Mama (15 page)

"We're gon' clean up the whole house today, Mama, wood-works and windows, everything."

"Fuck this house, this raggedy-ass hellhole. I don't care if it burns to the ground. And I hope each and every one of you little brats are sitting in here when it does. You know what? I'm so sick of looking at you kids I don't know what to do. Did you know that? The biggest mistake I ever made in my life was having y'all little bastards. Now get out of my face!"

Freda had been sitting on Mildred's bed and she lowered her head so Mildred wouldn't see her tears. "Holler if you need something, Mama," she said as she got up to leave. Maybe if her mama got some rest she would be all right.

Freda decided to clean the house herself and sent the kids outside to play. It would give her a chance to think. She put on a Nancy Wilson LP to keep her company, and when that one finished, she wiped the perspiration from her forehead and put on Sarah Vaughan. For the entire afternoon Freda swept and mopped and washed and waxed and even put on a pot of pinto beans. When the house was as close to spotless as she could get it and the beans were thick and soft, Freda began to stir up a bowl of corn bread, but she couldn't remember how much baking powder to put in it. And since there were no cookbooks in the house, she went to ask Mildred.

To get to Mildred's room from the kitchen she had to go through two doors. The first one led down three steps to a cement landing, where to the right was the hatch that led to the basement and to the left was Mildred's bedroom door. Her room had been an addition to the house and had never been quite finished. There was still no insulation, and in the wintertime, it was a toss-up as to whose room got the coldest, Freda's and Bootsey's or Mildred's.

Freda opened the first door and stopped. Mildred was talking to someone. Freda listened for the other voice, but there was no other voice. Only Mildred's. She walked up to her mama's door and put her ear against it and she knew right then that something strange was happening to her mama.

"Crook, don't hurt me, please I promise, I'ma be good. I'ma be good." Mildred's voice came through the door clearly. "And Mama, stop staring at me. Why don't you stop pulling my hair? Can't I go outside, Mama, please? I'll be a good girl, Mama, please? Lord have mercy. Babies. Here come another one. Whoops. Somebody, hold me, please hold me, here come another one!"

Freda burst the door open and saw her mama hanging over the side of the bed, shivering.

"Where's my daddy?" Mildred squealed. Her face looked mutilated, distorted.

"Who you talking to, Mama?" Freda asked. She saw that no one else was there. This was crazy. Mildred looked directly into Freda's eyes and started talking gibberish. Then Mildred started laughing and asking Freda questions about people she had never beard of.

"Mama!" Freda screamed. "What are you talking about? What's wrong? You want me to get you another pill? You want a pill?"

"Pill?" Mildred yelled, and then started laughing again. Freda suddenly smelled something foul. When she looked at Mildred closer, she saw that her nightgown was soiled from the waist down.

Mildred covered her mouth and said, "Oh, I made poo poo." She lifted the gown up, looked at it, and started laughing again. Freda didn't know what to do. This had to be a nightmare because this couldn't possibly be happening to her mama. She ran to the telephone and called Buster.

"Granddaddy, you gotta come quick. Something is wrong with Mama. She's talking crazy, she messed on herself and she's mad one minute and laughing the next. Then she start crying. She talking about Grandmama Sadie and cussing out people she hate. Granddaddy! Now she's screaming! What's wrong with her? Please come over here, I'm scared." Buster told Freda to stay with Mildred and keep her warm and not to move her. Not even out of that mess.

Carefully and slowly, Freda walked back into Mildred's room. This time she was afraid of what she might find. But Mildred was just lying there staring up at the ceiling, in a daze. In spite of Buster's orders, Freda filled a bucket with warm soapy water and pulled the soiled sheet from under Mildred. Then she lifted her mama up like a babydoll. "Come on, Mama, sit up. That's a girl." Mildred seemed immobilized and didn't resist or say anything. Freda took her nightgown off and Mildred looked so pitiful and babyish that Freda continued to talk to her like she was a child. "It's okay, Mama. Everything is gon' be all right." Freda bathed her carefully, staring at her mama's thick brown flesh, noticing all the stretch marks. Then she rolled Mildred over from one side of the bed to the other so she could put on clean sheets. Freda put a bathrobe on her, and pulled the blankets up to Mildred's chin.

