Mare's War

by Tanita S. Davis

  Since we don’t have a telephone, I don’t have a soul to call except maybe Miss Ida, who would surely put me through to Mama. I could ring her, but I don’t want to be beholden to her for anything, not when I am not going to set foot in her house with a dust rag in my hand ever again.

  Peaches doesn’t have anybody at home waiting on word from her, either. Her mama is put out with her for not taking that job, so she expects her folks won’t have too much to say that she wants to hear. When they tell us it is time to ship out to our separation centers, we are all ready. Ruby is going to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and Peach, Dorothy, and Ina are going with her. Maryanne Oliver and I are on our way to Camp Blanding in Florida. From there, I will take a bus to Alabama. It won’t take me long to get to Bay Slough.

  “They hire colored stenographers in California, and we will make good money,” Peach tells me one more time, putting on her gloves. “Now, I plan to stay on till Christmas with my folks, but I’ll be on my way before the new year. Can’t let them snatch up all the good jobs!”

  “I will let you know about the wedding,” Ruby says. “Don’t you forget, Marey Lee Boylen, it’s going to be in June, and you’ve got to stand up for me!”

  “I’ll see you,” Peach hollers. “Soon, Marey! Soon!”

  Maryanne and I wait with our duffle bags for our camp to be called. Everyone is crying and laughing and hollering goodbye, but I can hardly speak. I have a feeling I won’t ever see some of them again. And me, once I get split from Ruby and Peaches, 6888th Battalion, Company C, and the U.S. Women’s Army Corps, I feel like I will disappear. If I am not careful, I might get on back to Bay Slough and never remember who I am.

  I am Private First Class Marey Lee Boylen, from Bay Slough, Alabama.

  And pretty soon I am going to be somebody better.

  Don’t expect anybody to meet me at the station, so when I step down off the bus by the post office, I don’t stop. Instead, I heft up my bags and walk on.

  Nothing has changed too much in Bay Slough, but it sure looks small. The Pentecostal church on First Street looks tiny when I think about St. Paul’s in London or Sacré-Coeur in Paris. Young’s looks downright lonely standing by itself when I think of bistros and shops and stalls all bunched up and shoved together side by side down those narrow Paris streets.

  Mist is hanging in the air, and cars rattle by as I walk out past the edge of town and turn down Fourth Street toward the colored section of Bay Slough. I see St. John the Baptist AME, painted white and standing proud, the wrought iron fence around its yard straight and tall. I think about Feen’s Christmas play way back when and the social we had at Sister Dials’s. I can’t just walk on by when I see her front porch, but I don’t expect a long-legged girl in a knee skirt and loafers to come tearing out her front door, screaming my name.

  “Marey! Marey Lee!”

  “Feen! Girl, look at you!”

  “Yes, Lord,” Sister Dials sings out. “She’s come on home. Lord, she’s come on home!”

  We are all hugging and Sister Dials is singing, and I do a little two-step round with Feen hanging on. She is taller and a bit more woman-like, but for the most part, Feen seems just the same as always. Aunt Shirley must have bought her that pleated skirt and those loafers. She’s pretty as ever.

  I look at Feen and she stares at me, and we just grin big. “Welcome home,” Feen says, pulling back and examining my uniform. “Marey Lee, you look real sharp! Get a load of all those muscles!”

  Sister Dials is peering at my uniform, shaking her head. “Girl, wasn’t nobody watching for you today but Miss Josephine here. It just goes to show you,” she says. “Before they call, I will answer, isn’t that what the Book says?”

  “I am sure glad you were expecting me,” I say to Feen, holding her arm as Sister Dials welcomes us into her warm front room. What happened to my “little” sister? Feen, hefting my duffle bag, is just as tall as I am.

  “How is Mama?”

  “Mama is fine,” Feen says, but her smile fades a bit. “Mr. Peterson is a real joker. He keeps Mama laughing all the time.”

  “It was a real pretty service,” says Sister Dials. She has put a plate of tea cakes in front of me and is pouring me a cup of her special coffee. I can smell the bitter chicory swirling up in the steam. “Your mama wanted to wait, but Mr. Peterson got a job out at the mill in Huntsville. He had to get back.”

