Mama had to scratch desperately to pay the rent. Many days hunger growled our stomachs, but Mama didn’t give up or complain about being hungry. None of us could know that she was full, glutted with cunning schemes.
Toward the end of that first summer, I remember sticking my head out the front window watching her crawl home from the humiliation of cleaning for the despised white folks. I’d see her start way down the block to set her shoulders proud as the devil and quicken away the lag in her walk.
She’d come down the walk and into our ratty flat with an air that all was well and tomorrow would be marvelous. Her pitiful act was so sad because her eyes always mirrored the stark naked hate, hurt and horror of her blackness that rotted her soul.
In September, Mama took me to Hayes Grammar School, and I was enrolled in the first grade. I was small for my age so I fit right in with the kids in my class.
The twins and Junior didn’t start school. The country school down South had prepared them for nothing higher than grade school up North. They simply couldn’t face the embarrassment. And Mama didn’t force them to.
Carol got a waitress job at a cafe on Madison Street. The twins had turned sixteen on June 25.
I liked school except for a bunch of teenage rowdies who called me Bustle Butt because I had an unusually fat behind for a small kid. I’d burst out crying and run home fast as I could with my palms clapped over my ears. I hated those loud-mouthed bums. I really did.
Soldier was evicted from the Vet’s Hospital the last of September. Papa would get up enough energy on weekends to go to the Southside and help Soldier wash and wax cars under the El at Forty-seventh Street.
Papa bought a few groceries, but most of the little that he made with Soldier was spent on wine. Carol gave Mama most of her salary to apply on rent and utilities. As a result, Mama was able to start paying back the money she’d borrowed from Lockjaw Hudson’s sister, Jonnie Mae.
Bessie spent her time with Sally Greene who had dropped out of school. Junior and Railhead were real tight, and Junior stuck to him like his shadow.
I remember how awfully lonesome I’d get with Mama and Carol working all day. Papa was home a lot, but he wanted to be left alone.
One sleety October afternoon I strayed to the third floor of our building. I saw Deacon Davis dumping his wastebasket into the big barrel on the rear landing. He was wearing yellow pajamas and a skullcap made from a woman’s black silk stocking.
He turned and stepped from the landing into the hallway and walked toward the open door of his flat. He was whistling “Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho.” He saw me, and the pyramid of husky lips collapsed. He came and stooped down in front of me.
He grinned and said in a West Indian accent, “Hello! Hello! You frightened me, sweetheart.”
I said, “I’m sorry. I was only playing.”
His friendly clown face fascinated me as he examined every feature of my face with slumberous brown eyes.
Suddenly he stood up and took my hand and said, “Come with me, precious. I want to show you something pretty.”
I followed him into his living room and sat on a flaming red sofa waiting for him to bring the pretty thing. He came back smiling mysteriously and holding his hands behind his back.
He sat down beside me and said, “Now, dear little boy, sit on my lap and close your eyes.”
I got on his lap and closed my eyes. He was breathing like he had just run a record hundred yard dash, and his lap was pulsating.
He held me close against his chest and placed something smooth and round in my hand. I opened my eyes and looked down at the magical sphere.
Lacy snowflakes were falling lazily down on a tiny Santa Claus seated on a sleigh hitched to a cute reindeer that seemed alive inside the vivid crystal ball. I was so excited and thrilled. It was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. It really was.
I sat there on the deacon’s lap gazing at the wondrous ball that came to life each time I shook it. I was only half aware of his fingertips stroking me from earlobe to ankle.
He crooned in my ear, “Do you like the pretty ball, sweetheart?”
I said, “OH! Yes, yes.”
He said, “Do you like me?”
I said, “I don’t know you real good, but I think I like you.”
He put his face very close to mine and said, “I love you so much, darling. I’ll give you the ball if you give me some sugar and promise to keep a secret with me.”
I couldn’t believe for a long moment that I’d heard him right. Then it dawned on me, and I was wild with joy. I put an arm around his neck and turned my cheek toward him.
He slid his big wet mouth across my face and pressed it against my nose and lips. I couldn’t breathe. I pulled my face away and felt his hand unbutton my fly.
