The Future Has a Past

by J. California Cooper

  Luella blushed to her toes because he had never held her so tight before. It was love! “I know it. Aunt Corrine gonna take this house until we decide where we gonna live. There’s gonna be much better jobs in the new city for us and we got to get married right away so our dreams can start coming true!”

  With the money on his mind, Silki continued, “Baby, we got to take care of first things first. First, let’s go get something to pack so when we get to the city they don’t think we are country folks. We got to look good! I want my baby to be the best she can be; you already beautiful. We . . . you just need some clothes that fit your looks. So, arm in arm, hand in hand, we can get off the bus lookin good!”

  At that moment, Mattie knocked at the door. Luella peeked out of her window, “That’s Mattie!” Silki answered the door because, now, he was the man of the house and he was sure he knew what Mattie was after.

  “Hey, Sister Mattie! How you doin?”

  Taken aback for a few seconds, Mattie answered, “I ain doin no good, Silki. I need to talk to Luella for a minute.” She winked at Silki, but he didn’t wink back.

  Silki stepped back to let her in, but said, “Well, we in a important talk right now. You got to come back some other time.” He had a second thought, “Or you can tell me what you want.”

  Mattie thought that might be encouraging because she had told Silki about Luella in the first place. Mattie asked, “Silki, my kids is hungry and I am sick and I ain got no food from the city for the week and I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I need five or ten dollars . . . just til I get some money from my daughters . . . a day or two.”

  Silki answered, “Oh, Sister Mattie, you have caught us at a bad time. We just sittin here tryin to figure out our own way. We wish we could help you, but we just sure can’t . . . right now. Try again in a few days and things might be better.”

  Mattie got angry, “Well, she just got . . . Preacher Watchem just . . .” but she couldn’t say it for some reason. So she decided to say, “Well, okay. But, you know how it is to be hungry!”

  Silki smiled, “Not for a long time, since I . . . Mattie, we can’t do you no help today. We’ll see you in a few days.”

  Mattie frowned at her former friend, then turned to walk slowly away. She looked back at the closed door. Her mind was going more than a mile a minute. “I am goin to come back! That’s my friend’s money, not that Silki’s money! I hope she ain no fool bout him cause he sure don’t mean her no good!”

  It is so hard to look, talk and think between the people that pass through your life leaving sugar, sometimes, and shit, sometimes. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what and who have thoughts that will not hurt you, will not take from you your life, or the pieces of things that make up your life. Like your love, your heart and your mind. Must you, yourself, become hardened? Do you need a certain amount of larceny, malice and greed in your mind to perceive it in others? And even then, you are still only human, subject to error. So Luella was not smart . . . nor was she a fool. Luella was human.

  When Luella and Silki returned from shopping in the late afternoon, he was already dressed in his natty, cheap, new suit and was stepping gingerly along the dusty street. Luella was loaded down with a box and several bags of her new finery, including nightwear for her wedding night. They were both smiling, but only Luella was sweating. She was proud of Silki.

  She was proud of her house when it came into view. Proud of herself. She was a woman. Still shy, but excited, she spoke, “Let’s go in the front door this time. We goin first class, like you say, so we’ll go in the front door!”

  They turned in the front gate and there on the front door was a black, funereal wreath; forgotten because the front door was seldom used. Silki pointed to the wreath as he hesitated on the front steps, “I don’t like them things to be nowhere round me. I gets the creeps or somethin!”

  Luella laughed, happily, juggled the packages and loosened the wreath. The wreath fell to the floor of the porch. She stepped over it, looking back at Silki, who had taken his new handkerchief from his pocket and was dusting off his shoes. She said, “Come on in, Silki. That wreath ain gonna bother you none. It’s just a sign my mother is gone; rest her soul. This gonna be your home now.”

  Silki stepped over the threshold, looking at the wreath distastefully. “Just the same, I don’t like bein round death.”

  Luella, still laughing happily, “Well, close the door, darlin, and you won’t see it. Sides, ain’t no death in here, only me and you, and we full of life and gettin ready to live.” She set her packages down and reached to hug him.