"Is my daddy coming?" Mildred asked. "Maybe he'll buy me something new. Ain't had nothing new in a long long time, have I? My daddy loves me, did you know that, Acquilla?"

By the time Buster got there, Freda was exhausted. She hugged him, then took his hand and led him to Mildred's room.

"It's all right, Milly. Daddy's here," Buster said, as he walked over to the bed and took her hands. Mildred started crying quietly, and he took her in his arms and hugged and rocked her until she fell asleep. Freda watched them from the doorway. She was trying to remember how many times her mama or daddy had ever hugged her that way. She couldn't remember once.

Instead of taking Mildred to the hospital, like Freda thought he would, Buster took her to his house. Miss Acquilla wasn't thrilled about the idea of babysitting for a grown woman, as she put it, but she didn't want to see Mildred all messed up like this. Buster told Freda this was her chance to prove that she was a big girl. She had to take care of the house and watch the kids until Mildred felt better. "All your mama need is a little rest, baby. Some time to get hold of herself. Put her mind back in order."

It took Mildred three weeks.

Ten

F
REDA WAS ROLLING OUT DOUGH
to make cinnamon rolls when she heard a light tapping at the door.

"Money, answer that, would you? I got flour all over my hands," she yelled. Freda had been the mama of the house for these three weeks and had almost done a better job of it than Mildred. She had paid a few bills on time, had forged Mildred's signature on her welfare check at the A&P, and had managed to keep the refrigerator relatively full. She had played hooky from school a couple of days. She told the principal her mother was bedridden and needed her help at home. The other kids hadn't said a word to anybody about what had happened to Mildred.

Freda had made them comply with every single one of her demands. As soon as they came in from school they had to clean up around the house and then do their homework. She even checked it to make sure they'd done it right. She made them brush their teeth before they went to bed at ten o'clock, which was much earlier than they'd been used to, and made them eat a hot breakfast.

They had called over to Granddaddy Buster's to see how Mildred was doing, but she was always asleep. The truth was, she didn't feel like talking. What could she say? Buster had told them to wait until she was ready to come home.

Money pulled the curtains back to see who it was.

"Open this door, boy. It's cold as hell out here," Mildred said in her usual commanding voice.

At first Money was kind of nervous. But Mildred whisked past him, dropped her suitcase on the floor in the dining room, and said, "I hope y'all had enough sense to buy some real food, 'cause I'm starving. Acquilla still can't cook worth a damn. And whoo, did that woman get on my nerves," and Money knew she was back to normal.

The girls were in the living room watching TV when Mildred marched in like a drill sergeant. To their surprise, she looked rather pleased about everything. She had lost some weight, and her eye is looked brighter. And for the first few days, Mildred went out of her way to prove she was her old self again. She started out by being extra nice, which made the kids a little leery. They weren't used to her being so kind. Mildred didn't holler at them at all. Even when she caught Bootsey kissing that boy on the corner, she just told her to step on it and come on inside 'cause it was getting kinda late. Angel dropped a whole carton of eggs on the floor and Mildred almost broke her neck on them, but she still didn't shout. The kids didn't know what to think when they got up Saturday morning and Mildred had starched and ironed all their dirty clothes. That was Freda's job.

So since Mildred went out of her way to be accommodating, the kids reciprocated. They didn't know how long this was going to last but they wanted to drag it out as long as possible. Mildred could barely get their names out of her mouth before they were giving her things she hadn't even asked for—pillows to prop ber back up, house shoes when she first woke up in the morning, a cup of hot coffee waiting for her when she came out of the bathroom, and a Tareyton already burning in the ashtray.

Before the month was out, though, Mildred was cussing and hollering at them again. The kids felt relieved. They never thought they'd see the day when they'd be glad to hear that tone in her voice again.

It was a hot, clear summer day. Money had just finished cutting the grass and the air smelled sweet. Mildred's rose bushes were in full bloom and the sprinkler was swerving back and forth like a moving harp. Mildred and Freda were sitting in brand new lawn chairs she'd bought with the fifth check she had cleared from Ford's. They were eating cheese and crackers and drinking iced tea. Every now and then a car would pass by and Mildred would wave. Freda had been waiting for the right moment, and now was as good a time as any.

