All Her Little Secrets, page 26
“Ms. Littlejohn?” A petite Black woman in her seventies wearing a conservative blue suit and sensible shoes extended her right hand. “I’m Lila Gresham. I’m very sorry for your loss. I’ll be assisting you with the arrangements for your brother.”
“Thank you.”
“Why don’t we go in here.” I followed Mrs. Gresham to a room with the misnomer “The Comfort Suite,” like someone could ever be comfortable in a funeral home. Surprisingly, the room was pleasant enough with its large windows, a smattering of soft upholstered love seats angled about, and a respectable-looking desk in the corner. Still, the pleasant surroundings and the flood of sunlight could not erase the cool feel of death that permeated the building.
Mrs. Gresham directed me to a love seat. She sat beside me with her efficient-looking clipboard and papers resting in her lap. “We received your brother’s remains this morning. I know this is a difficult time, but have you decided on the type of arrangements you’d like to have for your brother?”
I hadn’t really. Who would I invite to his funeral? Besides Juice, I knew absolutely none of Sam’s friends. We had no blood relatives left. And I would cut off my own arm before even thinking about bringing Vera out here for his funeral. Then I thought, What would Sam want?
“Nothing extravagant.” I said. “Just a plain coffin, one simple floral spray, and a private cemetery service.”
* * *
I drove back through the town and cruised to a red light, crying and lost in my head. I had screwed up Sam’s life by always leaving him when he needed me the most. For all the years between us, I had never learned to allay my guilt over being the beneficiary of life’s good fortune when Sam was not. And always niggling in the back of my brain was the unforgivable thought that I had set all this in motion decades ago with my own plans.
Suddenly, the truck driver behind me blasted his horn. I jumped. The light was green. Rattled by the loud sound, I sped off, making a sharp turn onto Periwinkle Lane, the street where we lived before moving in with Willie Jay Groover. The street was littered with the same cornucopia of dilapidated shotgun houses. I was surprised they were still standing. The front yards were full of trucks and cars in some sort of disrepair, road-worn tires and other remnants left behind by shade tree mechanics. Unkempt little kids happily played in dirt and mud that should have been grass. One porch held an old lumpy sofa that doubled as outdoor seating, yellow foam stuffing sprouting from its cushions.
I stopped the car in front of a single-story shotgun house near the end of Periwinkle Lane, the windows now boarded up with wood planks and painted over with fading hues of red and black graffiti. Looking at this house was like looking into the cracked mirror of my psyche. There weren’t enough $2,000 dresses or Bernhardt linen office chairs in the world to erase where I came from. But driving through this town, I caught a glimpse of what I’d forgotten since entering the executive suite. I realized who I really was. I was a fighter. Black girls—big-boned and thick-skinned—fight all the time. We fight to be heard, to be recognized, to stay alive. We fight even when we don’t know we’re fighting. And now, despite all the labels society tried to place on me, I knew I wasn’t an angry Black woman. I was a fighting Black woman and I’d trained hard right here in this town.
I shook myself from the memory and drove off. A few minutes later, I was driving along the outskirts of town, finally pulling onto Red Creek Road. Not much had changed on this street either since the days when Martha, Sam, and I lived in Willie Jay’s house. The same squat ranch houses dotted the street, weathering the changes in seasons and occupants, every house the same as when I’d left back in August 1979. All but one. Willie Jay’s house was gone.
The view from the street where Willie Jay’s house stood stretched clear across to the river swamp that ran behind it. After his disappearance, Martha discovered he didn’t own the house. In fact, Sheriff Coogler did. He kicked Martha out and she was back to living off the generosity of friends around town. Coogler eventually died of a heart attack and the house was torn down for whatever reason. And I wasn’t mad about that, either. That house of horrors was gone along with all the gruesome memories it held. People in town eventually forgot about Willie Jay Groover and Martha Littlejohn and her two bastard kids.
