you she’ll be okay.” Daddy started talking again and Miss Hopson rolled her eyes and made a face like she didn’t like what he was sayin’. The upshot of it was Daddy wouldn’t give in. When the telephone conversation was over Miss Hopson put her arm around me and gave me a hug and said, “Beulah, I tried my best to get your daddy to change his mind but he wouldn’t. I guess this means the door is closed.” I wanted to cry. But I didn’t. Buchanans don’t cry in public. I didn’t get to go to the concert. I stayed home. Everybody who went said they had a big time. They had a pillow fight at the motel. They went swimming in the motel pool. The next morning they ate pancakes at the International House of Pancakes. I think Daddy should have let me go. Me going down to Hattiesburg and spending the night in a motel ain’t the worst thing in the world you can do. I can think of a lot of things that’s worser. The thought goin’ through my mind was that gettin’ married would be a quick way to get out from under the thumb of my mama and daddy. Maybe I wouldn’t be bossed around no more. Maybe if I was married I’d get to go places. So when Daddy asked me what I thought about marrying Ralph, I said, “I think I’d like to.” Them’s the exact five words I spoke.
Daddy blew a big puff of cigar smoke, passed another loud fart, and said, “Then that settles it. Ralph and Beulah are gonna get married.”
Mama spoke out real loud and said, “I think she’s making a mistake. And I mean a big mistake.”
With that Mama got up and left the front porch in a huff. As she walked into the house she slammed the door. I bet you could have heard that slam all the way down to the Okatoma River. That’s the way Mama acts when she’s mad about something. She walks away in a huff and slams the door. That wasn’t the first time I’d heard Mama and Daddy disagree. And I figured it wouldn’t be the last time.
The next day Daddy went by Ralph’s barbecue cafe in Laurel and told him he’d prayed about it and had decided it would be okay if we got married. Ralph said he’d prayed about it too. As far as Daddy was concerned me marrying Ralph was the Lord’s will. That’s what he told me he told Ralph.
The Lord’s will or not, no sooner had Daddy give the green light for me to marry than I hit a snag. When I think about the snag it still hurts. Two or three days after Daddy gave the green light we was all eatin’ breakfast. By “we” I mean Daddy, Mama, Earline, and me. Daddy was dunking his biscuits in his coffee. Mama don’t like for Daddy to dunk his biscuits in his coffee. She says it’s not nice. When you dunk a biscuit in coffee you crumble it up in your coffee and let it get real moist and then you eat it with a spoon. That’s what Daddy was doin’ when he said, “We got to start thinking about Beulah’s wedding.”
In a real snappy voice Mama said, “Who’re you talking to?”
Daddy said, “I’m talking to you.”
Mama said, “Why’re you talkin’ to me?”
Daddy said, ‘Because you’re Beulah’s mama.”
I could tell Mama was still real ticked off because she said, “I ain’t havin’ nothing to do with Beulah’s wedding. And when I say nothing I mean nothing. I ain’t even goin’ to it.”
It really hurt when Mama said that.
Daddy said, “Josephine, that’s not a nice thing for you to say.”
Mama said, “Maybe it’s not. But nice or not nice, I’m not touching her wedding with a ten-foot pole. I’ve told you Ralph ain’t no good. If I went to the wedding I’d be as phony as a Jew singin’ about Jesus at a Baptist revival. You and Beulah can handle the wedding all by yourselves. So go to it and best of luck.”
I thought at the time Mama was being mean. I still think she was being mean. The Bible says you’re supposed to honor your father and your mother. That’s one of the ten commandments Brother Ledbetter is always preaching about at the New Jerusalem Baptist Church. I’m guessin’ the commandment means you’re supposed to love your parents. But how can you love your mama when she’s mean to you? I think it’s weird that your mama and daddy say some of the meanest things that’s ever said to you. Even if I was makin’ a mistake by marrying Ralph, couldn’t Mama at least have gone along and kept her feelings to herself and her mouth shut? If she’d done that I wouldn’t have been embarrassed by the way she was acting. I’ll put it this way: can’t a mama be kind to her daughter even when she feels her daughter is making a mistake? If I ever have a son or a daughter I’m gonna be kind and tender to ’em even though I know they’re pissin’ in their pants.
