My grandmother was proud of me. She called me Amy Lee, which was the name my mother gave me. She told me my father didn’t know how to spell it, and so he wrote “Amelee” on my birth certificate, “but that’s not your real name,” she said, “your real name came from your momma, not your father. Don’t you forget that!” I got the feeling that Grandmother did not like my father much.
Grandmother always took me with her to visit friends, and they all said that I was the prettiest little girl they had ever seen. I took dance classes, ballet and tap. Grandmother said that my momma was a wonderful dancer and showed me her toe shoes that she kept in the closet on the top shelf. I held them in my hands, the pink silk worn in several places, and thought of my mother whirling and twirling across the stage. I didn’t understand why my beautiful, smart, talented mother decided to leave Lafayette and live way out in the country with my father.
“Grandmother,” I asked one night while she was brushing my hair, “how did my momma meet my papa?”
Grandmother stopped brushing my hair for a moment. Her lips pursed as though she had eaten something sour. Then she sighed a great sigh.
“Well, I guess you would ask that eventually. Honey, your grandfather, my late husband, was an oilman. He worked mostly in Jennings at the oil field there, managing the men. He would go for several days at a time, sometimes the whole week, and come home on the weekends. Your momma and I used to visit him from time to time, you know, bring him fresh clothes if he needed them, maybe a basket of cookies and cake.
Your grandfather was so proud of your momma! He used to love to show her off and tell everyone that she was going to go to college and be a schoolteacher. She was the apple of his eye! She loved to visit him.
There were a lot of men who worked for your grandfather. Most of them were poor folk, Cajuns like your daddy who came to Jennings to get some work. Well, one day your momma was visiting your grandfather and your daddy started talking to her. He was older than her and he would flatter her and say sweet things to her, and she, being so young, thought that she was in love.
When your grandfather found out, my goodness he was mad! He told your momma she could never see that boy again, and she wasn’t allowed to go and visit him at the field anymore. It was the harshest that your grandfather had ever been with her. Sometimes I think maybe he shouldn’t have spoiled her so much when she was a young girl, because she just didn’t take this punishment well at all.
We didn’t know it, but your daddy started coming here to our house to visit her, and she’d sneak out at night with him, and then one day they just up and eloped! Went all the way to Arkansas where they could get married, because your momma was only sixteen. They were gone for three days. I was frantic, I tell you! Your grandfather had every lawman in the parish out searching for her. When she finally came back, she told me they’d gone up to Texarkana and got married by a justice of the peace there.
Your grandfather was furious! He turned her out of the house, though I begged him not to. Your daddy said it didn’t matter, and that he’d find work and take care of them. For a while he was working here in Lafayette, but later that year, you know, the big crash happened, and there was no work for anyone anymore. So your daddy took your momma – my precious baby girl – back to those swamps he came from!”
At this, grandmother started crying a little. I put my hand up on her cheek, and she kissed it, and then wiping her eyes, she continued,
“Well, I got letters from her from time to time. She tried to be cheerful in those letters, but I knew that it was hard for her. She wasn’t used to working so hard. He had her doing the cooking the cleaning, you name it. They didn’t have two pennies to rub together, and sometimes I’d send her a little money when I could. She kept having baby after baby too. I don’t know how she managed it. And they were all boys. All boys! She wanted a little girl so badly. And when she knew she was going to have you she wrote to me. I still have that letter. Do you want to see it?”
A wave of excitement came over me. A letter from my momma! I could barely contain myself. Grandmother saw the delight on my face and grinned.
“Alright then, I’ll just get it for you.”
She went back to the closet in my room, reached up on the top shelf again and carefully pulled down an old hat box. She set it down on my bed and opened it gingerly. With trembling hands, she picked up an envelope from the top of a pile of letters, pictures, dried flowers, and other small treasures in the box. She pulled the letter from the envelope and handed it over to me. I took a deep breath and read it:
Dearest Mother,
I am writing to tell you some good news. I am going to have another baby, but this time, I am sure it will be a little girl! I want to name her Amy Lee. Don’t you think that’s a good name? I want to dress her all in pink and put pretty ribbons in her hair, just like I used to wear. Won’t she just be a little doll?
I hope that you and daddy are doing well. I wish that daddy would let me come and visit. Maybe he’ll change his mind when he knows he’s going to have a granddaughter! I so want to see everyone. I miss you and Daddy and Gladys so much. . .
The letter continued on, but Grandmother took it out of my hands. She smoothed the worn paper lovingly, and then put it back in the envelope.
“That was the last letter I ever got from your momma,” she whispered. “I didn’t know she had died until months after you were born. Can you imagine! I wanted to go and get you myself, but your grandfather was still too bitter and angry to hear of it. But, a little while after he died, I did come and find you, and so, here you are, child!” She gave me a hug and kissed my cheek.
“And now, young lady, it is very late and you have school tomorrow and need to go to sleep!” I nodded and sank down beneath the covers, so happy to know that my momma had wanted me! Grandmother tucked me into bed and then turned off the light.
