Boundaries and Bullies


By Kevin Varner


Our lots were separated by an electric barbed wire fence, dividing the large field that used to be part of the Brady family farm between Mom and Uncle Gene.

Gene turned his side of the pasture into a body shop and auto graveyard. I think that's what started the feud. Mom and Dad said it was an abomination and decreased our property value. My grandmother wanted to buy the land back from her children and build a beauty shop on it. Uncle Gene wanted to clear off some trees on our parcel and sell lots for mobile homes. My father referred to them—Maw-maw, Uncle Gene, Aunt Sylvia, and my cousins Steve and Wanda—as “your mother's redneck relations.”

My grandmother's house stood like a little white sore between our newly built home and Uncle Gene's property. If I wanted to sneak a visit to my cousin, I had to cross over Maw-maw's back yard, circle around the back of the pasture-turned-junkyard, and past the pen where Uncle Gene kept his beagles. The dogs were bony, malnourished and loud, and they howled at night. At times, Dad would call Gene and threaten to “have the humane society round up those dogs and take them to the pound if he didn't shut them up.”

My cousin Steve had two pet German Shepherds in a lot next to the beagles. I never understood why he needed two pet dogs when there were already a dozen beagles that looked like they just needed a square meal and a pat on the head. Steve fed the German Shepherds raw hamburger meat.

“What do you feed the beagles?” I asked.

“Oh, I don't know. They's just hunting dogs. They ain't like pets or nothing. They got their own special diet.”

“Yeah, like nothing”, I said.

“Naw,” Steve said, “Daddy feeds 'em every day. He just don't want 'em getting fat and lazy. They hunt quail better when they're lean and mean, Daddy says.”

Since the February after I turned nine, I wasn't supposed to be playing with Steve. We “weren't speaking” to Uncle Gene and his family. But now school was out and there was no one else around to play with. It was easy to avoid being caught because our parents almost never came outdoors except to hang laundry. My mother stayed inside either cleaning or on the phone. If she wanted me she'd come to the window and call.

Steve's mom stayed indoors too, so she wouldn't have to look at our house. When she did come outside, she'd be given away by the squeaky spring on the screen door. We'd hear it stretch out and slam shut, giving us just enough time to separate and hide before she started looking for Steve.

Usually on Saturdays in the summertime, I would stay indoors too, sitting in the air-conditioning watching Soul Train. I learned to dance, when my sister wasn't around to teach me, courtesy of Don Cornelius and the Soul Train dancers. Mom was racist enough to end my Saturday morning TV time if she wandered in when the show came on. Dad was bully enough to ridicule me for watching it at all.

“Kevin! Turn that crap off! Stop shaking your butt and put it to work instead!”

I would flip the switch immediately, but he wasn't done.

“I'm not doing this yard work by myself while you sit in air-conditioned comfort watching a bunch of niggers on the TV flapping their arms around like jigaboos. Are you trying to learn how to shake yo' hips, boy?” It was when he would talk like them that I got the most angry and embarrassed. And when he said nigger. I hated that word and how his upper lip would curl when he said it.

There were two black kids at my school and they were just like everybody else, except they had hair like brillo pads. Lamont Jackson was deaf. He came twice a week and I looked forward to it because he would teach our class how to sign. One day Lamont and I were playing dress-up after school at day care. We dressed up like ladies and had afternoon tea. Lamont put on an orange dress and a big blue straw hat with a peacock feather. He started signing about the tea party. I pretended to be the maid in a big pink floppy hat and dress that dragged on the ground. My high heels were so huge that I kept pitching forward and walking on the sides of my feet. I served the tea and pretended to blow steam from the pot, and Lamont got confused.

“Why are you blowing air in my face?” He signed.

He laughed when I spelled out the word S-T-E-A-M and chased him around the room blowing at him between giggles—both of us tripping in our dresses and high heels. I kept signing “Time for Tea! Time for Tea!” He took off his hat and started batting me away with it. He had a funny laugh, like a caveman.