  He let her touch him a moment, then backed away looking at his new watch. “Yeah, baby, yeah, and we don’t have much time. That bus leaves at five-thirty this evenin and it’s three o’clock now. You shoulda done your shoppin by yourself, cause I got plenty things to do fore I leave here.”

  Luella turned back to her packages, opening them. Still happy. “I just wanted my new travelin clothes to have some class, like you say.” She held up the red dress he had picked out. “And with you there to pick em out. I’ma look good for you, Silki, you ain’t gonna be shamed of me.” In a softer, placating tone, she said, “You ain’t gonna be sorry.”

  Silki shook his head as he looked over her shoulder at the mirror, “I know I won’t be sorry. I’m too young to be sorry.” He smiled at his image in the mirror.

  While Silki and Luella had been talking, Mattie had come from her house next door and was creeping around the side of Luella’s house trying to hear what was going on inside. Adjusting his new shirt collar, Silki was oblivious to everything else. At the same time, that little something at the back of Luella’s mind was worrying her.

  “Silki? You sure you don’t think I’m too . . . old for you? For to be your wife? After all, you are only twenty and I am twenty-four.”

  Still looking at himself in the mirror, “If I did I would’na fallen in love with you, would I?”

  Looking at him with all the long, unused yearning in her eyes, Luella asked, “Say it again, Silki . . . Do you really, really, really love me?”

  Silki finally gave Luella his attention and took her face in his hands and lied. Anyone else in the world might have seen the lie, but Luella was blinded by her need and feelings for him. Yet . . . it wasn’t really him; he was just handsome and the first man to really give her even such attention as he had. He stood to her for a chance at life. He said, “I really, really, really love you!” as he stepped back from her.

  Luella held the red dress to her breast and in a pathetic voice only a lukewarm, hard heart could ignore, said, “Nobody . . . just nobody ever said that to me before. Not one man. Not nobody.”

  Silki let her hug him again. “Well, you got the man of all men now, baby! When I say it, it’s enough to last you the rest of your life!”

  Overcome, Luella dropped the dress and tried to hug him closer, saying, “I blive I love you . . . I KNOW I love you!”

  Disentangling himself from her embrace, Silki said, “Look babe, I better get on down the road and get some things done so our trip to the big city will be what I planned for ya! You know, when we get to the city bout nine o’clock tonight, we gonna check into the hotel, then I got a special club I want you to see and a whole lot more things.” He kissed her forehead, then stood back to see how that worked. He had never been intimate with Luella. At all.

  It wasn’t that Luella was not attractive . . . she was. Even her plumpness was not fat, it just gave her a fuller, softer look. But Silki had never asked her to sleep with him, nor touched her in any way suggestive of making love. It was a perverse thing that he had no interest in making love to someone who was not trying to use him in some way. Like a hustler would do.

  Now, he said, “Oh! I forgot; you got all the money ready?”

  Luella frowned because she had promised Corrine not to tell him all her business until he proved hisself and she hates to lie. “Well . . . Preacher Watchem didn’t give me ALL the money. And they
wouldn’t let me borrow on this old house, like you said. All the money you said we needed, seven or eight thousand dollars.” Her eyes and mouth opened wide at the very thought of such an amount of money. She hadn’t needed Aunt Corrine to tell her about that! “Til Mama’s business is all settled and everything is in my name, they wouldn’t lend me nothin.”

  Silki’s face was distorted with disgust.

  Luella hurried to tell her man, “They let me have three hundred dollars and we done spent over one hundred of that, but we got bout two hundred left, and that will hold us til we get married and find out for sure that we want to move to Memphis,” she almost whispered, “won’t it?”

  Silki’s face was two folds full of disgust and chagrin. “Awwwwww, I wanted to show you the best time of your life. I want to be the first one to make you really live. Really show you bout life!”

  With stars trickling all over her eyes, Luella grabbed Silki around his neck, but Silki pulled away, angrily. “Well. . . . that’s messed up! I betta go!” Then he had another second thought and put his arm around her waist. “Say baby . . . you betta let me carry that money.” He laughed softly. “That’s a man’s job, you know.”

  With Aunt Corrine’s words ringing in her brain, Luella looked nervous and said, “I don’t have it all with me. I was scared to carry ALL that money cause I ain’t never had more’n five or ten dollars with me all the time Mama was living and then I was goin to get somethin for her.”

