Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime

by J. California Cooper

  I was in a soft, tired, lovin mood. Seems like I always was. I put “our” special record on, “There Will Never Be Another You.” As it played for lovers, I said, “You know, I love you.” Hands and arms reachin for him.

  He was as sarcastic as usual. He moved away from me, said, “Yea … you been tellin me.”

  I began to whine. I hated it when I did it, but couldn’t quit. “I love you. Why can’t you stay home with me? Love me?”

  He sighed. “Cause I don’t love you. Been showing you from the beginning. Never have.”

  Naturally, still whining, I said, “But I love you.”

  “Naturally,” he said. “But that don’t make me love YOU.” Still sarcastic.

  He got up to leave the room I had cornered him in. I wasn’t through though, hadn’t had enough, yet.

  “Baby.” I reached out, again, to touch the man I loved. “Webb, we could be so happy together, if you would just love me like you should. Like I love you. I’m your wife.”

  He moved away from me, saying, “Girl, that was what YOU wanted. I know what you want cause I want it too. I want to love somebody like you do. My way. For me. You can’t make me love you … cause love don’t be made. Love is given freely. And … I want the person I love to love me back freely. I don’t want to have to MAKE nobody love me, like you try to do.”

  I tried to say something, anything to make him stop, cause he was hurtin me, again. “But, Webb …”

  But he didn’t stop. “Tilla, I tried to tell you I didn’t want you for no wife. You didn’t want to hear that. All you knew was what you wanted. Well, now you got me and what I give you. It’s all you ever had and I not giving you any more than I have for you. It’s all I’ll ever give, which is almost nothin.” The record music came to the end. Then he left the house again and I didn’t see him for two days.

  We now had two babies. Girl first, boy second. I loved my babies. When my first baby was born, Webb wasn’t there. Didn’t see her til my mama brought me home. I know he loved that baby, but he didn’t spend much time with her. When my second baby was born, he didn’t come til the second day in the hospital. He did help take care of our daughter though. I lay in that hospital bed, in pain, and pretended ours was a natural, happy home now. I get sick when I allow myself to think of how I was!

  Once, I decided I would make him jealous. Then he would see how much he loved me. Mmmh, mmmh. I ran Honey B down, cause I didn’t know nowhere to go and didn’t have no new friends. She was still doin the same things, havin a good time. She said it was good.

  We went out. I didn’t look too good. My stomach plump under that satin skirt Honey B loaned me cause I didn’t have no clothes to fit me. She put a low-cut blouse on me, with my breast showin at the top, full of milk anyway, which kept runnin out a little. I shoulda been home feedin my baby boy. High-heel shoes that was too small. I felt ugly. I was.

  Honey B said, “Wellllll, you’ll be all right. Somebody out here will fall in love wit cha!” But they didn’t. They couldn’t.

  I didn’t like strange men touchin on me. Didn’t like the way they held me and tried to roll against my stomach and thighs. I only went once. It didn’t work out and Webb never gave my absence a second thought. He might not even’a known I was gone out. Cause my mama kept my babies.

  Another time, I decided to call Donald. He wasn’t hard to find cause he was still livin at home, going to college, bout to graduate again. I bet he had somebody better to take to his prom this time. He seemed glad to hear from me, but couldn’t understand what I wanted with him. I didn’t know either. He did tell me though, that Honey B called him, a lot! But he didn’t care for her company. Honey B always said he was ugly and square! Well!! So much for friends!

  I gave up after that. I was a mother and a wife. I decided to settle down at that and try to be happy … til I could do better. I spent my nights up with my babies all by myself, sick or well. I spent many nights, hundreds, sittin by the window, waiting, waiting, waiting for my heart to come home.

  I also began to spend nights standing outside some woman’s house, all I could locate, watchin to see when Webb came out. Sometimes I saw him. I made scenes, whinin and cryin. Fightin even. We fought on the streets, endin with him drivin off and me gettin on some bus, a wreck, goin home to whine some more.

  I spent my little young life waitin, waitin, waitin for that man to love me. I wasted my time. Ten good years.

