Life is Short But Wide

by J. California Cooper

  He began to seek her out, always trying to look into her eyes again. She always blushed because she was young, and didn't know why he always seemed to want to look into her eyes. “I know he isn't thinking of courting me!” She thought she was surely mistaken, but then he appeared at her side several times in the next few weeks, reaching for her hand, in a preacherly way, of course. She stopped sitting up close to the pulpit. Instead she sat in the back with Bertha.

  Preacher Smoke began to stop by Rose's house during the dinner hours, when he thought she would have cooked, to try to have a meal with her. He thought he could eat and talk. But Rose didn't eat much, and hardly cooked anymore since her father was not coming back.

  Preacher had to make another plan. He decided he would go to see Rose after he had eaten at another good sister's house, and his stomach would already be full. But in the afternoons and evenings, someone, usually Bertha, was always there.

  And so it came about very early one morning, he got up from his lonely, musty bed to make a home-visit to Rose. Preacher Smoke knocked on the big oak front door. Rose had been asleep, so it took her a moment or two to get to the door. She was thinking, “Who in the world is knocking on my door this early?”

  When Rose saw Preacher Smoke so early she blinked, thinking, “Something must be wrong with somebody. Somebody has died!” She said, “Good morning, Reverend. What's the matter? Has something happened?”

  She let go of the door to pull her thin robe closer around her neck. Preacher Smoke walked in through the loosened door and turned to wait for her to close it. “I'm jes out on my early duties and said to myself, ‘I betta stop and check on lil Rose while I'm out here.’ Is your coffee ready?” He smiled.

  She knew he had no wife, and that he lived in rooms in back of the church. She decided to make some coffee or, like she usually did, heat up what was already there. These were not times to waste anything.

  He followed her into the kitchen, talking. “Mz. Rose, your house always so neat and clean comfort'ble.” She stood at the stove to light the fire, and was putting on the coffee pot to reheat.When her back was turned to him, he came up close behind her and, putting one arm around her waist, pulled her to him as he placed his other hand over her breast! She dropped the pot she was holding and tried to turn to face him, and push him away from her.

  “Preacher Smoke! What are you doing! ? You get your hands off me, and get out of my house!”

  He didn't let go, and he didn't leave. He believed she really wanted him and was too shy to be her natural self. He reached down and raised his hand up under her long robe, searching eagerly for that one place he wanted to cup in his hand, saying, “Hush, chile, hush, just let me show you how good you gonna feel. I got somethin here for …”

  Rut Rose fought him. She was a virgin, and did not completely understand his actions. She prayed for her dead father … or Wings or Bertha to come through the front door. No one came.

  She had struggled from the kitchen back into the parlor room toward the front door. But she couldn't get away from the grip he had between her legs. She was in her nightclothes, she had no underwear on. She pleaded with him, “Let me go, please. Stop!”

  And he pleaded, “Let me show you, darlin, jes give me one minute …” He pressed her against the wall so she could not move away from him. His hand and fingers had found the place. No matter how she struggled she could not get that hand to move. She felt his fingers moving to get inside her.

  She raised a foot to kick him, but that was a mistake. Swifter than a second, first one, then another finger pushed their way further inside her.

  The thrill, the feel was too much for Preacher Smoke. His face and body engorged, even strengthened. He took his free arm, lifted Rose off her feet, and threw her solidly on the couch. With some invisible hand he got his own pants open. His body pressed upon hers, and in a few feverish humps the deed was done. He was finished without really entering her body. The rape was accomplished, but the physical harm did not go deep.

  Rose was sobbing, her legs askew, nightgown rumpled and torn. She tried to sit up, and pull her gown together. She was sobbing, not at the pain, she didn't feel that so much yet. She wept from rage and her impotence. She looked at him with hatred. She thought, “This dirty, ignorant, old reprobate man! Stupid ignorant bastard!”

  Preacher Smoke was saying, “Now, Rose, it didn't have to be like that. If you'd a let me, you could'a enjoyed it more. Now, look what you done done!”

