Foy's World
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“What? Hank Funk Got Shot?”
“What? Hank Funk got shot?” a woman shouted at the top of her voice.
McFoy Robinson, better known simply as Foy, heard the loud question as he came running out of the front door of his family’s mountain home in response to a lot of noise. There on the long front porch he found his granny looking down the long steps at a deputy sheriff who was standing, hat in hand, beside the 1928 Model-A Ford in the dirt and gravel road that ran in front of their house.
“What? Hank Funk got shot?” Foy’s grandmother, Sophie Robinson, repeated herself, her voice unusually loud and full of her typical insistence. “Bobby Miller, what in the world do you say?”
The deputy had a worried look on his face. He seemed hesitant to look directly up at the tall, well-known matriarch of the small mountain community. Sophie’s long hair, with its impressive bun on the back of her head, along with her lanky stature, created a persona that few in those parts dared to cross. Foy’s grandmother was tough for most people to deal with, and that included people such as Deputy Miller.
As the law almost never drove up to Shining Springs Farm, the scene was jarring to Foy—a deputy there at their house, asking questions, and his granny tight as a drum as she would have said, calling the law officer to task. Excited and curious, Foy wondered, What’s going on out here?
Hands on her hips and with a threatening scowl on her face, Granny Sophie really looked hostile. At that point, with both hands, the deputy carefully leaned the double-barreled shotgun he was holding against his car, its stock in the dirt, as if to pacify her. Foy knew everyone, including this deputy, was aware of Granny Robinson’s reputation for asserting herself.
But what had Foy’s attention was the talk about someone getting shot dead.
“Yes’m, that’s what happened,” the deputy said, his brimmed hat in his hands. “Somebody walked straight into the Milltown Theater there on
The incorporated cotton mill town of
“He ain’t no close neighbor neither,” Granny huffed. “I tell you what, Mr. Bobby, Funk’s been involved in shootings before. So don’t you start some gossip about him and where he lives. We ain’t going to have any of that stuff.”
“I know, I know, Miz Robinson. I know he’s got a reputation, but he ain’t doing the shooting this time. About eight thirty, a tall man dressed all in black with a wide-brimmed black hat just come in during the picture show and shot him dead.”
“What’d he do to make the man shoot him? Fooling around with somebody’s wife?” Granny said with some impatience.
_______________________________
Granny Sophie had pulled Foy out of bed early that morning. He hurried to get dressed and ready to go to the courthouse because his granny wanted to see the trial of Rob Goins and was determined to get there first. They ate a breakfast of fatback and gravy and biscuits, and before the sun came up, they were on the front porch waiting for Jitney to come pick them up.
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About the Book
This story grew out of many childhood memories growing up in the Blue Ridge Mountains where Wade Gilley was born. Wade has previously written two memoirs about two central figures in his life: his mother Forest Gilley, Life Before Sister, and his grandmother Oda Gilley, Damn Right It Hurts Foy’s World his first effort to write fiction. This story is primarily told through a series of conversations between a 45-year old grandmother, Sophia “Sophie” Robinson, and her 10-year old grandson, McFoy or “Foy” Robinson while sitting on the front porch of a deteriorating family home opposite a gushing mountain waterfall named Shining Springs. Two questions are central in this story: First, Foy is obsessed with who he is, as an older cousin named has not so slyly called him “Colored.” Ongoing discussions provide insight into the mountain culture of the time as Sophie and Foy, with the occasional unscheduled assistance of Foy’s five year old sister, Rose Robinson, discuss the life and times as well as debate his origins sitting on that front porch looking at the waterfall. Then, a murder occurs at the local movie theater and that story becomes intertwined with the continuing discussion of Foy’s origins and life itself. A third and central character in this story, Rob “Whiskers” Goins, is arrested, tried and convicted for murder only to escape when some of his relatives shoot up the courthouse and succeed in setting him free. During the ensuing national manhunt, Goins emerges in the front porch discussions as a “non-church” Jew who just might be related to Foy. Needless to say the times, language and culture are intertwined throughout the book and provide insight into a hardscrabble life of a proud mountain culture in the 1930s.
About the Author
Wade Gilley
Wade Gilley, who was almost 19 when he graduated from high school, earned a Ph. D. Degree in Engineering at Virginia Tech just after turning 27 years of age. He became American’s youngest college president in 1967 at the age of 28 and later studied at both the
Wade Gilley grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of
Wade has published a dozen or so technical books over the years with one being translated into Chinese and one to Japanese. He has had more than 200 articles published in newspapers and magazines including the New York Times, Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune and the Chronicle of Higher is a novel set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of
This story grew out of many of Wade Gilley’s childhood memories growing up in a hillbilly clan in the