Story 2

Scrap Iron and Rag Man!

By Cleophas McAlpin....February 22, 1995 (copyrighted)

How were we supposed to know why the old man with the horse and wagon collected scrap iron and rags? Happy didn't know, and he was the oldest. Chuck and Buster didn't know and I certainly didn't know, or care for that matter. I only cared about the few pennies I would make when I heard the familiar cry of "Scrap Iron and Rag Man!"

"Scrap iron and rag man!" was the call that sent all of the Fairfield, Alabama Black youth into a frenzy. Not even the stick horses with the perfect branch tails could hold our attention as we jumped off our neighing horses and scurried off in search of our stashes of treasure that would be offered to the old man with the wide brimmed hat, dark shades and a pair of blue overalls. Sometimes we even forgot to say, "Whoa horse! Don't kick up so much dust", or we would forget to tie the horse to a peach tree or a "Chinaberry" tree or the banisters of our front porches.

I never forgot to tie the long sleek stick to the tree out in our front yard. I was deathly afraid the horse would bolt and run away. He was nothing like the old horse of the Scrap Iron and Rag man's. He was not dark brown or had blinders on his eyes and he never swiped his tail at the flies like the old horse with sores on his rump. He was nowhere as lazy as the Scrap Iron and Rag man's horse, either. My horse had come from one of the finest trees I could find. There were just the right amount of leaves on the tail to make sure that the dusty sixty-first street would be made more dusty when I rode along its five or six blocks with the sounds of "Get up, horse!" shattering the ears of the Black residents.

"Scrap Iron and Rag man!" was all the old Black gentleman said as he walked besides his horse with a stick in his hand. He seemed oblivious to the little boys who ran off frantically in search of a piece of metal or a piece of cloth that would earn them a penny or two.

The old man just took the merchandise and inspected it for a few minutes before reaching into his pockets and coming out with a load of cash. He never paid any attention to the grimaces on our faces when we handed him five railroad spikes and got two pennies for the rusty pieces of iron. Heck, that was just enough to buy three oatmeal cookies from Mr. Claud's store. I would have to go along the railroad tracks for another hour if I wanted to add a few jawbreakers to my goodie list.

"O.K. horse, you wait here. I'll be right back. Hide over here so that Buster can't see you. He stole my last horse, you know. Rode him until all of the leaves were gone from the tail. Oh, Oh, here comes the snotty nosed rascal, now."

"Hello there, Sam. Nice horse you got there. Ain't you going to leave him so that you can sell something to the Rag Man."

"Naw, Buster. I ain't got nothing to sell today."

Of course that was a lie, since I had saved a good amount of dirty rags and had a few soda pop tops in my pockets to boot.

"I'll watch the horse for you", said the crafty youngster of six. "I just sold all of my metal and got five cents. I'll give you a penny if you let me ride him for a few minutes."

I seriously thought about that proposition and unwillingly turned over my prize horse to the little boy who drove him so hard that all of the leaves left the tail when he jumped him over some of the ditches in the middle of sixty-first street.

"Don't ride him too hard", I pleaded as I took the penny and stashed it away in torn jeans.

I had to make sure the pocket didn't have a hole, because many a penny had found its way into the dirt of sixty-first street when I rode my horse along some of the large trenches. I saw the Scrap Iron and Rag man stoop to pick up a penny one day and I swear that had to be the one I lost.

"I know where there's some railroad ties," said Buster before mounting my horse. "Over by the street-car-line."

"Them ties are too far in the ground. I tried to dig up a few, but them ties are just too long."

"Not if you follow the tracks into Madison. Them kids down there don't know about them loose ties."

"You wait here, Buster. I think I hear the Rag man over on sixty-second street. I think I just might have something to sell."

I avoided the sneaky eyes of Buster and went around to the coal box and pulled out a tiny bag of nails, soda pop tops and rags. I walked along the alleyway until I saw the Rag Man's old horse make the turn onto Avenue D and hurriedly caught up with him.

"What ya'll got there, boy?"

Those word shocked me because the old man with the long black beard rarely said anything. He only took my merchandise, inspected it for a few minutes and then put it on his scale. He never smiled and he never said a word. He just handed me what he thought the merchandise was worth.

"I gots a few nails and a towel my mamma threw away."

"Is you sure your mamma threw this towel away? It looks new to me."

"Naw sir. She give it to me yesterday. Said the White lady where she work gave it to her."

"Hmm. Where your mamma work, boy?"

"She works for Miss Whitaker down in the White section. She say Miss Whitaker a nurse. She gets them towels from a hospital."

"I bets them towels come from sick peoples, boy. You tell your mamma that I can't buy any more of these towels."

"I'm going to buy this one, though. You don't wipe with that towel, you hear."

"I ain't buying no more railroad ties from you boys, either. The 'lectric-street-car jumped the tracks down in Bessemer and they thinks you boys is the reason. They told me I could not buy any more ties from you boys."

"Don't they teach you boys anything in dem schools? Why, they's the White men down at the scrap iron and rag yard. They the men who buy this stuff from me."

"They send the iron somewhere to make bombs, I think. I don't know what they do with the rags."

I left the Scrap Iron and Rag man and was totally confused about everything he said. I didn't have the foggiest notion about a World War and an enemy. I only knew that I had to continue my relentless search for the pieces of metal and the pieces of rags that would end up on the large heap in the Rag Man's wagon.

Never in a million years could we have known of the devastation wreaked by the little morsels of iron. Never could we have realized that those innocent offerings were turned into bombs and grenades. Some poor soul on some distant battlefield could have had his head blown off by some of our metal.

I can see the bombs bursting all around and men screaming and hollering because of our oversight. I can see Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles hurtling through the vastness of space and see men peering into radar screens for the blip, blip, blip of a weapon of mass destruction. And know that in some small way, I have contributed to this madness.

I will pray for forgiveness of my inconsideration and hope that somewhere in the midst of man's inhumanity to man, I will not hear the sounds emanating from the dark recesses of my past when I hear that old man's voice cry out... "Scrap Iron and Rag man! Scrap Iron and Rag Man!"

Note! Another Story is called, "Hump, The Do-Do Man". Please come again to read of this Black Hero of Fairfield, Alabama who has been with me (in my thoughts) for over 60 years. The story will appear in January of 2003.

Stories will appear monthly (2003) after that to chronicle the story of Fairfield, Alabama: Its triumphs and its heartbreaks, both past and present........ Cleophas McAlpin