by Gayl Jones
I told her to shut up.
She looked hurt, then she looked evil. “Just listen, will you?” She didn’t give me time to say if I would or I wouldn’t. “You be taking what you need, but do you think you be giving him what he need?”
I said nothing. She got up and went to the door. Then she said, “But even he can’t give you everything you need.” Without turning around, she went out the door.
When Tadpole came upstairs to fix us lunch, I said, “I’m going over to Cat’s.”
He didn’t make any of the expressions I thought he would make.
“Do you want me to take you?” he asked.
“Naw, I can take myself,” I said.
“I’ll take you,” he said. “You’ll have something to eat first.”
“I can get something to eat over there.”
“Well, you not.” He left me and went back in the kitchen.
“Did Cat Lawson say anything to you?” I asked.
“She said you be staying over there now till you get back up on your feet.”
“That all?”
“Yeah.”
He brought me some lunch.
“Ain’t you eating?”
“Naw, I had something downstairs.”
When I finished eating, and was ready to leave, he had one of the boxes and me by the arm and said he’d bring the other box over later.
“Do I get visiting privileges?” he asked as we were going out the door.
“As many as you want.”
When we got there, Cat was straightening Jeffy’s hair. Jeffy was the girl who stayed with her when her mother worked and sometimes when her mother wasn’t working. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen. Cat was telling her to hold back her ear when we came in and was straightening along the edge.
“I didn’t expect y’all so soon,” she said.
“I thought you did,” I said.
“Which room she got?” Tadpole asked.
“That one in there,” said Cat, nodding to the room to the right of the living room.
“You burned me,” Jeffy said.
“Hush.”
The house had three other rooms, a kitchen and another bedroom and a bathroom, off to the other side of the living room. That room was the only one on that side. I saw a slop jar over in the corner.
Tadpole took the box back in the bedroom. I followed him in.
“Tadpole, turn back the bed for her, will you? My hands greasy.”
“I can do it,” I said.
“Tadpole do it.”
“Ow,” Jeffy said.
“I said hush.”
“You burned me.”
“Hold your ear. If you’d hold your ear like I told you to I wouldn’t a burned you.”
“I’m going back and get the other box,” Tadpole said.
“Okay.”
“Now you can let go,” Cat said to Jeffy.
I came back in the front room. Cat was doing the back.
“Ain’t you better get undressed and get in bed,” she told me.
“I thought I’d sit up for a while,” I said, sitting down on the couch.
“What the doctor say?”
“He said whatever I feel like doing.”
“I know he didn’t say that.”
“As long as I don’t overdo it.”
“Well, you overdone it. Go get in the bed.”
“You not my …”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“I seen your Sweet Daddy,” Jeffy said.
“Hush,” Cat said.
“What?”
“I’m just telling her I seen her Sweet Daddy.”
“I said to hush up.”
“He look like he haven’t shaved in about a week.”
Cat hit her up side the head, and she jumped out of the chair, crying, and ran out.
“You better get your ass on back in here, girl,” Cat said.
“Tha’s awright,” I said.
“She be back,” Cat said.
“I’ma tell Mama,” Jeffy sobbed.
“I’ma tell your mama,” Cat said. “Now get your ass on back in here.”
Jeffy came back in and sat down. There were tears in her eyes, but she wasn’t making any noise.
“You don’t get twenty-five and automatically be a woman neither,” Cat said to me. “You better get yours in there too.”
I got up and went in the bedroom. I didn’t feel like getting evil.
“That how old she is?” Jeffy asked.
“Yeah.”
“She don’t look it.”
Tadpole came back with the other box. He started out without saying anything.
“Make the first visiting day soon,” I said softly.
He nodded, and went out.
Cat came to close the bedroom door.
“If these niggers start worrying you,” she said, “I might have to move you in the back bedroom.”
I said nothing. She closed the door.
About fifteen minutes later, she opened the door again.
“That baby’s hard, ain’t she? She gone down to her mama’s now. She be back up here though, cause Lurene got to work tonight. They put her on the night shift down to the factory.”
“Aw.”
“They just shifting her every whicha way. I said if I was her I wouldn’t stand for it.”
“If she didn’t stand for it she wouldn’t have a job.”
“Well, I’m glad I do what I do. I ain’t got a license, but leastwise I keep my own hours. And your job, you know. Something like that.”
“I don’t keep my own hours,” I said.
“But you doing something you like doing. You got a talent. A talent or a craft, that’s what I say, and don’t have those sons of a bitches hanging on your neck all the time. And daughters of bitches. When I was young I worked in white women’s kitchens, so I know how it is. Leastwise the factory ain’t a kitchen, but ain’t much different. Still got the devil on your back. Leastwise you like what you do.”
“Yeah, I like it … There’s always something you can do to keep your own hours.”
“Now we ain’t talking about that.”
I laughed. “Well …”
“Hush.”
She sat down in the chair next to the front-room door.
“I suppose I don’t mind what I do. It ain’t like when I was young though, you know.”
“You don’t seem old.”
