by Mary Monroe
“This beautiful woman can’t be none of Mo’reen!” Virgil cried. He rose quickly and embraced her. Turning to Ruby, he frowned, saddened to see that her weight had reached a dangerous level. She now weighed four hundred pounds.
“Thank you, Jesus!” Ruby cried, lifting her hands high above her head before grabbing Virgil and lifting him completely off the ground.
“Where you been, Virgil?” Maureen asked.
“In prison. I was captured and locked up and damn near forgot about,” Virgil replied. “Well, ain’t no more Viet Nam war . . . and I’m home to stay. Have mercy! I’m sho nuff glad to see yall!” He squeezed Ruby.
“I knowed you wasn’t dead!” Ruby laughed, slapping Virgil on the back.
By now Loraine and Loretta had come out on the porch and were watching this reunion with their eyes shaded.
“Who is that man yall kissin and huggin on, Mama?” Loretta asked.
Virgil’s breath caught in his throat and he looked from Loretta to Loraine.
“Whose little girls?” he asked, looking to Ruby.
“Mine,” Maureen said proudly. “Ain’t they pretty, Virgil?”
“Just like you is,” Virgil teased, running his finger across Maureen’s face. “You mean to tell me Mama Ruby let a man get that close to you, Mo’reen? You done got yourself married, girl?!”
“Hell no, Mo’reen ain’t married. Snowball snuck hisself up on Mo’reen and got her pregnant, then he went and overdosed on dope,” Ruby informed Virgil.
“Lo’retta, Lo’raine, yall come meet your uncle,” Maureen invited, beckoning the children with her hand.
“My uncle dead. V-Eight Nam got him,” Loraine said, eyeing Virgil suspiciously.
“He don’t look nothin like you, Mama,” Loretta remarked.
Virgil strode up on the porch and grabbed Loraine and then Loretta, holding them against his chest.
“I declare. A man go away from home for a few years and ain’t no tellin what he might come home to,” Virgil commented. “Lord, Mama Ruby, you get any fatter they liable to need a steam shovel to get you out the bed.”
“Virgil, everybody in Goons been fussin at Mama Ruby for years to stop eatin so much. She don’t listen to nobody. Just look at her feet. She ain’t been able to wear regular shoes since nineteen and sixty-three. She have to wear mens’ slides,” Maureen complained.
“First thing Monday mornin, I’m carryin you to one of them diet doctors in Miami and see what we can do about you eatin up everything what ain’t movin,” Virgil informed Ruby.
“I ain’t goin no place,” Ruby pouted, removing the children from Virgil’s arms. “Boy, you come on in this house so we can look at you some more. Mo’reen, drag them kids’ things out Virgil’s room and put em in mine.”
“How come they can’t move into the upper room with me?” Maureen asked, following Ruby as they all walked up on the porch.
“How many times I got to tell you, ain’t nobody can stay in the upper room but you?” Ruby said over her shoulder. “Now Virgil back, I got to get him settled in and back to normal. And don’t you keep gettin on me about my weight or no other mess. That clear?”
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“What you mean, you got a place in Miami, Virgil?! This is your home! You ain’t been home a month and already you talkin crazy! It’s bad enough I’ve had to listen to Mo’reen talk about movin off to some foreign place called San Francisco. The last thing I need now is for you to start talkin about movin to Miami. With all them wicked folks runnin around loose!” Ruby shouted.
The house was full of friends, all of whom had given up hope of ever seeing Virgil Montgomery again. Virgil’s welcome-home party had been going, off and on, for five days. Willie Boatwright and Catty were serving pretzels and glasses of pot liquor. Bishop was in charge of the record player and Loomis and No Talk made sure no nosy busybody wandered up to the upper room.
Maureen was outside on the front porch where it was quiet, getting acquainted with a man from Miami named Jack Roberts, another recently released POW who had returned to Florida with Virgil. To reduce the confusion between Jack Roberts and Jack Wong Harris, better known as Yellow Jack, Ruby promptly nicknamed Jack Roberts “Black Jack.”
Though he had been home only three weeks, Virgil had secured a job in a Miami lobster factory and had become involved with a woman named Mary Davis who lived near the factory, much to Fast Black’s dismay.
