The Darkest Child (10 page)

“Not intentionally, ”Velman answered.

“What you want him to do, Hambone, if he don’t get paid?” Harvey asked. “It’s done happened to people before. And why we talking ’bout this shit anyway?”

Fox came over and placed another bottle of gin on the table.

“Band chipped in and bought this for the singer,” he said, and I noticed, for the first time, that the band was gone and the music was coming from the jukebox.

Mushy stood, somewhat unsteadily. “Dance wit’ me, Fox,” she whined.“They depressing the hell outta me at this table, and after I done come all this way to have some fun.”

“Mushy, baby, much as I want to, I can’t come out here and dance wit’ you,” Fox said.“What people gon’ say when they thirsty and I’m out here dancing wit’ you?”

“I’ll dance with you,” said a man who was sitting at the table across from ours. He stood, and I saw that it was Peter Swift. He was at least twenty years younger than Fox, and could probably dance a lot better. Mushy stumbled, regained her balance, laughed, then allowed him to guide her toward the dance floor.

“It’s a damn shame,” Hambone said, glancing around the room. “White man run us a hundred miles out into the boondocks just so we can dance and drink the liquor he makes. Colored man get caught making whiskey and they throw him in jail. He might not ever get out, and y’all know I’m telling the truth. This is the fucking wilderness.We have to go to the back doors of their cafés for a damn cheese sandwich, the back of their movie house to see them lily-white movies they make, and to the back of the line in their goddamn stores to buy a motherfucking bar of soap.”

“You right, Hambone,” Harvey agreed, “but that’s life, man.”

I was listening to the conversation, but I was also watching Martha Jean. Her head was resting on Velman’s shoulder and she was making signs with her fingers. She formed his name the way I had shown her, and to my surprise, he signed her name in return. A thought occurred to me, and I found it horrifying because I knew it had to be true. Martha Jean had been sneaking away from Penyon Road and going to the post office to meet with Velman. She must have done it while Mama was in the hospital and the rest of us were at school or work.They were too comfortable with each other for a single encounter.

“When I lived here before,” Hambone said, “I thought this was the worst goddamn place in the world. Never dreamed I’d come back and be carrying suds buckets through town, washing the white man’s windows.”

“You doing better than me and Harvey,” Sam said.“We working fields whenever we can get work.” He turned to face Velman.“Man, you ever chopped cotton or hoed potatoes? You ever took a sling blade to a field where the weeds stand taller than any man alive, and the fields stretch clear ’cross Georgia, from sunup to sundown, and walk away wit’ two dollars and a quarter in yo’ pocket?”

He did not mention the part about turning the two dollars and a quarter over to his mother, but the unspoken words lay deep inside his brown eyes and the down-turned corners of his lips.

“I can’t say that I have, ”Velman answered, easing Martha Jean’s head from his shoulder.“But, you know, I just got here. I ain’t planning on leaving no time soon, and the white man ain’t causing me no trouble that I can’t handle.When and if he does, I’ll deal with it. I ain’t gon’ run.”

“I’m wit’ you,” Harvey said.“I ain’t going nowhere, either. Sam, I don’t know who cheating you, but if I was doing all that work for two bucks, I wouldn’t tell it. I ain’t starting nothing, and I ain’t going nowhere.”

“Sam, you need to talk to you brother,” Hambone said disapprovingly.

Sam grinned and slapped Harvey’s back.“Hard to reason wit’ a man in love, Hambone,” he said. “That’s Harvey’s problem. He blinded by love.”

“Who’s in love?” Mushy asked, returning to the table and dragging Peter Swift along with her.“I’m glad to see y’all talking ’bout happy things, but y’all too late for me. I’m going over there to sit wit’ Pete.”

“How come Pete can’t sit over here?” Sam asked.

Mushy smiled and glanced at Pete. “Awright,” she said, “if y’all promise not to talk ugly.Who’s in love?”

