Brothers under

the

Breech Cloth

by James Hampton

No one in our family knew for sure why my brother Albert became a Mormon and consequently deserted us (except, of course, for a Christmas card every year and his secret communication with me). Mother, in her half-brave naivete that a lot of fat women have, says with a turned-down mouth that "It's because we came out here to the degenerate Middle West and got mixed up with all these foreigners." A foreigner to her is anybody who drinks out of a water fountain that's not labeled "white only."

Evidently she doesn't know the low status of Negroes in Albert's church and far be it from me to tell her if she's not willing to be full-sincere in her explanations. And she's not. She's a WASP lover and a complete snob, just like all of the other fourth generation Mississippians who aren't poor white trash. All the learning in the world wouldn't change her one jot. I know. I've lived with her for thirty-five years.

Albert didn't get converted until he was nearly thirty, just eleven years ago, only four years after we'd moved to Iowa to live with Aunt Sarah Lou, who is fatter than my mother, which is going some. A little pig-eyed boy from Idaho with a headful of brown kinky hair did it. And not with the Book of Mormon. Albert had read that as far back as the sixth grade in Cocoa, Mississippi, where he was the star pupil of Miss Annie Hannah.

Miss Annie was as fragile looking as an English sparrow but as persistent as a blue jay. She took almost as much time with Albert and his reading about religions and Egyptian monuments and such as she did in pining for Mr. Doc Fishel who couldn't marry Miss Annie till his grandmother, who was eighty-six then and crankier than hell, died and left him enough-free and without strings attached to settle down with a solid woman who'd listen to his traveling sales-

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