A Piece of Mine

by J. California Cooper

  But he never came back.

  The years have passed and we have really sure nuff got old. Lida Mae looks like she is 150 years old and she is only 45 or so. I stop over to see her on my way to my son’s house to get my grandchild sometime and she still be setting on the porch, drinking and she say things I don’t know if I believe them. She say, “Life ain’t shit, you know that? It ain’t never done a fuckin thing for me!!”

  When I leave, thoughts be zooming round in my head and I think of those words I got on a 15¢ post card go like this:

  Some people watch things happen.

  Some people make things happen.

  Some people don’t even know nothing happened.

  Then I go on over to pick up my grandbaby and thank God, ugly as I may be, I am who I am.

  Who Are the Fools?

  WITHIN these times there lived a man named Mr. Rembo and his wife, Teresa. Mr. Rembo was a 57-year-old, white-looking black man, square of torso, thick stumpy legs and wispy grey hair, rheumy light brown eyes and a stomach that overrode his belt. Mr. Rembo was the kind of man who, when he found himself alone with little girls, sat them on his lap, squeezed their thighs, tickled their titties, pinched their arms and slapped their little behinds. Consequently, he shelled out many nickles and dimes. Mr. Rembo also tore up his wife’s Bible books and laughed at her as she would struggle to retrieve them. He would pull her down in bed on Sunday mornings, when she was going to church, to have sex, when he wasn’t too hung over and sick from being drunk. Her only relief was when he went to his job as a night watchman.

  Mrs. Rembo was a nervous, thin, 49-year-old, brownskinned, church-going woman always looking over her shoulder for an attacker, perhaps because Mr. Rembo often struck her for no good reason except he felt she was his to do with as he liked. Now, Mrs. Rembo wasn’t really a fool, just kind. She knew Mr. Rembo’s mother had died after being kicked by a cow she was trying to milk during her ninth month and she gave birth to her son, Mr. Rembo. His father had married someone else rather soon, someone who did not like to take care of other people’s children. Mrs. Rembo thought Mr. Rembo had been hurt enough.

  The Rembos had lived in the same neighborhood twenty years or so and some neighbors didn’t like him but couldn’t put their finger on just why, just didn’t! Mrs. Ginny, the next-door widow of two husbands did like Mr. Rembo, though, and spared no effort to show him, often asking him over for a drink or two of gin, while they laughed at Teresa’s church-going ways and her fearful demeanor, talking about sex as Mrs. Ginny leaned over near him so he could slap her on her fat ass as she leaned back with laughter.

  Mrs. Ginny didn’t really like Mr. Rembo either; as a matter of fact, she just needed a regular sex life and since she didn’t look too good, anymore, had to take what she could get and she didn’t see any reason she couldn’t get Mr. Rembo! When she needed him, that is! She had tried going to the church house for a while after that good-looking preacher had laid her mister to rest for the last time, but that talk about sin, adultery and hell and goodness and hell and heaven had drove her crazy with boredom and the preacher didn’t pay any mind to her anyway … well, that was, in her words, “Enough of that shit!” In short, Mrs. Ginny was the type of woman to say, “Mercy Jesus! Got-dam! Amen!” as she orgasmed under someone else’s husband.

  Mr. Wellington, the grocer, had been the neighborhood grocer about four years before they moved into the neighborhood. His wife, Angie, had been sick for her last ten years and had been dead already for two years. He had loved and taken care of her till the last day. He missed her. He saw, in Teresa Rembo, the same sweetness and gentleness his Angie had had. He had, also, seen her change from a neat, good-looking woman into a thin, nerve-wrecked, deep furrow-browed, old, unhappy woman. Once when the store was empty he had pulled her to him and pressed himself to her and held her out of his own desperation, for he was a faithful husband. She had not moved away, only looked sad as though thinking of something long, long ago, and gone. He had kissed her and though she had kissed him back, she had not come into the store for a long time. He had never done it again, but they seemed to have a delicate bond of some sort.

