The Upper Room

by Mary Monroe

  “Have mercy—Mo’reen, help me. I’M IN THE QUICKSAND!”

  Maureen took her time going to him.

  “Mo’reen, I’m sinkin! Reach your hand to me!” John cried as Maureen stood over him with her arms folded. He was already in up to his waist.

  “Help me, Mo’reen! Help me, Mo’reen!” His bugged-out eyes looked at her incredulously. He could not believe what was happening. Instead of reaching out a branch or her hand, she was just standing and staring at him.

  “Aaarrrggghhh—Mo’reen, you can’t let me die!”

  “Why shouldn’t I?” she asked softly, letting her arms fall to her sides.

  “Mo’reen, I’ll do anything you say!” John cried. His eyes refused to blink. His heart thumped so madly, he feared he’d have a heart attack long before the quicksand swallowed his body. If only Maureen would reach out her hand and help him to safety. She continued to watch him struggle. His eyes betrayed him; now he saw himself, his life flashing before him. He was dying. He was a child again. Not in a bowl of quicksand, but held protectively in his mother’s arms.

  “Mama?” he said, opening his eyes slowly.

  “I ain’t your mama, you nasty peckerwood, you,” Maureen spat. “You lucky I’m a Christian. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have dragged your tail out that quicksand just then.” She let go of John abruptly and stood up. He watched her, tears in his eyes, as she slowly walked away, disappearing into the darkness.

  48

  After a restless night, when she had managed to sleep only three hours, Maureen was awakened by the sound of the screen door slamming downstairs. She tossed her bed covers aside and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her stomach ached, as did her face. But John’s beating was nothing compared to her future, now that she was going to have to suffer the consequences alone.

  Downstairs, Ruby and Slim sat at the table in the living room, Slim sipping coffee and Ruby sipping beer. Maureen entered the room and found them shaking their heads, grim expressions on their faces.

  “What’s wrong with yall?” Maureen asked. She stopped at Ruby’s side and folded her arms.

  “I just got some sho-nuff bad news from Slim,” Ruby replied, not facing Maureen.

  “What is it this time, Slim?” Maureen asked, turning to him.

  Slim looked up at her and did not blink his eyes during the whole two minutes he spoke.

  “John French done up and got hisself kilt. I declare, them jailbirds don’t live long. Fast Black and Loomis both got records a mile long . . . I suspect one of em’ll turn up dead next. Poor John . . . dead as a Jew’s tittie. The boy went and got hisself shot up last night. Tryin to rob one of them all-night stores in Miami. Went in there with his daddy’s shotgun and axed the man behind the counter for five hundred dollars. Just like that. Not a thousand dollars, not five thousand dollars, but five hundred dollars . . . like that was all he needed. Poor John, I guess the boy had a problem he was tryin to work out and robbin was the only way he could. . .. I’d have borrowed the money from somewhere to lend him if he had only come to me. . . . I liked the boy . . . and he liked all of us . . . specially you, Mo’reen . . . told me so to my face.”

  Maureen’s hands started to tremble.

  “John dead?” she asked, leaning forward.

  Ruby looked at her.

  “We’ll never know what was on the boy’s mind,” Ruby said sadly.

  “You know, it just don’t seem right. The boy knowed he could come to you, Mama Ruby. He always use to tell me you was like a mammy to him,” Slim said.

  Maureen felt as if the blood in her veins had frozen. Her situation was worse with John dead. Now there was no chance he would help her.

  “What am I goin to do?” Maureen whispered, not loud enough to be heard.

  49

  Maureen’s bruised and swollen face was easy enough to explain to Ruby. “I stepped on a pop-top on Zeus’ porch and fell down the steps,” she lied.

  With John’s funeral and tending the boy’s bereaved family, Ruby had been too busy to pay much attention to Maureen’s clumsiness.

  “Hold a slab of ice to your jawbone, girl,” was all Ruby said about Maureen’s injuries. Sukey was at the house that evening. Maureen sat on her living room footstool while Sukey, swimming in grief, begged Ruby for help.

