The Future Has a Past

by J. California Cooper

  The third day she couldn’t understand why she couldn’t cry and why she was more worried about her situation, being broke and alone, than she was about Silki. She wished she was home, Silki or not. But . . . there lingered the thought, the hope, that he would, he might, return.

  The fourth day Luella was still sitting in a chair looking pathetically through the one window in the small room with the one mirror, one chair, one bed all as simple as possible, with marks of people gone through and by. One sign on the wall said HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS, another said ANYWHERE I HANG MY HAT IS HOME. The smell of bar-b-que chicken rising up from the cafe next door to the rooming house continuously nauseated Luella because her appetite, usually so good, was gone.

  She had still not seen nor heard from Silki. But that worried her less and less. The landlady, Ms. Ready, had fed her, some, and had not put her out because she could not pay . . . yet. Somewhere in that run-over heart of Ms. Ready was a little tiny soft spot remaining from all her strife in life.

  Luella was lost in her thoughts looking at the steady movement on the street outside. She jumped, startled, when the knock sounded at her room door. Ms. Ready came in without waiting for an answer from Luella.

  Ms. Ready was annoyed about her money, but tried to sound kindly to the confused, lost young lady. “Honey . . . it’s nine o’clock at night and you been sittin in that window four days now, lookin for that man. Even YOU ought to know he ain’t comin back! You been here four days and I ain’t got a dime more from you than that first five dollars. This room is for RENT! And when it’s rented it ain’t hardly for sittin in. Now you got to do somethin! I got to have my money or make way to let somebody else take this here room that can pay.”

  Luella, tired, worn from worry, and sad, smiled wanly at Ms. Ready. “You ain’t gon lose by me bein here, Miss. I got some money. I can send it to you.”

  But Ms. Ready didn’t want to hear that again. “Everybody always want to SEND me my money! People talks bout sendin way more than they sends.”

  Luella turned to look out of the window again. “I just thought he would be here by now.”

  Ms. Ready felt sorry for Luella, but this was business. “I know you musta thought somethin like that. Otherwise, you be a fool to just sittin and lookin out windows!” She looked at Luella’s sad face. Her voice softened, “Honey . . . that little piece of a man who brought you here don’t know what he gonna do from one minute to the next. He done done you a favor really, and you ain’t got sense enough to know it. Sometime when they leave you . . . you lucky.”

  Luella hung her head. “Don’t say that. Please don’t say that . . . He be back. We got plans. Silki is my future. My man. I still got my dreams.”

  “Yeah . . . but he got the money!” Ms. Ready walked the few steps to the bed and sat down on it. “Woman, where you from?”

  “Boville . . . You prob’ly ain’t never heard of it.”

  Ms. Ready laughed, “If I have, it was easy to forget. That where your man from, too?”

  “No. He’s from some bigger place. He didn’t tell me yet.”

  Ms. Ready opened her mouth in slight shock. “Well . . . then, woman, how long you known him?”

  Luella shrugged her shoulders and felt dumb. She also did not like telling her business, such as it was, to a stranger, but owing Ms. Ready money and needing her help made Luella more amenable. “Oh, bout three, four months.”

  This time Ms. Ready’s mouth opened even wider. “Three, four months?! And you say you put all your money in his hands?” She laughed a strange little laugh in sympathy. “You sure was a fool! What was wrong with you, girl?”

  Luella turned back to the window and said, slowly, “I wanted to see if life . . . to . . . to . . .”

  “Well, he sure is showin it to you, honey, from the bottom, ass up! TOOK your money! Well . . . now I know he sure is gone. So . . . now, whatcha gonna do about my rent? I got to have my rent TODAY! You got to do somethin!”

  Luella did not know what to do. She had told the woman she had no money left. “I . . . I guess I’ll borrow my bus fare and go home and mail it to you.” She got up heavily from the wobbly chair and went to pick up her traveling bag. As she picked it up, she sighed deeply. Resigned.

  Ms. Ready got up from the bed and grabbed the bag from Luella’s hand. “No, no . . . we can’t do that! See, I can’t believe . . . I don’t believe you, cause I done already seen life a little myself, a couple times around.”

