The Dirt Eaters Read online

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, m
irroring 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