“Harvey,” I answered.“With the undertaker’s daughter.”

“That makes sense,” Mushy said.“Look at him sitting over there all cold and stiff, scared to laugh, and scared to dance.” She stepped over to Harvey’s seat and placed a kiss on his forehead.“Leastways you ain’t scared of women. I remember his daughters.Which one you in love wit’?”

“Carol Sue,” Sam answered. “But she don’t want him to do nothing. I couldn’t be bothered wit’ a woman like that.”

“That’s why you ain’t got no woman,” Harvey said, and we all laughed because the girls in Pakersfield were forever chasing after Sam.

Mushy and Pete squeezed in between Sam and Hambone, and Mushy immediately reached for a drink.

“Ain’t you had enough, Mushy?” Sam asked. “How much you gon’ drink?”

Mushy placed an empty glass in front of Pete and poured him a drink, then she held her own glass out to Sam.“I’m gon’ drink ’til I ain’t got nothing in my pocket ’cept cab fare,” she said.“Then I’m gon’ drink ’til I can close my eyes and don’t see my mama’s face watching every fucking move I make. That’s how much I’m gon’ drink, Sam. I’m gon’ drink ’til I can’t feel shit. Hell, I might even drink myself to death. So what?”

The jukebox was silent and so were we. Laughter drifted through the smoke-filled room and dissipated over our table.The crowd was thinning, and I began to worry about the time. Mushy had said we would have to honk the horn four times as we passed the Garrisons’ house to let Miss Pearl know it was safe to bring Mama home.What if Mama was already home?

Velman stood, walked over to the jukebox, and made a selection. He came back to the table and took Martha Jean’s hand, and she rose to meet him.The voice of Little Willie John flowed from the jukebox as Velman and Martha Jean moved together under an orange glow where the lights met.

Mushy sipped her drink and watched, then she shook her head appreciatively. “Damn. Martha Jean done caught herself a dancer. Look at that boy move.” She stood.“I’m gon’ get me some of that.”

“Leave ’em alone, Mushy,” Sam said quietly.

“Come on,” Pete offered, and led Mushy between the tables toward the jukebox.

“How about you?” Hambone asked.“You wanna dance?”

I did not want to, but I danced anyway because the song was too nice to waste.

fifteen

S
torm clouds hung low over our heads, making the world much darker than it should have been at six o’clock in the evening. It was my fourteenth birthday, and it had not rained all day because that had been my wish early this morning upon awakening. We sat outside on the damp steps, huddled together against a chilly wind, eating Johnnie Cake cookies and discussing our mother’s metal box.

“Money,” Sam said. “I always thought it was stacked full of money that she was saving to buy a house.That’s why I didn’t mind giving my money to her. But it don’t look like we ever gon’ move outta here.”

“Not if you waiting on Mama to get you out,” Mushy said seriously.“ I always thought it was full of cocks. I thought she castrated men and put their cocks in that box.”

“Box wadn’t big enough, ”Tarabelle mumbled.

“What box?”Wallace asked.

Tarabelle sighed. “Just a empty box, Wallace,” she said. “Just a empty ol’ box to hold over our heads.Wadn’t never nothing in it. That’s what I always believed, and I still do.”

“I couldn’t never think of nothing she coulda kept in it,” Harvey said, twisting the top off a Mason jar of corn whiskey. He took a swallow, then passed it over to Mushy.

Mushy took a swig and looked out over the wet field of tall weeds across the muddy road.“Mama know Martha Jean courting that dancing man?” she asked.

“Martha Jean ain’t courting nobody,” Sam said.

“Yeah, she is,” Mushy said.

“Tangy Mae all time putting her up to something,” Sam accused, “but Martha Jean ain’t courting nobody. Mama hear something like that, she’ll skin ’em both.”

“Why would I put her up to liking that ol’ snaggle-tooth man?’ I asked. “I can’t stand Velman Cooper.”

