Life is Short But Wide

by J. California Cooper

“That's smart. I'll give you an A.”

  That night Ethel's family and friends came to console her; they brought liquor. There were sounds of loud argument almost all night with Ethel trying to get her money together. Ethel's voice was the loudest among them. And Will's voice was dead and quiet.

  In a few days the funeral was over. Will Moore had been laid to rest in the Restwell Cemetery. They held a little gathering in the small rented house. Will had quite a few friends who came; many people had liked him. But the new widow didn't have anything to serve them. She screamed at her mother, who was trying to help her, “Who got some money to spend on the dead?”

  Leroy Aimes was one of the pallbearers of the big wooden box the friends of Will had built. Rose introduced him to Bertha, and he helped Juliet inside to a seat. He stood so straight and handsome that Juliet blushed when he helped her.

  During the service he had cast glances at Rose several times, and saw her looking at him. He would quickly shift his eyes down, smiling. Later Rose told him she was sorry about his friend dying; then she couldn't think of anything else to say. Leroy answered, “I'm really sorry, too. Will was a kind, peaceful man, worked hard. I'm really gonna miss him.”

  Rose looked at him, thinking, “He must be crazy! Peaceful! ? That man was anything but peaceful. But how could he have so many friends if he was such a mean person?”

  The sermon was brief; just a few words over the body, then the funeral home presided over getting the box to the hearse. A few people from the hospital went to the cemetery with Ethel and her mother, Alberta. Leroy said he had to get back to work.

  But before he left he walked Rose to her porch steps, saying on the way, “I'm sorry I didn't get to finish that patch in your fence, but I'll get to it again in a day or so. I got so many things I got to do.”

  Surprised, Rose asked, “You are working on my fence?”

  “Yeah. Didn't ya see it?”

  Thoughtfully, Rose asked, “Well … why?”

  Leroy smiled down at her. “Cause I … like you. And you are all by yourself. I didn't think ya have a man. I done asked, and nobody knows of a man with ya.”

  “You asked?”

  “Sure, I said I liked ya, didn't I?”

  Rose smiled up at him. “Why?”

  The white teeth glittered between his soft-looking lips. “Cause you pretty, you nice. Ya was kind to my friend.”

  Rose held on to the gentle words, then grew serious, “What is your friend's wife going to do now about the rent money? I'm not charging her except for the time they already been here. I know, with this funeral and all, she won't have any money. She can stay the week out, but she got to go. I need my classroom back.”

  Leroy looked like he was thinking. “She could move in with her mother.”

  “She sure can,” Rose thought, “and I better go see her and the minister, and the sheriff, if necessary.” She looked at Leroy, who was watching her thoughtfully. “You going to help her move?”

  He shook his head a little. “Well… I have responsibilities of my own. One thing is to finish your fence!”

  When they reached her porch, they stood there a moment. Rose looked up at him again, asking, “You really think I'm pretty?”

  “I think ya beautiful! I'll tell ya all about it when I come back to finish the fence. Don't let that other helper of yours mess with it!”

  Looking back at him as she went up the steps, Rose said, “And I'll fix you lunch … or breakfast, when you do finish.”

  Leroy turned back toward Ethel's rented house, saying to Rose, “I betta see if she have enough money to last her a few days til she can get to her mama's house.” Rut, he didn't ask Ethel nor give her any money; he was just trying to impress Rose that he was a kind, capable man.

  All but a few people were in wagons and cars waiting to go to the cemetery. Leroy pushed the door gently, and went in. The conversation between Leroy and Ethel was like this:

  “I just paid your landlady two dollars for you. So ya have at least a week here, then ya go to your mother's. I needed that money for myself, ya know? You gonna have to pay me back.”

  “Ohhh,” Ethel groaned. “How ya gonna ask me that, now, in the middle of all my sorrows?”

  Leroy replied in his fine voice, “So I can keep out of sorrows my own self. I was tryin to get her to give ya more time, but I had to give her two dollars. I needed that money. Ya got any money?”

  Ethel turned her back to Leroy as she reached into her bosom and turned back to him with two dollars in her hand and a frown on her face. “Here! Taken money off from widows and orphans! God lookin down at ya!”