  Rose pulled herself together; still crying, she stood up. He reached to hug her, saying, “I'm gonna love you, Rose. We gonna get married!” Her sobs grew louder. She snatched her insulted body from his arms, turning to go toward the kitchen.

  Preacher Smoke stopped to adjust his clothes before going to find her. Rut she found him first, with a butcher knife in one hand and a frying pan in the other. She screamed, “Get out of my house! You dirty son of a bitch preacher!”

  Preacher Smoke was startled. “Rose, I'm gonna marry you! Didn't you hear me, girl?” He started moving backwards toward the front door. “What chu gonna do with that there knife? Where you learn to cuss like that? You a lady! Ladies ain't sposed to talk like that!”

  Rose reached and flung the front door wide open as she said, “And you a preacher! And a grown man! You're not supposed to do what you have done to me! Get out of my sight! I don't want to see your face!”

  His eyes stretched wide, he moved, stumbling, out of the door, still talking. “Rose, I'm your minister. I ain't gonna hurt you none! I wants to marry you! Didn't you like what I did, none?”

  She screamed, “Get out of my house!” She hit him with the frying pan on the side of his head, and raised the knife to stab him with the other hand.

  Swiftly he finished stumbling out the door and down the steps. The wily preacher kept in mind the neighbors or anyone passing down the road. He turned back to say, “You sho is a liar, Mz. Rose. I didn't know that chu lied like that! I sho can't keep company with a liar, Mz. Rose. Emph, emph, emph!”

  Rose followed as far as the porch, breathing hard, tears and snot flying, screaming, “Don't you ever, never, come back to this house as long as you live!!”

  Then he was gone. Rose leaned against the closed door, and slid down to the floor, sobbing, and feeling defeated.

  Rose bathed herself several times a day for a week. She still didn't feel clean. She had decided to keep her business to herself.

  Rose spent the first night crying in her bed, trying to sleep, yet listening to every sound around the house. Every noise sounded strange and frightening.

  Rut after crying herself to sleep several times that week, she told Bertha what had happened. Bertha, aghast, asked her, “Does you need to go to the doctor?”

  “I have cleaned myself. I'm not cut nowhere.”

  Bertha shook her head, slowly. “Must not'a been no big thing enough to hurt you. Rut maybe you should tell the polices, cause it's some things you can't see.”

  Rose sighed a sound somewhere between tears and disgust. “The police don't care what happens to a colored girl anyway, Bertha.”

  Bertha said to herself in her heart, “This chile has done changed. That nasty preacher man destructed her.”

  Wings came by, checking on her. Rose wondered if he knew. He brought his nephew, Dreaming Cloud, whom he called “Cloud” for short. They were checking all locks on the doors and windows. When Wings was leaving, he said, “This is what we do for now, but I will have someone watching. Cloud will be here to check on you regular. I bring you Brave back, too. You need someone here with you.” Later when he brought Brave, the dog wagged his tail, happy to see an old friend.

  Dreaming Cloud was a quiet, shy, but intelligent young man. He was even handsome in a way, his body was medium height, and thin. He also had a persistent cough that he couldn't seem to get rid of. He liked Rose because she was Val's daughter, and had become like a member of his family.

  When Cloud met Juliet, an instant friendship was struc
k. Juliet liked him very much. They had something in common and seemed to know it. He always stopped to sit and talk with her a good while.

  In the meantime, Bertha kept a steady eye on Rose and her house. She went by often. Once she stopped in to leave one of Juliet's little handwoven baskets, trying to distract Rose's mind. As Juliet grew older her work greatly improved. The baskets were simple, attractive in colors, and in useful sizes. When they could afford it, people were buying them. And Rose was distracted; she decided to help Juliet sell them.

  On another day, soon after the rape, Bertha asked after Rose's health, then was silent a moment. She leaned toward Rose and asked in a low secret voice, “When your monthly due?”

  Rose sighed that sorrowful, pained sound again. “I never kept up with that. Rut I'm waiting for it, now, watching for it.” She shook her head, sadly, as she said, “It's a sin against God to have a sinner like the preacher sitting in any church teaching people how to live right!”

