Mama Ruby (14 page)
Authors: Mary Monroe
CHAPTER 27
“O
LD MAN
,
IF I DIDN’T KNOW NO BETTER
,
I’D SWEAR
somebody done worked some world-beatin’ voodoo on you. How did we get from Ruby Jean barely bein’ allowed to even visit Othella’s house to Ruby fixin’ to drop out of school and run off to New Orleans with her?”
LD MAN
,
IF I DIDN’T KNOW NO BETTER
,
I’D SWEAR
somebody done worked some world-beatin’ voodoo on you. How did we get from Ruby Jean barely bein’ allowed to even visit Othella’s house to Ruby fixin’ to drop out of school and run off to New Orleans with her?”
Of all of the outrageous things that Ida Mae had heard in her lifetime, what Reverend Upshaw had just told her was the most outrageous. It made no sense at all. If voodoo wasn’t responsible, had the man lost his mind? He must have.
He
was the one who had held on to Ruby Jean with such a short leash.
He
was the one who had decided that she was too good and virtuous to associate with worldly people like Othella. And
he
was the one who wanted her to remain a virgin until he found her a suitable husband like he had done for his other six daughters.
He
was the one who had held on to Ruby Jean with such a short leash.
He
was the one who had decided that she was too good and virtuous to associate with worldly people like Othella. And
he
was the one who wanted her to remain a virgin until he found her a suitable husband like he had done for his other six daughters.
“No, Mother. I ain’t lost my mind. It’s just that . . . well . . . see . . . I been thinkin’,” Reverend Upshaw replied, scratching the side of his thick, mole-covered neck like he usually did when he was nervous or trying to hide something. “Uh, maybe we bein’ too hard on Ruby Jean. She’s goin’ to find out just how wicked life is anyway, sooner or later. We can’t protect her forever. Um, we need to let her live her life the way she wants to now.”
Ida Mae stared in slack-jawed amazement at her husband, like he’d just sprouted a second nose. She’d known this man for over fifty years, and she thought she knew him as well as she knew her Bible, which she knew from Genesis to Revelations. Apparently she was wrong. She knew her Bible, but she didn’t know her husband. “How come you singin’ this tune
tonight
? Just last night you was goin’ on and on about how proud you was to be the daddy of a girl as chaste as our Ruby Jean.”
tonight
? Just last night you was goin’ on and on about how proud you was to be the daddy of a girl as chaste as our Ruby Jean.”
“I know, I know . . .” He forced a laugh that sounded downright sinister. “Heh heh heh.” He stopped laughing when he saw the exasperated look on his wife’s face. “But you know me. . . .”
“Do I?”
“Huh?”
“Go on. I’m listenin’.”
“Anyway, you know I’m the kind of man who will admit when I’m wrong. After givin’ it a lot of thought, I realize we been wrong to be so strict with Ruby Jean.”
“Roebuck Upshaw, have you been drinkin’ more of that elderberry wine than is acceptable? You drunk?”
“Naw, I ain’t drunk.”
“You must be. I want to know what done got into you all of a sudden. When you left this house a few hours ago,
after you got back out of bed,
to go minister what you told me was a member of the community in desperate need of spiritual assistance, you seemed like a sane man. Now you seem stone crazy.”
after you got back out of bed,
to go minister what you told me was a member of the community in desperate need of spiritual assistance, you seemed like a sane man. Now you seem stone crazy.”
It had only been ten minutes since Reverend Upshaw had returned home from his latest “spiritual visit” to someone in need. He had sent Ruby home a few minutes ahead of him, too stunned and embarrassed to walk the short distance with her. He had ordered Ruby to go to her room and go directly to bed as soon as she got home. That was what she had done, part of it at least. She’d gone to her room, but she had not turned in for the night. Instead, she’d stood by her bedroom door with her ear against it until she heard her father come in. As soon as she heard him enter the master bedroom, she crept down the hall to her parents’ room and put her ear against the door.
“I been thinkin’ on it a lot lately. I . . . uh . . . I think Ruby Jean is grown, smart enough to take care of herself,” he stated, his voice cracking over each word.
“Ruby Jean is still a child. She need to finish school so she can get a good job. You done forgot that? By the way, you’ll be sleepin’ on the couch tonight,” Ida Mae said.
