Saving Ruby King

by Catherine Adel West

  Please. Please. Please.

  LAYLA

  Though the heat coming from the vents in the floor of the worship hall provides some relief, the morning’s chill even now stubbornly stays under my skin. My internal temperature has more to do with feelings than the mercury level on the thermometer. By now I should be toasty and relaxed, but this coldness is my unshakable companion for now, and each time I close my eyes, I see Ruby as she was a week ago, crouched and small in a detective’s car, rocking back and forth. I bent down and all she could say was “Momma” over and over. I touched her hand and it was sticky. There was blood on it and then blood on mine.

  There were onlookers from the doorways of various houses. One small neighborhood devoured by night and flashing blue lights. Nosy people hungry for details. Reporters say this is a tragedy, but always mark their tones with a rehearsed cadence about violence and the South Side of Chicago. It’s a wasteland, but a place where they can test the exploitative extent of their craft and leave. We’re a minute blip on someone’s television. Sixty seconds and my friend is ruined, or ruined even more than she already was.

  My parents arrived soon after I did. Mom was bereft but she was not crying. Hers is an expected grief, the sadness that comes from losing someone close to you, someone who’s been sick a long time. She knew she’d lose Alice to Lebanon and it would be ugly.

  Mom kept Alice’s secrets. She took calls in a midnight hour, soothed and coddled, pleaded, begged and threatened, but could never convince Alice to do the thing she really needed—to leave. She’d make plans for Alice. Called dozens of shelters. Slipped Alice their pamphlets before Sunday School, like valuable contraband in a prison yard. But Alice always had a reason or a plan of her own. Alice hoarded pamphlets, ones about family counseling, crinkled, torn and dog-eared. They’d whisper in the basement of the church. And me and Ruby would listen, hidden, clasping our hands together, both hoping Alice would see. That she’d know the best thing to do was abandon hope this one time and leave with Ruby—to Tennessee or Tuscany, it didn’t matter. They just needed to go! But they never did. The people at church glossed their eyes over bruises and swallowed the poorly explained reasons of why these things always seemed to happen to Alice. “It ain’t any of my business,” was a common refrain. But now, they shake their heads and cry their tears, wondering how this could’ve happened. There are only whispers around Auntie Alice’s life and what was happening and how she could have been saved.

  That night Dad stands there and does what he always does: acts like the pastor. He prays for Ruby, skin and clothes stained in her mother’s blood. He speaks to the people on the street. They attend the church after all. No one daring to say anything true or shoulder any of the responsibility as friends of Alice.

  The detectives mill around, go in and out of the house, ask us questions. They are faceless with white skin and harsh, measured voices. Respectful, but businesslike and distant. They see this too much. Especially here.

  Live white faces. Dead black bodies.

  There have been burglaries in the past few weeks around here, they say. Auntie Alice probably startled a burglar before they could take anything, they say. Ruby found Alice and it was too late by then, they say. Open and shut. Tragic. They’re still going to canvas the neighborhood. There are some suspects they have in mind for this. They’ll be in touch, they say.

  One of the detectives hands me a card made of cheap stock paper. Lebanon stands on the street smoking a cigarette. He gives the detectives the song and dance. Lebanon says he was on his way home from work. He says people saw him leave, but the bakery is only ten minutes away by foot. Lebanon easily could have done it. But should I say anything?

  Tears come, salty false drippings cascade from his swampy green eyes, down his high cheekbones. He loved Alice, his wonderful wife. What is he gonna do without her? He’s convincing. One of the detectives puts his hand on his shoulder, swears they’ll find the monsters responsible for this.

