Minding Ben

by Victoria Brown

  “There are no colored Vermeers, Nancy,” Aunt Elsie said.

  “Come, Aunt Elsie, you’re a Vassar girl. Use your imagination.”

  “Vermeer would have had to use his as well,” Aunt Elsie replied and drank the tiniest sip of sherry from the delicate tulip-shaped glass. “There were no Negroes in Europe during Vermeer’s time.”

  Sol winked at me when he took his drink, and Michael said hello as he took his. On my way back to the kitchen, Miriam said, “Grace, can you get me a glass of water with ice?”

  Jane looked up from assembling little plates of appetizers. “You done?” She passed me a bamboo tray with colorful vegetables cut only a little thicker than matchsticks. “Okay, this go out next.”

  “Wait, Jane. Miriam wants ice water.”

  Jane looked outraged. “Ice water? Now she want ice water to full up she belly before the meal serve?”

  I shrugged, and Jane, muttering and shaking her head, filled a glass with ice and put scarcely any water in it. “ ’Ere, give her that.”

  Ettie came in. “How are we managing, Jane?” she asked. “Everything under control?”

  “And tell me when it not.”

  Ettie took Miriam’s ice water from me. “Bring the tray,” she said. “I’ll carry this.”

  I walked out in time to hear Miriam, her jeweled glass held up, ask, “So, does the aperitif count as one of the four glasses of wine, Big Ben?” She leaned forward while Nancy and Susannah talked behind her back. Aunt Elsie relaxed into her chair with her eyes closed. Big Ben, talking to Michael and Sol about the mayor’s mistakes, paused and smiled over at Miriam. “Drink up, dear, four more to come with the meal.”

  Susannah snorted while Nancy smiled and shook her head. Miriam stared hard at Sol, who did not look over at her. Aunt Elsie had fallen asleep, and her sherry tilted at a steep gradient in her wrinkled fingers. I walked past her out of the sitting room, and she called out, “Young woman, you did not offer me the canapés.” She had righted her sherry and was looking at the wall over my shoulder.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, holding the tray out to her.

  She glanced at the rainbow selection of vegetables and raised her left hand in refusal. “Thank you.” She didn’t take anything.

  Jane was waiting for me in the kitchen. “I see that, you know.”

  “What, Jane?”

  “I see you didn’t offer Miss Elsie none of that something in the tray.”

  “Jane, she was sleeping.”

  The anger in her voice surprised me. “That don’t matter,” she snapped as she took the tray from me and held it by her side as if I no longer deserved to be its bearer. “Sleep, asleep, awake, drunk, it don’t make no difference. Offer everybody some everything, you hear?”

  “Sorry, Jane.” I looked at the terra-cotta floor tiles, the same color as the clayey soil behind my house. “You got it. Just tell me what to do.”

  JANE SAW ME TO the front door, and I realized that, at some point during the evening, she’d found the time to come and straighten the jumble of shoes. The pile of high heels and men’s dress shoes and children’s shoes had been organized into two orderly rows, largest to smallest, toes all facing one direction. She handed me an envelope. “Here, Miss Ettie give you this.”

  Just then, looking tired and small, Jane reminded me of my na. I gave her a quick hug and a kiss. “Thanks, Jane.”

  “Is the other way round, child. Me should be the one who thank you. You was a big ’elp to me today. Remember what I tell you.”

  “You tell me so much today, Jane.”

  “No, what I did tell you the first time you come up here with Sol and ’im lady. I done make my bed already, and it is very comfortable. You have to get what you want in this America. Don’t wait for nobody to give you nothing.”

  “I remember, Jane. Thanks, good night.”

  “Here”—she folded my fingers over warm paper—“take this.” It was fifty dollars. In the elevator, I found a crisp hundred in the envelope from Ettie. Plus, I had got twenty extra from Miriam, twenty from Big Ben, and forty from Nancy. More than a whole week’s salary for eight hours of work.

  I walked down Park Avenue, looking at the lights. Then I cut across to the boutique with the halter. The same saleswoman stood outside now, snapping a huge lock on the grating she had let down to pen the mannequins in for the night.

