by Odie Hawkins
“Well, since it’s about the Struggle, let’s hope it gets read,” he stated drily.
“Yeah, me too,” she said wistfully, “Kwendi! guess what happened the other day?”
“No, what!!?” he responded gleefully, playing out a little number on her spontaneous bursts.
“The Negroes for a Latter Day Hitler, or whatever the name of the organization is, came to us, to talk about funding our theater group. Their only stipulation was that we would ‘tone’ down the messages in our work. Can you imagine what kind of souls those niggers must have, in order to be able to make up the words to ask us to do something like that? Especially in these times.”
“Well, hey, baby you know, it just doesn’t register with a lot of sisters ’n brothers that we are now living in a fascist state, a Neo-New World fascist state, but still a fascist state. Yeahhh, it really is hard to try to figure out where people are coming from, at times,” he concluded sadly.
The guard stood at Kwendi’s left shoulder, not saying a word, as though he were eavesdropping and overseeing at the same time. Lubertha saw the muscles tighten in Kwendi’s jaws as the guard casually tapped him on the shoulder.
“Awright, Jones it’s time.”
Kwendi half turned toward the guard. It’s time … for you, that means ending the only pleasure I have these days, my woman visiting me. It’s time what do you know about time?
“Be cool, Kwendi,” Lubertha whispered urgently to him. “Be cool, baby.”
He relaxed and stood, gave her a soulful look and turned away with the guard grasping his elbow, unnecessarily.
She sat there, as she had done a number of times after a visit, feeling rotten, suddenly remembering the little things she had wanted to tell him but could never seem to remember.
Sweet Peter Deeder, Peter Dawson, reformed pimp, offering to make some fund raising speeches for the Club.
I’ve stopped smoking so much anyway.
Kwendi. Five years without Kwendi. Five hurtin’ years. No deep kisses, no picnics in the park, movies, no jazz concerts, dances, parties. Is the Cause worth it? she asked herself, glancing up and down the row of convict faces on the other side of the glass paneled visitor’s glass.
A couple of the black inmates raised their fists in her direction, a toast for black liberation, recognizing that she was Kwendi’s woman.
She smiled back weakly, drained.
Yeah, the Cause is worth it. She slid out of the seat and strolled slowly out of the visitor’s section, her mind suddenly swamped by the amount of Club business she had to take care of. Oh well, at least it’s Monday, that does give me the rest of the week.
Big Momma bustled around her room, pouring a little more tea from her twenty-one year old teapot, into the sister’s cups, her arthritic knees aching slightly. “I’ll be with y’all in just a few minutes, ladies,” she said, resettling the teapot on her two burner, and disappeared behind the Chinese screen in her room to change.
“Take your time, sister,” one of the Muslim sisters spoke out in a clear, deep voice.
Mrs. Washington struggled nervously with the buttons on her washed out gingham dress, fumbling out of her old cardigan at the same time, bursitis adding to the effort. She peeked through a slit in the screen at the two sisters, both of them close to her age, straight gowns and headgear making them look somehow like … her mind fumbled for the right image like ol’ time Egyptian queens. And the way they sit … so straight. Her heart pounded from unaccustomed excitement. This was her fifth trip to the mosque, courtesy of Baby … Lawwd! when am I gon’ ever remember that child’s other name? Robert 30X!
The first couple trips had been made out of boredom mostly, and in response to the many kindnesses Robert had shown her as the hard wintertime settled in bringing bags of groceries (“Sorry, Sister Washington, no pork chops in this sack”) and warm sweaters, all donated by the Sisterhood. The first few trips had been kind of funny. They had sent two sisters over to escort her, and she had felt compelled to go. The mosque itself had struck her in an odd way, what with the quiet and the efficiency, no bustling Christianity anywhere around, meaning bullshit. But most of all, the extremely polite way all of the visitors had been treated.
And especially the older folks, she reflected, meaning me. She reached up into the closet behind her for a purse thinking back to the nice feeling she had gotten from being around women her own age, several of them ex-Baptists, who walked proudly, seemed to have no ol’ aches and pains and gave all the credit for lack of afflictions to being followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammed. It was almost like being down home when young folks respected gray hair, didn’t give grown-ups no backtalk and people acted like they had some sense or a place to be.