  Luella stepped back from the woman, worried aloud, “Well, what can I do?” She pointed at the suitcase, “You want these things? I ain’t got nothin else.”

  Ms. Ready shook her head, “Nooooo, I don’t! What I need is money!”

  Confused and bewildered, Luella asked her, “Well, if you don’t want these things and you don’t want me to leave and send your money back to you, I can’t see what else I can do.” Now she felt like crying. She wished for Aunt Corrine, she even wished for her mother. For anybody who knew her and knew she would pay.

  Ms. Ready set the suitcase down and then walked slowly around, looking Luella over, good. “Spose I would think of somethin else for you to do? You a good, strong, healthy girl. Nice lookin too.”

  This information seemed to excite Luella. She turned to face Ms. Ready with anticipation in her pathetic face. “You mean you might know where Silki is?”

  Ms. Ready laughed that strange little laugh again. “He don’t know where he is hisself! I hear he with She-She! That’s the biggest barracuda outside the ocean! You can forget him! Honey, she done chewed him up and spit him out anytime now! I bet he ain’t got your money no more!”

  Ms. Ready screwed up her face, like she was thinking hard, but that was for the benefit of Luella because she had already thought of what she was going to suggest to her. Her handyman had come to set a screen door in for her that very morning and the idea had come to her then. “But . . . I may know where someone else is. Have you ever had a ‘date’?”

  The look on Luella’s face and the sound of her voice was somewhere between hope and fear. “Well . . . Not a real one. Only this one . . . with Silki.”

  The landlady scoffed at that. “That don’t come under nothin! I mean . . . you know . . . been to bed with somebody gonna give you some money? Slept with somebody for some money?”

  “Only person I ever slept with was my mama. Sometimes.”

  Ms. Ready was aghast, “Your mama?! You mean . . . you didn’t even get what you paid for with that Silki of yours? Didn’t even give you nothin?!” Ms. Ready thought for a minute, then said, “Well! That happen to me once . . . more’n once, I reckon.” Her thoughts returned to Luella. “Anyway, sleepin with your mama ain’t what I’m talkin bout. I mean . . . you ever been to bed with a man . . . for money?”

  Luella was shocked, but growing curious. “No, mam. No love or money either. Who gonna pay me?!”

  The landlady, in her business, less than seldom met women like Luella; grown women who had never slept with anybody. She didn’t believe Luella. “Ain’t no need to lie to me, honey!”

  She looked at Luella, carefully, as she pieced her own sly thoughts together. Thinking, too, “I don’t want no problem with this woman.” Finally, decided, she asked Luella, “Spose . . . Spose I know someone, maybe, who might pay you a little somethin for your . . . time?”

  “You mean somebody I ain’t never even said ‘hello’ to . . . or . . . or nothin?”

  “Oh, shit woman . . . don’t play no games with me! You need some money! And I got to have my rent money they gon give you to go to bed with them. You need to take it! Then I’ll be paid and you can go on and get out of here!” Her voice softened because Ms. Ready remembered her own past, “And go back to that little home you done told me about.”

  Well, Luella was not the kind of fool not to see which way things might have to go, and, too, she was still thinking about love because sex, to her, meant some kind of love. She knew about business, now, too. “How much do I owe you? Who goin to
pay me?”

  Ms. Ready didn’t have to count because she already knew down to the last dime, but she counted on her fingers for Luella. “Now, let’s see here. You been here four days now, five dollars a day, but, because you alone, I will reduce it to three dollars. I fed you four times now, it’s your business if you didn’t want to eat it; so that’s two dollars a meal. Now . . . that comes to twenty-four dollars.”

  But, Luella was a working woman, so she could count. “That comes to twenty dollars.”

  “I knew you wasn’t as dumb as you make out to be!” The landlady smiled.

  “Who is goin to pay me that much money?”

  Ms. Ready sat back down on the bed beside Luella and said, “Why you think so little of yourself? You worth more than that, I betcha, cause you a nice-lookin, nice woman. But that is all ‘I’ need. All you owe me. I’m thinkin of my own business and what you got to do is think of your own business; you need a bus ticket home so you need money for that too. And you might want a bite to eat on the way. You need to come to yourself!”