  “So, he’s going to stay on in Huntsville?” I say, pulling off my gloves and reaching for my cup. “He must be a man of some means, driving back and forth like that.”

  “Mama’s selling the farm and moving on to Huntsville with him,” Feen blurts. “I wanted to write you, but Sister Dials said you’d be better off not hearing till you got home.”

  The words knock me back. “Selling? Selling? But Mama always said Daddy bought that land with his sweat and blood and the farm was always going to be in the family. Mama said …”

  “Your mama say she is pure tired of taking care of them hogs,” Sister Dials offers. “She got a man to take care of her now.”

  “But …” My mouth moves. I can’t find a thing to say.

  “I thought if you got your job back from Miss Ida and put in a few more hours at Young’s,” Feen says slowly, “I could take in her washing, same as Mama did. I don’t want to go back to Aunt Shirley’s. I can find a domestic job, and between the two of us, we can maybe afford enough to rent the farm. Or maybe just a couple of rooms …”

  “Josephine Louise Boylen,” I say. “You are going to school. Don’t talk foolishness.”

  “I don’t want to go back to Philadelphia, not unless you’re coming back with me,” Feen says, and her eyes fill up. “Please, Marey Lee! I—”

  “Hush, Feen. Didn’t nobody say nothing about Philadelphia.” I turn to include Sister Dials. “You might as well know I don’t intend to stay here long. If Mama has plans for me, she might as well understand I have plans of my own.”

  “Well, now, Marey Lee,” Sister Dials begins.

  “But Mama doesn’t have plans for you,” Feen says, wringing her hands. “Mr. Peterson’s already got a little house. It’s just for Mama and him.”

  Even though I don’t expect different, hearing the words makes my breath roar in my ears.

  “Now don’t go getting all riled up,” Sister Dials says worriedly, reaching across to pat my leg. “You been walking on your own all this time, Marey Lee; your mama didn’t think to … Well, like I told your friend that come by to look in on Feen, wasn’t nothing here nobody needed to worry you about, and I meant that. Now, your mama knows the Lord God don’t look well on them that don’t take up the cross like he’s given ’em. A mother’s children are her cross, and …”

  “Feen, stay here,” I say, standing and pulling on my gloves. I shoulder my bag. “I’ll be back.”

  “Now, Marey Lee Boylen, don’t you go rearin’ up on your hind legs in your mama’s face,” Sister Dials warns. “You are just like her—don’t listen to nobody. …”

  Feen looks up at me, and in her face I see fear—and hope. “I’ll be right here, Marey.”

  Staff Sergeant Hill shouts cadence in my memory as I march down the road. I don’t have a word in my head but the left-right-left steps on the packed dirt road, my hands as empty as my mouth.

  Almost two years and not a word. The paymaster sent her half my check every month, faithful as clockwork. I worked hard to make sure she didn’t miss what I took in from Miss Ida’s, made sure she didn’t have cause to worry about that farm mortgage. But not a word.

  The knob is in my hand before I know it. I wrench open the door and step inside the front room.

  “Mama!”

  The lamp is sitting in the same place, next to Mama’s old upholstered armchair, where she would sit sewing every night. The house smells like greens and fatback and vinegar and sets my stomach to growling. I stay where I am.

  “Mama, where—”

  “Why you come up in here hollering, Marey Lee Boyl
en? Women’s Army make you think didn’t nobody teach you no better?”

  My heart just about jumps out my chest when Mama appears in the doorway of the kitchen. A faded flowered apron is hung over her dress, and she is holding her wooden spoon. She looks some put out, but not surprised to see me at all.

  “No, Mama. I’m sorry.”

  “Where Feen at? Hogs ain’t gonna slop themselves.”

  I swallow, trying to wet my tongue. “Mama,” I blurt, “why didn’t you write?”

  Before the words are out, I feel my face burn. Oh, why did I say that? Mama don’t have time for a girl bawling after her about, “Why didn’t you do this?” I don’t need to listen to know what she has to say.

  “Why I got to write to you? You are grown. Grown enough to go off and join the Women’s Army without nobody’s say-so.” My mother turns back toward the kitchen. “See after them hogs, Marey Lee.”

  “Mama—” I follow her, standing a ways behind her. “Feen says you sold the farm.”