A few minutes later, I drove up the gravel path leading to Vera’s farmhouse. I hadn’t been to this house since I moved Vera out of it two years before. The dull patina of time and weather covered the entire structure. Everything about the house was dismal and gray. The roof, the faded yellow clapboards, the bare pecan trees that framed it—all of it, gray. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, Vera’s house had been a lifesaving way station for a lot of women in Chillicothe and neighboring towns, too. Vera considered herself a public servant of sorts. She used to say she gave women something men would never give them: control.
I stepped out of the car and could almost hear Aretha Franklin’s powerhouse vocals spelling out the letters to “Respect” from the radio Vera used to keep on the open windowsill at the front of the house. The smell of collard greens and pound cakes would float outside from the kitchen, Vera’s friends like Miss Toney and Bankrobber and her cousin Birdie all sitting on the porch laughing and chatting as most people do when times are good. Bankrobber, whose real name was Roscoe Wilkins, was rumored to have actually robbed a bank somewhere up north and his relatives sent him south to hide out for a while. Bankrobber used to tell stories about all the money he’d stashed in various spots around the city of Chicago. He made promises to buy Miss Toney a candy-apple-red Cadillac and threatened to slather Birdie in so much Chanel No. 5 perfume that he’d be forced to marry her because she smelled so good—all those promises, when he spent the better part of the day bumming cigarettes or waiting on someone to invite him in and offer him what generally became his only meal of the day.
Sometimes, when their conversations turned serious, Vera would shoo Sam and me away. Sam would get distracted by one thing or another. But me, I’d always sneak back along the side of the house and eavesdrop. The adults talked in low voices about how nothing good ever came out of Chillicothe. How this town sucked the life out of Black folks and anyone who missed the opportunity to escape was doomed to die here the same way they lived here: poor and miserable. And Vera always talked about “saving the babies.” She said she’d spend the rest of her life saving little babies, even if that meant preventing them from coming into a waiting world full of abuse and people who didn’t want them or, worse, wouldn’t love them.
Miss Toney and Birdie were dead now. Bankrobber, too, having never returned North.
And now, everything was quiet. Gray.
Chillicothe, Georgia, June 1979
Martha and I stepped inside Vera’s big yellow farmhouse. To me, she was like a golden-colored angel. A beacon in a dark sea of neglect and abuse, and I swam to her as if my life depended on it. She stared at me without saying a word. Ever since Martha discovered an inventory overage of sanitary napkins in the bathroom, she and Willie Jay argued about what to do about my situation. Willie Jay, being the force to reckon with, overruled Martha’s plan that I should have the baby and sent us both to Vera’s. I wondered whether Martha knew why Willie Jay would be so concerned about my future or if he confessed his fear of my bringing a child into the world whose skin tone would point an accusatory finger announcing to the world that he was a monstrous pedophile.
After a moment, Vera ambled over to the door and pulled me into a warm soft hug. I think I must have cried for five minutes straight and Vera never let go.
“She’s young, Martha. Why you let this happen?” Vera asked as she pulled out of the hug.
Martha stood mute, wringing her hands.
“You’ll be fine, sugar,” Vera said to me.
I stared at the cracks between the boards of the dull hardwood floor, full of shame and fear. Vera shook her head as she stomped into the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with a cup of tea. She handed it to me. “Drink this. All of it.”
I winced at the first sip, a heavy mint taste that faded into a strong burning sensation at the back of my tongue and crept down my throat, stinging my nose and ears in the process. I’d never tasted liquor before but figured Vera had placed some into my tea. I couldn’t understand how Martha could drown herself in something so disgusting. Vera tapped the cup when I refused to drink more. I sipped the tea again. By the third sip, the burn eased, the taste was smoother, and I began to feel calmer. But my head felt like lead and any quick moves sent the room into a revolution.
“This might be a while, Martha. Why don’t you go on home?” Vera said to my mother. “There’s nothing for you to do here.”
“No, I wanna stay.”
“I can bring her on back home. You don’t need to stay none,” Vera said.