  As he put the money in his pocket, he answered, “Ya don't have any orphans! And you ain't no widow cause ya wasn't married to Will, and I did help ya! We betta get on outta here, cause I'ma have to get back to my job! Where the preacher? If he outside already, let's go!”

  Rose had looked for Leroy to come finish the job every day, but she wasn't paying him, so didn't know how to fuss about it. She had prepared lunch a couple of times, expecting him. When he didn't come, she put it in her little icebox and ate it later herself. No one came to the little house she had rented to the Moores.

  Leroy didn't come back for a week. When he did show up, he came mid-morning. Rose was a little angry with him, but didn't let it show, and didn't fix breakfast for him either. He finished the fence patching early afternoon, then came in to eat the lunch she prepared after her anger waned.

  He looked at her with his pretty eyes, said, “I had to take a few hours off from my job to get over here to do this for ya. Ain't had no time to do nothin for myself. I'm always running, tryin to help somebody, 'til I can't catch up with myself.”

  Rose, with her hand on her hip, said, “I never asked you to do that work. You started that all on your own. I don't worry people to do anything for me! I told you I had a man to do these things.”

  “Well, don't look like he doin em, so I helped ya. Ain't nothin to get upset about. It's done, and I'm glad I did it. I like ya, a lot.”

  Rose softened a bit at these words, and was about to sit down and visit like a lady. Then Leroy continued, “I took off from my job; I sure would love to sit here with you all day, if I had time. Rut I got to get back to work.” He stood up, brushing crumbs from his lap and picking up his cap as he continued talking.

  “Rut I sure would like to come back for a real visit with ya. If such a pretty lady as you are will let me.” He reached out, touching her cheek lightly. Then, quickly, he was gone through the front door.

  Rose daydreamed, night-dreamed, and waited. “He is not my type, he is just handsome, is all.” She watched for him every day all day, when she wasn't trying to catch Ethel at her mother's house to get any back rent. Finally, she said, “Hell with it, let them go. Roth of em. No sense in wasting my time.” She concentrated on cleaning the classroom and putting things back into some order.

  Then Ethel came to see her. “I have done moved.”

  As she poured Ethel a cup of coffee, Rose replied, “I know. I threw away the things I'm sure you did not want.”

  “Well, we even then. Cause I don't want to leave no bad record behind me. I'm a good church woman.”

  Rose reached for a tablet near the kitchen table. “No, ma'am. You still owe me from before your husband died. I have kept a calendar so I can show you.”

  “Well, alrighty. Ya don't have to show me. I trust in the Lord.” Ethel took a sip from the cup, and said, “What kind'a coffee you give me? What kind'a coffee do ya use?” She didn't wait for an answer. “Whatsomever it is, they sure cheatin ya! This stuff taste baadddd.” She pushed the cup away from her.

  Rose was speechless as Ethel put a few dollars on the table and stood up to head to the front door, saying, “This a big ole house. It could be real pretty and nice, but you probly too busy courtin.” She looked at Rose. “Or is ya lazy? Ya always tryin to make peoples think ya so nice an clean an busy? Ya so busy, Mz. Rose, I jes don't know what to say bout ya
!”

  Rose frowned. “You don't have the right to say anything about me. I am clean. I just cleaned up your mess you left behind! You've said enough, thank you.”

  Ethel smirked. “Tryin to get ya'self a man! Had to find em off a somebody rentin that little ole dumb classroom house.” She looked toward the little house. “I betta check that ole house one last time, just to make sure I ain't f'gettin nothin.”

  Rose followed her to the little house where paper wrappers and cigarette butts still lay outside on the ground around the door. There had been so much work that had to be done inside the house, Rose hadn't gotten to all the outside yet.

  Ethel told her, “Ya can't even let me leave here in peace; got to fowler me round. Don't be tryin to find nothin for me to fix, cause this house was a mess when we moved in here.”

  “I teach in this house. It has never been a ‘mess’ before.”

  “I guess it all pends on what ya used to, Mz. Rose.”

  “You begged to live here, Mz. Moore.”

