In Search of Satisfaction

by J. California Cooper

  When Ruth became pregnant again, Joel was full of joy. He had a good crop planted, the animals were well, and nothing bothered him except Bessel. Bessel was always in bed now and Ruth had to wait on her. Bessel said she had no life and she just didn’t want to get up. She complained all day and called Ruth sometimes during the night for anything that would break her loneliness. She resented Ruth having a man, while she, the smartest one, the real woman, didn’t. Plus, Joel was a good man. Not like the ones who had left her. She loved Ruth, but she was just what some humans call human.

  Bessel was a country woman. At that time, what constituted a good life was having your man or your woman. Love. You had children and hardships, but you loved, fought and loved some more. Some cheated, but it was all still in the name of some love breaking the monotony of nothing else to do. Bessel knew she had had a chance at SOMETHING. But, what was it in the end? At least she was on her own land, in a way. Had done a bit of travelin. Had had a city man! Her own little apartment. Had paid for one of them cars for him. But here she was sittin, dryin up, dyin in her daughter’s house, pract’ly stolen from her, Bessel! What was it she had done? She had always been smart to look out for herself. What happened?

  She hadn’t made it. She had stolen the money. The days, the hours. They faded away like smoke. She hadn’t meant to cheat her daughter. She hadn’t meant to steal. Didn’t call it that. But if that’s not what it was, why did she hide what she had done? Satan liked her because she fooled herself so easily. But she wasn’t much use except for creating little problems for Ruth and Joel, so she could live or die, Satan didn’t care. The world was full of bigger fish to fry, so to speak. His agents had more than enough to do! He had to keep busy, busy. With the important things.

  Ruth was kind so she did all she could for her mother and, of course, for Joel. This pregnancy was a bit more difficult, for some reason, and Ruth had to go to the white doctor for care, there being no Negro ones almost anywhere. This took up a lot more of their money. Mrs. Befoe’s slightly retarded daughter, Richlene, was sick at that time and she was seeing the same doctor. On learning Ruth was seeing the doctor, Mrs. Befoe told him, “Those niggers have money. They have solid gold coins they steal from somewhere!” The doctor charged accordingly. Ruth even sold two of her coins to help pay him. That left three of all the gold coins.

  Now Joel and Ruth talked long into many nights about the money and the hard times. Joel said, “We shouldn’t not never had no mo hard times wit all that money we found! Now, don’t you go a’spendin no mo of yo money! You save it! Times is hard and don’t look like no let up! Everbody is doin poorly!”

  So even with the gold coins out in the chicken house, times got hard for the little family. Bessel was no help, she needed medicine for her imaginary ills. Now she said she couldn’t get around well when she did get up. Joel had to carry her from one chair to another or to her bed. She liked that. Her grandchildren didn’t always make her happy, they meant age. Ruth held the sides of her growing belly and made those deep, heavy, low-down tired sighs.

  The two small children had to help now in the fields, kitchen and Ruth’s small garden near the house. Ruth had to help in the fields, also, even as she grew larger. Then Mama, Bessel, just up and died. She had gotten up, quietly. Already had a paperbag ready full of her clothes and was going to walk back to Philadelphia and find “that man.” She had stolen coins from Ruth earlier and, now, put them in her mouth as she reached for her bag so they wouldn’t jangle as she sneaked away. On her way slipping out of the house, she tripped on one of the broken front steps and fell. The fall caused her to swallow the coins, and she choked to death even as she tried to struggle up and keep running, her feet digging in the earth trying to get a foothold to move on. Away.

  Ruth and Joel had to bury her and it cost their few last dollars. The undertaker didn’t give them back any of the coins he must have found during the embalming. They were broke! Ruth still grieved for her mother. That was her mother that had died. Joel patted her, held her when she lay crying in her sleep as he looked into the darkness and wondered what had happened. What had gone wrong? What was going to happen to them? They were back where they had started. He refused to touch the coins Ruth had buried in the chicken house. He determined he would find a way. Least they had the land.

