She made light conversation about Mercy and what was going on in and around the house. But none of it came out sounding natural, it was always strained with the fear Sugar had lodged in her mind.
Suppose she never comes home?
Mary’s speech was slurred and so she chose, most of the time, not to talk at all. She would just nod her head and offer a crooked smile.
One day, as Sugar was gathering herself to leave, Mary started to speak. It was difficult and clearly took a lot of effort to get out the one word she wanted so badly to say: Christmas.
It came out as “Kissmmmmas,” but Sugar understood it. She had been worrying about that herself. Usually it was just a day in a week for Sugar, but she knew that this was not just another week in her usual life. There was Mercy to think of now.
Sugar half hoped the holiday would come and go without the child noticing it, but the idea was shot down when Mercy came home from school with her scrawled pictures. Mercy had drawn a Christmas tree with tiny little gifts beneath it. She also had a wreath she’d drawn, colored brightly and cut out. Sugar saw the pride in her eyes as she presented her creation to her and asked her to take it to Mary. “This will make her happy and she’ll get better soon. She won’t want to miss Santa Claus,” Mercy said, with a large smile and gleaming eyes.
The paper wreath now sat on Mary’s nightstand propped up against the water container.
“Mary, won’t you be home for Christmas?” Sugar asked, hoping her voice sounded cheerful. Mary shook her head slowly, painfully, from side to side.
Sugar was silent for some time, as she stared down at the large green and beige tile design on the floor. She eyed the Christmas wreath and could hear Mercy’s excited babbling about the toys and dresses she hoped Santa would bring to her for Christmas. “Miss Shuga, I been a real good girl this year!”
Sugar squeezed her eyes shut and shook Mercy’s voice from her mind. When she lifted her head to meet Mary’s gaze, the eyes that looked back at her dropped responsibility heavy as stones on her shoulders.
“I’ll try, Mary,” she said solemnly, already convinced that her best effort wouldn’t be good enough.
Sugar stood before the towering evergreen that practically swallowed the tiny parlor. There were ornaments of all colors, shapes and sizes hanging from its long, wide limbs. They gleamed and glimmered off the streetlamp light that filtered through the windows. The house was quiet except for the soft crooning of Nat King Cole’s “White Christmas.”
Sugar breathed in deeply, inhaling the sweet smell of the tree. It took her back to Arkansas, and she suddenly felt homesick, a feeling she’d never stumbled across before.
She turned to face Mary. “It’s beautiful, ain’t it,” Mary said. It was still difficult for her to talk, but she was improving quickly. She’d come home by taxi just two days earlier, surprising both Mercy and Sugar.
“I just had to be here with my babies. I couldn’t be in no damn hospital on Christmas, no siree!” she said as Sugar helped her up the front steps.
“I’m sure glad you’re home. I didn’t think I could have done it without you being here,” Sugar said as she sat down in the wing chair across from Mary. She sipped her eggnog and allowed the whiskey it was spiked with to move through her, numbing the emotion she felt rising within her.
“Girl, what you talkin’ about? Without me? You did it. You got the tree, the gifts. You did it all, girl, without my help,” she said, and raised her own glass of eggnog in salute. “You didn’t need me here, but I’m sure glad to be here. Thank the Lord,” she added and bowed her head in a silent, quick prayer.
“I did use your money, though,” Sugar said with a wry smile.
“My money is your money. You know that. ’Sides, it was all for my grandbaby.”
Sugar looked back at the tree and for the first time noticed the ornament of the mother and child embracing. “Ahhh,” Sugar uttered and moved closer to examine it. “I remember this,” she said almost to herself as she touched it gently with the tip of her finger. “Do you remember this?” she asked, looking back at Mary, light dancing in her eyes, her finger still resting lightly on the gold and silver ornament.
Mary nodded slowly. She was the one who’d placed it there. It’d always been her favorite. It was special to her, given to her by her mother. She kept it wrapped in paper, in her hope chest at the foot of her bed.
