Fifth Born

by Zelda Lockhart

  "Afta while, Loni and Bernice got married and moved onup to St. Louis and start having babies. Motha act like she was more proud of that than anything, and start sendin Nell up with Geraldine, Flora, and Gladys to visit your mama. Then after a while they was talkin about gettin they stuff and movin too.

  Our house felt bare right fast with nobody left but me and Jo and Chet. And I just as soon been invisible anyway, because didnt nobody treat me like I was no kind of good. Seem like as long as all the sisters and brothers was livin in the house, then the bad stuff didnt seem to have no hold in my mind. But after a couple of years a livin in that house with most everybody gone, I aint wanted nothin to do with bein in a place that made me feel so bad. Seem the more quiet it was around there, the more I could remember Bo and my grandeddy fightin, and Bo beatin me with a stick or whatever he could get his hands on.

  I took to sleepin up there on that little piece of land that Bo had stole. From what Motha told me, he schemed the only other colored bootlegger out of his piece of land back when they was young.

  When I first started comin up here, I made a little old wood tent no higher than my knee. That year I like to froze to death, and every now and then Id go sleep up in Mothas kitchen at night and leave right early before anybody woke up. When it got spring again, I start bringin Bos tools and things up here to build me my house. First I tried to only take stuff he wouldnt miss and then put it back quick. But afta while it was clear enough for me that he and Motha act like they didnt know what I was doin because they wanted me gone anyway. Look like soon as I wasnt livin there no more, all the sisters and brothers start comin home in the summertime and bringin they kids for Motha to see them grow. I sometimes watch allthe little ones play, me lookin from out behind the trees just to see what everybody look like.

  Things went on like that for a couple of years while I build my house.

  One night before I had the roof on yet, I lay there on my floor lookin up at the sky, thinkin about how I dont care nothin about bein by myself, how folks supposed to want to be with they people, how womens supposed to want to be married, but I aint never cared about none of that. I laid there on my own floor made from the trees that used to stand there and I looked up at the stars lookin like dust over my head, and me the only woman I knew who was like a heathen, a animal. I laid there thinkin bout everythang.

  I was already twenty-somethin years old. I knew that this worldMotha, Bo, my sisters and brothers, my Indian grandeddy, them dead trees that was now my floor, and all the stars above my headdidnt have nothin to do with no God. Things just was the way they was, ugly or beautiful, and me or nobody else didnt have no control over prayin for none of it to be different.

  I fell asleep just thinkin like that. Ella Mae paused and looked up at the sky. I was woked up in the middle of the night by your deddy.

  Her face didnt change, it was desolate, but one tear rolled out of her eye, leaving a trail of moisture over her weathered cheek.

  Somebody had give him a gun. He knew that even if he took me by surprise, I wouldve killed him with my bare hands if it wasnt for that gun, a gun just big enough to fit in one hand. Aint no way he wouldve been able to do to me what he did. When he was on top a me he said he was gonna show me what I needed a man for. Said maybe I could do almost everything a man could do.

  I could see Deddy, a smoother, thinner man than the one who cut the fur from the rabbits ankles.

  Ella Mae went on, And when he was through holdin that gun to my head, he hit me with the butt end of it. My ears filled with a hissin noise, and I laid there knocked out, dreamin about tryin to climb up over side of a bridge. That bridge was on fire, and I aint never forgot that dream.

  When I woke up, it took me a minute or two to separate my dream from what had happened. But when I did, I pulled up my work pants, blood and all, and ran outside and grabbed the ax I had stuck in a tree trunk. I ran out across the fields after him.

  The light of the morning was in the sky, but there wasnt no sun rise yet, just me barefoot and dark hair. I dont remember my feet on the ground, just the feel of that ax in my right hand, held high like a torch.

  I could see her running. Her hair and the ax like an omen coming on fast, her face solid, fierce, her breath escaping with each beat of her feet on the earth. I was crying now and trying to stay quiet so Ella Mae would keep talking. I needed now to know everything that had been said and done. I didnt let myself doubt her anymore. She had no reason to lie.

