Mama Ruby

by Mary Monroe

  One month before Ruby’s due date, she stretched out on a red leather couch in the living room of the woman who had hired her to look after her two young sons. She had consumed a five-pound box of peanut brittle, three sugar tits, a large moon pie, and nine bottles of beer since Roy had dropped her off, two hours ago. Not only was her belly stuffed, she was enjoying a very nice buzz.

  “Now look, Bobby, Jimmy is your baby brother so stop teasin’ him,” Ruby scolded, thumping the five-year-old on his blond head, making him howl like a baby wolf. She rose and glanced out the window, clutching one-year-old Jimmy in her arms. She gasped and set the boy down on the couch as she rushed out to the spacious front porch. “I don’t believe what I’m seein’,” she said, talking to herself as she stared at the car moving slowly down the street.

  Ruby trotted down the porch steps. She didn’t stop trotting until she reached the end of the block. The car that she’d seen had stopped at a red light, and before she could catch up to it, it shot off as if the driver knew she was in pursuit.

  And she was in pursuit. She knew who was driving that dusty black Chevy, and she had a good idea where it was going. It took her twenty more minutes to reach Smoky Moe’s bar.

  Roy was surprised and annoyed when Ruby stormed into the bar and stomped over to a booth in the back that he occupied. A thin, attractive woman in her early thirties with thick brown hair and a silver plated front tooth was on his lap, kissing his cheek.

  “Mama Ruby, what the—what the hell you doin’ in here?” Roy yelled, rearranging the woman on his lap. “You supposed to be watchin’ that white woman’s kids!”

  “Baby, who is this beast?” the woman sneered, looking Ruby up and down.

  “Woman, if you want to live to see tomorrow, you better get your skinny tail off my husband’s lap!” Ruby erupted. A small crowd quickly formed in front of the booth.

  The owner, a gray-haired white man in his sixties, held his breath as he stood behind the counter. He owned the only establishment in the area that served blacks. They had to enter through a back door and were only allowed to occupy the back booths. Ruby had done the unthinkable, or at least something that no other black person had ever done; she’d entered through the front door, just like the white couple that she had come in behind.

  “Don’t you be gettin’ crazy in this white man’s place now, woman,” Roy warned Ruby, shoving his girlfriend off his lap. “We need to take this mess home,” he said, rising. “And you better make this the last time you clown me in public!” Roy didn’t wait for Ruby to respond. He grabbed her by the arm and attempted to steer her out of the bar. He managed to smile as he waved to the nervous owner, who had already picked up a telephone on the counter.

  “Roy, is this that teenage battle-ax I heard you got married to?” the woman asked, scooting out of the booth. The woman stood next to Roy as she laughed and shook her finger in Ruby’s face. “You must be stupider than I heard you was! Roy is my man and he’s been my man for a long time. As soon as I get rid of that old dog I married and Roy gets rid of you, with your husky self, me and him will get married.” Ruby’s eyes followed the woman’s hand as she grabbed Roy’s hand and held onto him like he was made of gold.

  Had Roy pushed the woman aside and denied what she’d just said, it might have made all of the difference in the world. But he didn’t. He stood there looking at Ruby with contempt. All he could think about was how he was going to get a switch and whup her ass as soon as he got her home. Didn’t she know that he was only doing what men had been doing since the beginning of time? There wasn’t a man on earth who could be happy with just one woman in his life! Didn’t women know that by now?

  He finally spoke again. “Mama Ruby, tonight me and you are goin’ to sit down and have a long talk. I told you to your face, on the same day I married you, how it was goin’ to be with me and you. I PAY THE COST TO BE THE BOSS, BITCH! You will not be spyin’ on me like this no more! Do you hear me?”

  Ruby calmly looked from her husband’s face to the woman’s as they stood smack dab in front of her, holding hands like they were Romeo and Juliet.