  The landlady looked at Luella carefully as she spoke, and she spoke persuasively, “Now, I blive I know a real nice man who will do it.” Luella, excited, started to speak, but Ms. Ready held her hand up for silence. “Now . . . he ain’t the best-lookin person in this world . . . and he do have his problems . . . but that’s why he will take care of this here business for you. And I know he won’t do you no harm and I want you to leave here just like you came.”

  Brightening at the prospect that someone will care enough for her to pay for her, Luella said, “Who is he? Do I get to meet him first? What’s his name?”

  Ms. Ready, pleased that things will work out, rose from the bed and walked to the door. “You sure got to meet him first, cause even thin as these walls is, you can’t do nothin through em. His name is ‘Turtle’ and I’m not gonna tell you nothin else. You meet him and talk to him for yourself. BUT, remember, no matter what . . . we need that money!” She paused to let her words sink in Luella’s sometimes slow, sometimes fast, mind. Then, “Now . . . I’m goin down here now and splain to him why he got to help you.”

  With those last words, Ms. Ready opened the door, preparing to leave, but Luella reached out, grabbing her arm. “Spose Silki comes back?”

  Ms. Ready shook Luella’s hand off, “I don’t care who comes! I got to have my money. But, honey . . . that’s your littlest worry, him comin back. Now . . . I’ll be back soon as I can.”

  Luella’s lethargy had zipped right out of her body. “Wait a minute! Shouldn’t I take a bath first?”

  The landlady turned back for the last time, “What you askin me for? Can’t you smell your own self?!” She was already out the door as she spoke the words, but you could hear her as she walked away. “Good Gawd almighty. I can’t do everything!” She hollered over her shoulder, “And towels is extra!”

  Luella stood with her hand on the door a moment, then closed it slowly. She turned around, slowly, to face the room and look at the bed. Her face is registering, first, alarm, which graduated to fear; then wonder replaced the alarm and fear and brought with it a slight smile, then a wide grin.

  Then . . . alarm again. “Spose . . . he says ‘no.’ ” The grin returned slowly, with, “Spose he says ‘yes’? She starts removing her clothes and takes the chair from the window so she can use it to look into the mirror, the grin and the fear alternating across her face and in her heart.

  Part V

  Turtle was the unkind nickname given to him by unkind, unfeeling schoolmates and it held to him even with adults. When he was born he was given the name Sidney Wish Wayes. The fourth child and youngest son of Otis Wish and Lucille Wayes.

  His mother, Lucille, had lung problems from a youth spent in poverty. There was no money to pay a doctor for what could have been easily cured, so it progressed steadily into TB. His parents had loved each other and married young and, soon, began having babies. The fourth, Sidney, was the last and Lucille was glad because, though she loved all her children with all her heart, she felt it was her fault, her illness, that Sidney was born with a hunched back, a growth on his back between his shoulder blades. It probably could have been helped by surgery or some medical attention, but they could not afford that either.

  Lucille, the mother, died when he was ten years old, but, for him, they were ten years of love, warmth and family security.

  The two older brothers had died along the way, so Sidney and his sister, Dora, were even more loved and cared for. Dora learned to cook from her mother early in her youth, she had to. Sidney began learning early in his life to do small carpentry jobs around the house, helping his father. He also learned cooking and housecleaning because both he and Dora had to help their mother.

  Sidney liked wood work and furthered his progress in doing special things; engraving, carving and such. He loved wood. He spent most of his time alone, without playmates, to avoid their laughter and thoughtless remarks. He liked to read. The mother made both her children go to school. “You must learn how to read about life.”

  On his own, Sidney studied and knew all the different types of trees and their wood, even those he had never seen and never would see. He made many beautiful things for his mother, even after she had passed away. He made strong but lovely furniture for the house and his sister, even after she was married.

  Otis Wish Wayes, his father, had passed away when Sidney was twenty years old. By that time Dora had married and, with her husband, had remained at home to care for her father and brother.

