Mama, page 6
Sonny kept coming for a few months and Mildred was glowing, always humming some song. Then he found out he was getting sent to Okinawa. He told Mildred it was a strong possibility that he might not see her for at least a year. And if he was ordered to fight in Vietnam, he might not ever see her again. Before he'd met her, he'd asked to be transferred to Texas, which is where he'd be stationed if he made it back to the States. Mildred didn't whine or cry. She just thanked Sonny for the best four months she'd had since her divorce, especially since he'd gotten her juices back in circulation. It wasn't like she was madly in love with him. Hell, Mildred said to herself, wasn't no use crying over spilt milk.
Percy hadn't exactly given up on her, even though he'd married a shy woman who knew a good thing when she saw one. Percy was the kind of man who would try to enter a jalopy in a stock car race and wouldn't be able to figure out why he didn't qualify, and if by chance they did let him in, he'd be at a total loss as to why he didn't win. The only thing he was good at figuring out was his long-overdue and stored-up passion for Mildred. Dreaming about her was enough for Percy. His wife suspected it, though she never said anything to him so long as he paid the bills.
Percy had told Mildred time and time again that if she ever needed anything, anything at all, to drop her pride and call him first. She decided to keep him on the back burner in case of a real emergency. After all, he was married, and she didn't want his wife knocking on her door in the middle of the night ready to blow her brains out. So Mildred left Percy just where he was: on simmer. Besides, he was too nice, she thought, and not once had Mildred ever seen him lose his temper. She wondered if he had one.
Mildred applied for another job. This time at Prest-o-Lite, though they weren't hiring. Those welfare checks were barely making the house note, let alone everything else. She wanted to work, not sit around the house all day trying to drum up things to keep her busy. She was getting fidgety and the least little thing that didn't go right got on her nerves. She was sick of standing and waiting in line for the flour and cheese and margarine and Spam they gave her at the welfare office.
She sat at the kitchen table and started going through a stack of envelopes that she had already shuffled and reshuffled in order of importance over the past few weeks. It didn't make a difference. Most of them were going to have to go unpaid. Bills. The coal bill. The gas bill. The light bill. The water bill. The garbage man. The insurance man. The washer and dryer bill. The house note. Groceries. Lunch money. Special field trip money. Gym suit money. School books. Notebook paper. Tennis shoes. Sunday shoes. The dentist. Popsicles.
Everything was piling up and it was as if Mildred were caught in a snow storm and was constantly shoveling the sidewalk. It kept snowing over where she had just shoveled. In spite of the welfare checks and the occasional day work she managed to get on the side, Mildred was getting deeper and deeper in debt. Everything kept getting more expensive and her kids were growing entirely too fast.
It cost so much to keep up a three-bedroom house like this, and trying to raise five kids, she thought. Hell, twenty years is a long-ass time to be paying for anything. What will I do with all this room when the kids is grown? Which won't be long. Sit in here by myself and run from room to room? Maybe I'll have some grandbabies. But the thought of being a grandmother was unfathomable to her. She decided not to think so far ahead. Shit. Right now what she needed was some money. A decent job. Maybe even a sugar daddy, which Mildred was seriously considering about now.
"Mama, can I make some cocoa?" asked Bootsey, walking into the kitchen. She was starting to look like a miniature Mildred. Everybody had been telling Bootsey this, but Bootsey didn't see it.
"I don't care what you make, girl," Mildred said.
"Here's the mail," Bootsey said, handing it to her.
Interruptions. Always interruptions. Mama this. Mama that. Mama Mama Mama Mama. Can I have this? Can I have that? Yes. No. Maybe. I need this. I need that. Not now. Mama, please? Why not? Because. Because why? Because I said so. Because because. Her kids were everywhere she turned and everywhere she looked. A hand. A mouth open. Asking asking asking. Do something. Anything. Gimme gimme gimme. And always the very things she didn't have, except her love, which they never once asked her for.
