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Authors: Mary Monroe

BOOK: Mama Ruby
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CHAPTER 8
E
VEN THOUGH RUBY WAS CONVINCED THAT SHE REALLY WAS
pregnant this time, she tried to ignore it as much as she could. She continued to go to school and church, and she continued to prance around the house playing with her nieces and nephews when her sisters visited with their families.
Since she usually wore loose-fitting outfits most of the time now anyway, she convinced herself that she could conceal her pregnancy until the end. Hazel Lattimore, one of the neighborhood’s fastest teenage girls, had done that last year. Nobody even knew she was pregnant until she gave birth in the family’s bathroom one night.
Ruby was not worried about any of the busybodies she knew noticing her expanding stomach. When and if they did . . . well, she decided that she would worry about that when and if they did. She was thankful that her bout with morning sickness had only lasted a few weeks.
Another thing she wasn’t really that worried about was the fact that she was eating even more than usual. Since she had always eaten like a big hog in front of everybody, she saw no reason for anybody to ask why she had suddenly started to eat like an even bigger hog. But her nosy brother-in-law Arlester asked her at the very next Sunday dinner!
Of all the comments for that meddlesome fool to make, he had to say the one that almost made her wet her panties.
“Ruby Jean, why do it seem like you eatin’ enough for two people these days?” he wanted to know. He gazed at Ruby with both of his bushy eyebrows raised, and one of his crooked knuckled, bony fingers aimed in her direction.
“Who me?” Ruby managed, her mouth stuffed with food.
While everybody else at the table remained silent, looking at Ruby with curious stares, Arlester continued.
“I ain’t never seen you eat no five pieces of fried chicken durin’ the same meal,” he declared. His seat was across the table from Ruby’s, so he had a direct view of her horrified face. As he chewed with his slack jaws twitching, his eyes rolled down from her face to her chest. “My Lord, you lookin’ mighty thick these days. . . .”
Before Ruby could respond, her sister Lola came to her rescue. “I keep tellin’ you the girl is growin’ up—and out. By the time she’s eighteen, she’s goin’ to be just as plump as the rest of us Upshaw females.” Lola chuckled, patting her stomach, which was almost as big around as her large pear-shaped bottom.
But Lola’s husband was not through with Ruby yet. “You ain’t courtin’ yet, Ruby Jean?” he asked with a suspicious look on his face.
Damn his soul to hell!
Ruby thought. She hadn’t mentioned boys or anything that had to do with courting in
months
to her parents. She didn’t want to do or say anything that might make them keep closer tabs on her activities.
“Ruby Jean ain’t thinkin’ about no boys yet, praise the Lord,” Reverend Upshaw offered. “If she is as smart as she looks, she’ll finish school and go on to that colored college in Bayonne, be a school teacher or a nurse, before she ties herself down with a husband and babies.” He tickled the side of Ruby’s cheek. “Ain’t that right, baby girl?”
“Um-hmm. That sure enough is right,” Ruby mumbled, nodding as she reached for another piece of chicken.
According to Ruby’s calculations, her baby was due to arrive some time in early July, only a month away. She hoped that he or she waited until after the Fourth of July holiday, which was also Othella’s birthday. That was the last day in the year that Ruby wanted to be out of commission.
CHAPTER 9
R
UBY WASN’T ABOUT TO LET THE THREAT OF A TORNADO
stop her from sneaking out of the house through her bedroom window tonight. She wanted to help Othella celebrate her birthday and the holiday.
But that wasn’t all.
Ruby hadn’t had any beer or sex in over two weeks, and it was beginning to get on her nerves. She knew that she could get both at Othella’s party.
“Ain’t no tornado or nothin’ else in the world goin’ to keep me from comin’ to your house tonight,” she had assured Othella earlier in the day. “And I do mean
nothin’
.”
