In West Mills

by De'Shawn Charles Winslow

  “That sounds like choir meeting business to me, Eunice,” Cedar said. “Not something that oughta be talked about in our yard.” She stood tall on the edge of the porch.

  Dinah Bright.

  “What do we need a choir meeting for?” Eunice said. “I’m meeting with the ringleader right now.”

  Then Fran said, “I’m gon’ say it one more time and then you best go: I don’t know nothin’ ’bout what you—”

  “She just needs to leave,” Cedar interrupted. “That’s all. And I mean it.”

  “Who do you think you’re talking to?” Eunice asked Cedar. “I know you haven’t had much of a decent raising with her as a mama”—she pointed at Fran—“but you won’t talk to me any kind of way.”

  When Knot and her sisters still lived at home, Iris and Mary got into the occasional push and shove, for which their pa would shame them. He told them that they looked like crazy people and that he would not have it.

  “Stop this mess! Hear?” Knot yelled, walking toward her daughters. Fran took a step back; she looked shocked. “Y’all too old for this shit!”

  “She’s full of the devil,” Eunice argued, pointing again. “All of you are! Breezy, too!”

  “Leave my yard, Eunice,” Fran commanded.

  “Eunice,” Knot said, “I think you best lea—”

  “Shut up!” Eunice shouted. “Drunk bitch!” She sucked her teeth and made a face as though she wanted to spit. “Nobody wants to hear you.”

  Knot had not meant to do it. And after Eunice made that sound—the whine—Knot wanted to take back the open hand that had landed on Eunice’s lips.

  Fran and Cedar were now a statue of two goddesses holding hands.

  Eunice yelled, “Bitch!” once more before bursting into tears and leaving in her Datsun.

  Knot, Fran, and Cedar sat on the top step of Fran’s porch, Knot in the center. Cedar and Fran both smoked fresh cigarettes.

  “Ain’t y’all got anything to say? Besides sittin’ there puffin’ on them things,” Knot scolded.

  Cedar sucked her teeth and went inside shaking her head.

  Fran looked over at Knot, frowning. She asked, “You all right?”

  “I ain’t mean to hit her,” Knot said. “God knows I didn’t, Fran.”

  “Eunice’ll live,” Fran reassured her, rubbing Knot’s back.

  They sat quietly—until Lady Coy yelled from the upstairs window.

  “Ma!” she said. “Y’all still going up-bridge or what? I got the taste for a cold pop.”

  Knot looked up at the window. Lady Coy didn’t wait for Fran to give an answer before disappearing back into the house.

  On the drive up-bridge, after they’d been flagged down by Valley and picked him up, Knot asked Fran to stop by Eunice’s house so that she could apologize. She wanted to say sorry for more than the slap.

  “Don’t do it, Fran,” Valley said. Knot was sitting between the two of them. She wouldn’t be able to get out at the stop sign if Fran refused to stop.

  “I ain’t takin’ her there,” Fran snapped, “Eunice’ll call the law quick as that.” She snapped her fingers. “She ain’t have no business talkin’ to you like that. No business comin’ to my house the way she did, either.”

  Fran must think I’m slow in the head, Knot thought.

  “You know damn well that ain’t what Eunice really come to fuss about,” Knot said. “You heard what she said ’bout Breezy, just like I heard.”

  “Leave that alone, Knot,” Valley said. Knot told him to shut up.

  Fran sighed and they rode the rest of the way in silence.

  On the ride back to Antioch Lane, Fran asked if they wanted to be dropped off at Pratt’s or at Knot’s house.

  “Pratt’s,” Knot answered. And to Valley she said, “You go on to my house. I ain’t in the mood for you right now.” Fran dropped Valley off first, which made no sense, but Knot said nothing.

  Now in Pratt’s driveway, Knot began, “I just want to know one thing.” She held up one finger.

  “I don’t want to hear it, Knot,” Fran grumbled.

  “Will you please, please leave Breezy alone and let her have him?”

  “Get yo’ bags and close the door, Knot,” Fran said.

  “Nope.”

  “Eunice still got Breezy,” Fran pointed out. “She’s his wife.”

  “Eunice ain’t got him all to herself, though.”

  “Get yo’ bags, Azalea Marie Centre, and close my door.”

  “You think I care ’bout you callin’ out my whole name?” Knot asked. She collected her two brown bags but she did not close the door. “Breezy and Eunice is husband and wife.”

