Mama Black Widow

  His right hand was infested with diamonds, and when his left hand moved, a fantastic cluster ring on his pinkie burst colors like a swarm of pastel fireflies.

  As the Hudsons went out the front door, Lockjaw turned and crawled his live eye over Carol’s curves. Carol shut the door and came to sit beside me on the floor. She squeezed my hand. Her palm was wet, and she was shaking.

  Soldier said, “That bird gets uglier and uglier every time I run into him. And that bulldog with him is Cockoo Red. He’s done at least five murders for Lockjaw and countless mayhems. He knows Lockjaw will spring him.”

  Mama said, “Is them dimons sho nuff?”

  Soldier said, “As real as bedbugs. He’s the operator of the Eldorado policy wheel on the Westside and the Lucky Tiger wheel on the Southside. He’s rich as cream. I can’t understand why he don’t spend a few grand and get his face fixed and replace that pukey right eye with a clean-looking fake.”

  Papa said, “Ah don’ want thet ol’ ugly niggah sniffin’ ’round mah babee gul iffen he holin’ all th’ money en th’ wurl.”

  Junior said, “He git his face messed up en th’ Fust Wurl Wah?”

  Soldier smiled bitterly and said, “No, Little Frank, he’s almost seventy. He was too old for that war. He got it in another kind of war.

  “I heard a gang of heroic cops in East St. Louis, during the 1917 race riots, handcuffed him and smashed his face in a police quiz room.

  “A pal of Lockjaw’s had fought a gun duel with the police and killed one of them. They picked up Lockjaw to make him put the finger on his pal’s hiding place. At first he tried to con the cops he didn’t know where his pal was hiding. The cops punched him around and made him mad so he boasted that he knew but he wouldn’t tell. He never told so the police smashed his face. The underworld rewarded him with the ‘Lockjaw’ moniker.”

  I said, “What’s a policy wheel?”

  Soldier grinned and said, “Little Brother, it’s a slick joker like Lockjaw with a big bankroll backing him against the nickel-and-dime bets of thousands of half-starved chumps who sucker for odds countless thousands to one against them.

  “It’s the prospect of the big payoff that hooks them. A dime played on a gig that hits brings eighty-six dollars. A buck on a lucky gig or bet pays eight hundred and sixty dollars.

  “They believe they can dream up numbers that will make them nigger rich when thay appear on a slip of paper with a double line of numbers ‘pulled’ in some secret place by the wheel.”

  Mama said, “Pulled, whut thet? Thet mus’ be whut Jonnie Mae’s doin’ en her flat, all them men en an’ out.”

  Soldier shook his head vigorously and said, “Sedalia, I don’t think Jaw is pulling numbers over there. I think the flat is a check-in station for so-called runners or writers who turn in their bet books and cash, less their earned twenty percent.

  “Those books have to be in before ninety-nine numbered balls are pulled from a hopper and those numbers mimeographed on thousands of slips of paper and passed out to the bettors. Jaw is got a sweet racket with the police practically in his hip pocket.”

  Bessie said, “Thet wuz some fine purfum’ he had on him. Ah wish ah had some.”

  Mama said, “Shet up, heifer, an’ pull thet dress down.”

  Soldier said, “Old Jaw pays top dollar for everything, including broads. With them, he gets more than he pays for. One of my old army buddies who used to bodyguard him told me Jaw is a freak for using mental torture on his women and keeping them under guard like convicts.

  “Rumor has it that he brutally uses his women in every sexual way. I guess he really hates broads because he’s so ugly he’s got to buy them. They say he always gets what he wants and nothing is so low and dirty that he won’t do it to keep his score perfect. Old man Lockjaw is a dangerous and powerful man.”

  I saw Papa picking at bumps under his chin. I got a sewing needle and sat on his lap and raised the ingrown hairs. The conversation went on and on about Lockjaw and the policy racket. And so did Soldier’s visits to the bathroom with the hooch.

  The party broke up around 10 P.M. Soldier was loaded, but he wouldn’t take Mama’s advice to sleep on the sofa and not try to drive to the Southside.

  Everybody was asleep by midnight except me. I was at the kitchen sink getting a drink of water. I glanced out of the window. In the moonlight I saw Railhead Cox sprint across the backyard and dart behind the storage shed.