“No.” Martha reached into the back pocket of her jeans. She pulled out a small wad of bills and handed them to Vera. “He told me I had to stay.”
Vera shook her head again in disgust. “You know womenfolk gotta count for something on this earth ’cause we the ones responsible for bringing other people in the world. But it oughta be our decision when we wanna do so or who we wanna do it with.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes at Martha. “You stay right here, and I don’t want to hear a mumblin’ word outta you.”
By now, I was completely buzzed and rising higher with every sip of tea. Vera guided me to a back bedroom. I stumbled a bit before gaining my legs. The room swirled then stopped, then swirled again. I closed my eyes to quell a wave of nausea that washed over me.
I stepped inside the room and thought Vera had the biggest bed I’d ever seen in my life. The large ornately carved bed took up the bulk of the space in the room. A picture of a blond, blue-eyed Jesus hung above the headboard, next to a picture of Martin Luther King Jr. The bedside table held a small lamp, a well-worn bible, and a basket of brightly colored yarn with slim blue metallic knitting needles. I didn’t know whether it was the tea or Vera’s protective presence, but the room had a cozy soft glow that made me feel safe, like I had arrived at some sort of refuge. Vera’s farmhouse was the closest thing to women’s health care anyone could expect or afford in a poor rural town in east Georgia.
Vera eased me into a chair. She pulled a long folding table from under the bed, snapped open the legs, and stood the table upright at the foot of her bed. I watched her, my head lolling about like a large stone as she moved around the room, fussing with towels and covering the table in a yellow plastic tablecloth.
“Drink every lick of that tea, baby. It’ll help things along.”
I did, growing foggier with each sip, until the room became a swaying kaleidoscope of furniture and pictures. The room was filled with music coming from somewhere, distant and muffled.
“Will it hurt?” I whispered.
Vera stopped her preparations and stood in front of me.
“Yeah, baby, it’ll hurt.” She moved in closer. “It’s gonna hurt a lot. But I can look at you and tell, you a strong girl. Real strong. Strong girls are brave girls. Always remember that. No matter what nobody tells you. So I’ma need you to be brave tonight, okay?” She gently rubbed my back. “Now I need you to slide your panties off.”
Again, I did as she told me. Vera went back to the busyness of table preparations. The table complete, she carefully lifted my thin limp frame to a standing position and led me to the folding table. My legs felt like thin twigs and I grew scared all of a sudden that they would break. All I could think was that my legs would break, and I’d never be able to walk again. Ever. I wanted to run, but the same legs I feared would break wouldn’t move now.
“Stay strong, baby. Remember what I told you. Be brave.” Vera held me close before carefully laying me on top of the smooth hard table.
I heard the music again, garbled sounds of a song that I couldn’t comprehend. The music was hypnotizing. My head spun as Vera gently bent my legs at the knees and spread them apart.
“My God . . .” she uttered softly as she rubbed her fingertips across the cigar burn scars on my thighs. “Lay real still, baby.”
I strained to make out the tune of the song. It was something slow, a male group harmonizing words, something about love and rainbows. The song didn’t make any sense. Everything seemed hazy, moving in slow motion. Vera carefully removed a slim blue metallic knitting needle from the basket of yarn. She wiped it gingerly with a washcloth before swirling it inside a bottle of alcohol. After, she swiped it through the air a few times like a conductor waving her baton. I turned my head toward the dresser. I found it. The source of the music—a wooden radio, the old-fashioned kind, with gold knobs and lines demarking the stations. The radio sat like a big brown guard in the center of the dresser, spilling music and lyrics of love. I focused everything I had inside of me on the huge gold knob—the perfect circle, the smooth, round orb.
I winced as Vera laid her hand against my thigh. I could feel the cool hard metal as she slid the pointed end of the knitting needle inside me. A few seconds later, a pain ripped intense and searing, like fire slashing through my body. I grabbed the sides of the table. The music grew faint as the pain ran hot and fast. The gold radio knob blurred through a rush of silent tears.
