Fran Ross: Oreo

5. Is he good at Jewing-down [mental note of James: “Change this phrase in final draft”] his suppliers and thereby passing on a savings to you?

() Yes () No

6. In cleaning up after a job, how does he rate on a scale of 1 to 10 in which 1 = You could eat off the floor and 10 = Very messy?

Insert number here:______

7. Does he render bills promptly?

() Yes () No

8. Would you hire him again?

() Yes () No

James, a memory

James grinned. He was thinking now about his childhood. His earliest memory was of the day his family and the Butlers left the village of Gladstone to go North. The village idiot had waved at them and smiled his sweet but dumb smile. Little James’s parents never tired of talking about their adventures in Gladstone.

Gladstone was blessed not only with a village idiot but with a village moron and a village imbecile. They were brothers. Each day they would go to their jobs on the village green. The people of Gladstone felt that it was good for the three boys to work outdoors. The fresh air would do them good. In bad weather, the village moron, with his superior intelligence (IQ 53), could be seen herding his less advantaged brothers and co-workers in out of the rain and under the lean-to that the village had built for them with the proceeds of the triquarterly fish fry and census.

The Gladstonites liked to see what — or, rather, who — was new every nine months. The fish fry was an important part of this head counting, since it was the testing ground for determining which proportion of which kind of fish would give the greatest boost to the fertility curve of Gladstone. Some Gladstonites felt that the matter was already settled, that a 3:1 ratio of porgies to smelts had given sufficient proof of its power back in the summer of 1906. Others plumped for a 5:4:3½ mixture of mackerel, cod, and striped bass or — six of one, half a dozen of the other — an 8:7 blend of smelts and catfish, pointing to the fact that census-taking methods in 1906 were somewhat hit-or-miss and that the years of their compounds, 1907 and 1908, had each been only one off the high-water mark. These latter factions, countered the porgy-smelt bloc, could talk all they wanted, but they could not argue with the record book. It was infantile to deny the part their formula had played in the Baby Boom of Aught Six.

By 1919, the total population of Gladstone — not counting the Butlers and the Clarks, who were leaving and who, technically, lived on the outskirts of the restricted and segregated village, but counting the three village dogs — was twelve. The nine people included Josh and Lettie Jones, who were the parents and next-door neighbors of Jed Jones and his wife-sister Maybelle, who were the parents and next-door neighbors of Jody Jones and his wife-sister Lulu, who were responsible for the Baby Boom of Aught Six and also the boomlets of 1907 and 1908. It was Jody and Lulu who, in 1906, had produced twins Clyde and Claude, who were, respectively, the village imbecile and idiot. In 1907, Clarence I was born but succumbed to the croup at three months. In 1908, Clarence II, the pride and joy of the Jones family, was born. Although he was the youngest, Clarence II’s natural ability soon evidenced itself. From shoe tying to vacant staring, he was more adept at age nine than Clyde or Claude would ever be.

Clarence II led his older brothers to the green each morning, sat them in their spots in the middle of the sward, made sure they had all their materials, and settled next to Clyde. The brothers made moccasins, at the rate of one-half a day. They made only one size (ladies’ 6½B) and for the left foot only. Lulu, their mother-aunt, undid their output every day, but it kept them off the streets. At first it was thought that Claude, the idiot, would hold the others back in any joint endeavor, since all he could do well was drool. But drooling turned out to be an important aspect of moccasin production. While Clyde and Clarence II stared into space waiting for the production line to gain momentum, Claude began chewing and drooling on the piece of leather Lulu put in his mouth on the way to the green each morning. This drooling-chewing process softened the leather, which had become hard and stiff after drying out from the previous day’s drooling-chewing, so that Claude’s twin brother could more easily fold and crease it in four places and hand it on to Clarence II, who would stitch through the holes that his mother-aunt had punched for him, totally absorbed as he shoved and hauled on the leather thong tied to the small stick.

By the time Clarence II got halfway around with his stitching, the clock in the church tower, had there been a church with a tower with a clock, would have struck three. As it was, the only way to tell it was three o’clock was that the town drunk, Jed Jones, grandfather and great-uncle of the Jones boys, would come stumbling toward the one tree on the village green, would circle around the two-year-old sapling in confusion, and, thinking he was lost in the woods, begin sobbing uncontrollably. Whereupon, all the village Joneses would stop whatever they were doing, look up, and say, “Jed’s lost. Must be nigh onto three o’clock.” For Lulu, it was time to go pick up her three children-nephews-craftsmen.

James had heard this story about Gladstone and the Jones boys at least one and a half times. And at least that often he had wondered what had happened to the porgy-smelt bloc. And the mackerel-cod-bass people — his favorites — what of them? No matter. He would never forget Claude’s incoherent little wave and smile as the Butlers and the Clarks left town. Outsiders, numb to nuance, often ascribed more intelligence to Claude’s smile than he was, by Stanford-Binet standards, entitled to. “Look at that moron grin,” a wagonload of Jukes once said as they went creaking and kallikaking past the village green. But it could not be doubted that this scion of Virginia aristocracy had the family smile. It was rumored that Claude and his brothers were related on both sides — that is to say, on one side — to the Randolphs. Thinking of little Claude, James daily reproduced the patrician simper of one of the F.F.V.

How James’s affliction affected Helen

“I don’t have eppes an idea of how to support my children,” Helen said as she sat down to assess her situation after the breakup with Samuel. “How long can we go on living on the proceeds from Daddy’s backlist? It would be an averah if I can’t get up off my rusty-dusty and come up with an idea for making some heavy gelt .” Her monologue over, she listed her talents on a piece of paper:

1. Mimicry

2. Making head equations

3. Singing

4. Piano playing

As far as she knew, there was no great call for black female impressionists. (“And now, my impression of James Cagney showing Mae West how to do the buck-and-wing.” Cagney: Tappety-tap, tappety-tap . Mae West: Humpety-hump, humpety-hump . Cagney: “You, you, you dirty rat — I said the buck -and-wing!”) As for her head equations, she refused to commercialize them. Operating on numbers 3 and 4 were all the pluses and minuses of cliche, but she picked number 4.

As she began practicing, her head equation was:

88 BW = ∞ M + R

where B = black keys (or Helen’s folly), reminders

W = white keys (or Samuel’s head), poundings

M = Money, dollars

R = road, years

The first letters

When Christine was a year old and Jimmie C. a baby, Helen began sending them letters, which Louise read to them. The letters always said the same thing:

Chicago [or wherever]