At least Billy won’t be traveling alone. It ain’t safe out there for a Negro gal. It’s 1963 and a Negro life is cheap. The life of a Negro man is cheap. The life of a Negro woman is cheaper. The price of everything is always going up though, so could be that the price of a Negro life too will get high. Maybe the price’ll rise to reach the value of the cost we brought in slavery times. Not this year though. Not the next. Maybe by nineteen hundred and seventy. Maybe by nineteen hundred and eighty or nineteen hundred and ninety the price will go up. Maybe by the year two thousand, but surely, the world will end by then.
The life of a Negro gal is cheap. The life of a Negro gal with a baby in her belly and no ring on her finger is cheaper. Standing here in the dark morning of the porch, looking down the road into the dark I can see the real reason why I want to accompany my niece. Her safety, yes, but something worse than her safety. Something in me tells me that my niece that I have clothed and fed for these six years might just go out there and find that treasure and she won’t never come back. I am going for selfish reasons. June is selfish too, but she’s also coming along cause she likes to ride.
“We’ll be able to visit family along the way,” I say. “Estelle, Big Walter, and they boy Homer; Blood and Precious, Cornelius and them wives he got.”
“Family’s nice,” June says.
I look at my wife and she looks away from me, searching the darkness for Billy. Her family is in California. We don’t got no kids between us. She is missing more than a leg, or I am missing more than a wife who is missing a leg. Sometimes I think June’s full of children she’s just keeping inside her and not letting them out. Sometimes she probably thinks the same of me.
Truck lights come bobbing up the road. Gonzales comes out figuring the truck wants gas.
“I’ll fill this one,” I says and he nods but stands beside me with his hands in his pockets like he owns the place. But the place ain’t his yet and ain’t never gonna be his.
The truck comes up fast, throwing dirt and gravel as it turns into the yard alongside the pumps.
The truck is Dill’s. Billy’s at the wheel.
She leans over and opens the passenger door.
“Get the hell in if yr coming,” she yells. Her hair is a little wild, like she been fighting.
“Dill lent you her truck?” June asks, moving as quick as she can down the steps. I give her a boost helping her up, tossing our things in the back and getting in beside her.
Billy takes off, leaping back onto the road before I get the door closed good. On the porch, Gonzales and his family don’t even got time to wave.
BILLY BEEDE
We’re heading west. In a little while the sun’s gonna come up right behind us. It’ll rise that way till we get where we’re headed, then it’ll come up in our faces all the way back.
Aunt June sits in the middle and Uncle Teddy by the door. Both of them brought they spades. Uncle Teddy’s long-handled one, throwed in the back with their suitcase and my things. Aunt June’s got her little trowel, the one she works on her rosebush with, on her lap.
They both look out the window but they can’t see nothing yet. Teddy glances at June’s trowel. The digging point is turned towards her stomach. He takes it from her, turns the digging point towards the dashboard, then gives it back to her. She smiles.
“It’s Sunday,” I say. “We gonna be back by Tuesday. We’ll have Tuesday night to get the place ready for Mr. Sanderson.”
“We’re gonna need help digging,” Uncle Teddy says.
“We can dig it all by ourselves,” I says.
“Candy and Even can help and I’ll do what I can,” Aunt June says, flicking the dirt from her trowel.
Behind us, the sky glows pink. Enough light to see by. June takes out one of her maps, holding it up close to her face, reading.
“Estelle and Big Walter stay in Pecos,” Uncle Teddy says.
“That’s on the way,” June says. She takes out a pencil, licks the tip and draws the best circle she can around Pecos. The road is bumps so the circle she draws is bumpy too. I hold my arms straight out to keep the wheel steady.
“They got their son Homer. Maybe Big Walter and Homer can help us,” Uncle Teddy says.
“They help they’ll want some treasure,” I says.
“You’ll get the lion’s share,” Aunt June says.
“That’s only fair,” Uncle Teddy adds.