Mildred went through the envelopes quickly, tossing aside the ones she didn't want to look at, and then she came across a letter from her oldest brother, Leon. He lived in Phoenix. What would he be writing me for? she wondered.
She opened the letter and read it. She was surprised to discover that he was well informed about her financial situation and she wondered who had filled him in. It had to be one of her sisters, most likely old fat-ass Georgia or motor-mouth Lula. Mildred let the thought pass when she got to the part where he suggested she consider selling the house and moving out to Phoenix. He said there were better job opportunities out there for colored people, the weather was hot and dry all year long, which meant hardly any mosquitoes, the kids might meet some civilized children instead of those hoodlums running loose in Point Haven, and, above all else, Mildred might meet a stable and loveable serviceman with a pension and she might even consider getting her high school diploma.
She folded the letter and put it back in the envelope, letting her fingers crease it over and over again. She could hear the furnace clicking on. Heat, Mildred thought. Wouldn't need no furnace in Arizona. She walked over and flicked off the switch. She had never really thought of leaving Point Haven before. All her people were here. But she wasn't afraid of taking chances. Always knew something had to happen to make things better. Was this it? She looked down at her puffy hands and saw how years of bleach and ammonia and detergent had made her skin like spiderwebs.
Ain't nothing gon' ever change unless I make it change, she thought. And I need a change, that's for damn sure. Shit, I'm tired of playing catch-up. Working and scrimping and scraping, to get where? Nowhere. Not even past the starting line. She went to the sink and turned on the faucet though there were no dirty dishes in the basin. She poured almost two cups of Tide in the water and let the suds ooze through her fingers. She stood in front of the window and let her hands soak until they felt like liquid silk. Then she pushed the starched curtains aside to unblock the view. Her view. Of Herman and Beulah Dell's ugly brown house. The grass in the side yard was growing too fast. And before spring this house would have to be painted again. The Mercury was starting to fall apart too. Mildred dried her hands on the curtains and picked up the letter again. Then she found Leon's phone number in the junk drawer and picked up the telephone.
Six
MILDRED'S BROTHER had told her just what she would have to do before she could pack up and head for the desert. He instructed her on how to go about selling the house so she could make some money. At least a few thousand dollars. Her eyes lit up at the mere thought of having that much money in her possession. She had no idea how much she'd paid in interest and principal. Had never kept track. But since more white folks had started moving into the neighborhood, the house must have appreciated; the boundaries had started changing so that now the portion of Twenty-fifth Street where she lived was considered Mid Town instead of South Park.
It occurred to Mildred that this would be the first time she could make money off of white people. The agent didn't quite see it that way. First, the house would have to be appraised, then he would have to find a suitable buyer; said he didn't want just anybody moving into this house, especially since Mildred had kept it up so nicely. And there was no telling how long it might take to actually sell the house and consummate all the paperwork, which meant she didn't know how soon she would have a check in her hand. So when Faye Love told her there was an opening at Lapper Lakes Nursing Home, and since she was the supervisor and could hire anybody she wanted to on the spot, Mildred took the job.
Two months later, Mildred was so sick of smelling old people she didn't know what to do. Her patience had gotten clogged up like hair in a drain. Curly Mae had told her she should get herself a prescription for nerve pills, and Mildred did. Thought they just might be the plunger. They seemed to do the trick. Pushed about fifty pounds away from her skull, put each little worry into its very own compartment, and gave her the keys to unlock each one when she felt up to it. At first, she didn't take more than she was supposed to—most of the time not as many doses per day as she'd been prescribed. But after a few days of taking them that way, she got so dizzy she slept for almost thirteen hours. Mildred didn't like sleeping that long; she liked knowing what her kids were doing and where they were at all times. When she came home from work she would pop one and sip on a beer, like she was doing now, standing in the middle of the sun porch in her white uniform, which had a stain on it from where old Mrs. Henry had thrown up on her.
