The Violin

I’m in 8th grade. I’ve long since graduated from the tonette to the mellophone. While PaPaing to the oomp provided by C. D. on the tuba, Sister Mary Evangelist mentioned that she would like to expand the band into an orchestra. I had heard her playing the violin in the past and was fascinated by this possibility.

It was a weekend afternoon and I was sitting in the kitchen with dad as he was cooking. He liked to cook. He did most of the holiday cooking for the family. He remembered our birthdays and would make cakes. Mother could cook, but she worked during the day as a maid for two sisters on the other side of town. Her specialty was lemon meringue pies with vanilla wafer cookie crumbs for crust.

As he was peeling onions for the black-eyed peas that would be further seasoned by either bacon or fatback, I broached to subject.

“Daddy, “I said, “How poor are we?” He wiped his chin with the palm of his hand, took an inordinately long time to respond and said, “The cockroaches leave our house and go next door to eat.” He always did that when I wanted to have a serious conversation. He also never laughed as his jokes. This meant, I would not laugh either. It was a tie.

I had to hold my ground. The easiest approach was to get to the point. I firmed my cheeks with as much authority as I could muster then said, “Daddy, I would like a violin so I can join the orchestra that Sister is starting.”

Without missing a beat, without taking his eyes off the onions he replied, “I think you’re right. You should have a violin.” There was this long pause. Then he spoke, “How are you going to get it?” Our eyes locked together and he smiled and returned to the cutting board.

Cotton fields! In Memphis in those years, a truck appeared in the neighborhoods around 4:30 in the morning to collect people who would be going into Mississippi or Arkansas to chop cotton for the summer. In the fall they would take the load to pick cotton, and later toward winter, the cycled ended when the crew would pull cotton. Pay was $2.75 to $3.50 per day to chop. There were three roles you could take in the summer process. You could chop, be the hoefiler, or be the waterboy. Waterboy was the hardest. You had a big metal bucket and dipper. Your job was to fill the bucket with water, walk back into the field, catch up with the choppers and hand them a dipper. No matter now thirsty they were, no one would drink more than one dipper. I think they all remembered when they walked the rows with the heavy bucket, their arms aching, and the hands getting the first blisters of summer as they trekked the dusty rows.

The first time I got on the truck, I had no expectations. I arrived in the field, was given a hoe and a row. My first swipe took out cotton, weeds, and perhaps any little critters beneath the top crust of dirt. A woman in the row next to me showed how to use the corner tip of the hoe to work around the cotton stem and leave a clean stand. The boss watched me a while, then called in my replacement. To me he said, in a kind, paternal way, “You’ll be OK directly, son, but I gotta have somebody who can keep up. Go get the water bucket. You can practice this some more tomorra’.”

By the end of summer, I had graduated back to the rows and could chop with the best of them. I counted my savings in late August. I folded the bills neatly, put them all in my pocket and took the 4 Walker bus, and transferred to a cross town carrier that dropped me off at Gold’s Music Store in downtown Memphis. I scanned and touched the contents of every case in the store. I then made my selection. The shiny body with the highlighted yellowish glow when the sun hit was one of the most beautiful, aesthetic sights I have ever seen. I looked inside at the little white label and read, Stradivarius Model.

I couldn’t wait to show it to dad. I stayed up until he came home after work. He went upstairs to the bath room to shave, then into the bedroom, and changed into his night clothes, came back to the kitchen and dashed two large spoons of coffee grinds and some eggshell for the bottom of the pot started his nightly brew. I never understood the egg shells. As he sat down at the table and waited for the coffee, I gave him his Memphis Press-Scimitar. He always decompressed by reading the papers from cover to cover at night.

I went up to my room, got the violin and took it down in the case. I placed in on the kitchen table, and opened the top. The smell of the newness caused me to shiver as I took it out and presented it to him. He looked at it for a long time, placed his large hand in my head, looked me in the eye and said, “Nice fiddle, Son.” I then knew what he had done for me. The fiddle was mine. Not a gift. It was mine.