by Mary Monroe
Ruby moved her tongue around inside her cheek, eyeing Virgil critically. She shrugged.
“Well . . . he shouldn’t have messed with her,” she said.
“The law goin to come down on Fast Black again! You got to do somethin, Mama Ruby!” Virgil waved his arms around frantically.
“Listen, I got a slab of ribs on my table right now with the meat so tender it’s about to fall off the bones. I leave Hattie here with all this good food, she liable to eat my ribs, bones and all.”
“I’ll go down to the house to check on that shot man with you, Cousin Ruby,” Hattie called out, with her mouth full of food.
Ruby looked at Hattie, then back at Virgil.
“You and Fast Black know I’m gettin too old to be straightenin out first one mess then another. You go tell that girl I’m on my way. Tell her to put that gun back where she got it and don’t shoot nobody else till I get there. That clear?”
“Yes, Mama Ruby.” Virgil turned and ran from the house so fast, he fell two more times before reaching the hill.
15
Hattie and Maureen accompanied Ruby to Fast Black’s house. Yellow Jack answered the door, greeting them with a grin. He looked nothing like his mother or any other black person. His skin was lemon yellow. His coarse black hair was straight and his features were strictly Oriental.
“Guess what—my mama done shot Moe in the goosumpipe and he bleedin like a stuck pig!” Yellow Jack shouted.
“So I hear,” Ruby said, following the boy to the cluttered bedroom where the injured man had been placed.
Fast Black was relieved to see Ruby.
“Come on in, Mama Ruby . . . if you can get into this messy room. That boy of mine is about as organized as a train wreck. Loomis is fixin to move in and Yellow Jack mad cause he got to sleep in a chair so Loomis can have the bed. That’s why he won’t clean up this room,” Fast Black apologized. She picked up a toy truck from the floor and sailed it across the room, where it landed in a basket of clean clothes.
“What’s goin on up here?! Can’t I have dinner without yall shootin up folks?!” Ruby demanded, stomping her foot.
Loomis Mitchell, Fast Black’s twenty-three-year-old bull-necked, bald, dark-skinned cousin, had just been released from prison after serving five years for robbery. Having nowhere to go, as his woman had run off with another man and his parents in Key Largo wanted nothing more to do with him, he had drifted to Goons. He sat with his legs crossed at the foot of the bed where the man Fast Black had shot lay.
“Mama Ruby, this bold nigger had it comin,” Loomis interjected, nodding toward Moe, who lay on his back glassy-eyed and frightened, blood trickling out from his neck.
Hattie and Virgil stood in back of Ruby. Maureen and Yellow Jack had disappeared from the house and were running and squealing in the front yard, beating one another with sticks, playing a game they had made up called grown-folks.
The bleeding man tried to speak but was only able to gurgle.
“Fast Black, you got a itchin to go back to jail?” Ruby asked angrily.
“The only way I am ever goin back to jail is if a storm was to blow me there. Another law come here to mess with me and I’m subject to—”
“Shet up, Fast Black! I fixed it with them white folks so you wouldn’t have to go to jail for that commotion in Key Largo last week. You know every time you young folks go to Key Largo you get in a mess.” Ruby paused and turned to Virgil. “And you—you ain’t goin to Key Largo no more.” Ruby looked at Loomis. “You, Loomis, you ain’t allowed in Key Largo.” She turned to Fast Black. “And you, Fast Black, everytime you go to Key Largo it take us a month to get you back Christian. Any of yall go back to Key Largo and I’ll fix you so you’ll never smile again . . . lest you smilin at me. That clear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” they all said.
“What’s in this Key Largo place?” Hattie asked.
“I don’t know. But I’m goin to have Slim carry me there so I can find out. I been expectin trouble on account of Fast Black went there to a party last week and ain’t been right since,” Ruby told Hattie. “Now.” Ruby looked at Loomis. “You run up to the camp to use somebody’s phone and call the law. Ax for Big Red. Tell him I say come quick. Tell him I say I seen some nigger man fixin to rape a white woman and I can’t stop him.”