She sipped the foam from the top of the glass and sat down in the recliner. The kids were watching "Wagon Train."
"I got something to tell y'all and I want each and every one of you to keep your mouths closed and listen to every word I have to say, whether you like it or not, you understand?"
Her children turned around to face her.
"Now, y'all know that we've been through a few cold and hungry days, but ain't none of you starved or froze to death, have you? Well, sometimes you have to do thangs in this world that you don't want to do in order to make thangs right when they're wrong, easier when they're hard, you know what I mean?"
They nodded their heads up and down, although they had no idea what she was talking about. They figured if they stayed with her, they would catch on.
"Ain't y'all tired of this old dull mangy town?" Mildred didn't give them a chance to answer. "Wouldn't y'all like to make some new friends and go to a nicer, prettier school? The main reason I'm asking—telling—you this is because your Uncle Leon, the one out there in Arizona, in Phoenix, wants us to move out there with him and his kids. He say they got good jobs out there for colored people, even women, and cheaper, bigger, finer houses, and guess what? It don't even snow out there, and they ain't got those aggravating-ass mosquitoes. Y'all could learn to swim and play outside all year round without no coats and boots or gloves. Don't that sound nice?" She glared at them.
"But, Mama," Freda said, "I just tried out for cheerleading this year—the junior varsity team—and it might be my only chance! I'd be the first colored to ever make it!"
"What will we do with Prince?" Money whined. "He don't like hot weather. And what about my bike? How I'ma get it all the way to Arizona? Where is Arizona anyway? And what about Chunky, and BooBoo and Big Man and Little Man? Ain't gon' have no friends in Arizona."
"What I tell you about saying ain't, boy? You'd thank they didn't teach you how to speak English in school."
Bootsey, Angel, and Doll went along with their older sister and brother. "Yeah, we don't want to move to no Arizona. People die in deserts. How long does it take to get there? Probably weeks," Angel said. The other two huddled near her.
"What's wrong with this house?" asked Freda, crossing her arms and making a huffing sound. "We like this house. We don't want to go nowhere and I only got four more years till I graduate."
Mildred had figured as much, but it didn't matter, because her mind was made up. She clenched her fist and started gritting her teeth—this always scared the kids and made them see things her way.
"Look, I know what y'all likes to do too. Freda. Girl, you can cheerlead in Arizona. Don't you think they play basketball and football no place else besides Point Haven? They got better high schools than that little rinky-dink one on Twenty-fourth Street. And Money, you can always make new friends, boy, so stop acting like a sissy. And them little hoodlums you hang around with ain't worth a pot to piss in noway. Meet some civilized kids in Arizona. And Prince ain't never told you he didn't like hot weather, did he? Dogs go where their owners go. Look at it this way, most of the colored people in this town ain't never been no farther than Detroit, and it'll give your cousins and friends a good reason to go somewhere new for a change. They can come visit in the summer. Look, I'm trying to thank this thang out and I thank it's gon' be the best damn move I've made in thirteen years, and regardless of who don't like it, I'm the mama and daddy in this house, and we going, as soon as I can get myself situated."
Two weeks later Freda made the cheerleading squad at Chippewa Junior High School and Money ran away from home. Mildred had just come in from work.
"Where's Money?" she asked, kicking off her white hospital shoes in the middle of the dining room floor.
"He ain't, I mean, hasn't come home from school yet," Bootsey said. None of the other kids seemed to know where he was either, and since Money didn't participate in any after-school activities Mildred knew something was wrong. The kids were supposed to come straight home from school and had to do their chores and homework before they were allowed back outside. She said she'd wait a half hour, and as soon as he walked through that door she was going to snatch a knot in his behind.
Mildred was having a nicotine fit. She didn't want to send one of the girls to the store since it was getting dark, but she sent Freda anyway. "Get me two packs of Tareytons, would you? Ask Joe if I can have 'em till I get my check day after tomorrow. If he says yes, then get me three packs." What Mildred didn't know was that the reason her cigarettes had been disappearing so fast was because Freda had been smoking them at home and with her girlfriends after school when she went over to their house to watch "Dark Shadows."
