Mama (11 page)

A chill went through Freda when she heard his name and she stiffened. Then, not wanting to look awkward, she shoved Money, who shoved her back. She had tried to block out the pain of that evening because she didn't know what else to do with it. It had worked pretty well up to now.

"We got Money," said Doll, watching him tumble forward. Doll was almost as tall as Money was. She was only nine, but Mildred still called her baby. She was also cross-eyed, and wore cat-eyed glasses. The kids always called her Jealous Eyes because her eyes looked like they were staring at each other. Doll was kind of homely, when you looked straight at her. Her hair was sandy brown and she had thick beige lips, unlike anybody else in the family. Folks swore up and down she and Freda looked alike, but Freda was darker and had nappier hair. Freda said she had never been that ruined. They often made fun of Doll, made her the brunt of a lot of jokes. But everybody always said that when Doll grew up, filled out, and started fixing herself up, she would probably turn out to be the finest of all four girls.

"Yeah, you got me, Mama," Money said, poking his small chest out.

"Look. This ain't got nothing to do with love. I'm getting too old to be thanking about marrying somebody for some damn love. There's other thangs to consider. Y'all for one. It won't kill me to marry Rufus. I've known the man for damn near fifteen or twenty years. That's long enough to marry anybody. Ain't like he no stranger. Plus, your mama could use some regular company. I'm tired of being by myself. Y'all is good company and everythang, but when you get older you may understand what a man can do for a woman, and vice versa. And don't ask me no questions about it now 'cause I don't feel like explaining it."

They had never even bothered to ask her about what happened to Mr. Superfine Superslick Supercool Spooky. They were glad not to see his pale face around their house at night. And they didn't want to embarrass her. But now, here come Rufus, and they didn't know which one was worse.

Mildred married him downtown at the courthouse and when Rufus brought home three old suitcases full of dirty clothes, the scent of the whole house changed instantly. Freda threw everything he owned into the washing machine and dropped four capfuls of Mr. Clean in along with the detergent. He wasn't so funny to them any more, now that he was their stepfather. Even when he told a good joke they found it hard to laugh. Sometimes, though, they had to force themselves not to laugh at him, and just to be smart they would walk behind him with a can of Glade air freshener or Lysol disinfectant and spray it like a halo over his head. "Am I in your way?" Rufus would ask, and the kids would crack up, and say, "No, are we in your way?"

They never did call him Daddy, but Rufus didn't mind and Mildred didn't make them. It was true that Rufus always looked tattered and funky, no matter how many baths he took. And his face always sprouted a brownish growth of hair that stuck out like little porcupine quills, which he insisted on rubbing against their faces. Sometimes they would sock him in the stomach but he would only laugh, even though they were really trying to hurt him. The man just didn't know what the word deodorant meant and besides that his teeth were brown and looked too small for his wide mouth. His breath smelled like dry alcohol. And now they had to explain to their friends why their mama's last name was now Palmer instead of Peacock, and also why she married him in the first place.

Rufus tried to be a good stepdaddy, though, and bought them as much junk as he could. Now they had all the things they had dreamed would fill up the refrigerator one day. They had too many hot dogs and potato chips, too much popcorn, and plenty of soda pop and ice cream. They had five different kinds of lunch meat, American, Swiss, and cheddar cheese, and lettuce and tomatoes to make sandwiches. They had chocolate chip, sugar, peanut butter, and Oreo cookies to put in their bag lunches, but they never took them any more because Rufus gave them money to eat out. Mildred finally told Rufus he was spoiling them and she started making them take their lunch instead of buying it.

For three whole months now, they had lived in a house where nothing was threatened with getting cut off or taken away and Mildred felt relatively at ease. At least that was the front she was trying to maintain. The nerve pills helped. The kids still couldn't figure out how she could stand to get so close to Rufus, let alone kiss and cuddle up to him at night. And God, did they really do the nasty?

Like Crook, Rufus drank too much. At first he seemed to have it under control, but when Mildred started ignoring him under the covers at night—after the pills had long worn off—and giving him orders in the daytime like he was one of the kids, Rufus began hitting the bottle like he had grown accustomed to doing before Mildred had said "I do."