  Silki took his arm away, abruptly, “How much you got wit cha?”

  “Bout a hundred and fifty dollars left from shoppin and the tickets.”

  “Where is the rest of it?” Silki held out his hand for the money.

  “Aunt Corrine is holdin it for us til I come by.”

  Silki rolled his eyes to heaven, “Well, you betta hurry on by there then! We got to be at the bus station at five o’clock straight out! I’ll meet you there. Now . . . give me the money you got.”

  Mattie had been listening at the door and chose that moment to knock on the door. “Ooooo, Luella? You home?” She knocked again and said, “It’s me, Mattie!”

  Annoyed, Luella whispered unnecessarily, “That’s Mattie!” She started to put the money back into her purse, hurriedly. Silki heaved a great disgusted sigh, and said, “I know,” still holding his hand out for the money.

  Mattie decided to try the back door knob and the door opened. With an obvious, deceitful smile on her face, she says, “Oh, I didn’t know you had company! I could come back another time.”

  Silki said, “You still can.” But Mattie ignored him.

  Luella was uncomfortable and flustered with so many things happening so fast around her. “No need to do that. We in a hurry anyway. Silki was just leavin.” She looked at Silki’s hand which is still reaching out to her for the money and is ashamed to give him money in front of Mattie. Luella sighed and opened her purse again, saying, “Ahhh, yes, well . . . here,” handed him a few bills, “this is just a little somethin for helpin me with all these packages.”

  Mattie eyes weren’t big enough or quick enough to see all she wanted to see, but she saw the money, the boxes, the bags and the red dress. “Sho musta been a lot of help. And I ain’t never seen that there suit before either, Silki. And new shoes!”

  Silki dropped the money Luella had just given him on the floor, on purpose, so Mattie could see what a man he is.

  Mattie did. “SHO musta been a lotta help . . . or somethin!”

  Silki smiles a satisfied smile, even with the little money, fifty dollars or so, he has in his hand. “Okay, baby, I’m gone now. Don’t forget to give yourself plenty time to get to Aunty’s house and everything. It’s most four o’clock now.”

  Momentarily, Luella is happy. “Alright! See you at five o’clock.” She watched Silki as he crossed the yard to her backyard gate, his head bent, counting the money. She sighed, deeply, and slowly closed the door.

  Trying to ignore Mattie, Luella began bustling around the room. Clearing the boxes, folding her new clothes, running to her room for her grandmother’s cardboard suitcase. Glowering, Mattie just watched her, standing with her hands on her hips. Finally Luella said, “Well, how you doin, Mattie?” She didn’t wait for an answer, she just asked, “What do you want? You can see I’m in a awful hurry. I got a lot to do . . . I got a pointment at five o’clock.”

  Mattie raised one hand in the air, “You sposed to be a church woman. Your mama raised you right and took good care’a you. Now . . . you ain’t showing no principleations. You ought to follow in her footsteps! Yeah . . . she was a good woman! You ain nothin but a fool!”

  Luella had been changing clothes and was now in her new slip. She stopped and looked at Mattie, surprised. “I ain’t in your shoes and I am not in your house. And, now, I’m supposed to help myself! I’m takin care of me and I’m gonna be a real woman with a real man, and if you don’t like it, don’t stand there and watch me be something I always wanted to be . . . somebody’s somethin!” In a gentler tone, Luella added, “My mama wasn’t ever anybody’s woman.”

  Mattie misread the tone. “Girl, you too old to be a fool . . . talkin bout bein somebody’s woman! Huh! And your mama musta had somebody cause she had you! So what if he left? They all leave. At least, she didn’t go off with him, like you doin!”

  Luella tried to continue preparing her clothes and talk to Mattie at the same time. “I ain’t too old! And I ain’t no fool! And I am somebody’s woman! I want a man who won’t leave. MY man! And I GOT one! Now . . . you stop tryin to tear me down . . . make me sad . . . and lonely again.”

  But Mattie was too selfish to hear. “Girl! Money is important. You ain sposed to give it away! To no man! What would your mama say?”