I lived with my grandmother for five wonderful years. It was the summer after I turned ten, and I was eager to be starting the fifth grade in the fall. One day, Grandmother wasn’t feeling well. She went and got in her bed, and Gladys told me she was alright and just needed to rest for a while. I read to her at night for a few days. But then, she seemed to get sicker and sicker, and in a few weeks, she was dead. It happened so quickly. I could not believe it. The funeral came and went and still I did not believe it. Gladys sent for my father. She didn’t know what else to do with me, so she packed up my things and put me on the porch, and I waited there until my father drove up in his old pick-up truck to get me.
Chapter Five
The first morning after Melee came to stay with us, I woke up to the smell of fresh coffee and bacon frying in the kitchen. I am always amazed at how quickly the sense of smell can take me back to my childhood, and the memories invoked are never purely happy. Most of the time, I try to evict from my mind as soon as they enter, but this morning I allowed them to drift in and set up temporary residence. Lying in bed, I kept my eyes closed and saw a picture of myself as an eleven-year-old boy.
It was 1934, and my mother, my little sister Gracie, and I were living in Ida Mae Wilson’s boarding house in Savannah. My father was on the road to Atlanta, trying to scrape together enough to buy more wares to sell, and he had left us behind. I didn’t mind. It was one of the few times when I could rest from our nomadic existence. When I felt that we had a home, even if it wasn’t ours.
My mother helped Mrs. Wilson with the cooking and the washing and in return she allowed the three of us to sleep on cots in a small bedroom next to the kitchen. I used to earn pennies searching through garbage cans and parking lots for empty coke bottles and sometimes run errands or deliver milk for shopkeepers. Mrs. Wilson made breakfast each morning for the boarders and anyone else who wanted to pay the 15 cents. The eggs came from the chicken coop in her back yard, and Mrs. Wilson would serve them up with grits, biscuits and strong coffee. Mrs. Wilson’s sister lived on a farm near Americus, and visited on occasion, bringing bacon and ham from one of her s
laughtered pigs. It was those times I loved the most, because my mother would hand me a biscuit with two small pieces of bacon tucked inside and send me to eat on the back steps. It was often the only meat I would eat for an entire week. I loved the way the bacon grease soaked into the biscuit, making the crumbs cling to my fingertips.
Sometimes homeless men, wanderers and vagabonds, would come to the back steps and eye up the food in my hands. They’d ask me if I had any left, and I’d send Gracie inside to tell our mother. Mrs. Wilson would come to the door, usually with a pie tin full of scraps and leftovers and hand it out to the men. They’d scrape every last bite, and then take a drink from the garden hose, before tipping their hats and going on their way. Sometimes Gracie would perform for them while they ate. At six years old, she was a laughing angel child, her hair done up in curls so she could be just like Shirley Temple. She would beg me to take her to the picture show and sometimes I’d have enough to pay the 20 cents for both of us. She loved Bright Eyes, and she’d dance and sing “On the Good Ship Lollipop” to the delight of these weary, downtrodden men, many who had little girls of their own somewhere, waiting for their daddies to send home the money that never came.
One day Gracie was dancing around the kitchen and fell. She was crying really hard, and when my mother picked her up she noticed she had a fever, and carried her back to her little cot. She stayed there for days, complaining of a headache, and I would visit her and promise to take her to a picture show as soon as she got better. A few nights later, she tried to get out of bed for a drink of water, and fell down again. My mother called to me and told me to go and get the doctor. I saw the fear in her eyes and I ran. Running through the heavy Savannah night, the tears flooding my eyes, I didn’t know what was wrong with little Gracie, only that the fear on my mother’s face filled me with an emptiness worse than any hunger.
All the next day my mother was locked in the little room with Gracie and the doctor. Mrs. Wilson sent me outside with stern eyes and told me not to disturb them. It was killing me not to know. I was sick with worry and sat on the top of the back steps, glued to the screen door, waiting for any sign, any word, that little Gracie would be alright. Mrs. Wilson came to the back door with a can of dried corn and told me to go feed the chickens and clean out their coop. It was a hot, smelly job, and I hated it. I was afraid of the chickens and how they would peck at me when I tried to gather the eggs up from under them. The rooster was even more terrifying, and I was careful to lock him out of the pen while I cleaned the coop. He would be furious and would strut up and down outside the wire, cocking his head to the side and spitting at me. It was the perfect job to give my mind a little peace from the worry that consumed me.
It’s funny how quickly death can come. That day it came as I walked back toward the house carrying a basket of eggs, the filth of the chicken coop still on my hands. It came with the doctor walking down the back steps, pausing on the bottom one to wipe the sweat from his bald head with a handkerchief and donning his hat. He nodded at me and then back at the house, said he was sorry and then walked away. I didn’t understand why he was sorry, but I felt the basket slipping out of my hands, saw the eggs falling, the eggs for tomorrow’s breakfast falling to the ground and spilling out in a mess of white and gooey yellow. It came with the sound of my mother’s wail from inside the house, and the sound of her stifling it, and when I ran through the back door and into the kitchen and burst through the door of our little room, no longer banned to the outside, I saw her sitting on the floor next to Gracie’s cot, her shoulders shaking with her sobs. It came with the sight of Gracie’s curly hair, plastered with sweat to her still little head, her lifeless hand extended out from the cot and held tightly in my mother’s.