  Bertha put her comforting hand on Rose's shoulder, and patted it. She said, “But that is why we go to church, Rose. To learn. Everybody sittin in church is a sinner. None is good but the Father, God. God put that in the Bible so you know all people are sinners, and it ain't no tellin what one of em will do! You s'posed to r'member that in all your dealin's with men, and women, too. Everybody can, and might, do you wrong. Sometime the least one you expect, chile.

  “God teach us that so we will be extra careful cause the devil is everywhere, and tryin to get inside everybody. Some people do not believe that, and I know they has plenty sorrows.”

  Rose just looked at the soft-spoken Bertha, with more respect. Bertha seldom talked much, but obviously, Rose thought, “It isn't because she is dumb. That's twice I have made a mistake in judging.”

  A week later, her period came. She breathed much easier. She had positively dreaded the possibility that the preacher might have left a baby inside her private body.

  Preacher Smoke never came back to her house. Bertha had let everybody at the next church meeting know what had happened between the preacher and Rose.

  The Church Board asked Preacher Smoke to leave. They were all guilty of some sins, but Preacher Smoke had gotten caught. He told the Board, “You know that that there girl is a awesomeful liar. Lyin on a poor man, a good man like me! I done caught her lyin many'a time! But, I will go cause I know the devil always punish the good ones! Ya'all be careful round that girl, cause she will lie on you next! Watch what I tell ya!”

  They let him go before they had found a new minister. That was no problem in those times; many ministers were walking the land looking for a home. That's why they had become ministers. Some borrowed money to buy a Bible to preach from … or stole one.

  Unfortunately, it was at least a year before Rose let any man come in her house unless she really, really, really knew the man, and she wouldn't let herself be alone with one, anywhere. She prayed often. “I am a ruint woman. What am I gonna do, Lord?”

  Rose also thought, “Now, I really do need a husband. Rut I don't get to meet anyone. I don't know how to act around men, like Tante did. I don't know how to dress cause I don't ever go anywhere except'n church, and I haven't been going there lately.

  “And I look like a frump, and I'm so stupid. These young men don't have any way to take care of nobody. And suppose I have a baby? What will I do then? Resides all of that, I don't know anyone I like enough to marry.”

  Time and circumstance had brought Rose very close to Bertha. She was always giving Bertha some food for her family, or something she could use. They had so little. Wings and Cloud kept Rose supplied with meat they hunted around their woods. “But, no birds, Wings. I hate to see birds killed,” she told him.

  But she had found out she didn't like to be asked for anything important. It would make her feel a little bit used. Bertha very seldom asked for anything that would set that frown on Rose's face.

  One day Bertha was about to leave Rose's house, then turned back, with a sigh. She took a deep breath, and said, “Rose, I don't like to ask favors of nobody. Your family always been so good to us.” She ran out of nerve, waved her hand in disgust, and said, “Never mind, never mind.”

  Rose urged her on, “No. Go ahead, Bertha. You are my neighbor, and my friend. Everybody else is gone. What is your favor you want to ask me?”

  Bertha shook her head, sadly, saying, “Well, it look like we gonna be gone, too. Joe jes not makin enough money for us to keep rentin that house we got to live in. Don't know what we gonna do. Don't want to be no sharecropper again. And you know, Joe will work hard, but you got to have somethin to work AT. So we probly be movin pretty soon.”

  Rose immediately felt the blow of her near neighbor leaving the vicinity. “You want to borrow some money? Bertha, I don't have much money. My daddy was my help. I got my class, but, shoot, you know those classes don't put much in my hand. I don't have no husband helping me, none. My blessing is I don't have to pay rent. This house is free and clear. My parents saw to that, thank God.

  “I've thought of renting my schoolhouse, that shotgun house? Renting it out, and going back to that storage shed Mama used to use.”

  Bertha's heart sank. “Oh, that's jes what I was gonna ask you, could we rent it.”

