The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

Hattie’s oldest son, Floyd, is 22 years old in 1948. He is far from home for the first time, touring southern “jukes and jazz joints” (18) with his trumpet. Women admire Floyd’s good looks and soulful music, and his sex life is thriving. Despite his collection of willing women in Philadelphia, “he was convinced that in Georgia the women were loose” (16). Floyd credits northern girls with proper manners, finding their southern counterparts crass in comparison.

Darla, Floyd’s conquest at his latest tour stop, smacks of this southern “cheapness” and talks like she “just walked out of a cotton field” (15). Although her coarseness doesn’t dampen his desire, a muscled man staring from a picture on the boardinghouse dresser disconcerts him. During his drives across the South, Floyd’s largely suppressed urges for sex with men grow “more insistent […] and more difficult to reconcile with the man he understood himself to be” (18).

Boisterous voices wake Floyd during the night, and he goes to investigate. Animal-costumed people parade down the street, whooping and dancing. Floyd joins the crowd and gulps down a drink offered by a “bluebird” girl. The powerful alcohol strikes quickly, sidelining him while the merrymakers march away.

As Floyd recovers, a young man wearing a scarlet neckerchief emerges from the woods. He introduces himself as Lafayette and explains that the townspeople are celebrating “Seven Days,” an annual “Hoodoo” tradition that lets them “be heathens out in the open” (23). Alone together, the two men soon establish mutual attraction. Lafayette leads Floyd into the woods and, with an expertise beyond his years, gives Floyd greater satisfaction than any woman ever has. Afterward, Floyd invites Lafayette to his upcoming show at Cleota’s club.

Realizing he has “a date with a man” (27), Floyd becomes “disoriented and frightened” (28). He feels the need to call his mother, whose stillness always calms his confusion. Although Hattie was grief-stricken over the death of her twins and emotionally numb during Floyd’s childhood, she is nevertheless the one person “with whom Floyd was serene” (17).

The next night, Floyd plays his trumpet at Cleota’s, which “allowed colored people” (32). While the crowd cheers, Lafayette arrives. A scuffle ensues, as he is known for his homosexual inclinations, and two men toss Lafayette out. Floyd watches silently, unable to muster the courage to defend him. Feeling cowardly and heartbroken, Floyd lifts his horn and continues to play.

Six accidently fell into scalding bathwater in 1944, at the age of nine. He suffered life-threatening burns, and Hattie cried like Six “had not seen her cry before or since” (55). Always a small, delicate boy, the accident left Six even more frail and with lasting, itchy scars. Six noticed his father withdrew from him, but truthfully, August had taken up “catting” after the twins’ deaths and was rarely home.

When Six was 13, he had his first “fit” at church. The “Word” rose violently in his throat, “collected in his mouth like a pile of pebbles and pushed itself out his lips” (40). He preached for 30 minutes but afterward remembered nothing. Although others call his fits “grace,” Six is dubious, suspecting that religion was just “a lot of people caught up in a collective delirium” (41).

Avery, a boy at school, is “runty and effeminate” (51) like Six, but also healthy, so his classmates bully him. To distance himself from Avery, Six scorns him too. He hates Avery’s weakness and his own. Six considers mercy equivalent to weakness: “He wanted to punish, not forgive” (43).

In 1950 a fit comes over Six outside of church. Raging with a power not his own, he severely beats Avery. Fearing Avery’s father will seek retribution, Hattie sends Six to a revival meeting in Alabama with Reverend Grist.

Six surveys his audience in the small tent at the meeting and fears they will “be disappointed at hearing him preach” (40). His parents only occasionally attend church, and Six is not well-versed in the Bible. Completely unprepared to give a sermon, Six considers himself a fraud.

When Six stands at the pulpit, however, the spirit comes upon him. Amid the audience’s rejoicing shouts, one woman weeps, explaining her sister is dying. Six touches her and feels the Word pass into her as “her faith and grief passed into him” (48). The next day, news of the sister’s sudden recovery spreads far and wide. Townspeople attribute the miracle to Six, but he has scant faith in miracles. Moreover, his respect for the other preachers collapses when they react with jealousy to his supposed gift.

A young woman named Rose appeals to “Reverend Six” to heal her ailing mother. He denies being a reverend yet follows her home, thinking maybe instruments of God are never “purely good” (71) but can accomplish good. After he heals Rose’s mother, Rose pulls him to the sofa, where she removes her dress while whispering, “Reverend Six” (72).