It grew to be an old game that even Billy Boy tired of unless I bribed him with a shiny penny or a piece of biscuit and jam. I sought him out and sought out the earth whenever I needed release from the tight silence in my home, tightening to the point of danger the closer I grew toward womanhood. Or when the spring brought a looseness and a new blooming that were equally threatening. And I began to choose more dangerous places, places that made being touched that way all the sweeter: the paved road leading to the cotton exchange, the patch of oaks within sound of the hymns drifting out of the church during evening prayer. Never too close, but never too far away either. In the evening my brown hair, brown skin, and brown sack dresses blended into the dirt. So it was only Billy Boy for them to see, silhouetted against the setting sun; Billy Boy marching round and round in circles, Adam’s apple straining, head thrown back to the sky. Not a soul would give it much thought, even later when he’d get so worked up he had to call out my name. In his garbled throat it was—Eeee … A crazy man-boy smelling like a goat, kicking up dust, and howling in the twilight.
I started inching my dress up. First just above the calf, wanting nothing between my skin and the vibrations. And by the time Godfather caught us it was only above the knee, the bare beginning of my thighs one with the earth. Billy Boy was pounding up and down the packed walkway; he had learned by then to step over my spread legs. And it was the sweetest of all the times; perhaps, because with memory, it was the last. And I wanted to scream as my fingers dug into the mint grass, pulling it up by the roots. Fragrant roots that I buried my nose into. My throat almost too choked to urge him on—Stomp, Billy, stomp. And that’s all there was for Godfather to see: Billy Boy parading up and down his back walkway. Me spread-eagled on my stomach with mint grass stuffed to my nose. But as he stood there immobile at the back fence, the evening air bringing him the smell of the earth and the smell of me—it was all he needed. He knew. And he began to laugh.
He said I was going to leave him the same way he’d found me, naked and hungry. And he wasn’t one of those preacher men who deal in flowery language—he meant just what he said. The first chores I ever did around that house were to haul the wood and build the yard fire where he burned every one of those brown sack dresses he’d sewn for me. And then he made me strip off the one I was wearing—and he burned that, too, along with the cotton underpants and cotton wraps I used to bind down my breasts. Those underpants would have been ruined anyway, because then he purged me with jars of warm water and Epsom salts. To remove, he said, every ounce of food his hard work had put into my stomach.
I had sometimes wondered, you know when children want to scare themselves, what his laughter would have sounded like if his anger was ever totally unleashed? If those shrill bursts of air would just have gotten higher and higher until the world crumbled apart? And I would imagine the windowpanes shattering and the roof caving in—all of Pilottown crumbling piece by piece into the dust if I really, really went into his parlor and smeared molasses on the pages of his Bible. But the imagination is no match for reality. I found out how such laughter would be that evening with the embers in the fire burning down and me kneeling in a pool of vomit and shit as his food emptied out of me, because his laughter keened high over my heaving body, spinning and diving, circling the clouds—a flock of wounded doves screaming.
I left from east of the delta to follow the riverbed north. Buck naked and so ashamed to steal, I made the one theft forced on me serve two purposes. A huge sack of King Biscuit flour. I used a sharp stick to tear out a neck hole and two armholes in the burlap, and I mixed the handful of flour left in the bottom into a paste to still my diarrhea. And yet thinking of what he put me through that night before he threw me out, it all pales in light of my journey from Pilottown to Arabi. First Venice. Boothville. Olga. Cajun country. A long walk in a dry winter through the meanest part of Louisiana. The Cajuns were poorer than we were. And when you’re talking about white folks who are poorer than colored folks in the best of times, and this was one of the worst—you can just imagine.