Rufus would go into a purple rage when he drank more than ten ounces of eighty proof. His brain cells became toxic and he choked on his own pitifulness, his own worthlessness and powerlessness, and began to spit it out at Mildred. She jumped back. Then he started looking slovenly all over again and began smelling like old rags and turpentine.

"You need to do something with yourself, Rufus," Mildred told him. "You make me sick just looking at you."

So Rufus went out and bought himself a brand new suit, a white shirt, and some cheap black shoes.

Mildred wasn't impressed. "I don't know who taught you how to dress, but that suit ain't hitting on nothing."

"You want me to take it back? I'll take it back, Milly," he said.

"Naw, why don't we go somewhere tonight? I'm sick of sitting in this house." The truth was, Rufus had asked her on lots of Friday and Saturday nights if she wanted to go down to the Shingle to have a drink, listen to some music. But Mildred had always said no. First of all, she was too embarrassed to be seen with him, but to be completely honest, she was scared she might run into Spooky.

And sure enough, who was sitting at the bar, sipping on a rum and Coke, when she and Rufus sat down at the other end of the bar. And he was not alone, of course. One of Mildred's so-called friends, Faye Love, was staring him in the face so he couldn't look at anyone else.

"It's hot in here," Mildred said, making sure her head stayed turned in the opposite direction.

"It ain't hot in here. That niggah down there is making you sweat. That's it, ain't it?"

"What niggah?"

Mildred turned her head in Spooky's direction. He was laughing with Faye Love and didn't seem to notice her.

"I want to go home," she said.

"Yeah, I think that's a good idea, a very good idea." Rufus finished his drink. Mildred had already hopped off the bar stool. Instead of heading for the door, she walked down the length of the bar and stopped in front of Spooky. Faye Love turned her head away.

"Hey, good-lookin', what you know good?" she said to Spooky.

"Nothing, Milly, not a thang."

Mildred turned away, pivoting like a ballerina, and slid her arm through Rufus's at the door.

For the next few months she tried to tolerate Rufus. Even though he went to Ford's every single day, he just couldn't pull himself together. She didn't love him and got sick and tired of making excuses for her feelings, of trying to convince herself that things would work themselves out. Rufus was making her miserable.

Finally one afternoon, while he was lying on the couch, she told him she was divorcing him.

Rufus didn't want a divorce and tried to explain why in a language Mildred was all too familiar with. He pulled a knife on her.

"I'll kill you first before I let you leave me. You know I've always loved you and now that you mine, I ain't letting you go for nobody. What I'ma do without you and the kids? Y'all my whole world." Rufus was crying and started kicking the wall over and over, harder and harder.

But Mildred did not feel sorry for him at all.

"Now who in the hell you think you gon' stab, motherfucker? You better put that knife down. You just like the rest of 'em. Ain't worth a good fuck. I should'a known all along. But I ain't crazy. I know when I've made a mistake. Crook was a mistake, and you, you worse than one, you was an accident."

The girls were peeking through their bedroom door, where they'd been playing tic-tac-toe, and when Freda saw Rufus come at Mildred with the knife and grab her arm, Freda ran out of the room screaming.

"Let go of my mama, you son-of-a-bitch!" she screamed. Freda hollered at her sisters to run and call the police. Money was spending the night with Chunky and BooBoo.

Rufus looked at Freda, still holding Mildred's arm behind her back. "Move, girl, go on back in the room. This is between me and your mama."

And before knowing what had come over her, Freda was on him like lightning, and with the strength of any grown man, she pushed her mama out of the way, grabbed Rufus by his shirt, and flung him into their room, where his head hit the metal bar of the bunk bed. He fell backward on the mattress. Freda grabbed the knife from his hands and put it up to his throat.

"Now, who you gon' stab? Huh? I'll tell you something, and you better listen good, you hear me?" She stuck the point of the knife into his neck. "If you put your hands on my mama ever again in your life, I'll slit your fucking throat and cut your dick off and you won't ever be able to fuck with
nobody
else again. Do you hear me, motherfucker?" Freda was shaking and shivering like a puppy, but she soon began to regain her strength.

