The Matter Is Life (16 page)

Anyway, I called both of my ladies up and cussed em out for what they had give me!! It worked on one, so we know what kinda lady she was! She wasn’t no lady! She was a tramp! She musta been makin it with somebody else. The tramp! She wasn’t no good! The other one cried. She had never had a veneral desease. But she was a fool if she thought I was ever gonna own up to that one.

Anyway, it was time to get ready to leave town again. Gave up a good job too! By the time I got to the new city I was going to live in, it was my birthday. It felt like only a month before that I was thirty years old, in my prime of life. You hear me! Lookin good, feelin good, lovin good, everything good. And here I was forty. Forty! Jesus!

Now, even tho my brother was older’n me, he already had a paunch belly, he still looked good. Always laughin. He had a different job now, a new profession since he got out of college. They had done bought a house, was raisin kids. Still, that fool ain’t never had but two or three women in his LIFE! I bet he fools around on the QT tho, even if his wife does still look good. I checked her out! She looks good! She too serious for me tho! I didn’t see them much noway, cause he always tryin to tell me how to live my life!

Anyway, after I moved I got another job, soon, cause I
had only a little savings from all that partyin and my car. But I got a apartment. I was in that apartment getting ready to meet the lady down the hall in the building I lived in, and I was shaving. I looked hard in that beautiful magic mirror of mine and my face looked different to me all of a sudden.

Round my eyes was little puffs. They use to go away in the mornings after I wash my face and such. But this was evenin and they was still there! No lie! I leaned in closer and do you know what I saw in my face? on my chin? Gray whiskers! Only a few, but there they was! No Lie! Jesus. I checked my hair on my head and, true to life, there was them gray hairs right near my ears. Only a few, but Jesus! There they was.

I took my tweezers and plucked and pulled them damn things out. I went on out that evening. But the next day the gray whiskers was back, and the next week the gray hair was back! Back again! I found out wasn’t no sense in pluckin and pullin cause I would be bald soon enough already. I could see that cause my forehead was gettin bigger, goin further back. Hell, I was only in my prime of life! No lie! Or is it? Wasn’t no fun lookin in my magic mirror no more.

Well, what you gonna do? I met a few more ladies. Glad, cause the one down the hall is too close and I done quit foolin with the ladies on my job less I just can’t help it, cause that usually runs into trouble. Sides, women ain’t hard to meet, no color.

Round that time, tho, for some reason I don’t know, and I don’t tell eveybody this, I went with a man. I know, I know, I know what you gonna think. But … I don’t know … he was one of the sweetest, tenderest persons I ever knew. It felt a little strange, cause I am a man! But … 
when I held him in my arms, after, I didn’t feel like I was holdin no man. I felt like I was holdin a person, a tender person with needs, with love in his heart. A scared, tender, little person, with weaknesses just like everybody else. Desires too. Could he help it what he wanted?

I mighta coulda stayed with him longer, but he wasn’t happy and I knew I would never be happy cause something just didn’t feel right about it. So I just stopped going back. He was better than most women cause he never said a word.

Now … these ladies in a big city seem to demand more, least they did of me. Young girls wanted some money for some pretty little thing or something, even the rent sometimes. So I didn’t fool with them too much no more. I took on the older ones who they say appreciate so much. Well, they out there, but they got demands too, and they didn’t always want me! You hear me? I was gettin turned down! No Lie!

Plus, even tho I didn’t make but one baby during that time, this time she was going to take me to court! Shit! I hurried up and got on way from there. Went on and moved back to my first town where I grew up. Went to my brother’s house, he had a bigger, better house now. Two of his kids in college, the girl, pretty, was married. They had grandchildren! Fools growin old fore their time!

Thought I’d look around for my own kids, they was older now, hell, they was almost grown. But them I found was callin some other man “Daddy” and they mama didn’t want to even talk to me on the phone less I had some money to give em for what they said they had gone through without me. Well, that was that! So much for me tryin to be a father
to my kids. I hope they learn someday that they mama stopped them from knowin their own daddy.

Now! It seem like it was only a week since when I was forty, but I looked up and I was fifty. Fifty! Fifty! I didn’t even bother to pluck and pull nothin! I rather not no more. Hell, I was about bald on top and the sides was full of gray hair and my whiskers too. I kept shaved. Gave up my mustache. That damn thing was gone gray. Even round Beau Jam was gettin gray.

