Betsey Brown

by Ntozake Shange

  “Hum, elope? Hum. I’ve heard that one before. Sorry to say.”

  Mrs. Maureen started to clear the dishes away. The morning throng began to mill about once again in tee-shirts and robes, nighties and nothing.

  “If you’re gonna stay with us, you might as well see it in the raw, honey.” Mrs. Maureen rubbed Betsey’s back, which was stiff as a rail. “Don’t worry, nobody’s gonna hurt you.”

  Betsey wisht she was home. Right now. Away from these men with stocking caps on and curlers in their heads. These women with too much rouge and not enough clothes.

  “Betsey, I think a friend of yours ran away to me some time ago. I think she’s still here. Let me go see. She was gointa elope, too, I recollect. Folks round your way sho’ don’t be keepin up with the times. Elope. Two colored chirren elopin. I swear I hear all the bad news first. Even ’fore the President, they let me in on it. REGINA! Regina, bring your hot lil tail out here and talk some sense to this gal bout love and romance. Regina!”

  Betsey watched as women passed by the kitchen table leaving wads of money in the center. The men with rollers strolled by too, pulling folds of dollar bills from their money clips. There was a lot of money on that table. More money than when she and Margot and Sharon emptied Greer’s pockets and Jane’s purses in order to go to the movies that time Jane and Greer went to Paris and left them with some skinny woman whose baby stank. There was really a lot of money on that table by the time Mrs. Maureen appeared with Regina. It hadn’t occurred to Betsey that Regina could be Roscoe’s Regina from love and kisses, but there she was in a awful flimsy red negligee, deep holes under her eyes, and a shame on her that made Betsey’s skin cringe. Regina was pregnant. She laid her money on Mrs. Maureen’s table too.

  “Now do like I tol’ you and tell this girl bout runnin off and elopin and carryin on like a fool over some no count niggah with his head fulla dreams. Go on, do like I say.”

  Regina and Betsey hugged and hugged. Regina’s tummy bumping Betsey’s head. Betsey thought she could hear the baby singing. She knew she could hear it moving. Regina’s stomach was so hard, like a drum. Betsey knew from the tears in Regina’s eyes that the baby was Roscoe’s.

  “Gina, where’s Roscoe? I thought youall were going to Chicago to have your family?”

  “Guess who’s in Chi-town, Betsey?” Mrs. Maureen asked, counting her money.

  “Roscoe’s getting things ready for us, Betsey. Honest he is. He told me to stay here till he could send for me. Said it wouldn’t take long.”

  “And how many weeks you been here now? You’ll still be here when that baby comes flying outta ya.”

  “He told me I was coming here to work for you.”

  “He didn’t tell me you couldn’t press heads, so I put you to work doing what you obviously knew how to do awready.”

  Betsey helped Regina sit down. Gina couldn’t stop crying or holding her tummy, her baby. She kept whispering Roscoe’s name, praying for him to come get her. She was bout to lose her mind. Betsey held on to her real tight. She remembered Roscoe standing up to Grandma. She was sure Roscoe loved Regina. She was sure Roscoe didn’t know the kinda trouble Regina was in.

  “Regina, I know Roscoe loves you. I was there. I saw you kiss. He’s gonna send for you. Believe me.” Betsey pulled closer to Regina’s naked legs, swollen and overperfumed.

  “You think so, Betsey? You think he’s gonna get me outta heah?”

  “You can get outta heah anytime you pay me the money you owe me for your room and board.”

  “Mrs. Maureen, I could stay and help you press heads. Mommy lets me press Margot and Sharon’s sometimes when they need a touch-up. I’ll help Regina and that way I could stay with you, too. Would that be awright with you, Gina?”

  “Oh, Betsey, you can’t stay here. There’s too much going on that I don’t want you to see, ever. Things I never want you or my baby to see.”

  “Looks to me like you saw a bit too much ’fore you came prancin through my front door, missie. Don’t you be holdin me responsible for your behavior.”

  Mrs. Maureen divided the money in small stacks, which were picked up by the strangely clad women who’d put it there. The largest portion went right in the cleft of Mrs. Maureen’s bosom. She patted it over and over, smiling at Betsey. She did like Betsey.

