Just Across Highway 826
The highway was empty; I sat motionless in the grass, still shimmering with morning dew. In the distance, about a mile away in the direction of Egremont Chapel, I thought I saw the flashing lights of an approaching vehicle. It was the only vehicle I’d seen for the last half hour. As the lights neared, I rose and pushed my glasses back up the bridge of my nose. Squinting my eyes, I inched closer to the highway. Something about the approaching vehicle commanded my attention.
It was a little white pickup truck. Attached to its hood was an orange emergency light, flashing its beacon in the not-quite morning. The truck approached and my body slowly rotated, following as it innocently drove by. A slight breeze tickled the hairs on my arm. The gravel crunched beneath my feet as I took another step closer to the highway. I was mesmerized by that flashing yellow light. It grew smaller and smaller the further and further away the truck drove. I squinted, and, again pushed my glasses back up the bridge of my nose. I figured it was nothing.
All of a sudden, WHOOSH! A gust of wind nearly knocked me off my feet. Rocks and dirt flew through the air. I stumbled away from the highway, and the unmistakable blare of an eighteen-wheeler semi-truck horn filled the air. The horn blared so loudly I thought it might wake my dead family members, buried just a few feet behind me. The wind settled; the dirt cleared. My hand moved away from shielding my now dust covered face.
A house! The semi was pulling an entire house down the middle of the highway. I surely wasn’t dreaming. The horn blared again, as the semi continued on past Indian Bayou Road and Elemwood on the right. A few seconds later, the truck’s bright red brake lights lit up. The yellow left turn signal blinked.
Still in a daze, I was now transfixed on the semi. Stumbling slowly across the pavement to the west side of Highway 826, I didn’t even look both ways to check for traffic. I plopped down in damp grass to watch. About three hundred yards across the field, beyond the lumpy clods of dirt, the semi-truck had turned off the highway. It slowly pulled down a narrow, bumpy, dirt road.
First, the little white truck stopped, then the big semi pulled up behind it. Air brakes exhaling, PPPSSSHHH, it halted on the tiny acre of land that Daddy-Eck had set aside for Mom. I couldn’t contain my emotions, tears tracking down my dust covered cheeks. Mom had told me today would be the “Big Day.”
Mom and Dad’s plan was coming to fruition right before my eyes. Like so many Black families, we’d lived under the thumbs of white plantation owners since I was born, since my parents were born, since their parents were born, and since their parents’ parents were born.
For about an hour I sat there, watching. I waited until the trucks pulled off. They both made a right onto the highway and disappeared back from where they came. I stood up and glanced over my shoulder, past the Black folk’s cemetery, back toward Madea’s house on Elemwood. I turned to peer at our new home. I started walking across the lumpy, dirt clod covered field.
The house didn’t even have steps yet. The bottom of the doorway was about four or five feet off the ground. I was twelve; the doorknob was too high for me to reach. I found a discarded five-gallon bucket next to the road, dragged it over, and climbed. Stretching on my tippy toes, I was just tall enough to reach. With the tips of my fingers, I struggled to turn the knob.
The door cracked open. I hauled myself over the threshold, like a diver struggling to pull his gear and body into a boat after a deep-sea dive. I nudged the door open with my head. Once inside, I rolled over on my back in the middle of the living room floor. I fell asleep with a tear-stained, dust-covered smile on my face. Soon, Mom, Dad, Pee Wee, and I would be back together again.
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