The time I should have been in college, I wasn’t. I was busy makin love. So I had to start takin them lesser jobs. Paid less. Didn’t look or sound too fancy either. Usually had to wear a old gray uniform made my skin look gray. So nobody knew me where I worked. I just worked the job and left it. Quietly. Went on home.

Home. Wellll, with less money, I had to take a smaller, less expensive place, so I just went on and took a room. I didn’t spect much company. Wasn’t nobody visiting me noway. No lie! I just put my magic mirror on them dingy walls and sat down. Didn’t even look in it. It still was beautiful, but I wasn’t.

Five years zoomed by. Beau Jam let me down a few times, even as good as I had been to him. No Lie! So I began to call him Beau Jelly … yea.

I was fifty-five. Wasn’t makin love too much at all. Maybe five, six times a month. What I use to do in a week! No lie! Met ladies now just to have some way to get a home-cooked meal. Sit in a warm comfortable house or apartment and listen to some good music sides this ole buzzin radio. Smell some little piece of perfume when the lady passes by.

Some don’t even play good music. And some of em, all I
hear is false teeth rattlin as they chew or grin and check me out, wonderin if I’m going to let them down, which I often do now, just can’t help Beau Jelly.

But least they got somethin of their own. Most got kids or grandkids comin over to visit them, or inviting them over for all the holidays and rememberin their birthdays and Mother’s Day. Ain’t they got a Father’s Day now? I really try to get them holiday invitations cause that’s when you get to really eat all that good food and be round a family. You know, kinda warm. Yea … kinda warm.

Lately I been sittin and countin up the years til I can retire. Six years or so now. Don’t know what kinda money I’ll have comin in, been on so many jobs, so many places. There will be somethin, I know that, cause I been a workin man. I never did try to do no pimpin or livin off no woman. The harm I did was the harm they liked. Wasn’t no harm noway. I know that’s no lie.

Not too long ago I met me a lady at the senior citizen place where they have a dance once a month. She bout sixty years old, I guess. Got some money left her when her husband died. Got a nice house, nice car. Mine just rattle all over, the one I had to get cause my pay is so small.

You know what I did? I fixed my mouth to propose to her, ask her to marry me. Me! No Lie! I knew she needed a man around and would be glad to get one like me cause I still got some of my looks and I still dress nice even if I only got two suits.

You know what …? That woman just smiled and preened and laughed … sound like happy laughter, so I laughed too. Ha! Ha! Happy laughter. But when she opened her mouth, she said, “No … I’m sorry. I’m just not
ready.” You hear that!? She said no! She don’t know who was proposin to her! Me!! Who ain’t never proposed to nobody! I gave her that compliment!! And she say no. Well … times change. Times sure do change. No lie.

Mostly now, I go home, fix some supper, beans or somethin out a can, in my little kitchenette. Wish for some corn-bread or some dessert. Drink a can of beer, most times warm, cause this tiny ole half-butt refrigerator don’t half time work. Then sometime fall asleep lookin at my secondhand TV. Sure wish I had saved some of that money I used to party with! I have spent thousands of dollars to have a ball and to feed Beau Jelly. All my life … was spent lookin for one piece of a woman … and they all got one just for bein born.

Sometime I wake up and it’s dark and cold in my room. For awhile I don’t move, can’t, got arthritis a little. And I think of my life, my kids … and try to think of someone I could call my woman, my own … and I can’t. Just noways can’t.

I am so lonely … so lonely sometiiiiiime, I could DIE! No lie.

I sure wish that I had met some lady I could’a loved.… Maybe I did and just didn’t even know it. But women ought to be … should oughta … they oughta … If they was better people I know I would’a stayed with one of em. But they must not be no good. No good for nothin but lovin, cause you can’t trust em. They don’t mean no man no good. They don’t mean right.

Just like them babies of mine, they grown now. They mamas should have told them I was the daddy! Then today I’d be a grandfather. I’d get stuff on Father’s Day … and
Christmas … and things like that. But them women didn’t think of nobody but themself. That’s no lie.