“It don’t matter that you can’t stand him, Tan,” Mushy said with a laugh. “Time gon’ come when you’ll understand that it don’t matter ’bout no teeth, no feet, no nose, no nothing.You gon’ see some man and yo’ heart’ll try to jump outta yo’ chest.You gon’ feel like cotton inside, all soft and fluffy, and floating.” She slapped Harvey’s knee.“Ain’t that right, Harvey?”

“Why you asking me?” Harvey asked shyly. “I ain’t never felt nothing like that.”

“I thought you was in love wit’ Carol Sue.”

“I ain’t never once said I loved her.That was Sam talking.”

“Well, I know love when I see it,” Mushy said, “and Martha Jean is in love.Y’all think ’cause Mama walk around calling her a dummy that it makes her one. Martha Jean ain’t no dummy. If she could hear, I bet she’d be just as smart as Tan.”

“Y’all make me sick!” Tarabelle snapped. “Martha Jean ain’t smart, and Tangy ain’t either. Mama call ’em the dummy and the darkie. She say ain’t neither one of ’em gon’ ever get married.They gon’ be right here. She gon’ have to take care of ’em the rest of her life ’cause ain’t no man gon’ ever want ’em.”

I was in the most dangerous spot in Pakersfield—on the top step of our porch, at the outer edge, next to Tarabelle. Sam and Wallace occupied the third step down, while Mushy and Harvey shared the fifth. I drew myself into a tight ball and wrapped my skirt and arms protectively around my knees.

Mushy took another swig from the Mason jar and glanced back at us. “All y’all gon’ be here the rest of yo’ life,” she said. “Mama gon’ keep y’all here making you be whatever she wants you to be, long as you bring money in this house. She tried to keep me here, but I musta took after my daddy, whoever he is, God bless him. Mama had me screwing in every hayloft, field, and back room she could find. I never even knew what I was worth. One day I thought, screw
you,
Mama. I went out on my own and screwed my way right on outta Georgia.”

Harvey, uncomfortable with Mushy’s confession, lowered his head and asked, “Do you have to talk so nasty in front of Wallace?”

Mushy tilted her head in mock surprise. “Hell, he got a cock, ain’t he? What’s so nasty about screwing?”

“What if Mama hears you?”

“Harvey, I’m grown. Ain’t you noticed I’m a full-grown woman?” She reached into the paper bag on her lap and brought out a large, round cookie. “Last one,” she said. “Pass it up to the birthday girl.”

I accepted the cookie and nibbled around the edge like a small child trying to make it last. Mushy tossed the empty bag into the air and I watched it drift.There was nothing to see on the road below. No pedestrians or vehicle had passed during the last hour, except Junior Fess walking from the farmland with his satchel tucked beneath one arm, and that had been more than an hour ago.

Mushy had called down to him, and he waved, then came up to the yard.

“Hey, Mushy,” he said. “I heard you were back in town. How long are you staying.”

“Not long. Where you coming from, out here at this time of evening?”

Junior turned and momentarily studied the road he had traveled.“ People live out through there,” he said. “It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? But there’re colored people living out there, Mushy. The houses are so many miles apart that the people seldom visit each other, and they don’t come into town that often. About six miles to the first house, three to the next. I go out once a week to let them know what’s going on in the world.”

“So what is going on in the world?” Mushy asked.

“I think you might know better than I do, Mushy,” Junior teased. He shifted his satchel from one arm to the other.“Well, I’ve got to make it on home,” he said. “I’ll catch you all later.”

As the paper bag drifted, drifted, and finally landed silently in the mud, I found myself wishing that Junior had stayed longer with us.We could have used some stimulating conversation, something to draw us away from the metal box, and who’s sick of this or that, and who is grown.When I glanced up again, Mushy was leaning against Harvey with her knees on the step, trying to kiss Sam.

Sam turned his head. “That stuff stinks,” he said. “Mushy, you ought not drink that stuff.”