Mildred was in a state of shock and hadn't realized that Rufus had cut her. Her blouse was bloody. She walked to the doorway. "Leave him alone, Freda," she said. "I can handle it from here."

Rufus got up without saying a word and followed Mildred toward their room, which was right off the living room. The girls ran past them, back into their own room to comfort themselves with Freda.

"Here we go again," Angel said.

"You crazy, Freda, you know that," whispered Bootsey. "You fucking crazy. He drunk as a skunk and could'a cut you too."

Freda frowned. "I wish he would'a tried."

Suddenly they heard the sound of glass shattering and Rufus yelling. Mildred had grabbed a beer bottle from the end table, rammed it against the wall, and jabbed Rufus in his side, where the glass had formed a long, smooth, sickle-shaped cut. Blood was gushing out like a red waterfall. Freda ran to see what had happened, and Rufus crumpled over on the floor. She suddenly felt sorry for him. Police cars were pulling up, lighting up the long driveway, and the sirens and red flashing lights brought the other kids from their room again.

"You didn't have to try to kill him, Mama," Freda screamed. She ran to the bathroom to get a towel and Doll opened the door for the police. When Freda returned, a patrolman was asking Mildred what had happened. She told him nothing. Another policeman went back to his car to call an ambulance, while the other three, bored with the incident, left altogether.

Freda was hysterical. "Y'all both crazy! First you try to screw each other to death one day and then try to kill each other the next! First it was Daddy, now this stupid jerk. I'm gettin' out of this house if you keep this up. I mean it! I can't stand living like a bunch of savages!"

Mildred told her to shut up and go somewhere and sit down. Freda stomped out of the room.

"Get up, motherfucker," Mildred said to Rufus, and he did. The ambulance arrived and took him to the hospital, where he was given fifteen stitches. When the kids woke up in the morning, his shoes were outside Mildred's bedroom door.

Eight

"C
URLY, GIRL
, I gotta do something," Mildred said into the phone. "And quick. Since me and Rufus broke up, I feel like I'm in a rerun. These damn bills done piled back up and I swear I can't get on nowhere decent. You know ain't nobody hiring, not even Ford's or Chrysler's or Prest-o-Lite. I'm back on the state again, did I tell you?"

"Naw, you didn't tell me," Curly said, cradling the telephone against her shoulder.

"Shit, these kids need winter coats and snow boots and Christmas'a be here before you know it. Now that Freda's in high school, every time I turn around she need money for this, money for that. That girl sews her behind off. Buys the most expensive fabric she can find. But let me stop boring you, chile, and get to the damn point. I need to get in touch with one of your friends."

"It ain't nothing to be ashamed of, Sis. I've been trying to tell you for years, when you get in trouble, you always need a friend. Somebody who can afford to do you a favor. The men around here can't even eat your pussy good, let alone help you pay for anythang."

Up until last year, Curly hadn't turned a trick for her husband, Clyde, in quite some time. Then he got burnt down at the foundry and they had to live off his disability. It was hardly enough, so Clyde suggested that Curly do "something." She did. Drove their Buick across the Blue Water Bridge to the first nice bar she came to in Ontario and made lucrative propositions. All of Curly's "friends" were Canadian. And she had always been and still was good-looking, even after seven kids. It seemed like the more kids she had the dumber she got, because she wasn't charging her regulars the going rates any more. She used a declining scale and was damn near giving it away.

"How you do it, Curly? Tell me, what do I do?"

"You don't do much of nothing, really. Just take 'em up to some motel—I'd go to the Starlight 'cause it's out of the way. And wear something pretty. Then just take it off, shake your behind a few times, and don't give him more than a half hour, forty-five minutes at the most. Make sure he use some protection so you don't catch nothin' and make him drank something first. Then tell him about your kids. How hungry they is, and how they ain't got nothing to wear to school or church, and that your lights is cut off and you can't even see 'em," she said, giggling.

"Come on, Curly, I'm serious."

"I know, I know. Can't you take a joke, Milly? Just exaggerate every damn thang. Let him know that this could be a regular thang so long as he improve your financial situation. Promise him that you'll guarantee he'll feel good at least once a week. Don't give him your address or phone number, though. I made that mistake years ago, chile."