The Pecan Man

“Gracie squealed and covered her ears, then craned her neck to see the source of the commotion. There, waving from the front seat of his father’s squad car, sat Skipper Kornegay, his white hair gleaming in the low pitch of the afternoon sun.

Gracie flattened herself against the porch column, hands reaching back to grip its wide round girth, her face a mask of terror and her feet back pedaling as if she could push the column out of the way with her body.”

Though Blanche and Ora have worked to help Grace believe that the rape was merely a bad dream, she cannot forget the terror of the experience. Though she may be too young to comprehend what happened to her, Grace’s trauma is visceral.

“‘Back then, it was important to be a good hostess. Wives played a big role in their husbands’ success in the business world.’

‘How come?’

I thought about this a minute. It was a perfectly reasonable question and it had a perfectly reasonable answer. I was sure of it.

‘Well, it’s important to meet the right people if you want to increase your business.’”

Ora’s conversation with Blanche’s daughters regarding her expensive flatware reveals Ora’s failure to realize that not everyone lives a life of privilege as she does. At times, she unintentionally takes her lifestyle for granted. Blanche’s daughters help her recognize the futility of such elaborate possessions, as well as the ways Ora worked to advance her husband rather than reaching her own goals and dreams.

“‘You’re welcome, Eddie. I’m delighted to have you.’

Was that what I was? Delighted? It didn’t really seem to fit. Pleased to have him? Maybe. Certainly not displeased; I was glad he wouldn’t go hungry today. Come to think of it, I was rather pleased. Pleased with myself for not hesitating in my offer.”

Throughout much of the early parts of the novel, Ora takes pride in her charity work and in the sacrifices she has made for others. To an outsider, however, it becomes clear that these sacrifices were not as selfless as they may appear. With Eddie, Ora gives for more genuine reasons.

“Blanche had convinced the child that her horror in September was all a bad dream. That was how she had handled it with her other children as well. Grace had had a bad dream and it frightened her terribly, so no one was to discuss it. End of story. I wasn’t convinced it was a good way to deal with the situation, but it seemed to be working for now.”

Blanche covers up and ignores Grace’s traumatic experience to protect her and shield her from further trauma. Later parts of the novel reveal how this approach does Grace a disservice. Though Ora is skeptical about Blanche’s decision, she becomes complicit in the lie.

“I think back to those moments now and I realize just how quickly whole lives can be altered. Sometimes, it’s just a few words here or there that put things in motion and everything you believe about yourself changes. Things you couldn’t have dreamed you’d do are done in the blink of an eye. If Blanche had packed faster, if Marcus had headed upstairs to finish fixing that leaky faucet, if I had never invited Eldred Mims to Thanksgiving dinner, Skipper Kornegay might still be alive today.”

Here, Ora emphasizes that Eddie’s small and innocent inquiry about Grace’s mental state after the rape has serious repercussions. Eddie is unaware that Grace’s attack is being kept secret from her siblings. Marcus’s response to this news leads to Skipper Kornegay’s death.

“‘I wanted to smash his face into the sidewalk, Miz Ora,’ Marcus said through clenched teeth. ‘I knew right then I had to get away or I would do it. So help me, God, I would stomp him into the ground. I turn around and I ran—like a coward.’

Marcus’ face contorted with rage and shame. Listening to him then and knowing all I know to this day, I am absolutely certain that running was the most courageous thing he could have done at that moment, but you couldn’t have told him that. He saw no honor at all in the act, only necessity.”

Initially, Marcus keeps his temper and prevents himself from harming Skipper, but he feels that this is a cowardly act since his family’s honor has been besmirched. Ora knows, in retrospect, that it would have been wiser for Marcus to remain a “coward.”

“Looking back, I might have made better choices if I’d taken more time to consider. I spent my entire life doing only what I believed to be right and true. Yet, there I was, faced with the most crucial decision I would ever make and nothing remotely resembling the truth felt right.”

Through the events that unfold, Ora learns that right and wrong are sometimes not easily discernable as she takes part in lies meant to protect first Grace and then Blanche. This moral dilemma plagues Ora for the rest of her life, and she finally unburdens herself by revealing that Marcus killed Skipper.

“‘This thing jus’ gets worse and worse, don’t it? My mama always said lyin’ was bad and she was right. I tried to teach that to all my babies, too. Once you tell a lie, you have to keep telling’ and tellin’ and tellin’ to make it stand.’

I couldn’t respond to that. I just looked down at my hands. We sat in awkward silence, each lost in unspoken thought and apprehension. She never had time to voice the questions I was prepared to answer with lies of my own.”

Blanche refers here to the lie that she and Ora tell Grace in hopes of preventing further trauma. Ironically, Blanche is unaware that Ora keeps a secret from her and thus lies as well: Ora refuses to let Blanche know that Marcus has killed Skipper.

