Mama Black Widow

  Carol and I couldn’t stand anymore of it so we hid in the shed (in case Bessie and Junior would come home and laugh at us) and cried our hearts out.

  Many women like Mama were so desperate they were forced to buy their pathetic domestic jobs from employment sharks who took a big bite from their pitiful wages.

  Mama did general cleaning, including wall and window washing, in the homes of middle-class whites living in the suburbs surrounding Chicago.

  She’d leave before dawn and get home after dark. I don’t remember that she made more than two or three dollars a day after carfare, except when she got a couple of dollars extra for serving a party until midnight or later.

  She was slaving, but we weren’t eating as much or as well as when Papa and Soldier were working together. Papa had often made four to six dollars a day and sometimes eight dollars.

  The competition between us kids at mealtime was really rough. We wolfed down the sparse food and stayed alert to keep Junior from spearing a prize morsel from our plates. We quarreled over food at the table like starved animals.

  Papa had lost his appetite, and he never ate with us anymore. So overburdened Mama had to worry with the discipline and order in the house. Papa became completely indifferent to what went on around him. He spent most of his time in the gloom of the bedroom.

  Sometimes I’d go in the bedroom to visit him, and he wouldn’t drive me away. He’d sit silently with me on his lap and hug me so tightly I could hardly breathe.

  By the middle of steamy July Papa had become a mere shadow of himself. His grief and the poisonous wine had made him look like a hollow-eyed scarecrow. His once smooth yellow skin was bumpy and sickly looking.

  His delicately chiseled features seemed indistinct in the puffy framework of his face. His once proud athletic stride became a stooped shuffle.

  Mama kept clean clothes for him, but he wouldn’t change into the fresh things. He grew a tangled beard. The garbage wine and his trampled nerves made his voice trembly and hoarse. New dirty gray sprouted at the roots of his curly jet hair.

  But it was his eyes, his tragic, hurt eyes that I tried to avoid. All their fire was gone, and when he was spoken to, his response was tardy, like he had a short in his brain. He was only forty-six, but he acted and looked like sixty-six. Mama at thirty-two looked like his daughter.

  No matter how deep and black the circles under Mama’s eyes, she never missed church on Sunday. She’d blot out the circles with makeup and put on one of Bunny’s freaky frocks and undulate away to the ministry of the horny little spellbinder. The last Sunday in July Mama started going to church without me.

  Soldier had been transferred to the Veterans Hospital for hip therapy and general recuperation. Papa had become acquainted with a guy across the street who often visited his brother at the Vet Hospital. Papa had it all fixed with the old guy that all of our family could make the trip with him as soon as Mama got back from church, which was usually around one thirty, and no later than 2 P.M.

  The old guy was parked in front of our building in his big black Dodge at 2:30 P.M. He and Papa were irritated as hell because Mama hadn’t come back from church. We all piled in, and the old guy drove past the church. It was locked.

  Papa shook his head slowly, and I noticed how bad his hands were trembling. The old guy drove to the hospital without Mama.

  Soldier was in a ward that looked like it had a thousand beds. He was thin and looked pooped out, but he managed a smile when he saw us. He got almost radiant when he saw the sweet potato pie we brought him.

  As we were leaving, Papa asked him how long he expected to be in the hospital. Always the clown, Soldier rolled his eyes to the top of his head, and then raised himself on an elbow. He swiveled his head and looked furtively in every direction.

  He stage whispered, “Frank, old pal, the finance company got what was left of the truck. The croakers tell me I’ve got a forever game leg. I slaughtered Krauts and suffered in the funky trenches for this white man’s country. I’m gonna chisel the government like the slick white folks and stay here and rest my crippled ass like a lousy pimp. I got a buddy down the way with dough and a hooch connection.”

  Mama wasn’t at home when we got back. Carol made macaroni with cheese and heated some weiners for supper. Papa didn’t eat. He sat on the sofa looking out the front window with his face in his hands.

  After supper Junior opened the front door to go out.

  Papa turned and said, “Come heah, Boy.”

  Junior frowned and moped into the living room.

  Papa said, “Yu bes stay ’roun ’til Sedalia git heah. Mayhaps Ah need yu tu call th’ law uh sumpthin’ .”

