Little Altars Everywhere (15 page)

I stand by the fan and try to get used to the new me.
Why did I lie and say I was tired of my hair? When really, it was the main thing about me that I loved?
I ruin everything, I think. I ruin it all. I feel like crying, but I can’t. I brought this all on myself.

Baylor, who was sitting on the steps watching the whole thing, gets up and does something that surprises me. He bends down and picks up a lock of my hair and puts it in his pocket. He looks at it and smells it and puts it in his pocket.

Mama watches him and says, My youngest has always been a little strange.

Miss Lucille says, I see nothing strange about him whatsoever. And she walks into her house and comes back out with an envelope that she hands to Baylor. Here, she says. You can keep it in this.

Thank you, Miss Lucille, he says very seriously.

Then he reaches into his pocket, takes out my hair, and places it in the gray envelope that has “Lucille Romaine, Cane River, Natchitoches, Louisiana” embossed on it.

I say, Bay, why are you doing that?

He mumbles, It’s not really for me. It’s for someone else.

And I say to my little brother, Where do you
come
from?

The sun is setting by then. Miss Lucille lights some mosquito torches and the smell drifts through the air, covering up all the other smells. She turns on the veranda lamps and hands Mama and Caro some Six-Twelve to rub on.

Miss Lucille says, Here, Vivi, let me rub some on your back. That’s where those damn things always get me, right under my bra.

And she sticks her hand under Mama’s shirt and smears on some insect repellent, and then they get out the cards so they can really start having a party.

Not too long afterward, Lulu comes down the stairs from her nap. I’m hungry, she says. I’m starving. When she sees me, she seems confused, like she isn’t completely sure who I am.

There is never anything to eat at Miss Lucille’s, so we just go into her kitchen and scrounge around till we find some crackers and anchovy paste and a little leftover tonic. The whole time Little Shep and Baylor and Lulu keep staring at my hair.

Finally Little Shep says, Sidda, you look like a mop.

Baylor says, Siddy, can we put your hair back on?

It gets dark and it looks like nobody is going anywhere. So the four of us watch TV for a long time in Miss Lucille’s den. Finally we get tired and turn it off and fall asleep on the couch and chairs.

I don’t know how long we doze, but I’m the first one to smell it. I yell, Yall get up! Something’s burning!

We all run out to the veranda and we find the ladies screaming and screaming, going crazy everywhere because the trash can filled with my hair is on fire. Mama is standing there with an empty ashtray in her hand.

Caro says, You fool! You should never have emptied that! I hadn’t stubbed my ciggie out yet.

Well, Mama says, I was getting sick of looking at all those damn dead butts.

The three of them just stand there staring at the blazing trash can, amazed—like it is more than they can ever cope with.

I can taste anchovy in my mouth, and I wish I could brush my teeth. The smell of my hair on fire is awful. I did not know that something cut off of me could really smell that bad.

Little Shep runs into the kitchen and comes back with a decanter full of water. He dumps it into the can and the fire goes out. Just like that.

Miss Lucille says, Oh it is so good to have a man around the house! Now let’s all just take a couple of Bufferin, spray a little perfume out here, and everything will be fine.

We spend the night at Miss Lucille’s without even calling Daddy. I wake up real early the next morning before anybody else opens their eyes. My hands shoot straight up to my head where my hair used to be.
I miss it. I want it back.
I don’t look in any of the mirrors. I rub my hands across my scalp. My hair feels more like a hat than hair. Like it is a bird’s head, not my own.

I walk out into the yard and there is still dew on the grass, although you can tell the day will be another scorcher. I go out behind the cedars and over by the
crepe myrtles. I stand there for a minute, feeling far away from everything because it’s still so early. Then I lie down on the grass. It’s cool and damp, and it itches and feels good at the same time. I can see the sky above me just coming to light, and the fringes of the cedars and all the pink of the crepe myrtles. There aren’t any bugs or mosquitoes, nothing to bite me. I lie on my back in the grass for a long time and then I turn over and lie on my stomach. My heart starts pounding, my breath gets real tight, and I get all afraid.

But I can feel the ground underneath me. And I tell myself: The earth is holding me up. I am lighter than I was before. My hair is like grass planted on the top of my head. If I can just wait long enough, maybe it will grow back in some other season.