“You tried to get me to hang it on that tree you had . . .” She trailed off, recalling a long-ago Christmas. The thought of it brought a wisp of a smile to her face.
“Oh, look!” Mary shouted and sat straight up in her chair. Sugar jumped and nearly fell into the tree.
“What?” she yelped and ran toward Mary.
Mary was pointing a crooked finger toward her. “You having one. You having one I seen it don’t try and deny it!” Mary was cackling and coughing like an old hen.
“I’m having what?” Sugar was confused, a puzzled look shadowed her eyes.
“You just looked up and smiled. You had one, thank the Lord, you done finally had yourself one!” Mary was laughing and slapping her thigh with glee.
Sugar smiled, finally understanding what Mary was excited about. It was true, the thought of that Christmas did make her smile. Yep, she’d had one. Christmas brings on all sorts of things. It was a magical season.
Sugar figured she’d be doing it quite often. She’d stored up plenty of good-time memories during the time she spent in the Bedford household.
“Sugar.” The voice was hesitant. “Will you sing for me?” Mary’s eyes were hopeful and pleading.
“Mary, I . . . I told you, I don’t sing no more . . .” Sugar got up and walked back over to the tree. How could she deny this woman such a small request. She felt low down for doing it.
“Please, Sugar, it’s Christmas. And as much as I need to hear it, I believe you need to do it,” Mary said in a quiet voice.
They were silent. Sugar standing in front of the tree, Mary sitting staring at her back.
The song started small and muted with emotion, and then it rose like a wave coming out of the Atlantic. With every word, Sugar’s voice stretched and grew until it was higher than the tree and overpowered the room. Mary had never heard “Silent Night” sung like that before. So much soul, so much sadness.
When she was done, both of their faces were wet with tears.
Spring came early that year. The streets came alive again with the sounds of squealing children and crying newborn babies. Sugar decided it was time. Mary was up and about. She moved a bit slower, but Sugar told herself it was age, not sickness, that slowed her movements.
By then, she was considering going west, where she heard the weather was always like a warm spring day.
“California? Who the hell you know out in California?” Mary asked, when Sugar announced her plans. “This time you won’t just come back with your neck slashed, you’ll come back in a damn box!”
Mary was yelling now, and Sugar tried to shut her mind to her words. She told herself—and for the most part it was true—that Mary just flat did not want her to go. Sugar didn’t want to go either, but she needed to move on.
Mary ranted and raved for nearly two hours. Walking from room to room, slamming doors and cussing as she went.
“Them crackers out there don’t like no kinda colored peoples. I hear they worse than the ones in the South. A soot-black girl like you don’t stand a chance in hell in California!” she said before she slammed the bedroom door in Sugar’s face.
That was bad, but the worst was yet to come. Sugar turned to see Mercy slipping silently into the kitchen, tears sparkling in her eyes. Up until then, Sugar had never mentioned to Mercy the fact that she would be leaving soon. The child had formed an impenetrable bond with Sugar. Sugar knew by the way she curled into her at night, matching her breath as they lay sleeping in the bed they shared.
Sugar felt like a low down snake.
Lower than she did when she lifted a can of beans from a
store in Detroit owned by a gentle old man who had only the day before extended her credit.
Evening came in with a chill, and Sugar supposed this helped in cooling Mary down. She came into the parlor where Sugar was sitting and staring out of the window. Her eyes were heavy with apology.
She stood before her, leaning heavily on her cane, and reached into her bosom, pulling out a piece of paper that was aged yellow. “Here,” she said and handed it to her with a shaking hand.
Sugar took it and her fingers began to tingle. “What’s this?” she said as she rose from the chair.
Mary clucked her teeth and then began to ramble like a small child. “It came ’bout four years ago. I had all but forgotten it. Well, I ain’t hear nothing from you in all them years. Didn’t have a clue as to where you could be and I just now run across it again. Well, go on and read it.”
Sugar tried to read Mary’s eyes, but they held nothing but excitement. Sugar slowly unfolded the piece of paper that Mary must have folded and unfolded hundreds of times. Maybe hoping that the sheer ritual of it would someday draw Sugar back.