“I’m thirty-five years old now, Mama Ruby. I know you don’t expect me to pick up where I left off. I don’t want to stay out here in Goons no more,” Virgil replied. “I done changed a whole lot since you last seen me before I joined the army. But from what I done heard, you sho nuff ain’t changed. And, Lord, Mama Ruby . . . you near about as wide as a Mississippi road.”
“Don’t fuss at me about my weight. I know I’m a little on the heavy side. It run in my family,” Ruby whined.
“The only thing that run in your family is yall like to run back and forth to the ice box, Mama Ruby—”
“Shet up! Now, like I said, you ain’t movin to no Miami, Virgil!”
Virgil had pulled Ruby off to a corner. But her voice was loud, and everyone present could hear everything she said.
“I’m surprised Mo’reen is still livin out here in these swamps with you. Cooped up in that ole spooky upper room,” Virgil told Ruby.
“Don’t you never bad mouth the upper room no more,” she hissed. “That room’s sanctified, and Mo’reen’ll be in it till the day she die!”
“Will she, Mama Ruby?” Virgil looked out the window at Maureen and Black Jack.
Outside Maureen heard what Ruby had said, and Black Jack heard her too. He looked at Maureen, this lovely brown slip of a girl with eyes that were mysteriously sad, and he sighed.
“. . . Um . . . you got to excuse my mama, Black Jack. I think she goin through the change of life,” Maureen apologized.
Black Jack smiled and glanced away, out toward the Blue Lake. Maureen gasped and shook her head when she turned and discovered Catty and Fast Black with their heads out the opened front window listening. She stuck her tongue out at them and returned her attention to Black Jack. She looked him over quickly but thoroughly. He was tall. A little thin, but a few Sunday dinners would fatten him up, she thought. He was dark and had a smile that lit up his face. His hair was a little too long, but Maureen was not going to worry about that just yet. She had more important things to work on first. Like matrimony. This man was in pretty good shape considering he had been locked away in a Viet Nam prison for more than a decade.
“And you didn’t go into the army leavin no sweetie behind?” Maureen asked, trying not to appear coquettish.
Black Jack returned his gaze to her face and smiled.
“I did. When I got home my woman was married to my best friend and done had five kids.” He laughed, adding, “Now she’s almost as big as Mama Ruby.”
“Married your best friend, huh. Ain’t that a shame,” Maureen purred. Fast Black and Catty giggled and left the window.
“I don’t blame her. Would you have waited all these years?”
“I been waitin longer than that, Black Jack,” Maureen almost whispered.
“What’s that suppose to mean?” he asked, touching her cheek.
“I’ll tell you one day,” she answered, looking toward the lake. When she looked at him again, he was staring off toward the lake himself. She noticed his arms, which were muscular and long. As were his legs. He turned suddenly and noticed her looking him over. He smiled. He had already done the same to her. Their eyes met and she looked away, coughing to clear her throat.
“Can I come see you sometime, Mo’reen?”
“Uh . . . yeah.” She was unable to hide her nervousness. She looked toward the house. Ruby was now in the window with her head leaning out. “Long as you don’t do nothin to make my mama mad.”
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Virgil ignored Ruby’s protestations. He not only moved to Miami, he married Mary.
&nbs
p; “Mama Ruby, you better tie a can to Mo’reen’s tail. I seen her roamin up and down the street with Sister Mary’s Sister,” Fast Black said one rainy Saturday evening as she and Ruby sat drinking beer on Ruby’s front porch glider.
“Uh huh,” Ruby grunted, belching.
“Next thing we know, Mo’reen’ll be done run off again. With Black Jack. To that San Francisco . . .” Fast Black added.
“Shoot. Mo’reen don’t want Black Jack. After havin a sport like Bobby Boatwright, she ain’t about to take off behind a dull nobody like Black Jack. Shoot. Black Jack don’t even drink,” Ruby growled.
Maureen lay across her bed in the upper room while Ruby and Fast Black sat on the porch discussing her. A knock on her bedroom door interrupted her thoughts.
“Who it is?” Maureen called, rising.
“It’s me, Mama,” Loraine replied.
“Come on in, darlin,” Maureen said, sitting up. Loraine entered, dressed in her nightgown and holding a coal-oil lamp.
