Title Unknown_Longshot They would lock the dorm door precisely at ten o’clock. Freddy would wait until I finished studying and then come to get me in his Gran Torino. My roommate and I lived on the end of the ground floor. He knocked on the window and I would climb up on my bed so that I could climb out of the window. He would grab my waist as I started to lower myself. We always had a good laugh as he caught me. Ours was a simple world; one that others, most likely, wouldn’t get. It was all about just being together. Once in the car, we would take off across the flat land of the Delta. This night was a bit different. This night he was to take me to meet his parents who lived in Longshot… The first time that I met Freddy was the first day of my freshman year. I was walking into Ward Hall, the dorm where I was going to live and he sat behind the front desk wearing a campus security officer uniform. His grin just about stopped me in my tracks. As I extended my hand, he extended his too. After we introduced ourselves to the other, I asked him where he was from. He simply stated that he was from Longshot. I looked at him as though he were going to say that he was just kidding. He didn’t, and I followed with, “You’ve got to be kidding me! Really, where are you from?” He said, “I’m really from Longshot.” I would later learn from one of my patients in the nursing home that “they” call it Longshot for obvious reason: It was a long shot from anywhere. Freddy had grown up in that tiny speck in the road. He was the first of three children, with his sister being five years younger than he was and his brother the same behind his sister. It was as though he were an only child. As a little boy, he would stay at his grandmother’s house in Shaw, because his mother worked in a blue jean factory in that small town. Freddy’s grandmother would tie him to a tractor tire to keep him out of the street. His grandmother would say that Freddy was so stubborn and physically strong that he would pull the tire because he didn’t want to stay in one place. His imaginary playmate was Hankton. He told me that Hankton was always with him as a child. Growing up the son of two factory workers, this family lived less than a modest lifestyle. Freddy recalled bathing in a number three washtub until he was about thirteen. He also recalls having an outhouse until about that same time. As we drove out of the city to the sleepy speck-in-the-road called Longshot, we listened to the Commodores, Dan Fogelburg, and Jackson Browne. I was sitting next to him, talking his ear off. He would just grin and listen. Every now and then I would take a breath. He would always look at me and grin. I cannot recall in great detail just what was said when I met his parents. Not knowing that night just what a big deal it was that he would take me home, I was just happy to meet his family. It would be over thirty years before I had any idea just how much his family struggled. He most certainly was not embarrassed by their humble home, but as we drove through the back roads of the Delta thirty-something years later, he pointed out a house that was almost falling down. He said, “We used to live in a house that looked just like that.” A little more observant than I had been in college, it hit me just how poor his family had been. He told me the story about his daddy’s father working in the store in Shaw. He told me how he was just happy to be there and would do anything his granddaddy asked of him. He told me that when he was about twelve, his granddaddy had been cutting meat on the big saw. He let Freddy cut some meat and Freddy almost cut his finger off. He also told me about his mama’s daddy. He had been a sharecropper, working another man’s land all summer and didn’t get paid until the crop came in. He loved being with his granddaddy because he had a John Deere tractor. His granddaddy would let Freddy get on the tractor when he was about nine years old. Freddy said that his granddaddy was a testament to where hard work and determination could take a person. His granddaddy managed over many years to work enough jobs on the side to save enough to buy 350 acres of farmland. Thirty-plus years later, that same farm had grown in size to over ten thousand acres. Satterfield Farms grew soybean, wheat, rice, and corn. That night was forgettable only when I did not pay attention. Freddy never took another girl home except his high school girlfriend and eventually, the mother of his children. Freddy knew that it mattered not to me what kind of house he lived in. Freddy knew that I loved him, for him, just as he loved me, for me… ©sarah_beaugez_longshot_2013
Posted on: Mon, 07 Oct 2013 02:59:01 +0000
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