  When Ruby lunged at the woman, Roy grabbed Ruby’s arm. He attempted to punch her in the face, but he was no match for her. She swiveled her head out of the way just in time so he missed. Just as he was about to swing at her again, she slapped his face so hard, his false teeth—that she didn’t even know he wore—flew out of his mouth. He yelped and kicked her leg, bringing her to her knees. A split second later, she sprang up like a jack-in-the-box. There was a look on her face that words could not describe. It was a look that frightened everybody in the bar, even the owner, and he was an ex-cop. Her nostrils flared, her eyes darkened, her jaw twitched, and her lips quivered. If there was such a thing as a she-devil, Ruby was it.

  “I ... I ain’t goin’ to put up with this mess. I’m goin’ to beat you like you stole somethin’,” Roy told Ruby, looking angry and embarrassed at the same time. “Don’t you worry none, Mr. Brown, I got this situation under control!” he told the bar owner. He ignored his false teeth on the floor and proceeded to punch Ruby in her stomach, her chest, and on her arms. He and everybody else present were stunned: none of his punches fazed his enraged wife. She stood there glaring at him with one hand calmly rooting through her purse. Roy delivered a blow to her face that was so severe, he broke the knuckles on two of his fingers.

  But even that didn’t faze Ruby.

  The woman who had accompanied Roy to the bar dropped to her knees and crawled under the table in the booth, shaking like a leaf.

  Roy was sweating bullets. That was why he didn’t feel the one that Ruby fired into his heart. He was dead before he hit the floor.

  Ruby had not contacted her parents or anybody else in her family since she’d left home. But they were not worried about her, thanks to Othella. Othella still wrote to her siblings and her mother on a regular basis. In each letter, she gave her family a sanitized version of what she and Ruby were up to. Most of the information that she fed to them was ninety percent false, such as part of her most recent letter: ... Me and Ruby Jean clean houses for rich white women, and we are out here in Florida living like kings in a rich white woman’s guest house. And we are both married to real handsome businessmen... .

  “I wonder why they left New Orleans and went to Florida,” Simone asked Ike after he’d read Othella’s letter to her.

  “You know Othella and Ruby, Mama. They like to get around,” Ike surmised. “And ain’t it a pip them gettin’ married, too?”

  “Sure enough. And to businessmen! I always knew that them two had real high expectations,” Simone said with a profound sigh. “I’m so glad my girl didn’t end up like me.”

  Ruby’s father was still giving “spiritual comfort” to Othella’s mother, and he was still paying her to let him do so. She was the one who relayed information about Ruby to him.

  “I’m so glad I can tell Mother that Ruby Jean done settled down and got herself married,” he said, grinning after Simone read Othella’s letter to him. “I always knew my girl was goin’ to make somethin’ of herself. I just hope this man of hers can control her enough to keep her out of trouble.”

  At the same time that Ruby’s father was speaking those words, Roy was being loaded into a hearse.

  And Ruby, handcuffed and dazed after she’d been subdued by the butt of a deputy’s revolver on the back of her head, was being transported to jail.

  CHAPTER 57

  RUBY HAD NOT HAD THE TIME NOR INTEREST IN JOINING A new church since she left home. Not only did she not have a church home to fall back on in times of need, she didn’t know of one single preacher that she could call on for spiritual comfort.

  “Othella, I been in this jailhouse for two days, and they ain’t told me nothin’. I don’t know what they goin’ to do with me,” Ruby sobbed. “I wish my daddy was here to pray with me!”

  “I can find a preacher if you want me to,” Othella offered. “Roy’s brother stopped by the
house last night, and he told me that he was handlin’ the funeral arrangements, and that the service will be at the little Pentecostal church on Jersey Street if I wanted to come. If you don’t mind, I can ask that preacher’s name and have him come see you.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea. I don’t think anybody that knows Roy would want to have anything to do with me after ... after what I done to Roy.”

  “You want me to send a wire to your daddy? I know he’d be here lickety-split if you want him to. Your mama and probably all six of your sisters would come, too.”

  “Oh good gracious no! I don’t want my family to know what a mess I done made of my life. I am ... I am so ashamed of the way I turned out. Look at me!”