“Oh, I ain’t worried about you not comin’ to my party,” Othella told Ruby. “You ain’t never missed one of my parties. If your mama and daddy can’t stop you from associatin’ with me, I know no storm can’t neither. Don’t forget to wear somethin’ that’ll keep the boys’ attention on you. That low-cut dress I stole for you last week ought to do the trick. You ain’t wore it yet, and I want to see how it looks on you. No matter what you wear, them boys will be all over us. I already told ’em how hot and horny we both been feelin’ lately. . . .”
But a tornado was not the only thing that was threatening to interfere with Ruby’s plans. She was also nine months pregnant with a baby that nobody even knew she was carrying.
Her labor had started at the dinner table this evening. The first contraction had shot through her belly like a red-hot bullet, while she sat eating some of the holiday barbeque and greens that her mother had prepared. The pain reminded her of the time that she’d stepped on a nail with her bare foot at a church event in Baton Rouge. She wanted to scream and roll around on the floor like she had done that time, but she managed not to. She did moan and grit her teeth though.
“Stop screwin’ up your face like that, Ruby Jean. Them greens ain’t that bitter,” her mother scolded, before her teeth chewed a wad of turnip greens to pulp.
Ruby’s father stopped gnawing on a rib bone so he could add his two cents. “And she’d better hurry up and eat everything on her plate. If that storm hits, it might be a while before our next meal.”
“Can I finish my supper in my room?” Ruby asked, already rising. “I don’t feel too good. . . .”
“You don’t look too good neither,” her mother quickly pointed out. “You must have the cramps again,” she added in a whisper, rolling her eyes at her husband, seated directly across the table from her. She could tell from the grimace on his face that this was not a conversation that he wanted to hear. “And I ain’t never seen that many pimples on your face.”
“Yessum. Cramps again,” Ruby responded with a cough and another moan. “And my acne is actin’ up.”
“It must be that homemade lye soap you been scrubbin’ your face with. I’ll get you some witch hazel this weekend. Finish your dinner in your room. But don’t get too comfortable in case we have to haul ass to the root cellar to dodge that tornado,” her mother told her. “And don’t forget to say your prayers.”
“Yessum. Uh, ’night, y’all,” Ruby muttered as she wobbled across the floor, holding her plate with both hands.
Her mother nodded. Her father grunted and kept his eyes on the huge plate of food in front of him. He didn’t look up until Ruby had left the room. Then he stopped chewing and shot a hot look at his wife. “Hell’s bells, Ida Mae. I wish you and Ruby Jean wouldn’t discuss them female issues at the table while we eatin’. That subject is so . . . gruesome,” he complained. “Pass the biscuits, please.”
Ruby’s mother practically threw the bowl with the biscuits at her husband. “Look, old man, you done spent a whole lot of years in this house with eight women—me and them seven daughters we got. What do you expect? You ought to be used to female issues by now.”
“Well, I ain’t! Even though”—Reverend Upshaw paused and glanced over his shoulder toward the doorway—“even though . . . that’s what’s torturin’ poor Ruby Jean today. Her face ain’t never been as bloated as it is now. But there might be somethin’ else goin’ on with her that she don’t want us to know about. After I finish my supper, I’m goin’ to go get Dr. Hollis and have him come take a look-see at her.”
“That ain’t such a bad idea. Maybe I can get him to check my blood pressure,” Ruby’s mother said as she speared a large chicken wing on her plate with her fork. “Don’t forget to take your raincoat and cap with you in case the rain starts back up before you make it over there and back home.”
It was a good thing that Ruby had stopped in the hallway to eavesdrop on her parents’ conversation. Had she not, she would have had a major mess on her hands. There was no way in the world that she would have been able to hide her pregnancy from Dr. Hollis, even though he was practically blind and hadn’t practiced medicine in twenty years.
She held her breath and strolled back into the dining room, still holding her plate with both hands. “I feel so much better,” she announced. She returned to her seat and dropped down with a thud.
Both of her parents were surprised to see her back at the table, and even more surprised to hear that she was feeling “so much better.”
“You feelin’ better already? You just left here a minute ago,” Ruby’s father said, concerned but relieved. He didn’t really want to go out again tonight to get the practically blind doctor anyway. “I was goin’ to go fetch Dr. Hollis.”