  “Mr. Moore put me to do that. I didn't want to. I could'a gone with my mama!”

  “You're a liar, Mz. Moore. Look here. This door is loose from the hinges. How did those cuts and holes get on these walls? And look at that sink. I told you this was just a small kitchen for fixing students lunch.”

  Ethel cut in, “And don't show me that stupid toilet. The floor is ruined because that barrel ran over! In fak, the floor was already ruined. Yo ‘students’ peein all over it.”

  “You're supposed to empty the barrel every morning or evening. I always emptied it every evening!”

  “Well, Mz. Rose, cheap things jes does not work!”

  “No, YOU don't work, Mz. Moore. Stove full of ashes, lid broken. You can never pay me for what you did to this house. But, you can now get out of it. You don't need to be here ever again.”

  “Sho don.”

  Rose started toward the doorway, and stood there holding the door. Rose watched as Ethel went through. Then Rose asked, “And what do you mean I'm trying to get a man?”

  “Cause that's what ya doin! I know why ya got Leroy to ‘fix’ yo fence! Ya jes tryin to fix Leroy.” She gave an ugly-sounding laugh, and went through the fence gate. “But ya can't get Mr. Leroy. Mr. Leroy got hisself plenty women better'n you!”

  “I don't want Leroy, for your information.”

  “Now, Mz. Rose, who is a liar!?” Ethel hadn't intended to tell, but she couldn't hold it in. “And another thing, Mz. Rose, I done already got another place for me to live. My mama got that house cross the street your friend, Bertha, use to rent. It's big, but we gonna rent some rooms out. Colored peoples need some place to rest in this town.”

  Rose started to say something else, then caught herself as she thought, “Why am I talking to this woman?” She turned to go up the steps and into her house. She locked the door, then leaned against it, moaning, “Oh, Mama. Aw, Tante.”

  Before Rose's classes started again, Joseph had cleared up the problems in the little classroom. His young friend Herman Tenderman had helped him; not for money, just for friendship and a little food. Joseph also had a friend who knew some plumbing. Rose used some of her little savings she had and put plumbing in the classroom. She had a cesspool placed some distance from her house. “I'm tired of having to clean out my outhouse after everybody!”

  She didn't put plumbing in the big house. “I'll wait til I get married, then he can do it.” She didn't quite know who “he” was just yet. She was hoping it was Leroy. “He'll have a job.”

  When her classes did start there were fewer students coming. There were some small secondary public schools in Wideland now. As time passed a few students, shamed in the larger newer schools by their poor clothes, returned to her classes, somehow embarrassed among all the students and teachers at the larger school. Prejudice was not a great pressure on the colored people, not as horrific as in other Southern places, but it was in Oklahoma just the same.

  There were people who helped, and you could relax a bit, if you had the money. But times were still hard, and jobs still hard to find. Rose took on an extra job watching little children for a white family. It wasn't much money, but it came in very handy. She could afford to make lunch or dinner for Leroy, who now came every day except on the weekends. He said, “I work harder on those days. They really need me. I have to be there all day.”

  Leroy became a mighty regular visitor. Leroy was speaking love to Rose. He realized Rose owed nothing on her house and land, and had no real bills to worry about. She was frugal, and she grew her own food. She even had eggs to sell to the grocery stores. Sometimes she walked a few blocks over to the better part of town and sold her eggs directly, saving some of her own money from the middleman.

  Leroy had kissed her, but it had gone no farther than that … yet. She was talking marriage. Inconsequence, he proposed, even as he thought, “I don't have to sure-nuff go through with this here marriage. I can change my own mind any ole time.” He chewed on his fingernail a moment, thoughtfully. “But, you know I kind'a like this here woman. She ain't that hard to take no way. Fact is, she is really nice. Cooks and ever-thin.

  “I didn't get none of that poontang yet, but hell, there ain't no bad poon; just better poon.” He grinned to himself at his wit.

  He even began to give her a few dollars every week, to help with the food he ate, and to make a good impression.

  Then everything did go farther. One night, as he was gently kissing her, he slid his hand under her dress. He felt her stiffen, and stilled his hand, whispering, “What'sa matter, baby?”