At any rate, it sure as hell beat sittin’ up in the window, day in and day out, trying to be interested in everybody else’s life.
She peeked back through the slit at the two sisters, her overshoes, cloth coat and bird feathered hat on, purse hanging on her throbbing arm. They look so at peace with theyselves, just sittin’, seemin’ to not be worried about a daggoned thang.
She stood back from the screen, her lips pursed, thinking, considering. They don’t drink. Well, that ain’t no problem for me, I only used to drink that moonshine with Booker when he was alive … Lawd Bless his soul! Cain’t eat the pig. Well, the way prices is these days, that would be a savin’.
She swept through all the rules and regulations for a good Muslim life that she had listened to at the meetings, soft-sell orientation sessions, and found herself in tune with them; if nothing else they offered her the peace and security an old woman needed after her youth had been spent struggling to survive a life in the big city.
She took a hesitant step from behind the screen, her mind suddenly focusing on one thing. If I joined up, could I still dip snuff?! She took a deep, hard look at the Muslim sisters who had come for her, standing respectfully, waiting for her to announce that they could leave.
Who in the hell cared about whether or not you could dip some damned snuff!? with a new life waiting.
“I’m ready sisters we can go now.”
They beamed at her as she walked toward them, her knees aching a little less, knowing that Allah, the All Gracious, the Most Merciful, had revived another lost soul.
“Watch ’em, Phyllisine!” Hattie Evans whispered to her daughter as she went behind the meat counter to wait on Miss Rabbit.
Phyllisine’s eyes followed her mother’s broad hips as she waddled away. Watch who?? Lil’ ol’ Andy Johnson and Marsha Kelly? They weren’t even tall enough to steal anything, and if they did, the most it could be would be a cupcake or a piece of bubble gum.
She scorned the thought of being so petty, glanced out at Big Momma whisking by in a car load of Muslim sisters … hmmmm looks like they finally convinced her and heard her mother ask, in that jive tone of voice that sounded so superphoney to her ears, as though she were the head waitress in some swank restaurant, “And what can I do for you today, Miss Rabbit?”
“Welllll,” she heard Miss Rabbit begin, in her heavy contralto, “I was thinkin’ ’bout buyin’ some halonnis, but seein’ how it’s so high, I don’t know,” and then went off into that mumbling study period that so many of their customers spent time in these days.
She smiled warmly over the counter at lil’ Andy and Marsha, eight and nine respectively, window shopping with options on buying, twelve cents between them.
Phyllisine’s eyes darted from her mother’s studied cool behind the meat counter, back to Marsha and Andy, looking furtively at her as they wandered up one aisle and down the other one, noses snotty. She beckoned to them, on the q.t. They responded, ghetto hip, like, who? me? pointing at their chests with their eyes.
Yeahhh, you! she answered with her own set of visual signals and watched them approach the counter with deep love, strong feeling for their reluctance, like knowing they’d gone through the “we’ve-had-firecrackers-tied-to-our-tails” syndrome.
“Mmmmmm,” Miss Rabbit’s hum of price consideration reached her from across the store, “since I don’t see anythang in here that costs less than the ’lonni, I guess I’ll have to settle for a quarter pound o’ that. Uhhh, Hattie, while I’m about it, you got any scraps I can feed my lil’ ol’ dog?”
“Whatchu got in mind, Miss Rabbit?” she heard her mother ask in a monotone, mindful of the fact that Miss Rabbit didn’t have a dog, and never did have one.
“Oooohh, I don’t know, some o’ that fat meat that y’all throw away, that you cain’t sell.”
Phyllisine glanced quickly in her mother’s direction to make certain that she wasn’t watching, and reached over the counter with an oatmeal cookie in each hand. Andy and Marsha snapped them out of her hands like hungry dogs, aware, instantly into what she was doing. Their hurried looks toward her mother bending behind the meat counter, dealing with Miss Rabbit’s needs, said thank you.
She remounted the high stool behind the cash register, smiling at Andy and Marsha’s low profiled exit.
Mrs. Evans glanced up from slicing a quarter of a pound of bologna for Miss Rabbit to see the two children leave the store, theftless to her point of view, looking at their backs.