Ruby laughed and waved her hand. “I don’t need no doctor and you don’t need to bring that old man out in this weather, tornado brewin’ and all.”
“Well, you still look peaked to me,” Ruby’s mother insisted.
“And bloated,” her father added.
“It’s just my monthly, y’all. I can’t help myself.” Ruby pouted. “I’m bleedin’ a little heavier than usual this month, so I hope I don’t get no blood on this chair,” she muttered, rocking from side to side. She glanced at her spacious lap, thankful that her voluminous duster hid her condition so well. “That was why I asked if I could eat in my room. I know how much it cost to clean these quilted seat cushions. . . .”
“You can take your plate back to your room and finish your supper there,” her father said with a heavy sigh. “But don’t you leak no pot liquor or no barbeque sauce on your new bedspread.”
“Or no blood,” her mother said sharply.
Ruby finished her meal in her room. Then she locked her door, not that it was necessary. Her parents rarely disturbed her when she was in her room. She locked up this time because she didn’t want them to barge in on her while she was getting dressed and making up her face for the party.
CHAPTER 10
W
ITH SIX OLDER SISTERS AND SEVERAL OTHER FEMALE RELATIVES
of child-bearing age, Ruby knew enough about childbirth to know that a woman’s first baby usually took his or her time to enter the world.
She had decided that she had enough time to go to the party, dance, drink, and fool around with the boys for at least two hours. She would make it back home in time to have her baby—which meant she’d be a new mother before midnight. By that time, both of her parents would be asleep. She’d give birth in her bedroom.
“You can forget about haulin’ water to the root cellar. We won’t need to take cover now. The weatherman on the radio just said that the tornado threat is over,” Ruby’s mother yelled to her from outside Ruby’s bedroom door.
“Uh, yessum. Um . . . I think I’ll just stay in my room and turn in early tonight,” Ruby yelled back. “My cramps done got a little worse.”
“And it’s your own fault! I warned you when you first started havin’ your monthly that you shouldn’t be runnin’ around outside with your hair or feet wet, but you did. Now you sufferin’. I’ll make you some ginger tea, and I’ll get in your bed with you and rub your stomach till you go to sleep. I wish you had said somethin’ sooner before your daddy took out his teeth and put on his long johns. He’s itchin’ to get in the bed hisself! But I can still send him to get Dr. Hollis if you want me to.”
Ruby’s head almost exploded. “Oh no, Mama! You don’t have to do all that! I ain’t
that
sick!” She paused and glanced around her room, her eyes resting on the makeup and shoes on her bed that she was going to wear to the party. “Uh, you go on to bed now. I’ll be just fine.” She held her breath and listened. She had eaten in such a hurry, barbeque sauce was on her chin and lips. She licked her lips and wiped her chin with the back of her hand, still holding her breath and listening for her mother’s response.
“All right then. ’Night, Ruby Jean,” her mother yelled, already padding back down the hall to her room.
Ruby breathed a sigh of relief. “ ’Night, Mama,” she hollered, listening with her ear against the door. She wore her green terrycloth bathrobe over her loose-fitting blue cotton party dress, not the one that Othella had shoplifted for her and told her to wear tonight. That flimsy green jersey dress was way too tight. It clung to every lump, jellylike roll, and curve on her body. It would make her look pregnant even if she wasn’t. She had hidden her condition for nine months, and she was not going to expose herself now, when she was so close to the end.
Ruby cracked open her door to make sure her mother had gone into her room and shut her door. Two seconds later, a super sharp pain shot through the lower part of her belly. It was the most painful contraction so far. It was the only one that made her wish she had never even
seen
a boy in her life, let alone screwed one. She had to close the door fast and cover her mouth with her hand to keep from screaming.
Maybe she wouldn’t make it to the party after all. . . .
If Ruby didn’t know any better, she’d swear she was carrying a pit bull instead of a baby in her womb, the way he or she was kicking. And to think that some of the women she knew went through this more than a dozen times! Her oldest sister Flodell had given birth to ten children. Ten! The thought of going through labor ten times was enough to make Ruby’s heart skip a beat and her chest tighten. More pain was the last thing she needed right now. She pushed the thought of multiple births out of her mind and decided to focus on the only one that mattered to her tonight.
