The Dirt Eaters
by
H.D. Timmons
Smashwords Edition
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Published By:
H.D. Timmons on Smashwords
The Dirt Eaters
Copyright © 2011 by H.D. Timmons
Cover Art by H.D. Timmons
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The Dirt Eaters
Rosalyn Gentry’s mother had sent her on an errand with familiar instructions. “Take this fifteen cents. Go up to Mrs. Johnson’s an’ fetch me some chalk, child.”
On her way back home Rosalyn took the opportunity to break off a tiny piece of the chalk she’d fetched for her mother and popped it into her mouth. She’d sampled it before and even though it tasted like plain old dirt to her, she felt compelled to continue trying to understand her mother’s desire to eat it.
On warm evenings the neighborhood women gathered on one porch or another to talk about the goings on of the day. As the gossip lingered the ladies would pass a plate, pinching up small portions of chalky clay to snack on as though it was the finest of delicacies. Some served their chalk seasoned with vinegar and salt. Others dried or baked their personal supply during the day so it would last longer when rolled over their tongues like so much hard candy.
It was kaolin clay and eating this dirt was as much a part of life for women in rural Georgia as drinking tea was in England. It was a fact that generations of women in the rural south innately craved, as their venerable mothers had, whatever presumed mystical sustenance the kaolin offered. They did not realize that this was a centuries old human eating disorder at work, from which people desire eating non-food items such as burnt matches, paper and even dirt — a disorder called pica. Kaolin eating was simply a culture-bound syndrome, a specific form of pica known as geophagia. No one questioned it, but just accepted that eating dirt was part of the natural way of things.
Rosalyn had watched her mother, Betty eat dirt for as long as she could remember, especially when her mother was pregnant. It was the only serious craving Betty had while pregnant. She claimed that it helped settle her stomach and she felt that her babies needed it.
“The Lawd sho ‘nuff do provide in many ways. Animals eat grass, an’ dirt too, so all God’s creatures just do what come natural,” Betty would say.
Doing chores with her mother, helping raise her brothers and sister and going to school consumed Rosalyn’s youth. Even though the newspapers were ripe with news of the war in Vietnam and persistent racism against people whose skin was as dark as hers, she had little time to consider the great big world even if she had a mind to. And had Earl Thomas never answered a classified ad that promised work in the kaolin mine, eighteen year old Rosalyn might not have made time to even notice that she had become a woman.
Most of the able bodied young men in town were called to service in Vietnam. Earl was born and raised in Detroit, and at twenty-two he had already served his time in Vietnam as part of the 1st Cavalry Division. He was shipped home after an explosion during the fierce battle of Ia Drang Valley left him wounded and deaf in one ear. He had hoped to return to his former job on the automobile assembly line but found that, thanks to the Immigration Act of 1965, large numbers of Arabs had filled the positions left by serving G.I.s.
Earl’s search for work took him south where the kaolin mines offered better wages than the available jobs left in Detroit. The last time he was in Georgia he’d been in basic training and couldn’t imagine back then what would ever make him return.
The kaolin was mined for use in the making of everything from paint, ceramics and paper to stomach soothing medicine. Most women knew someone who worked in the mine — a father, husband, son, brother, cousin, or neighbor — who would routinely smuggle home small bits of the chalk for them in their pockets or handkerchiefs. Before his death, Betty Gentry’s husband would always make sure she had a steady supply of chalk, as they called it.
Betty knew that a single young man working in the mine was a good catch and encouraged her daughter to get to know the newcomer better before someone else snatched him up.
Rosalyn did actually like Earl and observed that he was a good and decent man. She was fascinated by both Earl’s stories of growing up in the big city and his adventures of the first major battle between U.S. forces and the North Vietnamese Army. One world filled with warm childhood memories, the other replete with jungle landscapes and unimaginable horror. Both were worlds she knew existed but hadn’t ever really had time to acknowledge. It didn’t take long before Rosalyn became part of Earl’s world where loving became as easy as drawing breath.
They soon married and lived with the rest of the Gentry family. Rosalyn’s younger sister regarded Earl as an older brother while her two baby brothers looked to Earl as a surrogate father. Betty Gentry was glad to have a man in the house, even though his presence reminded her of how much she missed her own husband. Betty was also grateful that Earl’s work in the kaolin mine provided her a steady supply of chalk.
One evening, as Earl came home from work, Rosalyn noticed him pause and glance disapprovingly at the plate of the all too familiar looking chalk being passed amongst Betty and the gossiping neighbor women.