Lamont took off his shoes and threw them down and sat on them, cradling his stomach and barking his Neanderthal laugh. We were tangled on the floor, giggling and signing when my dad showed up. It was the first and only time Dad came to pick me up after school. He saw us rolling around on the floor. He picked me up, tossed the hat off my head and spun me around to face him. His face was red and he was yelling at me.

He jerked the dress off my shoulders and ripped my shirt underneath. The room, full of kids, got quiet. I tried being deaf like Lamont. I saw my father's mouth move. A piece of spittle was stuck to his moustache. The teacher came over, she said something to me and then turned her white face to my dad. Lamont stared at me and took off the orange dress in the corner next to the “Look How Big I Am” growth chart. My dad must have said something awful to Lamont because he started to cry when he read my father's lips.

Dad spanked me while I was trying to unzip the dress from the back, and I became tangled up in it and fell on the floor. That was the last time I played with Lamont, and the last time I wore a dress.

---

Rusting away, in the farthest corner of the junkyard, next to the nanny goat's pen, was a hulking, black Oldsmobile. The Snake Car.
Steve said that a family of rattlesnakes lived inside it, and that the Oldsmobile had been a gangster car and that someone had been shot to death inside.

“Wull, where's the bullet holes, then?” I was sure I'd caught him in a lie.

“Wull,” he said mocking me, “Why don't you get inside and find out?”

He grabbed me by the back of my shirt and shoved me toward the car. I managed to wriggle out of his reach and scrambled free.

“He was a Yankee,” Steve said. “He was shot by the KKK for trying to run moonshine down here.”

“You're lyin'! There ain't no KKK down here. They're all in Alabama and Mississippi.”

“Oh yes there are. Ain't you ever heard of the Southeast Hunt Club?”

“No.”

“It's a cover-up for the KKK. They meet there once a month and decide who they're gonna string up next. And they don't just hang niggers, either.”

“SHUT UP!” I shouted back. “I hate that word!”

Suddenly, Steve's face was close to mine. “Are you a nigger lover?”

“No. I just don't like that word is all.”

“Y'know something? You got big lips just like a nigger. You got NIGGER LIPS! You got nigger blood in you! You're a High-Yella!” He started laughing and poking his lips out at me making smooching sounds.

“Well if I got nigger blood then so do you since we're related. Besides you got darker skin than me.”

His smooching lips disappeared into a thin line and he shoved me against the Snake Car. “I'm dark-skinned cause I got Indian blood in me which you'll never have you faggot. I'm a quarter Cherokee!” He spit on the ground and strutted home.

I told my mom what happened, and she was on the phone to Aunt Sylvia before I could finish. I heard her say that Steve should be grounded and Aunt Sylvia evidently said I should be grounded, too, if my mother knew what was good for me. Mom said that she had NO RIGHT to tell her how to raise her child and she'd be damned if I was going to set foot on their property and play with that Steve Brady ever again. He was a bully and spoiled and a bad influence and she hung up the phone. That night, my dad grounded me for a week for not fighting back. The next morning a little plaque was hanging in my room:
“It's Not the Size of the Man in the Fight, It's the Size of the Fight in the Man.”
And on the back, in red ink:
“On June 16 ^th , 1980, Kevin Varner age 9 years and 6 months was set upon and shoved to the ground by an 11 year-old boy child, Steve Brady, his first cousin. Steve called Kevin names and accused him of being a “nigger lover”. Kevin says he will fight back next time. This plaque is commemorating that event.
06/17/80. E. E. Varner.”

I don't know why I would ever have wanted to play with Steve again after that. It was one of those miserable hot, humid, mosquito days that fall in the slow weeks after July 4 ^th . The dog days of summer—when there's nothing to do except the same stuff that was fun in June and had now become as tired and humid as the weather. I had been sent outside so that my mother could gossip on the phone. One of Uncle Gene's generators was running at idle, breaking the thick silence of the Carolina heat. It was so hot you could see the air rippling like it does in desert movies. The beagles were quiet, and some hawks circled overhead, spying something dead or dying in the woods.