Freda came back with the three packs about ten minutes later. Mildred told her not to take off her coat. She made the other girls put theirs on. "Go find that boy. Look everywhere. Check the Pattersons and the Howells, but don't come back in this house without him."
They were gone almost an hour, and when they returned they were all out of breath. They told Mildred they couldn't find him and no one had seen him.
"That's impossible. Y'all can't tell me that in a town this damn small ain't nobody seen a little nappy-headed colored boy." Mildred called over to Curly Mae's, who sent her boys to look for him. They went straight to the White Rose gas station, which had a pond behind it where they always caught polliwogs in the spring to scare girls.
Money was up to his knees in icy water when they spotted him. He was so cold his brown face was red and snot was running down his nose. Maybe he had thought of drowning himself, they thought, but the water was too cold and too shallow, and besides, he looked more scared than anything.
"Your mama is looking for you, boy, and you gon' get it when you get home. Come on out of there," one of the boys said.
"I ain't going no fucking where. I ain't moving to no damn Arizona. I hate Arizona and I hate my mama even more! I'm gon' drown myself if it kills me!"
But the boys just laughed and counted to three and ran into the pond and dragged him out. Then they tied a rope around his waist like a horse in a rodeo so he couldn't run. As they walked home, all Money could think of was the beating he was going to get.
But Mildred didn't beat him. When she saw him standing there wet and freezing, his teeth chattering and his eyes dilated as if he were in shock, she was too afraid he had caught pneumonia to even think of hitting him. She didn't even scold him or raise her voice one octave. Nor did she hug him, though she wanted to.
"Get out of those wet clothes, boy," she said. "And Freda, make your brother some hot Nestle's Quik. Wouldn't you like some hot cocoa, boy?" Mildred couldn't stop looking into his cat eyes. Then it suddenly occurred to her that he might see in her own eyes her grief and confusion and just how responsible she felt, so she averted her glance. She didn't want Money to know that she was feeling like a collapsing bridge. Mildred also knew that if she hugged him she would be hugging a young Crook and maybe never let the boy go. She watched him gulp down his hot chocolate and sensed he was all right. Then she took another nerve pill and lay down.
That night, huddling on their bunk beds, which they were outgrowing, Mildred's children held a conference over popcorn and Kool-Aid. They decided they would simply boycott the whole idea of moving. Just refuse to go. She'd have to go by herself. After all, she couldn't make them go. "Shit, we ain't the one with the divorce problem or the money problem," Freda said.
"And we ain't trying to get away from nothing or nobody. Are we?" Money asked. All of them shook their heads no. The next decision to make was where everybody would live. This took some serious thinking. It soon became clear that Bootsey should stay with their Aunt Georgia since her daughter, Jeanie, was her age. Freda wanted to stay with the Wiggins family because they were clean, like her mama was, and always kept food in the refrigerator (a big consideration for her), and besides, she had a crush on Eric. Angel and Doll would have to stay together and could go with Ruthie Bates because her granddaughter, Cookie, left her dolls and toys in her spare bedroom until she came to visit in the summer from Chicago. Money would stay right next door with Curly Mae. That way, he said, he could keep an eye out on Freda's weeping willow trees. Make sure nobody else sat under them.
"Milly, you sure this is what you want to do, baby?" her daddy asked. Buster was standing at the wringer washer pushing clothes through the rollers. His big stomach was hanging over his pants, and his suspenders were making them hike up so his ankles showed off his white socks. His skin looked red and he was going bald. Miss Acquilla was sitting in the front room watching "The Price Is Right." She was dipping a piece of corn bread into a bowl of sweet milk. Her silver hair was parted down the middle into two thick braids.
"Buster," she called, "you almost finished in there? You know them beans need to be snapped if you want to eat 'em tonight."
