"They love women."
"Oh, is that all? That's all right then. They don't scare me. They can't eat me up."I flounced away, leaving my tray on the bar, and went directly to the table.
"Listen. I'm not a ... not , . . not a lesbian, and I don't want to be one. Is that all right?"
Their faces closed. Johnnie Mae asked, "Is what all right?"
Suddenly I was ashamed. "I mean, I'd like to come to your
45
house on Sunday. But... I mean, I wanted you to know that ... I don't go that way."
They were silent, wind-up toys whose springs had broken. I wished I could catch the words and swallow them whole.
"I'd like your address." I held out my pencil. Johnnie Mae took it and handed it to Beatrice.
"What time on Sunday?" I had to put something into the emptiness. Beatrice was writing.
"Two o'clock. When we come from church," said Johnnie Mae, handing me the paper.
"Okee dokee. See you then." I wanted to be flippant, to be funny, to say something that would erase the sadness, but I could think of nothing. I got my tray and went back to work.
12
On the blocks where Saturday-night revelers rambled, Sunday afternoons were given over to the godly. They filled the streets with a mighty thronging, vestiges of a recent contact with God, the Father, lying brightly on a few faces. Most gossiped, shared confidences, checked others' Sunday go-tomeeting clothes, and then spun from the crowd to head homeward.
Growing up, becoming responsible, having to think ahead and assuming the postures of adulthood had certain compensations for me. One that I weekly appreciated was the freedom
O1
[ 46 ]
to sleep late on Sundays. (Somehow the bed was more sensual on that morning than weekdays. ) I loved the soul-stirring songs and heartily approved of the minister's passions, but being penned shoulder to shoulder with a rocking crowd of strangers for three hours or more did nothing for my-.soul.
I maneuvered through the churchgoers, listening for and hearing: '?
"The Reverend sure spoke today."
"That's the truth, child. He did it today."
"Reverend was talking to my soul this morning."
"Bless your heart. Mine too."
"It's a wonderful thing to go into the house of the Lord,"
"That's the truth."
The sounds waved like pretty ribbons and belonged to me.
I understood them all. I was a part of that crowd: The fact of my Southern upbringing, the fact of my born blackness meant that I was for the rest of my life a member of that righteous band, and would be whether or not I ever went to church again.
The small white house sat squarely in a dirt yard. A few roses tried vainly to grow along a wire fence.
Johnnie Mae opened the door and from her taut smile I knew my blunt words of the other night might have been forgiven, but they were not forgotten.
Beatrice came from the rear of the house and stood beside Johnnie Mae. Both of them talked at once.
"You made it. We didn't think you were going to. We just
47
got back from church. Just changed our clothes." They had changed into matching white T-shirts and pedal pushers.
In Southern towns, the people my grandmother called "worldly" socialized on Saturday night, while the "godly" entertained and were entertained in cool parlors on Sunday. The black people brought that custom north along with their soft speech and remembered recipes. Since my hostesses and I were Southern, I expected to sit at an overloaded table giving fulsome compliments while they plied me with "just one more helping."
"Come in. Take the weight off. Hope you're not starving. I'm just starting to cook." They were as nervous as I. I moved into the tiny room and immediately felt too big for it.
"Thought you were going to bring the baby."
"He was asleep. I'll go back early and take him for a walk." That was going to be my excuse to get away.
"Well, what do you think of our house?" I hadn't had a chance to look around before. I noticed that the walls were bare and there were no books, but furniture they had plenty. A fat, overstuffed rust sofa pressed its matching chair into a corner. Two large chairs, more accidental than incidental, stood pompous against the other wall. Little clear glass lamps, topped with white frilly shades, sat on two end tables. Things took up all the air.
"Come on, see the rest before you sit down." Johnnie Mae's pride carried us into a bedroom while Beatrice went back to the kitchen.
"Have you ever slept in a round bed before?" I hadn't and
!>
48
I hadn't seen one either. It didn't seem'appealing, although it was covered with a blue satin spread which matched its curves.
"When Beatrice has her flowers she sleeps in here." I followed her into a monastic cell. A small cot and an old dresser were the room's only furnishings. No lamps, no doilies.
"Her flowers?" I wasn't really so curious as I was uncomfortable.