  I want to believe I can feel Ruby’s pain. I want to believe the pounding in my head, the bumps raised on my left arm are some cosmic sign we’re connected, that she has the same headache and bumpy skin. We used to play this game when we were younger. We’d hold hands and close our eyes and guess a color or a number one of us was thinking. Ruby’s hands were soft but grabbed mine with such force my skin turned crimson. Ruby was always right about my colors and numbers, but I could never guess hers. She would always say, “I’m not easy to read, Layla. But your heart is open, and that’s why you don’t need to be good at this. I just need you to be good at being my friend, and you’re better than good at that.”

  I know what haunts Ruby is rooted in circumstances that I have yet to imagine like in our game. I probably don’t want to know. I’m glad I’m seeing her this afternoon. I want to show her I’m here, that I’ll do whatever I can because there’s nothing more hopeless than believing you’re alone. I’ll show Ruby I’m still that good friend. Together we can come up with a plan to get her away from Lebanon, then she can finally be free. And I want to help her, in the way Mom couldn’t for Auntie Alice.

  I’ll have to skip the second service to see her, but I have a plan: ask my dad in front of a couple of parishioners. He always plays the understanding father in front of others.

  I always wondered why we needed multiple services in one day. There is only one Bible and only so many books in it. If you didn’t get the message in the morning, will the sun going down make your hearing any better? Sometimes I think I’ve had enough worship for this lifetime and the next one. The one after that, too. Other times, when I struggle like I do now, I simply talk to God, no need to kneel or quote scripture or be all formal, just talk, and despite all my shortcomings, I know He’s there and He hears me and I have hope.

  God doesn’t judge me. But my father sure does.

  Laying the last of the programs on the cherry-colored cushions of the pews, I hear the reluctant groan of the wood doors at the main entrance announcing its first visitor. Not so much a visitor, but an inhabitant, a piece of the church as much as the bricks and mortar holding it together.

  My momma, First Lady Joanna Lillian Potter, walks toward the front of the room still bundled in a black wool coat and black-and-white scarf featuring fleur-de-lis in a diagonal pattern. Her black hat reflects an elegant style, a double white band wrapped around the middle becomes a bow in the back and emphasizes a wide brim. My mom has a thing for hats. She has dozens. Most people would call it an obsession. She calls it a hobby. Her hobby takes up two closets at home, but this is a small indulgence she allows herself and, living with my dad, one of the few she can afford.

  When TV pastors brandish their fine-tailored suits and gold-plated pinkie rings, I kinda wonder why Dad couldn’t be that kind of pastor. The one taking five offerings and only half of one goes to the church. I guess I should be glad money isn’t his driving force, but I don’t know what motivates him.

  Looking up at my mom, I smile.

  Her long black hair shows veins of soft gray throughout. A flawless brown complexion easily camouflages her forty-nine years.

  I hug Momma in a specific way. I don’t really embrace her, rather I simply bend my five-foot-eight-inch frame and rest my head on her shoulder. She isn’t a tall woman. She teases she gave me and my brother all of her height. Despite being at least three inches shorter, her arms encircle my body and she easily holds my weight. My nonhugging ways elicit the same response every time: laughter.

  “I don’t get it, Mom.”

  “What, baby?”

  “You married Dad. No gun to your head. Why?”

  Mom chuckles again, but her voice, its dulcet measure, reveals a small sadness of a marriage filled with love and disappointment. I know this laugh. I know its undertone of acquiescence in parts, but earnest belief in others.

  “Why doesn’t he ever listen?”

  “I can’t
begin to explain the whys of your father, sweetie.”

  She lets me go and says, “He is a good man.”

  This is as much of a statement as it is a prayer.

  I unlock the rest of the church for the people who will enter its doors needing a word from God or, like me, a relief from the relentlessness of my thoughts.

  RUBY

  Save yourself, baby.

  I knew it would happen. Soon. That he’d see me and what I’d done. That he’d want me to surrender to him because of who he is and what he knows. He wanted me to bend like Mom and I refused. I wasn’t going to clean the kitchen. Wash a dish. Sweep a crumb or clean a countertop. I wondered how many days before he’d start in on me since Mom isn’t here. He can’t explode his rage and fear on her anymore. I was next. Now I know. Less than ten days, which was longer than I thought.