When Mama said she wasn’t gonna have nothing to do with my wedding, Daddy said, “Oh shit.” I could tell he was ticked off.
But then he said, “By god, I’ll get something worked out. What it’ll be I don’t know.”
Daddy went and told Aunt Carrie about the way Mama was acting. Aunt Carrie is Daddy’s sister. She’s married to Sam Casey. Everybody calls her husband “Uncle Sam.” His real name is Samuel, not Sam. He was named after Samuel in the Old Testament. Everybody says Uncle Sam is the best carpenter in Jones County. And maybe he is. He ain’t never hurting for work because people are always wanting him to fix this and fix that. Aunt Carrie and Uncle Sam have one daughter. Her name is Velma. Velma is older than me. When I was a little girl I used to spend the night with Velma. She and I had a big time chasing lightning bugs at night. We’d catch ’em and put ’em in a glass jar with air holes punched in the lid. Velma has become the black sheep of the New Jerusalem Baptist Church. I don’t think she’s a black sheep but Ralph’s relatives sure think she is. They don’t like her because she divorced her husband who was a Rainey and was kin to Ralph. Velma later remarried. She married the man who owns the Confederate Truck Stop on Highway 49 just north of Hattiesburg. Two weeks after Velma remarried they had a business meeting at the New Jerusalem Baptist Church and voted her slam out of the church. I know they voted Velma slam out of the church because I was there when they done it and heard what Brother Ledbetter said. He said Velma remarrying after she’d got a divorce made her an adulterer and he wasn’t in favor of having an adulterer in the church. He said the Bible says a divorced woman ain’t suppose to marry again. My sister—Earline—says her divorce is not the reason some people don’t like Velma. Earline says people don’t like Velma because they’re jealous of her. They know she’s now got money and can afford to drive a Cadillac.
Aunt Carrie listened to Daddy telling about Mama acting like a pouting pig over me marrying Ralph. Daddy later told me she said, “Josephine ought to be ashamed acting that way. Beulah needs her support.” Aunt Carrie told Daddy not to worry. She said she and Velma would take care of the wedding. Which is exactly what they done.
Velma had me come down to Hattiesburg and meet her at the Confederate Truck Stop. She took me across town to McRae’s Department Store in the Cloverleaf Mall. She picked out for me the prettiest white dress I’d ever seen. It had gold embroidery all over it. When I tried it on it made me feel like a princess. Velma also bought me a pair of white shoes and a white hat with a fancy veil on it that came down over my face. The clerk said it was a pillbox hat. I’d never heard of a hat being called a pillbox hat before. Velma also bought me a frilly pink dress which she called my “going away” outfit. On top of all that she bought me a pretty blue blouse and a matching pair of blue slacks. She told me, “You wear this blouse and these slacks on your honeymoon.” When I walked out of McRae’s Department Store with all of them new clothes in them big boxes I felt like I was floating on a cloud. They even gave me a cute little box to carry my pillbox hat in. The box was round like a donut.
One week later Ralph and I married. Our wedding was on a Saturday morning at the New Jerusalem Baptist Church. Ralph said he could spare two days for a wedding and a honeymoon. He’d have to be back at his barbecue cafe and butcher shop by early Monday morning. A nice crowd was at the church to see me and Ralph get married. Like she said she wouldn’t, Mama didn’t come. She stayed home and pouted. When Mama is really mad she pouts and don’t talk to nobody. For a week before the wedding she wouldn’t say nothin’ to Daddy or to Earline or to me. She wouldn’t answer the phone either. Her not comin’ to my wedding was embarrassing and really hurt my feelings. But Daddy and Earline was