He was dark-skinned and charming. A twenty-five-year-old dreamer who loved to clown, play cards, and smoke cigars.
His name was Maximillian May, but because he had a passion for fishing, his family and friends had dubbed him Fish.
When he spotted Tass out in front of her house scattering dirt, bits of string, and flower petals with a straw broom, he stopped his car, climbed out, walked right over, and reintroduced himself.
“Tass Hilson, right? You remember me? Fish May?”
Tass looked at his hands and his eyes, and said, “Uhhuh, I remember you. How you been?”
The conversation started there and continued in the house after Hemmingway came out and asked if he would like to stay for a meal.
At the dining table, Fish explained that he was living in Detroit, working in the salt mines, but waiting on a job at the motor plant to come through.
“I ain’t gonna be there long though, gonna work for myself.”
“Oh yeah? Doing what?” Hemmingway asked as she scooped a second helping of mashed potatoes onto his plate.
“Real estate.”
“Real estate?”
“Yes, ma’am! Buying, selling, and building.”
Hemmingway glanced at Tass, who was thoughtfully studying the line of Fish’s jaw.
“Building? You know how to build a house?”
“Yes, ma’am! I’m a builder’s apprentice.”
“Apprentice? What’s that?”
“It’s like a student.”
“Oh. Ain’t that something,” Hemmingway crooned, and looked at Tass. “Don’t you think that’s something, Tass?”
“Yes, it is.”
After Fish left, Tass helped Hemmingway wash and dry the dinner plates.
“Well, he has certainly grown into a nice young man.”
“Uh-huh,” Tass mumbled.
“He seems to like you.”
“You think so?” Tass asked with an air of disinterest.
“Did you see how he was looking at you?”
“No.”
Hemmingway tossed the sponge into the sink and turned sober eyes on her daughter.
“He ain’t coming back, Tass.”
How many times had her mother said that to her? Too many to count. And each time Hemmingway uttered those words, Tass was reminded of how silly the statement was. Of course he wasn’t coming back. He had been dead and buried for two years by then.
Tass was only seventeen and still had a year of school left. Now, seventeen might seem too young for a mother to be pushing her daughter into the arms of an eligible bachelor, but in 1957, in rural Mississippi, with no prospects of ever going to college, but certainly the opportunity to become some white woman’s maid, the act was as common as cotton.
Tass reached for the sponge and squeezed it until it was free of every drop of water.
“I know that.”
“You gotta move on with your life, Tass.”
Tass dropped the sponge back into the sink. “I know, Mama, I know.”
Fish courted Tass with all he had. He sent letters, thin greeting cards painted with smiling cats holding bouquets of flowers, and boxes containing stuffed animals, perfume, and fashion magazines.
He drove from Detroit down to Mississippi twice in four months. On his second visit, Tass allowed him to kiss her, but the dizzying, drunken feeling she’d experienced when she’d kissed Emmett didn’t return. Disappointed, her heart began to slip back into hiding.
“He’s a fine catch,” Hemmingway pushed. “Not one man here in this town can hold a candle to him.”
“I know, Mama, I know.”
The letters and packages continued to come, and then one day a man from the telephone company knocked on their door and presented Hemmingway with a pink service order.
“I ain’t order no telephone,” Hemmingway said.
The white man pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and swabbed the perspiration from his forehead, and then snatched the slip of paper from Hemmingway’s hand. After scanning it, he said, “Maximillian May,” and shoved it back at her.
Hemmingway refused to accept the paper and folded her arms defiantly across her breasts. At that point she was so angry that she didn’t even recognize the name.
“He don’t live here!”
“Look, lady, don’t give me a hard time about this, okay? Just let me do my job and install the goddamn telephone line.”
“I will not!”
The man swabbed his forehead for a second time. “Look, I ain’t coming back out here again, you hear me? It’s today or never.”
Hemmingway eyed him. “Like I said, I ain’t order no phone, I ain’t got no money for no phone, and so I don’t want no phone.”
“Look, lady, you ain’t got to worry about paying for anything. The person on the order,” he said as she shook the paper in her face, “he already done covered that, and he’s the one who will pay the monthly charges.”
Hemmingway leaned back on one leg. “What name you say was on the order?”
That evening, Hemmingway and Tass sat and stared at the black rotary phone waiting for it to ring.
“This is so nice of him,” Hemmingway kept saying.
“You see, Tass, I told you he was a good man.”
When it finally did ring, both Hemmingway and Tass nearly jumped out of their skin. Tass answered the phone with a meek “Hello,” and Fish’s jovial voice boomed from the other end.
“I installed this phone for your mama, so you two can talk when I marry you and move you to Detroit.”
That was his proposal and Tass, not really caring if she stayed or left, lived or died, said, “Okay.”
A month after she graduated and three days after she turned eighteen, Tass Hilson became Tass May.
Remember those ten crisp hundred-dollar bills? Hemmingway used three of them to pay for the wedding. Fancy invitations and a church ceremony, followed by a reception at the colored social hall.
Tass looked lovely in her white,