  In a soft, tiny little voice she answered, “I'm scared, Leroy.”

  “What you scared of? I ain't gonna hurt ya.” He felt her body trembling; something in his heart softened him, made him care for the woman who was so kind to him. “You'a virgin or some-thin?”

  “I don't know.”

  “How you not gonna know?” He stood up. He had no intention of leaving, he was himself excited and surprised. This was a new experience for him. A woman he knew cared for him, backing away from him. “Mercy me!” Somebody no one else had had?! He thought of Tonya, his usual regular girl. He had thought he loved Tonya!

  So, yes, he had a regular girlfriend. They were supposed to get married … some day. But, she was a hell-raiser. “She didn't take no shit!” That's where he spent most of his weekends. He was ready to let Rose go in a minute, if Tonya found out.

  But, he thought, “Rose is so peaceful, so, well… nice! She clean, and she got a school. And this house; it's always clean. Tonya ain't got nothin but a good lovin, a rent shack, and she pretty. And I guess I love her.”

  He looked down at Rose sitting huddled, quietly, into herself. He felt sorry for her. He kneeled down on the floor beside her, putting his arms around her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning her head on his shoulder. Rose nearly whispered, “You can do it; I won't be scared anymore.”

  He had almost made up his mind to leave … for that evening. But he felt her warm, sweet-smelling body, clinging to him. He laid her back in his arms, on the couch, intending only to kiss her again. He laid her back, but she held on to him. His hand just automatically moved to her knees again.

  As they kissed, Rose grew warmer and warmer toward Leroy. She relaxed. His hand slowly moved up her firm, warm thighs. Neither one of them was thinking much. His hand covered that place the minister had abused; Leroy's hand healed it. She became moist, but he still didn't hurry. He soothed, and rubbed, lightly, caressing her private, secret, and sweet part.

  Then things just happened. Slowly and naturally, they happened. They were alone. It was quiet. It was a warm night. She smelled good, so did he. It just happened. It hurt a little, but Leroy kept his lips pressed to her lips, his tongue was soothing to her. He just made everything so easy … so smooth, and natural. It just happened. And then, it was over, and she was truly a virgin no more.

  It was good enough, personal enough, that Leroy forgot Tonya, and whatev
er their plans might have been. He decided, “I am gonna marry this woman. Rose is my woman. Only mine. I'm the only one!”

  It happened several more times, just naturally, but then Rose was deep into planning her wedding. She was so happy. “And sex isn't all that bad neither after that first hurting. That was really bad, but Leroy says it's going to get better!” she thought happily, to herself.

  •

  Of course, as everyone heard the news, some people came by to spend a short spell with her, to talk. We have a whole lot of old people round here, and you know they always watch the young'uns. But Ethel wasn't watchin cause she was old, but because she was a trouble makin little woman who would argue with the whole world if she could. She was watchin Rose cause she was jealous. Jealousy is a dangerous thing-, you should never take a jealous, envious person lightly.

  One morning, a month or so later, Ethel caught Rose out in the yard and came from across the street, saying, “Girl, why don't ya just live wit em? That be nough of Leroy for anybody! Ya gonna have to eat shit a mile long, chile. That man don't love ya. All them pretty womens who want him! Why he gonna pick ya?! All ya got is that ragiddy house over here, and a few scraggly, skinny chickens! I heard he said ya ain't even got no shape on ya; them skinny legs of yourn.”

  Bertha happened to hear everything because Ethel was standing in the street when she said it. Bertha hollered out, “Rose, don't ya listen to her, she jes jealous. Moore never did really marry her. They jes live together. She ain't never been married her own self!”

  At last, and anyway, the marriage was accomplished. They said, “I do.” Leroy was a little slow in saying it, but he said it. He was bruised a bit, from Tonya fighting him. Rose looked at him, waiting for him to say the words, bewildered a moment. But the words came out, and then she said her words. The minister said his words, and the marriage was complete. They were married. Man and Wife.

  Leroy moved right into the house Val and Irene had left to their children. Tante didn't come. “My work,” she said, but she sent a silver tea set. Real silver plate. Beautiful silver plate.