  Junior tossed his head arrogantly and said, “Oh helly, ain’t nuthin’ happen. Mama’s all right. Besides, Ah ain’t goin’ no whar but upstairs.”

  Junior turned and walked away. Papa started to rise, and his mouth opened to probably order Junior not to leave. The door slammed behind Junior, and Papa sank back on the sofa.

  For the first time I noticed something strange and yet familiar about the way Junior’s legs took him through the door. Then it hit me. Junior had perfected Railhead’s fancy prancy walk and lifted his “helly” expression too. I wondered if he’d get stupid enough to imitate Railhead’s finess with an iron pipe.

  I sat on the sofa with Papa and the twins waiting for Mama. Around 8 P.M., I saw a black shiny Cadillac stop way down the block. Papa noticed me craning out the window, so he stuck his head out the window.

  I recognized the huge black guy who got out on the driver’s side as a flunkey for the jazzy minister. He went around and opened the passenger door. Mama’s orange satin dress blazed like a torch as she stepped out under a street lamp.

  I heard Papa draw a deep breath. I looked at him. There was no anger on his face, just slack-jaw shock and awful anguish.

  Carol and I put an arm around his shoulders. He was shivering like a naked man in a blizzard. He rose and walked jerkily toward the front door like a robot. He opened the door and looked back at us with heart wrenching eyes.

  Carol screamed, “Papa, please don’t leave. Papa, where yu goin’?”

  Tears glistened in Papa’s eyes.

  His mouth worked silently, and his lips said, “I’ll be back.”

  And he was gone. We saw Mama and Papa nod at each other as they met on the sidewalk like they were only slightly acquainted. We raced to the door. Carol won and opened the door. Mama’s eyes were bright, and when she kissed us, I got a fragrant whiff of wine. She kicked off her shoes and dropped onto the sofa.

  Bessie had unbelievable nerve. She really did.

  She got right in Mama’s face and said peevishly, “Papa wuz worried an’ Ah thot yu wuz gonna’ stay out all night. Whut yu been doin’, Mama? Huh?”

  Mama shoved hard against Bessie’s chest and said angrily, “Heifer, don’ ast ’bout mah bizness. Ah’m th’ onlyess wuk hoss ’roun heah, an’ Ah’m gonna pleshu mahsef lak Ah don at uh bankit afta chuch. Is Junior home?”

  Carol said, “Junior’s up at Railhead’s. I’ll bring him home.”

  Carol went out.

  Mama said, “Sweet Pea, yu an’ Bessie hol’ them feet up so Ah ken see them shoes.”

  Mama took a quick look and clapped her palms against her temples in playful condemnation. She shot a swift glance at the street and pulled a twenty dollar bill from her stocking top just as Junior and Carol came in.

  Junior’s eyes popped wide.

  He said, “A Jackson frogskin! Whr’d yu git it, Mama?”

  Mama stuck the bill in his shirt pocket and said, “Shet yo mouf, fool, and don’ worry ’bout th’ mule goin’ blin’. An’ lissen, yu take the twins an’ Sweet Pea an’ git bran’-new shoes tuhmorra. An’ don’ none uv yu blab mah bizness ’roun th’ hous.”

  We went to bed around 10 P.M. I couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t that I was that excited about new shoes. I was worried about that look in Papa’s eyes.

  I was confused. I couldn’t und
erstand what Mama was up to sneaking around in the preacher’s Cadillac and hurting Papa the way she was.

  Mama wasn’t worried. I heard her snoring blissfully. I lay there for a long time thinking angry thoughts about Mama, and then I heard Papa’s key fumbling in the lock. I almost cried out in relief. I heard him stumble down the hall to the bedroom and soon his shoes hit the floor, kerplop. I fell asleep right away.

  Next morning Carol didn’t fix breakfast because nobody was hungry. I took a cup of coffee to Papa’s bedroom, but he was gone. I had forgotten he swept out a pawnshop on Madison Street every Monday morning for a buck and a half fee.

  It was a warm and brilliant July day. We took a streetcar to the Loop. The boom and the bustle of traffic, and the grim-faced white people made me clutch Junior’s arm like I was going to drown in the sea of sound.

  We stood entranced gazing at the opulent merchandise that seemed touchable behind the almost invisible plate glass.

  We found a shoe store near State and Madison streets. Brand-new shoes were displayed in the luxurious window like burnished treasure.

