Finalist: Behaving Ourselves
by Christopher Bundy
"What kinda business, granddaddy?"
"Just business ... and bait, of course. What's it gonna be today? Night crawlers or crickets?"
"Easy ... night crawlers."
"Night crawlers then."
We usually bought our bait from Daniel, an old black man in dirty blue work pants like a prison uniform tucked into his rubber waders. White suspenders, yellowed from age, hung loosely over gaunt, shirtless shoulders and a fraying straw hat like my grandmother wore in her rose garden shaded his bare head. Daniel sold night crawlers and crickets out of a wheelbarrow by the Edisto River in Gwynn, S.C. He called me Mr. Davies.
How you doin', Mr. Davies? He always asked.
Night crawlers squirm, but crickets struggle in your hand and bleed vanilla pulp. Night crawlers can be cut in two and shared, the front end indistinguishable from the rear. I liked the routine of their demise: each end in a slow squirm, one separate from the other, raw red skin like the peel of a tomato. My grandfather believed that the twisting, turning night crawler was better for bottom fishing. Night crawlers then. Easy.
We rode southwest along Route 17 in my grandfather's Chevrolet truck, long cane poles rattling in the johnboat behind. Tomato sandwiches on white bread were packed in with Cokes and coffee, pecan pie and peanuts, my grandmother's German cole slaw. My grandfather wore his John Deere, lemon-yellow letters on a lawn-green cap. I, the red and black Gamecock he had given me at the start of summer. On our way out of town, black boys, barefooted and shirtless, sold boiled peanuts and watermelons from the corner, impelling us to buy as we passed. With their voices, the strange tales of King's Town recounted by my summer friends in Gwynn surfaced as Halloween spirits. Masked and feathered Africans danced before me in chalky white paint. Water moccasins and alligators swam through the black water Edisto. Spanish moss stretched to the ground from great live oaks, a swamp of spectral figures.
"I thought King's Town was haunted."
"Haunted?"
"Uh huh."
"Who told you that?"
"Andy Godbold. Said his brother Billy told him they did voodoo magic and cut him."
"Billy Godbold is a fool, Maddy. Don't you believe a word he says. It's just a place where the coloreds live that's all. Not everybody lives like we do. People're different."
"What kind 'a different?"
My grandfather looked straight ahead, tapping his foot to a country song on the radio, a Tareyton in his mouth.
"Different's all. We do things our way and they do it theirs. Black and white. Different, see? We're just going to get bait. Only be a minute, so don't get all worried up about nothing. Just poor coloreds, Maddy."
"What about Daniel? Why can't we get our bait from Daniel like always?"
"'Cause Daniel's not there today."
"I don't wanna go."
"What?"
"I don't wanna go to King's Town. Andy said that they wear feathers and face paint and ..."
"What did I tell you? Huh? You gonna believe everything he tells you but not what your granddaddy tells you? Huh? What're you 'fraid of?"
"I don't know."
"Well, there's nothing to be 'fraid of."
"Are they from Africa?"
"No Maddy, they're from right here in South Carolina. Same as you in Columbia, just these people live in King's Town so they can be together. Now quit worrying. We're gonna get bait and then we're going fishing like I said. You understand?"
"Uh huh ..." I said softly.
"I didn't hear you."
"Yes sir," I said louder.
"Good. Now sit up in your seat. You don't want bowed shoulders like Daniel, do you?"
"No sir."
As we drove on, I remembered other tales Andy's brother Billy had told: about bonfires and blood and bogey men; about getting your pecker cut off and a couple of white boys drowning in the river near King's Town. My grandfather wouldn't tolerate any more questions but his answers did nothing to squelch the frightful images of voodoo faces, feathers and fires that swept my imagination.
After 20 minutes on Route 17 we turned onto a narrow dirt road bordered by signs advertising melons and tomatoes. Two pieces of wood nailed together as a cross insisted that we Get right with God. Another painted fade on wood told us that we had arrived in King's Town. We bounced and veered down the narrow dirt road, kicking up dust as my grandfather took large gulps from a can of Miller and drew on a Tareyton that stuck out perpetually from his lips. Rounding a sharp curve, a young black girl with a skinny mongrel pup in her arms walked in the middle of the dirt road, forcing us to come to a sudden stop.
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