“Rosalyn, I’ve seen some things in my day, but eatin’ dirt just ain’t natural,” Earl said as he and Rosalyn prepared for bed. “I know she’s your momma and all, but I had no idea…”
“Now, baby, what do you think she been askin’ you to carry home all that chalk fo?” Rosalyn asked with a knowing grin.
“For the garden I thought. Hell, with my bad ear I never know for sure what she says half the time anyway.”
Rosalyn assured Earl that her mother and the neighbor women had not lost their minds, and that it was perfectly natural. “God’s creatures eat grass an’ dirt, too,” she stated before confessing that she also had taken a taste from time to time. Rosalyn felt her husband’s disapproval shift to her, and Earl lay down for the night without another word.
Rosalyn lay beside her husband, but in the back of her mind there was worry over Earl’s disapproval. As sleep took hold of her, dreams began to form. It was as if Earl’s descriptive recollections of his own frequent nightmares had been left for Rosalyn to conjure up. She dreamt that she was in the jungle; phantom rifle fire coming from no specific place. Rosalyn saw soldiers falling dead into the underbrush. Then, there were visions of remote Vietnamese villages where children sat outside of huts eating fistfuls of dirt. Rosalyn didn’t quite know what to make of the troubling images, but after several more nights of restless dreams, soon followed by morning queasiness, it became clear. Rosalyn was with child.
Earl and Rosalyn were happy to be starting a family of their own, although no one was more pleased about the imminent birth than Betty, who had been looking forward to her first grandchild.
Rosalyn knew that her mother would also relish helping her through the pregnancy, but along with morning sickness, came something else. A craving. Rosalyn wanted kaolin, the clay, the chalk. She wanted more than merely a taste. Now she finally experienced the innate sense that her baby needed it, but she dare not let on to Earl and did all she could to resist the craving.
As the months passed, Rosalyn’s resolve wore thin. The desire for kaolin became so overpowering that she began looting her mother’s supply. Sometimes she went down the road to buy it from Mrs. Johnson under the false impression that she was buying it for her mother. In her bones she knew she needed it just as she knew she must never tell Earl. She assured herself that after the baby came the desire wouldn’t be as strong.
With a baby on the way it was obvious that Earl’s income was barely enough for the current household of seven.
“I found a job that would pay what we need,” Earl told Rosalyn. “It’s back in Detroit. My ol’ supervisor is lookin’ to fill a spot at the auto plant.”
“But, how’m I gonna leave my momma? What she goin’ to do without me?” Rosalyn asked, her eyes almost crying.
“Now, baby, this is about what’s best for us and our child. Your brothers and sisters, they ain’t babies no more. They can look after themselves and your momma. And money… well, we can send money once a month,” Earl explained. “I’ll be gettin’ back to what I know. It’ll be for the best, you’ll see.”
In all her life Rosalyn never imagined saying goodbye to her childhood home and family. Most folks she knew would live and die not more than twenty miles from where they were born. She had presumed her life would be no different. Rosalyn’s feelings were mixed. Sad to be leaving, but beginning to be excited about seeing where Earl had grown up, and seeing a real city for the first time.
Betty Gentry was torn between sadness and hope. She had already lost a husband, now her oldest daughter was moving away and taking her unborn grandchild with her, but in her heart she understood that it was for the best.
As Earl lay asleep in his seat on the Greyhound bus, Rosalyn sat beside him, wide awake and staring at the silhouette of the approaching city against a crisp, pink early morning sky. Through the bus window Detroit grew larger, jutting up out of the landscape. The plumes of factory smoke made it seem as if Detroit was a living thing; a fire-breathing giant that had just been stirred awake as morning beckoned. Rosalyn’s excitement over the new life she was going to have helped to subdue her feelings of missing her familiar Georgia home.
In the weeks that followed there was much settling in to be done, the least of which was Earl getting back into the swing of things at the auto plant. It was as if he had never left. One difference was the large number of Arab workers, but they kept to themselves for the most part, just as the white workers and the black workers each kept with their own kind.
Growing more accustomed to the city each week, Rosalyn had learned the bus routes and established a routine of grocery shopping every Wednesday morning.
It was in the produce section that she came upon something she hadn’t noticed before, and hadn’t expected. Small plastic packages of white kaolin chunks clearly labeled “Not For Human Consumption.” She snatched up a bag then quickly put it back. The distraction of moving to Detroit had abated her desire for chalk but now she felt it reawaken. Her eyes scanned the store, then she slowly reached for the bag, and this time put it into her basket. Rosalyn scrambled to finish the rest of her shopping as each item she added served to obscure the kaolin until she was ready to checkout.
