Her Own House

by Kim McCoy

  Now she could finally rest. As she settled on the futon, she looked over at the floral tote, and reached down for it. Sighing, she unzipped the bag. She pulled out a hairbrush with tangles of brown hair, a pack of gum, and a sequin change purse. Feeling somewhat relieved that she hadn’t picked up a bag full of the woman’s life savings, she kept digging. It was like one of those grab bags she used to buy for a dollar at the toy store. You didn’t know what you were getting until after you bought it. A black leather Bible rested in the bottom of bag. Jené picked it up and flipped through its gold-edged pages.

  She stopped flipping when she saw a faded, wallet size photograph of a baby. The pale baby wore a yellow dress with white lace trim. Her eyes were closed and thin wisps of brown hair lay on her head. She looked smaller than Tide. She was too thin. Jené was not sure if she was looking at a live baby or peering into its casket. She turned the picture over and saw “Kai” and “1975” in neat handwriting.

  It was more than thirty years old. She put it back inside the Bible, but quickly pulled it out again. Somehow Tide had come out healthy. Jené hadn’t changed her poor eating habits and had barely gone to the doctor during her pregnancy. But somehow Tide had made it.

  She heard her daughter cry and she wanted to cry, too. She sighed and walked slowly into the bedroom. As she picked up her daughter, she thought of going to the airport one more time and dropping the bag with all its contents into the Lost & Found. Or maybe she would look for the woman. Maybe her flight was delayed. Maybe she couldn’t get on the plane without that photograph. Jené pressed her daughter to her chest and kissed her for the first time.

  The Liberation of Mammy

  There were pancakes everywhere. Approximately 2,233 golden brown discs of perfection piled high on white plates along long white counters. There were also blond-haired, blue-eyed white boys everywhere, at least 356. Little ones cooed from high chairs, bigger ones sat at long oak tables, and the tiniest 20 were strapped to mammy. A few dangled from her neck, forming a living necklace. Others were circled around her waist, overlapping each other, almost as if they were braided together. Several were attached to each ankle, and mammy managed to maneuver around as if it was nothing.

  Indeed, there was just one mammy for it all--one big fat black frustrated mammy. Except no one knew she was frustrated because of her big-lipped, red-lipped smile. mammy had stood in front of the mirror many times, trying to scrub away the red from her lips. She thought erasing the red would make them look smaller, less mammy-like. And that maybe she’d shrink away so small that she would be forgotten and some other poor old mammy would be left in charge of all these children. But she never managed to erase the red; it wasn’t makeup as some suspected. She was born with those lips and that big butt. “You better treat your mama right,” mammy’s mother used to say when mammy was a little girl. “I was in labor for 36.2 hours trying to squeeze your big butt out of me.” mammy’s mother took one look at her and knew her daughter had been born to be a mammy. She made her a little blue kerchief for her bald infant head, and mammy wore a blue one every day since. mammy’s mother wanted her to have blue because it represented the best there was, and she knew her daughter would one day be the best mammy around.

  mammy’s job was to feed the little white boys from plantations all around, so that they would grow up to be big and strong and mean and rich and dumb like their fathers, so they could run their father’s father’s plantations someday. mammy used to take care of a family with only 8 children, but mistresses from all around heard about how good she was at making pancakes, and how big and strong and smart the pancakes made the boys. One little boy who had been born scrawny and was almost left to die, was given bits of mashed up pancakes every day for years until he was strong enough to eat an entire pancake on his own. He grew up to be one of the finest governors and richest plantation owners South Carolina ever saw. Before you knew it, mammy had her own house on Master Beauregard’s property in Charleston. Master Beauregard was an important man. Everyone showed respect around him because he was high up in the Army—a general who took no nonsense.