It was a telegram that read:
OCTOBER 1ST, 1951 *STOP* YOUR
MAMMA IS HERE *STOP* COME
HOME *STOP* LACEY *STOP*
Sugar read the words over and over again until they were no more than a black blur of nothing before her.
Mamma. Home.
Those two words seemed to burn into her mind.
Sugar looked from the telegram to Mary and then back again.
Mary stood in front of her, her breast heaving up and down with excitement. Sugar didn’t speak. Couldn’t speak.
“I almost forgot ’bout it, but like I said it’s been quite a while.” Mary stopped. She sat down because her legs were shaking. She breathlessly began again. “I sent word back sayin’ you weren’t here. I told them that you’d gone off to Detroit when you left here, but no telling where you could be by now.”
Sugar blinked and reread the words again.
“Oh, Sugar, ain’t it wonderful. Your mamma done come back for you. I know you grown and all, ’course it don’t matter how old you are, you always need your mama. Lord knows I wish mine was still around. Lord have mercy, Sugar. It’s like getting a second chance.” Mary was grinning from ear to ear.
Second chance? I never had a first chance. I suppose this should be considered as my only chance, she thought to herself.
Sugar didn’t know what she was feeling. Something was whirling inside of her, causing her to swoon. Was it happiness? Anger? Sadness? Did this woman who abandoned her, now after thirty years, deserve to have her?
She grabbed for the table to steady herself. Mary moved in close and took her face in her hands. “It’s time,” Mary said in a tender voice. Mary’s face was so close to Sugar’s that she could smell the Juicy Fruit gum Mary chewed by the pack. She could see the stained yellow teeth and the scar that was barely visible on the tip of her nose. But what she concentrated on were her eyes. Mary’s eyes were calm and all knowing. “You got to go. Not to California, but Arkansas. Home,” she said with such quiet strength it shook Sugar to the bone.
“Baby, everybody got their own reasons for doing things they do in life. It don’t matter what her reason was at the time, what matters is she come back for you, and even though you might think it’s too late, it ain’t never too late where a mother and her child is concerned.”
Chapter Ten
WEEKS later, the banging was becoming irritating enough to drag Sugar kicking and screaming from the precious little sleep she could manage to steal. Sugar sat straight up and waited for the sound to come again, not sure if it was inside her head or outside her front door. It came again, a demanding knocking at her front door that caused her to jump, knocking over the nearby ashtray filled with butts and roaches.
Reefer was a new soothing friend in her life. A joint and a drink made everything okay. Veiled her vision and made the tricks she turned bearable. Yes, it was a magic plant and it was helping Sugar to play the greatest trick of them all on herself.
Lappy Clayton introduced it to her the first time they fucked. She liked the way it made her feel, how it lifted her out of herself while at the same time allowed her to go deeper into herself. It made her laugh uncontrollably until her sides ached and tears fell in floods down her cheeks.
He had taken to bringing her at least two joints every time he paid Sugar a visit, which was as much as twice a week now. “Consider it a tip,” he said one early morning as he dressed, the morning sun rays dancing across his cream-colored back.
There was a part of Lappy that Sugar was comfortable with. The part that reminded her of herself, the part she wouldn’t admit existed inside of her, the innocent side that at thirty years old still remained untouched by the type of life she lived. The side that came out and took in the sun and skipped rope on a St. Louis sidewalk. She liked that side of herself and she saw it in Lappy Clayton too. Behind the slicked-back hair, fine suits, hip talk and gold tooth of the man Lappy, was the boy Lappy.
Sugar caught a glimpse of that boy, white on top, all black beneath. She saw it when he booked her for the whole night and showed up with fried chicken dinners and Coca Cola. The nights they laughed away. On those nights he didn’t want to fuck, he just wanted to talk shit and laugh. He brought a record player over one night and a few seventy-eights. They kicked back and listened to T-Bone Walker and B.B. King. Lappy bragged that he had met both men. “They always be down at my man’s place, the Memphis Roll. You can’t come through Arkansas and not play the Roll.”