“Got a green thumb, I see,” the checkout clerk commented.
“Excuse me?” Rosalyn asked absently.
“The clay here.” The clerk rang up the bag and deftly tossed it to the end of the checkout counter. “I hear that it really helps when you mix it in with the potting soil. Is that true?”
Rosalyn’s eyes had followed the path of the bag from the clerk’s hand to the end of the counter as though it were a nugget of gold being washed down a mountain stream.
“I s’ppose it do,” she finally answered.
Outside, only several steps from the grocer’s door, Rosalyn sifted through the contents of her shopping bag. She stopped walking and hastily opened the little bag of chalk. As she stood on the sidewalk, she broke off a small piece and put it in her mouth. Her eyes closed as the familiar sensation lingered on her tongue. She tucked the remainder of the chalk into her coat pocket, and turned to notice that a woman, who had exited the store, had observed her. Rosalyn had hoped that what she had done had gone unnoticed, but the expression of disdain in the stranger’s piercing brown eyes told her otherwise.
Rosalyn didn’t know what else to do but run. She continued running passed the bus stop, paranoid that even the bus passengers would somehow know what she had done and condemn her actions with their eyes. Never before had Rosalyn felt such shame, and she hurried the rest of the way home on foot, slowing her pace for the baby’s sake.
More than ever, Rosalyn wanted to retreat to the comfort of her Georgia home so far away, yet solace was within her grasp wrapped in a little plastic package. She frantically drew closed all the curtains in her apartment, and there in the dark Rosalyn took the package from her pocket and placed the remainder of the chalky clay pieces into her palm. She studied them as if they were an ancient treasure. The familiar scent of moist earth mingled with the pull of her awakened addiction. With eyes closed, she ate what was left, devouring every last morsel until her palm was wet from the licking up of crumbs. Rosalyn’s other hand patted her belly as if to comfort her baby. Satisfaction and guilt intermixed, leaving her dazed, but she would regain her composure before Earl returned home from work. Rosalyn had to hide what she had done.
Morning brought a new day. Only a remnant of the previous day’s event - the kaolin bag – laid buried deep in the kitchen wastebasket. Although hidden from her husband’s view, Rosalyn was reminded of its presence as Earl scraped away his breakfast scraps into the trash.
Once Earl kissed her goodbye and left the apartment for work, Rosalyn set about quickly taking out the household rubbish. She headed down the hallway passed several neighbors’ doorways before meeting a familiar face coming up the stairwell with her own empty wastebasket.
It was the woman who had observed her outside of the grocery store. She was wearing a housecoat and slippers, her hair in a kerchief, but there was no mistaking those piercing dark eyes. Rosalyn proceeded toward the stairs trying to ignore the woman’s presence.
“Dirt eater,” the woman murmured as she passed Rosalyn without breaking her stride and continued up another flight of stairs to her floor. It was easy for Rosalyn to blame her unborn baby for her craving and what she had done. She could also have blamed her upbringing. But somehow the woman’s words made her feel less than human. The feeling remained throughout the day causing her to not want to venture from the apartment at all.
Mid-afternoon, Rosalyn timidly answered a knock at the door. It was Gladys Hodges from two doors down, just back from a trip to the grocery store. Gladys was a buoyant woman in her mid-fifties who wore her still pitch-black hair up in a tight bun. To this point she and Rosalyn had only acknowledged each other with polite hellos and passing nods.
“I jus’ bought me some instant coffee and thought I’d be neighborly and share a cup,” Gladys said before Rosalyn fully opened her door.
“Thank you, but I…” Rosalyn began.
“Oh, you ain’t gotta thank me, child. That’s what neighbors do. We share.” Gladys entered the apartment, assuming an invitation was in the offing, and set her bag of groceries on Rosalyn’s kitchen table. “Now, I know my way around a kitchen so you jus’ sit down, Sugar and I’ll fix you a cup right quick.”
“Mrs. Hodges, you sound like my momma,” Rosalyn mused at the familiarity.
“Well, I’ve got three chil’n out the door, so I ought to sound like somebody’s momma.” Gladys let go a hardy laugh as she rested the water kettle on the stove then joined Rosalyn at the table. “And since I ain’t your momma you can jus’ call me Gladys. Where was it y’all moved up here from?”