  “Girl, why don’t we go in the other room and I’ll do your head up real pretty, with some bumper curls we’ll comb out together. You got to go home, chile. I know your mama’s missing you. A sweet chile like you got no business here ’cept on Saturday mornings when your head needs doing. C’mon, let’s get the combs heated up.”

  “No, Mrs. Maureen. Let me stay at least long enough to help with Regina’s baby. I could baby-sit, you know that, and help you keep the place straight.” Betsey was frightened. How could Roscoe leave Regina like this? What was Gina doing with all that money and the baby? How could being in love leave you so sad and alone? “Mrs. Maureen, please let me stay, just a few days? Mama won’t be mad when she knows I’ve been with you.”

  “Your mama aint never gointa know you been with me. Her heart’s probably breaking right this minute, wondering where is that bright sweet girl she loves so much. And here you are making a fuss over a fool gal got herself knocked-up and left behind.”

  Mrs. Maureen was fiddling with Betsey’s braids now. Taking them down one by one and running her fingers through the hair looking for split ends she’d have to cut.

  “You think that school won’t call your mama and tell her you aint there? What you think she’s gonna imagine? Well, let me tell you. She’s gointa think some crackers got hold to you and beat you good! That’s what! This city is going to the dogs these days. I’m tellin you. Gina, go on and tell her what I tol’ you. Do like I say, now.”

  Regina’s eyes were sunken and swollen now. She knew Betsey couldn’t stay at Mrs. Maureen’s. That was out of the question, but she didn’t want Betsey to think that love left you pitiful like that song went, “They Call Me, Mr. Pitiful.” Gina wanted Betsey to remember the joy and the hope of two hands joined, swinging down the street. She also wanted Betsey to have hope for her.

  “Listen, I’ve got an idea, Mrs. Maureen, why don’t you do Betsey’s hair, while I give her a manicure.”

  “Least you learned to do that.”

  “No, now let me finish. I’ll give Betsey a manicure and a pedicure. Then we could do her face up like in the Ebony Fashion Fair. That way, when she does get home, she’ll be looking so pretty her mama will forget how mad she is. You know she’s going to be mad, don’t you, Betsey?”

  “Yeah, but it’s her fault. She won’t let me play the music I want to hear or dance the way I want to dance. You know, Regina, how we usedta fool around at Soldan when Smokey Robinson came, or the time you took us to see the Olympics. We danced in the aisles with everybody else. It was so wonderful when you were there, Regina. Remember, we did routines from the Shirelles and you rolled our hair up like the Ronettes with those false hairpieces from Mr. Robinson’s. She doesn’t want me to be like everybody else, Regina. She wants me to be special, like I lived inside a glass cage or something. She actually thinks those white kids where I go to school think I’m alive. Gina, they hardly speak to me. And the one time I had a spend-the-night party only one of them showed up, and she was Jewish. They don’t like her, either. But I can’t tell anybody these things cause how would that look, to say we weren’t up to white folks. I know we got to fight the white people and be better than them, Gina. It’s just I’m so tired of them and I feel so much better when I’m with the colored. I feel so much better when I’m like everybody else.”

  Betsey wept on Gina’s thighs just where the baby was jutting out. Mrs. Maureen was mixing egg yolks and beer to give Betsey a conditioner, shaking her head, mumbling bout the things children had on their minds these days. A child had a right to be a child. Even in Mississippi a girl was a girl till her time came. White folks or no white folks. Nobody sent a little ol’ thing out to
take up for the whole damn race. That’s what was wrong with the colored, always putting it off to the next generation to do battle with the white man.

  “Betsey, honey, that’s called loneliness. You’re gonna be lonely sometimes, sweetie. Cause you are special. Your mama’s not making that up. You are different and it’s not the color of your skin, either. You have a good time the way nobody else can, and you feel things the way nobody else can. There is no such thing as ordinary, Betsey. Nobody’s ordinary. Each one of us is special and it’s the coming together of alla that that makes the world so fine.”

  Mrs. Maureen almost dropped her egg yolks and beer concoction, listening to Gina. Then she motioned for Gina to move Betsey’s head round so they could condition it real good.

  “Betsey, I’m not saying that there’s not different kinds of folks. You and me, we’re different.”

  “You better believe that,” Mrs. Maureen added, her fingers gooey with the yolk and malt coating Betsey’s head.