Loomis jumped up from the bed and ran from the room.
Big Red was a white Miami policeman Ruby affectionately referred to as her “connection.” Generally the police avoided Goons with its confusion and bloodshed. Only a report of a white woman raped by a black man commanded the law’s instant attention.
Simon “Big Red” Davies was more than a connection to Ruby. He was one of her closest friends. He was a stout man of thirty-five with flaming red hair and a passion for colored women, a commodity Ruby had supplied him with since her move to Goons.
Thirty minutes after Loomis placed the call, Big Red arrived on the scene.
“Can’t I stretch out on my do-fold and enjoy the wrestlin match on the television down at the station without yall actin a fool? What kind of mess yall got goin on out here this time, Mama Ruby?” Big Red asked as he strode over to the bed containing Moe, who was now unconscious.
“We just had a little accident, that’s all,” Fast Black grinned.
“Shet up, girl. The man axed me,” Ruby snapped. “We just had a little accident, that’s all,” she smiled, folding her arms.
Big Red nodded and caressed his chin.
“Who caused the ‘accident’ this time?” he asked, looking around the room at the puzzled faces.
“I sho didn’t. Me, I just got here from Baton Rouge and ain’t knowed nobody long enough to shoot em,” Hattie said quickly.
Big Red looked at her, then at Ruby.
“Am I seein double or what?!”
“This is my cousin from Louisiana. Everybody say me and her look like twins,” Ruby announced proudly.
“Like two nuts on the same billy goat.” Big Red shook his head and whistled long and low. He turned back to Moe. “Now, who shot up this man?”
“Fast Black,” Virgil volunteered.
“I might have knowed that. Girl, you been in trouble since the day you was born, huh?” Big Red glared at her.
“And I’m goin to be in trouble till the day I die!” Fast Black snapped.
“Well, what happened here? And be quick about it. I want to get back to finish seein the wrestlin match!” Big Red exclaimed, facing Ruby.
“We just had a little accident out here, that’s all,” Ruby explained.
“Uh huh . . . accident,” Big Red said sarcastically. He removed his cap and ran his thick fingers through his hair. “That nigger dead or what?”
“Naw, Big Red. That’s the problem. He just playin possum. We got to get him to a hospital sooner or later. The thing is, them white folks is bound to be axin a bunch of questions. You know how nosy them white folks in Miami is,” Ruby sighed.
Big Red looked at Ruby thoughtfully.
“Let’s make out like Moe here with his clumsy self dropped Fast Black’s gun and it went off. Accidental,” Loomis suggested.
“I say, let’s make out like Yellow Jack was playin with the gun and it went off,” Virgil said.
“Naw . . . now that ain’t even believable. Let’s make out like Mo’reen broke in the house, stole the gun, and it went off,” Fast Black insisted.
“Yall tell a bare-faced lie like that on my baby and I’m goin to shoot somebody,” Ruby said seriously.
“Loomis got the best story,” Hattie muttered, tapping her toe rhythmically.
“I reckon so,” Big Red sighed. He looked at Moe and shook his head impatiently. At that moment Moe came to. He looked around the room and tried to speak. Still, the only sound he was able to make was a gurgle. From that day on he was referred to as No Talk.
16
A week after being shot, No Talk resumed his relationship with Fast Black.
“You got a thing for No Talk
or what?” Virgil asked her one day as they strolled down Duquennes Road. He had been hearing rumors about Fast Black dumping him entirely and devoting all her time to No Talk.
“WHY?!” she roared.
“. . . um . . . I was just axin,” Virgil replied.
Two days went by and Fast Black made herself unreachable as far as Virgil was concerned. Each time he went to her house, he was greeted by Yellow Jack or Zeus.
Everybody in Goons told Virgil to forget about her and settle down with a more stable woman. No Talk was even threatening to marry her. Since he was now eligible to collect a sizable disability check due to his neck injury, Fast Black saw him in a different light. This man who never could keep a job was now financially set for life, in addition to the fact that he would never be able to argue with her.