  He had also spoken to her since his wife died saying, “Teresa, we are getting old, you are too old to keep being treated like a fool! If you want to leave that man and get a divorce, I’ll marry you and take care of you. If you don’t want me, you can still work here while you get yourself together, I’ll help you.” She had looked at him and shaken her head at the futility of it all. He reached for her hand and said, “We both need someone to give our love to.” She leaned toward him as if to say something, decided against it, took her packages with a sad smile, and left. He could not know he had made her heart soar like a broken-winged bird dreams of, because it was months before he even knew she had been really listening to him and that came about like this.

  Teresa used to go into the bathroom to read her Bible and study her books, locking the door. Mr. Rembo had been drinking steadily all day at Mrs. Ginny’s and at home. He was sloppy drunk and decided to have some sport. Kicking in the bathroom door, one of the few things still working in the house, he tore into her, cursing, “I knew you was in here reading that shit! Don’t you know there ain’t no God yet? Got-dammit! If there was, what he gone want a dried-up ole woman like you for, ain’t good for nothin?! But there ain’t! There ain’t no God!” He began to tear up her new Bible. “See? If there a God, why don’t he snatch this book outta my hands? Ain’t this s’pose to be his holy word?!” With book leaves going every which way Teresa screamed, “Stop, stop, stop!” and struck him a frail blow on his fleshy shoulder. He came up from bending to reach for another book with a backhand slap that threw her into the tub where she hit her head against the faucet and began to bleed and cry (she had never cried before).

  Mr. Rembo raged, “So you gonna shout at me?” He was enjoying himself. “Yeah, you gonna hit me, too! You losing your mind?!” He pulled her roughly from the tub and shoved her through the doorway into the kitchen. “You dumb bitch! I said God, not you! Why don’t he help you? Cause he ain’t there, that’s why! I don’t want no more Bibles in my house! You hear? You hear?” He pushed her out the back door roughly and she sprawled on the ground. Now, this was to the delight of Mrs. Ginny, who was looking through her window, though, I must add, with a fleeting pang of sympathy for Teresa.

  Mr. Rembo went back into the house and returned with the scraps of her Bible as Teresa was on her knees trying to get up. He threw the scraps over her and, placing his foot on her behind, shoved. This time when she hit the dirt, she didn’t try to get up, just sobbed, long deep, sad, tired sobs.

  Mr. Rembo slammed the door shut, saying drunkenly, “You betta realize I’m your god! Stay out there till you ready to ack like it!!”

  Now Teresa laid there so long that Mrs. Ginny would have thought she was dead if she hadn’t seen the movements of a sob every once in a while. “Oh get up from there and have some pride bout yourself!” she said to the gin bottle.

  After a while Teresa did get up, slowly, brushed herself off and walked away, with dignity, though bruised, dirty, torn, with rivulets of tears making rows in the dust on her face. She walked to Mr. Wellington, who closed his store and took her to a lawyer without using a comb or a washcloth or anything else on her first. Then, he took her to a doctor … then he took her home … his home.

  Mr. Rembo slept about an hour, then weaved his way to the back door and seeing she wasn’t there, weaved his way through the house calling her name. Deciding she would be there eventually, he weaved his way over to Mrs. Ginny’s to get another drink. At her front door, which she opened a crack, she said quickly and in a low voice, “Come in the back door, come in the back!” To her humiliation, he peed right by the geraniums, then staggered to the back door. She wanted not to answer the door but somehow had to, and did. They spent the evening and many other evenings drinking because Teresa never did come home. However, things changed. There was not so much laughter
. He was morose and often drunk when he came, whether morning or night. He knew where Teresa was and wanted to go get her but since she had been to the divorce court, they had warned him, so he didn’t, but told everybody she was living in “sin” with Mr. Wellington.

  His attempts at sex with Mrs. Ginny seemed pathetic and heavy. He drunk, she half-drunk. Mrs. Ginny seemed to be reaching for so much, trying to get all of something and he seemed to have nothing to come get. They only continued doing it because they both had a need to be close to sex, however unfulfilling it might be. He needed to show Mrs. Ginny, also, what Teresa was missing, and couldn’t, so he just kept drinking.

  Mr. Rembo’s days became darker … he lost his job after being found drunk there. They tried not to fire him but after a dozen times or so, had no alternative; after all, he was supposed to be a “watchman!” He began to bald but the remaining hair seemed always tangled. His eyes seemed more rheumy and were often matted with the mucus that crawls in the eyes at night. His hands shook as he reached for the bottles of warm beer he liked. His mind was in a thick soupy fog. He hadn’t been over to Mrs. Ginny’s in several days. He didn’t like to think of that last night.