  All my life I had to believe Mamas stories, even the ones where I had been present. Mama painted over my images, daring me to contradict her. Now someone else was painting on me, someone I trusted because she was letting me know how she too had been hurt.

  She went on telling. I couldnt see nothin but red, and everything I had ever been mad about, everything that sat around inside my chest waiting for change, it all tried to take itself out in the swing of my ax. Everybody in Bos house looked like my enemy. I was scared and angry, like I had therabies, and they all looked evil to me. I moved grown folks with that ax. Motha, Bo, Jo, and Chet, all moved out the way of my swing. I screamed for Loni to come out, but he wasnt nowhere to be found. Bo and Jo finally snuck up behind and grabbed me and pulled me to the ground. I was screamin even after they dragged me out to Mothas room and give me five a six glasses a whiskey.

  I reckon thats what you could call the first one of them fits they say the devil put in me. But nobody would listen to the real cause of them, how somewhere in my heartElla Mae was sweating again and had her arms folded tight, like she was coldsomewhere in my heart, I knew that everything about my life was wrongdidnt nobody have no business treatin me like the folks call themselves my kin was treatin me.

  Tellin my story sho-nuf makin me remember things that I didnt even know I made myself forget. I sho-nuf always knew my own story, but till I hear it comin cross my lips, it make me see that things was even more awful than I thought they was.

  29

  The House of the Lord

  Ella Mae turned to look me in the eyes, but I looked down at the little mound of earth. She talked more, still looking in my direction. "I'm thinkin about you bein hurt and how you was strong. You sho got me feelin ashamed a keeping my mouth shut all this time."

  She looked at me, exhausted, and I could see how reliving her past had aged her.

  "Now what I tell you on the rest of this, you just got to know that some people's weaker than they want to admit. And life, it just keep on movin whether you come along with it or not. So sometimes people do what feel like is gonna make things better for right then. They don't bother to think about what the turnin of the years gonna bring. All they got the strength to think about is what's gonna feel better for a short while.

  When I lay there in Mothas bed tryin to remember where my ax was, listnn to Motha say over and over, Say your name. Say your name, I knew that she was healin me back from someplace she herself had been before. She took my hand and laid it on the squares of that old patchwork quilt on her bed and said what all the pieces a clothes were before they was quilt. She say my grandeddy name over and over to remind me of somebody who I loved in this world. She brought me back. And when my face let go of madness, I cried, and when I cried, she got up and closed the door.

  Thats when I said to her, clear, Loni soiled me. I told her that he opened up my body where only your husband supposed to touch you. When I say that, she finished the job a taking me away from that pain by giving me another sip a white lightnin, and kissin my forehead like I was her baby again.

  Then she said to me, Loni and Bernice and them kids left here yesterday. Now you know aint he or nobody else been up to where you stayin. You know better than to say that. You got to let the devil stop having your soul. On Sunday you gonna go get baptized down at the river.

  About then, I looked in her eyes and knew that she done lied to me and herself, and I knew she wasnt gonna be able to love me no more.

  Till now the sky had seemed eternally bright, but w
ith Ella Maes last words the sky dropped its light, and I felt myself get heavy with grief for all that was gained and lost in the past two days.

  Granmama had not protected Ella Mae. Mama had not protected me. And when we tried to speak, we had been fed homemaderum cough syrup or white lightning as a cure. I was sick in my stomach now. How we must have lookeda mammoth woman, young but old, and me, grown tall, my overalls two days dirty, my hair still in two French braids, nappy from sweat, both of our eyes swollen from tears cried over Granmamas grave.

  I reached into my back pocket to get Granmamas Bible. It didnt feel the same in my hands as it had a summer ago.

  I asked Ella Mae what Gretal had asked me, Do you believe in God?

  I aint got no use in believin in God. Some folks gets a great deal of peace in this world by believin in Godprayin and carryin onbut aint nothin ever come good to me by talkin about what God gonna do, or what the next world gonna be like.

