Mama Ruby

by Mary Monroe

  “Well, it is. Cousin Anna was so drunk, she didn’t even know she was in labor tonight!” Othella blurted, wondering how many more lies she would have to tell before the night was over. She had already told more lies in this one day than she usually did in a whole week. She figured it was good practice, though. From what she already knew, lies were part of the game if a person wanted to enjoy life.

  “Where was this child born?” Reverend Upshaw asked, looking alarmed. “What’s this loosey-goosey cousin’s name again?”

  “It’s Cousin Anna’s baby,” Othella said, blinking at Ruby. “She was, uh, at some bootlegger’s house when she went into labor. She gave birth just as she was about to sit on the toilet to empty her bowels. She’s had ten kids already, so this one just slid out on the floor like a blood clot.”

  “Thank the Lord that one of them other drunks walked into the outhouse in time,” Simone stated. Her hands were shaking because she was so nervous. She hid them by folding her arms. This wasn’t going the way she had thought it would. But it was too late now. She had to finish what she had started. “You can see why I sent for you, Reverend Upshaw. I knew we could count on you.”

  “Bless you for feelin’ that confident in me, Simone,” Reverend Upshaw croaked. “I’ll give thanks to God.”

  “And you can also thank God that them drunks at the bootlegger’s house had enough sense to clean off this baby and make Cousin Anna bring it to us,” Othella added. “She walked half a mile in the night air with this child.”

  Reverend Upshaw strolled over to Ruby and put his hands on her shoulders. “You go on back home, baby girl. This is worse than I thought. I don’t want none of this negative energy to rub off on you. You are way too innocent for all of this.”

  Othella had to force herself not to laugh and it was not easy. But the stern look that she got from Simone was a potent enough warning for her not to laugh at how naive Reverend Upshaw was when it came to his precious Ruby Jean.

  “Can I look at the baby first, though?” Ruby asked, anxious to leave. She was glad that her father had advised her to leave the premises. She was sorry now that she had come at all. It had been hard enough to leave her baby the first time. She knew that this would be the last time. She would never see her child again. “Can I hold her?” Ruby was already hovering over the box, looking at the child like she was something good to eat. She had to hold her breath to keep from bursting into tears.

  “Her? Ruby Jean, how did you know it was a girl baby if you just seein’ this baby for the first time tonight? Ain’t nobody said nothin’ about it bein’ a girl,” Reverend Upshaw asked with a puzzled expression on his face. He was looking at Ruby like he could see through her. She was glad he couldn’t, and doubly glad that he couldn’t read her mind.

  Othella held her breath. Simone held hers, too, thinking that maybe the preacher wasn’t so naive after all. Would he put two and two together and figure out what was really going on?

  Ruby couldn’t think fast enough. She stood stock still, looking from her father to the box on the couch.

  Simone rescued Ruby again. “I guess that pink towel gave it away.” She grinned. “Huh, Ruby? Pink is for girls.” Simone nodded, prompting Ruby to nod.

  “Yeah, it was that pink towel,” Ruby muttered, almost biting her tongue.

  “Well, it don’t matter whether it’s a boy or a girl at this point,” Reverend Upshaw grunted, shaking his head again. He looked at Ruby as she leaned over the box, reaching for the baby again.

  “Ruby Jean, like your daddy said, you go on back home and let us handle this.” Simone narrowed her eyes and gave Ruby a threatening look. “You shouldn’t have come out this late no how.”

  Ruby was not about to give up too easily. She straightened up, sucked in some air, and smoothed back her hair with both hands. She had no idea how she looked, but she knew that after what she’d endured tonight, she probably looked a fright. When Simone had bathed her, she had wiped off her makeup and pinned her knotty hair back with several hairpins.

  “It’s been a while since I seen a little bitty baby up this close, and I won’t never see this one again. I feel sorry for her, just like y’all do, so I’d like to hold her just this once.” Ruby was determined to hold and embrace her daughter again. And she wasn’t going to let her daddy, or anybody else, stop her.

  Simone, Othella, and Reverend Upshaw moved aside as Ruby lifted the baby and held her in her arms for the last time.

