The Third Door: The Autobiography of an American Negro Woman

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The Third Door

The Autobiography of an American Negro Woman

The University of Alabama Press

AFRICA BECKONS

If my family had lived in New York, Boston, or Philadelphia, a casual observer might have considered us an average American family. But Birmingham, Alabama, was our home, so we were not considered average—or American. Anthropologists would probably have said that my father was a mulatto and my mother an octoroon. I do not know what scientific name they might have used to describe my two sisters and me. I do know a lot of unscientific names that were used, but I was a young lady before I really understood them. Mama once laughingly said we were a "duke's mixture"; to me, that seemed closer to the truth than anything else.

Papa, who was a barber by trade, was born in Athens, Alabama, about 1868. He settled in Birmingham when the Magic City was still a tiny village close to the coal mines and steel mills that were pouring riches into the pockets of Northern industrialists. Mama migrated from the country, in this case, a small Gone-with-the-Wind community a few miles on the Alabama side of the Georgia-Alabama line.

Papa's customers were all white. Most of them were wealthy, too. And though Mama sewed for the wives of some of the men Papa shaved, they might never have met if a strong March wind had not blown her hat off one day when she was crossing a street in the Negro business district.

I have heard it told, over and over, how Papa got so excited when Mama lost her hat, and the red-gold hair that matched her peaches-and-cream complexion came tumbling down. He vowed, then and there, to get an introduction. Mama had not been in Birmingham long, and though quite a few of the town's eligible young men of color were with Papa that day, Virgil was the only one who knew her. Virgil was a local undertaker and something of a ladies' man, and he did not want to part with any information concerning the "strange lady." But Papa got his introduction just the same.

In due time, Papa proposed and wrote my grandmother, Mama Ida, who was still down in Chambers County. A few days later, a white man stalked into Papa's barbershop with a big gun sticking out of each hip pocket and bellowed, "Which one of you barbers is Bob Tarry?"

Papa identified himself, as the other barbers looked on in trembling fear.

"I'm the sheriff from Chambers County," the man said. "I understand you want to marry Ida's girl, Eula. Can you take care of her?"

Papa must have satisfied the sheriff because they later became good friends. From then on, Papa barbered most of the whites who came to town from Mama's home.

Unfortunately, Mama never did like dogs. And when she met Papa he had twelve. Some were pedigreed, but most of them were stray mutts that took up with Papa because he fed them well and treated them kindly. All they had to do in return was to wait on the corner above our house until Papa passed on his way home from work. After supper, he took his canine cronies for a walk, and each night their wanderings ended at The Last Chance, the last saloon to close in our part of town.

A woman who lived near The Last Chance told me that they always knew when it was fifteen minutes before the midnight curfew because a hot breath of air came around the corner about that time. Somebody would be sure to say, "There comes Bob Tarry and his dogs. It's almost time for The Last Chance to close."

Mama and Papa were married in one of the biggest weddings that had ever taken place at Reverend Buckner's church. I must have heard a great deal about it, because I once told a new neighbor all about the wedding. I even described Mama's dress and the dresses her bridesmaids wore. When the curious woman asked how I knew all this, I told her I had to know, because I was sitting on the front seat all during the ceremony.

Mama was furious when she heard what I had said. Papa laughed.

"Maybe Ellen was on the front seat," he said, "because she was was born nine months and five days later."

Our house, the house to which Papa carried his bride, was a twin. Allena, Mama's girlhood chum, lived in the other house, which looked just like ours. Allena and Mama could almost pass for sisters, except that her hair was blond and Mama's was red. From the time I was able to toddle, they put a broad plank between the two back porches. And it was across this plank to Allena that I ran whenever a spanking seemed inevitable.

Mama and Allena had planted Virginia creepers around the long south side of the porch. By the time I began taking notice of such things, the vines had crept up and up until they covered that side of the house. With flowers blooming in the yard and the vines so shiny and green, it did not matter too much that the houses never were painted. I always dreaded the cold weather that came in December and lasted through March, because it took the beauty away from our house and made it look like just what it was—a shabby, unpainted frame cottage with green trim, and with a front porch, parlor, hallway, two bedrooms, a dining room, kitchen and a back porch, off which there was a water closet with ample room for a big tin bathtub.

Since we had open fireplaces—in front of which I dreamed many a beautiful dream—there was a large coal shed in the back yard. Allena used one side and we used the other. The dogs used either side they liked. Behind the shed stood a peach tree that furnished Mama with an endless supply of switches. She must have stunted that tree, for the peaches were never very good and it was not half so tall as the cotton tree in Allena's side of the back yard. The cotton tree was the favorite hangout for the boys in our neighborhood. I have a half-dozen leg scars to prove that I climbed to the top, too, even if I never managed a return trip without falling.