I start to think getting some help would be nice. We won’t have much time to dig and the baby makes my back hurt.
“I ain’t never met Cousin Homer and them,” I says.
“They’re very sophisticated,” Uncle Teddy says and I imagine my father, Son Walker, and his sophisticated three trunks of clothes.
“Dill was real nice to give you her truck,” Uncle Teddy says.
“She didn’t give it,” I says. “She only lent it.”
“Dill ain’t as tight as some of us think,” Teddy says.
“I stand corrected,” June says, pursing her mouth.
“That’s twice in the span of one day,” Teddy says, joking with her.
“Don’t make me pop you with my pocketbook,” June says.
“How far is Pecos?” I ask.
June looks at the map key then, inches her fingers along and mumbles to herself. “Looks like fifty miles,” she says.
“Lemme see,” Uncle Teddy says and June hands him the map. He looks it over, turning it this way and that, making the most sense he can of it without being able to read it, then hands it back to June. When she looks at it again he pats her leg.
“Find El Paso, that’s where Blood stay at,” Teddy says.
June finds El Paso, circles it, and calculates the miles.
“We’ll get to Cousin Blood’s tonight,” Uncle Teddy says. “And we’ll stay over.”
“Sounds good to me,” I says. We hit a bump and all bounce up and down. The baby bounces up and down too.
“Cornelius and them live where Palmer used to be,” Uncle Teddy says.
June studies the map. “That’s east of us.”
“How far south is Harlingen? Libby and her family stay there,” he says.
“Harlingen’s a long way down,” Aunt June says.
The pink sky behind us is yellowy now and white underneath that. I take little glances in the side mirror and watch the colors change. My arms are getting tired.
“Dill Smiles is awfully generous,” Teddy says. “Lent you thirty dollars. Lent you this truck.”
“I stole the truck,” I says.
Aunt June grins. Uncle Teddy folds his arms over his chest.
“You planning on returning it today?” he asks.
“I’m planning on having it back by Tuesday night,” I says.
We ride along in silence for a long while. Towns pass by. The space between my shoulders starts to hurt.
“I could drive some,” Uncle Teddy says.
I pull over to the side of the road and we switch places.
He pulls back onto the road, making a wide arc and before I know it, we’re heading back home.
“Oh, hell,” I says.
“Teddy, please,” Aunt June says.
“Treasure or no treasure I ain’t no thief,” Uncle Teddy says.
He drives hunched over the wheel. Hands holding the wheel tight, the brim of his hat pulled down against the sun.
I watch him. Aunt June lets out a heavy puff of air then looks down at her map. She’s turned it so that now she’s following our trip back eastwards. She lets out another puff of air. There’s tears on her face. She wipes them away quick and don’t say nothing.
I do what I seen my mother do once. There was some man driving her car and she wanted him to quit. I reach over, yanking out the keys. The truck coughs then stops.
“Dill weren’t gonna help me atall,” I says.
“She gived you thirty dollars.”
“She didn’t give me nothing,” I says.
“You stealing the truck ain’t right,�
� Teddy says. “Dill’s gonna come after us and there’ll be hell to pay.”
“Dill’s standing in between me and what’s mine,” I says. We are yelling, me and Uncle Teddy both.
Then June speaks. “We’ve always wished we had more to give Billy,” she says.
“Don’t cross me,” he yells at her.
“Hell, Teddy, it could help you and me out too,” she yells back.
Teddy gets out of the truck, not speaking, and I take the driving again. We turn around and head back toward the west, toward the day that’s just getting started.
JUNE FLOWERS BEEDE
We’ve parked in front of a big brick house in the middle of what looks to me like a white neighborhood. There’s a fancy car in the carport. The house’s got a wreath with a black-and-purple ribbon on the door.
“Here’s where they stay at,” Teddy says.
“Don’t look like they home,” I says.
“It’s seven in the morning,” Teddy says.
A little white boy rides by on his bike, throws a newspaper into they yard and rides on, without even looking at us.