“Blanche blamed herself, of course, but I knew I was the one who sent the boy to his death. I’ve lived with it every day since then. Blanche was right. Once a lie is told, you have to keep on telling it. You not only have to repeat it time and time again, you have to embellish it, layer upon layer until you don’t even remember the truth. Every day I didn’t tell Blanche what I knew was another day I lied to her. Guilt choked me like a wool blanket in summer and no amount of sweet tea or gentle ceiling fans ever soothed me again.”

The quote speaks directly to the theme of Lies and Their Justification. Though both Blanche and Ora lie to protect other people, the lies still prove to be harmful. The guilt that Ora feels over Eddie’s false imprisonment eventually leads her to reveal the truth about who killed Skipper.

“‘Mr. Mims had Thanksgiving dinner at my house that day, Mr. Thatcher. He went home sometime around 3 o’clock.’ I decided to tell the absolute truth to a point. I knew Eldred Mims hadn’t killed anyone, so I clung to ‘the truth shall set you free’ and hoped for the best. I just knew in my heart they had no evidence against him and I prayed they’d exonerate him and never solve the case. It was incredibly naïve of me to even think it possible.”

Here, Ora hopes that lying is unnecessary—a rare exception to the theme of Lies and Their Justification. In retrospect, however, she understands that the truth would never save Eddie—he had already been determined by public opinion to be guilty of murdering Skipper.

“The second call was to Ralph Kornegay. I hesitated before I called his home. On the one hand, I was angry over his treatment of an innocent man. On the other hand, he and his wife had just lost their only child. Right or wrong, I think Ralph believed Eldred Mims killed his son. I felt hard-pressed to stand in judgment.”

Ora, as an intelligent and compassionate character, recognizes the many factors that complicate Eddie’s incarceration for murder, chief among them that the police chief’s son is the victim. She understands that from his perspective, Ralph Kornegay operates in his son’s best interest.

“‘I thought you said you were sticking to the truth,’ I said quietly.

‘I don’t know if I can trust you, tha’s all,’ [Eddie] said, still staring at the wall.

‘You can,’ I said, and I meant it.”

Eddie is reluctant to reveal to Ora that he witnessed Skipper’s murder. Like Ora, Eddie wants to protect Blanche and keep Marcus’s guilt secret. However, this testimony could exonerate Eddie.

“‘I still don’t get it, though. You could be out of this jail by now.’ I was genuinely puzzled.

‘Miz Beckworth, with all due respect, I jus’ as soon not talk about it no more. The boy done been killed and laid to rest and nothin’ I can say go’n bring him back to his Mama. Tellin’ about Marcus wouldn’t do nothin’ but bring a heap of grief onto a family what done had more’n they share already. I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ about the boy. Not now, not ever.’”

The theme of Race and Injustice is manifest in Eddie’s words. Though Eddie is unfairly jailed, he knows that there is nothing he can do to convince those in power of his innocence. Trying to prove his innocence would mean revealing Marcus’s guilt, and Eddie would rather protect Blanche’s family by taking the rap for the crime.

“My wedding album was there and I sat down at my mother’s old dressing table to look through the evidence of my innocent hope. In one picture, I sat in an ornate chair, smiling up over my shoulder at Walter with an expression of unabashed adoration on my face. He was returning my gaze with a beguiled grin of his own.

Funny, I hadn’t remembered adoring Walter like that. Nor did I remember him ever being particularly captivated by me. As I sat there in my attic, with three little girls busily rooting through and trying on various costumes of another era, I wondered if time had so altered my memory that I had forgotten such things as love, or if pictures did indeed tell the story.”

Ora has matured as a woman from the naïve girl she was when she married. At the time, she followed convention and social propriety. Now, she cares less about her peers’ approval, as evidenced by her dismissal of their disapproval of her connection to Eddie.

“Blanche [said,] ‘Eat up, now, chile’. That dream ain’t go’n do you no harm and it can’t come to no good talkin’ about it all the time.’

I think that was the moment that I really understood how long my own lie would live and how messy it could become. Neither Blanche nor I wanted the details of Gracie’s ‘dream’ to come to light, but for two vastly different reasons and only one similar one. I would never be free of it. And I wasn’t sure I was smart enough to keep such an intricate lie straight.”

Ora’s words reveal the complexity of the lie surrounding Grace’s attack. Marcus’s actions in response to Grace’s attack cause Ora to construct further lies to Blanche in order to protect Marcus. In this one, one lie begets another, and the only solution is to continue to maintain the lies.

“‘I can’t do it, Eddie. You’ll die in there.’

‘Better’n dyin’ in the woods, ain’t it?’

‘I don’t know how to answer that question. I just know I can’t let you pay a debt you don’t owe.’

‘I reckon I’m the bes’ judge of that. Sometimes the debt you pay ain’t exactly the one you owe, but it works out jus’ the same anyway. Lord knows I done caused my share of heartache in my life.’”

