Good Negress

by Verdelle, A. J.

  I hobbled around all day. Margarete finally asked me what’s the matter. I told her I was worried about Granma’am, and then she asked me why. I told her and Big Jim, who was sittin at the table with her, about how Granma’am was on the cord and it got so thin and how she fell in the dream, and so I had run back and forth trying to gauge her fall and catch her, and now my back was angled on account a the way Granma’am crushed me when she fell.

  Margarete’s mouth hung open. She squinted through the vapors a the story I just told. Big Jim asked me in the midst a Margarete’s not speakin if I wanted to call down to somebody to ask after Granma’am.

  “Where can we go to call?” I asked, just out like, to them both. I said we on account a I hoped they wouldn’t send me by myself.

  “We can call Miss Macie,” Margarete half answered, slow. She looked down, brushin imaginary crumbs off the table into the hand she held open underneath the table edge. They had to be imaginary cause ain’t no dust or crumbs on that table, ain’t nobody eaten at it since I cleared and wiped it off just a hour ago. I don’t know who Margarete is tryin to fool, but I just let it be a trade, since she was gone take me to call Miss Macie.

  “What you waitin on, Neesey?” Margarete wanted to know. “Go on in the bedroom, and call Miss Macie.”

  I walked into the bedroom mostly in a mist myself. There it was, right by the bed. Under Margarete’s maroon lamp with the ladies painted one on each side was a large black telephone with the dial of numbers in the middle. Well, I’ll be. I had dusted those lamps. Wiped them too, I think. How had I missed that telephone? Had I missed it? How could I not know it was there? I had rushed through Margarete’s room. I had not fondled her things and noticed her progress. And I had never talked to her on the telephone from down home.

  “DO YOU KNOW Miss Macie’s number by heart?” she said, talkin right in my ear. She had snuck up behind me. How? Margarete has a inside telephone, that’s what I’m thinkin.

  “Naw,” I reply, late, I’m a little giddy.

  Margarete goes over to the telephone and turns each number professional-like. Her fingernails are shaped like almonds and may be just as hard. She let the circle roll back between each number; it sound like the scrape a drapes bein opened, rings runnin on the rod.

  Margarete talks a minute to whoever answers, and then she hands me the telephone top. It is Belle Eva, Miss Macie’s sister, talkin out from the phone from all the way down home. Took us all day plus two hours to get this distance, and now we talkin at the same time. I cain’t help but smile at all this, and I have near forgotten about my back, but then it pinches me. “Have you seed my granmama Dambridge today?” I holler to Belle Eva.

  Belle Eva is sayin, “Yes, yes I have,” and tellin me bout Granma’am havin come out to the front yard first thing every day since I have left. Jes watchin and greetin the children goin to school. That’s how she has seed Granma’am, she says, and yes Granma’am is lookin strong and jes fine.

  At the same time that Belle Eva starts to talkin, Margarete is sayin to me, “You don’t hafta holler in that telephone, Neesey.”

  Margarete turns on her heel and leaves, and I holler to Belle Eva the other things I want to ask. Then I give her a short list a things to go by and say to Granma’am in the mornin. I tell her to tell Granma’am I dreamed about her but everything is all right and my back is straightenin up.

  Belle Eva say she sure will go by. Belle Eva hollers how am I makin out in Detroit, but I have already started to hang up the phone and I don’t have the poise or experience to recover and so I end up the conversation by hangin up still hearin Belle Eva talk. Hallo, oh, Neesey, oh, she disconnected. I imagine that’s what Belle Eva will say after she hears that I’m gone.

  LUKE EDWARD HAD to walk me to school the whole first week. I had to beg him. To this day, Luke edward still hate to get up early. He don’t have to, so he don’t. But also my not bein able to find my way irritated him. Specially when I was tryina shake him out the bed. He was not happy that I couldn’t get directions good. Some days, sometime between the flat and the schoolhouse, he might start to think the whole thing is funny, and be laughin at me. I encouraged him; I rather have him laughin at me than mad at me. Mostly, he was mad.