When Papa first brought Mama to his house, his mother, who was called "White Mama" because of her snowy white hair, and his sister, Nannie, lived with him. White Mama said she could die in peace whenever the Lord called her, because she knew her boy had at last found a good girl. After Papa married, Nannie spent most of her time hoping for me, and, after I came, taking care of me. So what our house lacked in prettiness on the outside was made up by the happiness inside.

Mama says the houses were well-kept, since that was the fashionable section of town for our people in those days. The houses on both sides of Sixth Avenue were frame. Several of the larger ones had plots of grass in front that we called lawns. The others were so close to the paved sidewalk that there was room only for a border of flowers, and two or three chairs when it was hot and stuffy in our valley. The breezes were locked in the trees on the mountainsides where the rich white folk lived.

Our neighbors were our friends—even the people who lived in the shotgun houses closest to Fourteenth Street. Mama was always whispering about "the bad houses on Fourteenth Street." But the people in those houses smiled at me from their front porches. And I was grown-up and living in New York before I understood what Mama meant and why there were always so many white men walking around that end of the street, jingling money in their pockets and whispering strange words. Up at our end, I had "Munny" (a childish version of "Mummy") Adams across the street, Allena to save me from whippings on one side, and Aunt Lizzie Thompson on the other.

Aunt Lizzie's house was really a huge double tenement and the Glenns lived in the other half. Tommie, Aunt Lizzie's husband, and George Glenn were barbers like Papa. So there was friendship all around us.

When I was four, Nannie moved to "the hill," as Enon Ridge was called, and White Mama went with her. Soon after moving, White Mama ate a whole bagful of bananas one Saturday night and died of acute indigestion.

Ida Mae was born when I was five. I was not happy over having a sister. I did not want to share the joy of being "Bob Tarry's little girl."

I used to hear old women, who had nothing to do except sit on the front porch and talk, say Papa had a right to be so crazy about me because I "looked like he spit me out." Although I thought he was the most wonderful man in the world, every night when I said my prayers I asked God to let me wake up looking like my pretty blue-eyed mother with her red-gold hair. So it did not help for Ida Mae to be born looking so much like Mama, even though the fuzz on her head was not red but the color of corn silk.

I had been visiting Nannie when Ida Mae was born. She took me back to Sixth Avenue the next Sunday. Papa was on the front porch waiting. He had grown a mustache and it scratched when he kissed me. A nurse in a stiff white uniform came out and took me inside to see Mama and my sister. They had put the baby in my own little white bed, and I made a wild dash to pull her out.

As the nurse was dragging me out of the room, I looked back at Mama. She was sitting upright in her big bed, one fat braid thrown over her shoulder, with the most surprised expression on her face.

Nannie, who usually took my part in any battle, had disappeared. I waited tearfully while the angry nurse told Papa what I had done. He just smiled and said, "You're my big girl now. I'm depending on you to help take care of the little baby."

That made me feel special and important again. By the time people started stopping by after church, I had become Sister Ellen—and I still am.

I soon learned to take care of the baby, to wash diapers in an emergency, and to iron the rough-dried clothes.

People were always stopping at our house on their way to church or after services. We were encircled by seven Protestant churches. Also, the three big thrills in Papa's life, besides his family, were a good game of cards, a victory for the Birmingham Barons baseball team, and a pantry full of good things to eat and drink. I often wondered if Mama's good cooking did not have something to do with the stream of company that flowed in and out of our house on Sundays.

St. Paul's (Methodist), Sixteenth Street (Baptist), and the First Congregational were the churches nearest our house. I felt equally at home in all of them. Mama was a member of St. Paul's and it was there that I was christened when a baby. Papa was a Congregationalist, and though I got crushes on the single preachers at St. Paul's, "Brother Ragland" at Papa's church had whiskers and reminded me of Santa Claus. His quiet manner of saying, "Dearly Beloved, we are now gathered here ..." soothed my restless spirit and made me feel loved and a part of all gathered there.

But I liked the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church best of all—because of the boys. I always preferred the company of boys because they could climb higher, run faster, and skate better than girls, and it was fun keeping up with them. And some of the best-looking boys in town went to Sixteenth Street Baptist. I also enjoyed the Bible drills they used to have at B.Y.P.U.

As far back as I can remember, every few months one of Papa's dogs would disappear. I was not very old before I discovered that Mama did not share my dislike for the dogcatcher. I realized next that she was actually glad to see him when he came to take one of the dogs away. By the time I understood that Mama herself usually sent for the dogcatcher, she had also promised me a switching if I breathed a word of it to Papa. She told me I would have to understand that she knew best, and that it was hard enough to feed the family without having a lot of hungry dogs around.