  I never did get baptized, because I had started the mornin sickness and Motha knew I was pregnant from what Loni done to me, and when she knew that, she said wasnt no use in me gettin baptized now, it wasnt gonna do me no good.

  Way I see it, God and me just wasnt never meant for each other. Seem that he aint had room in his kingdom for a pregnant woman and a bastard child less it be by his own doin.

  I wanted to know the rest now. So your baby died?

  I stayed out here fixin my house. I finished the roof before I even got big, and wasnt nothin left to do but tend to it all, and make it look like somethin. Motha started bringin me this and that, and just leaving things on the porch if I was sleep with weakness from growin a baby, or she would just come by, say, How you makin out? This just somethin I was bringin by, and go on bout her business without stayin long enough for me to ask her anything, or make any kind of conversation.

  She brought plant clippings from her garden, seeds, andone mornin, a little old wooden loom she used to keep in the shed. Her note on it saidMAKE YOUR BABY SOME BLANKETS TO STAY WARM.But she aint give me nothin to make it with, so I start taking all the rags and work clothes I couldnt hardly fit in and made what I called rugs, because sho-nuf they was too rough to be blankets.

  She laughed. Her face had softened with the telling of the coming of her baby.

  I reckon the longer I was pregnant, the more I didnt care nothin about how that baby got in me. I just kept seein me and my baby livin in the house I built. Growin flowers, playin, me loving my baby the way it feel good to have somebody love you, like you the only one in the world can make them happy.

  30

  The Ghost of Ella Mae

  The night my water broke, my pain came down hard every few minutes. I ain't never felt nothin like that before in my life. Much as I thought I was gonna be having that baby like the cow have her baby calfjust let it come on out, then clean it up and nurse itall I could think was, 'Motha, help me!'

  "My mind wasn't workin on nothin in that kind of pain except gettin to my motha. These fields turned into a space as big as the world. All I could take was a few steps, then I was down on my knees beggin the crickets and things to shut up so I could concentrate on not dyin. I begged the night sky to give me the moon or the stars or somethin to wish on, somethin besides that heavy black sky that pushed down on me.

  "When I got there, Geraldine had brought Baby Sis Nell down to visit Motha, but the two of them ain't done nothin to help. Geraldine acted like I was too nasty to touch, andBaby Sis aint never knew no betta than to be scared of me.

  Motha got me in the tub and rubbed my belly with the warm water I was squattin in. Everything was turnin round in my head. I was sweatin and thinkin about how to do what Motha say so the baby would come out all right. I was lookin in Mothas eyes, and she was tellin me to push, but I could feel somethin evil in her, evil with shame. Somehow, I could feel her wishin the baby be dead, harder than I was wishing it be live.

  I started screamin for my baby. We was screamin and carryin on somethin awful, and before I passed out, my baby came out into the water, blood and life squirmin and reachin for to get out of all that slime and into its mamas arms. In my weakness I couldnt come all the way to. It was like somethin thick and heavy was holdin me in to my sleep, but sho-nuf I could hear my baby cry.

  When I woke up, Motha and Bo, Geraldine, Nell, Jo, and Chet all stood over me where I was layin in Mothas bed. They was lookin at me like I was dead. Motha say, Your baby died. Lord have mercy, it done gone on to glory. She started right up to cryin, but I aint said nothin, just laid there and stared, because I knew somethin wasnt right.

  I could tell by the way Motha smelled like fear, by the way she looked down on me. I could tell, because my shirt was just wet with milk for my baby.

  I said back to her, real calm like, Bring me my baby. She answered back, cryin harder, You caint be actin up now, your baby was born still.

  I couldnt stand to see Motha cry, but for the first time I didnt feel a twist in my belly when I looked at her this way. I could just remember the sound of my babys cryin, and I asked her again, loud this time, Where my baby! I didnt care that Boand them was lookin at me and shakin they heads. Nell ran out the room like she was scared a bomb was gonna go off. Nobody answered me. I looked at all of them, and nobody said a word, till Geraldine looked down on me with them glasses of hers, examining me, and said, She aint gonna be good for nothin now.