  “Mama Ruby, you got a baby in your belly to consider. Florida ain’t no state to mess with when it comes to crime. What if they put you in the ’lectric chair, or whatever it is they do down here to killers.”

  “Killer? Is that what you think I am?”

  “That’s what people usually call people who kill other people. And you bein’ a colored woman, them white folks wouldn’t think twice about killin’ you before that baby gets here. Lord have mercy, what a mess this is,” Othella moaned, rubbing her own belly. “And Eugene ain’t nowhere to be found. I tried to wire him at that motel that he told me he’d be at while he was in Pensacola. They told me that he checked out two days ago.”

  “And?”

  “And where has that jackass been for two days? I ain’t seen him. None of his friends or family will tell me nothin’ about his whereabouts. Now with this mess you done got yourself into, I got a feelin’ I’ll be all alone when my baby comes.”

  Ruby rubbed her belly. “You think they’ll let me out to have my baby? I don’t want my child to be born in no jail cell.”

  “Mama Ruby, think about what you done. You done killed a man. They might not care enough to execute you because Roy was a colored man, but the white folks will sure enough send you to prison, maybe even a chain gang. They don’t care about you bein’ pregnant. At the very least, they might lock you up for life.”

  “You got the key to my house. Go into my bedroom and raise up the linoleum by the window with the lamp next to it. There’s a bunch of money hidden there. Roy didn’t trust banks and he didn’t want Uncle Sam nosin’ around, askin’ how he made his money.”

  “You got a lawyer? You want me to give him that money?”

  “Yeah, unless you know a good voodoo woman.”

  “I don’t know no lawyer, and I sure don’t know no voodoo woman.” Othella paused and a wistful look appeared on her face. “But I can assure you that I will hunt up a good voodoo woman that’ll turn things around for me and you. Maybe I’ll even have her teach that husband of mine a lesson or two, so he won’t be strayin’ like a dog every month. I can’t think of no other way to make Eugene straighten up and stop leavin’ me on my own so much.”

  “You can kill him. If that don’t stop him, nothin’ will,” Ruby said.

  “Mama Ruby, I know you ain’t tryin’ to make light of what done happened. You goin’ to prison and there is just no tellin’ how long you’ll be there. Now shet your eyes and let’s pray for mercy.”

  Ruby and Othella prayed for ten minutes. Right after Othella left, Ruby sat down on the hard cot in the cold, ominous cell and cried like a baby. When she finished, she prayed some more. She promised God that if He kept her from going to prison for killing Roy, she would never shoot another man as long as she lived.

  Her prayers were answered in a roundabout way. The judge had reduced the charge of murder against Ruby to self-defense, which is what she had claimed in the first place. And with the people in the bar who had witnessed the altercation, the self-defense claim worked in her favor.

  However, the same judge told Ruby that she had committed more than one crime that day: she had jeopardized the safety of those two white children who had been left in her care by leaving them in the house alone when she went to the bar to shoot Roy. Didn’t she remember that the older boy liked to play with matches? the judge had asked. As soon as Ruby had left that firebug alone with his baby brother, he’d searched around until he’d located a box of matches. His mother arrived home just in time from the beauty parlor to put out the fire that he’d started in the kitchen with some old newspapers. And these were not just two random white kids. The mother was the mayor’s niece— his favorite niece at that! The judge told Ruby that she had cooked up a “mighty big mess.” And for that, she most certainly had to be appropriately “chastised.”

  The judge sentenced Ruby to one month and a day in the county jail for leaving the two white children in the house alone.

  Othella was there to escort Ruby home from jail by bus on the day that she was released. They spent the first couple of hours drinking as much of the liquor that they could that Roy had left behind. Then they packed up everything else in the house. Roy’s brothers were coming to get his car, his furniture, and his other belongings. He had paid three months rent in advance the week before his death, but Ruby had vowed that she’d never spend another night in that house. And, since Roy was not going to return, unless he returned as a ghost, the landlord promised Ruby that he would reimburse the extra rent money to her.