“Hey, Mama, I heard Mama Ruby and Fast Black talkin about you again just now. They was talkin about Black Jack too.”
“I don’t care,” Maureen shrugged. “They ain’t got nothin better to do with they time, child. Know somethin, Lo’raine?”
“What’s that, Mama?”
“One day I’m goin to give everybody in Goons somethin to talk about.”
Loraine gave Maureen a puzzled look.
“Everywhere I go in Goons, they already talkin about you. Sayin you is sho nuff crazy bein so old and still livin with Mama Ruby. Catty said it.”
“That wench got some kind of nerve. She is just as old as me, she still livin at home. Sometimes I think I’m the only person in this crazy town with a lick of sense. Just let em wait. One day I’m goin to haul ass.”
“With Black Jack?”
“I don’t know yet. All I know is, I ain’t goin to spend the rest of my good years in this place.”
“And I heard Boatwright say, you got a—”
“Lo’raine, don’t tell me nothin else them crazy folks done said about me.”
“OK. Mama, I won’t mention it, but Mama Ruby even said you ain’t got nothin no man would want.”
“Oh? Next time I see Black Jack, I’m goin to ax him if I got anything he want. . . .”
The next evening, while Ruby, Loraine, and Loretta were at Roscoe’s place, Black Jack came to the house.
Maureen served him pretzels and a glass of pot liquor.
“Black Jack, do I have anything you want?”
Black Jack choked on his drink. Maureen slapped him on the back as he coughed to clear his throat.
“What did you just say, Mo’reen?” he asked, looking at her incredulously.
“I got anything you want?”
“Now that you mention it,” he started, then stopped, looking toward the door. “Um . . . you thought about what I said last week, Mo’reen? About movin to Miami, I mean.”
“Yeah. I thought about it a lot.”
“Well?”
“I am goin to leave Goons one day. First I got to give Mama Ruby time to adjust.”
“Adjust to what?” Black Jack set his glass on the floor and placed his arm around Maureen’s shoulders.
“Virgil movin out. She don’t like livin by herself. There’s a bunch of rapists livin out here in Goons.”
Black Jack looked at Maureen for a long time before responding.
“I don’t think Mama Ruby got anything to worry about. . . .”
“She told me she seen Zeus lookin at her the wrong way. And Bishop. And Boatwright. And some Cubans.”
“Any of em tried to rape her yet?”
“No. But she say they want to. They just waitin to catch her livin by herself.”
“Where did Mama Ruby come from?”
“Louisiana. Why?”
“What make her think the way she do? She got half of Florida scared stiff, and she believe one of these men out here might try to rape her? Mo’reen, I’m a man. I can tell you, there is very few men who would rape a woman like Mama Ruby. In the first place, she ain’t young. She sho ain’t pretty. And very few men would want to wrestle with a woman Mama Ruby’s size, if you know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t know what you mean. What her size got to do with anything? She still a woman. She still got a you-know-what.” Maureen removed Black Jack’s arm from around her shoulders and gave him a sharp look.
“I had a fat woman once. It was like tryin to screw a piano,” Black Jack complained. “Mama Ruby ain’t—”
“I got to go change my blouse,” Maureen said quickly, jumping up from the sofa and running to the upper room.
Inside the upper room, Maureen collected her thoughts. Black Jack had said a lot of things to her about Mama Ruby nobody had ever said. Things that were really making her see just how bad off she was, living with Mama Ruby. Maureen was crazy about Black Jack. He was what she needed to piece her life together. He was a strong, dependable man with a good job managing a service station in Miami. He had a nice, roomy apartment and money in the bank. He also cared about Loraine and Loretta.
“Mama Ruby’ll kill Black Jack if she knowed he was tryin to talk me into movin to Miami,” Maureen said to herself. She stared out the front window for a moment. Yellow Jack’s Cadillac went speeding down Duquennes Road toward Miami with Ruby, Loraine, Loretta, Fast Black, and Boatwright accompanying Zeus, who was driving. At least she would have time to pull herself together before Ruby’s return. She turned around to see Black Jack standing in the doorway of the upper room.