Reverend Upshaw ignored the comment about the couch. “Ruby Jean can go to Harvard and get the best education in the world. But it still might not do her nary bit of good,” he pointed out, his voice now loud and somewhat angry. “She is still just a colored gal. The white folks is goin’ to control almost everything she do once she leaves home and gets out in the real world. You done forgot
that
? She needs to experience real life—and the sooner the better.”
that
? She needs to experience real life—and the sooner the better.”
Ruby stood up straight. She’d heard all she needed to hear. Her father
always
got his way when it came to family matters. Yes, he consulted with his wife, and she fussed up a storm, but it never did any good. Ruby let out a triumphant sigh, gently rubbed her chest, and then she returned to her room. After she said her prayers, she crawled into bed, slid up under her goose down comforter, and slept like a baby.
always
got his way when it came to family matters. Yes, he consulted with his wife, and she fussed up a storm, but it never did any good. Ruby let out a triumphant sigh, gently rubbed her chest, and then she returned to her room. After she said her prayers, she crawled into bed, slid up under her goose down comforter, and slept like a baby.
She dreamed about a life in New Orleans that only a princess could have imagined. She envisioned herself marrying a handsome, well-to-do,
faithful
man, landing a glamorous job, owning a lavish home, and the most important thing of all: giving birth to a beautiful daughter—and eventually several more—to replace the one she’d lost.
faithful
man, landing a glamorous job, owning a lavish home, and the most important thing of all: giving birth to a beautiful daughter—and eventually several more—to replace the one she’d lost.
She dreamed throughout the night and almost every other night after that, until she and Othella boarded that segregated train to New Orleans the first week in December.
It didn’t take long for Ruby’s dreams to become nightmares. They had only been in New Orleans for one day before Ruby regretted her decision to accompany Othella.
It was raining and cold the day of their arrival. They were not dressed for rain, and they didn’t even have umbrellas. They didn’t want to spend money on anything they didn’t need, but when Ruby suggested they find a department store within walking distance of the train station where they could at least buy rain scarves or a cheap umbrella, Othella protested. “We don’t need none of that. It ain’t rainin’ that hard.”
“You ain’t got to worry about your hair nappin’ up from the rain the way I do,” Ruby remarked, looking at Othella’s naturally straight hair. “But if a drop of water gets on mine, I got to use the hot comb again, and I just did that before I left the house.”
They stood near the train station ticket counter, receiving cold stares from a few white patrons who were not used to seeing black people up close.
“Didn’t you bring your hot comb with you?” Othella asked, forcing herself to smile, hoping it would diffuse the situation. “I got plenty of paper bags in my suitcase that we can cover our hair with.”
Ruby rolled her eyes and set the large brown suitcase that her father had purchased for her on the ground. “Now what would we look like roamin’ around this city with brown paper bags on our heads? These white folks are already lookin’ at us like we crazy.” Ruby immediately said that after a white man running through the station bumped against her, almost knocking her down. He didn’t excuse himself or even bother to look back. “And with all of these uncouth peckerwoods we done run into so far, it would be just like one of them to make a fuss about two colored girls walkin’ around with paper bags on their heads.”
Before Othella could respond, a grim-faced security guard approached them. He got so close to their faces they could smell his foul, tobacco chewer’s breath. “You gals got a problem?” he asked, folding his arms.
“Naw, we ain’t got no problem,” Ruby responded. “Why, you got one?”
“Y’all can’t loiter around here, and that’s my problem,” the guard informed them.
“We just piled off the train, sir,” Othella said quickly, moving between the guard and Ruby. She didn’t like the angry look on Ruby’s face, or the guard’s.
The last thing that they needed on their first day in town was a hostile situation with white folks, Othella told herself. She knew from experience that even the toughest, biggest white man thought that all black people were threatening on some level.
“We ain’t loiterin’,” Ruby said through clenched teeth, intensifying the angry look on her face. They were near the doorway and Ruby could see that the rain was really coming down hard, like God had turned on a faucet, full force. People with raincoats and umbrellas were running down the street, wading through puddles that looked like small ponds. “We was just waitin’ for it to stop rainin’.”
“We ain’t got no umbrellas or nothin’,” Othella said, hoping her smile would make the man feel less threatened.
“Look-a-here, this ain’t no way station. Y’all can’t stand around here annoyin’ people,” the guard snapped, making a sweeping gesture with a bony hand. Ruby and Othella looked around the station at the same time. There were at least twelve other people standing around, and half of them had been in the station much longer than Ruby and Othella. The security guard had walked right by all of them and had not told them to move on. Despite the fact that she had lived in the South all of her life and she knew the “rules and regulations” when it came to race relations, Ruby did not fear white people, or the consequences that she might have to face if she got out of line.