“Georgia.”
“Oh, sho nuff? Me and mine come up here five years ago from Opelika, Alabama and I still ain’t got used to this hea’ city. How about you?”
“Well…”
“No, it jus’ don’t feel like home, you know? What do you miss the most?” Gladys asked more seriously. Rosalyn said that she missed her family the most, of course, and then Gladys squinted her eyes as if studying her neighbor’s face for clues. “You know… you and me is the same.” Gladys stated flatly.
“Southern?” Rosalyn asked.
Without acknowledging the reply, Gladys continued with her explanation. “That haughty woman upstairs — Ester Brown — she got a name for you and me.” Rosalyn looked at Gladys intently. “I saw y’all in the hall this morning, Rosalyn. I heard. Ester did me the same. I reckon she still does, only behind my back now. To her we jus’ country trash. Nothin’ but a couple of dirt eatin’ colored folk.”
Rosalyn attempted to speak, but she could only stare at her neighbor who seemed to understand; who was from a similar culture, and who knew the truth of what it meant to be a so-called dirt eater.
Rising from the table to tend to the coffee, Gladys continued, “Oh yes, I know. And your baby knows, too. That baby needs it. It’s in our blood, child.” Gladys served the coffee and then pulled a familiar plastic bag from her grocery sack, opened it and placed it in the center of the table. “G’awn, Rosalyn. It’s okay now. You’re home. Have some chalk. It’s aw’ight.”
Rosalyn hesitated a moment before finally reaching for a piece. Gladys reached at the same moment, mirroring Rosalyn’s hand and then, with their eyes locked on each other, they placed the chalk to their lips, paused and then began to eat.
“This is sho nuff good stuff,” Gladys declared, smacking her lips. “It ain’t like back home, but you’ll get used to it. Sometimes I like mine fried up with a little grease. It’s good with coffee, too. Try it.”
Rosalyn washed her mouthful down with a sip of instant coffee and the warmth mixed with the creaminess going down her throat delighted her. “Are there more?” She asked Gladys. “Are there more women like us… in Detroit?”
“Child, if you only knew.”
“None of them think they should quit eatin’ it?”
“Baby girl, I know a nurse right here on this block that eats chalk. She tells me that the little constipation it brings ain’t never hurt nobody. Claims there’s people all over the world what’s been eatin’ chalk fo thousands of years.”
At first, Rosalyn was relieved, but then a look of concern draped her face.
“What’s the matter, child?” Gladys asked.
“My husband don’t like me eating the chalk. He don’t understand how it is with me… with us, and he thinks I don’t do it no mo.”
Gladys was sympathetic and assured Rosalyn that it was okay. “Look. Do you tell your husband every time you take an aspirin? ‘Course not. If you eat some chalk it’s ‘cause you need it jus’ like you need aspirin. Jus’ eat enough to get you through and your husband ain’t gotta know.”
“Well, I s’ppose you’re right,” Rosalyn said.
“Sho nuff I am. And if you want to get together some afternoon and have some chalk and coffee… well, you jus’ come on over, Sugar.”
“Thank you, Gladys. I may just do that.”
Mornings had become routine. Breakfast, and then after a kiss and a pat on Rosalyn’s belly for the baby, Earl was off to work. Rosalyn watched lovingly from the window as Earl headed to the corner and turned onto 12th street toward the bus stop.
When the breakfast dishes were washed and dried, and other light housework was underway, Rosalyn’s mind soon drifted to the bathroom. For there, in the back of the bathroom closet, under some towels, was her small stash of store bought kaolin. Rosalyn wanted the chalk, yet felt a sense of betrayal to her husband. The rationale took hold that all she needed was a small piece and she and her baby would be fine.
In the dim light, Rosalyn took a small piece of chalky white clay from its secret place. Hidden from view, she yielded to her desire. To Rosalyn this crumbly chunk of clay smelled as fresh as the earth after a summer rain. She closed her eyes and placed a piece in her mouth, savoring its creamy texture as it dissolved against her tongue.
When Earl came home Rosalyn had no problem keeping her secret, because in her mind eating chalk had become as necessary and routine as taking aspirin — like Gladys said, Earl didn’t need to know.
At suppertime Rosalyn would ask about Earl’s day, and occasionally questioned him about his poor hearing and if it was a problem at the auto plant.
“They make us all wear ear plugs because of the noise anyway, so I reckon that makes all our hearing about the same,” Earl would reply before shifting the attention to Rosalyn and her day, to which she would simply answer, “Oh, it was the usual.”