“I know, and I ain’t gon’ drink no mo’. I think Harvey trying to kill me.” She attempted once more to kiss Sam, but her elbow slipped from Harvey’s shoulder and she wavered in a lopsided bow.Wallace and Sam held onto her while Harvey made a protective show with a hand against her back. His other hand held the Mason jar.

Mushy settled herself on the step. “Damn! I forgot about these steps,” she said.“They move right along wit’ you, don’t they?” She was quiet for a moment, then said, “Sam, you’ll be glad to know that I don’t drink that much when I’m in Cleveland. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t had anything for months, but when I stepped off the train and looked around Pakersfield, something said, Girl, go get you something to drink.”

“Mushy, did you really think Mama was dying?” I asked.“Is that why you came home?”

“Nope. I knew she wadn’t dying. She ain’t never gon’ die. She got too much to do.Mama gotta make sho’ her pretty boys become proper, respectable field hands. And she ain’t gon’ rest ’til she turns Martha Jean into a meal-cooking, diaper-changing, mop-slanging ol’ maid.”

I fed off of Mushy’s bitterness as I sat there thinking about trading in my books to make somebody’s bed when I didn’t even have one of my own.“She wants me to be a maid,” I said angrily.“She wanted me to work for the Munfords, but they didn’t want me.”

“You gon’ be a nurse, Tan,” Mushy said, reaching for the Mason jar. “You gon’ wear a white uniform and a cute little cap on yo’ head, and you gon’ come work wit’ me.” She took a drink.“What Mama gon’ make you be, Tara?”

Tarabelle did not speak immediately. She stared down the rows of steps at Mushy’s back, then she said, “Why don’t you go back to Cleveland? We don’t want you here. All you do is drink, and cuss, and laugh at everybody.”

Her anger startled us all, and in the ensuing silence, her words hung in the misty air. Mushy stiffened, then turned slowly to face Tarabelle.

“Ain’t no call for all that, Tarabelle,” Sam said, but Mushy placed a hand on his knee to silence him.

“What’s Mama making you do, Tara?” Mushy asked, her voice angry, her words slurred.

Tarabelle stood, backed up onto the porch, then reached for the door. Her hands fell to her sides. She turned from the door to the steps, and back again. She clenched her fists and looked over the porch and down into the gully. She was caged. Even I could see it. She wanted to flee, but there was no place to go.

“Oh, sweet Jesus, no,” Mushy groaned.“Please, no.”

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Sam asked, reaching out for Mushy as she squirmed up the steps between him and Wallace, and past me. She reached the top and balanced herself against the porch wall, then extended a hand toward Tarabelle.

“Don’t touch me!”Tarabelle snapped.

Mushy’s hands dropped, then joined below her abdomen and began to claw as if trying to get at something too deep inside to reach. Her body seemed to fold over and shrink into the wall as she bitterly sobbed.

I did not understand this exchange between my sisters, but Sam stood and embraced the one who could be touched, until Mushy pulled herself together enough to say, “Tara, I’m gon’ get you outta here.”

For the longest time, we held a pose of untouchable, unspeakable confusion until it became apparent that we could not spend eternity on the front porch. One by one, we filed into the warmth of our mother’s house, a silent, solemn troop.

Martha Jean stood in the doorway between the hall and front room. She held a finger to her lips, then cradling Judy in her left arm, she raised her right hand over her head, palm down. She cupped the hand over her ear, then pointed first to the front door and then to the kitchen.

“Oh, shit!” Mushy groaned.

Rank and file, we clumped off to the kitchen where we were willed to come. Mama was working dough between her fingers, staring down at a wooden bowl. Streaks of flour covered her arms and the dirty, pink housedress she had seen fit to wear once more, the one with the now crusty milk stains. Her hair stood up on her head like a ruined bird’s nest teetering on a branch.

