I said I knew what he was talking about.
“Truth of the matter is that it was Raleigh who gave me the idea of starting my own business, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. This here is a good story and I want to tel it properly.
“I used to drive these white people around al the time. Me and Raleigh used to take turns with the job, but the white people didn’t like Raleigh al that much. So I took on the driving ful time, and Raleigh had to go over to the mil . He stank so bad coming back home, but me and Laverne never said anything to him about it. Didn’t need to, I guess. He got a nose. We waited on him to wash up before we ate dinner, but you could stil smel the mil on him.
“One day, I was driving the white lady somewhere. She was al dressed up, hat, gloves, pink lipstick drawn where lips would have been if she had any. I just let her in, closed the door behind her and set off. No radio, no nothing, me and her just riding along listening to each other breathing.
Anyway, I was driving and I saw a sign up on the left for the highway. I seen that sign a hundred times, but this time I real y saw it, and it occurred to me that I could just twist my arms a little bit, turn the steering wheel and go wherever I wanted to. That lady in the backseat wouldn’t have no choice but to come along for the ride. I started laughing then, laughing hard. I liked to choke on so much laughing. I could see the lady in the backseat looking scared, like she was trapped in the car with a crazy nigger. Al I had to do was like this here” — he rotated the steering wheel to the left, changing lanes — “and me and her would have been on the highway headed toward Hilton Head. You get it, don’t you, Chaurisse?
“It takes a lot of trust to let somebody drive you around. People don’t think about it — you should see them just hopping into taxicabs downtown, not knowing who they got behind the wheel. That’s why I don’t get in no airplanes, neither. I was having al these thoughts while I was driving the car and laughing like a loon. The white lady looked like she was going to throw up. Then I stopped laughing and try to seem like I had some sense. Al the time my mind was just working.
“I couldn’t wait to tel it to Raleigh. He had just come home from the mil . I usual y gave him his space when he got home, and not just because of how he was smel ing but because he didn’t like to be around people until he got his constitution together. But I just had to tel him. He was walking up the steps to the front of the house and he didn’t even get the doorknob turned good before I busted out with it.
“I said, ‘I don’t ever want nobody driving me around. Whoever is doing the driving is real y the one in control.’
“Raleigh looked at me like, ‘You just now figuring that out?’ Your uncle is a very intel igent man. He’s like Albert Einstein and George Washington Carver rol ed up into one. Then he said, ‘Can we talk about this after I got my bath?’
“I said ‘Okay.’ Your mama was in the kitchen frying some fish. We had been married about two years, maybe three, and she was just final y at last learning how to cook. She almost kil ed me and Raleigh both with food poisoning. Did I ever tel you that story? It’s funny now, but it wasn’t funny at the time.
“I was just burning up with my new way of thinking. Raleigh was taking his sweet time washing up. He’s not like that now, but he used to be a pretty nigger when we was younger, rubbing baby oil on his arms to make the hair lie down. Stuff like that. So by the time he got his pretty self ready, I had already told it to your mama and she didn’t seem to be moved by what I had to say.
“Final y we sat down at the table to eat. Your mama was stil into religion back then, so we said grace and ‘Jesus Wept.’ Raleigh reached for a piece of fish, and I couldn’t hold back any longer.
“‘You didn’t tel me what you think of my idea.’
“Raleigh said, ‘What idea?’
“‘My idea that when you are driving the car, you are always the boss. Did you ever think of that?’
“‘The boss is the one that pays you,’ Raleigh said.
“‘But every time they get in the car with me, they are putting their life in my hands.’
“‘That’s true,’ your mama said.”
Daddy laughed and hit his hand on steering wheel. “When we were young, your mama was ‘Yes, baby’ this, ‘Yes, baby’ that.” He laughed again.
“Those were some good days. We struggled, but those sure was some good days.
“Raleigh said, ‘The boss is the one who owns the car.’
“And just like that, it clicked: I needed to own myself a car and let people hire me to drive them around.
“I can’t say those other two were ready to hop on board. I mean, we al knew we wanted something else out of life. Your mama was doing white people’s laundry, didn’t have her high school diploma. Me and Raleigh had our diplomas, but neither one of us had the kind of job you could be proud of. It was, what? ’Sixty? ’Sixty-two? Something like that. We were young and ready to break out into the world. Raleigh had his eye on going to col ege. He didn’t know how he was going to get there, but he wanted it so bad, he was thinking about the army. I said, ‘Man, are you crazy?’ He lucky he didn’t get drafted. So I saved up some money, and Miss Bunny gave me what she had. Raleigh and Laverne gave me their pennies, too.
They both had other plans for their money, but I knew this was going to be the ticket. If things went the way I needed them to go, there would be money later for beauty school and col ege. I bought the first car. That Plymouth. It wasn’t nice like this here Lincoln, but I kept it clean and even crammed a little flavored pil ow under the seat. Your mama stuffed it with cinnamon sticks and other nice-smel ing things; she even sewed some embroidery on it.
“I started driving colored people around, not the wel -off folks, because who would pay money to hire a car that wasn’t as good as the one you have in your driveway? People hired me especial y on occasions like funerals, weddings, things like that. After a couple years, I gave your mama and Miss Bunny their money back. I told Raleigh I was prepared to return his investment — I had it for him in a brown envelope, looked al official and everything. I said, ‘Raleigh, here you go, every penny back, with interest. I got it for you right here, or we can make a deal, a partnership, save up for another car and go into business together. Fifty-fifty.’
“The rest, like they say, is history.”
17
TIME AND A HALF
IN THE EIGHTIES, you could stil smoke in restaurants but only in the smoking section. I don’t smoke, wil never smoke. I even refuse to date smokers because their ashtray kisses remind me too much of my father. Stil , I feel a little pang of sympathy when I see a no smoking sign. The diagonal slash seems heartless, cruel even. My daddy took the ban personal y, said it reminded him too much of Mississippi, but he laughed it off with the same sad joke. “Just when they took down al the signs that said ‘No Coloreds,’ they had to come up with a new way to keep me out. Ain’t that right, Raleigh?” Then Uncle Raleigh would say, “If it ain’t one thing, it’s another.”
“I know that’s right,” I would chime in, thinking not of the smoking bans but of the slew of Sweet Sixteen parties that year. My mother, who had been doing hair for more than fifteen years, had never seen anything like it. Daddy thought it had something to do with Ronald Reagan. Although no self-respecting black person would cast a vote for that joker, Daddy had to admit that the man had a way about him that was infectious. “Carter was a good man, but he didn’t exactly make you want to go out and hire a limousine for your kid’s birthday party. What do you think, Buttercup?”