Phyllisine reassured her with a nod that everything was cool. Mrs. Evans kept on slicing bologna, giving Miss Rabbit an extra piece of the thinly sliced meat.
“That’ll be forty-six cents, Miss Rabbit.”
“Forty-six cents!?” Miss Rabbit reacted, peering up at the scale, unable to read it, but peering up at it anyway.
“Forty-six cents,” Phyllisine heard her mother announce in a familiar dry monotone.
“Wellll,” Miss Rabbit finally sighhhhed, “I guess if it’s forty-six cents, it’s forty-six cents.”
“It’s forty-six cents,” Mrs. Evans replied, wrapping the ersatz meat up in a piece of yesterday’s newspaper …
“Uhhh, Hattie, what about those scraps?” Miss Rabbit pressed.
“I’ll look ’n see what I got,” Mrs. Evans answered, annoyance creeping into her voice.
Phyllisine watched her mother pass the small package to Miss Rabbit, grease penciled 46¢, and saw her bend down to pick through the fatty scraps with a pinch of meat attached.
“Thank you, thank you very much, Sister Evans,” Miss Rabbit said as she accepted the additional newspaper wrapped scraps and wandered over to pay Phyllisine for her purchase.
Phyllisine took the purchase and the gift of fat and dropped them both into a small brown bag, her stomach churning from feelings she couldn’t really come to grips with. A lot of people were asking for scraps these days. She knew it would have been much more possible to get scraps with real hunks of meat on them from the big supermarkets … but who asked them for anything? And how many forms would you have to fill out to get it?
Miss Rabbit slid a weather-beaten dollar bill across the counter at her, smiling in her semi-toothless, graceful fashion. Phyllisine took her money, rang up the sale, gave her change and stared with dead eyes as she slouched past the potato bin and swiped a potato.
Right on, sister! she screamed silently to her, the words making a raggedy sound in her consciousness as Rudy Little strode into the store past Miss Rabbit.
Mrs. Evans looked up from behind the meat counter to see who it was, checked Rudy out, decided his expression was non-larcenous, went back to arranging the three day old meat in front of the two day old meat.
Rudy glanced furtively at Mrs. Evans’ darting hands in the meat display counter and laid a note on the counter in front of Phyllisine.
They both stared at it for a few seconds, she because he had placed it there, puzzling her, and he because he suddenly felt very self-conscious, wondering if he was doing the right thing. She looked at him curiously, unfolded the note and read it in a couple quick glances. And then again, slowly. “I’ve been wanting to take you out for quite awhile, but I’ve hesitated to ask you for many reasons. Can you go to the show with me Saturday night?”
Phyllisine looked into Rudy’s steady brown-eyed gaze and nodded yes, folding the note into her fist. Yes, she nodded again, to make certain he understood.
“Seven-thirty,” he said quietly, “in front of the liquor store.”
She agreed silently with another nod, as he casually strolled out of the store.
“What did he want?” her mother asked, waddling over to check out the evening’s receipts before her ol’ man came downstairs.
“Oh,” Phyllisine thought quickly, “he wanted some cigarettes, one o’ those foreign brands, Galouses or something like that.”
“Hmf! That’s the trouble with them semi-educated niggers, they always wantin’ something we don’t stock.”
Phyllisine smiled slightly, faking agreement, moved aside to let her mother get to the register, the note clutched tightly in her balled up fist.
Seven-thirty Saturday night, the movies with Rudy Little, law student, one of the neighborhood’s shining lights. Maybe I should’ve cooled myself out a bit, she thought … but shit! What purpose would that have served?
Miss Rabbit washed the scraps of meat in a pot of hot water, twice pared off as much of the fat from the lean as possible and set the pot of water with the manicured scraps onto a low fire. She stood with her hands braced on her hips for a few minutes, looking down into the pot of scraps, her brow knitted with deep thoughts.
Tonight
Steam began to rise from the slowly bubbling fatty tissue in the pot before she shuffled away to pull an onion and a potato out of a sack in her kitchen cabinet. She sliced the onion up into the pot, diced the potato and salted and peppered the mixture and stood, as before, staring deeply into the pot.