  On the third day of my wakin him up too early, he said, “Neesey, you big enough to be able to get to school by yourself.” The first and second day we had talked all the way. It made the walk a lot shorter, but I forgot to pay attention. We talked about Granma’am, and Lantene and her mama, Miz Evelyn Ownes, and I asked him how pregnant was Margarete. He said he thought maybe four months, or five months. That the baby might be comin in February or March.

  “Where you goin now, Luke edward?” I ask him.

  “Back to bed,” he answered me. “Bye.”

  The next day I have to beg him again. “Come on, Luke edward, don’t fuss.”

  “This is not about my fussing, Baby Sis. I’m not about to keep walking you to school every day. I’m not going to the school—you are,” he said.

  I promise to make him a dessert.

  He smirks. “What you gone make?” he asks.

  “Chocolate pie.”

  He gets up and gets ready. I knew he would. But when we go out and the cold shakes him, he sucks in his teeth.

  “I’m tryina learn my way,” I answer.

  “This is not complicated, Neesey,” he says to me. “You just walk down to Warren and make a left, and walk down to Dexter and make another left, and then walk over to Scovel and make a right. The school is on the corner of Scovel and Thompkins. Or, you can walk past Warren down to Grand River, and walk down Grand River to Scovel and then make the right. Go down Scovel to Thompkins. That’s the way we went yesterday, but it’s the long way.”

  I don’t answer cause already I’m dreamin.

  “You better pay attention to where you going, girl. You gonna end up out here lost, and by yourself.” He calls me back to the streets we are walkin. “You can see this big old school building from Virginia.”

  Luke edward is so funny. He was right, though, I should a been payin more attention. But I just let him lead.

  GOT SO I just couldn’t sleep. Least not long like when I had the tremor of the country and Granma’am’s ancient breathin to dream by. In Detroit, machines pass in the night. Instead a layin in bed aimless, I took to gettin up soon as I woke up. Always plenty to do, since I am mostly in charge a the house.

  One night, I have put up my cot around three-forty-five because I can see I won’t get back to sleep. It will be Saturday when the sun hits, and so there is washin ahead. Course I cain’t start to wash while everybody is still sleep, so I start dinner. I have potatoes peeled and soakin in water and back in the box, chicken legs seasoned and set to bake. I have just put the cabbage in the skillet when I hear Luke edward’s hand turn the lock. He don’t scare me no more like he use to. Maybe I have just surrendered to his clock, and so that’s why I’m up. Maybe I felt him comin on home. I sure don’t know what it is wakes me up like this, but he does not startle me when he comes in the kitchen.

  He says quietly, “Neesey, I do not believe how crazy you are.” His voice lilts up somewhere early in his sentence. He is beautiful and interesting and pronounced.

  He does not startle me, but he does make me laugh. Now, here he is, comin in the house. Four o’clock in the mornin. God is busy makin dawn, and I am soon to start on my cornbread. And he is callin me crazy, laughin and lookin so sweetly tired, I know before I even look up at him. Of course, I could be crazy—why cain’t I sleep?—but least I have had my bath and been to bed and got up to today’s date. He is dressed in yesterday’s clothes, leanin backwards into things that are rumpled and not fresh.

  “Why am I crazy?” I whisper back to him. Smile is in my voice.

  “You got the whole house smelling like cabbage,” he says. I shrug my shoulders casual-like and he goes to his room to bed. I am lonely but still busy once he’s gone.

  MY TWO MOTHERS


  I LEARNED HOW to cook and how to organize meals from Granma’am. When Margarete took me down home to stay, Granma’am had made a feast for us. Fried chicken, chopped turnip greens and turnips, corn pudding, spoon biscuits, and a few mashed potatoes to go under the gravy. The food waited until we came, and then waited while we took off all our wraps, and said hello and hello. It waited while Mama cried some, and while Granma’am wandered the house with me, telling me what was what. The food waited while Granma’am washed my face, and while Mama stood out in the backyard and breathed this good country air, she said. It waited while Granma’am hollered cross to Miss Macie that “Yes, Margarete has arrived safe,” and we would step over later. Then the three of us sat down to the table. Granma’am blessed all she had cooked and blessed her two girls. Then we dipped our forks in and the food was comfort-warm.