  From the outside, mammy’s place resembled a smaller version of the big house with its stately pillars and wraparound porch. The other slaves who were confined to tiny cabins and not usually allowed to enter mammy’s house liked to stop and inhale the cozy, sweet scent that always floated from mammy’s place. They thought mammy was quite lucky, some were even jealous. “Nothing too good for that fat mammy,” they would think as they walked by. Of course, that was just the outside. The inside was just two vast white rooms: a kitchen with a wood stove large enough to cook two boys who misbehaved, as mammy liked to say, and a dining room with 10 oak tables that could each seat 30 people. mammy slept on a straw matt underneath one of these tables. She had to be sure to sweep up every night so she wouldn’t have to fight over her bed with the ants.

  mammy used her own recipe to make the pancakes even though she wasn’t allowed to eat them. It was a wonder mammy managed to be so fat. Not only did she not eat pancakes, she hardly ate anything at all, just the occasional palmful of cornmeal mush along with the rest of the slaves. Eating her own pancakes earned her 25 lashings. Naturally, she had been lashed many times even though she’d never even put so much as a pinky in the batter. “Now there,” Master Beauregard would say after he finished beating her. “That’s just in case you might think you might want to try a crumb of one of your own pancakes someday.” mammy had become so used to the lashings that they didn’t hurt any more. She barely even welted up. But she was smart for a big black fat mammy. She cried and cried so that Master Beauregard’s chest would puff out like a horny rooster’s, indicating that he had indeed made his point and they could both go on about their business. Then he would laugh and laugh, a crazy white man plantation owner laugh. His mouth looked much bigger and redder than mammy’s when he laughed.

  One day Master Beauregard came into mammy’s big house with the craziest news ever, even though he called it good news. He stood at the head of one of the long oak tables, looking aggravated at the sight of the boys. The smallest boys, with bibs around their necks, were banging their fat fists against the tables, ready to eat. The oldest boys had removed their shoes and socks and were doing cartwheels and flips down the long oak tables. mammy was glad she didn’t have to eat off that table. And although she often daydreamed of the chandeliers she had seen in the big house, she knew it wouldn’t make sense to have one hanging from her ceiling because the boys surely would have messed it up. If they weren’t white, somebody walking by surely would have called them savages.

  “mammy, shut them boys up,” Master Beauregard said. “I got good news for you.”

  mammy, big red smile plastered across her black face, squinted her eyes at the boys. You might think it was hard for mammy to look mean since she was always smiling, but the boys were afraid of her squint. They got quiet in a second.

  “mammy, you’re doing so good with these here boys that me and the other plantation owners thought we’d give you a reward. The biggest honor you could ever imagine.”

  mammy started to feel wobbly and almost dropped the cast iron skillet she always had in her hand. One of the babies strapped to her was teething and started nibbling an apron string. The others who clung to her slept quietly. There had been rumblings of freedom and war and slaves who could read and all sorts of things mammy wasn’t supposed to know about, but did in fact know about because her pancakes put her around whites more than other slaves. She would hear snippets here and there from the mistresses when she was handing off their children to them. They didn’t think mammy was smart enough to pick up on what they were saying, but mammy was smart enough to know they were talking about big things. She felt her big smile grow bigger. She didn’t even know that was possible. She wondered what freedom would mean for her.

  “mammy, me and the men have business to discuss. So tonight you’ll cook your pancakes for us.
All 1,000 of us. Times are getting crazy, mammy, so we figure even us grown men folk can use your pancakes.”

  “Yes, massuh.”

  “Now if anything goes wrong tonight, mammy, I’ll kill you dead and not think twice about it. Shoot you right in between them bug eyes with my rifle. Or right through that big mouth. You know I will, won’t I mammy?”

  “Yes, massuh,” was all mammy could muster. She wasn’t allowed to say anything else to Master Beauregard anyway. When he left, mammy leaned against the wall, forgetting about the babies strapped to her and slid down to the floor. She landed with a bounce onto her fat behind. The babies were getting squished between her body and the wall and started crying. mammy jumped up, feeling bad she had forgotten about her charges for once. Her smile still looked big, but she hung her head low. The other boys started crying again, filling mammy’s head with a throbbing pain.

  mammy didn’t see how it was going to be possible to do all that cooking in so little time without some help. She went outside and looked all around the plantation to see if she could find anyone to help her. She spotted matilda, a tiny 9-year-old slave girl with blue eyes, feeding chickens with her sister, kizzy. mammy knew matilda was a hard worker, so she told kizzy she was going to have to tend the chickens by herself that day because matilda had important work to do. kizzy, looking tired and much older than 4, shrugged her shoulders and continued to toss out feed. matilda shrugged her shoulders too, threw down her last handful of feed, and followed mammy inside.