She held both her hands out in front of her, the short butcher knife trembling slightly in her left hand. She lowered her hands slowly, covered the pot, placed the knife on the kitchen table and strolled from the kitchen to look out of her front window, restlessly.
Her eyes swept up and down the street, taking everything in Lubertha’s writing lamp across the street from her, Big Momma’s shades drawn, a young man urinating through the burglar guard mesh drawn across the front of ol’ man Jackson’s store, Rudy Little hurrying up the street with a load of books under his arm, coming from the library, Bessie Mae and Fred Lee coming from somewhere. She smiled affectionately at them.
A light, dirty snow blanketing the whole scene. The police cruising through the neighborhood with their headlights dimmed.
She eased away from the window with a sigh and walked back to the kitchen, feeling very old and unusually tired. Oh Lawwwd, ha’mercy, she mumbled aloud and folded her arms across her breasts. Lawd in Heaven, please give me the strength.
The knocks were so soft that she thought for a second that it might be the sound of something other than someone at the back door. And then, again.
“Yesss, who is it?”
“Lena,” a soft voice answered.
Miss Rabbit opened the back door just enough for her to slip through. Both women avoided looking into each other’s faces.
“Kinda nippy out there, ain’t it?” Miss Rabbit commented, attempting to cool the tension out.
Lena nodded stiffly and slowly pulled her head scarf off. They stood in the center of the kitchen floor, uncomfortably.
“You bring the kotex?” Miss Rabbit asked quietly, professionally.
Lena nodded numbly and held up a brown paper bag.
“You all washed up ’n everything?” Miss Rabbit probed gently.
Lena nodded again, not trusting her voice, and leaned slightly toward Miss Rabbit’s shoulder.
The older woman embraced her, calming her. “Don’t worry, honey everythin’ gon’ be awright. Why don’t we sit ’n have a cuppa coffee? Here, lemme take your coat.”
Lena shook her arms out of her cloth coat, moving as though she were in a hypnotic trance. Miss Rabbit seated her at the kitchen table, placed a large pot of water on the back burner, stirred her “stew” a few times and quickly heated a
small sauce pan of water for instant coffee.
“Sorry, honey,” she apologized, “but I ain’t got no cream.”
Lena smiled shyly, accepting the cup. “That’s awright, I like it black, with just a lil’ sugar.”
Miss Rabbit sat across from her, consciously straightening her back to inspire confidence.
Lena took a few nervous sips of coffee. “Will it hurt?” she asked suddenly.
Miss Rabbit slowly lowered her cup, deliberately placed it on the table with studied strength and shook her head, “No, not much, but it ain’t gon’ feel good as it felt makin’ it.” She surreptitiously checked out the steamy fog forming over the boiling pot of water on the back burner.
“Matter of fact, we may as well gon’ ’n git it over with.”
“What do I have to do?” Lena asked, swallowing the words fearfully.
“Well, first thang is to help me clear the table.”
“This table?!”
“Uhhn huh, the light in here is better than it is anywhere else in the house.”
Lena obediently removed the coffee cups.
“Wash it off real good,” Miss Rabbit instructed her as she strode away to her bedroom, heart beating like a drum. “There’s some cleanser in the window over the sink.”
She knelt quickly by the side of her bed, underneath the Anglo Jesus with the celestially visible heart, and prayed fervently, profoundly. “O sweet Jesus, please grant me the strength to help this young woman out. Dear Lawd, please let my hand be strong ’n true, please dear God, I pray to you.”
She struggled to her feet and reached over to her knitting basket. She inspected the sharp points of two of the needles to make certain that there was no material attached to them, snatched her pillow from the bed and pulled a clean sheet out of the dresser drawer. She almost burst into tears as she walked back into the kitchen to find Lena staring at the table as though it were a slab in the city morgue.
“Did you wash it good?” she asked sharply, masking her feelings.
“Uh huh.”
“Good. Now here, help me.”
The two women moved slowly, covering the table with the sheet as though they were performing a ritual. Miss Rabbit placed the pillow at one end and two chairs, stirrup style, at both sides of the table at the other end. Efficiently, she checked the back door lock, made certain that the shades were drawn and came finally to stand in front of Lena.