  “Mr. Peterson is kind enough to have bought me a house,” Mama says, and her lips curve into a smug smile. “That man is something else. Mm-hmm.” She laughs softly.

  “You said we weren’t ever going to sell. You said Daddy built this farm with his blood and sweat.”

  My mother sighs and looks over at me, crossing her arms. “That he did. And then his hardheaded girl child went off and left it all on me. I do what needs to be done. This farm ain’t nothing but a noose round my neck.”

  Anger pulses in my temples. “Well, what about Josephine, Mama? You said we were always gonna have the farm. You said nobody would be able to take what was ours.”

  “As long as I am on this side of the grave, Josephine Boylen has got a roof over her head. She is doing fine in Philadelphia, and what I do for your sister ain’t no business of yours.” Mama shakes her spoon in my face. “You left out of here, Miss High and Mighty. Big old grown girl like you can take care of herself.”

  “You know why I left!” The words rush out, bitter on my tongue. “You sent Feen up north, and what was I supposed to do? Work for Miss Ida the rest of my days? Sister Dials says she saw Toby coming back around—”

  “Ain’t nobody talking about that no-’count man round here.” Mama holds up her spoon in warning. “Didn’t I say to see to the hogs? Or is you so grown you forgot how to mind?”

  I stare my mother down, heat rising up in my skin. I am grown now. I don’t have to listen to a thing this woman says to me, not a thing. I am about to open my mouth and tell her so.

  Then I think about Feen’s face looking up hopefully at me, and I bite my tongue hard.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say, with military courtesy that would make Lieutenant Hundley proud. “I will see to them directly.”

  I will do what I’m told this one last time. For Feen’s sake. Only for Feen’s sake.

  The slop buckets are in the same place on the back porch as always, stinking to high heaven, even in the cold. The hogs stink, too. The yard looks small and cluttered and dirty, and I look around at the field, the garden, the pigpen, the henhouse, remembering. Remembering everything.

  The hogs squeal and fight over their slop like no one ever feeds them. I lift the buckets to tip them, and they seem almost light. I guess in the Women’s Army Corps, I hauled heavier loads than this, with my pack and my mask. Mama doesn’t know what I can do, but I do.

  I know what I can do.

  My mother hands me a rag to wipe my shoes when I bring in the buckets, but I don’t need it. She looks at me, eyes traveling up my uniform and down to my shoes.

  “Well, now.” She clears her throat. “I got your money right here, Marey Lee.”

  “Ma’am?”

  Mama pats her apron and pulls out an envelope. “This your money. I kept it for you.”

  “Mama, that money was for you and Feen! I—”

  “I know what it was for, and I didn’t have no need of it. You going to need it now. Here.” Mama pushes the envelope into my hands and steps back, and for a minute, the ground doesn’t feel too solid under me. I left without her say-so, and my mother doesn’t want me back.

  “Mama.” My voice cracks under the weight of the words I don’t speak. “I’m sorry.”

  Mama looks back toward the stove a moment, her shoulders stiff.

  “Feen over at Sister Dials’s, ain’t she? Girl don’t hardly ever set foot in this house if she can help it. Well, I’m just about to eat without her. You hungry?”

  I take a deep breath. “I’m going west, Mama. To San Francisco. I’ve had some schooling in the army. I can type and use a stenographer machine. I plan to get a job, use my GI Bill of Rights, and go to college. And I plan to take Josephine with me.”

  My mother raises her brows, her chin going down as she eyes me. “Is that so? That fool girl’s talking about staying on here, gonna call herself paying me rent.”

  “I’ll see to it she stays in school, Mama. She’s going to graduate. You’ll be proud.”

  “That Miss Feen gonna do whatever pleases her,” Mama says dismissively. “That girl thinks she grown.”

  “I’ll take care of her.” I hear myself almost begging. “It’ll be good for her to get out of here. You know that Miss Ida is already talking about Feen going to work for her? Like she already has her life planned, like Feen has no plans of her own. Like she bought and paid for us and Feen, too? There’s opportunity for coloreds in the West, Mama. I’m taking her with me.”