Finding work was out of the question among people who were desperately seeking it themselves. And those who were of a mind to share what little they had, found it was just too little to go around. And I could feel the sharp resentment for my need bringing that home to them. And those who weren’t of a mind were glad for the chance to give me what they had been given—the backside of the world to kiss. Triumph. Empire. Bayou country. Only dry mud in those swamps, cracked and oozing like the soles of my feet. The alligators too tired to bother with me. Water moccasins curled up and dying. And the dust, the dust. Homeplace. Happy Jack. Diamond. A layer of dust; I kept walking. To keep myself from harm, I stopped looking hungry and tired when I passed within sight of trappers and hunters. That only left crazy, and even the most mean-spirited will leave crazy people alone. I learned to eat what the muskrats ate—hope. And I blessed Godfather every step of the way. If he had raised me with tenderness, I wouldn’t have found the strength to do this.
The delta dust exists to be wet. And the delta dust exists to grow things, anything, in soil so fertile its tomatoes, beans, and cotton are obscene in their richness. And since that was one of the driest winters in living memory, the dust sought out what wetness it could and clung to the tiny drops of perspiration in my pores. It used that thin film of moisture to creep its way up toward the saliva in my mouth, the mucus in my nose. Mud forming and caking around the tear ducts in my eyes, gluing my lashes together. There was even enough moisture deep within my earwax to draw it; my head becoming stuffed up and all sounds a deep hum. It found the hidden dampness under my fingernails, between my toes. The moist space between my hips was easy, but then even into the crevices around the anus, drawing itself up into the slick walls of my intestines. Up my thighs and deep into my vagina, so much mud that it finally stilled my menstrual blood. Layers and layers of it were forming, forming, doing what it existed to do, growing the only thing it could find in one of the driest winters in living memory. Godfather always said that he made me, but I was born of the delta.
And when I finally reached Arabi, dead lice and gnats in my matted hair, the flour sack a filthy remnant of strings and twigs, nettles buried into the caked mud on my ankles, I sank to my knees to think. Ten miles outside of New Orleans. By then I’d lived a hundred years ten times over, so there was a lot to think about. I’d paid for this ordeal with a loss of good eyesight and a loss of my sense of humor. I considered neither of those fatal; I’d already clearly seen enough of the world to know there was little I needed to laugh about. And the only road that lay open to me was the one ahead, and the only way I could walk it was the way I was. I had no choice but to walk into New Orleans neither male nor female—mud. But I could right then and there choose what I was going to be when I walked back out.
The year was 1913 and I carried into New Orleans poor eyesight, no sense of humor, and a body of mud. I was ready to leave ten years later with three steamer trunks of imported silk suits, not one of them brown; fifty-seven thousand, six hundred and forty-one dollars, not one of them earned on my back; and a love of well-kept gardens. To some people what I accomplished in that place equals my trek along the delta. I’ll tell you right now, New Orleans was child’s play. But it was my first real city and there I learned about any city in the world. I wanted out because I was bored. If I could get through all I’d gotten through, then I was overqualified to be the mayor of New Orleans. And much too overqualified to be the governor of Louisiana. And when I kept thinking on up the line, the comparisons were beneath contempt.
And thinking on up the line was to come to the end of the line about what I could do with my potential. It seemed there was nowhere on earth for a woman like me. That’s how I ended up here, taking over this brownstone and starting my garden. And over the last twenty-five years the only drawback has been that, sometimes, in this business you could use a sense of humor.
Even the stone wall blooms around Eve’s garden. And th
ere’s never a single season without flowers. The spring aubrietas and Russian mustard planted between the stones give way to summer pinks that kinda scent the air with clove before the autumn joys take over along with alpine poppies and columbines. It’s Nadine who knows all their names, and she clued me in to something else about that wall: They’re all wildflowers, she said.
And then there are the flowers around the border of the yard itself that Eve keeps blooming in cold weather: camellias, coltsfoot, winter jasmine, pearly everlasting.
She’s got some kind of plan to all of this. As you move in toward the center of that yard, where that large tree stump sits, spring, summer, or fall you’re gonna find circles and circles of lilies. Day lilies. Tiger lilies. Madonna lilies. Canna lilies. Calla lilies. Lilies of the valley. They grow in low clusters and on stalks; they vine up the stump of her only tree. Swamp lilies. Peruvians. Casa Blancas. Enchantments. Pink. White. Yellow. Brown. Striped. Lilies-of-the-Nile. Stars of Bethlehem. Nerines. And none of them have a price. But all of her other flowers are for sale.