It is not clear in the moment to Ora what Eddie refers to when he speaks of past heartaches. After his death, however, she pieces together details of his life, which suggest, due to his estrangement from his daughter, Tressa, and his abandonment of Blanche, that Eddie accepts blame for Marcus’s crime as a way of righting his own past wrongs (one of the novel’s key themes).

“Ralph Kornegay knew the truth—the whole ugly truth—and I left it up to him to decide which way the ball would bounce […] It hurt to watch the man receive my news. He may have been ignorant; he may even have been a bigot, but he was a father first and his pain was raw. I remember thinking it was odd that Ralph never once tried to deny what Skipper had done. He was silent at first; then he asked one pointed question after another until he had no more to ask.”

Part of Ora’s quest to reveal the truth of Skipper’s murder requires that she reveal that Skipper’s attack and rape of Grace motivated Marcus’s attack on Skipper. Ora, however, does not view Skipper’s father as an enemy but as another victim who will inevitably be hurt by this information, just as Blanche would be hurt were she to know the truth about Marcus’s actions.

“[Blanche] got out of the cab then and hauled herself up the sidewalk and into the house. I could feel her weight as if it were cast upon my own frame. I had not known sadness to feel heavy before, not even when Walter died. That grief was weightless, almost buoyant, as if I could feel myself floating toward some enormous abyss. It was not a good feeling, mind you. It was more like having been tethered by a lifeline and being cut loose in a gentle, but persistent tide. This grief pressed down like gravity amplified.”

Here, Ora contrasts the sadness she feels about Eddie’s incarceration with the sadness she felt about her husband’s death. Eddie’s sentence, 25 years to life imprisonment, is a kind of death, as Ora knows that he will never again be free. Both feelings are painful but distinct. Blanche, too, grieves Eddie’s incarceration, and Ora senses her grief just by watching her.

“Blanche began accompanying me to various charitable events, and I realized the uniform would have to go. I cringe now when I think of how long I kept my invaluable friend and helpmate in those crisp white symbols of servitude. I’ve always said that the worst thing anyone could ever say about me was, ‘She means well,’ but I have to claim now that I meant well. I meant for her uniforms to be part of her pay. I meant for it to be easy for her to wash them. I meant to help her avoid bleach spills and food stains on her own clothing. I never meant to put her in her place, but that’s just what I did.”

Ora recognizes the ways she perpetuated racism during Blanche’s employment. Though she never intended to behave in a bigoted way as Blanche’s employer, she acknowledges that insisting Blanche wear a uniform was dehumanizing.

“Blanche never wore a uniform again. When I asked her not to, she did not ask why. In her usual candid way, she said simply, ‘I can change my clothes, Miz Ora, but I can’t change my color. They’s always gonna be people who expect what they expect.’

‘You’re absolutely right, Blanche,’ I nodded. ‘And I can’t change anyone’s expectations but my own.’”

By the end of the novel, Ora has become increasingly aware of the injustices and bigotry that Blanche faces daily because of her race. While Ora isn’t racist, she recognizes—as Blanche points out here—that others in the town of Mayville are, and their views are not easily nor quickly changed.

“‘And you think that’ll help her? You throwin’ your weight around for my child?’ [Blanche] grunted again. ‘Shows what you know.’

I sighed then and sat down at the table, putting my head in my hands. What did I know? I’d never had a child of my own, and Lord knows I’d never been colored. Didn’t matter what the rules should be. It matters what they are.”

While Ora is quick to use her white privilege to assist Blanche and her family where possible, Blanche points out that her help can only go so far. Racial disparity persists, and Ora recognizes that she can neither fully empathize with Blanche nor change the rules of their community.

“I’ve made up a new lie and I tell it to myself every day. Blanche died in her sleep, there in the house where she raised her children, amongst all her memories and all the things she loved. Marcus was there, and Grace, too. Grace, full of life and hope and promise. We were all there, me, Eddie, the twins—the whole family—there to tell Blanche goodbye and send her off to be with her husband again.”

As the novel ends, Ora comforts herself with one final lie. She imagines the circumstances surrounding Blanche’s death not as they actually occurred but as Ora wished they had. Her words stress the way the past decades of her life have been weighed down by untruths.

“I learned more about Eddie in the few days after his death than I had in the years preceding it. He was not quite as poor as I’d expected, but was frugal with the meager income he did have. As such, he didn’t wish to have his body sent to Alabama, but preferred the pauper’s burial the state would provide, even if it meant that he would be laid to rest in a town that would forever remember his name with a mixture of horror and sadness, however wrongly imagined. The box came the day before Eddie’s funeral and I made several phone calls to assure that he did not leave this world without a proper goodbye.”

Eddie is determined, even after his life has ended, to help his estranged daughter, Tressa, as much as possible. He indirectly conveys to Ora his belief that he has wronged her at various times in his life. He believes that leaving her what money he can is one means of righting his past wrongs. Ora, in turn, aims to right her own past wrongs by ensuring that Eddie is honored in his death and not forgotten.