  Mrs. Ginny had held his soft penis in her hand as she stared at the ceiling, listening to his drunken snoring. Tears had seemed to want to come to her eyes but couldn’t find a place to break through. She had fallen asleep without letting him go. He had awakened later, and lying still to remember where he was, he looked at the faded wallpaper, pieces hanging here and there, a cobweb from the ceiling to the window, a home discarded by some spider. The sheets seemed tired and old and wrinkled and felt damp around him. He felt her hand and removed it, finger by finger until her hand dropped away. Turning his head to the side, staring at the wall, two deep dry sobs shook his body trying to get out of his mouth, which he would not open.

  Morning came and another bottle. Though it had been a year, his rage returned, stronger. He took his knife and cut all Teresa’s clothes and threw them in the yard (which Mrs. Ginny came out and picked through, but because of her size found only a shoulder shawl and a purse that hadn’t been cut).

  Everybody knew Mrs. Rembo was now Mrs. Wellington. Mrs. Ginny still shopped there but Mr. Rembo never went near. Today, though, as he drank his gin and warm beer it was all he could think about. She was still Mrs. Rembo to him! She belonged to him! To him! Not to Mr. Wellington, not God, not nobody but him! He shouted to the house “Me! Me! She is my wife! Mine! I can beat her if I want to! She’s mine! I can kill her if I want to!” The words hung in the air around his head, echoing, from the top of his sodden brain to his sick liver and sour stomach then back to his sodden brain. He cried. Tears and snot mingled as he rubbed his face with his hands. He felt no comfort, only rage. He put his knife in his pocket, and slightly staggering, went out the front door, to the corner and turned right for the two blocks to the Wellington store.

  When he reached the store, he passed looking in from the side. To himself, he had become wise, smart, and slick. He stopped just past the store and tipped back to peer in from the corner of the window. Mr. Wellington was behind the meat counter waiting on a customer. Teresa was not in the store, but he knew the door to the right, just inside the store, led into the main house. When two ladies with children went in, he pressed close behind them and veered off to the right behind the counter and gradually made his way to the door and went through as Mr. Wellington bent down to take something out of the cold storage counter.

  When Mr. Rembo stepped into the nice, clean, fresh-smelling, quiet house, these things stopped him. He felt suspended in time … but in a little more time his aura oozed into the air and he was able to penetrate the goodness of the home. He took out his knife and stealthily made his way through, reaching the bedroom where Teresa, after a morning of good loving, was sleeping with a slight, gentle smile on her face. He proceeded toward her but when he reached her he did not recognize the plump, smooth-skinned, smooth-browed woman with the softly curled hair with one arm thrown out in abandon. He was confused. A relative? A friend? He backed out of the room, turned and stumbled through the door toward the store. The noise awakened Teresa and she said, “Baby?” full of softness and love and warmth. The sound hit his ears, ricocheted, passing his eyes to his stomach up to his chest and down to his buttocks, first one then the other, then back to his head as he burst into the store.

  Mrs. Ginny had seen him leave his house. She knew by instinct he was going to the store. This she was not going to miss! She reached for the nearest thing, the shoulder shawl, and followed him. When he burst into the store, her back was to him and he turned directly to the shawl and raising his knife, brought it down into her back. Again and again. Mr. Wellington had a large soup bone, a cow’s leg, in his hand and he flew to stop Mr. Rembo and struck him with it. WHAM! Each time he struck, Mr. Rembo struck with his knife. SLASH! WHAM! SLASH! WHAM! SLASH!, till he fell to the floor beside Mrs. Ginny amidst the screams of the terrified customers.

  The trial didn’t take long and he was sentenced to death. Between each electric shock that was killing him, he screamed, “Oh God, help me! Oh God, oh God.”