—Everything in that place is for sale.
—When you have a house full of single women there are gonna be gentleman callers.
—Gentleman callers? Lord Jesus.
—And I was taught a gentleman buys a lady flowers.
—Ladies? Lord …
The way I see it, her flowers are like my food. She begs no man to buy them. But if they’re coming there—and they’re only coming because there’s a particular woman they want to visit—they either fall into the routine or not. If they don’t like the house rules, they can stay away. But she passes no judgment on the behavior of those women once she lets them live there, and she passes no judgment on their visitors.
But Eve insists that her boarders only entertain men who are willing to bring them flowers. If he can’t do that much for you, he doesn’t need to waste your time. And if he shows up empty-handed, she has her own cut and waiting. I guess those fellas think it’s cheaper to buy them from Eve than some other florist. The women living at her place have specific tastes. I know because I’ve never had them in here except as weekend customers, when they can get exactly what they want to eat. The meals they’ve requested over the last few years have read like a map of the world, especially the United States: everything from Cincinnati chili to western omelets to New England fish chowder. The only one living there now who’s never eaten in here is Esther. And God knows where that gal came from.
SWEET ESTHER
It’s the height of summer and I can still get a chill when I think of the first—and only—time I laid eyes on Esther. The dead of winter. I was doing the midnight shift by myself when I looked up and she was over by the door, hiding in the shadows. Scared me out of a year’s growth. A little thing like her. That corner of the room was turned into a block of ice. It was hard to believe that someone’s hate could change the air that way. The shadow spoke one word: Eve. But there was no way to give her the directions she needed; I knew that once I opened my mouth—to say anything—she was going to leap out at me like some poisonous spider. You see, I was a man. And I was a man who dared to stand in the full light. Nadine had told me she had a feeling she should take the midnight shift to give me a rest. And one day, Lord, one day, I’ll listen to my wife.
A flimsy latch and a cold draft saved me from having to fight off Esther. A blast of winter air banged the door open and it brought the scent of the Christmas roses growing in Eve’s backyard. She slipped out of the door and followed the fragrance home.
This time of year it’s impossible to find Christmas roses, except at Eve’s. She forces them to bloom in any season for Esther’s gentleman callers. And there is a certain breed of man who does go there to see her. Who looks forward to what’s waiting for him down in that dark basement. Like they say, it takes all types to make the world. But sometimes you wish it didn’t.
I like the white roses because they show up in the dark.
I don’t.
The black gal. Monkey face. Tar. Coal. Ugly. Soot. Unspeakable. Pitch.
Coal. Ugly. Soot. Unspeakable.
We won’t speak about this, Esther.
I don’t. I am twelve years old and glad that it is dark. He cannot see my face when he calls me to come down into the cellar. I always come when he calls. This is your husband, my brother said. Do whatever he tells you, and you won’t be sent away like the others. Can you be married without a gown? Without the beautiful white flowers and the veil that sweeps the floor of the church? Without love? Even at twelve years old I doubt, but I believe in my older brother. He is kind to me and calls me only little sister. And there is much more food here than at home. My brother has the fat wife and eight children to feed. My new husband has four hundred acres and six men, along with my brother, to help him plow. There are jars and jars of pickled beets, string beans, cabbage, molasses, and whole plums in the cellar. Thick burlap bags of flour, potatoes, and cornmeal that tower high over my head where I kneel after he calls me. All prepared by the bitch, he whispers.
I do not want to be like her. I do not want to be sent away. So I will not tell anyone what happens in the cellar. The whispers: spiders scratch and spin in the dark. The bitch lies about him all over the county. To the minister. To the sheriff. To his own field hands. The bitch wasn’t woman enough to have his children and so she lies about him out of spite. For revenge. Lies that he is not a man. Lies that he wanted more than was his due when he called her. I do not want to be sent away. So I come down when he calls. And rejoice that it is dark.
