Page 288 - Wordsmith A Guide to College Writing

a button. I hear the machine clicking through the

selections, and more music fills the air. “How Sweet It

Is to Be Loved by You” is followed by “Midnight Hour”
and “Mr. Pitiful,” songs that must have once filled the

smoky air in “Mr. Charlie’s” juke joint.

The artist has also brought the past to life with re-

creations of the people who danced, drank, and laughed
in his father’s juke joint. Beside me, a slim,

chocolate-colored figure in jeans dances with

outstretched arms, her head a mass of pink curlers.

Across from the jukebox, a sad-looking figure of a man

with a goiter sits on an old church pew, his hat resting
on his knee, his tie undone. Beside him, a female

figure, an unlit cigarette clenched between her lips,

extends an empty pack of Pall Malls. Her polyester

pantsuit is pink and glittery, her blouse a satiny sky

blue. Beyond them, a figure labeled “Sara Carroway”
holds a parasol above her head. She is wearing soiled

Keds, and stockings are knotted under her knobby knees.

Despite her shabby attire, her bearing is formal and

prim. As I look more closely, I see that her tight,

pressed curls are created with round seed pods. In a
shadowed corner at the back of the exhibit, two figures

embrace. A long-haired figure of a woman in harlequin

glasses stands against the wall, her short skirt hiked

around her hips. Her lover, a light-skinned,

impassioned-looking male figure, stretches out his hand