Despite the discomfort that she was experiencing, the fact that she was still a child herself and unmarried, and the fact that she’d gotten pregnant by mistake, Ruby still felt blessed. Like her mother, she believed that every child was a gift from God, even the “mistakes” like the one she was carrying.
Ruby waited another ten minutes. Then she tiptoed down the hall to her parents’ room. She immediately peeped through the keyhole. Damn that labor! Bending over to look through the keyhole had caused her another sharp pain, making her legs tremble. She held her breath until that pain had subsided, then she placed her ear against the door and listened. Her parents had turned off their bedroom lamp, and her daddy was already snoring like a moose. She was sure that she was in the clear now, so she tiptoed back to her room. She locked her bedroom door again. Then she removed her bathrobe and placed it on the back of the chair in front of her dresser. After listening for a few more moments, she waddled to the window, opened it, and slid out like a huge snake. She hit the ground running like a track star.
 
Ruby was not a beautiful girl. Most people thought that she was just a little too stout and a little too dark. Her hair was too coarse and short for her to wear most of the latest styles. She usually wore it pressed, with a few finger waves on the side like now. Her inky black eyes were too small for her large round face. But those “imperfections” didn’t stop any of the fifteen boys at Othella’s party from wanting to dance with her. For one thing, she was a good dancer for such a husky girl. Nobody could do those swing dances like Ruby. She’d just introduced the jitterbug, a dance that she had picked up in Baton Rouge last month while visiting one of her musician uncles. It was not a new dance, but it was to her friends and they all wanted to learn it.
Another reason why so many boys wanted to dance with Ruby was because other than herself and Othella, there were not that many girls at the party. Othella had invited only three others, and she had handpicked borderline plain Janes. There was a good reason for that; Othella was smart when it came to dealing with Ruby. She read that girl like a book. She knew how important it was for her to get a lot of attention. Since the two of them didn’t go for the same type of boy, Ruby had very little competition tonight. She had not stopped dancing since she walked in the door an hour ago. And she’d already drunk so much beer that her contractions didn’t seem to hurt nearly as much now.
Six of the boys at the party had had sex with Ruby, each one at least twice. And one was the father of the baby that she was going to give birth to in less than an hour.
While Ruby was in the kitchen smacking on some barbequed ribs, her water broke. It saturated her panties and dripped a small puddle on the floor. Though she knew what was happening, it still startled her. She was glad that nobody else had come into the kitchen with her. She would have dropped dead on the spot if one of her friends had witnessed the gruesome mess she’d just made on the floor. And since nobody did, it was nothing for her to be concerned about. Clumsy partygoers had already spilled beer, soda pop, and other liquids in several other spots on the floor. Ruby didn’t think anybody would notice the mess she’d just made.
She was not going to let even this incident interfere with her fun. She ducked into the broom closet facing the stove and removed her wet panties. Then she snatched a dust cloth off the shelf and wiped herself off. She wrung out as much of the water as she could from her panties before she put them back on. Then she stuffed part of a wadded up brown paper bag from the supermarket between her thighs, lining the crotch of her cotton panties from side to side. When she left the closet, she took a few vigorous steps around the kitchen table to make sure the makeshift diaper was secure. She didn’t want it to slide out and end up on the floor, too. Once she was satisfied, she returned to the living room so she could dance some more.
“You sure enough actin’ strange all of a sudden,” Ike said.
Please, Lord, let Ike be the daddy of my baby
, she thought to herself. She blinked at him as he stared at her out of the corner of his eye. “You actin’
real
strange right now,” Ike accused. “You was dancin’ all right a little while ago. Now all you doin’ is stumblin’ like you blind, and steppin’ on my toes and shit. And don’t tell me that it’s because of the beer. You drink beer every time you come over here, and it ain’t never made you this clumsy. So what’s wrong with you, girl?”