“Look, you can stand your white ass here and talk as much shit as you want to, but we ain’t goin’ out in that rain until we get ready. Now if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get the hell away from us,” Ruby growled.
It was hard to tell which one gasped louder, Othella or the guard. Othella grabbed Ruby by the hand and attempted to pull her away, but Ruby wouldn’t budge. She slapped Othella’s hand and assured her, “I ain’t goin’ out in that rain, Othella.”
“That’s it! That’s it!” the guard hollered, backing away. “You people don’t have a clue about the proper decorum around here, but I am goin’ to make sure you do!” The guard trotted toward a door near the counter, opened it and rushed in.
“We got to get out of here before he comes back!” Othella said, trembling. Ruby’s suitcase was still on the ground. And from the way she was looking, with her arms folded and a scowl on her face, she was not about to go anywhere, anytime soon. Or at least not until it stopped raining. “Ruby, I ain’t goin’ to jail where them white cops might beat us down or worse. You can wait around here if you want to, but I am out of here!” Othella didn’t wait for Ruby to reply. She tightened her grip on the handle of her shabby suitcase and headed toward the exit. She was pleased to see that Ruby was not far behind. It had suddenly stopped raining, and that was the only reason that Ruby had decided to leave.
They walked briskly down the sidewalk, which was cracked in so many places, it looked like somebody had done it on purpose. As soon as they were two blocks from the train station, Othella set her suitcase on the ground and turned to Ruby. “You almost got us killed back there. You can’t be talkin’ to white folks the way you done that guard, girl.”
“Pfff! White folks don’t scare me one bit. They bleed, they hurt, and they die just like us colored folks do.”
“That ain’t what I’m talkin’ about. I’m talkin’ about the rules. We have to follow them if we don’t want no trouble. You know how happy these crackers get when they lynch somebody or burn down some colored person’s house. And you and me both know that there is two laws: one for the white folks and one for us. The difference is, the white folks’ law is there to take care of the white folks. Them laws is to make sure we don’t cause no trouble for the white folks.”
“Law shmaw! To hell with it. I don’t care who it is, white or colored, ain’t
nobody
goin’ to make a fool out of me and get away with it. That’s
my
rule and I will die makin’ sure it don’t get broke. Now let’s get to steppin’ so we can find us a place before it gets dark, or before it starts to rain again,” Ruby said, gliding so casually down the street, you would have thought she owned it.
nobody
goin’ to make a fool out of me and get away with it. That’s
my
rule and I will die makin’ sure it don’t get broke. Now let’s get to steppin’ so we can find us a place before it gets dark, or before it starts to rain again,” Ruby said, gliding so casually down the street, you would have thought she owned it.
CHAPTER 28
R
UBY AND OTHELLA WERE UNABLE TO FIND A WHITE-OWNED
motel that was willing to rent them a room. One annoyed manager actually chased them out of his motel lobby waving a broom. They had not come across a single motel run by blacks. They couldn’t even find a restaurant that would allow them to use their bathroom facilities.
UBY AND OTHELLA WERE UNABLE TO FIND A WHITE-OWNED
motel that was willing to rent them a room. One annoyed manager actually chased them out of his motel lobby waving a broom. They had not come across a single motel run by blacks. They couldn’t even find a restaurant that would allow them to use their bathroom facilities.
At one point, when Ruby had to empty her bladder, she squatted down between two parked cars. Then Othella did the same thing herself, several times. When Ruby had to relieve herself again, she did it behind a tree, with a stray dog sniffing her behind.
Just before midnight, they ended up in a small, open-all-night colored restaurant where they ate their first meal since their arrival—four slices of buttered toast and some hot tea. The tacky, box-shaped establishment, Boates’ Fine Southern Food—a place that Ruby would not have entered under normal circumstances, even if she had been dying of starvation—had no waitresses or waiters. On one of the four tables sat a pile of old newspapers and some empty lard buckets. Thick grease dotted the gummy floor. The stench of burnt grease, and only God knew what else, permeated the entire restaurant dining area.
The place was owned and run by the same man, a long-faced individual in his late fifties who lived in a one-bedroom apartment above the restaurant. He took each order with a tight smile, and prepared the
FINE SOUTHERN FOOD
that was advertised on the sign outside above the door, and on the smudged, dog-eared menus.
FINE SOUTHERN FOOD
that was advertised on the sign outside above the door, and on the smudged, dog-eared menus.