  “I just said that,” Fran said.

  “Well, since you know it so goddamn good, leave him alone.”

  “It’s your turn to tell me one thing,” Fran countered, holding up one finger. “When you gon’ stop drinkin’ like that doctor been tellin’ you?”

  If the question hadn’t stunned her, the look on Fran’s face did.

  “Go to hell, Fran” was all Knot could think of to say. And now it was her turn to slam a door.

  On Pratt’s sofa, Knot sat with the unopened bottle of rum in her hand.

  I got Fran tellin’ me what to do and lookin’ worried ’bout me. I got Eunice callin’ me a drunk bitch. And I got Otis Lee thinkin’ he can trust me.

  Knot drank only one shot of the rum. She lay on the couch, wishing Pratt were there. Otis Lee would force her to take the hug she needed, but he’d just lecture her the second he released her from his embrace.

  Knot tried as hard as she could to get that sound out of her head—the sound of Eunice’s whine. She was grateful for the knock at the door. It was Valley.

  “Get up and open this door,” he demanded.

  “Didn’t you hear me tell you I ain’t in the mood?” Knot asked, still lying on the couch. Valley seemed to know she wasn’t going to get up, so he came in without being invited.

  “Knot,” Valley began, sitting in Pratt’s chair, “I think it’s nice of you to worry ’bout the girls. They yours. But you just as well turn it loose. They been doin’ that dance for a long time. Probably don’t even know how to do it no different.” He stood up again to turn on the television. “They all right, Knot.”

  Knot lay there looking at the television, knowing Valley was right and refusing to tell him so. She felt a little at ease. But now that the sound of Eunice’s whine was gone, it was the image of Fran’s sad eyes that haunted Knot when she closed her own and tried to sleep. And again she heard her Fran say, When you gon’ stop drinkin’ like that doctor been tellin’ you?

  TWENTY

  Ice water poured in a jar. That was what Otis Lee wanted to take outside with him. Not a bottle of pop or the small bottle of prune juice Pep had set out for him before she left the house. Breezy had given her a ride to the hospital to visit Knot and Valley. Otis Lee had gone to see them both the day before. Visiting Valley was the easy part. Valley hadn’t known Otis Lee was there. It would have been the same if he had been awake.

  Knot was in better shape—alert and ornery. She wanted to go home. But her doctors said it was too soon. Knot was weaker than he’d ever seen her, and there was a gurgling cough. Otis Lee had been tossing and turning with worry since Knot had been admitted. And his appetite was hit or miss. But for the past couple of days he had had other things on his mind—things that took up almost as much space as his worry for Knot.

  Outside, under the shade tree that Cedar, La’Roy, and Sequoia had helped him plant ten years ago, in ’77, Otis Lee sat and enjoyed the morning peace and quiet.

  He hadn’t been there five minutes when he looked up and saw Pratt coming his way. Usually, Otis Lee liked to have some just‒Otis Lee time under the tree, but today he was glad to see his friend coming to join him. He imagined Pratt needed the company, too.

  Once Pratt was seated, Otis Lee said, “I got butterflies.”

  “What ya say?” Pratt asked. He u
sed his finger to push his ear gristle in Otis Lee’s direction.

  “I say I got butterflies.” Otis Lee kept forgetting he had to speak loud for Pratt. That little microphone they had put in Pratt’s ear didn’t seem to be up to its purpose. Money down the commode. “I’m gettin’ on the airplane in a few days. Goin’ to New York to ’tend to some business.”

  “Well, is the butterflies ’bout the plane or is they ’bout the business?”

  “Both,” Otis Lee said. And since Pratt was taking too long to ask, Otis Lee added, “You want to know what the business is ’bout?” Pratt said yes, and Otis Lee swore him to secrecy.

  “Don’t y’all get tired of secrets?” Pratt wanted to know.

  Otis Lee told Pratt about a letter that had come a few days back, from a lawyer’s office in Brooklyn. The letter said that Otis Lee had inherited two houses—side by side—and there was some money in the bank. Essie had died a couple of months earlier, and she had left it all to him.

  “Good gracious!” Pratt exclaimed.

  Otis Lee said he was shocked because he imagined Essie had died a long, long time ago, since he hadn’t heard from her since her unannounced visit in the early ’60s.