Willetta, 1990

M
iz Vivi started gettin holy on us after her and Mister Big Shep done had the big fight. I knew somethin was goin on that night, when me and Chaney was settin out on the porch. It was back when Chaney still smoke those devil L&Ms—fore I give him the ultratomato. Fore I tole him: You drink and smoke anymore round here, you can find your ten-cent self another bed to sleep in, you hear me, peckawood?

We was settin out on the porch when Miz Vivi fly out that brick house with all them four chilren. Yellin, packin them in that pinky-gray T-Bird, revvin up that motor, scratchin out the driveway in the dark of night, headin up the road to town.

Where she goin? I ax Chaney. It must be ten o’clock at night. Them chilren got school tomorrow.

He say, Letta, mind your own bidness.

I tell him, Those chilren
is
my bidness.

He say, Oh, keep still. White people act like that sometime. Maybe she gonna go buy her some cigarettes.

Ain’t no stores open now, I tell him. This was back when stores still closed up at five o’clock. You want somethin late at night, you just wait for it.

Oooh, I wanted to sass Chaney somethin bad! Tell him, Oh I forgot, Mister King-Know-It-All, you know everything there is bout white people!

But I helt my tongue that time. Chaney a good man, he just tryin to roll with the punches. That my Chaney’s motto: You got to roll with the punches.

So I walk myself down the lane, act like I just lookin up at the sky. And fore I know it, Miz Vivi just roarin right back into the driveway like her hair on fire. Musta turned round right at the end of Pecan Road. Herdin all four of them chilren back in the house.

It was a starry night and Siddy was standin there on the edge of the driveway holdin somethin in her hand, just cryin and cryin. Had on that white sweater with the dogs on it her cousin hand her down. I bet I knowed just the nightie she had on underneath it, cause I done Cloroxed, line-dried, and folded it in her drawer just that afternoon. I knowed every pair of little panties that child had. I could see her cause the carport light was still on. I don’t reckon she could see me, standin at the edge of the field in all that darkness. But I was there.

I woulda gone to her, only I be scart what her Mama gonna do. People be stickin they nose up in Miz Viviane Walker’s bidness, she cut it right off. I seen her do it to them chilren’s aunts, seen her do it later to Miz Necie when she got on her bout the drinkin in the mornin.

Then like I tell you, Miz Vivi stick her head out the kitchen door, and yell, You get your butt in this house, Siddalee Walker, before I give you something to cry
about
!

And I hear that tone in her voice, all full-up with bein mad at I-don’t-know-what-all. At things happened fore her chilren was even born. I seen her when Mister Big Shep first brung her out to Pecan Grove and they was courtin. Oooooh, she was pretty! Tiny little waist, all that curly hair and those hats. But she was mad even back then. I could smell it like when a hurricane be movin in.

When I witness how that woman treat her chilren, I start gettin myself over to that brick house earlier than she want me, just so I can check on my Siddy.

Miz Vivi be up in that front room sayin to her little daughter, Shut up and stand still! I’m not letting you go to Divine Compassion with your hair looking like a Two-Bit-Suze!

And Siddy wasn’t but what—six, seven years old—standin in front of that armoire mirror. And Miz Vivi jerkin on her long red hair so hard, she like to pull it out in clumps right off the child’s head. That child
squirm and her Mama slap her, say: You’re just tender-headed! You damn redheads are too tender-headed!

Well, I had me two little nappy-headed girl chilren of my own and they was just as tender-headed as Siddy, and nary a one of them got no red hair! No ma’am, Miz Vivi be jerkin her child around just to make her cry. Just to be mean. She jealous of that girl’s hair, always has been. Her own hair got all thin-like after she had them four babies—five, countin the twin that the Lord done took. She used to get her head fixed at Mister Julian’s over by the City Park, but he quit usin her hairspray. Say it cause cancer. So she switch to Miz Jeannine, who she just love-love-love, but you know that don’t last long. Miz Vivi in love with you one day and drop you like a hot potato the next.

I say, Miz Vivi, you got your hands full tryin to get these chilren off to school in the mornin. Lemme fix Miz Siddy’s hair.

Her hands be all shaky, but she say, You don’t know a damn thing about hair, Letta. Now go do the breakfast dishes, then start on that hand-washing.