I wanted to pick my little sister up and carry her out of there. I wanted to take her to the picture show. I was sure that if she knew we were going to see Shirley Temple she would wake up and throw her arms around my neck and smile. But my mother turned around and saw me,
“Get out!” she screamed. “Get him out of here!”
And I felt the arms of Mrs. Wilson around my shoulders, pulling me backwards, pulling me back into the kitchen and trying to shush me, to let me know it was alright.
“It’s the polio, honey, she couldn’t breathe any more,” she said, her voice cracking. “You can’t be in there, honey,” she soothed, “you don’t want to get sick too.” Mrs. Wilson shut the door, cutting off my view. It was the last time I ever saw my sister.
I felt myself easing back, the tears blinding me again, and then I ran out of the house and stayed away all night. When I returned the next morning, there was no trace of Gracie. Mrs. Wilson was scrubbing the back steps with bleach. There would be no breakfast, not until the house was sanitized. My mother was sitting on the back porch swing wearing her hat and gloves. Our suitcases were packed and arranged next to her feet, all except Gracie’s. When she saw me, she stood up and grabbed our things, and I followed her out of the yard and down the road to the bus station. We got on the bus to Atlanta to find my father.
During the long, long hours of that bus ride, my mother and I did not speak. I kept glancing at her face, hoping to see some sign of emotion there, but she stared ahead of her, her face expressionless and vacant. Only now and then would she sniff and raise the edge of her handkerchief, gripped tightly in her gloved fist, to the edge of her eyes, sigh deeply, and continue gazing straight ahead. I wanted to scream and cry and bury my head in my mother’s chest and have her arms around me. Instead I choked back my grief until it was a burning lump in my chest that made it painful to breathe.
Lying in my bed, I could still feel that burning sensation, and I rolled over, pressing my fist into my chest and taking a gasp of air. The sound of a frying pan clanging on the stove made me open my eyes. Sally wasn’t there. I was relieved. I knew she was most likely dressing in the bathroom. She did not like anyone to see her after a valium night until she had washed her face and put on make up. I sat up and threw on a bathrobe and then made my way to the kitchen. Melee had her back to me, stirring grits in a pot on the stove. The table was set for two with my wife’s white porcelain “everyday” plates and coffee cups. I sat down and turned my coffee cup over.
Without a backward glance, Melee picked up the heavy coffee pot and carried it over to me. She paused for a moment, and I raised my cup. Her eyes did not meet mine as she poured the coffee, steaming hot and a deep rich brown. I am always impressed by the many different colors of coffee, from maple to mahogany; the tones and hues as rich and varied as the faces of the colored people who lived down in the Bottoms. So many different colors, and yet little noticed by most of the men I encountered from day to day who read the world like a newspaper and always took their coffee black.
I put the cup to my lips and breathed in deeply, allowing the steam to open up my sinuses, clearing the sleep from my mind. Melee had returned to the stove and was now bringing a frying pan with scrambled eggs over to me. She spooned some onto my plate, and then placed a basket of hot biscuits and a bowl of grits on the table. When she had put the bacon tray down, she stood back and wiped the grease from her fingers onto her apron. I could see the color of her hair better in the morning light. It was the color of molasses, with a hint of red, and she wore it soft and wavy down to her shoulders.
“Did you sleep well?” I asked her.
“Yes, tank you. Very good.” She said. “You like de food? It tastes good?”
“Yes,” I said, and smiled, taking a big bite of eggs. “Very good.”
She seemed pleased and relieved, and began to collect the pans and rinse them in the sink.
At that moment, Sally entered the room. I saw her taking in the scene: the breakfast table set, Melee rinsing the pans, me dipping a biscuit into my coffee, unshaven and still in my bathrobe. I saw her eyes narrow and her chin raise. She cleared her throat. Melee turned abruptly. She turned off the water and wheeled around, her back to the sink.
“Melee, is it?” asked
Sally.
Melee nodded. “Yes, ma’am, dat’s right.”
“Melee, if you’re going to be working here with us, there are a few things you need to understand. First, you do not serve Mr. Palmer and me in the kitchen. We do not eat any meals in the kitchen; that is where you eat. We will be taking our meals in the dining room.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair, suddenly feeling conscientious. Melee glanced from Sally to me and then back again. I could see the confusion on her face for a moment, and then watched it replaced by an understanding. Sally was clearly the one in charge.
“Breakfast is at eight o’clock; dinner is at two, when Mr. Palmer comes home for his midday break; and supper is at seven.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Melee agreed.
“Second,” Sally continued, “you will dress properly. You will pull your hair back away from your face, and you will wear a uniform. Our last girl left hers hanging on the back of the pantry door. You may wash it today, but I expect to see you wearing it tomorrow.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Melee bit her bottom lip and tugged at her hair. I could see her trying to pull it back, but it was not cooperating. “But, um, tomorrow ma’am,” she began, “tomorrow is Sunday.”
The Devil in Canaan Parish Page 5