  Webb worked and took care of us til the babies were four and five years old, then he told me I better get a job or something cause he needed help. Said he couldn’t take care everybody’s needs and his too. So I got a part-time job. He brought less money home then. I even gave him some of mine for awhile, til I decided something else came first. Me! I guess you say, “At last!”

  After a few more years, he settled down to a regular woman. Gildy. She was bout thirty-five years old. (He was bout forty-six then.) I looked at myself and I could see why. My skin was dry and looked moldy, from all those cigarettes I smoked waitin for him to come home. Liquor will beat you out and I used it to be able to go to sleep nights. I was almost skin and bones cause I never had a appetite. My clothes were a mess cause I never got nothin new and what I had was old and ironed out. Gildy was always lookin fresh and pretty. She was a mellow, good-lookin woman. A adultress, to me.

  I knew her house cause I had stood cross the street from it enough times, holdin my babies’ hands. (Yea, I even took them with me when I couldn’t find a sitter.) When I couldn’t do that, I just called on the phone til they took the phone off the hook. I kept tryin to give up and not do those things, but seem like I couldn’t quit, no way I tried.

  Bout that time, my mama and grandmama wanted to give my children music lessons. Piano for her, flute for him. I came out of my tired confusion long enough to agree. I don’t remember the day they moved the piano in though. But I do know, one day, early on, I happened to be sittin there when my daughter was gettin a lesson. Some piece of my mind woke up and listened. I got interested. I started being there at all her lessons and practicin myself when she was through. In five months or so, I was playing better than she was, cause I practiced more.

  Practicing seemed to take my mind away from Webb. I loved music anyway. I started going with my son to his lessons. Hell, another five months and I could toot a few simple tunes on the flute. I remember my mama couldn’t get me to take no lessons when I was young. I thought it was borin. Now music filled some of my mind and Webb didn’t have it all.

  I started payin more attention to other things the kids were doin. Got to play volleyball and baseball, go to picnics, met some nice people. That took my mind off Webb some more. I began to gain a little weight and felt way better in my mind. I start lookin a little good and that did me a lot of good.

  Another thing I noticed, the parents of my children’s friends. They was all something special. The mothers mostly all had gone to some kind of college or skill school. They had special training and good jobs. My daughter was always kinda complainin that I just worked in a kitchen. I’d listen to her and think, “Hell, you oughta be glad YOU ain’t workin in a kitchen. Be glad I’m working anywhere!”

  That’s the way my life was round about then. Just nothin much. Then one day, I was gettin the bus home from work. Worked full time then. Just doin lower slave work at that restaurant, not even a waitress. No personality I guess, all dried up. Anyway, I had sat down at the bus stop that evening, lookin tired and haggy. I noticed these people comin down the street.

  A older man and a older-lookin woman was coming toward the bus stop. She had a frown on her face and was saying words like little snakes and little crocodiles and termites and things. He was saying words like pretty flowers, but they was just pretty weeds. They was talkin bout money. She had a uniform in a clear plastic bag over her arm. I could see the little white apron. He was askin her for money. He begged and she fought every new argument with facts about their needs, bills and such. Finally she gave up and, turnin her
back to him, she went into her purse. Dug way, way down and come up with a few crumpled dollar bills, not wantin to see her money go away from her, I guess. He grinned and took them little dollar bills, turnin to go without a “thank you.” She hollered after him, “I know what chu gonna do with it!” She lowered her voice. “Bastard!”

  I forgot myself and stared at her. She looked at me and rolled her eyes away. She was mad. She rolled her eyes back to me, said, “What you starin at?! If I don’t give it to him, he gon steal it! That man don’t worry bout nothin! He spect me to do the worrin. He don’t keep no job! Yes, he do; I’m his job! He keep me workin! Humph!” She looked away, she looked back. “I use to think I loved him. Now, I just done got too old and everybody needs somebody! I wish I knew then what I know now!” She looked away, then back at me. “You only young once, honey. Heist your ass up and do somethin for yourself! Get somebody who loves YOU! If somebody just havta be the slave, make him YOUR slave fore he makes you his! Cause if you don’t look out … you’ll be the slave! How old are you?” She didn’t wait for no answer. “Bein a young fool can be fun, but young fools turn into old fools, and it ain’t no fun no more!” She gripped her purse hard and tight and looked off down the gutter til the bus came.