  We went and sat down gingerly for fittings on purple velvet chairs. A young blond white guy with a movie star face and gleaming teeth and clothes came to serve us.

  Bessie giggled and looked down at the fuchsia carpet. Carol called out the numbers for the shoes we’d liked in the window. The clerk took our measurements, all except Junior’s. He hadn’t seen what he wanted in the window.

  I got a pair of black Buster Brown oxfords. Carol got a pair of black sandals. Bessie got a pair of gaudy red sports shoes.

  The clerk turned to Junior and said, “Now sir, may I help you?”

  Junior gave him a hip sneer and said, “Yu ain’t got nuthin’ but square junk, Jack. Ah’m goin’ to th’ Southside and score fer some tan knob-toed kicks.”

  We decided to wear our new shoes.

  When the clerk said he’d wrap our old shoes, Bessie drew herself up and flung her hand through the air like a shabby countess and commanded, “Throw ’em away, sweety. Burn them raggity ole shoes.”

  Carol frowned and led us from the store. We caught a southbound streetcar on State Street. A pleasant freedom from tension happened as the streetcar rattled away from the Loop’s dizzying human whirlpool.

  It really felt wonderful to cross the border of solid black town at 188th Street. I had felt so unclean and ragged down there in the Loop among the crisply dressed white people.

  I knew I wasn’t really dirty and my secondhand clothes weren’t torn or tattered or anything. But still I had felt so alien and uncomfortable.

  We left the streetcar at Thirty-fifth and walked toward Indiana Avenue. Shop doors gaped open in the sticky heat. The ecstatic voice of Pat Flanagan, the Cub’s baseball team announcer, blared from the dingy bars, pawnshops, beauty and barbershops.

  Gaudy secondhand suits hung limply under the furnace sun like faded swatches of rainbow. Black guys in silk shirts and sailor straws strutted in and out of the womblike bars with high yellow strumpets tossing awesome rear ends inside loud tight dresses.

  White pitchmen in front of jewelry and furniture stores cajoled and clutched at passing black mothers. Their skeletal children had horribly old faces and puslike yellow matter in the corners of their sunken eyes.

  A white-haired black guy with insane eyes sprawled drunkenly in front of a vacant store in a puddle of piss. He was slobbering and shouting, “I’m a man, motherfuckers. Come on, fuck with me and go to the cemetery, motherfuckers.”

  Ben Hur perfume, the cloying odor of hair pomade, stale beer and whiskey odors, and the greasy smell of cooking chitterlings coasted heavily on the humid air.

  A sweaty black guy in a bloody white jacket snatched a squawking chicken from a crate on the sidewalk. He stood talking with a trio while the chicken shrieked in terror.

  I heard the butcher say as we passed him, “Cocksucker, don’t say that no more. Is you crazy? Ain’t a peckerwood on the planet can whip Joe Louis. He’s gonna’ knock the shit outta’ every white pussy that’s fool enough to get in the ring with him.”

  At Wabash Avenue a frowzy housewife type slashing the air with a butcher knife held a thickly rouged whore-type woman at bay in a doorway. Her mascaraed eyes were glittery with fear, and she flinched with each pass of the knife.

  The protector of her husband’s sexual boredom screamed again and again, “You nasty dick-sucking bitch, stay away from my husband. You hear me, bitch?”

  I can remember distinctly the peculiar laughter (almost all of it identical) that I heard that first day spent in the ghetto streets.

  The wild laugher was on all sides as we walked to the corner of Indiana Avenue and Thirty-fifth Street. It was strident laughter, unemotional and without mirth, like perhaps the treacherous laughter of a madman before he goes berserk.

  We stopped at a sidewalk stand and got pig ear sandwiches and bottles of Nehi soda. We had almost finished when we missed Bessie. We found her in a bar down the street chatting gaily with a slick-haired black guy draped out in a sharp white suit.

  Junior strode in and jerked her out. The dapper buy grinned like a Cheshire all the while and flicked open a switchblade and held it casually at his side.

  Junior kept looking back over his shoulder until we went into a shoe store near Calumet Avenue. Junior let the store dispose of his old shoes and pranced to the sidewalk in his new tan knob-toes. I suddenly remembered that Railhead Cox wore nothing but tan knob-toed “kicks.”