The last one to go was Bulger, an ugly brown mutt I loved. Papa and I missed Bulger, but hardly a month after he disappeared a beautiful white collie with brown spots came to our house. He just showed up one day and refused to leave—even for Mama. Papa knew a lot of dog names and when he said "Laddie," the dog jumped up and down and licked Papa's hand. So Laddie he was—just as lovable as Bulger, much prettier, and the most wonderful companion any little girl could wish for.

A few months later, Laddie and I were on our way out to Nannie's. "Bubber" Moore, Nannie's son, was with us. I ran behind Laddie as he romped along, sniffing at hedges and scampering across lawns. I didn't notice the fire department car that had pulled up to the curb until a man leaned out of the window calling, "Laddie! Here, Laddie. Come here!"

Laddie's ears stood up and he looked around until he saw the white man. He looked at him and looked back at us. Then Laddie gave a loud bark and dashed to the car.

I cried and begged Laddie not to leave me, but after talking with the man, Bubber explained that Laddie really belonged to the Chief of the fire department and there was nothing we could do. I watched the car drive away with Laddie on the back seat, his long pink tongue hanging out the side of his mouth and one paw lifted in a wave.

For a while we did not have a dog. One day, however, Mama went out on the front porch to bring in the baby and found a little black fox terrier stretched out under the carriage. She tried to chase him away, but he followed the baby carriage indoors and made himself at home. Mama managed to get rid of the dog before Papa came. The next day she went out for the baby at the usual time and there, under the carriage, was the same little black fox terrier.

That night the dog refused to be chased and Papa found him curled up on the top of the back-porch steps. Papa inquired around the neighborhood and learned that our new friend belonged to a neighbor who did not care if the little dog never came home. We called him Snowball—in honor of the small round white spots on his back.

Snowball was squatty, but he could get about. He had brown markings around his eyes and his nose was pink. He was old, for a dog, when he came to our house. He was always thirsty, too. But that was because I could not remember to keep water in his tin drinking can. His tongue was as pink as Laddie's, though not as long. And though I fed him and gave him water when I remembered, Snowball was Ida Mae's dog and seldom strayed far from the baby's side.

One day when Aunt Emma came to visit and there was more than the usual nip in the air, Mama wheeled the sleeping baby in from the porch and left her in the parlor, still in her carriage. We went to the kitchen for midday dinner and I settled down to enjoy Aunt Emma's cheerful laugh as she and Mama talked about old times down in Chambers County while they ate collard greens, candied yams, and egg bread. I always liked to listen when Mama and her friends talked about their girlhood, so I did not hear the noise at first. There was a scratching sound, followed by a loud angry bark, then more scratching and whining. Mama opened the door and found Snowball crawling on his stomach and crying like a sick baby.

"This dog is hungry," Mama decided and fixed a plate of food for him.

Snowball sniffed at the food and ran back to the front of the house. Mama closed the kitchen door and came back to the table. She had hardly picked up her fork, when Snowball started scratching and whining again. When Mama opened the door again, the dog managed to get his paw hooked in the hem of her skirt and pulled her toward the front of the house. Then we smelled smoke—all three of us at the same time—and ran down the narrow hallway, with Snowball leading.

A curl of smoke oozed out of the parlor. There, on the floor in front of the fireplace beside the carriage lay Ida Mae, the scorching ruffle of her long dress in the ashes beneath the grate. She had managed to wriggle out from under the safety strap of the carriage and onto the floor. Mama grabbed the baby and Aunt Emma tore off the burning dress, while Snowball puffed and panted and danced around. Ida Mae yawned through it all.

That night Papa left a lot of meat on his steak bone for Snowball. Every time I thought about his bravery I put more water in the little dog's can. All of the neighbors heard about the rescue. Snowball was not only a hero, he had won himself a happy home. He was the only dog Mama ever took to her heart. They were friends until the end, which was the end of an era for us.

As spring and summer wore on, we all became more devoted to Ida Mae's faithful little companion. The happiest hours were the evenings, and the time spent in church. Snowball was there, too. We never knew where he went while we were inside. When we came out of the church he was always waiting. He would run along in front of us, puffing and panting; when we caught up with him, he would run ahead again. By the time we got home, he was on the back porch lapping water from his can or, if the can was empty, pretending his tongue was parched. Once Papa even threatened to use his walking stick on me, if I kept forgetting to fill Snowball's water can.

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Excerpted from The Third Door by Ellen Tarry. Copyright © 1992 The University of Alabama Press. Excerpted by permission of The University of Alabama Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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