  “I’m right back where I started,” Ruby complained to Othella, minutes after they’d collected some of Ruby’s possessions and begun hauling them down the street in two large wheelbarrows to Othella’s house. Ruby had purchased so many new things for herself and her baby that they had to make several trips with those wheelbarrows. But Ruby didn’t mind doing that. She had other things to worry about. One was being alone again. “I ain’t got no husband no more.” She sniffed to keep herself from crying. She had done enough of that since she’d killed Roy.

  “I guess I could say the same thing myself. Eugene was home for one day last week and now he is on the road again. He could have at least come home to attend Roy’s funeral,” Othella lamented, sounding even more morose than Ruby. She saw the pitiful look on Ruby’s face so she decided to lighten up the conversation. “I know you will feel so much better after your baby gets here. The midwife that lives across the street from me, she’s goin’ to deliver for me and you both for twenty-five dollars apiece. They don’t admit colored folks in the hospital here.”

  “That ain’t nothin’ new to me. Me and all of my sisters was born right in my mama’s bed with a midwife. And don’t forget about my ...” Ruby gripped the handles of her wheelbarrow tighter and looked straight ahead. Othella was surprised to see a smile suddenly appear on Ruby’s face. “My baby’s due any day now, and I know your due date ain’t too much farther away. But even after all that’s happened, we’ll still have each other and our babies. I guess I’ll have to work in the fields again, and take on as many babysittin’ jobs as I can get until my baby comes. And I’ll have to get back to work right away after that.” Ruby sniffed. “Boy, what I wouldn’t do to have my mama with me.”

  “Mama Ruby, your mama would be glad to have you back at home. And she’d be happy as pie to be with you when your baby comes.”

  Ruby shook her head. “I’ll send her a letter. You got a stamp?”

  Othella rolled her eyes. “I got plenty of stamps. You ask me about stamps all the time, but you never take them. But don’t worry. Every time I write a letter to my folks, I tell my mama to send word through somebody to your folks that you’re doin’ just fine.”

  “And I am doin’ just fine, Othella. I’m about to be a mother, and that’s what I need to focus on now,” Ruby said with a heavy sigh. Less than thirty minutes after they reached Othella’s house, Ruby went into labor.

  Othella watched Ruby give birth, just like the first time. Virgil Lee Montgomery entered the world with a chip on his shoulder. Even with his eyes closed and his mouth stretched open as he screamed like a banshee, he challenged his mother. When the midwife placed him in Ruby’s anxious arms, he kicked his long, plump legs and waved his arms, hitting R
uby in the face several times, leaving a bruise on her bottom lip.

  “He’s a feisty little booger,” Othella noticed, hovering over the midwife’s shoulder as Ruby lay on the bed, still writhing in pain. “You ain’t goin’ to have to worry about nobody messin’ with him, Mama Ruby.”

  Once again, Ruby was happy. Or at least she appeared to be. She was proud of her son and started parading him around the neighborhood two days after his birth.

  “He’s such a pretty little yellow thing! And with all of that wavy hair, he should have been a girl!” one woman commented.

  “My next one will be a girl, God willin’,” Ruby predicted, wondering how long it would be before she got pregnant again.

  The first couple of weeks went well. And things got even better when Othella gave birth to her son Clyde a week later. Even though money was tight and their future more uncertain than ever before, Ruby and Othella spent their days and nights fussing over their babies.

  When the money got even tighter, they were forced to go back to work sooner than they had planned. Once again, they were performing the backbreaking farm labor that they had both come to despise. Neither of the new mothers wanted to leave her baby in the care of a babysitter, even though there were several competent babysitters in the neighborhood. Ruby carried her son in a pillowcase pouch around her waist when she picked oranges at the Gembing Brothers’ orange grove. Othella was too frail to work ten hours a day with her baby strapped to her body. She placed her son in a basket on top of a flattened out pillow and set the basket on the ground under a palm tree while she worked.

  But the babies didn’t fulfill all of their needs. At least not for Othella. Being a mother wasn’t enough for her. She was lonely. She hadn’t seen Eugene in two months and when he showed up a week later, it was just to take a quick peek at his new son and to get more of his clothes.