The Matter Is Life

by J. California Cooper

  I had swallowed two mouthfulls when I felt the heat from the peppers. The stuff was loaded with peppers! Flames seemed to, and did, come out on my breath! I wished I was still starvin again. I gave the bowl to my cousins who began to fight over it as I rushed to the water can! I was still drinking water when they got there in a little while and pushed me away from the water. Them beans was hot! Now we were burning up on the outside from the sun and on the inside from the beans. We were broke and had about six sacks between us! I went to sit on the bus, mad, to try to think this out, since I am the one with the brains. I snatched that paper contract we had signed, that the busman gave me a copy of, from my pocket and started to read the fine print. Could they leave us out there, God only knows where? If we didn’t have the dollar twenty-five each? You had to pay them when they paid you, just before you left for home. Home. Oh, home, home, home. Oh, Gramma, Gramma, sweet Mama, sweet Daddy. I woulda cried cept I had to save my strength. But my heart felt like it was too big for my chest, and it hurt to swallow.

  My associates came on the bus to get the lowdown and I gave it to them! We had to have the money. As we sat there, I looked out the window and saw the old lady; she had bout eighteen sacks or more now. That beat-up old lady! She had gone back to work early! She was taking care of her business. You know? I looked at that old lady and I respected her! I respected her because she was doing what she had to do and she was doing it good!

  I turned back to my problems cause I meant to solve em and respect myself too.

  I looked at my cousins … two of my problems! I told em where we all stood. Doe, the country cousin, went back out there and really started packing those onions. John, the city cousin, went out there to see whose onions he could steal; his eyes darting back and forth over the people in the field. My grandmama say you can just about tell who is gonna go to jail in life, just by watchin what people do in their daily livin. I began to understand her more. Then, I went to talk to the busman and show him my sore, raw hands, so I could get some sympathy and maybe a free ride home, but he was busy, he said, so I got my sack and started digging onions again, with tears in my eyes and evil in my heart!

  I don’t know where they got that song from, “Shine On, Harvest MOON,” cause I will never forget that sun shining on me in that harvest. We really worked, tho. Doe was tryin to tear up those rows, and John was stealin so fast that a man stopped him and musta told him a few hard things that made him see the benefit of diggin his own onions cause he did work a few rows of his own for awhile. For awhile. No-body wanted to walk home after this hot, bone-tired day. We didn’t talk, laugh or even smile anymore. Cause wasn’t nothin funny no more.

  Well … we got on the bus when it was time to go home. Somehow we had made it! We had thirteen cents over the fare. Don’t ask me how. Just thirteen cents, thats all. We sat with our mouths poked out all the way home. Thinking hard.

  We had never really thought about labor and unions and all that stuff. Or given too much attention to the civil rights movements, cause it didn’t seem to touch us too much where we lived. But, now, we noticed there were not but two white people on the bus. All the rest of us were black, with a few mexicans, I guess, all colored in some way. But all poor, even the white ones.

  I looked at that hundred-year-old lady who had worked so hard. She might have been twenty years old for all I knew. Just tired and wore out, thats all! A hundred years worth of tired! My respect grew and something else I didn’t know what to call it.

  I tried to give the man who had bought the beans for me the thirteen cents, but he just shook his head, “No.” Said, “Help somebody else on down the road someday.” Then cracked his face into a kinda smile and waved me on away.

  We were even too tired to doze off after we were crumbled in our seats. We didn’t see the trees and the sky on our way home. But I’m glad the space was out there … we needed it in that old, creaking, rattling, heaving bus that was hot and funky with the sweat of a hard day’s “honest” work.

  But there was something more … the smell of poor … the smell of somebody’s home being worse than those fields. Some had packed a few onions in their pockets or lunch bags. What, I wondered, would they buy with that body-breaking little money to go with those onions? I felt something … something … but I don’t know what it was. It was just there in my mind.

  My grandmama, even my mama, my daddy had done this kinda work a little. I didn’t want to talk about it. I just wanted to be quiet and feel it til I knew what it was. It felt a little like resignation … I seemed to catch it from the people in the bus. Something in me refused it. I changed it to indignation. For myself.