  Loved to Death

  DEAR Mr. Notebook: her heart, soul and body was filled with love and she was well hated for it; she loved liquor, men, song and dance and laughing. She loved God too but she didn’t have time for Him. She loved her two daughters but she gave them away, but only to people who she knew loved them too. She loved learning but she couldn’t do any reading cause everybody loved her wouldn’t let books stay in her hands! I did all the reading cause nobody loved me enough to bother me! Late nights or early mornings musta caught her coming or going! She was like a lone thread, waving in the breeze longing to be part of a woven fabric of life, but the weaver couldn’t catch her, she didn’t have time! I’m talking bout my sister, Zalina. But, Mr. Notebook, you know that cause she’s in all your pages running through my life and yours.

  Ahhhh, I hurt all over … AHHHHhhhhhOhhhhhhhh, all outside and all inside! I wished she was dead so many times when we were young cause she was so pretty and I was so ugly! Uncomely, the Bible says! I wished it, but I didn’t mean it! I didn’t like her then, but I loved her! I know she loved me.

  She was the second child born to my mama, but she wasn’t my daddy’s! Now everybody understand if the first child might not be his, but if the first one is and the second one ain’t, that’s a bad sign in a husband and wife!

  Zalina knew it and always said she was a “love child!” I wanted to be a love child too, but what kind of love could I represent with this spine all crooked and legs going to the side, face looking like somebody threw my nose and mouth, eyes and ears at me and they hit and stuck all wrong? My daddy is half Indian and I got his long straight hair; Zalina got short kinky hair, but when that natural stuff came out and that hair was all picked nice around her face and that smile … she was just beautiful sunshine! When she smiled, the sunshine just spilled out all over you! You could have long straight hair all the way to the corner and back but wouldn’t look no better than Zalina and her short hair!

  Zalina wouldn’t stop bothering mama bout being a love child so she told us Zalina’s daddy had made her right in the bedroom next to where my daddy was sleeping a drunk off! She said he had been kind and good to us, helped us keep going sometimes … a good man and she kinda loved him. That’s what made Zalina a love child I thought. But I also thought he might a been a good-hearted man but he wasn’t no good-minded man making a baby in another man’s house like that! A real good man would only make love and his own babies in his own house!

  We all grown now, but I told my mama I wish I had been a love child like Zalina but just look at me! She said, “A love child ain’t in the looks itself, it’s in the life itself!” I wished I had told her earlier, I could have packed that in my heart years ago and used it when I needed it; it would have kept my heart from being so empty, just rattling round in my crooked chest!

  You know how people
forget you when you sit quiet and still for a long time? One night, I heard my daddy say to mama: “Xevera ain’t mine, is she? Zalina is my child ain’t she?” And mama say: “Your child is who you love. They both my children!” I didn’t like to look at him for a long time after that! My own daddy! Not only was I not a love child, I wasn’t nothing without my mama! And Zalina, of course.

  When we was growing up, everybody always tell me “Sit down and rest!” But Zalina always say, “Come on! Run! Run!” I was scared to … just wanted to stand and cry. But one day, she pulled me and I HAD to! And I did! I felt the whole world turning under my feet! I just laughed and cried and Zalina just threw her head back and laughed so happy with me! We went “ring around the rosy” out there in that field with the trees waving at us. Lordy! I was playing! Ever after that I ran when I was alone or with her. It makes the world look happy to me. I still do it and I’m a grown woman now raising Zalina’s and my daughter. I don’t know who the father is and I don’t give a damn!

  I remember Zalina always look so ripe even before she hit her teens … like a ripe juicy plum or peach or like a watermelon so plump and sound so good when you slap it! Peoples were always slapping her behind, even daddy! Mama used to make her call all the salesmen and bill collectors “uncle” and tell her to run to em and hug em round the neck and kiss their cheeks cause we didn’t have no money to pay em. Daddy drank a lot sometimes, you know, and didn’t always go to work and when he did go and got paid, sometime we wouldn’t see him nor the money! Well, Zalina would do what mama say and the men would slap her behind like she a little child but she wasn’t no little chile anymore. Even me, sitting in my chair watching everything could see their hands linger or slap too many times. Afterwards, Zalina would go in our room and lay cross the bed and cry sometime. I’d go in there and say, “What you crying for? He left the radio here!” Or something he had done left. She would answer me, her face all mashed in the pillow with no case on it … “I don’t know.”