The Bicycle Man

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David L. Dudley is professor of African American literature at Georgia Southern University. He lives in Twin City, Georgia, with his wife. They have four children and homeschool the younger two.

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Chapter One Summit, Georgia, 1927 I might never have met Bailey if Poppy hadn't decided to climb the magnolia tree. She had insisted we have a tea party with my doll, Zillah, in the "cave" formed by its low branches, which came all the way to the ground. Back when I was ten, the cave was my favorite secret place, and Zillah and I had played pretend there a lot. Now Zillah spent her time sitting on a shelf by my bed, except when Poppy came over. Poppy didn't have a doll of her own, even though she always bragged on how her mama gave her everything she asked for. I tried to tell her that tea parties didn't interest me anymore, now that I was twelve. She got that half-hurt, half-mad look that spelled trouble, so I gave in, as long as we could look at a book and not just talk baby talk to Zillah. Poppy agreed, so there we were, sitting in the shade under the tree, having our party. "Drink your tea," I told her. "It's good." Poppy sipped from her mug and made a face. "It ain't sweet," she complained. "I want sugar in mine." "Mama said we can't have any sugar. Besides, it doesn't need any. Doesn't it make your mouth feel cool?" I had made our tea by crushing some mint leaves in a bowl and stirring them up with well water. "It's nasty," Poppy said. "Ain't even hot." "Zillah likes it." I held my mug to her mouth. "Don't you?" I felt stupid offering a drink to a cloth doll, and annoyed with Poppy for being ungrateful about the tea. Mama had made Zillah for my sixth birthday. She had been beautiful once, but her face and arms, made of brown cloth the same color as my skin, were faded and stained now. Her black yarn hair, braided into two pigtails, just like mine, was all frizzy because the yarn had frayed. I guess Zillah didn't know how shabby she looked. Her pink embroidered mouth remained frozen in its happy little smile. "I don't want no more tea," Poppy declared, putting down her mug on the bare ground. "Then I'll read to you." "The one about the boat." "That's the one you made me bring." Poppy smiled, showing the gap where she'd lost both her front teeth. Mama asked her once if she'd knocked them out by running and falling, or by walking on a fence and crashing face-first onto the ground. Poppy said no, they'd come out on their own, with just a couple of yanks. Mama shook her head and told Poppy she was a mess. That's what Mama always said: "That girl is a mess, and her mama is sorry." Looking at Poppy now, I had to agree. Her hair looked like nobody had tried to wash or comb it in days. It was brown with dust, and there were bits of leaves and grass in it. At the moment, Poppy's knees and elbows were crusted with dried mud, and the spaces between her toes were dark with dirtleftovers from yesterday, when we'd played in mud puddles. Her dress needed washing, and so did her face. But Poppy didn't care, and neither did her mama. "Read," she said. The book was titled My Adventures on the Seven Seas, by Howard W. Armstrong. It had pictures, showing places he had visited all around the world, places with exotic names like Bora Bora and Madagascar and the Cape of Good Hope. Mr. Armstrong's ship, a schooner with tall, straight masts and white sails that puffed in the wind, was named the Pegasus. But even more than the Pegasus and the different lands, I loved the pictures of the ocean. Poppy did too. We had never been to an ocean or seen what Mr. Armstrong called "the majestic combers cresting and dashing downward during a squall at sea, only to rise yet again and hurl themselves forward, as if at the command of Old Neptune himself." That sentence had sent me to the dictionary at school to look up several words. My teacher, Miss Johnson, remarked that the author could have used simpler ones just as well, but I liked the sound of the fancy ones he had chosen. "Chapter Four, "Storm at Sea,"" I began. Just then there was a crash from inside our cabin. It was probably Mama, knocking pots and pans together on the cook stove. She had been angry all morning. The dog next door had killed one of her chickens and now we were down to three. There had been ugly words between Mama and Mrs. Washington, the hound's owner. Mrs. Washington had offered to buy Mama another pullet when she got the money together, but Mama had yelled that Mrs. Washington wasn't going to ever get any extra money because no one had any money. When it was over, Mrs. Washington had gone off saying how stuck up Mama was and how she should understand that sometimes dogs just get full of themselves and do that kind of thing. Mama had stalked into our cabin, complaining about how much she hated Summit and the South and wished we were back north where we belonged. "Your mama still some mad," Poppy declared. "I know. Be still now, and let me read." The Pegasus had gotten caught in a hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean. "Show the pictures." "When I come to them," I said. "Can't