  “Chile, we have to feed 1,000 white men today. If we don’t do it right, we’ll both be killed dead.”

  “Dead. Live. One thousand, two thousand. Don’t make no difference to me,” matilda said.

  mammy didn’t know what to make of the girl. She had seen her working like all the other children except she was faster. But she sounded half crazy. Maybe she was half dead. mammy looked into those blue eyes and tried to see what she could see. But she quickly turned away, she didn’t have time for figuring out. They had 5,000 pancakes to make.

  The two got a system going. First, they took the boys outside. mammy removed the littlest boys from her body and placed them in basinets under an oak tree for a nap. She let the others crawl around on blankets on the ground. matilda led the bigger boys out of the house in groups of 26. She’d march a group out into the big green yard, instruct them to play nice with each other, and go back into the house for another group.

  Once that was done, mammy and matilda went back inside and got to work. mammy stirred the ingredients into a bowl about the same height as matilda. mammy made her batter much lumpier than usual this time.

  “mammy, what’s wrong with that batter?” matilda said. “It got rocks in it?”

  “No, chile. Rocks are too hard to swallow. These are good lumps. This is my best batter yet. Made with extra care.”

  mammy wanted the boys to act right when the men arrived, and she knew her pancakes would fill their minds, not just their stomachs. She wanted the men to see what a good mammy she was, and how easy it was for her to make children mind her. She wanted them to see they could grow up to be good men because of her. The kind of men that didn’t give lashings for no reason.

  matilda spooned and fried dollop after dollop of batter into a cast iron skillet. She and mammy almost looked mad. matilda’s eyes grew bluer like the sapphire Mrs. Beauregard wore on her right hand, and mammy’s smile grew wider and stretched across her entire face. A bead of sweat formed beneath matilda’s nose and mammy’s flabby black biceps formed a muscle. All the while mammy looked through a window and kept an eye on the boys outside. They chased after each other, climbed trees, dug holes and hollered for no reason like boys do. mammy’s bug eyes were busy going back and forth between the boys and her stirring.

  “Jeremiah, set Johnny down. Thomas quit eatin’ that grass. William, you hit Abe again, and I’m gone hit you,” mammy said.

  And sometimes, she’d have to run outside to feed and burp one of the babies. She’d carry the child-size mixing bowl with her. Spoon in one hand, baby in the other. Just came naturally to mammy.

  As matilda started stacking pancakes in piles around the kitchen, the boys began to trickle in from outside, ready to eat as usual. mammy wasn’t glad to see them back in the house, but she was pleased to see the bigger boys taking care of the little boys as she taught them. The oldest put the smallest ones in high chairs, and even held on to the littlest ones as they took their seats at the table.

  “What you boys doing in here? I ain’t called you in.”

  “Give us some pancakes, big mammy,” yelled Abe, Master Beauregard’s son. “We smelt ’em. It’s time for us to eat.”

  “No, it ain’t.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  The smallest boys started screaming from their high chairs. The biggest ones aimed their forks toward the pancakes and squinted through the prongs as if peering into the scope of a rifle. Abe even tried to cock the fork, and seemed surprised that a bullet didn’t go flying out. mammy looked worried. The boys seemed hungrier, thirstier, madder than usual.

  “You boys set down. I’ll fix you something to eat after while.”

  The boys took their seats and sat in complete silence. matilda turned around to look, her blue eyes looking scared. She had never heard the place so quiet and neither had mammy.

  “matilda, don’t you worry none. Keep going,” mammy said.

  In about an hour’s time pancakes were stacked from the floor to the ceiling. The stark white walls were now hidden behind columns of golden brown discs. The warm, comforting smell made mammy and matilda almost lose their balance. It was intoxicating. The boys were fidgeting and starting to drool. They could barely breathe because pancakes were blocking all flow of air into the house. mammy looked around, smiling as usual, proud of their work.