  When we got on the bus, the driver frowned as she counted out pennies, nickels and dimes to him for the fare. Then she sat down and looked ready to kill or cry. I sat down, thinkin and watchin the gutters whiz by, like time.

  Another day, not too long after that, same bus stop, I was movin to my seat when someone said, “Tilla? Tilla?” I sure didn’t want to see nobody, tired as I was and lookin bad too! It was a old school friend of mine, Maxine.

  Now I was bout twenty-six years old, so she was too. But, chile, we look so different. She was dressed like a older college woman, fresh, young and bright. I was dressed like a tired slave, looked way older than her. She told me she was bout to graduate from law school college and she would be a lawyer. A lawyer! Why I was as smart as she was when we was in school!

  She said, I remember cause I can’t forget, “And what are you doing with yourself?”

  I looked down. “I got two children. A girl and a boy.”

  She laughed. “Well, any woman can do that, Tilla. I mean, what else are you doing?”

  I didn’t laugh. “Well, any woman can’t have the ones I have. I’m glad I have them.”

  She smiled. “That’s good. Are you married? Who did you marry?”

  I didn’t smile. “Yes, I’m married. Almost ten years now. You don’t know him.” Then I thought. Or maybe you do. “You sure are goin to make a good lawyer, cause you sure ask a lot of questions!”

  She preened. “I have to practice. I intend to be good! But didn’t you ever have something else you wanted to do? Something special you wanted to be? I dreamed of being a lawyer all my life.”

  I sat thinkin a minute or two.

  She said, “Humph, you didn’t have a dream?”

  I answered, at last. “My husband was my dream.”

  She laughed. “Well, you must be happy then.”

  When I didn’t say nothin and didn’t laugh, she said, “Maybe you have another dream? After him and your children?”

  I looked down at my bleached, calloused, sore hands. Didn’t say nothin.

  She did though. Said, “You don’t look happy to me. Maybe you need another dream. One day the children will be gone. He may be dead. That’s when you will need a dream all your own. He may even leave you broke! You need another dream that makes money!”

  I laughed to myself. He kept me broke!

  She got up to go. Sayin, “You don’t look happy, Tilla, you don’t even look mildly satisfied. Get yourself a dream. It’s your life.”

  As she was passin my knees, I said, “I’ll get one! Next time you see me I’ll have me a dream!”

  She pat my shoulder and said, “Good! Every life needs one.” Then she was gone.

  I didn’t move over cause I didn’t want anybody sittin beside me. I wanted to think, alone, as I looked down in the gutters whizin by, like my life.

  Here I was on my way home to try to rest enough to be ready to get back to a lowly third class kitchen worker!! Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I got off that bus thinkin bout that and I thought about it a loooooong time. Ain’t stopped yet. Called the school board to see bout me makin up my school graduation. They told me “three months.” It was work, it was struggle, it was hard. My kids helped. In three months, I had it!

  Stopped off, another day, to pick up a catalogue for classes at the junior college. Not long after that I registered in college. Now! Smile, smile, smile. Business administration and computer science. Two things I didn’t know nothin about! But I’m smart. And gettin good at it!

  I learned so much, I heard so much. Met people, men and women, struggling just like I was. But we were making it! The hard way, too!

  Not too long after that, ramblin round in my mind that was pretty busy lately, I decided to give Webb a divorce. The next time I saw him, I told him.

  Said, “Webb, I’m not gonna try to hold you anymore. You want to go down and get your divorce, go ahead.”

  He looked at me a minute or two. “What’s bringing this on?”

  I put my book down and looked at him. “I just think you oughta be free to do what you really want to do.”

  He laughed. “That would make you free to do what you want to do, too. Have you found another poor fool you want?”

  I didn’t feel like laughin. “I just want us both to be free. Right now, you the only one free.”