you wait?" The minute I started reading again, Poppy jumped up and headed for the trunk of the tree. She grabbed a branch, pulled herself up, and started to climb. "I won't read if you're going to play." No reply. Poppy reached for the next higher branch and scrambled up. "You'll fall," I told her. She just kept going. I closed my book, put it on the piece of cloth I'd brought to keep it from getting dirty, and stood up. "Come down right now!" I shouted. "That's dangerous." "It fun! C'mon." "I can't. Mama says if I climb a tree I'll fall and break my neck. Come down!" Branches high up in the tree rattled. "I'll tell Mama and you'll get in trouble." Poppy only laughed. Now she had disappeared completely, hidden by a mass of glossy, dark-green leaves. I crawled out from our cave and went into the road, where the red clay felt warm under my bare feet. I craned my neck upward, trying to spot Poppy. "Carissa!" she called. "Where are you?" "Up here. See me?" "No. Where?" "I'se waving right at you." "Don't wave! Hold on! You'll fall and kill yourself." "I can see Fifteen-Mile Creek." "No you can't. It's too far away." "Can too. Up here you can see the whole world. I sees Swainsboro over yonder." "You're lying!" I shouted. "That's eleven miles! Deacon Braithwaite says so!" "How he know? He ain't never been up this high. Ohhh! There's Atlanta, way yonder." My patience was gone. "I'm telling Mama!" "Afternoon," said a voice just behind my left shoulder. I jumped because I hadn't heard anyone coming. Beside me was an old manolder even than Granma. He wore a crumpled hat and was clenching a battered pipe in his teeth. He needed a shavesilver bristles covered the deep brown skin of his cheeks and chinbut his eyes were gentle. The man looked like a tramp with his faded shirt, baggy pants, and patched jacket. He carried a pack on his backa bedroll. We had been seeing a lot of tramps. Mama said times were hard and some people were poor, even poorer than we were. But this man was different. He was standing in the dirt road holding the handlebars of the newest, shiniest blue bicycle I had ever seen. "Hey!" Poppy called from her perch high above us. She waved. "She won't come down," I told the man. "She's going to fall and break every bone in her body." "That so?" the man said. He didn't say it like he was worried. "She always runs and climbs and does what she shouldn't. That's why she always has cuts and bruises. Mama says one day she's going to kill herself. Maybe today is the day." "I doubt it," the man said. "Folks spry enough to git up so high can usually figure a way to git back down without bustin" anything. Air nice up there?" he called to Poppy. "I can see Atlanta!" she crowed. "Quit lying," I demanded. "Come down right now." "Get away from her, you old tramp!" shrilled a voice from our front porch. Mama came striding toward us, wiping her hands on a feed sack towel. "Go on! You've got no business bothering a child." "Afternoon, Missuz," the man answered pleasantly. "Mighty hot for September, ain't it?" "Look there." I pointed to the top of the magnolia. "Hey there, Miz Lorena," Poppy called. Mama clapped her hand over her mouth. "O my sweet Lord Jesus. That girl's final day has arrived at last. You, Poppy!" she shouted. "Quit playing the fool and get down here this minute!" "Shhh," the man told Mama. "No need for that. If we stay nice and calm, she'll come down." "I don't know you," Mama shot back at him. "Who are you to be telling me my business?" "I ain't tryin" to do that. But it seems to me that youngun" is havin" herself a high ol" time, bein" the center of all our attention. If we let her be, she'll come down soon enough." "But what if she falls?" "She ain't gon" fall. Besides, what can we do about it if she does? There ain't no way I can climb up and help her down. No, ma'am. She'll find her own way, just like she did goin" up." Mama looked him up one side and down the other, like she was trying to decide whether to listen to him or not. "Let's go over into the shade," the man suggested. "Take away her audience." He started wheeling his bicycle back toward the magnolia tree. I was surprised when Mama followed him. "Come on," she told me. When we were in the shade, Mama faced the man. "Where'd you get that bicycle?" she asked suspiciously. "Stole it, I reckon." Was Mama right? I'd been too interested in the bicycle itself to wonder how the man had gotten it. He didn't look like he had enough money to buy his supper, let alone pay for a fancy bike. "No, ma'am. It's mine. Bought and paid for from Sears, Roebuck and Company in Chicago." "How'd you get to Chicago? That's hundreds of miles away." "I ain't been there myself, but a man can order from a catalogue." "Where'd you get the money for a bike like that? No colored folks I know have that kind of money." I couldn't tell why Mama was asking so many questions. But now I wanted to hear the man's story too. "Hey," Poppy called from her lookout. "Don't answer her," the man said. "I earned the money myself, Missuz." "How?" "Doin" odd jobs here and there." He pulled out a frayed handkerchief and wiped his forehead. "Might I tr...

The Bicycle Man

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