  I saw a feeble flicker of light flash through the sooty shed window. I got my coat and dashed out the back door. I stood on a box and tried to see what was going on. I couldn’t, so I eased behind the shed and peeped through the opening.

  Railhead was kneeling at a far corner with a flaming match in one hand and he was shoving something into the end of an old rolled up carpet with his other hand. His match went out, and I sped silently back to my kitchen window on the balls of my bare feet.

  I watched Railhead walk casually toward the back door of the building. I heard his big feet pounding up the rear stairway. I counted to twenty-five and went back to the shed. I struck a kitchen match and walked over to the stash rug.

  I pushed my arm into the end of it. I didn’t touch anything. I pushed to my armpit. My fingertips touched something cold and metallic. My match sputtered out. I put my hand in my coat pocket for another. I froze and felt an electric tremor vibrate the pit of my stomach. I heard feet and voices at the rear of the shed!

  Somehow my wobbly legs took me behind an old icebox at the empty end of the stash carpet. I crouched there and heard the muffled voices of Railhead and his big brother, Rajah.

  I thought I was going to faint. I wondered if they had seen the flare of the match I had lit. But they walked directly to the other end of the carpet. I stuck an eye around the side of the icebox and saw Railhead light a candle and ram his arm up the carpet.

  Rajah squatted beside him. Railhead pulled out a blue steel pistol, and then a roll of greenbacks and a shiny package wrapped in black cloth. Rajah undid the package and smelled the contents. He wet an index finger and stuck it into the contents and licked his finger.

  Railhead frowned his impatience and said, “Raj, what have I got?”

  Rajah put a pinch of the white substance on his thumbnail and sniffed it up his nostrils. He closed his eyes and moaned rapturously, “You got maybe half a pound of cocaine and also pure, is what you got.”

  Then suddenly he popped his eyes wide and vised Railhead’s arm.

  He hollered, “You dumb chump, you’ve went and put the heist on some big shot dealer. Haven’t you? You’re gonna wind up in an alley with the rats squabbling over your stupid brains. Tell me, sucker, who did you sting?”

  Railhead snatched his arm away.

  He had a pained look on his face as he begged, “Please, Raj, don’t call me a chump and sucker. You could motherfuck me and it woudn’t hurt as bad. I stung Little Hat up in the next block.

  “The rats ain’t gonna’ chew up my brains because Little Hat ain’t hip it was me that took him off. I jimmied a window at his pad to beat him for any frog skins I could latch onto and maybe for his table Philco and record player.

  “I was prowling the joint when he stuck his key in the door. When he came in I coldcocked him with an iron pipe and took the heater, a grand in foreskin and the dope out of his pockets. Hell, Raj, I ain’t stupid. I’m slick to take off a score like this with a chickenshit piece of pipe.”

  Rajah sniffed another nail load of cocaine and said, “Yeah, it was pretty clean considering there was no deep casing our outlay for the caper.”

  Then Rajah leaned close to Railhead.

  He had a serious look on his sharp cunning face when he said, “Chuck, look me dead in the eye. You’re gonna need me to unload this dope on the Southside. Now tell me, have you cracked to that square-ass country nigger, Junior Tilson, about this score, or anybody about it?”

  Railhead gazed into his brother’s eyes and energetically shook his head no. He started pushin
g the pistol and money into the carpet. Rajah stood up and put the package of dope in his robe pocket.

  He said, “Chuck, gimme that stuff. I’m going to lock everything in my trunk.”

  Railhead stood up and dropped the pistol and money into Rajah’s other robe pocket. Railhead snuffed out the candle when they reached the opening at the back of the shed.

  I heard Railhead say, “Raj, how much can you get for the dope?”

  Rajah said, “Don’t worry about it, Chuck. I’ll get what I can. It’s a cinch I ain’t gonna’ burn my own baby brother.”

  I sat there behind the icebox for what seemed like hours. I was so stunned that Junior’s best friend was a criminal. I really was.

  Finally I left the shed and went to bed. But my sweaty sleep was one long nightmare. I kept seeing Railhead and Junior sprawled side by side in an alley with millions of slobbering rats devouring their blasted out brains.

  Next morning I had a hard time forcing down my grits and biscuits for two reasons. The other reason was that everybody was upset because Soldier hadn’t come to pick up Papa for several trash-hauling jobs they had scheduled.