  When we got off the bus at home, I knew why the people walked hurriedly away. To rest … and forget, until tomorrow or … death, I guess. I don’t know. I only know that day has made me think so hard. So hard.

  We started home with the thirteen cents. Somehow, I started crying and they almost did, until we started laughing. Then we each took a penny and threw it in the street. Then we almost cried again from our aching bones, til we laughed again. We finally got home and told Gramma about it. She laughed so hard at us, we got mad at her and cried til we couldn’t help laughing at each other.

  She made us bathe. We didn’t want to, we just wanted to fall out in the bed. After, we were glad we had washed all the onion, dirt and sweat off. Gramma gave us a good hot meal, store bought, then we hit that bed and I believe I was sleep midair on my way to the pillow. Gramma said we all snored like old men.

  We always have to go to church every Sunday, whether we feel like it or not because Gramma says we have to learn what road to take in life. Nowwww, I understand what that means, a little better, cause I’m not takin that road out to them fields again! Not if I can help it! We like God too, I guess, because when we really couldn’t think of what to spend that dime on and how hard we had worked for it, we decided to give it to Him. I don’t know what the preacher did with it, but we gave it to God.

  I don’t know what John and Doe thought, but I said a prayer for that hundred-year-old lady, then for the man who bought the beans, then broke down and included them all. But the last thing I said to God was, “Please, please, don’t let me make my life like that. Please.”

  Lately, I pay more attention to the labor and black movements. Or just poor people movements. Maybe I would be a labor official or something where you have some say bout what you do. I don’t know. All I do know is I don’t ever want to go pick nothing in no field no more unless it is my field, my own. Or I was the boss.

  You know, you don’t have to be white to be president of anything. Even of the United States. I could be president! Black as I am! And if you white and poor, you don’t have to be rich to get to be president either.

  I could be president! Even being a girl, a lady. Cause some of these laws and rules got to be changed!

  I think about life too … my mama … my daddy. Maybe there is a reason or something for why they act like they do when they be working and tryin to make a livin. Separating and divorcin and all. They got to go out there and do it everyday! Work! I only did it for one day … and I was so tired and evil. I even cried, only for a minute tho.

  Oh, I don’t know. But I understand more what my grandmama is tryin to teach me. I remember that hundred-year-old lady!

  Yea. I think about all those things now.

  I think I’m gonna hate onions for a long, long time, too.

  And dumb boys.

  Yes … I’m doing a lot of thinking. On how to get rich. Even just how to make a real good livin for my life! Cause I already know why.

  EVERGREEN

  GRASS

  I am a old, old lady and I know a lot of old, old sayins that I know to be true cause I done lived long enough to see em out to be so. Some sayins ain’t nothin but smart-soundin words that make out like they know what they talkin bout, but some of em is really sure enough true.

  Like, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. You
got to watch that grass! Or maybe you oughta just watch your own grass and keep that green! Cause that grass on the other side will fool you sometime. Look greener while it be dyin all the time.

  See, I don’t live far from one or two families out here in the country and I have in mind one couple I knew for a long time. Can’t even spell their name right, but when you say it, it sound like Gunioff.

  Mr. Gunioff had made his way up from the bottom by havin built a solid farm, married, had children, raised them and finally waved good-by to them as they went out into the world to seek their own fortunes. He then settled back with Mrs. Gunioff to enjoy a good solid middle age to death. They was both quiet people, tho he more than she. She did like to go to church and little community social events and things like that which didn’t interest him none at all! She was a slight-built woman, gray-haired, neat, sweet. She was friendly with the neighbors, the closest ones bein the couple up the road apiece, the Conets.

  Mrs. Conet was a little youngish, brown-skinned, very nice lookin woman. Mr. Conet was hardworkin, quiet, dark-brown man. Always courteous. Went to church a lot with his wife, like he used to go with his mama. Reason I mention them, is cause I happen to know that Mrs. Conet was a fussy little woman, always comparin her husband and everything he did to all the other men round here. Nothin was enough for her. But I guess he loved her cause he put up with all her fussin and complainin. Half the time she didn’t know what she was talkin bout. Like to run that man crazy, I magin. The other half the time, I don’t know bout cause I live closer to the Gunioff family, so I saw them more.