After eating her toast, and anxious to drink the complimentary tea that the man had served in two different size glasses, Ruby gave Othella a curious look and shook her head.
“What was that look for?” Othella asked, finishing her toast. She lifted her glass to drink, but when she saw a gnat floating on top, she set it back down and grabbed Ruby’s. When she didn’t see any creatures in it, she drank. “Why are you lookin’ at me like that?”
“I ain’t never been in a place like this before in my life!” Ruby hooted, looking around with her nose up in the air. “Nobody in my family would be found dead in a dump like this.”
“Well, excuse me. But all of us ain’t as lucky as the royal Upshaw family. Some of us ain’t got no choice,” Othella reminded. “I don’t like places like this no more than you do.”
Ruby took a sip of her tea and then she let out a mild burp. “At least the man who runs it is real nice,” she said, smiling at the owner as he wiped the counter. He smiled back and nodded.
“Listen, when I went in the bathroom a few minutes ago, I noticed it looked right safe,” Othella told Ruby.
“Safe? And it’s clean, I hope. Maybe I should use it before we leave,” Ruby grunted. “Which way do you want to go from here?”
“Uh.” Othella paused and looked at the man behind the counter as she leaned across the table, talking in a low voice. “I don’t think nobody else is comin’ up in here tonight.”
“That’s a good guess. We been here for over an hour, and ain’t nobody else been in here yet. What’s your point?”
“We done tried to get a room and ain’t had no luck. We ain’t seen not nary a place with rooms run by colored folks.”
Ruby’s face remained blank as she shrugged her shoulders.
Othella lowered her voice to a whisper. “I don’t see why we can’t spend tonight in the ladies room here. Like I said, it looks safe enough. And as slow as business is around here, we don’t have to worry about nobody walkin’ up in there while we sleepin’. Finish your tea, and let’s haul our asses out of here. I’m tired.”
They paid their check, slapped a nickel tip on the counter, and left.
The ladies room had to be entered from outside, through a door on the side of the building. Ruby was horrified as soon as she stepped inside.
“Othella, we got to do better than this. I wouldn’t let a hog I didn’t like sleep in here. This place smells like a cow’s carcass that’s been layin’ out in the sun rottin’ for a month!” Ruby complained, wiping her face with a damp wad of rough toilet paper. She coughed and rubbed her nose as she stood in front of a cracked mirror above the only sink. Dim yellow light glowed from a naked forty-watt bulb connected to a cord hanging from the ceiling.
Othella had rushed to sit on the commode in one of the three stalls. It was the first time in her life that she’d done her business on anything but an outhouse, a hole in the ground in the woods, or in one of those gruesome metal buckets that her mother kept in the house. She took her time relieving herself.
Her failure to respond right away annoyed Ruby. “You still in there?” Ruby yelled, pounding on the stall door with her fist.
“I heard what you just said. I don’t like this no more than you, but I advise you to hush up and find a clean spot on that nasty floor for us to sleep on,” Othella snapped.
“A
clean
spot? You seen this damn floor? It looks like somebody spreaded some cow manure on it, and it smells like it, too,” Ruby yelled, coughing some more.
clean
spot? You seen this damn floor? It looks like somebody spreaded some cow manure on it, and it smells like it, too,” Ruby yelled, coughing some more.
“Well, it’s either this or we sleep outside on the ground. We tried to get a room at every motel and hotel we saw. We can try another part of town tomorrow.” Othella paused and groaned. “Aw shit! My monthly just came on.”
“Hurry and plug yourself up and come on out of there. I’m tired and I want to get some sleep,” Ruby said in a worried tone of voice.
“Don’t you worry about nothin’, girl. Everything is goin’ to be just fine. Tomorrow is goin’ to be a much better day,” Othella insisted.
Tomorrow was not a better day.
The restaurant owner entered the bathroom around noon the next day. When he saw Ruby and Othella stretched out on the floor using their suitcases for pillows, he rushed out and returned with a whisk broom.
“Y’all get up and get your tails the hell out of my place! I ain’t runnin’ no hotel!” the man yelled, poking Ruby’s side with the end of the broom, and kicking Othella’s side with the toe of his thick black leather shoes. “I should have knowed you two tight-asses was up to somethin’ when you sat your tails in my place as long as you did.”
Ruby wobbled up first, pulling Othella up by the hand. “We real sorry, sir,” she muttered, almost falling back to the floor.
“Sorry is right. Well, you sorry heifers ain’t stayin’ here!” the angry man shouted, shaking the broom like he wanted to use it on Ruby.