  CHAPTER 20

  “RUBY JEAN, NOW THAT YOU KNOW WHAT A BABYLON that Simone’s house is, I can only hope that you are glad we never let you socialize with that Othella.” Ruby’s mother paused long enough to take a few sips of her coffee. She resumed her part of the conversation with a tight look on her face. “Your papa just told me that he let you accompany him to Simone’s house last night.”

  “Yessum,” Ruby said, struggling to keep the fear out of her voice. “It sure was a pretty little baby, though.” She adjusted her position in her seat at the kitchen table.

  “All babies is pretty when they that young,” Reverend Upshaw said with a nod. “Even when they ugly.” He chuckled. His wife shot him an annoyed look, but she didn’t look in his direction long. She immediately turned her attention back to Ruby, looking at her like she was trying to read her mind. Even though Ruby knew that her mother didn’t know what was on her mind, she was still nervous.

  “I’m glad Simone let me hug that baby for a few minutes,” Ruby said, trying to keep the conversation light.

  “Now, Ruby Jean, you stop that. You don’t need to be gettin’ attached to no strange baby. You’ll have your own babies soon enough. As a matter of fact, me and Mother decided that we’re goin’ to let you start courtin’ as soon as you ready. Them Simpson boys and them Mason boys ask about you every time I see them,” Reverend Upshaw said with a wink. “Me, I’d like to see you latch on to one of them Donaldson boys. Not only do they all already have good jobs sharecropping, they are all in the church.”

  “As long as that courtin’ don’t interfere with your schoolwork and your household responsibilities,” Ida Mae added.

  Ruby experienced several different emotions, one right after the other. For one thing, she hated being so deceitful to her parents. And another thing was that she didn’t like the fact that they had decided what boys she could see. There wasn’t a single boy among the ones that her daddy had just mentioned that she would give the time of day—especially one of the four Donaldson boys. Sharecroppers! What was wrong with her daddy? What in the world made him think that she’d want to spend the rest of her life married to a sharecropper? Ugly sharecroppers at that! They all had big moon-shaped heads, beady eyes, and lips that looked like raw liver. And those were their most attractive features. All of those Donaldson gnomes had buck teeth. Leroy, the one who had been flirting with Ruby since she was nine, spoke with a lisp.

  “Can I be excused?” Ruby asked, her stomach in knots. “I don’t feel too good this mornin’.”

  She didn’t even wait for her parents to respond. She promptly returned to her room and remained there for the rest of the day. She did manage to sleep for a few hours that night. But the next day, as soon as she crawled out of bed, she dressed and snuck back to Othella’s house.

  Ruby was disappointed to see that Ike was the only one up when she arrived. And that Othella and Simone were not even home. “Uh, where did they go?” she asked, standing on the top porch step.

  “Last night, Mama told Othella to get up this mornin’ and go over to some white lady’s house to help her do some housework that Mama was supposed to do,” Ike answered. “Mama said somethin’ real serious had come up and she had to drive out of town, so she couldn’t go to the lady’s house herself.”

  “Oh? You didn’t happen to hear her mention what that ‘somethin’ real serious’ was, did you?”

  “Nope. But I heard Mama’s car leavin’ the yard real late last night. I peeped out the window and I seen her carryin’ somethin’
in a box. She was still gone when I got up this mornin’. Mama and Othella is up to somethin’. Mama made us all go to bed after the party, but she let Othella stay up. I heard voices comin’ from the livin’ room all through the night. But I couldn’t make out what nobody was sayin’.” Ike opened the door wider and motioned with his hand for Ruby to enter.

  “O’Henry was a little jealous because it was his birthday, too, but Othella was the one gettin’ most of the attention. But he was kind of glad when you and her went to Mama’s room and stayed so long so he could be in the spotlight more. And I hope you don’t mind me sayin’ so, but I thought it was scandalous that nobody brought no birthday presents for Othella or O’Henry.”

  “Uh, well, I didn’t have no money to buy no presents, but I’ll get ’em both somethin’ when I do get some money. And since Othella planned the party, I didn’t think much about it bein’ O’Henry’s celebration, too. Next time she throws a party, I’ll be sure and pay him more attention.”

  “Why? I thought you was my girl... .”

  “Huh? Well ... I ...”

