Louisiana Loose End: New Roads and In Memorium

Ernest J. Gaines. Photo credit: Source: Academy of Achievement interview, 2001.

In memorium: Ernest J. Gaines


I've written several times about one of Louisiana's (and arguably, California's) sons, author Ernest J. Gaines.

He died in November.

Mr. Gaines was one of my two most important cultural interpreters for my time in Louisiana. (The other was James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux.)

Mr. Gaines told generations of stories of Louisiana. No, that's not right.

Mr. Gaines told stories of relationships. Relationships between men and women, between parents and children, between people who were enslaved and people who had supreme power over their daily lives, between people whose melanin content fell on a continuum from maple to walnut, between people whose ancestors originated in France and people whose ancestors came from what is now Senegal and Mali, between people who spoke French and people who spoke English, between black sharecroppers and white Cajun sharecroppers, between black Louisianans who stayed in Louisiana and those who joined the decades-long diaspora north or west.

Louisiana did play a role, of course. Louisiana was the one constant among the changing names and eras of Mr. Gaines' flawed heroes and heroines, villains, those who saw, those who saw and did not see, those who stood by, and those who stood up.

I drove three times to the New Roads area, driving by his house in nearby Oscar, pulling into the drive in front of his gate, pressing the intercom, in the hopes I'd be one of the lucky few to be able to visit the church on his grounds, the church he'd attended as a child, which he'd moved from its original location, to save it.  And, oh yes, to perhaps meet him in person. My attempts were for naught, alas.

En route to New Roads, Louisiana. January 2016.

New Roads, 2016

New Roads, Louisiana. January 2016.

On one of the New Roads trips, I poked into town.  I walked around one of the historic neighborhoods and took pictures of pretty bungalows, like these:

New Roads, Louisiana. January 2016.

New Roads, Louisiana. January 2016.

New Roads, Louisiana. January 2016.

Since I couldn't connect with Mr. Gaines directly, I looked for him through his past. As a tween, Mr. Gaines attended the St. Augustine Catholic School for several years before migrating to California. I found the church and attended a service there.

St. Augustine Catholic Church, New Roads, Louisiana. January 2016.

St. Augustine Catholic Church, New Roads, Louisiana. January 2016.

Wayward buggies

The "buggies" in New Roads, Louisiana, loiter wantonly just as they seem to do in all of Louisiana.

New Roads, Louisiana. January 2016.

On further reflection, the above photo suggests a conscious gathering of carts, likely up to no good.

Louisiana: Lights and Lines

Lights and lines, Hilliard Art Museum, Lafayette, Louisiana. September 2017.

September 2017



The University of Louisiana-Lafayette's Ernest J. Gaines Center hosted the first of a series of writers' workshops this month.

Lights and lines, Hilliard Art Museum, Lafayette, Louisiana. September 2017.

A great admirer of Mr. Gaines, I was all in for this opportunity!

Lights and lines, Hilliard Art Museum, Lafayette, Louisiana. September 2017.

I wasn't enthralled by the selected artwork intended to inspire our creative juices. However, the lights and lines of the Hilliard Art Museum's upstairs space hooked me big. 

Lights and lines, Hilliard Art Museum, Lafayette, Louisiana. September 2017.

Although light outdoors when I arrived, it was dark outside when I left. A shimmery moon shined onto strands of water that fell from a ledge.

Lights and lines, Hilliard Art Museum, Lafayette, Louisiana. September 2017.

Lights and lines, Hilliard Art Museum, Lafayette, Louisiana. September 2017.

Be there with me:

Louisiana Lit: The Music of Ernest J. Gaines

Ernest J. Gaines. Source: Academy of Achievement interview, 2001.

Alcoholic Cajun detective Dave Robicheaux, as channeled through author James Lee Burke, was an important cultural guide for my first year in South Louisiana. 

For my second year in South Louisiana, author Ernest J. Gaines was my guide. 

Like Dave, Mr. Gaines receives inspiration from music. 

Of the classics, he likes Mozart, Hayden, Brahms, Chopin, Bach, and Schuman. In Mozart and Leadbelly, he reports: ".. Mozart and Haydn soothe my brain while I write ..."

 
In Mozart and Leadbelly, in the first essay, "Miss Jane and I," Mr. Gaines says:   

… I think I have learned as much about writing about my people by listening to blues and jazz and spirituals as I have learned by reading novels. The understatements in the tenor saxophone of Lester Young, the crying, haunting, forever searching sounds of John Coltrane, and the softness and violence of Count Basie’s big band – all have fired my imagination as much as anything in literature. But the rural blues, maybe because of my background, is my choice in music.

 

 Video above: Leadbelly: We're in the Same Boat, Brother. 