  At 11 A.M. Papa left to take the streetcar to Soldier’s Southside rooming house. Junior and the twins got out a deck of cards the minute Papa left the flat. They went to the living room to play dirty hearts.

  Mama gathered up some dirty clothes and put them in the bathroom tub to rub clean on a washboard. I followed and was at the point of telling her about Railhead when I heard the front door open and Hattie Greene came down the hall to the open bathroom door.

  She was a short, tan double for actress Marlene Dietrich, and the still pretty face stuck there on the lumpy body made her look like she’d had an ill-advised head transplant. Tears streaked her haunting face, and one of her fat tits had almost escaped the torn bodice of her faded housedress.

  Mama said, “Hattie, whut’s don happen?”

  Hattie’s heavy bosom heaved with her sobbing. She opened her mouth to say something, but she was so upset only whiney, choking sounds came out.

  Mama rubbed her sympathetically across the back and said, “Hattie, is Sally got en tu sumthin’?”

  Hattie shook her head and said in her sharp yappy voice, “You got a gun, Sedalia?”

  Mama said, “Nuthin’ but thet ole shotgun uh Bunny’s passed husban’. Why yu huntin’ uh weapun?”

  Hattie’s damp eyes widened hopefully as she held her hands out toward Mama and said, “Oh, please, Sedalia! Let me have it. My caseworker tore my dress and slapped me. That black burly bitch slapped me. Please give me the gun, Sedalia. I don’t want to kill her. I just want to set her funky ass on fire. Please, Sedalia, let me have it before she leaves the building across the street.”

  Mama backed up and said, “Hol on, ah said ah had uh gun. But ah ain’t got no bullits. Why she slap you ’roun?”

  Hattie said loudly, “She told me right in front of my boyfriend and kids that she had heard from one of her stool pigeons that I was screwing four or five guys on the QT.

  “The bitch told me I should stop giving it away and sell it, and then I wouldn’t have to be a parasite on relief. I told her to get out, but she wouldn’t. So then I tried to shove her out.

  “She slapped me and grabbed my dress and threw me against the wall. These rotten-hearted workers act biggity, like it’s their money the poor people get. The bastards are always snooping around us to find something wrong so they can cut us off from relief. White people on relief don’t never see them.”

  Mama took her arm and said, “Thet dirty niggah is got powful white folks back uh her, an’ yu do sumthin’ tu her, them white folks sen yu tu th’ pen. Whut them younguns yu got do then? Yu bes’ cool off an’ lemme brew us up some coffee.”

  An hour later I watched her go out the front door, dry-eyed. Hattie had bandy legs that were wide apart, and she had a wiggly, grindy walk like she was riding an invisible penis.

  I went to the front window and waited for Papa to come back from the Southside. I thought he’d never come. It was 6 P.M. when I saw him come down the street. He was a sad sight with his shoulders drooping as he walked slowly down the front walk with his head low.

  I went to the door and let him in. I took his coat and hung it on a nail in the hall. He walked slowly to the sofa. We all followed him. I sat beside him and put my head on his lap. His voice broke many times as he told us about Soldier’s bad break.

  Soldier had driven to the Southside without incident. Then at Thirty-fifth and State Streets he parked the truck and started across the street to a greasy spoon for black coffee. He was struck by a hit-and-run driver.

  Papa found Soldier at County Hospital with a compound fracture of the hip and back and chest injuries. Papa got the key to the truck and went to get it off the street. He was shocked to find that it had been stripped of battery and tires.

  I couldn’t help crying at Papa’s emotional account. Junior and the twins left to visit the Cox and Greene flats. Mama sat silently beside Papa and me for a long time. I looked up at Papa. He was working his jaw muscles like he always did when he was worried.

  Mama sighed deeply and said softly, “Ole Cheecogo gonna’ whup th’ Tilson famli iffen we ain’t kerful. Sojer an’ th’ truck laid up an’ Ah got fawty singuls en th’ lard can. Ole landlady be at thet do’ sticken her han’ out tu git thet big sixty ten days away. An’ also, we ain’ got no vittles ’roun heah tu las’ tu even nex’ week.

  “Ah ain’t cryin’ mah joy tu do it, but it ’pears thet Ah oughta put mah pride en storage an’ be uh mop haid an’ tolet brush fo’ the paddies ’til we git on solid groun’. Ah don’ see no way but thet. Ah sho ain’t gonna’ kiss th’ behin’ uh no niggah chaity wukur. Whut yu gonna’ say ’bout thet, Frank?”