  “Did you come back here last night?” Ike’s eyes were on Ruby’s bosom. “If you did, you should have come woke me up so we could have had some fun.”

  “Um, no,” she muttered, fingering the top button on her blouse, still standing on the porch step. She was glad that she had worn one of her baggy blouses. Ike could stare at her chest all he wanted to and he would not see her nipples like he usually did. But the real reason Ruby had on such a large blouse was because she had on two bras, one stuffed with toilet paper to prevent the milk from her breasts from leaking through.

  Ike glanced around before he spoke again. “Uh, about the party last night ...”

  “What about it?”

  “Me and you didn’t get to do nothin’ nasty last night, so we got to make up for it.” He grinned. “I felt so sorry for them other three girls ’cause nobody was payin’ them much attention. I tried to make them feel welcome.”

  “I noticed,” Ruby hissed. Her contempt was wasted on Ike because it didn’t even faze him. That stupid grin was still on his face.

  “Come on in and stay awhile,” he insisted, waving her in. As she moved forward, he slapped her so hard on her butt, it felt like a bee sting to Ruby.

  She was disappointed that she had not been able to satisfy the urge to have sex that she had experienced before her labor started. That was one of the main reasons she had come to the party. She didn’t know how long it would be before she felt like having sex again. When she emptied her bladder this morning, it felt like somebody had stuck a metal rod with spikes on it up into her vagina. But Ike would be the first boy she made herself available to when she felt healed enough, and horny enough, to resume her sexual activities.

  “Maybe next week,” she told him with a tight little smile. “I’m on my monthly.” She looked around the living room. It was such a mess of beer bottles, paper plates with leftover barbeque and cake, and broken glass on the floor, it looked like the tornado had struck after all.

  Ike rolled his eyes and gave Ruby a dismissive wave. “Shit. Well, you can still visit for a spell if you want to. The least you can do is help me clean up some of this mess.”

  “Uh, I think I’ll just come back later when Othella gets home,” Ruby told Ike, her hand already on the doorknob.

  Ike leaned closer to her. His morning breath was so foul and hot on her face, it made her frown. She promptly leaned away from him.

  “Ain’t nobody up yet so we got the house to ourselves for a little while. We can ... you know.” He licked his bottom lip. “I could use a quick piece of ass... .”

  Despite the fact that Ike was so cute and the fact that Ruby loved looking at that cat’s paw footprint of freckles on his face, he didn’t appeal to her right now. She had more urgent matters to deal with.

  She gave him an apologetic look and shook her head.

  Her response to his suggestion annoyed him to the point of anger. He narrowed his eyes and shook his finger in Ruby’s face. “Girl, I been meanin’ to ask you; how come you been turnin’ me down these last few times I tried to be nice to you and pay you some attention? Who you been foolin’ around with—and don’t stand here and tell me you ain’t been foolin’ around with somebody else. I ain’t stupid.”

  “I ain’t been foolin’ around with no other boys, Ike. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  “Well, you must be! I know how frisky you can get, and I know how much you like the way I lay pipe between your legs. And there’s been plenty of times that you didn’t let your monthly stop you from bein’ good to me. Why you doin’ it now? You just want to be stingy with your stuff or what? Now if you got another boyfriend, I want you to tell me so I can go on about my business. I’m a one-woman man, and I want a one-man woman.” It was hard to believe that this boy was just one year younger than Ruby. He sounded like a dirty old man.

  “Ike, you can go on and be with any other girl you want. Me, I just want to be by myself for a while. I got some thinkin’ to do.”

  “If that’s the way you want it, that’s fine with me. You want to set down a spell, or what? Or do you want to help me clean up, like I said?”

  Ruby immediately shook her head. Next to having sex with Ike, cleaning up a party mess was the last thing on her mind at the moment. “When Othella gets home, tell her to send for me. I ... I just want to talk to her about last night.”

  Ike gave Ruby a suspicious look, his eyes trying to see what she had lurking inside her head. Unlike his other girls, she was a real challenge. Unfortunately for her, a challenge was not what he was looking for in a girl. All he wanted at the moment was just a “quick piece of ass.” And that was exactly all she was to him. “What about last night? Did somethin’ happen that I need to know about? Did one of my mama’s men friends stop by after I went to bed and y’all robbed him?”