At bedtime they drew the day to a close in each other’s warm embrace and things were as they should be.
As summer set in, Rosalyn’s belly grew bigger and most afternoons she could be found in the company of her neighbor, Gladys Hodges, sharing a cup of coffee and a few savory chunks of chalk. Occasionally, Gladys’ nurse friend would join them on her days off and regale them with hospital gossip and humorous patient stories.
Enjoying the camaraderie of fellow southerners — sister dirt eaters — made Rosalyn feel a sense of belonging that she feared she might never have found so far from home. Rosalyn didn’t even mind running into the stone-faced Ester Brown in the hall. She would greet Ester with a neighborly smile of indifference — nothing more, nothing less.
Daily Rosalyn would thank the Lord that her loving husband was a good provider; thankful for their unborn baby; thankful for her new friends, and even thankful for the chalk that brought them together.
July 1967 held Detroit in the grip of a heat wave and folks with electric fans were the lucky ones in the neighborhood. Earl had purchased a fan for his beautiful pregnant wife so that she could spend the unbearably hot days in relative comfort while he sweated away down at the plant.
Sundown transformed the sweltering days into steamy nights, and weekend evenings found hard-working men yearning for distraction.
“Earl, if you want to go out with your work friends, I’ll be fine here.”
“Aw, Baby, I don’t need to be going with those guys to no ‘blind pig’ on a Sunday night,” Earl told Rosalyn.
“Blind pig?”
“That’s what they call them illegal late night bars up here. There’s one down on 12th street. Besides, I got cold drinks here at home and all the good company I need.” Earl gave his wife a wink and Rosalyn thanked Heaven once more for such a good man, for their good life, and for all that the Lord provided.
Rosalyn was usually able to stave off her need for chalk through the weekend, but on Monday morning, Rosalyn would hurry to her secret stash as soon as Earl was off to work.
Perched by the opened window, Rosalyn nibbled her chalk and watched her husband walk to the bus stop. Before Earl turned the corner to head up 12th street, Rosalyn could see a crowd of people gathered in front of where she remembered the late night bar to be. She watched Earl draw closer to the throng. Rosalyn rose to her feet as she saw an army of white police officers trying to control the all colored crowd. Soon a bottle crashed on the sidewalk a few yards in front of Earl. Rosalyn leaned out of the window, concerned for her husband’s safety, as an officer standing next to Earl was struck on the helmet by another thrown bottle.
From Rosalyn’s vantage point, Earl seemed trapped as the crowd began to engulf him. She sensed that his deaf ear was keeping him from getting his bearings in all the chaos. Suddenly, Rosalyn felt worlds collide. She saw her husband on a street in his own hometown as an unwilling member in a race riot that looked like a battle from Earl’s stories of Vietnam, all the while the taste of chalk hung in her mouth.
The officer was struck again and he quickly turned to come face to face with Earl who was nervously searching for an escape route. One sharp blow from the officer’s baton knocked Earl to the ground and Rosalyn cried out. Another blow to Earl’s head and then another, followed by a kick to his mid section caused Rosalyn to hold her belly and scream out in absolute horror. Earl remained motionless.
Afterward
To move back to Georgia to be with her family is all that Rosalyn will think of doing after losing the only man she’s ever loved.
Betty Gentry will mourn the circumstances that will bring her eldest child back home, but will be happy to have her back nonetheless, and happy for her new grandchild. A baby girl that will know the simple pleasures of small town life and that will be insulated from the cruelty of the outside world. She will be told stories of her father — his image growing larger than life with each telling.
Rosalyn and her daughter will forever share the unique bond that comes with the grief of losing the man whose love will be with them always. A man who survived a war, but died as an innocent bystander in his own hometown.
As Rosalyn’s daughter grows, her small rural community will slowly change. It will add more industries to create more jobs. She and her neighborhood friends will grow up a stone’s throw from the kaolin mine unaware that chemical run off from the new agricultural plant poses any threat to taint their precious chalk.
Sitting on a porch one day, expecting a baby of her own, Rosalyn’s daughter will share some smooth white Georgia chalk with her mother, carrying on as has been done for generation upon generation. She will watch her mother grow old and quite ill; a doctor will not understand why Rosalyn’s bloodstream is contaminated with agricultural pesticides. But on a front porch in the quiet of an evening, the crumbly white chunks of clay smell as fresh as the earth after a summer rain.
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