  We had lime pie for dessert, and we had a relaxing time down the country. After six days or maybe seven, Mama started getting ready to leave. She had to go back to Detroit and work, she said. And she said that since Daddy was gone she had to be careful to make sure she got enough money to take care of everybody. She explained her intention to leave me with Granma’am. In Virginia without her. Without Luke edward, or David or Daddy.

  I insisted she not leave me. I understood she had plans. But I argued. She could take me. She could take me back and keep me like before. But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t, she said.

  MY TWO MOTHERS let me have my tantrums, so I knew I was losing the war. A child knows what it means when she is let to have a fit. This is one a the hard knocks, honey. Since I wasn’t swaying Mama, I took a new tack: I stopped kicking and screaming, and started to plead.

  And then after that, I publicly performed.

  Granma’am has an oak in her front patch of yard. Small yard, big oak. It has aged like a sage as I have grown. Figuring to get between my mother and the rail stop, I made my first visit to Granma’am’s front-inside-the-fence. Leaning on the oak, I testified. I wailed and I hollered. Thought about my mama leavin me, missed my brothers Luke and David in advance, glared at the country chillun glarin at me, willed my mama to the screen door to see. Feared bein alone with my ancient Granma’am and called my daddy’s name.

  Daddy. Da-a-a-dy. Daaaaaaddy. Hiccup.

  Hiccup. I want my da-a-a-dy.

  Mama took to bed behind all a that, and so she stayed a few extra days. I relaxed a minute but it was a temporary win. Much as we have discussed it, she declares she didn’t sneak out on me. “You were sleep, Neesey,” she says.

  HAY DREAMS

  MIZ EVELYN OWNES talked about her dead baby boy like he was a angel, while he was livin. He was really at the edge a bein a boy—seventeen when he passed—and nobody but his mama woulda said he was a angel.

  Before Lonts was killed, he had gone bad. What it meant to go bad was the same as for fruit and vegetables. It meant there was hardly any use for you, except if the bruises and the mold was cut out. Salvage used in stew. No cook worth her salt would use the salvage a bad vegetables in separate spaces on the plate on account a the stringy moldy taste would expose you. Would give you a reputation of either not carin, or not havin.

  Miz Evelyn caught mama-grief bad when they found her boy. He was all in pieces, cut up at the tracks. And so Miz Evelyn Ownes went to pieces herself—in his name. She got the fever and the sweats, and then, later, Lantene got the fever too, in imitation of the way her mama behaved.

  Miz Evelyn Ownes was brought from the whitepeople’s house where she worked. Her friends went and got her, two women and a man; they fanned around Miz Evelyn’s head and face. The heave-ho of the procession disrupted me and Lantene. We was playin in her mama’s room, experimentin with her mama’s special things.

  They come round two o’clock in the day. At first we had a pleasant shock that Miz Evelyn Ownes was too distracted to care about our wanderin hands, but then we bridled and subdued when through the heat and the visitors we understood about the pieces left of Lonts.

  Lantene blew up into hysteria all at once. Miz Macie gripped her by her shoulders and talked straight into Lantene’s desperate wild and searchin eyes. “Lantene, your brother Lonts done been kilt on the tracks.” The same tracks my daddy rode, makin a life? Lantene, she raised her arms up quick, and knocked Miz Macie’s grip away. She ran to her mama, she was flushed purple and she rocked back and forth. People attended to her in a tight circle that Lantene used all her strength, again, to break. “Mama, where Lonts? Mama, where Lonts?” Miz Evelyn Ownes did not answer Lantene. Miz Evelyn Ownes sat faint and gurgled, rubbed on her knees, called on the Lord.

  I retreated to a corner and crouched, pinned by the heat and cut-up Lonts. No one noticed me. Then Granma’am came, large, and busy like groceries; she had heard about the tragedy and decided that where I was was there. Granma’am had put on a store-bought dress, but wore her house shoes still. She pulled me by the shoulder of my light blue summer shift; I was still small, about nine. We walked clear to the back where the drawn water was. Granma’am had the ice that the Kinseys had brung her, and in the closest container, she dropped the ice and poured just a drip of water over it. We went back up front—Granma’am was still draggin me by the shoulder of my shift. Granma’am set down the ice-cool water and melted a mound over Miz Evelyn. Especially over her sour sweaty face. I mimicked her: I stuck my hand in the bowl, and put a piece of ice on my friend Lantene, there on the left side of her neck that showed. On her right side, she leaned on the heave of her mother. Lantene did not notice my hand or the coolness, I guess. I held my hand there till the ice melted, which was quick. By then Granma’am had finished murmurin religion over Lantene’s mama. She pulled me by my shift and we left; Lantene did not notice me leave. The house thumped a fitful rhythm behind us.