Johnnie Mae said, "Her monthlies. I don't get them any more. I had an operation. If she wasn't so scared of hospitals, she'd have one too."
"An operation?" I was young, but I was also stupid.
"Had my ovaries and all that mess taken out; Bee ought to get it done too. After all, I'm not about to give her any babies, am I?" She hunched me and winked. I must have returned the wink. I don't know. But I was thinking of the stupidity which got me in the predicament. The big generous unprejudiced spirit which had got me hooked up with two lesbians of heavy humor.
"It's nice. Your house is really very nice. I mean, it reflects your taste and your personalities. I always say, if you want to know a woman, I mean a person, go to their house. It will tell you ..." I knew that words, despite the old saying, never fail. And my reading had given me words to spare. I could, and often did to myself or my baby, recite whole passages of Shakespeare, Paul Lawrence Dunbar poems, Kipling's "If," Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Longfellow's Hiawatha, Arna Bontemps. Surely I had enough words to cover a moment's discomfort. I had enough for hours if need be.
49 ]
Back on the prickly sofa, Johnnie Mae offered me Dubonnet. I held the glass of thick sweet wine as protection. Thinking she would hesitate to pounce on me if there was a chance I would spill the wine on her furniture, I kept it in front of me like a shield. >
"Beatrice, come out here. You're not chained to the stove." She looked at me and raised thick eyebrows. Johnnie Mae had the infuriating habit of making anyone she spoke to into a fellow conspirator. I raised my eyebrows back at her as if I understood her meaning. Beatrice came into the room, a sprinkling of perspiration dotting her face.
"Now, baby, you don't want no black chicken do you?" Beatrice was teasing. Flirting.
"If that chicken gets any darker than you, I'll have to whip your rusty dusty." They were a comedy team. If I had heard that exchange at the club I would have joined their laughter, but perched guarded in the cluttered room, I couldn't find anything funny. I laughed.
"Come here, you sweet thing." Beatrice obeyed and stood like a little chubby girl in front of Johnnie Mae.
"Bend down." Johnnie Mae raised her face and the two women's lips met. I watched and saw their tongues snaking in and out. Except in movies I had never even seen men and women kiss passionately. They pulled apart and looked at me in a practiced gesture. For a second I was too embarrassed to have been caught watching, and in the next second I knew they had wanted me to see. Even after I told them I had no interest in lesbianism, they thought the sight of women kissing would excite me.
'I.
?,?*
v:""'if
F ?..'
[ 50 ]
f*
I hated their stupidity, but more than that I hated being underestimated. If they only knew, they-could strip buck naked and do the Sassy Sue wiggle and I would continue to sit, with my legs crossed, sipping the Dubonnet.
Beatrice's laughter floated ov
er her shoulder as she headed back to the kitchen. Johnnie Mae looked at me and by leering tried to include me in her appreciation.
"Beatrice would make a rabbit hug a hound." She grunted like a pig.
Because laughter seemed to be the safest sport in the house, I laughed and said, "Where do you work? I mean both of you?"
"Right here. Flat on our backs." Nothing embarrassed the woman. "We both take two all-night tricks apiece once a week. Comes to two hundred dollars. We more than get by." She indicated the sofa and chairs. "As you can see."
Lesbian prostitutes! Did they trick with women? I ached to know. How did they pick them up? I had never heard of women hustling other women, but surely they didn't go to bed with men. I fished for a way to put my question.
Johnnie Mae looked around the room, her eyes counting and loving the many pieces of furniture. Her head finished its semicircle and I was back in her vision.
"We're going to have to move, you know?" The question was foolish. Not only did I not know, I didn't care. And if
J 7
I'd had the chance to think about it, I'd have thought it was a good thing, too.
"The landlord doesn't like us. He's a church deacon, he says. But the real reason is that his son is a faggot. Goes
51
around wearing women's clothes, so the old bastard can't stand gay people." She was happy to grin, thinking of the man's unhappiness. "I told the old bastard so, too." She shrugged her shoulders against the fates. "We'll find another place. I hate to move, though. I mean, we painted this place ourselves." The walls were pea-yellow in the living room. "We called this our honeymoon cottage. Beatrice planted the roses."