 

In the second essay in Mozart and Leadbelly, he says: 
 

I started collecting blues records while attending San Francisco State College in the mid-fifties and inviting friends to my room to listen to the music. Most of the whites would listen to the records out of curiosity; this was before the Rolling Stones of England had made white America aware of the art and value of black blues singers. The white boys and girls of San Francisco wanted to listen because it was “exciting.” However, very few of my African American friends from the college wanted to listen to it at all because they wanted to forget what those ignorant Negroes were singing about. They had come to California to forget about those days and those ways.

and:

…. [classical music can’t] tell me about the Great Flood of ’27 as Bessie Smith or Big Bill Broonzy can. And neither can [Mozart or Haydn] describe Louisiana State Prison at Angola as Leadbelly can. And neither can tell me what it means to be bonded out of jail and be put on a plantation to work out your time as Lightnin Hopkins can [as in Mr. Tim Moore's Farm]. William Faulkner writes over one hundred pages describing the Great Flood of ’27 in his story “Old Man.” Bessie Smith gives us as true a picture in twelve lines [in Backwater Blues]. ….

The Peculiar Blindness, Part 3: "You Don't See What I Don't See"

 

Four o'clocks, Rustavi, Georgia.

"You don't see what I don't see."

The quote is from Ernest J. Gaines' book, A Gathering of Old Men, based in 1970s Louisiana.

From the chapter narrated by one of the "old men," Joseph Seaberry (aka "Rufe"):

[Sheriff] Mapes looked at Clatoo the way white folks know how to look at a nigger when they think he's being smart.

"Isn't it a little late for you to be getting militant around here?" Mapes asked Clatoo.

"I always been militant," Clatoo said. "My intrance gone sour, keeping my militance down." ....

"I kilt him," Ding said, thumping his chest. "Me, me - not them, not my brother. Me. What they did to my sister's little girl - Michelle Gigi." 

"I see," Mapes said, looking at Ding and Bing at the same time. "I see."

Johnny Paul grunted out loud. "No, you don't see."

He wasn't looking at Mapes, he was looking toward the tractor and the trailers of cane out there in the road. But I could tell he wasn't seeing any of that. I couldn't tell what he was thinking until I saw his eyes shifting up the quarters where his mama and papa used to stay. But the old house wasn't there now. It had gone like all the others had gone. Now weeds covered the place where the house used to be. "Y'all look," he said. "Look now. Y'all see anything? What y'all see?"

"I see nothing but weeds, Johnny Paul," Mapes said ....

"Yes, sir," Johnny Paul said. ... "Yes sir, I figured that's all you would see. But what do the rest don't see? What y'all don't see, Rufe?" he asked me. ... "What y'all don't see, Clatoo? What y'all don't see, Glo? What y'all don't see, Corrine, Rooster, Beulah? What y'all don't see, all the rest of y'all?" 

"I don't have time for people telling me what they can't or don't see, Johnny Paul," Mapes said. ....

Johnny Paul turned on him. He was tall as Mapes, but thin, thin. He was the color of Brown Mule chewing tobacco. His eyes gray, gray like Mapes' eyes, but not hard like Mapes' eyes. He looked dead at Mapes.

"You ain't got nothing but time, Sheriff. .... you still don't see. Yes, sir, what you see is the weeds, but you don't see what we don't see." 

"Do you see it, Johnny Paul?" Mapes asked him.

"No, I don't see it," Johnny Paul said. "That's why I kilt him." 

"I see," Mapes said.

"No, you don't," Johnny Paul said. "No, you don't. You had to be here to don't see it now. You just can't come down here every now and then. You had to live here seventy-seven years to don't see it now. No, Sheriff, you don't see. You don't even know what I don't see."  

... "... Do you hear that church bell ringing?" [Johnny Paul asked]

"Are you all right?" Mapes asked him. ... "Church bells, Johnny Paul?"

"Y'all remember how it used to be?" Johnny Paul said. ... "Remember?" he said. "When they wasn't no weeds - remember? Remember how they used to sit out there on the garry - Mama, Papa, Aunt Clara, Aunt Sarah, Unc Moon, Aunt Spoodle, Aunt Thread. Remember? Everybody had flowers in the yard. But nobody had four-o'clocks like Jack Toussaint. ... "

... "That's why I kilt him, that's why," Johnny Paul said. "To protect them little flowers. But they ain't here no more. And how come? 'Cause Jack ain't here no more. He's back under them trees with all the rest. With Mama and Papa, Aunt Thread, Aunt Spoodle, Aunt Clara, Unc Moon, Unc Jerry - all the rest of them. ... Remember the palm-of-Christians in Thread's yard, Glo? ... Remember Jack and Red Rider hitting that field every morning with them two mules, Diamond and Job?" ...

... "Thirty, forty of us going out in the field with cane knives, hoes, plows - name it. Sunup to sundown, hard, miserable work, but we managed to get it done. We stuck together, shared what little we had, and loved and respected each other. 

"But just look at things today. Where the people? Where the roses? Where the four-o'clocks? The palm-of-Christians? Where the people used to sing and pray in the church? I'll tell you. Under them trees back there, that's where. And where they used to stay, the weeds got it now, just waiting for the tractor to come plow it up." 