  He, Mr. Gunioff, liked to fool with his sheep and cows and his horse and the chickens and his dog. Gently taciturn, he was bored with much of life and he was, of course, boring.

  What first comes to my mind is the day he drove his wagon one bright morning, returning from town where he had purchased some poison to set out for the animal that had killed one of his sheep. As he drove he noticed the green fields he loved and the blue of the sky with the birds flyin overhead. He enjoyed the sight of the birds ever so much more then the shootin of them for sport. He could smell the air … all was good. All, that is, except for the animal who had killed his sheep. Oh, well, he was going to fix that!

  When he arrived home he waved the package containing the leg of lamb at Mrs. Gunioff, who nodded back from her sewing, and went to the kitchen to prepare the poison. He carved into the lean red meat and as it separated so smoothly, he felt a sense of pleasure and made several extra slices and holes in the meat before he realized he had enough and began to stuff the poison into the open parts thinkin all the time of how he would stop this menace before it went too far. Some damn wolf or something eatin his stock! He sat everything out later that evenin and went to bed early with his gun and a lantern by the door so if he heard any noise he could get up and out and see what was goin on with no time wasted.

  Bedtime was early for both Gunioffs and he had slept lightly for bout an hour or so, when he was awakened by sounds from the yard. He rushed up and out, grabbing his lantern and gun as he did, running softly as possible to the place he had set the trap.

  The wild animal there had eatin most of the leg of lamb right there without takin it away and was now in the throes of death. Its body jerked and writhed over the ground. Its eyes bulged and glared, its mouth was foamin while painful gutteral sounds came out. Mr. Gunioff watched fascinated. He set the lamp down without thinkin and knelt down to stare at the dyin animal. He watched to the end.

  When it was over he probed the beast with his foot to try to get him to move again, but its body had twisted itself into the stillness of death. Mr. Gunioff stared at it for a long time then hearing Mrs. Gunioff calling from the house to see if he was alright, he waved back and then drug the beast away to bury him.

  He thought about the death he had seen all that week and looked often at the bag of poison he had left.

  One day, feeding the sheep, he noticed the sickly one and the thought squoze into his mind that it need not live. He should poison it! Put it out of its misery! He could see one more time the workings of this poison that made the victim dance such a strange dance. That night he prepared the poison but waited til daybreak so he could see the dance better. He fed the sickly sheep off by itself and stood entranced, fascinated, watching it go through the labor of death.

  He began to sit on the porch through the day, even more quiet than usual. He didn’t even go to one of the few things he ordinarily would go to with his wife. One day she dressed in her little country clothes and went off in the wagon with the Conet couple that lived down the road. That was the day he went out and searched among the sheep and found one he thought would not last long anyway and fed it the poison and watched it die!

  Later that week as he sat on the porch he decided sheep were too expensive to lose and turned his face to the chicken yard, wondering how they would dance. He soon found reason to go to town and did! He got more poison and some ice cream for his wife and a little black satin ribbon for no reason at all. She smiled at his thoughtfulness and thanked him.

  Needless to say, he became so caught up in his fascination with death the chicken yard was soon empty. They looked so funny as they danced around and cackled and then just keeled over! That was the problem, they died so fast! You had to poison several just to get a good look! They would twitch a little for awhile, but that wasn’t enough.

  Mrs. Gunioff was alarmed at the deaths and at a loss as to the reason because her husband always saw to things like that. She had no sittin hen now so she sent Mr. Gunioff to get one and set it away from the chicken house where she could watch things better.

  Then the sheep began to disappear and she couldn’t understand why he was not more upset about it. She took her pet sheep, a baby lamb, and moved it closer to the house so she could watch it too!