I tried to slip off his lap, but his arm was like a vise around my shoulders. I felt his hot hand between my legs, caressing away my resistance. Then he dropped his head down, and I felt a voluptuous thunder of blood explode in my head.
And then we were naked, and I saw it. I was flabbergasted at the length of it.
His voice was hoarse with excitement. “Kiss it and lick it, you dear little boy, like I did yours. Mine is a magic wand to make any wish come true when you make it cry tears of joy.”
I put the long crooked thing in my mouth until it spat its slimy tears. I cheated the wand and made two wishes, that poor Papa found a steady job and that Mama wouldn’t be so cruel to Papa anymore so that look in his eyes would go away.
After I put my clothes on, he gave me a bowl of ice cream and said, “Now, darling, you want to keep the pretty ball, don’t you?”
I nodded yes.
“Well, you must promise not to tell Mama, Papa or anyone about coming up here to visit me and what we did. And precious, don’t tell that I gave you the ball. Say an old woman passing on the sidewalk gave it to you. Do you promise to keep our secret and get not only the ball but lots of other beautiful things as time goes on?”
I gripped the ball tightly and as I ran toward the door I shouted, “I promise! I promise!”
I never told the secret to anyone. I guess I was too ashamed. Time went on and on and I got many flashy toys from the phantom old lady on the sidewalk.
Things got worse between Mama and Papa, and Papa never got the steady job I had wished for him. When I complained that his wand wasn’t working, the deacon would grin and say, “Dear boy, I know what’s wrong. The wand must cry deep in your bunger, and then the wishes will come true.”
I was a stupid little kid so I went on sneaking upstairs to the deacon’s flat and letting him use me like a woman. The first few times going in, it hurt like holy fire. But then after that, not at all. It felt good. It really did.
He moved to the Southside the last of October in 1931, a couple of weeks past a year since that sleety afternoon when he first used me.
During 1937, nothing really tragic happened to our family. But we were marked. Papa’s hair turned almost white, and he got stinko more often, and he was a little more stooped.
Junior and Railhead drank gin and smoked reefers in the shed a lot. Hattie Greene’s daughter Sally got looped in the shed several times and joyfully screwed all the guys in the block. Hattie got the news, but she was drinking so heavily she did nothing to stop Sally from being a community bangee.
Carol’s friend Denise Greene got a one-way ticket to New York from an aunt. And Railhead Cox got a big red Buick.
The apartment on the third floor occupied by the ex-slave and his chef son was vacated in the summer of 1931. Connie, the landlady, used the cops twice to back up her swindle of two black suckers who didn’t get deposit receipts.
There had been wild joy and dancing in the streets on June 22, because Joe Louis whipped Braddock for the world’s heavyweight boxing title.
Lockjaw often would bolt from the policy flat across the hall when Carol came down the walk. He’d confront her and practically force her to speak to him. He never got rough o
r anything. He’d just step aside and caress his hungry orb over her body. We didn’t know he’d start shooting for her in his all-out deadly way soon.
Carol still worked at the cafe on Madison Street. There was a sweet and secret thing growing between her and a young German guy who hung around the spot.
Carol was so happy that excitement laced her voice even in casual conversation. But it was the dreamy rapture in her eyes that made me so afraid that Mama would notice and probe out the secret. It was terrifying because I knew how much Mama hated white people. But I guess Mama was just too tired to notice anything when she left the white people.
Bessie and Junior gave Mama a million headaches during 1937. Mama couldn’t keep Bessie away from Sally and cute monsters with cool cars and cold hearts and glossy triple A shoes.
Junior seldom got off the streets before 2 A.M. or later, and sometimes he’d sleep in his clothes. It was always a bad scene when Papa heard Junior stumble in and would confront him in the hall.
Many times I was awakened by their angry voices. Papa would threaten to whip Junior. He’d taunt Papa until Mama came storming out of her bedroom flailing hell out of Junior with the first thing she could lay a hand on. I guess she felt that the abuse of Papa was her private privilege.
One midnight, a week or so after 1938 had come around, Mama snuffed out the last spark of Papa’s manhood. I woke up drenched in sweat. The twins were awake and rigid with tension. Junior was on his floor pallet, propped on an elbow listening intently.