... I [killed him] for them back there under them trees. I did it 'cause that tractor is getting closer and closer to that graveyard, and I was scared if I didn't do it, one day that tractor was go'n come in there and plow up them graves, getting rid of all proof that we ever was. Like now they trying to get rid of all proof that black people ever farmed this land with plows and mules - like if they had nothing from the starten but motor machines. Sure, one day they will get rid of the proof that we ever was, but they ain't go'n do it while I'm still here. Mama and Papa worked too hard in these fields ..."

[Mapes] was getting tired; he was getting tired fast. Tired listening, tired standing, tired of niggers. But he didn't know what to do about it ... He had already used his only knowledge he knowed how to deal with black folks - knocking them around. When that didn't change a thing, when people started getting in line to be knocked around, he didn't know what else to do. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have read the above passage many times. Each reading brings a fresh, sharp exhale of emotion.

At our cores, don't we all want to feel that we mattered? That we were seen, our history acknowledged? 

When I entered Mr. Gaines' excerpt into this post, I remembered quotes from a woman and a fictional little girl:

June Carter Cash: "I'm just trying to matter."

Six-year-old Hushpuppy, in Beasts of the Southern Wild: "In a million years, when kids go to school, they gonna know, once there was a Hushpuppy and she lived with her daddy in The Bathtub [in Louisiana]."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In many of the Dave Robicheaux books by James Lee Burke, protagonist Dave describes levees and fields and the banks of bayous that, just under the soil's surface, hold the bones and teeth and scraps of decomposing clothing of forgotten men, women, and children who worked the land as slaves or sharecroppers, and who died on that soil.

When I first stumbled on the Opelousas Massacre, and read of the dozens? hundred? hundreds? of fathers, brothers, and sons killed in the space of a couple of weeks, I wondered, where are they buried? How does a community bury so many people in such a short time? Almost a hundred fifty years later, are some of the dead still out there, laying in the woods, with families knowing they were likely dead, but not knowing the location of the remains?

What's not here that we don't see?



Related posts

The Peculiar Blindness, Part 1: Introduction
The Peculiar Blindness, Part 2: The "Yes, But" Mask

St. Landry Parish, Louisiana: Little Bethel Baptist Church

George Henry, WWI veteran, Little Bethel Baptist Church, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana.

My maternal grandfather was a World War I veteran. There were things he saw that he never wanted to speak of.

When I saw the grave of George Henry, a World War I veteran, in the Little Bethel Baptist Church cemetery, I thought of my grandfather. I also thought about A Gathering of Old Men, by Louisiana author Ernest J. Gaines, which included a story of a World War I veteran:

Coot was there in his First World War Army uniform. The uniform was all wrinkled and full of holes, but Coot wore it like it was something brand new. …. 

“I shot him,” Coot said. ….. “I was the only man from this parish ever fit with the 369th,” Coot said. …. “The 369th was a all-colored outfit. You couldn’t fight side by side with these here white folks then. You had to get your training in France, take orders from French officers. They trained us good, and we helt our ground. … we helt our ground. …

And I was proud as I could be, till I got back home. The first white man I met, the very first one, one of them no-English-speaking things off that river, told me I better not ever wear that uniform or the medal again no matter how long I lived. He told me I was back home now, and they didn’t cotton to no nigger wearing medals for killing white folks. That was back in World War One. And they ain’t change yet – not a bit. Look what happened to Curt’s boy when he come home from World War Two. Because they seen him with that German girl's picture, they caught him – and all y’all remember what they did to him with that knife. Korea – the same thing. That colored boy had throwed his body on that grenade to protect his platoon. Still the politicians here wouldn’t let them bury him in Arlington like the rest of them was buried there. Vietnam, the same thing. It ain’t changed. Not at all.” … 

“I used to put on my old uniform and look at myself in the chifforobe glass. I knowed I couldn’t wear it outside, but I could wear it round the house. Today I told myself I was go’n put it on and I was go’n sit out on my garry with my old shotgun, and I was go’n shoot the first person who laughed at me or told me I had to take it off. … “ 

George Curtis, Army veteran, Little Bethel Baptist Church, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana.

There were two women's graves in the cemetery that suggested they might have been strong women, that of Ms. Helen Sanders and "Big Mama" Elizabeth Curtis.

Helen Sanders, Little Bethel Baptist Church, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. July 2015.

"Big Mama" Elizabeth Curtis, Little Bethel Baptist Church, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. July 2015.

Both lived long, long lives. The things they must have seen.

Little Bethel Baptist Church, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. July 2015.

The church grounds had just been mown when I arrived. It was a hot day. Why do I always seem to be in cemeteries on sweltering days?

The wasps under the church eaves seemed lethargic from the heat.

Little Bethel Baptist Church, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. July 2015.

The church has pretty bones.

Little Bethel Baptist Church, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. July 2015.

A splash of red draws the eye.

Little Bethel Baptist Church, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. July 2015.

Someone laid markers carefully atop the grave.

Little Bethel Baptist Church, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. July 2015.

Little Bethel Baptist Church, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. July 2015.