The Pecan Man(2)

The events of that year were the real driving force behind the mass exodus from the neighborhood. It was the year of the Pecan Man. None of us knew how much impact one skinny old colored man could have in our lives, but we found out soon enough.

There is a wooded area not far from downtown that has sat neglected for as long as I can remember, although it was not nearly so grown over with weeds when I was a child and played there. It is widely known now to shelter several homeless men, one of whom is blatantly crazy and should be an inpatient, if you ask me. Back then, only one man was known to inhabit the place and that was the Pecan Man. Whoever first gave the man the name pronounced it Pee-can and it stuck.

The Pecan Man took up residence there in the summer of 1975, but it took a while before anyone ever figured out he actually lived there. Maybe it was his gaunt frame or the ghostly way he just seemed to appear from those woods riding a bicycle as old as he was and every bit as thin and rumpled. Whatever it was about him that struck people as frightful, it didn’t take long before parents took to calling their children in whenever he appeared.

They called him the Pecan Man because he always had a sack full of pecans tied to the handlebars of his rickety old bike. Turns out he got most of his sustenance from the nuts of those prolific trees. He’d stop all along his route to who-knows-where, picking up any pecans that had rolled onto the sidewalk or street, but leaving alone any that so much as touched the yard of the tree’s owner. This was the widely accepted rule and I never saw anyone break it, not even the children, and I’ve spent many an hour on this porch watching.

The neighborhood children made up a song that they sang as they jumped rope in their yards. I heard it enough times to know it by heart and I still wake up some nights in a cold sweat with the rhyme pounding over and over in my head.

Mama call the po-lice

Catch him if you can

Everybody scared of the Pecan Man

Then they’d launch into a list as long as they could make it by filling in the names of every man, woman and child they knew. The winner was the one who called out the most names without missing a jump.

David scared of the Pecan Man

Jimbo scared of the Pecan Man

Mary Beth scared of the Pecan Man

Rita Gail scared of the Pecan Man

Miss Abernathy scared of the Pecan Man



and so on.



Two





When you're as old as I am, it takes a while to make a point. The Pecan Man had a name - Eldred Mims. I called him Eddie. The people of Mayville didn’t know his name at all, until he was arrested and charged with the murder of a sixteen year old boy named Skipper Kornegay.

Now, twenty-five years later, his name has made the papers again. I suppose it is noteworthy news that Eldred Mims died in prison of old age. His sentence was twenty-five years to life. I guess it worked out on both counts.

I feel pretty certain that most townspeople would just as soon forget the man, but now that I’m the only one left who even knows the whole truth, I think it’s time I told it.

In the spring of 1976, the Pecan Man began mowing my lawn. For two weeks I watched him ride that rickety old bike out of the woods dragging an equally pathetic lawn mower behind him. He wouldn't return until late afternoon, his ragged shirt plastered to his gaunt body by wind and sweat. I figured he'd found a few yards to mow outside of our neighborhood, since no one near us would hire him. This was before the murder, mind you, when people just thought he was dangerous because he was homeless and black. After the murder they were certain of it. I just thought he looked hungry and I was willing to take a risk.

On the third Monday that I watched him strike out for parts unknown, I flagged him down with a whistle my Mama taught me years ago. It's a pretty darn good whistle, too. It startled him enough to make him bring his bike to a shaky halt at my driveway. I waved him up to the porch. He left the mower and pushed the bike as far as the stoop.

“Mawnin’, Ma’am."

Eldred Mims had an unusual voice, high-pitched and squeaky, and each word was punctuated by the smacking noise made when his toothless gums made contact. It was like they were made of suction cups. The sound was distracting at first, but you got used to it easy enough.

I used to joke to Blanche that I couldn't understand why the neighbors were so afraid of the man.

"One thing was certain," I'd tell her, "He may gum you to death, but he sure ain't gonna bite."

Where was I now? Oh, yes, Eldred Mims stood in front of me; beat up old cap in hand.

"Mighty fine day, isn't it?" I asked him with a wave of my fan.

"Yes'm," he smacked out his reply. "Look like it go'n be fine, 'jes fine."

"Care for a glass of tea?"

He looked taken aback by my question, as if it were the last one on earth he expected me to ask. Then he shuffled his feet, rubbed his neck with the hand that held his limp cap and mumbled something I couldn't understand.

"Speak up, man!" I complained. "I can't hear worth a hoot."

"I said, No'm, tha's okay, but I thank you for axin'. I sho' nuff do."

"Hot as it is out here, you don't want tea? What's the matter with you that you can't accept my hospitality?"

Now, I knew doggone good and well he was trying to be polite by not accepting, but I was pretty sure it had been a while since he'd had a glass of cold sweet tea and, quite frankly, he looked like he could use some. I pressed on.