“What’s that wreath on the door for?” Billy asks.
“Mourning,” Teddy says.
We sit there not knowing quite what to do. We wasn’t expecting no wreath. All the yards are free of trash and the lawns are neatly trimmed. Billy looks back at they house then at the other ones on the block. I check the address I got against the numbers they got on the door.
“Big Uncle Walter must be doing pretty good,” Billy says.
“I should change into my good dress?” I ask.
“We look fine,” Teddy says. “Estelle is family. Sit tight, I’ll go up and ring they bell.” And he gets out the truck and goes up the walk, brushing down and straightening up his clothes.
He rings the bell and waits.
“I don’t think no Beede lives there,” I says.
“2112 Tierwater,” Billy says. “We got the address right.”
“Some white man’s gonna come to the door with a shotgun,” I says. I feel something bad’s about to happen. Like when I lost my leg. Fell in front of a plow. We was just playing. They said the only way to save my life was to take my leg.
The door opens. A young Negro man stands there talking to Teddy then, looking around Teddy, sees the truck and waves.
“That must be Homer,” Billy says, waving back. Teddy and what-must-be-Homer go inside.
“How you feeling?” I ask Billy.
“I’m doing all right.”
“Having children is a blessing,” I says.
Billy rolls her eyes at me and looks away.
Across the street a man has come out his house in his bathrobe to look at us. A white man.
“I ain’t having this baby,” Billy says.
“Don’t talk like that,” I says.
She puts her hands on the steering wheel and looks straight ahead.
In the house across the street the man in the bathrobe is joined by his wife. They stand there, him stooping down to get they newspaper, her hugging her robe close to herself. She holds her hand above her forehead, cutting out the light, to get a better look at us. Billy rolls down her window.
“How you all doing?” Billy asks, her voice snarling.
“We’re doing fine,” the white folks say.
They stand there for a moment more then the husband nudges the wife and they turn and walk back up they sidewalk together.
“What the hell was they looking at,” Billy says, not asking really cause she knows. Two Negro women in a truck and a Negro man walked in the nice house where the Negroes live.
“They think we moving in,” I says and we both laugh.
“Snipes got a wife and children already,” Billy says using the same voice to tell me that she just talked to the white folks with.
“So you don’t want the baby.”
Billy nods her head. “I don’t owe him,” she says.
We sit quiet.
“I could raise it,” I says. “I wouldn’t mind.”
“I don’t want it,” she says firmly.
Three kids with they books walk past the truck on they way to school.
“I got a doctor up in Gomez,” she says. “He got my name already in his book. All’s I got to do is get the money together and show up.”
“What the hell are you fixing to do?” I ask her.
She don’t answer.
I reach my hand out to hit her. But I stop myself.
“You make that bed you gonna have to lie in it all yr life,” I says.
“I made my mind up and I ain’t changing it,” she says.
And I don’t got nothing to say to that.
I look towards the nice house. Roosevelt has always talked about Estelle but we never been out to visit her. We would make plans to come out this way, it ain’t far, and then, at the last minute he would make excuses. Now here we are. We drove all the way here and he knocked on the wreathed door and a man came up and let him inside.