  She jumped and clicked the lock shut, then she recognized me. “Oh, hello. The orange and white halter, right?”

  “Do you still have it?”

  “Still wrapped and waiting for you. I thought you were just running to the bank.”

  “Can I get it now?”

  “Well”—she thought for a while—“you can’t try it on again, and you’ll have to pay cash.”

  “I’ll pay you cash.”

  “Okay,” she said, “let’s do this quickly.”

  She opened the long padlock and keyed some numbers into a security box inside the grate. Slowly, the links rattled up, and she used another key to open the door. The mannequins, called to duty on their off hours, struck their poses as the lights came up. She went behind the counter and pulled out my package, the white tie from this morning still peeking out. She lifted an edge of tissue, checked the size, and looked at the receipt. “One hundred and twenty-seven dollars and nineteen cents.”

  I reached for the money. “This morning you said you’d give it to me for a hundred and twenty cash.”

  Now her smile seemed genuine. “You have a good memory. I can still do that.”

  I passed her Ettie’s hundred and Big Ben’s twenty, and took the cute shopping bag and the receipt.

  Of course Sylvia’s elevator was broken, but the final walk up the steps cemented the exhaustion I felt. I knew I’d have a good night’s sleep.

  Chapter 25

  I missed my mother.

  I felt like a hypocrite, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to be home. On Easter Sunday, the three of us went to church with her without much complaint, even though Helen and I refused to wrap our hair in the head ties the church women wore and my father sat us near the back to better slip down the hill soon after the last hymn was sung. I lay thinking that my mother was up now, moving about in our kitchen. Helen was still asleep in the bed we shared. And my father . . .

  My father. I remembered I had a letter from home. In the breakfront the envelope was behind a red, white, and blue box of Brillo pads that perfectly complemented its patriotic airmail colors. According to the date stamp, the letter had taken only a few days to get to Brooklyn. I sat shrouded in Sylvia’s thin sheet by the awakening radiator.

  Dear Gracie,

  Hoping this letter reach you in health and strength by the Grace of God. I didn’t get to talk to you when I call for your birthday, but I have a belated present for you. Your daddy come home. Is only today (the 1st) he reach, but before you have to say I don’t tell you anything, I sit down tonight self to write and let you know. I would have called, but I don’t know when you at Sylvia and when you on the little work you doing, so I putting a express stamp on the letter. Mr. Assing in the post office tell me it should reach you in 3–4 days.

  Daddy looking good. It didn’t have no babash for him to drink in hospital and he didn’t have a choice but was to eat what they give him so he even gain a little weight. He was too happy to come and sit down in he own gallery and he only waving right to every fool passing up and down the road. All who didn’t come to see him in the hospital stop by already and everything going good, thanks to God. Okay, is not a long letter I writing. Helen going okay. She start to write you a letter two weeks now and she can’t find the time to finish it.

  By the time you get this it should be close to Easter. Maybe you could find a church to go to? It could be any church, even Catholic, just don’t tie up yourself with no sign of the cross. Don’t get vex, is just a suggestion. Okay, that is all for now. Tell Sylvia I say hello.

  May the good Lord bless and keep you, and don’t f
orget to pray.

  Your Mother,

  Grace

  My tears wet the paper torn from Helen’s notebook, and because my mother had used her old fountain pen, two big blue splotches smeared away the beginning words of her second paragraph. He was home. I knew he hadn’t come home on Easter Sunday, but the timing seemed miraculous all the same.

  I went back to the room and sat next to the sleeping Sylvia. For three or four seconds, with her body still comatose, only her eyeballs bounced around the room. When she realized it was me, she was relieved, and then furious. “Grace, but what the ass wrong with you in truth? Look how you nearly give me a heart attack this hour of the morning. I say is some crackhead come in my house and sit down on my bed. Is so you does creep round them white people house all hour of the morning? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”

  Bo said, “Man, what the ass wrong with you and Grace this hour of the morning, Sylvia? Sun not even up yet. Hush your blasted mouth and go back to sleep, man.”