“Huh? Um . . . what . . . what do you mean?” Ruby asked slowly and with a pout, hoping that it would gain her some sympathy and end the nosy questions.
“You all jumpy and stuff, too. You got gas or what?” Ike had his arms around Ruby’s waist. Before she could stop him, he thumped her stomach with his fingers, like he was inspecting a melon. “And another thing, your belly is as hard as a rock. What do—” He stopped talking and froze, shaking his hand like he’d just burned his fingers. “Girl, your stomach just moved!” With a pinched look on his face, he put his arms back around Ruby’s waist.
Ruby let out a loud breath and removed Ike’s arms from around her. “Oh, it’s been doin’ that a lot today. Gas.” She gave him a playful pat on his shoulder. “And stop talkin’ so loud. I don’t want everybody to know about that. A problem with gas at a party is so . . .
unsociable
,” she whispered. “Especially when it’s a girl with the gas problem.”
“You want to sit down before you cut loose and stink up the place?” Ike asked, rubbing his nose. “I ain’t smelled nothin’ yet but . . .”
“Oh, I’m fine.” Ruby dismissed that thought with a giggle and kept dancing.
“Do you mean to tell me that gas is makin’ your stomach move? You must have some bazooka farts tryin’ to get out, if gas can make your stomach move like that. It felt like somethin’ was kickin’ in there, girl,” Ike said in a low, guarded tone of voice. He scratched his head and then he attempted to feel Ruby’s stomach again. She moved away in time. He cocked his head to the side and gave her a suspicious look. “Gas, huh?”
“Yep! My mama made baked beans to go with them ribs we barbequed, and I ate a mighty big plate,” Ruby explained, nervous sweat forming on her face and under her arms. “Go get me another bottle of beer while I run to the toilet and do my business. I don’t want to be droppin’ no farts in front of all these boys,” she said with a laugh, rushing out of the living room before Ike could say another word.
The toilet, which was a large metal bucket with a cover in a closet next to Ike’s mother’s bedroom, was occupied when Ruby got to it. She didn’t want to go outside to use the smelly, spooky, rat-infested backyard outhouse in the dark, so she went back into the kitchen. Another super-sharp pain exploded in her stomach, making her dizzy. All of a sudden everything went black. She fell sideways, her arm hitting the sharp corner of the stove with such force she bled. She came to a couple of minutes later, with a small but nasty wound on the side of her arm. When she attempted to rise, she passed out again on the kitchen floor. That was where Othella and her mother found Ruby five minutes later, with blood oozing from the cut on her arm.
Simone squatted down next to Ruby and quickly lifted the tail of her dress. “Oh shit!” she shrieked, almost falling to the floor herself.
“What’s wrong with Ruby Jean, Mama?” Othella hollered, hopping from one foot to the other. She and Simone had come into the kitchen to check on the beer supply. But as soon as they saw Ruby on the floor, they forgot all about the beer. “Look at that blood on her arm.” Othella paused and looked at the floor. “And on the floor. You want me to run down the street and get Dr. Hollis?”
Simone didn’t answer; she was temporarily speechless. All she could do was stare at Ruby’s bloated belly, and the way it was moving.
“She done drunk too much beer, I guess,” Othella suggested. “And look at her bloomers. She done peed on herself, too, huh?”
“This gal ain’t drunk. And she ain’t peed on herself. This gal is fixin’ to have a baby,” Simone reported, speaking in a low voice out of the side of her mouth. “This sneaky-ass hussy!”
“Nuh-uh!” Othella jumped back and bumped into the front of the stove. “Oh no she ain’t! Ruby Jean can’t be pregnant, Mama! I would know if she was!”
“Look, girl. I done had enough babies myself to know all the signs. Grab ahold of her arms and help me haul her out of here.” Simone lifted Ruby by her legs, and Othella lifted her by her arms.
Ruby regained consciousness again about ten minutes later. She was disoriented, but she was lucid enough to know that she was in Simone’s bed, and that her baby was struggling to make it through her birth canal.

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