  “Oh, Mama Ruby—I can’t deal with it! I can’t eat a bite! I can’t sleep a wink! Two days since my brother was snatched away! Oh, I can’t live with a death in my family!” The girl threw herself in Ruby’s arms as Ruby lay stretched out on the sofa. Ruby ran her thick fingers through the frail girl’s long blond hair and gently rocked her back and forth.

  Sukey had spent the night there sleeping next to Ruby in her bed. The day before, each member of John’s family had come to Ruby for consolation and a laying on of hands.

  “Oh, Mama Ruby, lay hands on me again . . . soothe this pain!” Sukey wailed. She had been particularly close to her brother and had introduced him to his fiance, Bonnie Sue McFarland.

  “Precious little ole white lamb you,” Ruby soothed, placing a hand on Sukey’s face, smoothing back her hair. “Just be thankful the good Lord didn’t let the boy suffer none.”

  Maureen sat on the footstool with her stomach churning, and a knot in her throat that had been there off and on ever since the rape.

  Five minutes after Sukey left, Ruby looked over at Maureen and Maureen quickly looked away. She ignored Ruby and looked out the window up the hill. Snowball was on his way and from the look on his face, he had a problem that required healing hands.

  50

  Maureen hid herself behind a stump until Catty and Fast Black had passed, walking down Duquennes Road.

  “Wonder where ole Mo’reen been keepin her tail these days. This is the third time today we been to the house and she was gone,” Catty complained.

  “I know one thing, she been actin mighty odd these last few days. I bet you she foolin around with somebody’s husband. Or some new man she don’t want us to know about, huh?”

  “Fast Black, you liable to hear about Mo’reen doin some of anything. Losin Bobby Boatwright to that high-yellow wench Jolene. I seen him with her at my weddin. Actin like lovebirds. Bobby Boatwright ain’t got a bit of shame, carryin on like he done at my weddin.”

  Fast Black stopped and placed her hands on her hips.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Catty stopped and shaded her eyes to look at Fast Black.

  “You bold hussy! The way you carried on at your own weddin, shamin my son, and now you talkin about Bobby Boatwright and Jolene.”

  “Look-a-here, you old maid—”

  Catty was cut off by Fast Black’s hand coming down across her face.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you, Fast Black?!” Catty slapped Fast Black back, harder.

  “Aaarrrggghhh!” Fast Black cried, grabbing a handful of Catty’s hair and pulling. “You keep on—you liable to make me lose my religion. I been—” Fast Black stopped pulling Catty’s hair. “Lord, Catty, there go Reverend Tiggs! He see us out here actin like wild women he liable to preach our funeral—HOW YOU DOIN, REVEREND TIGGS?” Fast Black waved both hands at the passing preacher.

  “Hi, Reverend Tiggs,” Catty called.

  Both waved until the preacher crossed the road.

  “Wonder where he headed?” Catty said.

  “Look like he on his way to Mama Ruby’s house.”

  Maureen listened with interest. The women talked loudly and started walking again. Both were wearing starched jersey skirts and stiff plaid cotton blouses with the sleeves rolled up. Catty’s hair was braided and Fast Black’s was covered underneath a blue bandanna.

  “Lord, I sho nuff hope Mama Ruby get them beer cans hid before he get there,” Catty laughed. “I bet he goin to check up on Mo’reen. She probably sneakin around with a married man or somethin. What you think, Fast Black?”

  “Oh, I do believe she got a new man. A foreigner, no doubt. I seen that Snowball hanging around the house last night. I
bet he was waitin on Mama Ruby to go to bed so he could go in and coochie coo with Mo’reen, huh?”

  “Probably so. From what I hear, Mo’reen sho nuff a hot mama,” Catty laughed. “You reckon she messin with some foreigner? One of them greasy Cubans or one of them ole West Indians?”

  “Either one of them or Snowball. You know how foreigners is when it come to women with long hair like Mo’reen got. I guess they like to wrap up in it, huh?”

  “Me, I don’t know and I don’t care. All I know is, Mo’reen been actin right odd lately. Sound like to me she messin with a sho-nuff different kind of man. Not a foreigner yet. But at least a albino.”

  “Speak of the devil . . . Catty, look who drivin up Duquennes Road toward Mama Ruby’s house.”

  Catty snatched her head around and shaded her eyes.

  “Oh, Snowball and Mo’reen doin the hoochie coo. Look at the way he wheelin Yellow Jack’s car.”