  “Nah, Bo. You worse than Grace. You forget who house this is. You forget is a lodging you begging here and is by mines and sweet Jesus tender mercies you have a roof over your nigger head. Is only the same father we mother have you know. Bo, I not even sure you is my cousin.”

  By now Sylvia had struggled up, and the sleep lines on the left side of her face slanted down like the grooves on a sheet of galvanize. Micky watched her mother.

  Bo tried to defend himself. “Man tired, Sylvia. You know what time I come in last night?”

  “And that is the whole problem.” Sylvia gargled. “I is actively aiding and betting your stupidness. Enough.”

  Sylvia turned her attention back to me. “Now, Miss Grace, tell me what the ass you doing coming and sitting down on my bed like the madman in the queen bedroom.”

  I almost smiled, and I wondered if Sylvia knew about that from the news or from the calypso:

  There was a man in me bedroom,

  He came on the bed doux-doux

  And I thought he was you

  “I was coming to ask if you want me to take them children to Dodo church since today is Easter Sunday.”

  Sylvia blanked, and really for the first time since I had come to live with her she had nothing to say. “Grace, is a good idea you have. That is it. All man, Jack and he brother, wake up. Everybody going to church with Dodo today. Grace, call Dodo and tell she wait for we, and get Dame ready. Mind yourself.”

  I moved out of her way. Sylvia went to Bo’s corner by the dirty clothes. “And you, Mister Bo, if you ever want to eat so much as a turkey wing in this house again, you is the first man reach in that bathroom.” She landed a real kick in Bo’s ribs. “Up!”

  IN CHURCH, DODO WAS in her element. I don’t think that Sylvia or the children had ever gone with her before. In her new white Easter hat and her pocketbook hilted at her hip, she marched us like a misfit company of Christian soldiers straight down the aisle to the front pews.

  Sylvia followed Dodo and obliterated her from my sight when we fell into single file. Derek and Micky walked behind their mother, and Micky kept her hands on her brother’s shoulders to stay his course. I carried smiling Dame in my arms behind them, and Bo, who sulked and mumbled under his breath the whole time, closed out our ranks.

  At her chosen pew, Dodo directed traffic. “Bo, go in first.”

  Sylvia snatched his ratty gray Kangol off his head as he walked by. When she saw what lay beneath, she passed the hat back to him. “Here, I don’t know if you more dispectful with it on or off.”

  Dodo sighed. “Sylvia, behave yourself. Derek, go and sit by your uncle. Grace, you next.”

  When Dodo had answered the phone earlier and heard my voice, she’d said, “What you calling my house for this hour of the morning?”

  Of course, she’d thought I was messing with her. “Miss Grace, I is not Sylvia to put up with your stupidness, you know. What it is you want?”

  “No, Dodo, for real, we coming. Everybody. Sylvia say to wait ten minutes.”

  Dodo sucked on a cigarette. “Don’t play games with a big woman.”

  “Dodo, just wait, okay.”

  The church was crowded but comfortable, and still many of the ladies, Dodo included, cooled themselves rapidly with paper fans that snapped open from lacquered frames. Up behind the pulpit, the choir gathered. There was an expectant murmur mixed with the sounds of rushing fans and scratchy children in new clothes. Bo, with his arms on the pew’s backrest and his legs spread wide, leaned over Derek’s head and said to me, “If you want, we could get married in a church like this, you know.”

  “Bo, what stupidness you talking about?”

  “Nah, to make everything look more real. You could walk down the aisle. Dame could carry the ring. Sylvia could be your maid of honor, even though she maid gone long time.”

  Derek said, “You stupid, Uncle Bo. My mammy never had a maid.”

  Bo and I cracked up, and Dodo, whipping her fan under her bony nose, leaned back and glared down the pew. “Shh,” she commanded.

  The start didn’t come from the front but rather from high up in the third tier. A woman Sylvia’s size stood at the balcony and in a clear and strong voice, sang out, “Jee-eee-eee-eee-zus.”

  Everyone spun in their seats to look up at her purple-robed magnificence and teased halo of fake hair. Bo said, “Mama, that is woman,” and Dodo snap-snapped her lacquered fan at him.