  “Now, if I’m seventy-nine, that mean Essie live to be ninety-five, ninety-six.” They both used folded paper towels to wipe sweat from their foreheads as they talked about how few people live that long anymore.

  When the mailman had come to deliver the letter, Otis Lee was sitting outside, watching Cedar’s four-year-old twin boys throw a football around.

  “And the twins, they run over and ask him if he got a piece of candy. Them two don’t forget nothin’, do they, Pratt?”

  “They smart,” Pratt affirmed.

  “Smart, and bad as shit,” Otis Lee said. And Pratt agreed.

  “Long story short, the letter say I got ’til September the fifteenth to respond. And I ain’t gon’ drag my feet on it.”

  Pratt agreed with that too, and he said so.

  Cedar had told Otis Lee that she thought it best if she and her husband drove him to New York.

  “But I say noooo. I’m gettin’ old. I want to fly one time ’fore y’all stand ’round a hole and throw dirt in my face. Cedar laugh and tell me I was talkin’ crazy.”

  “You gon’ live a long time, Otis Lee!” Pratt said.

  “Already been a long time,” Otis Lee replied.

  Pratt asked Otis Lee if it might be best to take Breezy to New York along with him. “People in the North is crazy,” he said.

  “No!” Otis Lee said. He hadn’t yet told Breezy or Pep about the lawyer’s letter. Breezy, Otis Lee believed, would be after the two houses in Brooklyn. And Eunice would be after much more, he said.

  “Well, sit down, man,” Pratt said. “You gon’ work yo’self up.”

  Otis Lee looked down at his feet and tried to remember when he had stood up. He had lost his cool, and he didn’t like it. Get yo’self together, Otis Lee. He leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingers on the armrests.

  “Goin’ to New York without tellin’ Pep?” Pratt asked.

  It had all been worked out. Cedar would pick Otis Lee up once Pep had gone to visit the sick and the shut-in, and they would leave a note for Pep saying they were safe and attending to something in Brooklyn. They would call her once they arrived safely.

  “What if Pep don’t go visitin’?”

  Otis Lee almost stood up again. He shouted, “Don’t jinx me, Pratt!”

  Then, Pratt asked about Otis Lee’s plan for the houses he was to inherit.

  “Ya know, Pratt, I’m gon’ tell you the funniest thing. After I read the letter from the lawyer’s office, I was watchin’ the twins play. The biggest one come runnin’ over to me and say, ‘PawPaw, can you take us up-bridge. We want a icy.’ And I say, ‘Naw, Mackum. Cedar put ice cream in my Frigidaire for y’all. I ain’t goin’ up-bridge today.’ Then he and the lil one—”

  “Robert,” Pratt said.

  “Yeah. Robert,” Otis Lee said. “They start to laughin’ and fallin’ all out in the grass.” Pratt looked confused, so Otis Lee held one finger up and continued. “Mackum say, ‘PawPaw, my name is Malcolm.’ And I say, ‘Well, ain’t that what I just say, Mackum?’ And they fall right out and laugh some more. I keep sayin’ the name wrong so they can laugh and fall out.”

  “They funny, ain’t they?” Pratt said, and he smiled. He wasn’t wearing his dentures.

  “Pratt, I’m gon’ tell you the truth. Seein’ them boys laughin’ and havin’ a good time like that really made me feel good. They ain’t got a care in the world, and I don’t want ’em to never have to worry ’bout the kinds o’ stuff we had to when we was young.” The two side-by-side houses in Brooklyn would go to Malcolm and Robert, Otis Lee told him. “That way they got a head start in the world.”

  “That’s smart,” Pratt said.

  “I worry ’bout them boys, though, ’cause Robert say to me, ‘PawPaw, can we pleeeeeease have a icy from up-bridge? I don’t want no ice cream.’ And he wouldn’t let up, Pratt. Steady tellin’ me he want the icy, not the ice cream. And Mackum, he ain’t put up no fuss. He was happy to have the regular ice cream from the Frigidaire.”

  “What’s yo’ worry?” Pratt asked.

  “I don’t know which one of ’em to be worried ’bout the most—the one who take the first thing that get offered to him, or the one who always want what he want.” They looked at each other and nodded. “Either way, I’m leavin’ Essie’s houses to them. But when I get up to New York, in that lawyer’s office, I got to remember not to go in there callin’ her Essie, ’cause the letter calls her Ellen O’Heeney, and that’s what I’m gon’ say. She change her name when she went up north. She was passin’ for white. You remember me tellin’ ’bout all that, don’t ya?” Pratt said he remembered some of the story.