  Sidney was thirty-two years old now, and lived in a bedroom and bath he had built for his own self on the rear of what he now considered his sister’s home because she had a family and he was very sure he would never have one. He had never even had a girlfriend. He was a slender man of medium height, well-built in proportion, except for the lump between his shoulders.

  He had liked several girls, but they never knew it because he did not want their laughter or rejection. Over the years he had learned to laugh when others laughed at him. It made their laughter hurt less. In time he grew, almost, not to care what others thought or said behind his back or when he passed them by. Truly, most didn’t bother anymore because they were used to him. But, always, there are some fools around somewhere.

  Now, Sidney was a normal man. He had tried, as puberty came and stayed, unfulfilled, to visit secretly a prostitute or two, but they called him “bad luck” and refused to have anything to do with him. But . . . you know . . . sometimes one or two, in dire need, would sneak and do what they called a “quickie.” It cost him much, was never truly satisfying and happened very seldom.

  What brought him to Ms. Ready’s mind was that Sidney, at this time, was putting a new screen door on her back porch. Ms. Ready was not totally hard-hearted, just had her own need to hold on to that rooming house she and her husband had sacrificed and struggled to finally acquire. Mr. Ready worked as a redcap at the railroad station and she ran the house. They were getting old; it had taken their whole life just to get the rooming house. They had to make it pay. Now, Ms. Ready was not an angel, so she rented two rooms, located in the basement, to prostitutes when her husband was at work. (She thought he didn’t know. He preferred it that way so when they went to church on Sundays he wasn’t the one to have to struggle to look innocent.)

  Ms. Ready knew Luella was not a fast woman and she would not have suggested any man just looking for any woman, to her. But she knew Sidney, and her husband had used him for carpentry jobs for years. She didn’t know ALL his problems with women, but she was a good guesser. And, “Another thing,” she thought to herself as she went downstairs to see him, “he is clean . . . and kind . . . and a churchgoin man. And I need my money.” So . . . she talked to Sidney.

  When Ms. Ready got to the back porch Sidney was just finished and cleaning up around his job. He looked up at her and smiled. “You just in time, I’m through. You can check it out, see if you satisfied.”

  “Oh, I know you
done a good job, Turt—Sidney. I know I can count on you.” Still, she looked the work over, then set down in a rocking chair. “Sidney . . . I want to ask you somethin.”

  “Yes, mam.”

  Ms. Ready thought, carefully, a moment in the afternoon silence of the backyard. Deciding she knew where to start, she asked, “Sidney? What do you think about loneliness?”

  Sidney was momentarily taken aback. “Loneliness?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  Sidney took his handkerchief from the back pocket of his overalls, wiped his face and put it back as he wondered why he was being asked the question. “Why you ask me that? You ain’t lonely, is you? You a married woman with a good man.”

  “I ain’t talkin bout me, I’m askin you what you think.”

  He smiled before he answered. “Well . . . Ms. Ready . . . what I think is loneliness is one of the worse things in the world. It got to be pretty bad cause even God gave Adam, Eve, cause he saw that loneliness was hard on the fellow.”

  “What’s so bad about it? What it feel like to you?”

  Sidney looked down at the ground, lifted his hammer in the air and let his arm fall back to his side. “Wellll, to me, it just mean nothin.”

  “Nothin?!” Ms. Ready leaned forward in the chair.

  “Yeah. Like my daddy always say, when I was growin up, I was a king. But I ain’t got no woman, no family, cept Dora and her youngens and they hers. So, if I’m a king, I’m just a king of nothingness.”

  “A king of nothingness?”

  Sidney made himself laugh, “Yeah. If you really want to know, I just go on with my life, but I ain’t got nothin no other man got. They got women, a wife. Every night . . . I go home . . . I go home to my dog. I feed him and I’m done for the day. I pet him, but I don’t want to kiss him none.” He stopped laughing. “Loneliness is never havin nothin to look forward to. You wake up in the middle of the night and ain’t nobody there. Bed is cold. Night is dark, don’t care how bright the moon is. Sun shine, but it don’t mean nothin too much. I mean, I’m glad to live another day, sometime, but what am I livin it for?”