience the world as a safe place. Father figures appeared distant and ineffectual. Mothers could never be trusted; they might exile you to the wilderness, slap you down rather than stand up for you. Eldrewey’s encounter with old Jess and Aunt Lena generated a strong moral outrage at racial injustice. It also left him feeling betrayed by his own family and yearning for an all-powerful figure to protect him.

In San Augustine, Eldrewey had to adapt both to the brutality of whites and to his lonely, demanding life with Aunt Lena, Uncle Frank, Grandmother Mollie, and Grandpa Corey. He developed a cunning style of meeting the demands of authority figures while concealing and avoiding his real feelings. He learned to live in his own imaginary world, a world filled with his own inflated powers and devoid of stable, caring relationships.

For three long years, Devona worried, cried, and dreamt about her “lost” son. At ten years old, he was already a legend and a stranger to his brothers and sisters. One evening in the summer of 1942, a white woman selling homemade roses knocked on the door of the family’s rent house. “Would you like me to tell your fortune?” the woman asked. Devona invited the woman in. She offered to read Devona’s mind for fifty cents. “And I said okay,” Devona remembers. “I was worried about Eldrewey. So I gave her fifty cents which I needed very badly at that time.” They sat down across the kitchen table. The woman took Devona’s hand and spoke: “I see where you have a child somewheres . . . it seems to me it’s a male child. . . . you worry about this child all the time. And this child has been ill.” Right then and there, Devona decided to bring Eldrewey home. She prevailed on Rudolph to borrow a neighbor’s car. They made the journey to San Augustine and back in a single day. Again, Eldrewey was snatched without warning.

When the old black Model A Ford turned into the alley behind the corner of 32nd Street and Avenue M½, the neighborhood kids were waiting. Earl had been boasting to Joe Gayden that his big brother Eldrewey would be home soon. Joe was about thirteen years old then, living with his parents and four siblings in a one-bedroom apartment—in the same alley duplex that housed the Stearns family. “So

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.