I felt there was something I was supposed to say. Something like "You have my deepest sympathy." For some reason, at that moment I thought about Curly and did in fact feel sorry for the two women.
"Niggers make me sick. And nigger men make me sicker than that." She might have been thinking of her landlord, but it seemed she was reading my mind and had the audacity to mean Curly. She would have lost my sympathy, anyway. I hated the word "nigger" and never believed it to be a term of endearment, no matter who used it.
"Now you tell me. We been wondering about you. How come you working as a waitress? You speak such good English, you must have a diploma."
"Yes, I do." Shock pushed my voice out.
"You mean you graduated from high school?"
"Yes."
"And work as a waitress?"
"Well, I can't type or take shorthand or-"
"You remind me of Beatrice." She shouted, "Beatrice. Come here." I feared I was going to have to sit through the kissing again.
LI
52
Beatrice stood at the door leading fto the living room. "What's on your mind?" ?"
Johnnie Mae didn't have time for fun.V'Bee, Rita's just like you. She finished high school."
Beatrice, knowing that wasn't such a grand feat said, "Really. Got your diploma, huh?"
Johnnie Mae answered for me. "Sure she got it. And works as a waitress." I started to explain, but she stopped me. "Beatrice was a WAC. A corporal." It was hard to believe that all that soft-looking flesh had been contained in an army uniform. "And when she got out she went to work. That's where we met. At some rich old woman's house. Bee was the cook and I was the housekeeper. I took one look at Bee and I have been keeping her ever since."
Break for peals of laughter. **
73
"Let's have a little grifa before dinner." Johnnie Mae gave an order, not an invitation. She turned to me.
"You like grifa?"
"Yes. I smoke." The truth was I had smoked cigarettes for over a year, but never marijuana. But since I had the unmitigated gall to sit up cross-legged in a lesbian apartment sipping wine, I felt I had the stamina to smoke a little grifa. Anyway, I was prepared to refuse anything else they offered me, so I didn't feel I could very well refuse the pot.
'J V
[ 53 ]
Beatrice laid down a Prince Albert can on the table with cigarette papers.
"Do you want to roll it?" Johnnie Mae was being gracious.
"No thanks. I don't roll very well." I hadn't seen loose tobacco and cigarette papers since I'd left the South, five years earlier. My brother and I used to roll lumpy cigarettes for my uncle on a small hand-cranking machine when he'd run out of ready rolls.
She took the papers and deftly began to sift marijuana. I tried not to appear too curious as the grains of tobacco fell into the cupped paper.
"I'd like to use your bathroom."
"Sure. You know where it is."
I talked to the bathroom mirror. "You have nothing to be nervous about. You'll get out of this. Don't you always get out of everything? Marijuana is not habit-forming. Thousands of people have smoked it. The Indians and Mexicans and it didn't send them mad. Just wash your hands"-which were damp-"and go back to the living room. Keep your cool. Cool."
I inhaled the smoke as casually as if the small brown cigarette I held were the conventional commercial kind.
"No. No. Don't waste the grifa. Hand it here." She dragged the cigarette and made the sound of folks slurping tea from a saucer.
"But I like it my way." Stubborn to the end.
"Well, try it like this." Again the rattling sound.
"All right. I will." I opened my throat and kept my tongue flat so that the smoke found no obstacle in its passage from
? (?'
; y
w
I 54 ]
*>
my lips to my throat. It tore the lining off. my tonsils, made my nasal passages burn like red pepper and choked me. While I coughed, gagging, those silly bitches laughed. They would be sitting there with those vapid wrinkles on their faces while I choked to death. Wouldn't they do anything for me? No. Beatrice rescued the joint and sucked in the smoke, puffing out her already fat cheeks to bursting, while her lady love was busily engaged in rolling another stick of tearing fire.
Before the cough stopped shaking me, I had decided I would get even with them. They were lesbians, which was sinful enough, but they were also inconsiderate, stupid bitches. I reached again for the marijuana.
The food was the best I'd ever tasted. Every morsel was an experience of sheer delight. I lost myself in a haze of sensual pleasure, enjoying not only the tastes but the feel of the food in my mouth, the smells, and the sound of my jaws chewing.
"She's got a buzz. That's her third helping."