With a pleading look on her face, Ruby continued. “We didn’t have no place else to go! We was tired and it was late.” She forced a crooked smile and then she fumbled in the quilted purse she carried until she located a crumpled dollar bill. She handed it to the man. He snatched it and promptly slid it into the back pocket of his pants. “It got too dark for us to see too good, so we couldn’t find no motel.”
“Well, I don’t know where you young girls come from, but I’d hightail it right on back there, if I was y’all. Kids like y’all need to be ’round folks that can take care of y’all,” the man told them.
“We ain’t young. We both fifteen. And we on our own now. We came here to get jobs,” Othella said with a wide smile.
The man threw his head back and laughed until tears formed in his eyes. When he stopped laughing, he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and sniffed. Then he pulled a large red and white checkered handkerchief from the pocket of his dingy white shirt and honked into it so hard he started to choke. Othella didn’t hesitate to slap him on his back. Ruby wanted to slap him, too, but she wanted to slap that stupid look off his face. To her, it seemed like he was enjoying the predicament that she and Othella were in, and his role in it. And he was. His life was just that boring and empty. He had just a few friends, and not much of a life outside of his restaurant. “Jobs? Doin’ what? What in the world kind of jobs do y’all expect to find around here? If it ain’t field work, y’all out of luck.”
“And husbands,” Ruby added with a nod. “We came here to work and to get married.”
The man shook his head and looked at Ruby like she was speaking Italian. Then he laughed long and loud again, clapping his hands together like a trained seal. “Now I know y’all crazy. Findin’ a job, any kind of job, is one thing. But a husband
and
a job? Y’all?”
and
a job? Y’all?”
“I don’t see nothin’ funny about that,” Ruby snapped. She realized that this man was old enough to be her grandfather, but she sassed him anyway. “You don’t know nothin’ about us, so don’t be standin’ here mean-mouthin’ us!”
The man gave Ruby a wide-eyed look and shook his head again, looking her up and down like she had just dropped out of the sky. “Let me tell you somethin’, gal. I been strugglin’ for the past five years to keep this hole that my daddy left me open. I done laid more eggs than Henny Penny. I am one step from starvin’ and endin’ up in the streets. Y’all the first business I had in two days—and y’all didn’t order nothin’ but that toast.” The man wiped his hands on the tail of the soiled, bibbed white apron that he wore over his dingy white shirt, and even dingier white pants. He had the nerve to have a white chef’s hat on his head, and it was just as dingy as everything else he wore. “And as far as a husband? Pffft! That ain’t sayin’ much.” He stopped talking long enough to hawk brown spit into the sink. “My mama had four husbands and nary one was worth a plug nickel. Let me give y’all some advice: us men is interested in hips, lips, and fingernail tips when it comes to women. Most men—not me, though—they don’t bring nothin’ to the table but a knife, a fork, and a spoon. Most men—not me, though—is more trouble than they are worth, so a husband ain’t goin’ to do y’all much good—unless you find yourself a preacher man.”
Ruby closed her eyes and exhaled so hard that her nose ached. When she opened her eyes and looked at Othella, she could see that her friend was struggling to keep from laughing. “I don’t want to marry no preacher,” Ruby announced. “They behave just like all other men.”
“Amen to that,” Othella offered with a vigorous nod.
“Well, anyway, y’all need to get on back home until things cool off,” the man told them.
“Cool off? What do you mean by that?” Othella asked.
The man’s eyes got big, and a loud gasp flew out of his mouth. “Y’all ain’t heard?” He tilted his head to the side and reported, “Them Japs done blowed up Pearl Harbor this mornin’, and there ain’t no tellin’ what place they goin’ to blow up next. Could be us! Them Oriental folks is real mean and sneaky! Now y’all get out of my place. I’m fixin’ to temporarily shet down in a few days and go stay in a house with a lady friend of mine, or I may go out to my son’s farm in Shreveport where it might be safer.”
Othella released a heavy sigh as she lifted her suitcase. Ruby looked the man in the eye and told him, “We’ll leave. But we ain’t goin’ no place until you give me back that dollar I just gave you.”
“Pffft!” The man grunted and gave Ruby a dismissive wave. “I ain’t givin’ you back nothin’, girl! I am keepin’ that dollar to pay for y’all sleepin’ in my place all night. Now y’all git!” He waved the broom in the air but he didn’t have to do it for long or too hard. Ruby and Othella scurried out like frightened mice.
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