  The sand-colored tile floor is hard and cool against my right cheek. A familiar taste of blood lingers in my mouth. It’s not always metallic, and it can be kinda sweet. Witnessing Mom recover from His tantrums, I don’t get up too fast. I let the air settle again around me and feel the slight hum of the new refrigerator through the floor when it cuts on and off. I count three cycles before I try to get up.

  I take a deep breath and crawl to the sink. It provides enough leverage for me to hoist myself up. Legs with the sturdiness of rubber bands somehow guide me to my bedroom.

  I text Layla. Beverly Café. 1:30 p.m.

  Afterward, in the bathroom, I study the slightly raised and bruised skin of my neck. His fingers are no longer around my airway, but I still feel them clenching, squeezing, tightening. I flailed, kicked, fought, the edges of my vision turning the deepest black.

  To clean the kitchen like he demands is so simple. Don’t fight it. Just perform.

  “It’s your house. You clean it.”

  Those two sentences when they leave my mouth are freedom. They are the words I wanted my mother to speak so many times. But she can’t so I will speak for the both of us. It’s the only way I find a purpose. It’s the only time I feel brave, just for a moment.

  The knock on the front door comes in three soft coded taps. I brace myself on the wall and make my way to the living room where Ms. Anne waits in her white housecoat with the red and purple flowers.

  “He slammed the door. When he slams the door, I know there’s trouble. What happened?”

  It’s the stupidest question. She knows what happened. She’s known since we moved here when I was six years old. And before I meet Ms. Anne’s face, I already know the pity I’ll see in her dark brown doe eyes. Those eyes scanned Mom’s swollen cheek or bruised eye. She’d avoid the cause and instead spout off a remedy. What’ll help ribs heal faster, what ointment will cover up this scar or mend that wound. She could’ve used her fingers to dial the police, pick Lebanon out of lineup, but she used her fingers for other kinds of healing. She kept the same secret my Mom did. She’s a nice woman who helped Mom through her mess rather than out of it. Maybe Ms. Anne didn’t know any better.

  She’s from a different time.

  These things probably happened to her and her friends. They probably bandaged each other up because what were they going to do? Go to the police? They barely do anything for us now, only come after the crime is done not before. And forty or fifty years ago? A man beating on a woman wasn’t their concern. And black women—no one cared about us. They don’t care about us now. I don’t think Ms. Anne knows what to do except what she’s been doing most of her life. Lebanon isn’t a threat to her. He’s just another man. Like her husband was just a man. Like probably her friends’ husbands were just men. Black men. These women didn’t need any more burdens on their shoulders, because they were already carrying a heavy enough load.

  “Sit down,” she orders. I sink into the couch and she shuffles down the hall into the kitchen. She comes back with a warm towel and plucks two small bottles of holy oil and cocoa butter from her left pocket. “Child, what did you do?”

  I’m Child. Not named in her eyes because my decades on this earth barely register two, and her decades push past eight.

  “I don’t know,” I reply. “I don’t know what I did.”

  “Anything seems to set that man off. Could be that time he spent locked up that made him mean like that. Your momma said she always thought that’s what made him lose his temper the way he did with her.”

  “She didn’t talk about it with me. Not that part. Him being in prison. Besides, nothing should excuse what he does. Nothing. It doesn’t matter if he was in jail. I know—”

  “You’re young. You don’t know! Life sometimes justifies lots of things for you. Now hold still and let me look at you.”

  Ms. Anne prays. She prays God heals me, then mutters men are no good; that they aren’t built to love, only built to damage. Then she prays for God to mend her heart. Her fingers, light yellow sausages, massage my neck. They touch the same places Lebanon bruised, and I’m tired of her praying. I’m tired of knowing all the names of God. Those names are broken promises. Like the times Lebanon said he wouldn’t touch Momma, but something always found a way of upsetting him and he’d break.