  He frowned, looked at his fingernails I kept manicured. “I don’t know. I’ll think about it … let you know.”

  That made me mad! I said, “Ain’t no thinkin to be done. You don’t really live here no way. You just get some of your clothes washed and ironed and you eat here sometime. And make love, well … have sex with me sometime. I thought you wanted to be free!?”

  He frowned harder. “I said I’m not sure. My kids are getting older,” he went on, “I’m gettin older. And you make a good home. I’m not so sure I need a divorce … to be free.”

  Madder, I said, “Well, I do need a divorce … and I mean to be free. I’m … I’m gettin a dream for myself! And you aren’t in it! I’ll get a divorce if I have to pay for it myself.”

  He started leavin, sayin, “Well, you sure will have to. But I don’t believe you. This is just something new you’re trying, to get me to stay home more.”

  I quieted myself down, followed him to the door. “This is no home and you are no husband. These are real kids, cause I had em, not you. So they are mine. And I want to be free. Gildy got you anyway, all these years. Now, I want you to leave. You don’t spend much time nor money here … so we won’t miss you.”

  He was standing at the front door. He laughed, bent down and slapped my behind. Well, I did something I had wanted to do for years. I reached waaaay back, gathered my strength and slapped the livin shit out of him before I thought about he might hit me back. I KNOW it hurt! My hand stung and I know his face did! He looked at me a long time, seem like ages. Then he left. Never raised a hand. I packed what few things he had there. Waited for him to come home.

  Well, chile, life just don’t wait for nothin! When he came home, they brought him. The ambulance. He had been in a accident and was all broke up and bandaged. I showed em to the bedroom. Later that night I lay down in my children’s room, we couldn’t afford separate rooms for them, least I couldn’t. I lay thinkin about my life. Wasn’t it a mess!

  My daughter had to stay home from school to tend him, cause I HAD to work. I tended him at night. He had to have bedpans and such, or he would wet the bed. I could never rest. He had to be fed, had to be bathed and teeth washed and all everything.

  Bout two weeks into all that work and answerin the phone that always hung up, I rented a wheelchair, in his name, put him in it, called a cab, put his bags in it and took him over to Gildy’s. Yes, I did.

  Her house w
as below the street level, had a walk-way down the slope leadin straight to her front door, where I saw her peepin out the side of the little curtain. She was watchin me, with great big eyes, standin up there with him, lookin down at her and her door. He was tremblin and breathin hard, tryin to kick his feet and push his behind way back in that seat. Scared I was gonna push him down that hill. I started to, can’t lie, but my heart wouldn’t let me. On accounta God, not no feelin I had for Webb; I didn’t feel anything for Webb anymore!

  Lord, forgive me, but I couldn’t help stretchin my arms out, tiltin that chair over the edge, pretendin I was gonna let him go. I looked down at her, still peepin, her mouth open now. But I didn’t do it. I walked him down the slope, came back, got his bags, sat them beside him.

  I smiled, gently, into his big scared eyes. Said, “Well, Webb, you here to stay at last. You been tryin to live here a long time. Now you can. This your home. You don’t live where I live no more.” My mad came up and so did my voice. “She got the best of you when you were well … now she can have the rest of you til you go to hell. I’m not takin no more leavins! I turned to leave, but there was one more thing to say. Quoting “our” song, I said, “Webb? There will NEVER, NEVER, NEVER be another you!” Then I left. Walkin proud! And free. Free! Chile, I felt like the world had dropped off my shoulders.

  One thing though. I told God, “God, I was gonna leave him before he had his accident so I don’t need to feel guilty now … and I don’t.”

  When I turned back, one last time, the woman Gildy hadn’t opened the door yet! She must didn’t want him, sick. Well, she had him. Somebody had him. Anybody could have him! But … not … I.

  Webb bein gone didn’t make any big difference in our lives. The kids missed him, but didn’t say nothin about, “Mama, take Daddy back.” We kept right on doin with and doing without. I went on to school, struggled with my job, life and children. They helped me. Already I live better, speak better, am closer and better with my children and feel better. I’m doing better all around.