I could see Steve at the far end of the Brady part of the pasture. The weeds were almost as tall as he was, now standing beside the black Oldsmobile. I went back inside and got two cherry dreamsicles from the freezer.

“Hey,” I said, proffering my peace offering.

“Hey,” He replied, and took it.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“Looking at this gangster car.”

It had a rubber-coated running board on the side, with rusted chrome mirrors, bumpers, grill and trim. In its heyday it had been quite a machine. Through the swirls of dirt on the window I could just make out the gray velvet upholstery inside. The carpet had been ripped away and rusted metal was showing underneath. Splotches of dark stained the seats in the back. In one place was a long rip where the filling showed through all yellow next to the coiled veins of a rusted spring. It was like looking at the guts of a dead body.

“That's where the Yankee got shot. The spring's where the bullet went through the seat and them splotches are”—he lowered his voice to a whisper—“dried blood.” I backed away.

“There's a family of rattlesnakes in there,” he said. “A big mammy snake and her thirteen babies. I dared Kyle Monnett—you know him?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I dared him to get inside the car and sit there for a minute and he wouldn't do it. He was too scared.”

I'd met Kyle once at Steve's. He was a year older than Steve, in junior high, and he wasn't nice. When Kyle came over to play with Steve, I always stayed at home.

“I bet you're too scared to do it, too.”

I looked right at him. “No I'm not. And besides, there's no such thing as rattlesnakes here. They only live out west, you liar.”

“That's what I thought, too. And I ain't no liar. Daddy told me that Yankee gangster hid rattlesnakes in the back near his moonshine in case anyone ever tried to steal it. When the KKK got him, they thought they'd got rid of all them snakes. But one got away and hid herself in the body of that car and now she's had babies inside it. I know cause I've heard 'em hissing and rattling. Daddy said he saw one slither up the tailpipe last week.”

The hairs stood up on the back of my neck.

“I'll tell you what,” he said, “I'll give you ten dollars if you get inside and sit behind that wheel.”

“No way!”

I turned to walk away but Steve grabbed my shoulders. “You better do it or I'm gonna tell everyone at school that you're a sissy! I'll tell Kyle and you'll have it even worse! You don't wanna be a sissy and a tattle-tale-Mamma's-boy all yer life, do you?”

“You don't have ten dollars!”

He let go of me, reached into his shorts pocket and pulled out a rolled up bill. My mind was racing, bargaining. I was always smarter than he was, always smarter, always....

“You do it first, then,” I countered. “How do I know you've been in there? I think you're making the whole thing up. I'll open the door real quiet for you, and you sit down and count to ten and then I promise I'll do it, too.”

He paused just a moment and said, “Okay.”

I walked to the driver's side and peered through the window with my hands on the glass. The driver's seat looked dusty, the steering wheel was huge—big as a tire. The floorboard was shadowy. Hard to tell if there might be something coiled and slithering down there.... I could feel him behind me, pressing up against me, pinning me against the hot car door.

“Chicken?”

I looked at his ruddy brown face reflected in the dirty glass and placed my hand on the door handle. Steve backed up. I turned it slowly, felt the latch click and give way, and braced myself for a writhing mass of snakes to spill out and engulf us both. The door swung open on its own weight and I jumped back. Steve inched forward and peeked inside. No snakes, just a rusty old car door squeaking on ancient hinges. He brushed his fingers along the velvet upholstery. A little cloud of dust flew up. He crouched down to look at the floorboard, then stood up and gave me the “okay” sign. He stepped onto the running board and slid, snakelike himself, into the dark interior, slowly across the dusty front seat. Then, just as slowly, he pulled the door shut beside him with a tiny click. I saw him stiffen and wince. It was very quiet. The generator had stopped humming. He held up his fists and pressed them against the window, raised his index finger, then his middle finger, then his third... What was he doing? Was he okay?

“What! What are you trying to tell me?” I mouthed to him.