  Rose had been thinking about renting that house for some time. Some people said the Depression was over, but it surely wasn't over everywhere. Especially not in Wideland. Rose answered, “You can't afford no rent, Bertha. If I rent it to you, then we both will be sittin here worrying about what to do!”

  They sat in silence for a few moments, both sets of eyes looking off somewhere in the future.

  Finally, after thinking to herself, “I need to keep some friends close,” Rose asked, “You know what we can do?”

  Bertha looked up.

  Rose continued, “This is a good size piece of land, with all these trees. I love them all, but I don't need them all. Why doesn't Joe build you all a little two or three room shotgun house, way over there,” she pointed, “on that corner away from this house so we won't be right on top of each other? I'll let you all do that.”

  Bertha looked up, thinking, “Thank the Lord!”

  Rose asked, “How much you pay to rent that house you in?”

  “Three dollars a month.”

  Rose began to say, “I'll lend …” She thought of Tante's advice, and changed her mind. “I'll give you two dollars this month so you can make your rent. And he can get started while you live in that house, and work on your … the new house. It won't be no fancy shotgun house, so he might be through in a month. He will have to work on it every day, but that's the way life is now. He has to work on it every day! And, surely, he has friends who can help him!”

  Tears slid down Bertha's face as she said, “Oh he will, Mz. Rose, he will. I'll help him. I'm gonna go find him now, and tell him, so he can ease his mind. Oh thank you, and thank the Lord!”

  Joseph was heartily thankful. A poor man carries such a burden, sometimes hard, sometimes happy, trying to keep his family safe and eating.

  Soon Rose heard the sawing of trees, and the hammering of nails. She smiled; they were getting a home, and she was improving her property and income.

  Even with old Brave home sleeping on the floor beside her bed every night, and Bertha's family soon to be on her land, Rose was lonely.

  Tante called now and then, and even sent small amounts of money to her. But it did not look like she was coming home anytime soon.

  There were times Rose felt saddled with the house; she couldn't leave and go off seeking life. Then she would think, “I love my home. I don't care what anybody else is doing. I'm just tired of being here all alone. I know I have Bertha and Juliet to talk to, and I'm glad of that. But I need a man; I need a husband to have my own children!”

  Wings was getting older, and did not do much, if any, short distance travel. He was settled in with his children and grandchildren, one of which was named after Val. When the beloved old dog, Bra
ve, died, one of Wings's sons came into town with Cloud to get the dog and bury him near the reservation. Wings tried to keep all the things he loved near him, and the dog had been Val's.

  Wings passed away quietly one night while he had been outside sleeping under the stars. His family and his people greatly grieved over him. Wings had been a good, kind man. He was buried close to Val's grave, in his own family plot. He left several grown children, and many handsome grandchildren. Many people of all colors came to his funeral. Rose was right in front. Tante didn't come, of course.

  One day, not too long after that, Rose sat in her porch swing thinking about life and death. The sun shone down on her, warming her body. She was thinking of her father, mother, and Wings. Of how long she had been alone, and her own age. “This world and time is just going by too fast!”

  Her thoughts turned to marriage again, so she thought of the young man who had helped Joseph build the little house. “He seemed nice; he had manners, nice teeth, and he could read pretty good; he was in one of Mama's classes.” She pushed the swing into motion with her feet. “But that isn't enough for me. There just seemed like something was missing! I deserve better.”

  She leaned back in the swing, eyes closed, thinking, the light breeze blowing gently on her body. She heard the sound of a wagon stopping in front of her house. She opened her eyes and watched as an older lady made her way out of the wagon with the help of an old man. He led-pushed her to the gate, and waited as she made her way to the front steps, not too slowly, but certainly not quickly.

  She was a portly, older woman dressed in an almost neat, slipshod way. Rose thought, “She works for a white lady. Secondhand clothes.” The woman obviously had a corset on, under a red dress with a black velvet collar, and was wearing thick cotton stockings with only one or two little holes in them.

  She reached the steps, looking back for the man to help her; she gave that up, waved him back. She pulled herself up the steps to speak to Rose. Rose got up, going to the edge of the steps, asking, “Good evening, ma'am. How can I help you today?”