  “That’s not what I meant, but in a way it is. Betsey, you and I can do certain kinds of things together and then there are other things we can never do together. It’s hard to explain, but there’s all different kinds of colored folks. You’re one kind and I’m another, that’s all.”

  “But don’t you like me, Regina?”

  “Oh Betsey, I love you. You’re like my own sister. Why if the baby is a girl, I’ma gonna name her Elizabeth and call her Betsey with a ‘e.’ Cross my heart.”

  “She’s ready for a rinse now.” Mrs. Maureen wrapped Betsey’s head in a towel, while Regina threw an old shirt around Betsey’s very Lord and Taylor school outfit.

  Regina laughed silently. Betsey even ran off like a doctor’s daughter. How was she going to be ordinary when there weren’t but five thousand Negro doctors in the whole country. Gina’d heard Dr. Brown say that to Charlie one time, when Charlie said he wanted to be like Jackie Robinson. What a whipping that was. Thinking bout the Browns took Regina’s mind off Betsey and to her baby.

  How was she gonna feed her child? How could she ever have a child like Betsey, who heard the word colored and thought of something good? How was she gonna explain who or where Daddy was, when she’d planned for Daddy to be right there?

  The rinse was set and Betsey was under the dryer in the front of Mrs. Maureen’s, where the hincty Negro ladies lined up with their furs and polished faces. Mrs. Maureen’s demeanor had changed entirely, as had her clothes. She was in her little pink uniform with the appliquéd flower on the collar and the white nurse’s shoes she wore every day as she stood over the doctor’s wife, the lawyer’s wife, the minister’s wife, and the undertaker’s wife. The helpers were clad in smart white jackets moving quickly from hand to hand, foot to foot. It was the only place in town a Negro woman could get a manicure or a pedicure, if she was brave enough. They lived in a world of their own and never ventured past the French doors where Mrs. Maureen’s other world thrived.

  Betsey was as pampered as a princess. Mrs. Maureen explained her presence on a school day as a mixture of a birthday present and as a prelude to Betsey’s solo clarinet performance in front of the white people at one of those “schools.”

  The women nodded their heads. Yes, it was important to look good if you’re dealing with white folks. Yes, it was lovely of Mrs. Brown to think of letting Betsey have a manicure when her hands were going to be so prominently displayed.

  Betsey couldn’t hear, but she could see some of what Regina meant. There were different kinds of Negroes. She bet money some of these Negroes wouldn’t give a stone’s throw if something happened to Roscoe, they didn’t care what was gonna happen to Regina’s baby. “Niggahs” they’d say and leave it to the will of God that people, especially colored people, suffered. Yet, they couldn’t go anywhere else to have their hands done but a bordello. Betsey burst out laughing. She could tell by the looks on the women’s faces that it was an “inappropriate” laugh. As if being a Negro was appropriate. Betsey knew they’d never get that joke. So she went back to reading bout a murder in Tan.

  Mrs. Maureen sent Regina for Little John to come do Betsey’s make-up. It was Mrs. Maureen’s way of saying to Mrs. Brown that there’s a growing girl here, lady, pay attention. The minister’s wife left just in time. The other ladies were puzzled, but calmed when Mrs. Maureen went on bout stage-lights and bone structure. Little John just hovered with brushes of mink and fox hair. He was in his world. A face with no wrinkles. No blemishes. Purity. He was beside himself. Mrs. Maureen had to remind him, “Little John, she a child playing a clarinet, this is not the Jewel Box Revue.”

  The pedicure Regina executed herself. She wanted Betsey to feel relaxed and cared about. The way all little Negro girls should feel. Not cramped or out of place, or funny-looking or easy. Just lovely and well-loved. Gina gave Betsey a very special pedicure cause she knew she’d never have one, and probably her little girl wouldn’t either. Not the way this world was bout folks born on the other side of the tracks, colored or white. You could forget it, the sweetness, that is.

  Betsey could hardly believe it was her when she looked in the mirror. What a woman she was going to be! Regina gave her five dollars to take a cab home, cause dusk was falling and it was getting late. Regina made her promise not to come back or mention to her mama about the baby or Roscoe. Mrs. Maureen was more explicit.

  “If your mother so much as dreams you were here before the shop opened, you gonna get a licking the likes of which you’ve never felt.”