“My mama and No Talk went to look at a weddin ring,” Yellow Jack told Virgil one time Virgil tried to see her.
“I done heard just about everything now,” Virgil hissed. “The bitch!”
“He done axed her to marry him . . . he wrote it on a piece of paper,” Yellow Jack continued.
“What Fast Black say?” Virgil asked. “She say she goin to marry up with No Talk?”
“She say she might and she might not,” Yellow Jack giggled.
No Talk was a short, brown-skinned man of twenty-one with curly brown hair and boyish features. He lived on the Kaiser camp, also off Duquennes Road, with his uncle, Roscoe Mattox, who was Ruby’s so-called fiance.
Depressed about Fast Black and No Talk, Virgil spent less and less time at home, where Fast Black was a constant visitor. And when she came, she usually brought No Talk with her.
“Where Virgil at today? I ain’t seen him since he come home from school,” Hattie mentioned one day.
She sat next to Ruby on the living room sofa. Both women were fanning themselves vigorously with rolled newspaper. Ruby stared at the can of beer in her hand as if she could not make up her mind whether to drink it or not.
“He went fishin with Big Red,” Ruby replied. She paused to drink. “Virgil got the vapors on account of Fast Black is on the verge of givin him his walkin papers.”
Hattie shook her head.
“These young folks,” she complained. She turned suddenly to face Ruby. “Where is Mo’reen?”
“In the upper room. I suspect she got the measles. She broke out with itty-bitty red bumps a while ago.”
Hattie continued to look at Ruby. She looked at her so long, Ruby became uneasy. She set her beer can on the coffee table and roughly wiped her lips with the back of her hand.
“What’s the matter? Did a gnat light on my jaw or somethin? Why you lookin at me so strange, Cousin Hattie?”
Hattie shook her head slowly.
“I declare, Cousin Ruby. You doin so well out here in Florida. You done raised two fine children with not a penny from that scoundrel husband of yours. You reckon he’ll ever get away from that Jew woman and come home?”
“If he ever come back to Florida, he better keep away from me.”
“But wouldn’t you want him to live close to you?”
“If that low-down, funky black dog was to move in a house close to me, he wouldn’t live long.”
“Oh. Don’t you miss him?”
“Like I miss labor.”
“Oh. What if he show up one day? What if he slide into town in a big black car?”
“It better be a hearse. With him layin in the back.”
“You hate him, sho nuff, huh?”
“After the way that low-down, funky black dog took off and left me to raise two children by myself? I wouldn’t exactly say he’s a friend of mine,” Ruby sighed, convinced that her lie was still credible. She removed a handkerchief from her duster pocket and started to cry softly.
“What’s the matter, darlin?” Hattie rose up and stood in front of Ruby, gently patting her back with both hands.
“Cousin Hattie, I took a bad turn. I done run off from my daddy’s house and ain’t been back since. My man done done me wrong. Nothin never works out for me. I ain’t got nothin but my children and Slim and Roscoe and Boatwright and Fast Black and Zeus to see after me. I’m a old woman and ain’t in no shape to work. Them white folks in town, they signed me up for disability checks on account of my high blood pressure and flat feet and all this fat won’t let me get a job.”
“Well don’t cry, Cousin. You been blessed. You got them children, this house, men friends. What more could a woman want? Gold? I should be half as lucky as you is. Me, I ain’t got nothin but that little shack in Baton Rouge and my funky, two-bit job workin as a cook at the country club. I ain’t got no children, no man, no nothin. Anybody need to be settin here cryin, it ought to be me.”
Ruby stopped crying and looked at Hattie thoughtfully.
“And when you did leave Louisiana, you left with Othella. She was a good woman. Whatever happened to her? She come home a couple of years ago when her mama passed but ain’t nobody seen her since. Where she at?”
“Uh . . . up north. Run off with a white man,” Ruby lied.
Hattie looked down at the floor and shook her head vigorously.
“That Cajun blood,” Hattie said, letting out her breath. “She come home with a army of children—pretty kids too and ain’t had a man since the first. I said to myself, Othella need all them kids like I need to gain more weight. And loose as she always been, she should have give them kids up to the home where they could have been looked after. Women like Othella always have a pile of children. Shoot.” Hattie returned to her seat.