  Exasperated, Luella said, “My mother dear is dead. I ain’t. I’m standin here, breathing . . . right in front of you. I am ALIVE. I’m alone. You had you somethin to get your children with. I ain’t got nothin but some little money . . . what won’t give me no babies . . . and a big empty life. So don’t you tell me what I’m sposed to do . . . you go do what you sposed to do. And pay me back my money.”

  Mattie didn’t really want to hurt Luella and ruin her chances for some of that money, but she wasn’t all that smart herself. She said, “You twenty-five years old!”

  Luella gave pound for pound, “You forty-eight years old. Why I got to be better’n you? You ain’t been so smart. Ain’t no man at your house, that blongs to you. Ain’t no man waiting on you, workin for you.” Again, Luella’s tone softened because she meant nobody any harm. “Mattie . . . I’m me. I want to be me. I don’t want to listen to nobody no more, but me. And (lying), I’m twenty-two years old.”

  Mattie, encouraged by Luella’s softer tone again, “You buyin that man! And bought men ain gonna stay no longer than the money. When it gone . . . they gone too! You ain got nough money to hold that Silki man long enough to write ‘my man’ on a cupcake!” Mattie looked at Luella’s sad, little profile as she turned her head away and she realized she was hurting her own chances. She changed her tune to a friendlier one.

  “You ought to save that money and help some of your friends that you can count on when you down. Now, I don’t need,” Mattie stopped to smooth her dress and straighten her shoulders, “no help. But . . . I could use some. And . . . and you could do it. You don’t need nothin . . . you got everthin. And you ain down . . . You young. You ain’t got no kids. And me? I am down, right long in here . . . now. If you could give . . .”

  Sadly, Luella answered her, “If I could give you my dreams, you wouldn’ want them . . . wouldn’t even want to hear bout em. Nor my loneliness . . . nor misery. Not my pain in my soul.” Becoming annoyed again, she said, “You don’t care bout those things of mine, you just keep talkin bout my money. MY money! What you really here for, Mattie? You one of my friends I can count on? You want me to be the friend YOU can count on. Are you my friend to tell me what I don’t need? What I do need? What I should buy? With my own money?!” />
  Trying to scoff at Luella’s truth and not knowing much to do with the truth, Mattie said, “Stop talkin foolishness, girl. Sure, I’m one’a your friends you can count on. Ain I always been? Ain I been your mama’s friend? Your mama loved me! (Lying) She always helped me.”

  In the meantime, Corrine had come home and she could hear them when they spoke loudly. She did not go over to Luella’s house, she just sat on her porch and listened to hear Luella’s mind work.

  Luella looked at her kitchen clock and started trying to dress again. She took a girdle out of a bag, studying it. She put her hand on her hip and looks at Mattie, “My mama didn’t allow you to come over here. And I know she never gave you no money. She never gave anybody any of her money cept the church. And since she been dead, I ain’t never needed you, but you always need five or ten dollars. I let you have it, but I want it back. I ain’t never needed you before and I don’t plan to, cause I’m gonna be married with a husband takin care of me.”

  Mattie made a last try. “I just don’t want you to be no fool, girl. You need to count on . . . a friend. Let me tell you what to do with that money the preacher gave you. How much you got?”

  Luella started to put on her girdle, but looked at Mattie like she was crazy. “Practice on your own money.”

  Mattie couldn’t quit. “Somebody sure goin to take vantage of you!”

  Luella sat down, breathless from struggling with the girdle which was still just over her thighs. She was very sad because she wanted to think happy thoughts, love thoughts, and Mattie just would not leave her alone to be glad about her future. Sadly, she said to Mattie, “That’s what my mama always tellin me. Says, ‘Luella . . . don’t be no fool, girl. You ugly. You ugly and ain’t nobody ever gonna love you but your mama. So you betta work hard right here with me, get you some money and save it, put it away, and when the hard days come, as you get old, cause you sure gonna be alone when you get old, too, chile. Ain’t nobody ever, EVER gonna wanta marry you! You just ugly . . . like me . . . and you ain’t even shaped right neither. But . . . if you gets you some money . . . you can pay somebody to come in here and take care of you if you ever sick. And stick to the church.’ ”