Funny how people meet. That’s been my experience. The meeting of two people is everything. At least that’s what I say. I met Roosevelt at the Brazos River. Me and my mother and dad and my four brothers and three sisters and dad’s sister Aunt Clara. We was on our way to California, all piled into one beat-up Ford truck, with the wooden slats for sides and the tires as thin as hair ribbons, when we stopped to watch what my father called a “sanctified situation.” A young preacher, wet from head to toe, baptizing people in the Brazos. We all got out to watch. I was only seventeen and had lost my leg the year before. Mother had said, God willing, my leg would grow back, like a lizard’s tail. Daddy picked me up and carried me into the water on his shoulder. He stood there in the shallows. We was a little ways from the people, we didn’t want to intrude, strangers that we was, and not having no plans to stay for more than supper if we was to be invited. Daddy standing in the shallows with me on his shoulder. Young Preacher Beede guided a woman out of the water and sent her back to shore. She was big and her white dress stuck to her body. Her hat had come off and floated downstream, the little cherry sprig in the brim making it spin crazily around. “God wants a miracle!” Young Preacher Beede yelled. He was looking straight at me. The water on his body could be sweat. He strode through the thick moving brown water to where I was, holding his hand out to where my leg used to be. Along the riverside, the people hurried down the bank following him. “God wants a miracle!” he sang. “Amen!” my daddy sang. The people started singing “Glory to Glory.” When Young Preacher Beede reached out for me, I thought I could feel my leg growing. Before I knew it he had taken me off my father’s shoulder and carried me to the shore and sat me down. My mother and brothers and sisters were on the far side of the river. My father still standing in the water. Young Preacher Beede walked back into the water to talk with my father and, after a minute of talking, they shook hands. Father turned and walked away, across the river, back to the family. Them on one bank and me another. The people surrounded me, asking me my name and how I lost my leg and all sorts of questions. I was just sitting on the bank and had to push aside the length of a woman’s flowing dress to see my family, all getting in the truck and driving on.
At first I thought I had died. Then Preacher Beede came carrying two plates of food. Chicken, cornbread, mustard greens, red velvet cake. He wanted to know if I was gonna marry him. We got married the next day. I wanted to go to California. We didn’t. And I still ain’t got my leg back.
My husband and my father made a deal in the river. Once I asked Teddy what they’d said. He looked ashamed and answered by giving me a kiss on the cheek. I never asked again. I’ve had ideas, though. My daddy’s talk musta been so shameful that it couldn’t bear resaying. She’s a double burden on us being one-legged and a girl. She’s one mouth to feed too many. We don’t know you, Preacher, but, seems to me, she oughta feel lucky getting any sort of husband atall.
Roosevelt is standing inches from my face, leaning through t
he car window.
“Let’s eat,” he says and opens the door for me, cradling my elbow like he always does, helping me out the truck and walking with me and Billy inside.
ESTELLE “STAR” BEEDE ROCHFOUCAULT
It’s just like the Beede side of my family to show up unannounced. Not to call or send a note of some kind informing me of their desire to visit and then waiting patiently for an invitation. No. A Beede will just show up on your front doorstep smelling of sweat and saying they’re “hongry.”
Roosevelt is my cousin. His father and my father were brothers. My cousin is standing in my kitchen doorway while I do my best to prepare breakfast. Leftover smothered chicken, all the eggs we have in the house turned over easy, piles of grits. I’ve asked Billy to mix the biscuits. June looks to be the better cook but I cannot bring myself to ask that poor crippled woman to do anything but sit and rest.
“When’s the last time I seen you, Star?” Roosevelt asks.
“You came to our wedding,” I say. I look at Billy, unwed and rail-thin except for that hump at her waist. Either a baby or a tumor. If she were my child, it would be the latter. I add more grits to the boiling water.
“I seen you since that,” Roosevelt says. “You and Big Walter and Homer was at my church.”
I look him up and down. His black raggedy suit coat and work pants. His hat, looking like it just came out of the box, held in his hands. He had a country church years ago. He was making something of himself, then he stopped. When my Big Walter died last year I didn’t invite them to the funeral.
“Every year you send us a Christmas card,” Roosevelt says, “maybe that’s how come I feel like we been visiting you all this time.”
“Homer and I are so glad to see you,” I say, not meaning it. Billy, over at the side counter, is a less competent cook than I thought. I take the bowl from her. The batter is over-stirred. “I’ll take over from here,” I say and she hangs her head.
“Ask your Aunt Star what else you can do,” Roosevelt instructs.
“Set the table,” I tell her before she can ask. She leaves the kitchen, head still hanging, to stand in the formal dining room, toeing the Persian carpet.
Getting Mother's Body Page 12
