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.14In reality, birthing was hard for Zora Neale Hurston too; but, by gainingsome distance from the trauma of the event, she got herself a littleautobiographical comedy in between. There are two other incidents in Dust Tracks on a Road that have comicsignificance.The first involves Zora s philandering Uncle Jim who, bearinggifts of sugar cane and peanuts, sneaks off to visit his secret love.He isfollowed by his axe-bearing spouse, Aunt Caroline.When she returns, she isnot only carrying the axe, but draped on one shoulder are Uncle Jim s pants,shirt, and coat, and on the other, two sticks of sugar cane.It should be notedthat this incident gives the reader little or no information about Zora NealeHurston except that she apparently enjoyed that good old down-homehumor which apparently also appealed to her Lippincott editor.The incidentprovides no comic masking from trauma, unless marital infidelity can beconsidered a trauma.One gathers that in Eatonville it was not.The second incident in the autobiography which I wish to discuss iscomic because it describes, with mock-heroic gusto, a fight between Zoraand her new step-mother.The fight rages for four pages.Of course, Zoraemerges as the victor and, if the reader has no stomach for a fight filled withhair-pulling fury, he or she emerges as the loser.It should also be noted thatthis mock-heroic extravaganza provides no comic masking from racialtrauma, but it does show how vulnerable step-mothers were in Eatonvilleand how exuberantly Zora Neale Hurston could play the role of La BelleSauvage, again to the apparent delight of her Lippincott editor.As I have noted above, Dust Tracks on a Road was purposely purged ofmatters of racial concern, so it contained little or no intentional comic 110Richard K.Barksdalemasking of racial trauma.This was not true of All God s Dangers.15 In thiswork, Nate Shaw tells the story of his life as a black tenant farmer in east-central Alabama, and racial tension and trauma abound throughout the book.Shaw grew to young manhood in the early years of this century, a time whenrural Alabama was a hard and bitter land for the illiterate black tenant farmer.Despite this fact, he was able to achieve some comic distancing from the painand misery that engulfed him.For instance, a delightful comic scenariodevelops when a youthful Shaw becomes embroiled in a fight with aneighbor named Luke Millikin.The fight develops when Luke attempts, forsome minor reason, to knife Shaw and Shaw responds by smashing him onthe head with a rock.The comedy begins when the victim s mother, strickenwith grief, summons her lover forth from sleep to assist in avenging what shethinks is her son s foul murder.Her lover, a Mr.Flint, who just happens tobe white, responds to the mother s screams for aid.Shaw relates the incidentas follows:What you reckon that white man done? He grabbed his doublebarrel breech-loader and runned out there in his drawers, mepeepin around the corner of the house lookin at him.Old manFlint standin there, double barrel breech-loader in his hands,didn t have nothin on but his sleepers and them was his drawers,two piece worth.(pp.44 45)Fortunately, the incident ends without bloodshed, but it indicates that thepotential for bloody violence was ever-present in Nate Shaw s rural Alabama.Nate Shaw was also able to squeeze some comic relief out of a secondincident which had even greater potential racial violence.This occurredwhen he walked into a country store called Sadler s Store in a town near hisfarm to buy some shoes for his children.While the clerk was waiting on him,a white man in the store became exasperated when he noted the whitewoman clerk climbing up and down ladders trying to serve a black customer.The white man, a Mr.Chase, grabbed a shovel and attempted to drive Shawfrom the store.When Shaw refused to move, Chase then grabbed a rifle offthe store s gun rack and loaded it.Fortunately, he was restrained from usingit
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