And Siddy be catchin my eye in the mirror like she tryin to thank me, but there ain’t one single thing I can do to stop her head from hurtin fore she catch her bus up to the nuns’ school. Don’t you know I was feelin it all in my heart, watchin, just standin there watchin? Wantin to tell that woman: That ain’t how you raise no child!

But I work for Miz Vivi. Me and Chaney live on
their place. I had my own two chilren to think bout. Their clothes, their hair ribbons, their teefes.

The mornin after Miz Vivi done took off in the T-Bird and roared back, she tell me first thing: Letta, you get in Mister Big Shep’s room and haul out every single thing of mine. I’m not sleeping with that sonovabitch again as long as I live! Not if he’s dying of a heart attack and holding out a million dollar bill in his hand.

Well, she done said this sort of thing to me before, when we done went and ripped all the gold “HIS” monograms off they anniversary bath towels and writ SHITHEAD on them with Magic Markers. That was the time he took off wild-turkey huntin in Texas just when she was throwin that big fortieth birthday party for Miz Teensy. She had done hired a little combo and all, and set up men to tend bar and park cars and what all. And Mister Big Shep he up and left to go shootin turkeys. We done ruint all his towels, then she had me hang them in the bathroom right where he’d walk in and spot them.

Then me and her went in the deep freeze with a freezer marker and scrawled “CRAP” all over his frozen duck and deer meat he done put up. That was a shame cause you couldn’t even see the date when that game was kilt.

When that man got home, he give all that meat to Chaney and me. Us thawed it out and had a big cook-up! Our people thought we done hit the jackpot!

Everybody be settin round the table smilin, sayin, Oooh, this the best “crap” I
ever
ate!

Yeah, uh-huh, when Miz Vivi ain’t callin Mister Big Shep her Lover-Man, she callin him Poor Excuse. That what she say: He a damn poor excuse for a man.

But it sho look like she mean bidness with this bedroom move. I had to move out all her lingerie and makeup from the dresser and all her pretty what-nots she done collected from all over. And she say: Letta, you can take that picture of Mister Shep and me at Pat O’Brien’s and stuff it where the sun don’t shine.

I like to say, Don’t you be talkin like that to me.

But of course I don’t say nothin nohow. If it’s one thing I learnt in this life, it’s to bite my tongue when I got to, and yell when I don’t.

Chaney and me been livin at Pecan Grove all the time since we done been married. He been here even fore that, workin for Mister Big Shep and his daddy, Mister Baylor Senior. We used to live in them two-room shotgun houses on the bayou. Fallin-down steps. Newspaper on the walls. You had to walk through the bedroom to get to the kitchen. Yeah, uh-huh, and that outhouse! Wooo Lordy, havin to sprinkle that lime around, and all them flies, and it be stinkin to high heaven! And me havin to get myself out there in the middle of the night when I was carryin Ruby and Pearl and peein all the time. Uh-huh, that’s where we live when I first come here from my Mama’s house. Then Mister Big Shep he
moved us outta them houses and put us in these new little white houses with the indoor plumbin and the attic fan and my good-size kitchen you can set down in. Oh yeah, Chaney be workin with Mister Big Shep every day of God’s world. And me up to the brick house cleanin and cookin and carin for them chilren ever since Siddy done left her Mama’s belly. I’m the one drove Miz Vivi to St. Cecilia’s to have Little Shep cause Mister Big Shep was out at the duck camp. But the times I try to say somethin in that house, seem like it just make things worse. So I bite my tongue till it like to bleed.

It took Miz Vivi a couple weeks to get all the way holy, after she start goin down talkin to that pig-face priest—the one what wore that big fat emerald ring. That man look like a mean cat to me is all I have to say. I don’t care whether he a man of God or not. Times he come over and track mud all over my clean tile floor right after I done finish my moppin. Couldn’t even be bothered to wipe his feet on the mat, like the mud on his shoes was the mud of Christ and we be lucky to have some of it. Mister Big Shep don’t even do that! I had to stop myself from takin a broom to that priest and whompin him upside the leg.

But Miz Vivi be talkin to him every day and readin the book he give her on the life of the saints. We don’t have that book at the Good Shepherd Temple where my daughter Pearl sing in the choir. (That Pearl got the sweetest voice in the world. She my jewel. She my lit
tle Mahalia Jackson Jr.) I never laid my eyes on that book till that pig-face priest brung it into the brick house. I open it one day when I was in Miz Vivi’s room dustin and I like to get sick to my stomach. Pictures up in there of a man with all his insides gettin pulled out by a wheel! And a blind woman holdin her eyeballs up on a plate like she be offerin you a snack! This the kind of trash that man bring into the house. Like the Walker family ain’t got enough trouble already.