  Regina held Betsey real close to her. “Betsey, your life isn’t gonna be like mine. Don’t you grow up too soon. Take your time. There’s something so special when you’re really in love, let it come to you. Don’t chase it. Okay? You be good, now. I love you.”

  With that Betsey was sent down the stairs and out the door, escorted by Little John, who was still dabbing and brushing her face. “You are just too beautiful, my dear.”

  Betsey felt beautiful. She felt brave. She knew it now. There was a difference between being a little girl and being a woman. She knew now. She’d never see Regina again, but they’d never be separate, either. Women who can see over the other side are never far from each other.

  Betsey took her five dollars to a very special place. A Yellow cab carried her to the boulevard where the white folks had their parade each fall and crowned a queen of the Veiled Prophet, who was a white man no one ever saw. Then they had a big ball with pictures in the newspapers for days of this white girl and that white girl. The regular people could come and watch, even the colored. Betsey did it every year, looked at the floats of the ladies in waiting in their satin gowns and laced gloves, the clowns and musicians longside the floats entertaining one and all. The whole city in a Mardi Gras out of season and out of time, with young girls of every color wishing the man behind the jeweled mask had chosen them to ride about the city that night, a night the stars were sapphires, opals, and diamonds, a tiara for a queen.

  Betsey paid the cab driver $4.25 and gave him the rest as a tip. She was feeling regal. Then she marched as grandly as possible to the middle of the street where she proceeded to stop traffic and create a great stir while she declared herself Queen of the Negro Veiled Prophet and his entourage.

  The police only asked her her name and address, and went on about how St. Louis was a dangerous place to be roaming about alone at dusk. They didn’t understand she reigned on her own streets for the first time in her life. She wasn’t afraid anymore. The city was hers.

  9

  Jane’s chandeliers were the hallmark of her move south. She had no winding staircase with mahogany rail, but she had chandeliers of every shape and size. The chandelier in the dining room hung down like a soft skirt, rows of crystal looping back to the center where the candlelight bulbs left a sheen of rose over the good table. In the first living room the chandelier etched a diamond shape, glistening tinkles reflecting the rise of the race, the status of the bridge players. The third chandelier was one large circle of hexagon
al crystals coming to a point directly above Jane’s head where she knelt in the midst of all her family praying for her daughter’s safe return.

  “Jesus, please let us have our girl back. My child knows we love her. We don’t know what brought her to leave us, but Lord, Jesus Christ, please keep her safe until the very moment she walks back through that door. And we know she’ll be coming back to us, Lord, because You are a Benevolent Savior, a Gentle Redeemer, and a gracious host of all living creatures. This we pray, Dear Lord, please bring our Betsey back.”

  Jane knelt silently with tears rolling down her cheeks. Sharon and Margot were afraid. They were praying, but not knowing the faith Jane and Vida knew, they feared the loss of their big sister to some evil in the city, a maniac. She might disappear like the children they heard about on the radio sometimes who went to school and never came back. Children who weren’t even planning to run away. Allard whimpered every once in a while, “I want Betsey now, Mama.” Then Vida would hum “Pass Me Not, Oh Gentle Savior” and rock him till he quieted. Charlie was uneasy in this room saturated with pleas to Christ, but he knew enough that Betsey needed some power besides her own wherever in the hell she’d carried herself off to. Once the room was calm, Jane would begin to pray aloud again.

  “Dear Lord, we don’t know where our child is, but we know You do. Because You know all things and all the ways of this world. In Thy sight somewhere our child is wrestling with wrongdoing, Lord. Come to her aid and bring her back to us. She shall be received as was the Prodigal Son. We shall open our hearts to her, Lord, we promise to make her home a place she’ll never want to leave again. But, first, Lord, please bring Betsey back to us, sound of body and sound of mind.”

  Greer had called the police hours before and sat in the kitchen by the phone tying surgical knots to the ends of his conga drum, pursing his lips. Greer was a warm man, but not a churchgoing man. He was more worried about the police not giving a damn about a missing colored child than he was that Betsey would be mangled by some deranged stranger. Greer had faith in his people, not in Jesus, not in the police, not in the pastor called to comfort Vida, already mildly sedated to prevent aggravation of her heart.