  We walked back down Thirty-fifth Street toward the car line at State Street. Near Michigan Avenue we paused at a vacant lot. A wiry black guy with a savage face stood in the bed of a battered pickup truck and hoarsely exhorted thirty to forty poorly dressed black people.

  His strange grey eyes glowed as he pointed his index finger like a pistol. He was hypnotic crouching there and baring his teeth like a snarling black leopard.

  He was saying, “Mr. and Mrs. Niggers, I ain’t speaking nothing but the truth when I tell you the flag and national anthem shouldn’t mean and ain’t worth a pint of dog shit to black people.

  “Now lemme tell you about the Constitution. It was created for white people by the slave-holding criminal Founding Fathers of this country. I wanta tell you about the corrupt bastards that call the rotten shots behind the scenes and mold the laws and the government to keep themselves rich and powerful and us poor and suppressed.

  “They’re the cynical clique of conning sonsuvbitches who have a death grip on the important money in this country and use it to buy the elections and the candidates.”

  He paused and mopped sweat from his face and bald head. There was recognition on his face as he glared at an impressive-looking brown skin guy who got out of a shiny Lincoln sedan and came to stand on the fringe of the crowd.

  The exhorter gave the rich-looking guy a venomous look and shouted, “I’m gonna get back to the big shot white crooks controlling the government and strangling free enterprise with their monopolies.

  “But lemme tell you about the sick sadiddy niggers with pus on the brain who strive to be white. Don’t worry, the police will always bust their nappy heads wide open just like they do mine and yours,

  “Lemme say this. You remember the race war we had here in 1918. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Niggers, there’s gonna be a big countrywide race war one of these days. Lemme tell you what’s gonna happen to the pus head middle-class niggers who have forgotten their blackness. They are gonna be marooned out there, grinning and suck assing in white neighborhoods. The treacherous paddies are gonna cut off their peckers and ram them up their . . .”

  Carol took my hand and led me down the sidewalk. We had walked almost to State Street before Junior and Bessie tore themselves away from the fanatical exhorter and caught up with us.

  Junior and I sat across the aisle from the twins on the westbound streetcar. Bessie was rolling her eyes up at a sleek-looking Mexican in a dusty purple suit standing beside her in the crowded car.

  I n
oticed how much the twins looked alike and yet how unalike they were under close scrutiny. Carol’s mouth was tiny and seductive like mine. Her face was round and her tip-tilted nose was delicate, and her light hazel eyes were large and curly lashed like mine and Papa’s.

  Bessie’s face was angular like Mama’s and Junior’s. Her mouth was large, and her eyes were small like Mama’s. Bessie’s teeth had a slight overbite, and her feet were a size larger than Carol’s. Bessie had long auburn hair like Carol’s, but she put oil on it that gave it a greasy shine. Bessie was bold and flighty. Carol was soft and sensitive and demure. Bessie was simply a coarse version of Carol.

  When we got home Papa was too tipsy to notice our new shoes. Mama came home around seven. She was silent and edgy during supper. Later while massaging her feet in the living room I asked her if she was sick.

  She sighed and said, “Not en mah body, Sweet Pea. Ah let thet devlish white heifer whup mah spirit tuday. Ah started tu knock her head off follin’ me ’roun lak Ah wuz uh chile an’ finin’ mah wuk wrong, an’ she wuz low nuff tu plant uh fity-cent piece on the cahpet tu tess mah honessness.”

  Carol said excitedly, “Mama, did yu give it tu her an’ tell her yu don’ steal?”

  Mama smiled and said, “Shoot, Ah didn’t say nuthin’ tu her ’bout thet foolishment. Ah jes’ put down uh quatah, two dimes an’ uh nickul en place uv thet fity-cent piece. Wen fo-thurty come, Ah tol’ her Ah wuzn’t comin’ back no mo.”

  We all rolled on the floor laughing because Mama had been so clever. All but Papa. He grunted and went out the front door muttering.

  That first summer in Chicago passed quickly. During the first part of August, radio and newspapers covered an electrifying event for black people. Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the Olympics in Berlin, and Hitler almost wet his pants.

  Papa was a doddering shadow of himself. Slop wine and frustration had killed his ambition and energy. Mama’s big pride, high temper and dislike for the white women she worked for caused her to often walk off jobs. This meant scraps of food on our table.