Anyway … I sit in the dark, then I wake up in the morning like that. Why bother to get in bed? Ain’t nobody in there to help me warm up these … old … bones. Make me take my medicine. Puff my pillow up. I am a discarded man. Everybody done left me behind. That’s a woman for you.

Some Saturdays, when I’m off, I just sit and look at my walls. Ain’t no picture up on em of nothin but a ole Indian on a horse on top of a mountain, all bent over and tired. Ain’t got no picture of nobody but that ole Indian. No family. Just a picture of me sittin on my dresser. I sure was a fine-lookin man. No lie. Sure was …

No … I ain’t gonna lie, cause it ain’t my fault. I am a man. A MAN! No Lie! My brother and his wife, they still together. Growin old. He just lucked up on that! He wasn’t half the man with the ladies I was!

But I wish I had a few more years. Good healthy years, back like when I was young and good-lookin and could have whatever I wanted. Could’a done whatever I wanted. I wish I had more time.… Time.

Oh, yea, my mirror still up on the wall, but it ain’t magic and it don’t work no more.

Yea … time is a great, big, long thing and mine is all used up. Now when I done learned how to use it. No lie. I’d get me a young girl and have plenty babies. I’d stay round long enough to let them know I was their daddy fore I left. Then she couldn’t never stop them from knowin me. Then I’d have somebody to love me. I deserve it! I ain’t never
done nothin to harm nobody! Just wanted to share love, is all.

Yea … I’d do it different if I just had more time. I wouldn’t let em beat me this time.

Cause, Lordy, Lordy.

I am so lonely … so loooooonely sometimes … I could just dieeee. No lie.

Y
ou can look up from anywhere you are and the world will look HUGE to you in your mind. Sky look big and wide … just going everywhere. Now, everybody, everywhere, all over the world can do that. And everybody everywhere can almost, ALMOST, make they life close to what they want it to be. It’s true! A great big, busy world, that’s all they is to it! And look at what all you can do in it!

When we start out we all gets life in this huge world on the first bein born head-out! Can’t go back and say, “No, I don’t want this, give me that, please.” Just got to go make do with what you got give to you when you born.

Look like some people get so much more than others.
Even get some money, which this huge world loves. But … I have seen sometime, in this world we live in, that most things balance out, equalize out, in the end. Yes, in the end. Cause some people take nothing and make a whole heap out of it. Just like some people take everything, another whole heap, and let it run down to nothing. Human, chile, human.

Now this here town where I am is a small place now, so you know what it was then, near the beginnin of this century. Had some shopkeepers, a little ole bank, a lawyer or two, cause they always makes a livin, people being what they are. Had a couple doctors, a few teachers, a little city hall, a pool hall and several bars. A market for food, or two. And little mama-papa stores. It was small, chile. Everybody tryin to make a livin.

Some people do what they done learned in school.

Some people doin what they mama and papa taught em.

Some people doin whatever they can with whatever they got.

Some people sell they blood to make a livin.

Some people multiply they blood, just livin.

Speakin of multiplyin, let’s speak of Dora.

Dora was born to a mother who had seen the tail end of slavery, any kind you want to think of, but not the end of hard times. Dora would’a come from a middle size family, don’t know was she gonna be the youngest or near to it. I do know many a day the mama licked her fingers and drew em cross the bread box and the crumbs she got there was her supper.

The mama didn’t have nothin but a no-count man. Her
own mama was dead, sister’s poor, brother’s gone. She just didn’t have nothin.

One day they was gettin ready to move again to go find work on somebody’s cheatin farm. She looked at her childrens and her eye fell on Dora, who was another man’s child, not her man’s, but was hers right on. Even then, at five years old, Dora looked strong and thoughtful … and hungry. Mama said to Dora, “Go … go and get fed. Ain’t nothin for you here, ain’t nothin for nobody here. Go.” She didn’t quite tell that child the truth, cause love was there and that child’s mama was there.

Anyway … where she sent Dora, the child didn’t get fed much there either. Some … not much. She was sent to be a orphan. Her piece’a family left town with her mama lookin back, sad and disgusted, weary heart wailin the blues. I don’t think Dora’s mama smiled in the rest of her life fore she died of TB. Dora didn’t do much smilin either!