I didn’t scream. Not a sound. Not a whimper. Vera told me I was strong and brave, and I believed her. But more than anything, I didn’t scream because I was afraid Vera might stop and I would be forced to have a baby I didn’t want by a man I hated.
Everything was over just a few minutes after it began. Vera helped me get cleaned up before she wrapped a heavy blue quilt with bright yellow daisies around my shoulders.
Before we left the bedroom, she took my hand. “Did Willie Jay do this to you?” Vera whispered. “Tell me the truth.”
I nodded yes.
“Humph.” She gently rubbed the cigar burn scar and squeezed my hand. “Okay, we’ll take care of all that later. Don’t you worry none. You go on home with your momma. I’ll check on you tomorrow.”
She kissed me on top of my head and wrapped me in another soft warm hug. We walked back to the living room where Martha sat on the sofa in the same spot we’d left her. She jumped to her feet as we entered the room.
“You okay, baby?” Martha asked, trying to sound upbeat. I couldn’t even look at her.
The two women held me up, one on either side of me, as they piled me into Martha’s beat-up ’67 blue Mustang. The pain was excruciating when I tried to sit upright, so the two of them laid me across the back seat and Vera placed a blanket over me.
I didn’t think I’d make the car ride back home. And it would have been okay with me if I didn’t. I silently prayed for God to let me die. No one would care. Black girls go missing every single day and I could be one of them. Another young face full of promise that melts away with time and memory. No one would miss me and all the pain and heartache that crawled through me would vanish, too.
I didn’t die. But something inside me did. I didn’t speak for an entire week. It was like all the pain and nausea from that night washed over me, sealing my lips as well as my emotions. I tucked away that entire experience in my carpetbag of secrets. What Vera called “grave secrets.” The kind I’d never share with another soul on Earth. What I didn’t know was just how heavy my carpetbag of secrets would become.
I’ve heard some women say having a baby changes you. Not having one can change you, too.
Part 3
The Fight
Chillicothe, Georgia, July 1979
I almost never hung out with the kids from school. Mostly because I was always too afraid they’d ask me something personal like why my mother drank all the time or why she married Willie Jay or what it was like to live with someone so mean.
But a group of girls from my grade were getting together one Saturday afternoon. One of them lived down the street from Willie Jay’s house and she insisted I come over. They were going to “jam” and listen to records. I decided to go only because it was so hot outside, and I knew she had air conditioning in her house. I had planned to stay for an hour, then make up an excuse and leave. But somehow, while I was there, I was actually having a good time. We giggled and danced, and nobody asked me about Willie Jay or Martha. Nobody made me feel bad for not wearing Gloria Vanderbilt jeans or the latest Reeboks. Before I knew it, I’d spent nearly the entire afternoon there. When I realized it, I raced back to Willie Jay’s house to make sure Martha and Sam were okay.
Willie Jay’s car was nowhere in sight and I was glad. I stepped inside the hot, empty house and called out for Sam. No answer. Maybe he was out playing with some of the neighborhood kids. I went to the kitchen to make myself a jelly sandwich and noticed Martha sitting on the back-porch steps, rocking back and forth and staring off. I watched her from the back door for a moment. Maybe she had been drinking again and her demons were back.
“Martha?” She didn’t answer me.
I slipped out the screen door and back into the brutal heat. As I walked up beside her, I saw tears rolling down her face and the ugly remnant of Willie Jay’s anger, a purple-red knot on the side of her forehead. Willie Jay had beaten her again.
“Martha?” She still didn’t respond. What was there to say?
I sat down on the porch step beside her. Her body rocked, tears quietly streaking her cheeks.
I gently touched her shoulder. “You okay? Where’s Sam?”
It was like she was in some sort of shock or something. She shook her leg and cradled herself, her stare focused on the faded red shed across the yard. I followed her line of sight and that’s when I heard the soft faint cries. My heart kicked inside my chest. It only took me seconds to realize what was going on.