  Joel and Ruth’s family were considered poor, again. It made them argue, though half-heartedly. Joel felt Bessel had cost them their good future with her ways with their money. But he knew that was not Ruth’s fault. They always ended up hugging and making up. They still loved each other deeply, even so. But little, teeny scars remained.

  Ruth had dreamed of having Joel’s babies. Loved having their children, their blood mixed. But her last months of this pregnancy were long, tired, sad. Washing, trying to cook or teaching her children to cook, ironing, cleaning, working in the field sometimes, working her garden. A needed late autumn harvest. Tired, tired, tired and sick. Wondering how they were even going to pay the midwife, much less the doctor. He wasn’t coming out there anyway, and she didn’t want him to.

  Joel had planted pumpkins, late winter greens, to make up for the slack in his regular crops. When he didn’t get fair money for them, he tried to wait the buyers out until he could find one who would be even a little bit fair. Then when some of the pumpkins spoiled, he fairly cried without a sound. He ended up selling what was left for even less money. The jack-o’-lanterns in November glared at him through blank fiery eyes and crooked teeth set in wicked smiles and grimaces, and Joel truly believed life was laughing at him. Satan sometimes gives poverty to people who cannot do him much good. He works, of course, through his human agents on earth. In this world where gold, money and power are gods to most people, poverty is, they say, the cruelest way to have to live on this earth. Satan also knows poverty will make some people attempt things, do things they would never do otherwise. He misses no opportunity.

  Yoville was still a small town when Hosanna was born. On the darkest, wettest, freezing cold winter night, Ruth’s water broke and the baby decided to come. Oh, it was so cold. Pipes froze, water froze, windows creaked and cracked, people froze. Luke and Lettie, six years and four years old, sat around the kitchen stove wrapped in blankets, trying to keep warm. Joel returned from fetching the midwife, Ma Lal said she was getting old, so her daughter Ma Mae came. She said she wasn’t going to stay any longer than necessary for the baby to come, because she was not going to get paid this night. She didn’t mean to be mean, but she was poor, too, and had to get back to her own children huddled around her wood stove. Joel was to take her back to her poor home right after the baby was born.

  The hot water was boiling on the wood stove. Joel kept running outside trying to find wood and twigs to put in the stove to keep Ruth warm. He had put some by earlier, but it was so cold and the birth took so long he had used it all up. So now, he kept putting on that threadbare coat of his over his raggedy, long underwear and pants, whose patches had even been patched (in order to have enough clothes for his children and the one to come), and going back out in the black night to gather that cold, icy wood and kindling. He would rush back into the house, ice on his mustache from his nose running. Ice around his nose and eyes. Lips cracked, frozen. Hands cold to numbness, scratched and bleeding from pulling on wood that was frozen stuck or nailed onto something. Like that fence he was so proud to build around his little home. Getting that wood because it might mean life. Filling the stove while he cried silently. Hurt, mad and hating himself because he couldn’t do any better. Blaming everybody who was holding him down with their smiles and a shake of their heads. Blaming those who wouldn’t be fair, pay him what was rightfully his. Wouldn’t treat him like a man! But, instead, like a fool! Like he didn’t know how hard he worked in those fields or what he should earn by the labor and sweat of his back. Like he didn’t want his family to have what they wanted their own smiling families to have. And not even ALL they had. Just some! Some! There are things love wants to do for the
people it loves. Keep them warm, keep them safe, keep them full! Well, that’s just the way times were then. Hard. It’s the way a lot of people are always. Hard.

  Joel was holding Ruth close and hard, crying, when the baby finally came. Ruth was crying, also. That is a mighty terrible way to be born. The people who made the baby, hate to see the baby come, even though they love it once it does. That’s the way some things are, sometimes, for some people. Does not matter what color you are!

  chapter

  7

  the baby was born right on top of midnight, December 31, 1899, and January 1, 1900. They didn’t know what year to call her birth. “She can take her own choice,” Ruth said, smiling weakly down at her new baby.