  “It’s enough. I’m good now,” I tell Ms. Anne.

  “Just give me a little more time else them markings gonna stay a lot longer than you want ’em to.” She picks up the towel and places it around my neck.

  I snatch it off. “Let everyone see. I don’t care anymore!”

  “Child, just—”

  “Go! I’m not covering anything up. Not like Mom. Not anymore... Just go. I know you mean well, but I don’t need your kind of help, Ms. Anne. Just go. Please.”

  She says nothing else, gathers her holy oil and cocoa butter, and shuffles out of the door.

  There’s no ointment or prayer that can heal mean. No one to deliver me like the fairy tales in storybooks or churches.

  We look to others to save us and we must save ourselves.

  CALVARY

  September 22, 1960

  Violet, Sara and Naomi in their jean overalls and colorful hair scarves begin to slather my halls in this horrid shade of green. “This paint makes me think of Caribbean waters,” Naomi says. “Just floating with the sun hitting your skin. The color’s relaxing.”

  Though very different, the three girls are harmonious when together. Familial blood does not bond them. There is something deeper shared, maybe past lives or common troubles. Whatever small and pure miracle, these girls found one another and became as close as the Old Testament Hebrew boys from the Book of Daniel. Despite their shared knowledge of how empty and cruel the world can be, they are sisters and fierce protectors one of the other.

  From their earliest years, they learn together, play together, fight and reconcile. And there is a phrase that means how they love one another—“Forever and to the end.” That’s what they say instead of “I love you.” When uttering this phrase, only they know what they mean. The three girls have something all their own. The world takes so much, sometimes words are all one can possess.

  It is their secret to keep, one of many. Some of their confidences, schoolgirl crushes, skipped classes, are cotton candy light, sweet pink fluff, easily consumed and devoured in giggly pleasures. However, in the deep, uncompromising mystery of friendship, there are the things they keep to themselves for the sake of each other. Things, that for Sara, are acutely destroying her.

  This damage is not quick. It is slow and painful as the stripping of thin layers of skin. Bearing this fire, this silent torment, changes Sara in ways her friends know. Violet and Naomi suspect something foul. Sara’s father’s hand lingers too long on her waist. Naomi saw him kiss Sara, like she was a woman. Naomi closed her eyes and quickly prayed, and opened them again. She saw the same thing. She told Violet the next day.

  But what could the two of them do? What could they say to their dads? Their congregation
? Naomi would be told she didn’t see what she thought they saw. They’d be labeled troublemakers. Their families spoken about. Lord knows what would become of Sara! You can’t go against a pastor, not with accusations of something so unspeakable.

  So they suffer in silence with her, but try providing distraction and comfort and laughter and happiness whenever and wherever they can offer it. Painting my hallways this atrocious color is what they concoct for now, hoping they can get her to talk—if that’s even a possibility.

  Sara’s brush batters my wall as she slashes up and down, crisscross with no thought for technique. In her bag, a cloth doll named Louisa sits patiently with black button eyes in a pretty green dress and perpetual sewn-on smile. She takes the doll almost everywhere, a reminder her mother will always watch over her.

  “Girl, do you have to take that doll with you all the time? We’re almost twenty, people are starting to ask questions,” Violet teases.

  “It reminds her of Ms. Sophia. Leave it be,” Naomi warns, her frame barely five feet, she rises on her tiptoes to reach the farthest corner on the northeast wall.

  “Don’t worry about what’s in my bag,” Sara says. “Worry about getting these walls painted like the pastor, my father, asked.” It’s the tone in which she said pastor and my father that causes Violet to grit her teeth. A few loose strands of Sara’s light brown hair are ornamented by tiny speckles of green paint.

  “I’d never choose this color,” Violet continues. “This paint makes me think of mint ice cream that melted after it hit the ground.”