Four fingers, five, then the index finger on his left hand.
He was counting. Eight, nine, ten, and the car door flew open and Steve burst out and landed breathless in a cloud of dust beside me.

“Your turn!”

There was no going back on my word. The trick was to remain very quiet. Remain very quiet and you'll be fine, I assured myself. It's probably all a hoax anyway. There are no rattlesnakes here. No one died in this car.... I stepped one foot on the running board, then another, and peered above the car. The black roof was hot. I closed my eyes and listened hard for the faintest hiss or rattle from anywhere inside the black beast—nothing. It was stifling as I slid down, eyes closed, and felt the dusty seat touch the backs of my thighs and the springs sink against me.

It was too late when I heard the sound of sneakers sprinting on the gravel. I opened my eyes in time to see Steve rush toward the car. For a moment I thought he'd seen a movement and rushed in to save me. But he slammed shut the door and started banging on the hood, whooping and hollering as loud as he could. “Come and get him! Come and get him!” He banged on the windshield and kicked in the door while I screamed at the top of my lungs, thrashing about and fighting off the deadly snakes. I kicked the door open and Steve kicked it shut. I smacked the glass. My head landed against the steering wheel. Steve howled with laughter. I reached for the passenger door, but there was Steve, pressing hard against it. I dove again for the driver's side, just as he rounded the hood to block my escape, and then lunged back towards the passenger door, faking him out. It opened hard, spilling me out onto the gravel. My head hurt and something trickled down my right ear. I reached my hand there and it came back bloody. I was crying and tried to hide it by pressing my face against the car door.

I scooped up a handful of gravel.

Steve was standing by the broken taillight. “Hey, ssssissy boy. There ain't no snakes,” he hissed.

“I HATE YOU!” I screamed and ran at him and smashed the handful of gravel against his face. I swung my other hand in a limp-wristed roundhouse towards his nose, missing him by several inches. I thought his mouth was open, thought I'd hit his teeth. There was a clacking sound. I wished they would shatter. He yelped and covered his eyes, but then turned and started laughing. He pointed at me and held his arm across his belly, laughing a sick, fake laugh.

“Ha, ha! Ha, ha! You throw like a girl! You hit like a girl! Kevin Varner throws like a girl!” He ran off, up the steps to his house, and slammed the screen door behind. Seconds later Aunt Sylvia appeared and shouted at me from across the field.

“Go home! You boys get together and it's nothing but trouble! Stay off my land! D'you hear? GO!”

Before I could walk in the door, the phone was ringing, and my mother answered it. Soon she was yelling at my Aunt Sylvia, and not much later I was spanked. When she cleaned off my ear, Mom called me a “glutton for punishment”.

“When are you ever going to learn?” She scolded. “I told you to stay away from over there!”

“Mamma, I just wanted to play. I didn't do anything. I just wanted…”

“You search out trouble like a magnet! You know he's wild and you still insist and persist. That woman's raising him like a redneck. Now STAY AWAY from over there like I told you! Go to your room.”

“But Mamma, I—“

“Stop calling me Mamma! I am your Mom or your Mother. Don't ever call me Mamma again. You sound like a redneck.”

She stopped being my mamma that day. I called her Mother from then on. Sometimes Artamae, just for spite.

Two days later, I was out back clearing brush with my father when Steve came to the barbed wire fence with his two German Shepherds. He started to apologize, but he never got the chance. Instead, my father aimed a garden hoe at his nephew and proclaimed that if he ever saw Steve's damned German Shepherds on or near his property again, “I'll take out my double-barrel shot gun and shoot 'em both.”

I didn't see him for ten years—nor my uncle, aunt or grandmother, though they lived but 300 yards away. The boundaries had been set, and no one crossed them. There weren't any boundaries for my other bully, though, and at the time I didn't quite understood that's what he was. Maybe Mamma could have helped. “Mother” didn't. How does a nine-year-old build an electric barbed wire fence all by himself and order his dad to stay on the other side?

Where IS the other side, anyway?


Copyright 2002 Kevin Varner