  “matilda, we done too good,” mammy said. “We done made too many. we cain’t even get outta this house.”

  mammy moved like a spinning top to get a glimpse of all the pancakes that surrounded them.

  “Let’s feed the boys,” mammy said. “All they do is eat anyway.”

  “They can’t eat all this food without popping right out their clothes, mammy.”

  mammy took another look around the room, and then at the boys. It was their snack time, last thing they’d eat before going home for the day. But snack was never pancakes. It was usually a biscuit and maybe some fruit.

  “What’ll happen to ’em, mammy?” matilda asked. “If they eat too much.”

  “I don’t know.”

  That’s what mammy said. But mammy did know, and she and matilda fed the boys anyway. The older the boy, the more pancakes he got. Abe, the biggest, oldest and greediest got 20 pancakes. Until then, the most he had ever eaten was six. The youngest boy who could feed himself, 18-month-old Johnny Wright, got 5 pancakes. Until then, the most he had ever eaten was half a pancake.

  “These greedy white boys ain’t right in the head,” matilda observed. “I bet they gone throw up all over your kitchen, mammy.”

  “No, no they ain’t,” mammy said smiling as usual. “They be alright. Matter of fact, we need to eat some too.”

  “mammy, we can’t do that. We ain’t allowed to eat your food!”

  “Yes, chile, but we been working all day. We used just about every scrap I had for them pancakes.”

  mammy handed matilda a pancake, and she ate it quickly. mammy reached for two of her own pancakes, tasting them for the first time. She was surprised at how good they were. Buttery, smooth, a little bit sweet. She didn’t feel any different once she had finished them both. But she wasn’t exactly sure how she should feel. mammy also slipped some pancakes into two satchels and tucked them into the pantry for safekeeping.

  mammy noticed that the boys didn’t look right. Not wrong exactly, just not right. Abe looked much taller. His pants had become too short fo
r him. Roland, who was known for his sleepy eyes, looked wide awake. Timothy, still a lap baby, had just one tooth that morning and now had a full set that he was grinding together. Fat boys had dropped a little weight. Skinny boys had put on muscle. Shy boys that used to hide in the corner were standing with their chests puffed out. They were ready for something, mammy was sure.

  “matilda, I’m gone start washin’ these dishes,” mammy said. “Take one of them extra pancakes and put it in each boys’ front pocket.”

  matilda wasn’t sure what mammy was up to, but she started to like mammy more and more.

  “Alright, mammy, I’ll do it.”

  mammy looked out the window. Field hands and house slaves alike were setting up long tables outside for the masters to eat at. mammy had never seen anything like it before. They must have built those tables and chairs today, just for the occasion. She started to feel nervous, she wanted everything to go right.

  matilda went around stuffing pancakes into the boys’ shirts and shooing their hands away when they tried to retrieve and eat them.

  “Don’t you eat that, you bad boy, or else you’ll be in big trouble,” matilda kept saying.

  The boys did as they were told, and matilda was surprised. In fact, some of the boys got up and started helping mammy with the dishes. She washed a plate, handed it off to a boy who’d rinse, and he’d hand it off to one who’d pat it dry. Some of the others found brooms and started sweeping, and the rest watched over the smallest boys.

  “These boys have gone crazy for real,” matilda said, shaking her head.

  “They’re just doing right by their mammy,” mammy said with her big smile.

  “’Bout time,” matilda said.

  mammy looked out the window again. Horses and buggies carrying white men were making their way onto the plantation.

  mammy had never seen so many white men in one place. And they wore the finest gray suits and hats she’d ever seen. They looked like a storm cloud that had fallen from the sky and was maneuvering its way across the ground. Usually the slaves outnumbered the white folks, but this time the situation was reversed. mammy thought just about anything could happen now. Once the men were seated, mammy and matilda waited on their signal to serve the pancakes. First, Master Beauregard had to talk about the purpose of the meeting. He yelled some things about states’ rights and overthrowing the feds and secession. The men stood to their feet, and applauded. mammy was sure all their ruckus could be heard clear to Georgia.