  Papa swung himself so quickly and violently to face Mama that I almost tumbled from his lap.

  He said in a tight voice, “Sedalia, ain’t yu los’ yo’ mine? Ahma man. Don’ need mah woman tu go frum home tu clean th’ white folks filt up. Don’ worry, th’ Lawd ain’t gonna’ let us stahv or git put outdos.

  “Ah got uh Triboon newspapur tu try tu git me uh steady job. Ah ain’t no fool. Ah ken cahpentur an’ plastur an’ paint an’ lay bricks. Sedalia, Ah luv yu an’ th’ younguns, an’ Ah ain’t gonna’ fail mah famli.

  “Sedalia, Ah ain’t lyin’ tu yu. Iffen Ah did fail, Ah would dig uh ditch an’ pull the groun en on top uh me. Ah knows Ah couldn’t stan tu see yu makin’ th’ livin’ an’ waring mah pants. So don’ worry ’bout nuthin’, Sweethaht. Ah’m gonna’ have happy news by th’ fust uh nex’ week. An’ mayhaps tumorra.”

  7

  POOR PAPA STRUCK OUT

  Poor naive Papa wasn’t able to keep his “happy news” promise. He went into the streets and joined the multitudes of desperate men seeking jobs. From sunup to sundown, rain, sleet or shine, Papa was out chasing down even second- and thirdhand rumors of job openings with heartbreaking results.

  He’d go all day on a sandwich of cold collard greens and corn bread. Papa made me cry when he told us about the vicious building trade unions those offices and halls he haunted.

  He told every white man he saw wearing a business suit and tie how his daddy down South had made him a master carpenter and brick layer, and how single-handedly he had built a wing to the big house for Mr. Wilkerson on the plantation.

  He was a “character” to them, so they played the cruel game “string out” for laughs. Finally, a sympathetic official told Papa the union didn’t accept blacks as members or apprentices. He patted Papa on the back. He told him it was a pity that Papa was so near white and yet so far with too much yellow in his complexion to pass.

  I guess the crookedness and bigotry of Chicago was just too much for an honest and fair man. Rebuff and aching failure had broken the spine of hope that he could find a steady job to support his family.

  If it hadn’t been for Jonnie Mae Hudson’s money loans to Mama, we wouldn’t have had food or a roof over our he
ads.

  I remember that first week in May when Mama started scrubbing and cleaning for the white folks. Papa acted so strangely. When he would come back from sweeping out a store on Madison Street he’d go straight to the bedroom, pull down the shades and sit in half darkness.

  I tried several times to go in and keep him company. He’d act like a stranger, waving his arms and speaking sharply to drive me away.

  The second week in May I saw him sneak to the trash bin in the backyard to dispose of a wine bottle. When he came back to the bedroom I darted in behind him and shut the door. He spun around with a hostile look in his eyes.

  I smiled and said, “Papa, please don’t drive me away. Can I talk to you please? Huh?”

  He grunted and sat down heavily on the side of the bed with his face in his palms.

  I sat down beside him and blurted out childishly, “Papa, why don’t we have fun like we used to? Did I do or say something to make you hate me? Papa, if I did, I’m sorry, and please don’t be a nasty wino. I love you, Papa.”

  He looked at me with stricken eyes that slowly brimmed with tears, and then with a high-pitched animal outcry of raw agony, he squeezed me to his chest and sobbed, “Cose Ah luv yu, mah babee. Ain’t no resun tu luv me an’ Ah ain’t nuthin’. Ah ain’t ’nuff man to foot mah bills.”

  We clung together for an hour before he told me someone very important wanted to be alone with him. I went out and closed the door.

  Moments later Carol and I heard him praying, “Lawd, yu ain’t gonna’ turn yo bac on me, an’ Ah ain’t don nuthin’ sinful. Is yu, Lawd? Yu ain’t mad, Lawd, coz Ah drink uh lil’ wine to sofen mah trubles, is yu? Lawd, whut is yu doin’ tessin’ mah faith? Lawd, iffen yu is, ken yu change ’roun an’ bles me wif uh sho nuff job an’ tess anuther way. Lawd, is yu fergit Ah ain’t stol nuthin’ an’ ain’t ’buse nobody en mah life? Lawd, hep me fo’ Ah git niggahized lak Sojer say.”