“I know what you mean. . . .” Ruby said in a hollow voice.
“She come paradin up and down the street in Baton Rouge with them kids lined up like soldiers. Wench. I spoke to her and she looked at me like I’d stole her pocketbook. I axed her where you was.”
“What she say?”
“She say, ‘That’s somethin that’s unknown to everybody but God.’ See, she knowed ain’t none of us knowed exactly where you was till you started writin me a while back.”
“What else she say about me, Cousin Hattie?”
“Somethin I couldn’t make no sense out of. Say you’d listened to the wind one time too many and that the wind had carried you off. Wonder what she meant?”
Ruby scratched her neck and gave Othella serious thought.
“Who cares.”
Hattie turned to face Ruby and looked at her for a long time again.
“What’s wrong now?”
“Aunt Ida would sho nuff love hearin from you. Your papa would too. And they would have a fit over them kids of yours, Ruby. How come you ain’t been in tetch with em?”
“I been too shame. After the way me and Othella took off. I didn’t want my sisters to pick on me about losin my husband. You know how meddlesome they is. All six of em.”
Hattie sighed and shook her head.
“Cousin Ruby, Cousin Ruby. You should have been writin your family. Girl, you ain’t got no six sisters to worry you no more.”
Ruby bit her bottom lip and looked at the door. She waited a while before looking at Hattie again.
“What happened to my six sisters?”
“Flodell passed. Five years ago she fell off a porch in Baton Rouge and hit her head on a cement block. Lizzie and Lola married military men, and last I heard of them they was livin in some foreign country. Bessie married a man from Chicago and that’s where she live these days. Just Beaulah and Carrie left in Louisiana,” Hattie sighed. “They done scattered like leaves, your sisters.”
“Lord, I got to go home and see my family. I want them all to see what a success I turned out to be.” Ruby lifted another can of beer off the coffee table and popped the top with her teeth.
Hattie watched a blue vein on the side of Ruby’s throat wiggle as she drank from the can, turning it upside down.
In the upper room, Maureen and Le Pig were performing acrobatics on Maureen’s bed. Maureen was facing the window in the front of the room and spotte
d Reverend Tiggs sauntering down the hill toward the house.
“Come on, sugar!” Maureen said to her pet, scooping him up in her arms. She ran from the room and slid down the stairs.
Ruby was surprised to see Maureen suddenly show up in the living room.
“Where you goin with that pig and them measles, Mo’reen?” Ruby asked. She stood up and placed her hands on her hips.
“The preacher man’s comin! I seen the preacher man come down the hill!” Maureen announced. “And look like he got the Bible in his hand!”
“Great balls of fire!” Ruby exclaimed. She quickly glanced around the cluttered living room. Beer cans and empty plates dominated the floor and dining room table. Old newspapers were all over the floor, the couches, and the coffee table. “This livin room look like a train wreck!”
Hattie and Maureen helped Ruby snatch up the cans and newspapers and plates. By the time the reverend reached the front porch and started to knock, the room was as neat as a pin and Hattie was spraying rose-scented room deodorizer.
“Well, look who’s here!” Ruby yelled as she opened the screen door to invite Reverend Tiggs in. “What a nice surprise!” She laughed and embraced her preacher, almost squeezing the breath out of him. Hattie sat on the couch with Maureen on her lap. The pig sat quietly on the floor next to Hattie’s bare feet.
“Sister Ruby, you sho nuff keep a neat, fresh-smellin house,” Reverend Tiggs commented, looking around the room with his thick eyebrows raised. He looked up at the ceiling, sniffing. He was a diminutive man of sixty-five with gingerbread brown skin and hair as white as snow. His tiny body fitted nicely on the footstool that sat near the door. He crossed his short legs and placed his Bible at his feet.
“I believe in keepin a clean house,” Ruby smiled, sitting down on the large sofa facing Reverend Tiggs, her eyes darting from side to side.