"You know," Freda began, then she sighed. Her eyes became transfixed by the water swishing back and forth in front of her. It looked like a string of rainbows.

"What, baby?" Mildred asked.

"I've been thinking."

"I hope so," Mildred said, fanning a fly away from her glass.

"When I graduate next June, I want to leave Point Haven."

Here we go again with this mess, Mildred thought. "I don't blame you. If I could get away from here, I'd be out of here faster than you could say boo."

"I'm serious, Mama."

"Where you think you gon' go?"

"I really only have one choice. California. Phyllis lives in Los Angeles. I was thinking of writing and asking if I could stay with her till I find a job. After all, she is my cousin."

"A job?"

"I'm still going to college, don't worry."

"I know damn well you going to college. But what about that scholarship you supposed to be winning?"

"I haven't won it yet, Mama, and besides, I won't even know until sometime next spring. What if I don't get it?"

"You'll get it."

"I got Phyllis's address last week from Lucille."

"You got this already planned, huh? Don't make no difference what I say, then, do it?"

"Mama, I'm tired of this town. It's so boring. Ain't no place to go, and there's nothing to do. I don't want to spend the rest of my life here. I wanna go someplace different. Someplace that's at least interesting, and where everybody don't know all your business."

"Look. I want you to see the world, girl. But you ain't but seventeen."

"I know, I know, but I know how to take care of myself."

"Now don't get me wrong. I don't want none of y'all to end up like me with a house full of babies and then can't go nowhere. That's the honest to God's truth. You
should
meet all kinds of people and see this world."

"So you understand, Mama?"

Mildred took a long sip of her iced tea and then lit a cigarette. She blew smoke up toward the sky. "I guess. Hell, this town ain't going nowhere, and besides, if you don't like it, you can always come back home."

"Want to know something else?"

"What else, girl?"

"When I do finish college, I'ma do something that's gon' make me rich, maybe even famous."

"Like what?"

"I don't know, I got time to figure it out. But you know what I'm gon' do then?"

"Naw, what?" Mildred asked. This chile got some imagination, she thought. Living in a dream world. Rich and famous. But she young, she'll see how hard dreams is to catch.

"I'ma send you on a cruise to one of those islands with palm trees, where they say the water is so clear you can see the bottom. You ain't never had no real vacation, Mama, and the one to Niagara Falls with Spooky don't count in my book. I figure you've done a lot for us and you been through a lot."

Mildred got up to bend the hose back to block the flow of water and pulled the sprinkler over to dry grass.

"Mama, did you hear me?"

"Yeah, I heard you. I heard you," Mildred said, heading for the house. "Sounds good to me."

"And I want to buy you a real house so y'all can get out of this dump. I believe in keeping promises, you know. You believe me, Mama?"

"Yeah, chile, I believe you, I believe you."

Everybody except Freda was home when the phone call came from Money. She was out on Michigan Road at Rene Armstrong's house watching "American Bandstand" and making a dress that Mrs. Armstrong was helping her with. Ruffles and pleats. "Your brother's on the phone," Mrs. Armstrong called down from upstairs. Fletcher Armstrong had just left to open up the Red Shingle.

"Tell him I'll call him right back," Freda yelled back. The needle was piercing the fabric and The Temptations were about to come on. She knew they were going to sing "I Wish It Would Rain," and Freda didn't want to miss them. Besides, every time she came out here somebody from home always had to call and bug her about something stupid. She loved coming over to Rene's. Her house was so pretty. Everything was so modern and brand new. It had three levels and Rene even had her own room. The two of them had spent many a Saturday afternoon lying on Rene's canopied bed, sometimes for hours, smoking cigarettes, and trying to come up with the best plan for getting dates with college boys.

"He said it's important," Mrs. Armstrong yelled again.

Freda pushed her foot down hard on the pressure foot until she came to the end of the seam. The Temptations strutted out in front of a sparkling blue curtain, and Freda bit her tongue, she was so mad. She sucked away the salty taste in her mouth and ran up the steps to the kitchen, two at a time.