  The song went on for ages, rising and falling according to the whims of the choirmaster. In my mother’s church, there were no instruments other than their voices. Here, up on the stage, was a six-piece band with a bass, drums, a two-man brass section, and a steel pan. It was loud, but they all seemed to like it that way. I glanced down the pew at Dodo. She had her eyes closed and had put down her fan to better dust-clap her hands together.

  Suddenly, the voices fell away, leaving only one section singing over the rising band. This was a signal for bacchanal to break loose. Sisters started making their way out of the pews and into the wide center aisle, doing intricate steps and dances. Dodo slipped out with the rest, and Bo poked me hard in the ribs as he tried not to laugh at her getting down on those maga legs. All around us women, and women only, were going crazy worshiping in the aisles. Derek tugged my sleeve. I bent down to hear him over the din, and all he could say was “Lookit, Grace. Lookit.”

  It died down, and, at last, only the drummer still pounded his kit, soothing the women and coaxing them into their seats. Dodo wandered back to our pew, wet and beaming. One by one the women sank to their pews, spent and ecstatic, and drew open their plastic fans to help ease the heat within their souls. We sat too, and Sylvia leaned over Micky to take Dame from my arms. As she did so she whispered, “Mama.” I knew exactly what she meant.

  After the first and second readings, the pastor came to the pulpit. Pastor Rome had to be younger than forty and, with his slicked, wavy hair, thick but trim mustache, and muscled arms visible under his three-piece suit, looked more like a shoe salesman at the Macy’s than like a pastor.

  Bo leaned to me over Derek’s head. “I bet you anything he is a sweet man,” he said. “How much of them woman in here you think he bull already?”

  I shushed him, glad that Dodo hadn’t heard, but this pastor didn’t put me at ease. Pastor Rome said, “Now, you all know I used to be dead.”

  A ripple went through the congregation, and Micky leaned over. “Grace, that man is a ghost?” she asked me.

  “No. I’ll tell you after.”

  Again, louder, he asked his question, “I said, do you all know that I used to be dead?”

  The church’s answer rose to match his volume.

  “When they locked me up in that cage, brothers and sisters, I used to be dead. When they violated me in that cage, I said I used to be dead. Oh, when they brutalized me in that cage, I was dead, dead, dead.” The organist came in again on cue, and the ladies in the congregation, perhaps feeling a little relieved that, dead or alive, Pastor Rome had paid some
price for his earlier sins, shook their heads and groaned deep ooohs and uhhhs. “But then, my brothers and my sisters, I saw the light. From the depths of that dark death, I said I saw the light. Shining all around me, light. Spreading all around me, light. That light touched my toes, and, oooh”—he took a high step back from the pulpit—“I was burned.”

  Dodo, keen, pinched her face at every emotion Pastor Rome recounted, feeling his pain. This was the longest I’d ever seen her go without a cigarette. Sylvia was nodding her head, and when I turned to Bo, at least Pastor Rome had his full attention. Derek and Dame were asleep, and Micky leaned against her mother and sucked her fingers.

  Pastor Rome said, “I wonder if you’re with me, brothers and sisters. I wonder if you know where I’m going this morning. If you’re taking the journey with me, or if you’re just along for the riiide.”

  He continued, “Jesus too was dead. He died, but then I say he was resurrected. He knew he still had work to do, and he was resurrected. He saw that light, and chose to be resurrected.”

  The band had kicked in now, and Pastor Rome was going on. I thought there was something wrong with the parallels in this sermon. Jesus hadn’t been a career criminal before he died and was resurrected.

  It was time to tie it all together. The band lowered their volume, and Pastor Rome said, “Are you living in the light, my brothers and sisters? I mean, have you been resurrected? Are you in the first life, the life of death, or have you been resurrected? The Lord said to me, ‘Jerome, I want you to see the light, and be resurrected.’ He’s saying to you, ‘Look at the light. Come to me. Forget the world. Leave it all behind. Take my hand. Walk with me. And be, resurrected.’ ”

  The congregation combusted again, and everyone was on their feet, resurrected. Sylvia, lifted by the message, held Dame in the crook of one arm and waved the other. Bo had stood up and was grinning and clapping, nodding his head in agreement.