Mama’s sharp voice had pierced my sleep and translated into the nightmare that she had discovered Carol was weak for the German guy and was berating her.
Mama was saying, “Lemme uhlone, niggah. Ah’m sick uh yo’ pawin’. Ah’m tared, and yu drunk.”
Papa said thickly, “Ah ain’t drunk, Sedalia. Mah luv jes’ come down fer yu, sugah. Whut’s wrong wif uh man pattin’ whut’s his’n. Yu ain’t nuthin’ but tared an’ evul eny mo. Ah’m uh man, Sedalia. Ah’m yu man. Now loose up.”
Mama laughed contemptuously and said harshly, “Niggah, git you paws offen me. Ah ain’t gappin’ mah laigs fer yu. Uh man foots th’ bills fer whuts his’n. Mabbe yu is uh drunkard, and mabbe you uh tramp. You sumpthin’, but for sho you ain’t no man.”
There was long, heart sledging silence.
Then I heard Papa’s voice choking with hurt and anger say, “Ole Saten got yu an’ pushin’ at me tu beat an’ cuss yu, but Ah ain’t. Whutevuh Ah is now Ah sho ain’t fergit mah paw an’ me wuz preachin’ ’roun nuthin’ ’cept whores an’ crooks when Ah fust seen yu, an’ thet jint yu an’ Bunny lived at warn’t no temple uv the Lawd. What wuz yu, Sedalia? Whut is yu?”
There was another long painful silence in the bedroom across the hall. Carol was crying into her pillow. I felt my own tears burst forth.
Then Mama struck the killing blow.
In a slow, icy voice, she said, “Ole funky gray-ass niggah, Ah don’ want yu. Ah hate yu, wino. Ah dream thet yu die or git kilt. Git yo’ stinkin’ feet an’ breath outta’ mah bed, niggah, an’ don’ git en no mo.”
The twins and I lay there stricken in the silence. Then in the utter quiet of that terrible moment, Junior did something so insane it haunts me still. He giggled gaily.
Finally, I heard the bed springs creak and Papa shuffle down the hall. I went to the kitchen for a drink of water. I had drained the glass and was just going to put out the kitchen light when I noticed an old acquaintance staring up at me from the corner,
I was the elderly rat with the hacked off foot. I stomped the floor to frighten him, but the crip glared venomously at me and bared yellowed fangs.
As I flipped the light switch I got a silly, but really hateful thought about Mama. I wished that I had made a pal of the crip way back when we first met so he’d do me a favor and scamper right in and bite the blood out of Mama for hurting Papa so bad.
Then sudden remorse and alarm struck me when I remembered that Mama hadn’t uttered a sound since she’d spewed her brutal tirade. Had she goaded gentle Papa to stab his pocketknife into her heart?
I rushed frantically to the doorway of her bedroom. I almost fainted with relief as I saw her in the dimness turn on her side and heard her belch.
Then a new fear stiffened me. Had Papa in his grief wandered into the subzero night? I walked down the hall to the living room, and there he was. He was sitting on the sofa in long underwear with his head down, furiously working his jaw muscles and staring at the floor.
I went to him, and as I put my arms around his shoulders, I whispered, “Papa, don’t feel bad. Mama didn’t mean what she said.”
Papa pushed me away and backhanded me against the side of the head. I fell flat on my back. I was more bewildered than hurt, because it was the first time that Papa had ever struck me.
I was struggling to my feet when Papa leaned down and tenderly helped me into his arms. He cried and begged me to forgive him. I fell asleep on his lap and dreamed about how proud and powerful Papa had been on Sunday mornings down South on the plantation preaching under the cottonwood trees.
8
MAMA’S NEW PANTS
Papa knew that his children had overheard Mama’s raw rejection of him in the bedroom, and he withdrew even more from us in his shame and misery. He still managed to sweep out and mop a store or two to support his wine habit. He ate haphazardly, and when he did, he usually had sweet potatoes or navy beans cooked with salt pork.
He started the strange practice of pouring sorghum molasses over his beans and whipping it into a gluey mess before gulping it down. He never touched a morsel of food that Mama had bought or cooked. He bought and prepared his own food.