Then Miz Vivi start her goin to Mass every mornin and actin like she be prayin all day long. Makin up her lists of what be a sin and what not be a sin. And she all the time be linin it up for you. Like to wear me out!

She say, Letta, it’s a sin for you to wear that wig Chaney got you because it makes you vain.

Now, I done love that wig! I axed Chaney to buy it for me at Kress cause it got them shiny swirls in the front that do just right. You just slip it on and walk out the house, look like you straight out the magazines.

And she tell me it a sin the way I watch my stories on the TV while I fold the clothes.

I tole her, I gotta keep up with Julie and Doug on
Days of Our Lives
! They be up to somethin new all the time. One day he singin to her, call her Beautiful Lady Love, and the next day she be throwin him out the house cause he still be wantin Hope, his old wife. Even though Hope got her amnesium livin in another city, and done forgot all bout him. I done been watchin that story for years and years—and then Miz
Vivi come and tell me it all filled with impurity and what-have-you.

But what really got me is when she done start up listin sins for the chilren. Her baby Baylor only four years old and she tellin him it a sin if he make any smackin noise at all when he be eatin his food. That child already got trouble swallerin. I seen it with my own eyes. I fix that boy a little ham sandwich and a Coke, and when he try to swaller, that bread get stuck up in his throat. He try workin it down, but his little throat so tight he just have to spit that food out. He look up at me like he in trouble and say, Letta, may I please be excused?

Like to break my heart into a million pieces right there on that breakfast room floor. Only thing he can get down is smashed bananas with cream and I feed him more of that than a child oughta eat.

Can’t a woman see what she doin to her own blood chilren is what I wanna know.

Then Miz Vivi done gone and perclaimed it a sin for Miz Lulu to set up in front of the bathroom mirror with her candy cigarettes pretendin she at a cocktail party. And that girl start eatin on her hair again, somethin I ain’t never seen in a child before or since.

Miz Vivi tole Mister Little Shep he can’t go near his cowboy boots cause they sinful footwear. Well, I got my own thought bout what kind of church say boots be sinful. Don’t you get me started.

All in all, though, Siddy be the one takin the holy
bidness the worst. Cause she always tryin to do like her Mama anyway. Siddy start listin what is a sin for her own self—don’t even wait for her Mama to do it! She just find somethin she enjoy, then she decide it gotta be a sin and she start feelin all bad bout it.

She tell me, Letta, I can’t go outside and play on the pecan tree swing anymore, because I am putting that swing before God and that is a mortal sin.

I be thinkin,
Maybe they got a different God than mine.

I say, Miz Siddy, babygirl, that ain’t no sin. That just swingin under the Lord’s blue sky.

But she say, No, I can’t swing anymore. And she set inside the house and look out the den windows while Miz Vivi up in her bedroom (what used to be the chilren’s schoolroom) fingerin them prayer beads.

Sometimes Siddy be cryin in her room off by herself and I go in and ax her, Baby, what is wrong?

And she say, I’m asking God to forgive me for thinkin unkind thoughts.

That brick house is gotta be the saddest place in the state of Louisiana, I tell Chaney when I get home. That place ain’t nothin but a big air-condition house of sadness.

And would you believe, Miz Vivi done got that pig-face priest to bring her one of them prayer kneelers into her new bedroom where them chilren used to have they desks and blackboards? And she brought her a white statue of that Virgin Mary. Two more things for me to dust. Then Miz Vivi she gone to the Catholic
bookstore and bought herself a big old huge picture of that same Mary, with them eyes followin you all over the place. I don’t care where you standin in that bedroom—that old virgin be lookin at you. They not the eyes I want followin me, nuh-uh. I gets to where I shut my eyes every time I passes that picture. I just do my dustin and vacuumin and get myself out.

And Miz Vivi quit her singin like she always used to do. Used to, she be beltin out: Oh what a beautiful mornin it was! And she be singin how she got to love one man till she die! All them tunes what she used to love. Oh, she’d sing those songs all the time puttin on her makeup or layin out dressy dresses for Siddy and Lulu to wear to birthday parties. She loved to sing, that woman did.