Sugar found herself there too, among the hand clapping and loud laughter of sharecroppers, house mammies and uncles celebrating their blackness, full of their sires’ spirits, getting down but not laying down for no one, not even the almighty whitey. Sugar was swept up in the raw, pulsating madness the people and the music produced. Liberated by drink and smoke, she found herself on stage next to a blind man that sang the blues so slow and sweet, people spoke on it for days afterward.
The blind man had other one-night gigs to do, the chitlin circuit was sixty-five nights of giving yourself over to segregated toilets and drinking fountains, and scared white people that suspected your lyrics carried something other than sadness or happiness. Suspected that maybe those words carried seeds of contention.
So they couldn’t have him, but Sugar was just a forty-minute ride away, and her voice rocked the men like an over-heated lover and made the women fan beneath their dresses and decide against denial that night. The Memphis Roll claimed her for their own, and Sugar found extra income and a brief release for her troubled soul.
Then there were the other times, times when Lappy came in and said nothing, just walked past her and up to the bedroom. She could put it off on the tracks that ran up and down his arms—if it wasn’t for his eyes, wild and raging with madness. During those times he did not seem to know her, and treated her like a whore, forgetting that they had broken wish bones together. During those times he rode her until she begged him to stop. When he could not find release and ordered her to take it into her mouth, he’d ram away, cussing her if her teeth got in the way. She’d have to swallow his seed; he would not allow her to waste it in the piss pan she kept beneath the bed, she had to digest it. He paid her to do it, he enjoyed watching her do it. And then he would leave, car screeching into the night, leaving Sugar shaking and bleeding.
Sugar swung the door open and was knocked back by the brilliant August sunlight.
“I been thinking that maybe we could try this here thing one more time,” Pearl said, stepping in, sweet potato pie in hand, and closing the door behind her.
It’d been weeks since Pearl and Sugar spoke to each other. Each went about her life as if the other didn’t exist, both miserable without the other. Pearl confided in Joe, leaving out the real reason she and Sugar had fought.
“You call her friend, Bit?” Joe asked when she mentioned that Sugar and her had had words.
Pea
rl nodded yes.
“Friends forgive,” was all he said and the matter was solved as far as he was concerned.
Pearl made it clear to Sugar that coming to her home did not for one moment mean she approved of how Sugar made her money. She was there because she believed all of God’s people could change their ways, save their souls.
Sugar stifled a laugh and lit a cigarette. I ain’t got no soul to save, she thought to herself. “So I hear, Miss Pearl, so I hear,” she said and exhaled enough smoke to cloak the doubt that she was sure was evident in her eyes.
“Miss Pearl, tell me about Jude,” Sugar asked delicately, realizing that this was the cause of great pain for Pearl, and most recently Sugar. Sugar had felt uneasy after she and Pearl fought. Since Pearl had called her Jude, Sugar could not sleep without waking in a cold sweat and Jude’s name on her lips.
“They never found the killer?” Sugar asked again, unable to believe that a person responsible for a crime so abominable would be allowed, by God himself, to walk this earth unpunished.
Pearl shook her head. Her hands were shaking and her voice was barely a whisper, but she assured Sugar she was fine. “It’s still hard to talk about it even after all this time,” Pearl said and wiped at the mist in her eyes. “Now you. Tell me about you. How you came to doing what you do.”
Sugar’s mouth opened and then closed. She got up to get her cigarettes. This wasn’t going to be easy. She wouldn’t start at the beginning but in the middle where the pain was numbing.
Sugar arrived back in Short Junction by bus. Fifteen years hadn’t really changed Short Junction. It was still made up of clapboard houses and barnyard dogs, except now the dogs were older, their bark less threatening, and the houses slouched a little more.
People still moved like molasses and greeted each other with Mornin’ or Evenin’ whenever they passed you in town or along a quiet patch of dirt road. No, not much had changed.
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