We won’t speak about this, Esther.
My new house is very pretty. And so big. A room just to eat in, with nothing but a long table and a cabinet filled with shiny glasses and plates. And a whole bedroom just to myself. The first night I am afraid of being in such a room alone. But the mattress is so deep and soft. Goose feathers. I can pretend I am a princess. Only princesses would have a bed like this. Deep pink and trimmed with lace. The black gals. The monkey faces. They can only sleep on the old smelly mattress the fat wife throws away. Too smelly for her babies, she says. I am so glad he does not look at me, or he would not give me a bed like this. The pitcher and basin would not be china with tiny pink roses; the mirror would not be that big. The mirror would not show my face. I lie there the first night and pray to God very hard that he will never look at me.
God answers my prayers.
It is the hag who comes to wake me the next morning. She pours warm water into the china basin and washes me with soap. It is a pink soap and it smells like flowers. I ask her why she is rubbing me with lard. Backwoods trash, she mumbles. This cream costs more to buy than your brother’s miserable shack. I am frightened by the way her chin tightens and the long gray hairs on it quiver. I have never seen a woman with a beard. It is the hag who wakes me each morning to bathe and rub me with the cream. It is she who cooks the meals, cleans the house, and washes our clothes.
I work with her. She teaches me. An angry, silent old woman. But she does look at me. If only to tell me I am clumsy and stupid. To warn me that she will take the price of a broken dish out of my ugly black hide. At night when my husband is home from the fields, his eyes avoid mine. He looks into his plate or he looks at the hag. He talks to her about his day. He asks the hag how quickly I am learning. When I will be ready. Soon, she says. And soon she leaves. That is when he begins to call me into the cellar.
We won’t speak about this, Esther.
He says they are toys. I have never had toys. At my brother’s, I made my dolls from pieces of rags and loose straw from the floor of the chicken coop. But I have seen toys in the Christmas book they send from Montgomery Ward and they are also in a big wooden chest like this. Your toys, he whispers. No doll clothes. No roller skates. No pogo sticks. No rocking horses. Play with your toys, he whispers as the spiders scratch and spin, scratch and spin their webs in the dark. My hands reach into the wooden chest and feel the shapes of the leather-and-metal things. No jumping ropes
. No rubber balls. The edges of the metal things are small and sharp. The leather things coil around my fingers like snakes. They are greasy and smell funny. No, they are not toys. I do not know what they are, but I will soon learn what they are for. And I will learn that in the dark, words have a different meaning. Having fun. Playing games. Being a good girl.
I try and try to find a word for what happens between us in the cellar. The fat wife used to say, Every time he puts his hands on me I come up with a big belly. But my husband touches me and there are no babies. Is there another kind of touch? Should he touch me when I am in bed and not kneeling in the cellar? Would that bring me the babies? I have no one to ask. I am ashamed of my ignorance. I am allowed no friends. And the only woman to visit is the hag. She comes every month or so, and these are the times they will sit up all night and get drunk together. I know by now to stay out of their way. The radio is my only company. He has a beautiful radio: it is large and made of mahogany with shiny brass dials. The songs speak of kisses. For hours I imagine what it is to have a man kiss me. The songs speak of making love. I cannot imagine what that is and I grow irritated by the songs. The music causes me to ache in a way I cannot understand.
I turn the dials until I reach The Shadow. It becomes my favorite program. It becomes more. It becomes my friend because it finally gives me the words I have been seeking. What we do in the cellar is to make evil. I still come when he calls. But now I know that his touching will not bring babies. And as I kneel before him, I dream that the Shadow will come to stop this evil. I listen closely behind the whispers and the spiders as they scratch and spin. I listen for the Shadow’s footsteps. For his laugh. I dream that the Shadow will take the toys and do to my husband what he does to me. I dream this for many years. And then I grow up. I still believe there is a Shadow. But I also come to believe that he enjoys to stand there and watch.