  “Wonder how long she been messin around with this all-white man, Catty?” Fast Black stopped walking.

  “Ain’t no tellin.” Catty sighed and shook her head. You know somethin, Fast Black?” Catty stopped walking too.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a good thing me and you keep our eyes and ears open. How else would we know what was happenin around here?”

  “You right. We got to find out everything on our own,” Fast Black lamented, shaking her head. “Mo’reen and a albino. Now that’s about the best piece of news I heard today.”

  “Sweet Jesus!” Catty made a wide, sweeping gesture with her hands, then stomped her foot. It was hot and humid. Both women were barefooted and perspiring profusely. Gnats played around their legs and sand stuck to their toes and ankles. They watched until Snowball went inside Ruby’s house before they resumed their walk. “All the regular men in Florida and Mo’reen got to take up with a albino. Wooo!”

  “Wonder how she could lay up with a un-black man? That’s about as bad as layin up with a foreigner, huh?”

  “Fast Black, what you call all them Cubans and crackers and West Indians you done laid up with? Shoot. And you even had the nerve to get yourself pregnant by a Chink. You talk about foreigners. Now I’m a woman what is scared of foreigners, sho nuff. Specially Cuban. I’d worry a scab on my brain tryin to figure out whether to feed him black-eyed peas and neckbones or Spanish rice and refried beans.”

  Maureen could barely hear her friends now as they had begun walking again and were almost out of hearing distance. The last thing Maureen heard was Catty saying, “Mo’reen could have done better than a albino—wooo!”

  Catty’s and Fast Black’s comments gave Maureen an idea. She had considered telling a wild tale of a night of partying in Miami and waking up in the bed of a strange man. A man with coloring that might produce a light-skinned child; a Hispanic . . . or even an Oriental. Either Snowball or Yellow Jack, both the appropriate coloring. Everybody knew Snowball was crazy about Maureen and as far as Yellow Jack was concerned, as close as he and Maureen were, it seemed natural that they would one day get together.

  Catty and Fast Black had already condemned her. If they were fool enough to think she was low-down enough to involve herself in a secret romance with an albino, the least she could do was be fool enough to let them think that. It wasn’t Maureen’s fault. They were going to believe what they wanted anyway.

  Maureen was five weeks pregnant and could not conceal her condition too much longer. Getting Snowball or Yellow Jack in bed was not going to be easy. She’d cussed out Snowball and he had vowed never to ask her out again. And Yellow Jack had never in his adult life shown any real interest in sleeping with her. She decided to try Yellow Jack first.

  51

  “Oooh, Yellow Jack . . . I been lookin for a man like you all my life,” Maureen purred. Yellow Jack had come to the house and found her alone.

  “What’s wrong with you, girl?” he yelped, with a surprised look on his face.

  “. . . Um . . . you is my kind of man, honey,” she said nervously. She grabbed the puzzled Yellow Jack by his hand, pulled him to the sofa and forced him down. “I done heard about you Chinamen. . . .”

  “Is this some kind of a joke, Mo’reen? Cause if it is, it sho ain’t funny. You up in my face, pullin on me. I tried to get you one time when we was kids and you like to got me kilt, runnin to ax Mama Ruby if you could give me some coochie. Shoot. You know I ain’t about to mess with you since that day.”

  “Oh, honey, baby, I been thinkin about you for the past ten years. I still think about that day in the yard when you axed me to hoochie coo with you.”

  “And it took you all this time to get around to wantin to do it?”

  “Yeah. You want to do it here on the couch?”

  Yellow Jack stood up and stared at Maureen, his mouth hanging open.

  “I come down here to borrow some bleach so I could wash my car mats. I ain’t come here to hoochie coo, Mo’reen. Shoot. Catty’ll cut my nuts off if she was to find out. And Bobby Boatwright’ll shit, if he was to find out. Mama Ruby’ll shoot me! You crazy if you think I’m goin to take a chance on Mama Ruby!”

  “Don’t you like me, Yellow Jack? Don’t you think I’m cute?” Maureen stood up, hurt.

