Catfish Alley by Lynne Bryant

way: Associating with black people, like my mama did, will get
you nowhere. I remind myself I've got to stay clear on why I'm here. The people
I know in this town think the way I do, so, I wonder: Who will want to take
this tour? Will it be black
people in the South? Will it be Yankees who come to Mississippi because they
think we're backward and don't wear shoes? I'm not sure.
    While we're having our cake, Adelle and Grace take
turns telling me about the Meharry Medical College, where Albert Jackson took
his training. I have to admit it's an interesting story. A white man whose salt
wagon gets stuck in the middle of the night in 1876 in the Kentucky hills. A
family of freed slaves who take him in and help him.
    "... and then that man, Samuel Meharry, said that someday he would do something to
help the black race," Adelle says.
    Grace finishes the story. "So, he and his brothers
made the donation that started the medical school."
    I'm wondering if I could get them to write this stuff
down for me — I'll never remember it all — when Adelle gets up, takes Grace's
arm, and says, "Grade, let's show our guest Papa's offices."
    I walk behind them through the high-ceilinged hall and
Grace and I wait while Adelle fishes in her apron pocket. She pulls out a large
brass key and, after a couple of tries and adjustments to her glasses, gets it
into the lock on a door I hadn't noticed when we came in. A small brass plate
on the
door reads Dr. Albert Jackson .
    "How long did your father practice medicine in
Clarksville?" I ask.
    "Papa treated patients for fifty-three
years," Adelle says proudly as she pushes open the door and stands against
it. "Come on in."
    I feel myself stepping back in time as I enter the
small waiting room furnished with four small wooden chairs. Beyond is an
examination room; both rooms are painted a sterile white and I can almost smell
antiseptic. Sunlight streams in through the open curtains of the
floor-to-ceiling windows and reflects off the glint of steel instruments and
glass syringes. Shelves contain neat rows of pill bottles with yellowed peeling
labels, and a worn black leather bag sits on top of a small wooden desk in the
corner of the room. Adelle has kept her father's office as if he might walk in
the door any minute and say, "Bring in the next patient."
    "When Papa was not much more than a boy, he
apprenticed with an old white doctor over on College Street who helped him
learn how to mix medicines and treat wounds and such," Adelle says.
"White people didn't like seeing coloreds around the doctor's office, so
he had my papa treat them out behind his house. Papa saved every dime he could
to go to medical school. On the day Papa was headed for the train station to
leave for Nashville, Dr. Smith handed him an envelope with two hundred dollars
in it. Every time Papa told that story he said it was the most money he had
ever seen in one place at one time before or since!"
    As
Adelle and Grace stand in the middle of the room, they suddenly become quiet.
Grace walks over and picks up a tattered book with a frayed leather binding.
"Addie, do you remember the time Junior and Clarence Jones brought Zero to
see your daddy? We must have been about eight years old."
    Adelle
smiles. "Of course I remember. I always thought of that as the day you and
I became the best of friends." Adelle turns to me and says, "Mama and
Papa had just started letting me go to the Union School that year. Grace and I
were both in second grade. My brother, Junior, and Grace's brother, Zero, were
in fourth grade."
    "Zero
was ten years old," Grace adds. "I remember now because it was his
birthday. Grandma baked him a chocolate cake and his birthday present was a
whole nickel. He was so proud of that nickel. As we were walking to school that
day he was telling me what
he planned to do with that money."
     
    September 1921
     
    Zero and I walk down the dusty road
toward Clarksville. The sun is just coming up. As we turn to take the path
through