  Mr. Gunioff bought the poison in bulk now and had quite a bit left when he buried his last sheep. Somehow, by this time, he was sick at the loss and his mind rested about a month. His wife wondered that he did not replace them, a few anyway, because they were expensive. But he did not.

  After the month or so had passed, his craving to see the dance of death returned and the cow was his choice to go. They had no children left at home so they didn’t need all that milk! She, the cow, was different dying; she was large and her poor, pitiful moans were almost human as she labored to die and when she did die, he felt small satisfaction. A cow wasn’t much fun to watch, the big body moving slowly, in pain.

  A week later, it was the horse. It should have hurt him, cause he loved that horse he had had so long. But his obsession made any regret brief, if at all. He watched the horse die with his legs kicking and his eyes rolling in fear as he looked to his master, his friend, for help. Gunioff didn’t bury the horse. He was tired. He just covered it up and went to sit on the porch and stare off into space.

  Mrs. Gunioff lamented and cried in distress at the happenings on the farm as he listened and watched her, saying nothing.

  Sunday it was, yes, it was a Sunday. Mrs. Gunioff went off to church with the Conets in their wagon, wavin good-by to Mr. Gunioff. She spoke to them of how outdone he was by the loss of all his animals, poor fellow! He just didn’t feel up to doing anything. They nodded in understanding and continued down the bumpy dirt road, with Mrs. Conet lookin round their yard, trying to find something they had that she didn’t, so she could have something to complain to her husband about again. She thought Mr. Gunioff was a better man than her husband anyway.

  After they had gone, Mr. Gunioff got into his wagon and rode to town and got some strawberry ice cream, yes, strawberry it was, and returned to wait for his wife and friends to return.

  While he waited he fed the poison to the new sitting hen. For some reason he didn’t want to kill the little chicks, even tho he was leaving them without a mother. She just gave a twitch or two and then fell over!

  When Martha, that was his wife’s first name, returned, he met the wagon and reached
up to help her down. Mrs. Conet smiled down at him. Well, there wasn’t hardly nobody else round this country to flirt with. Anyway, that smile made him say, “I went and got you some ice cream for a treat, Martha.”

  “Ohhhhhh,” Martha sang, “how nice! I sure would love some ice cream.”

  He smiled up at Mrs. Conet. “Strawberry. Would you like some too?”

  Mr. Conet spoke, “Mama made me and Mavis (that was his wife’s first name) a fine chocolate cake, going to save myself for that. Sure thank you tho!”

  Mavis smiled down at Mr. Gunioff. “Thank you so much.” She said softly, eyes glowin at him.

  As they drove down the drive, Mavis looked back to watch Martha and her sweet husband go into their house, arms around each other. She smiled at the thought of love, lasting love.… Then she turned to her husband and frowned.

  When Mr. Gunioff went through the front door, he said, “You just sit on the porch and rest yourself! I’ll fix it for you for a change!” Martha sat with a big smile on her face, thinking how time can bring about a change and what a good one this was. Why, she and Mr. Gunioff may have a sweet full life ahead of them yet! With a little fun in it!

  He mixed the ice cream and the poison and put it in one of her prettiest dishes she always saved for special times and took it to her. As she took the dish, she smiled and asked, “Where’s yours? Ain’t you goin to have some?”

  “Goin to get it now,” he said. And did. When he returned, he held his dish and watched her, smiling as she ate and licked her spoon.

  All of a sudden, in the middle of tellin him about her day at church, she grabbed her stomach and stared at him. Even in her pain, thoughts flooded into her mind and she realized what he had done to the animals and to her. She was pointing at the sheep yard when her body lurched and she was thrown on the floor of the porch. Her body shuddered and lurched again, with a life, or a death, of its own, and she flew off the porch to the ground. Through her pain, she saw him moving closer to her, she looked at him, when her head wasn’t jerkin with eyes rollin up, in wonder. He had sat his bowl down. He was crying. He cried until she died, looking at her with a deep sadness. She never did scream, just struggled with the monster in her mind and in her body and in her sight. She forgot to pray, she was tryin so hard to understand this man she had lived with, loved, most all her life. Then … her heart lost the struggle … and she died.