I looked up to see the two women looking at me and laughing. Their faces seemed to be mostly teeth. White teeth staggering inside dark lips. They were embarrassingly ugly, and yet there was something funny about it. They had no idea that they were so strange-looking. I laughed at their ignorance, and they, probably thinking themselves to be laughing at mine, joined me. When I remembered how they were ready to let me choke to death and how I vowed to get them, the tears rolled down my cheeks. That was really funny. They didn't know what I was thinking and I didn't know what form my revenge would take.
"Let's have some sounds." Beatrice got up from the table.
[ 55
We were by magic back in the murky living room. Johnnie Mae stood putting records on the player. She turned to me as the first record began to play. "You said you're studying how to dance. Do us a dance." Lil Green's voice whined out the sadful lyrics:
"In the dark, in the dark, I get such a thrill, when you press your fingertips upon my lils."
I couldn't explain that I didn't do dancing alone to music like that. At the studio I did stretches, extensions, plies and relev?s to Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky.
It was considered normal in gatherings to ask a child or even an adult to entertain. The talented person was expected to share his gift. The singer was asked to "Sing us a little song!" and the person with a gift of memorizing was asked to "Render us a poem!" In my mother's house I had often been called to show what I was studying at dance school. Th
e overstuffed chairs were pulled back and I would dance in the cleared living-room space. I hummed inaudibly and moved precisely from ballet position one straight into a wobbling arabesque. Mother's company would set their highballs down to applaud.
I decided to dance for my hostesses. The music dipped and swayed, pulling and pushing. I let my body rest on the sound and turned and bowed in the tiny room. The shapes and forms melted until I felt I was in a charcoal sketch, or a sepia watercolor.
When the record finished I stopped. The two women sat on the sofa. Made solemn.
I"1*' P
b
[ 56 ]
"That was good. Wasn't it, baby?"
"Sure was."
"Dance with Beatrice. I don't mind. Go on. Beatrice, dance with Rita."
Again, order was in her voice. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was dance with another woman. Johnnie Mae got up and started the Lil Green song again and Beatrice moved up close to me. She put her arm around my waist and took my left hand as if we were going to waltz. It was crushing. Not only was she fat and soft and a head shorter than I, her big breasts rubbed against my stomach. She stuck her thigh between my knees and we wobbled around the room.
This was the ultimate insult. I would vent my spleen on those thick-headed lecherous old hags. They couldn't do me this way and get away with it.
"That's right, Beatrice, do the dip." The woman did a fancy step and bent back, pulling me with her. I nearly toppled over. Mercifully, the record finished after what seemed one thousand hours and I was allowed to return to the sofa.
"You all look good together. Beatrice can sure dance, can't she? Come here, baby, and give me a kiss."
I got up and made room for Beatrice.
"No. You can stay." She encircled Beatrice, whose face was heavy with submission.
"Have to go to the toilet again." Let the mental machine do its work. In the bathroom an idea bloomed. They were whores. Why not encourage them in their chosen profession? From what I understood, whores can never get enough money,
57
and since they had so little, I dressed my newborn creation carefully and took it back to the living room. I asked if we could turn down the music because I wanted to talk.
"Rita wants to talk." They broke out of their embrace. Nasty things.
"I just thought I might be able to help you keep this place. You like it so much and you've made it so cute, it'd be a shame if you lost it."
They nearly became maudlin in their agreement.
"Well, I could rent it, and you could continue to stay."
"You mean you pay the rent and we pay you back."
"No. I'll rent the place in my name, I'll have the lights and gas put in my name. And pay everything. And three nights a week or four nights a week, you all stay here and turn tricks."
Beatrice's silly little voice complained: "You mean to turn our home into a whorehouse?"
Well, whores lived in it and it was a house. "Do you realize if the trade builds up, you can buy a place of your own and fix it just like this?" And they probably would.
"Where would we get the tricks?" Ever-practical Johnnie Mae.
"We'd get white taxi drivers and give them a percentage." My brain was clicking along like a Santa Fe train. A-hooting and a-howling. "They could be told the hours, like between ten and two. Then if every trick is twenty dollars, they get five and we split the fifteen. Seven-fifty for you. Seven-fifty for me."