“YOU CAN’T COME IN HERE, BLACK JACK. YOU IS A MAN! Mama Ruby say ain’t no man but Virgil and Reverend Tiggs and Jesus allowed in here! She say if a man was to come in the upper room, he’ll bring the devil with him!” Maureen exclaimed. She fell back against the wall and looked at Black Jack with wide eyes.
Black Jack smiled.
“I got news for you—by the time Mama Ruby get back to the house, the devil will have been in the upper room and gone,” he said, moving toward her with a wicked smile.
“What? Listen here—WHAT YOU DOIN UNZIPPIN YOUR PANTS?!”
It was her first time with him.
61
As soon as Black Jack left, Maureen hurriedly filled a foot tub with hot water and took a bath and a douche. After cleansing herself, she returned to the upper room to make sure she had removed every trace of Black Jack’s visit. She changed the sheets on her bed and sprayed the air with rose-scented deodorizer.
When Ruby and the children returned, Fast Black and Loomis were with them.
“Mo’reen, come down here and see what Loomis done bought for me!” Ruby yelled up to the upper room. Maureen ran down to the living room and gasped as soon as she saw Ruby.
Ruby had on a new set of false teeth. A pair so large she could not close her mouth all the way. Her face now displayed a constant grin.
“Good God!” Maureen exclaimed. She turned to Loomis. “Loomis, how could you do that to Mama Ruby?!”
“What’s wrong with you, girl? Them choppers cost me fifteen dollars. Cash money!” Loomis shouted.
“I can’t believe what I’m seein,” Maureen said. She ran to Ruby and felt the teeth, which were also too white.
“Mama, I like Mama Ruby’s new teeth. They look so funny!” Loraine laughed.
“Mama Ruby look like the cheshire cat,” Loretta added.
“Mama Ruby look like a fool!” Maureen barked. She looked at Ruby, Fast Black, and Loomis all standing in the middle of the floor. “You all must be crazy. Just like Black Jack say you is.”
“You just jealous cause you ain’t got you no new teeth!” Loomis said with a smirk.
“And I’m gettin sick of hearin Black Jack’s name. What you know beside Black Jack?” Fast Black shook her finger in Maureen’s face before continuing. “If I was Mama Ruby, I’d put a stop to you runnin around with that Black Jack. Next thing we know, he’ll be the cause of you backslidin.”
Ma
ureen ignored her and made herself comfortable on the sofa.
“Mama Ruby, when folks see you comin wearin them teeth, they will bust out laughin. You look like you smilin all the time—that ain’t natural,” Maureen told her.
“And what’s wrong with smilin all the time? When you smile, the world smiles with you. But when you cry, you cry alone. Ain’t that right, yall?” Ruby asked, looking from Loomis to Fast Black.
“Sho nuff,” Fast Black nodded.
“Mama Ruby ain’t never lied,” Loomis replied. “Praise the Lord.”
“Mama Ruby, is you a clown?” Loretta asked.
“Naw!” Ruby barked, reaching over to slide her knuckles down the side of Loretta’s face.
“Mama Ruby, you know how kids is. Just like drunks. They believe in speakin they mind the way they see things,” Loomis told Ruby. He went to the sofa and sat next to Maureen. “See Black Jack today?”
“. . . Um . . . yeah. He stopped by for just a minute,” Maureen replied.
“A minute? I would think the way he look at you, he’d want to spend more than a minute with you, girl.”
“Loomis, shet up. Black Jack probably got better things to do with his time than set around with Mo’reen,” Ruby said nastily.
“With other women, I bet,” Fast Black said, folding her arms.
“Can’t yall think of nothin good to say about Black Jack for a change?” Maureen asked angrily.
“Naw,” Loomis said with a smile.
Fast Black and Loomis stayed for dinner. Afterward, Maureen eavesdropped from the kitchen as Ruby instructed both of them to keep their eyes and ears open as far as Black Jack was concerned.
To avoid a lot of unnecessary confusion, Maureen decided to confess her feelings to Ruby. As soon as the visitors left to take Loretta and Loraine for a swim in the Blue Lake, Maureen came out of the kitchen and seated herself on the footstool in front of the window.
“I’m twenty-four years old now,” Maureen began.
Ruby turned to face her.