  They sat quietly. For men their age, to speak of passing was akin to speaking ill of the dead.

  “I don’t mean no disrespect, Otis Lee,” Pratt said. “But how yo’ mama get two young’uns from white mens?”

  “It wasn’t no mens,” Otis Lee corrected. “Only Essie got the white father. My father wasn’t white. Not one bit white.”

  “I ain’t mean nothing by it,” Pratt said. “I just … well …”

  “What?” Otis Lee asked.

  “You yella,” Pratt pointed out. He whispered it.

  Otis Lee told Pratt that some Negroes are just born light, but it didn’t mean they had a white mother or father.

  “Maybe my pa had some light-skinned folks in his family or somethin’,” Otis Lee mused. He had never met his father’s family. They had lived somewhere in the islands. “You want some of this ice water, Pratt?”

  “Naw. I’m all right.”

  “Go on and have some,” Otis Lee said, “’cause if you pass out, I can’t help you up.”

  Pratt took the large jar and drank. Otis Lee did the same before reminding Pratt about Essie’s brothel and all the ways she and her husband made their money.

  “Hard life, though,” Pratt remarked, and he belched.

  “Yeah,” Otis Lee said. He belched, too. “And that O’Heeney, he was somethin’ else, Pratt. When I was there workin’ in they house, he would stand at the top of the steps and holler, ‘Ellen!’ I could hear him all the way downstairs in the cellar. I’d be down there polishin’ shoes that belonged to the johns.” Otis Lee slid to the edge of his chair. “Essie would say, ‘Yes, Thomas Dear?’ I never heard her call him just plain Thomas. Was always Thomas Dear. And he would say, ‘Send the half-breed up here with his shaving kit, would ya? I can’t go out with a chin full of stubble.’ I don’t think he ever did know my name.” O’Heeney, who believed Otis Lee was the son of one of the runaway girls who once worked at the brothel, also called Otis Lee a nigger. Otis Lee never figured out how O’Heeney decided which awful term to use. All the while, Essie would just say, “Yes, Thomas Dear.”

  “Well, Pratt,” Otis Lee said, “things a lil be
tter now, I guess. Times of folk being called niggas and half-breeds is done. It’s 19 and 87!”

  “That’s right,” Pratt said. They glanced at each other and looked out at the yard. A neighbor passed by and blew her truck horn. Otis Lee and Pratt both waved. “You lucky your sister loved you, Otis Lee,” Pratt said. “Shit. You couldn’t mess with folk when they was tryin’ to pass. They’d kill ya.”

  It was something Otis Lee had considered before going to Essie’s house, back in the ’20s, he said. He had told her that two of his friends, Phil and Brock, were in New York with him and that they knew the truth, too. But it was a lie. Phillip had returned to West Mills with Lady, and Brock had returned even sooner, Otis Lee said.

  “Brock was workin’ in Edgars’s general store. He put all his money together and bought it off him when Edgars took his business on the other side of the canal. All that was long, long ’fore you moved ’round here, Pratt.”

  Pratt nodded and they sat and let the occasional breeze blow across them. A stray cat that lived under Otis Lee’s porch came and sat with them. The cat had taken to him much like the hen Ruby had decades ago. Otis Lee did not know whether the cat was male or female. It didn’t matter.

  Pratt asked if Valley was doing any better.

  “No change,” Otis Lee said. “You ain’t say nothin’ to—”

  “Naw,” Pratt said. “Naw.” Otis Lee said he believed God was making Valley rest from all the traveling he had done over the years. They both shook their heads and looked out into the yard.

  “How you and Phil and Brock decide on the North?”

  “We wanted us some better work, decent work,” Otis Lee explained. “Somethin’ ’sides diggin’ ditches and that kinda thing.”

  Otis Lee had told Rose and Ma Noni that he was going north. They hadn’t had much to say about his plan—at first. “They ain’t think I meant it.”

  Otis Lee had not been able to get work at the one lumber mill that was in business at the time, he said. For a while he had worked in the fields with Rose and Ma Noni. And sometimes he had even joined them in their domestic work on the east side of the canal.