  Heat rolled over me. I could feel myself bein raised up out that bed, moving my feet and fists through walls, bringing the whole house down with the strength of my voice.

  Ella Mae talked now like she was preaching. Nothin was mine in this world. Motha and them wasnt gonna even let me have my baby. They had done killed it or let it die. Aint nothin was mine no matter what I did. Nothin in this world I could make real, and I understood that right then. I could see myself tearin Mothas house to pieces, and Bo and Chet and Jo chasin me like I was a hornet loose in the house, laughin like it was some kind of game.

  She paused to catch her breath and looked up at the sky to see where the sun had gone. Even though it was still light out and very hot, the day had floated over us.

  Her voice fell to a whisper, I dont know what happened to me, but for a long while after that night, I walked in my sleep and went back to the house on occasion lookin for my baby. I reckon thats how that crazy game a yours got started.

  I wanted to believe that I had always known her, because I felt now like I always had, and I trusted her more than anybody.

  Did you ever have any fits when I was little? Did you ever come around when we visited Grandeddy?

  I seen yall kids of Bernices at the funeral, and I seen yousome before and afta then. But I aint never had no fit when yall was down here. And I aint had no fit since Motha died.

  She got up from Granmamas grave, but her eyes stayed focused on the mound of dirt. I stood up too, and we both dusted off. She looked down to where I left the Bible. Dont leave that there. Neither one of us might not have no use for them words in it, but it belonged to your Granmama, and I knew how she treated you like you was somethin special. And far as I know aint nobody let you have nothin that belonged to her, so you might as well have them pictures and that old book she put all her loving in.

  Exhausted, she said, I reckon I dont know where we walkin to now, back to my house or to Bos, but we best start on our way.

  We headed out of the graveyard. I stepped over the high weeds that only came to Ella Maes knees. As we passed the church, I etched into my memory its broken windows and puckered boards.

  31

  Flesh of My Flesh,

  Blood of My Blood

  Our smells were thick in the humid air, mixed with the sweetness of hay and cow manure, both of our odors sharp. We walked slow now, side by side, retracing where we had torn through the grass earlier that day.

  Her voice came slow and rhythmic like our walking. "I'm gonna go on and tell you all the rest there is to tell, because my life and your life sho-nuf is tied together by
the same wrongdoin.

  "For everybody else, life just went on after that. Your mama kept on bringing new babies down here every summer, Chet moved on up to St. Louis to be with the rest of them, Jo went on and married that gal he got pregnant from down the road. When they had that retarded baby, Bo helped Jo build them a house on the property.

  "For me and Motha things wasn't never gonna be rightafter I lost my baby. I went on ahead and put Motha in the same place in my heart where I kept everybody else who I didnt have no use for. That dont mean her and I aint never talked again, but sho-nuf wasnt no hope of it even bein like it was before. She didnt even see fit to comfort me when wasnt nobody lookin, and I didnt even care no more. I just stayed out here, livin my life like there aint never was no family that I had.

  In my head, my Indian grandeddy was the only one on earth I ever had, and he was the only person on the earth I ever knowd. I knew in my heart, even inside my house, that I couldnt really kill the truth. Couldnt kill it because no matter what, every year spring come, then the beginning of summer, and all my ghosts in my head come back to me. I tried to lock myself inside my own house at night when I knew the time a year was comin that my baby was lost from me. But once or twice, I manage to get out of my house, and when I woke up, I was on the floor with Bo threatening to kill my crazy ass if I didnt get out of his house.

  The last time I threw a sleepwalkin fit, I come over the field at night, sleep, but runnin with fire and death in my eyes. I woke up with my hands around Mothas throat. Bo was out drinkin, and Jo and his wife and his little retarded boy lived too far down the road to hear me screamin at Motha or to hear Motha screamin for her life.