  Granma’am forbade me to go there a while, even though she went every day. She took me to Lonts’s funeral, which happened on the lot where they buried him, instead a at the church. We looked at the hole for his casket the whole time the preacher talked. Granma’am got me a new white dress from the Jenkinses in a hurry. It was hot hot that day, and I sweated in the dress. It pained me to run salt in my new clothes.

  Lantene was slow to talk to me the rest a that summer, but then when I went back to school, she started to come round some at the end a the day after she finished helpin at the white house where her mama worked. When I finally got permission to go to her house again, Granma’am sent me with a nice flat cake, and me and Lantene enjoyed it, even before Miz Evelyn came home. That cake day, I remember, was the first I heard from Miz Evelyn of Lonts’s makin brooms.

  I looked at Lantene with question in my eyes and cake crumbs glued round my mouth. She repeated: “Lonts usedta make brooms when he was young.”

  “Brooms?” I looked from one to the other. And Miz Evelyn Ownes explained with a light in her eyes that he made regular brooms for sweepin and spirit brooms to hang up over the back doors. “He collected hay from the west fields,” she said, “and brought it back to this here yard. Piled it up till he had plenty, and till he had sawed enough handles. Then he soaked all the brush over two or three nights, and would spend the next few days cuttin and foldin and wrappin the straw. At the end of a week, he might have nine, ten brooms.

  “And he sold them too. Kept a schedule in his mind of who bought what broom when, and then would go back and sell the same customers new ones. He brought me every dime he made,” she said wistfully. “And he was just a sprout then. Seasonal work, you know,” she trailed off.

  All the time I knew Lonts was after he had gone bad. To tell the truth, I ain’t never seen Lonts make a broom or a dollar. Fact, only thing I ever seen Lonts make was a escape, and he made plenty a those. I think I can say without speakin ill a the dead that Lonts was probably makin some kind a escape when he got caught by the train cars careenin on the tracks. Every body else down home said the same.

  Lantene mistook my sugar-sleep and silence for doubt. I was actually thinkin that Miz Evelyn Ownes’s mi
nd had gone off to meet her angel boy, sad and sweet as she looked, tellin that story so wispy like she did. “Ask Miz Kinsey,” Lantene said abruptly. “She bought Lonts’s brooms. The Jenkinses too.”

  I did have chance to ask Valentine Kinsey one time. I sat for Miz Kinsey’s kids while Miz Kinsey did other things—visited, went to Richmond with Mistah Kinsey, went round to show some a the new things they ordered from the mail. Miz Kinsey was one a the town’s authorities, like Granma’am. “You remember Lonts Ownes?” I asked her. “Did you buy his brooms, Miz Kinsey?”

  “Lawrence,” Miz Kinsey corrected me. “The boy’s name was Law-rence Ownes. Yes, I bought those nice brooms he made. Such a shame about that boy,” she clucked. “They should have taught him to cane chairs.”

  GIRL BABY

  GRANMA’AM TRIED TO involve me in church and school both, on account a she was a great believer in occupation. I did everything she said do, but it was the parade finally took my mind off my troubles. It happened late in the spring after the winter of my first year down home.

  Members from all the churches were in the June parade. What few people in town who didn’t belong to a church stood at spots on the sidelines or marched the rear. Granma’am’s church, Calvary, led that year—what a great honor. The church prepared from February until Saturday, the fourteenth of June. That Saturday morning, we did our last rehearsal of the lineup and three marches at ten o’clock. At eleven the parade happened.

  The months of preparation had specific stages. First, we planned the colors. The basis for everything was white. The girls wore white blouses, and purple skirts for redemption. The boys wore purple shirts and dark pants. The church mothers, who were the parade’s core group, wore white dresses, white hats, white stockings, white gloves, white shoes. The youngest girls and all the babies wore their white Easter outfits.