  Now, through the years, Ruth had gone to work at the Befoes with her grandmother and mother. Once or twice, Ruth had listened to Richlene Befoe’s lessons, heard and remembered the magical stories. The stories of Cinderella and Snow White had remained in her dreams. She fantasized about the wonderful, magical things that happened to them. She wanted the magic to happen to her new daughter: love. She wanted to name her Snowella.

  Joel was cold and wet and on his knees praying, thanking God the child was altogether in one healthy piece. When Ruth said “Snowella,” Joel said, “We betta name her Hosanna, by the Bible, cause she gon need some REAL help that she won’t get from no story tale.” Together, they agreed upon Hosanna Snowella Jones. It was the only new thing Hosanna got when she was born.

  There was no nourishment from the milk of Ruth. She was hungry, too, always giving others what she should have taken for herself in her condition. But little Hosanna had a strong will. She intended to stay alive. She lived.

  By the time Hosanna was five years old, Ruth had had three more births. One she miscarried in the fields, one died right after its birth, one lingered awhile trying to breathe, then died also. Now, Ruth and Joel were not dumb. They were just desperate! How in hell, in this world, could they find some pleasure, some reason to keep struggling everyday, getting up every morning, facing work for so little profit and sustenance? How in hell could they find some reason for living, except in each other’s arms? They still loved each other. Didn’t know anything about any birth control! If they had they would have used it. This is just another place poverty takes you. Believe it! Even to death!

  The next baby was going to be a winter baby again. It turned out to be twins though—a boy and a girl. The boy seemed to be physically all right. He didn’t cry at all at first. The girl baby, her little legs were twisted a bit, but she showed signs of being a beautiful baby. She wailed a little, frail sound. Hungry. Inside his soul, Joel was in pain; he hurt for Ruth. Outside on his face, Joel was proud; he smiled and laughed to express his joy, but the laugh froze and cracked hoarsely. He held Ruth’s calloused, thin hand tightly as they looked into each other’s eyes and tried to smile.

  All the other children were wrapped in blankets in bed, close together for warmth. Joel kept going out in the freezing weather again, trying to gather more wood, more anything to keep Ruth and the new babies warm. He had no coat. Ruth had tried to make him let the white man, Kindle, trade at least one coin of the last three, but Joel would not do it. He said, “That ere is all we got, all I got, to have fo my fam’ly. If we sells that then we won’t have nothin behine us. I’m a man, I can make it! Things got to change round. Trouble don las always. If I could jes make this wood burn a little longer.” He watched as the wood burned down, flickering weakly in the cold room.

  He left, pulling that threadbare shirt and jacket round his thin body. An old hat, no gloves, no socks. He was weak from going without food, full of cold from going without clothes so others could have them. Somewhere out there in the frozen night, he found the remainder of a broken fence. He bent over to pull the pieces apart so he could carry them. The cold, icy wood was frozen together, stuck. He pulled with all his meager might and strong will, tears freezing even while they ran down his face. Old clothes tearing from his efforts. First, his knees gave, then his bent back would not pull. The frozen wood pulled him down and he couldn’t get up. He had been already half frozen when he went out this time. Now … he froze too much to get up. He lay there … and he died there. Frozen to death.

  Some said he could have got up, that he just gave in and lay there crying until he died. They were thinking about those two lines of tears frozen on his face. But, they were not tears of weakness, no, because he was a strong character man, wasn’t used to giving up trying. They were tears of frustration and desperation. Poverty! Believe that!

  This had been a good, manly man. He didn’t really do too much wrong, so Satan had no use for him. They say the angels in heaven cry for the plight of some mankind on earth. But what can they do? So many choices by so few people have been made for so many other people so long ago.

  After an hour or so, the oldest son, Luke, thirteen years old now, went out to find his daddy, couldn’t. But he brought in some wood, taking his daddy’s place already. He wore a warm jacket his daddy had sacrificed for.

  All the children stood at the windows for the rest of that night, looking to see their daddy’s form coming through the dark. They were certainly not poor in love. He was all they knew to look up to, to count on, to believe in—their daddy. They knew he was more than just poor. He was a man, their daddy.