  Ruby shook her head again, and then she went home.

  CHAPTER 21

  LESS THAN A WEEK AFTER RUBY HAD GIVEN BIRTH, HER SISTER Lola and her husband dropped by the house to have dinner again. Ruby got along all right with all of her six sisters’ husbands, but Lola’s husband was a major thorn in her side. He was the meddlesome kind, and he kept his meatball of a nose in Ruby’s business. But this time, Lola was the one who got the ball rolling.

  Five minutes after everybody had sat down to eat dinner, the first thing out of Lola’s mouth was, “Ruby Jean, you been sick? You done lost weight? You was a mite thicker around the middle the last time we was here.” The questioning look on her face made it even worse. Like Ruby, her mother, and the rest of Ruby’s sisters, Lola was dark, stout, and somewhat ordinary looking. However, she knew enough makeup and hair tricks to make herself look quite glamorous. Ruby was glad that she looked more like Lola than any of her other sisters.

  The fact that Lola did look quite attractive made her a little more confident than her sisters. She was bold and often did and said things that none of the others would. And of all the people in the family, this sister had no business being suspicious of Ruby. Not after all of the backsliding she’d done before she got married. And knowing her, she was probably still doing her dirty business now for all Ruby knew. Like Ruby’s favorite sister Beulah, Lola was also a hypocrite, and an even bigger one than Beulah. Not only had she fooled around with a slew of men while she was engaged to Arlester, but she’d fooled around with women, too! Ruby didn’t see anything wrong with women sleeping with women. With men being the only other option, it was no wonder some women turned to other women for romantic attention, she thought. But she knew that her parents considered homosexuality to be one of the most unspeakable acts on the books. One night a few years ago, she had walked in on Lola and Sandra Wooten, rolling around naked on Sandra’s parents’ living room floor. Lola had paid Ruby a nickel not to snitch.

  “How is that mannish Sandra woman you used to spend so much time with doin’ these days?” Ruby asked, giving Lola a mildly threate
ning look.

  “She’s fine as far as I know!” Lola said quickly, clearing her throat and shifting her butt around in her seat. Ruby enjoyed watching Lola squirm. Her question took care of Lola’s meddling right away. But Ruby was not out of danger yet. “I’d rather focus on you... .”

  That’s when the husband jumped on the bandwagon, and from the anxious look on his hound dog face, he was itching to stir up some mess that would bring more unwanted attention to Ruby. He took the subject and ran with it. “Hmmph! I ain’t tryin’ to stir up nothin’, but I’m real worried about Ruby Jean,” Arlester started, licking his lips and then pressing them together a few times, like he was tuning up his mouth. He wore the same dingy beige suit that he always wore to funerals, weddings, and dinners. Not only was it so thin you could see through it in some places, but it looked so stiff, Ruby was convinced that it could stand up and walk around on its own. Arlester coughed to clear his throat and when he spoke again, it was in a much louder voice. “I sure hope this child ain’t expectin’ a itty-bitty newcomer,” he said with a grunt, his eyes sparkling with mischief. It was obvious to Ruby that this was his way of making sure everybody at the table heard what he had to say about her.

  “What do you mean by that?” Ruby asked, offering a silent prayer to God that she wouldn’t lose her temper and hurt Arlester’s feelings if he didn’t back off. As it was, this man was lucky to still be alive. He was lucky that Ruby didn’t know some dirt on him like she did with Lola. The way he meddled, not just in Ruby’s business but in everybody else’s business, too, somebody was eventually going to hurt him real bad, if they didn’t kill him first. She didn’t know what to say in time to shut him up. It wouldn’t have made any difference anyway, because he got on a roll that almost derailed Ruby.

  “What do I mean? Well, since you asked, I’ll tell you what I mean, Ruby Jean. I know it ain’t my business, but you lookin’ and actin’ the same way my little cousin Mae Ella—y’all remember that crossed-eyed girl that came to the family reunion last year. Anyway, that young sister fooled around and got herself ruined. And I wasn’t the least bit surprised, the way she dressed and sashayed around the neighborhood.” Arlester paused and sucked in some air, looking around at every face in the room. “She was so loosey goosey, she didn’t even know who got her pregnant!”