  My mother turns away, her mouth tight. “Go tell your sister stop pestering Sister Dials and get on home. I’m about to make the biscuits, and we best eat ’em hot.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” My heart twists, but I know better than to keep talking.

  “Marey Lee.” Mama’s voice stops me as my hand touches the door.

  “Ma’am?”

  “It’s dark out. You watch yourself.”

  I pause, midstep. “Watch yourself,” is what Mama has said every night, like I am a little old kid who doesn’t know how to watch out for myself. “Watch yourself,” she says, even though I am grown now, grown enough to have gone to war, heard bombs dropping all around me, and come home in one piece. “Watch yourself,” Mama says, and in her own way, she is maybe saying watch out or telling me the world’s a cold, hard place for a colored girl like me.

  “Watch yourself,” Mama says, even though she knows I do.

  She taught me how to watch.

  I don’t tell her any of that. Everybody knows better than to argue with Edna Mae Boylen.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say, tugging on my gloves. I grab my handbag and close the door.

  38.

  now

  “So, you and Great-aunt Feen ended up in San Francisco?” I ask, wiping my mouth and wondering if Mare’s going to finish her Mississippi mud pie. We are at a chic restaurant and casino in Gulfport, Mississippi, and we are all enjoying the air-conditioned dining room.

  “Mm-hmm,” Mare says, sipping her coffee. “They had military jobs all over. We moved on into the Fillmore District.”

  “The Fillmore?” Tali’s voice is disbelieving.

  “Oh, it was different back then, back before the city tore it all apart, trying to make it fit for rich folks and to give something back to the Japanese. The Fillmore was the spot back in the forties. The Harlem of the West, they called it.” Mare gestures with her lighter.

  “There was a jazz or a bebop band on every street—on a couple of streets it was two or three of them. You know I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing at the Long Bar between Post and Geary? There was Club Alabam, and the Blue Mirror, and across from the Blue Mirror, there was the Ebony Plaza Hotel, and in the basement, they had another club. There was all kinds of folks listening to swing and bebop and jazz. Oh, we had a good time.”

  “Did George Hoag ever find you?”

  Mare grins across the table at me, looking suddenly sly. “What do you think?”

  “I think you found him, but you blew him off and found somebody
more exciting,” Tali says, licking Key lime sauce off of her finger.

  “Exciting? Girl, please. I had all the excitement I needed, living in the city and trying to make sure Peach didn’t totally ruin my sister for decent living. No, ma’am, when George Hoag showed up again, I let him visit all he wanted. He had a good-paying job, and he had a car. That was what we needed right then. He was your aunt Feen’s first husband.”

  “Aunt Feen?” I gasp. “Oh, Mare, no! Did it break your heart?”

  Mare smiles and looks at my troubled face with pity. “Lord, no, girl! I finally got somebody to take care of my baby sister, like Mama always said. Once Feen got married, boy, Peach and I tore up that town. We had the time of our lives.” She laughs at the expression on my face, at life in general, a deep, chortling belly laugh that has others in the restaurant looking up at us, smiles interrupting their meals and their conversations.

  “So, whatever happened to your unit? To Peach and Ruby? To Bob?”

  “What happened to your buddy Gloria?” Tali adds slyly.

  “Well, Ruby and Bob still live in Seattle; they got kids and grandkids. Haven’t seen them in years, but we write. That Gloria—she was Mrs. Frederick Hughes—divorced Mr. Hughes the next year after she married him and shacked up with a French count. Far as I know, she is still in Paris somewhere. Peach moved on to L.A.” Now Mare grins. “Peach was an extra in one of those action flicks, calls herself a movie star now. That girl just tickles me. Old as she is, she’s still trying to get in front of the camera.”

  “She didn’t get married?”

  Mare shakes her head. “Nah, not Peaches. Even when they made it legal that first time, she said she didn’t feel the need. Peach has a houseful of friends, she has a job she loves in a city she loves, and she has her movies. She hasn’t ever needed much else.”

  “Well, what about you?” I ask, then bite my tongue. The look Mare gives me makes my toes curl.

  “What do you mean, ‘what about you?’ I’m sitting right here in your face, Octavia!”

  “I mean, what did you do?” I ask, braving Mare’s focused attention. “When you got to San Francisco, I mean. Afterward.”