  They turned toward their mother whenever the new babies sounded those thin wails, trailing off as Ruth tried to put her nipples in the little ones’ mouths. The boy would spit the nipple out, as if the milk did not taste good. The little girl tried to hold on and suck.

  In the first good light, Joel’s older children wrapped themselves in their blankets and ran out into the snow and wind to find him. Even Hosanna did. Only five or six years old, but she was counted! They searched until, at last, they found him. Imagine looking for something, thinking something you don’t really want to find. He was dead. In death, his body looked so much thinner and worn. He was bent over, bowed, trying to hold any warmth to himself. They knew he had prayed for help.

  Ruth’s milk didn’t come up at all anymore after that. There was only cow’s milk from their lean cow. The babies could not keep it down, threw it up. So … the boy baby finally took a tiny, gasping breath and died, too. I guess Ruth’s body and mind couldn’t take anymore. She kept saying, “My chilren, my chilren. My husband, my husband.” Then she would say in a sort of delirium, “The chicken house, get that chicken house!” She meant the gold, but they didn’t understand what she meant. One morning, all of a sudden she sat straight up, grabbed Hosanna and screamed, “That chicken house, git it! I love my fam’ly more!” Hosanna held her mother around her waist, crying, “Mama, mama, don’ cry lak dat!” They all gathered around their mother, but they never found out what she meant. Because then Ruth fell back, and, screaming with rage at life, she died. Her last thoughts were, “We were supposed to make it! We had everything! God! Where are you?!”

  All was gone. All but the new little girl-child with the strange, little twisted legs.

  Later, the older children tried to share the remaining milk. None could keep it down. No one could keep it down except Hosanna and the little girl-child they had named Lovey. Hosanna did not know the story of the milk then. When she was grown, she would feel that milk in her throat. She hated that she drank it. In some way, she believed she had deprived Lovey or the little boy who died. But there was enough to keep little Lovey alive after all.

  The children, young as they were and hard as the thought might have been, built a coffin for their papa. There was not much wood, so the coffin had big spaces between the boards. They put him in it, bent over with his head down like he was praying. They had to keep him until a thaw came and the ground softened. They tore down more of the woodshed and built another coffin with no spaces in it because they wanted Mama and the baby to be as warm as possible. The coffins stayed in their room behind a curtain, because some of the children still had to use that room to sleep in. There were no radio
s or TV’s to make a lot of noise, and, at that time, the children did not laugh and talk a whole lot; they could hear a sound for miles around. One day their daddy thawed a little enough to straighten out, and he slid down into place. They heard the lid close with a tiny little thud. They heard the sound of the lid closing and no one, not one of them, said a word, or moved. O death, where is thy sting? In the heart.

  chapter

  8

  for the funerals, there was a man from their church who wanted to be revered. He called himself Reverend, though everybody ought to know you don’t revere anybody but God in Heaven. When the ground was soft enough to be dug for graves, Joel’s friends Mr. Kindle and Mr. Creed came to help with the work. They gave a little money, very little, and food, very little, along the children’s way. The men could not let them starve.

  The reverend came by, said a few words over the knotty, crooked coffins, asked the children, did they have any money, any food? They said, “A little food Luke had caught, fish and rabbit his Indian hunting friends had helped him with. And a little money, about $1.10 our mama kept in her saving can.” Looking around at the children, even the little baby, it took the reverend a long time to say, “Well, keep it then. You don’t have to give me nothing for coming all the way over here in this cold weather. Just keep it and the Lord be with you.” He had about fifty dollars in his pockets. His church women were good to him. He left after eating the last piece of fish left in a pan and patting everybody on the head. He lingered on the oldest girl’s, Lettie’s head until she moved it out of his way.

  The three children, one of them holding the baby Lovey who had a rag on for a diaper (clean rag, though), watched the reverend ride away on his horse. He had prayed the Lord would be with them. The boy, Luke, was thirteen years old going on fourteen, Lettie Mae was going on twelve, Hosanna was going on six, Lovey was new. All the numbers missing in between were dead.