She began to speak without glancing up at us. “I done worked all my life for y’all. Never asked nothing in return, ’cept a little respect. I done put food in yo’ mouths, and clothes on yo’ backs. Done everything a good mother s’pose to do, and now y’all turn against me. I heard y’all out there talking ’bout me.”

As she spoke, she scraped the sides of the bowl with one hand. She gathered the ball of dough into her palm, studied it for a long while, then dropped it back into the bowl, and brought her fist down.The dough gave a little pop as she knocked the air out of it.

“I never dreamed it would come to this,” she said, “not when I nearly died trying to give y’all life. I fed all of y’all from my body.” She tapped her chest for emphasis, leaving floury fingerprints across the milk stains. “I done went without so y’all could have shoes on yo’ feet, just so y’all could be warm. I done spent many nights walking these floors wit’ sick babies, getting ol’ befo’ my time. Long befo’ any of y’all could walk or talk, I went out and washed clothes and cooked for the white folks, then come home and done the same thang for y’all. Now y’all turning against me.”

Our mother stood at that rickety, old table, kneading guilt that she would later bake and feed to us in bite-size pieces. And I was determined to swallow mine without gagging or choking, although guilt has a stringy texture, like strands of hair in a bowl of Cream of Wheat.

“What the Bible say, Mushy?” Mama asked.

Mushy inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly.“Honor thy mother, Mama.”

“Do you honor me?”

“Where the Bible, Mama? I ain’t never seen no Bible in this house.”

“Do you honor me?”

“Where’s the Bible?”

“I’m yo’ mother. I gave you life. Now, I ask you again, do you honor me?”

Mushy shook her head slowly, as if in resignation. Her chest heaved and her jaw tightened. Finally she deflated with a soft sigh and a bitter laugh.“Yes, ma’am,” she said, and strode from the room with her eyes downcast.

Later, Sam and I found her sitting outside on a step, shivering, humming an old blues tune, and clutching an empty Mason jar.

O
ur somber mood seemed to bring out the gaiety in our mother. She washed the flour from her skin, brushed her hair, and changed into her new blouse, a plaid skirt, and high-heeled shoes, then she herded us along the dark, muddy roads to the Garrisons’ house.We did not want to go, but we were given no choice.

There was a light on at the back of the Garrisons’ house, and Squat, Mr. Frank’s old sooner, stood in the backyard and stared out at us through a wire fence. He did not bark, probably because we were as familiar to him as the scraggly patches of grass covering his terrain.

Mama, seemingly contented with the world, sauntered over to the fence. She knelt down and poked a finger through an opening. “Hey, boy,” she cooed, “you lonely back here all by yo’self?”

Squat took a step back, cocked his head to the side, and watched Mama’s finger waggle inside the opening.

“No wonder you lonely,” Mama said. “You ain’t friendly enough. Come here, boy. Come here.” She tapped a hand against her thigh and snapped her fingers, only to have Squat turn tail and lope across the yard.

“You lucky he didn’t take that finger off,” Mr. Frank said, opening the screen door and stepping out onto the porch.“Squat don’t like cats, Rozelle, especially alley cats.”

“What you mean by that, Mr. Frank?” Sam asked. “That’s my mama you talking to.”

Mr. Frank stared down at Sam, saw his clenched fist and heard the anger in his voice. He had no way of knowing that Sam’s irritation stemmed more from swallowing guilt and being forced out into the cold, wet weather than from anything he had said.

“Just joking wit’ her, son, ”Mr. Frank said, probably remembering, as I was, how Sam had opened Chester Riley’s skull with an axe handle over a derogatory remark made about Mama.He would never do that to Mr. Frank—I hoped.

“Watch yo’ manners, Sam,” Mama said, stepping away from the fence and toward the porch. She placed a hand on the rail and tilted her head up to face Mr. Frank. Her back was to me and I could not see her expression, but something she did caused Mr. Frank’s eyes to soften momentarily. He stared down at her, then chuckled softly.