He and Mama didn’t exchange a smile or a pleasant word after that last night they slept together. At least once a week Papa would visit Soldier.
I guess it was more than coincidence that he always left early Sunday morning before Mama got painted up and freaky in Bunny’s clothes for church.
She couldn’t hurt him when she didn’t return until midnight or later as she often did because Papa always stayed on the Southside with Soldier until at least Monday noon.
Soldier visited us, but seldom when Mama was at home.
Soldier was visiting us, and Mama was home and so were the twins the blustery March night in 1938 when Lockjaw Hudson started his destructive strategy to capture Carol for his bed.
He had been patient and observant. Cunningly, his first shot was aimed so that overshooting Carol for the moment would sit Mama on bull’s-eye and furnish him with (as it turned out) an ally and booster.
Mama answered Lockjaw’s knock on her way from the kitchen. I heard him speaking in that creepy breathy way of his about a possible message from his sister who apparently wasn’t home. Anyway his whole pitch was phony, because that live orb of his glittered as it swept over the top of Mama’s head searching frantically for a glimpse of Carol who was out of range.
Then I heard Lockjaw ask how Papa was doing and Mama invited him in. I mean them in. “She” and Cuckoo Red followed Lockjaw into the living room.
She was about twenty-five years old with deeply troubled sable eyes that matched the luxuriant fur that encased her tiny brown frame from shapely calf to heart-shaped diamond earrings.
Lockjaw stood there in the middle of the floor making extremely small talk with Papa and Soldier, and stealing glances at Carol and Mama to perhaps gauge their reactions to the show he was staging.
The girl kept her eyes downcast when she was introduced. She seemed completely preoccupied with gazing at a monstrous solitaire diamond ring on her left hand. She apparently didn’t hear Soldier pay her an indirect compliment. She didn’t look up or smile or anything when Soldier told Lockjaw he had a pretty girlfriend. She looked unearthly with the thick, much too light colored makeup on her drawn face.
She didn’t give a flicker of reaction when Lockjaw looked seriously at Mama but said jocularly, “Soldier, she’s pretty awright, but hell, I ain’t gonna’ marry
a hoofer I yanked out of the Grand Terrace cabaret.”
Then the torturer paused and switched his live eye rapidly from Carol to Mama and said, “I got a secret love I’m gonna’ marry. And ain’t nothing gonna’ keep us apart. I’m gonna’ put her in the lap of luxury, and everybody she knows in good shape.”
His companion looked up at him piteously, and then her eyes fell back to her hand. Ceiling light ricocheted off the diamond, and her blank, chalky face was ghastly in the speckled flash of blue white fire.
Lockjaw strutted and bragged and dramatized until Carol cracked that she had a headache and went to bed. Mama sat like she was in a daze for a long time after they left.
Finally in the middle of Soldier’s conversation about gangster cops, Mama asked in a dreamy voice, “Sojer, how much thet gal’s ring sit Mistah Lockjaw back?”
Soldier gave her a hard look and said, “Eight, nine thousand. But you ought to ask her what she’s paying for it.”
Around the last of April in 1938, Papa developed an almost unquenchable thirst. Each day he drank six to eight gallons of ice water from two-gallon jugs in the icebox that I constantly refilled. He’d go to the bathroom every half hour or so.
Night and day the cycle went on. Carol brought his meals from the cafe. Strangely, he had a ravenous appetite, but barely the energy to clean himself up.
By the middle of May he was spending most of his time reading the Bible and dozing on the sofa. Sometimes I’d almost panic when it took maybe three or four minutes to shake him awake.
Then at the end of May Papa’s vision became so blurred he couldn’t read his Bible. His legs ached, and the ends of his toes were numb.
The twins and I begged Papa to see a doctor. Even Mama showed concern and sat on the sofa beside him and spoke kindly to him about the logic of seeing a doctor.
Junior avoided Papa like Papa had TB. Carol borrowed five dollars from her boss to send Papa to the doctor. Papa spent the money for wine. The pain in his legs at times became so intense that I stayed out of school to look after him. He got relief when I rubbed and massaged his legs until I felt my arms would drop off.