Wide Awake in the Pelican State by Ann Brewster Dobie

Author:Ann Brewster Dobie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: 2006-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Me and Mama go in Gran’mon’s house and pull the big bundle out on the gallery. Daddy picks the bundle up and puts it on his head, then we go up the quarter to us house. Mama opens the gate and me and Daddy go in. We go inside and Mama lights the lamp.

“You hungry?” Mama asks Daddy.

“How can you ask that?” Daddy says. “I’m starving”

“You want eat now or after you whip me?” Mama says.

“Whip you?” Daddy asks. “What I’m go’n be whipping you for?”

Mama goes back in the kitchen. She don’t find what she’s looking for, and I hear her going outside.

“Where Mama going, Daddy?”

“Don’t ask me,” Daddy says. “I don’t know no more than you”

Daddy gets some kindling out of the corner and puts it in the fireplace. Then he pours some coal oil on the kindling and lights a match to it. Me and Daddy squat down on the fireplace and watch the fire burning.

I hear the back door shut, then I see Mama coming in the front room. Mama’s got a great big old switch.

“Here,” she says.

“What’s that for?” Daddy says.

“Here. Take it,” Mama says.

“I ain’t got nothing to beat you for, Amy,” Daddy says.

“You whip me,” Mama says, “or I turn right round and walk on out that door.”

Daddy stands up and looks at Mama.

“You must be crazy,” Daddy says. “Stop all that foolishness, Amy, and go cook me some food.”

“Get your pot, Sonny,” Mama says.

“Shucks,” I say. “Now where we going? I’m getting tired walking in all that cold. ’Fore you know it I’m go’n have whooping cough.”

“Get your pot and stop answering me back, boy,” Mama says.

I go to my bed and pick up the pot again.

“Shucks,” I say.

“You ain’t leaving here,” Daddy says.

“You better stop me,” Mama says, going to the bundle.

“All right,” Daddy says. “I’ll beat you if that’s what you want”

Daddy gets the switch off the floor and I start crying.

“Lord, have mercy,” Daddy says. “Now what?”

“Whip me,” Mama says.

“Amy, whip you for what?” Daddy says. “Amy, please, just go back there and cook me something to eat.”

“Come on, Sonny,” Mama says. “Let’s get out of this house”

“All right,” Daddy says. Daddy hits Mama two times on the legs. “That’s enough,” he says.

“Beat me,” Mama says.

I cry some more. “Don’t beat my mama,” I say. “I don’t want you to beat my mama.”

“Sonny, please,” Daddy says. “What y’all trying to do to me—run me crazy? I burnt up the car—ain’t that enough?”

“I’m just go’n tell you one more time,” Mama says.

“All right,” Daddy says. “I’m go’n beat you if that’s what you want.”

Daddy starts beating Mama, and I cry some more; but Daddy don’t stop beating her.

“Beat me harder,” Mama says. “I mean it. I mean it”

“Honey, please,” Daddy says.

“You better do it,” Mama says. “I mean it.”

Daddy keeps on beating Mama, and Mama cries and goes down on her knees.

“Leave my mama alone, you old yellow dog,” I say. “You leave my mama alone.” I throw the pot at him but I miss him, and the pot go bouncing ’cross the floor.

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