  “Girl, you sharp as a tack and you know it. Everybody know it. The thing is, layin up with a fox like you ain’t worth me losin my nuts over. I ain’t that crazy. I want to live to make somethin outta myself. I overheard Mama Ruby tellin Reverend Tiggs she suspect I’ll turn into either a intellectual or a communist. That’s how much sense folks say I got. I’m goin to be somebody. Lest Mama Ruby get my damn ass!” Yellow Jack declared, moving toward the door.

  “Yellow Jack, don’t go. Just do it to me, one time,” Maureen begged, reaching out to him.

  “Hot damn! Girl, I do believe somebody been feedin you Spanish fly! Get away from me—go on, Mo’reen! Turn my pecker loose, girl!”

  Yellow Jack threw open the door and ran off the porch.

  “Yellow Jack, come back!” Maureen hollered, stopping on the porch.

  “You that hot, girl, I wouldn’t do you no good. You need somebody like Loomis. A man use to hot women!” Yellow Jack jumped back into his car and sped up the hill.

  Maureen couldn’t hold back her tears as she stood and watched Yellow Jack’s car disappear in a cloud of dust.

  52

  Another six days went by and Maureen still had no father for her unborn child. Only Snowball was left. He had stopped even speaking to her days earlier, and sometimes ran when he saw her coming in his direction.

  Out of desperation, she went to his compartment at the camp and knocked on his door. Next door, Catty ran to her bedroom window and snatched it open to lean her head out.

  “Mo’reen, what you doin knockin on that man’s door? What you want with him?” Catty demanded.

  “Shet up, Catty.” Maureen spoke without turning around.

  “Girl, you better tell me what you doin knockin on that man’s door! Me and you been best friends since we was babies and I’m suppose to know. You can’t go around knockin on men’s doors and not tellin nobody why.”

  Maureen whirled around and faced her friend angrily.

  “Catty, this ain’t none of your business!” she said.

  Catty gasped and covered her mouth with her hand as Maureen turned her back to her and knocked again. Snowball opened the door slowly.

  “Whatyouwantfromme!” he said, running his words together. He repeated himself at his normal speaking rate. “What you want from me?”

  “Can I come in?”

  “I guess . . .” he said, opening the door wide enough for Maureen to enter. “What you want?!” he asked immediately after Maureen was inside.

  “Remember that time you come to the house and axed me to . . . you-know-what with you?”

  Snowball looked at Maureen and blinked. His room was dark and stuffy. He rarely opened his windows and seldom received guests. There was only one chair, a portable television on the floor, a
nd a hotplate sitting on a gasoline can in his living room.

  “I remember,” he replied, puzzled but curious.

  Maureen touched his arm.

  “I been thinkin about you,” she said.

  Snowball just looked at her.

  “What’s the matter with you, Mo’reen?!”

  “I just want a man—what’s so wrong with that?!”

  “You want ME?” the surprised man asked with a grin.

  “Yeah, I want you, goddam it! Now you look here, you carry me in the bedroom and do it to me right now!”

  Snowball moved back a step, shaking his head.

  “All I do is go to work in the fields and shoot a little dope now and then. . . . I don’t mess with no one. . . . Why you doin this to me?”

  Maureen was amazed. Here she was trying to seduce a man who had made his feelings for her public and he was turning her down! Having Yellow Jack resist her had been bad enough.

  “Don’t you like me no more?” she asked, taking a step forward.

  The frightened man held up his hand and moved back a step farther.

  “Please go—please go and leave me alone. I never hurt you. I never hurt nobody. All I want to do is go to work and shoot a little dope now and then. I don’t want no trouble, Mo’reen!”

  Maureen lowered her eyes.

  “You think makin love to me would be too much trouble?” she asked morosely. Her voice was low and hollow. It occurred to her that her problem was deeper than she’d thought.

  “Please leave me alone, Mo’reen,” Snowball begged.

  Maureen opened the door and walked out slowly. Catty and Fast Black were standing outside with their hands on their hips waiting for her.

  Both women cursed as Maureen walked by without a word.

  Ruby was concerned when Maureen came home crying.

  “Who done messed with you?” Ruby demanded, rising from the sofa.

  “Mama Ruby, I just want to go to the upper room,” Maureen said. She stopped suddenly and faced Ruby.

  “What’s wrong, Mo’reen?”