“I don’t know too many people that seem old … Well, I better get up from here and leave you alone. Talking about niggers bothering you.” She got up again. “Something I can get you?”
“Naw, thanks.”
“Well, I let you rest. If you wont something, just holler.”
I said I would.
“He leave you alone, didn’t he?”
“Who?”
“Tadpole.”
“Yeah, he left me alone.” I frowned at her. She frowned back, and closed the door again. Then she peeped back in the door.
“What the doctor say you can eat?”
“Anything.”
“I fry you some chicken then for supper.”
“Good.”
She closed the door.
I settled back in the double bed, and pulled the covers up to my neck. The bed was high and it was a large empty room, except for a cedar chest and a wardrobe. There was a window facing the street, with dingy white-lace curtains. I slept.
I woke up to the smell of scorched hair and fried chicken. There was a tap on the door. I said, “Come in.” It was Jeffy.
“Miss Catherine wonts to know how much do you think you can eat?”
“A couple of pieces.”
“That all?”
“I think so.”
“What part do you wont?”
“It don’t matter.”
She closed the door, but not all the way.
“I wont you to take some across the road to Tadpole and down home to your mama, you hear? Th
is bag’s Tadpole’s and this bag’s your mama’s. And don’t eat none on the way.”
“Yes’m.”
The screen door banged.
Cat came in with a plate with two pieces of chicken, a wing and a breast, and mashed potatoes and peas and cornbread.
“I can’t eat all that much,” I said.
“Well, try.”
“I thought you just meant a couple of pieces of chicken.”
“Well, you got to have stuff to go with it.”
I sat up in bed and she put a cloth across my legs and the plate on the cloth.
“Thank you.”
She went and sat down on the cedar chest.
“You ate?” I asked.
“Yeah, we awready ate. I looked in before and you was sleeping so hard I didn’t wont to wake you.”
“This is good.”
“Thank you.”
I ate for a few moments in silence, grease on my fingers. It was good to get real food again. My stomach had started caving in.
“You know, every time I cook fried chicken I think of that time Joe Hunn and me was married. My brother-in-law invited us over to a after-wedding supper. He wasn’t married hisself so he cooked it up hisself. He started cooking it when we got there and then said dinner was ready and seem like to me it couldn’t a been more than fifteen minutes, but I didn’t say nothing. And then we sat down to eat, and I bit down on a piece and it had blood coming out of it. And Gus, that’s his brother, was just saying, ‘Good, ain’t it?’ and Joe was saying, ‘Yeah.’ I didn’t know if Joe was crazy too or just didn’t wont to ’fend him. But I put mine back down on the plate and said, ‘I don’t know about y’all, but this going back in the skillet.’ So they let me put theirs back in the skillet too. If they’d have started laughing, I would have sweared it was a joke, but they didn’t even crack a smile. Up to the day we separated, I never would let Joe Hunn fry me no chicken.”
I laughed.
She said, “Here I am talking about that chicken and you trying to eat. I wasn’t thinking I might upset your stomach.”
“Naw, you didn’t upset it.”
“Well, I be in the house if you wont anything. You wont another piece of chicken?”
“Naw thanks, this is fine.”
“I don’t wont to worry you out of my own house. Call me when you through.”
I said I would.
Her chicken was crisp, not bloody. I was thinking how I never did like to get chicken ready to fry. Somebody else get it ready, then I’d fry it. Down home in the country, Mama used to wring the chickens’ necks on a tree stump. I never would look. But when she got it all cut up and washed I’d fry it if she wanted me to. And that time that man sold me that fish and I put it on the tree stump and it started wiggling and jumped in the grass wiggling. I never would fry any more fish after that. Cousin Jesse said she could hear me all the way down the road screaming. She came up to see what was wrong, and then she took it down to her house and fried it for me, but when she brought it back I swear half the fish was gone. That was all right though. I know she wanted to feed them children with it.
Cat came back and took my plate.
“You sure you don’t wont no more?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I’m not sure what this’ll do. It was good though. Thank you.”
“You got those pills in case you need them, ain’t you?”
“Yeah.”
She took the plate out.
“She sleep?” It was Tad.
“Naw, she just got through eating.”
“Mind if I go in?”
“You just seen her this morning.”
“So?”
“Well, knock.”
He knocked. I said, “Come in.”
“How you feeling?” he asked.
“Okay.”
“She treating you all right?”
“Yeah.”
He stayed near the door. I told him to come on in.
“Naw, I just came to thank Cat for the chicken she sent over and thought I peep in and see how you was doing.”
“I’m okay.”
“Eating solid?”
“Yeah.”
He went back out. I smiled.
I heard the front door close, then Cat came in.
“That nigger both’ring you?”
“Naw.”
“Well, if he bothers you, tell me, and I won’t let him come in here.”
“You know how I feel.”
“I know how you think you feel. But I ain’t going into that no more … He brought Eddy Pace’s group back.”
“Did he?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s good.”
“Be bout time for you to go over there if you was on your feet.”
“Yeah, the after-supper show. Then go back in the evening. You know that.”
She said nothing.
“He across the street?” I asked.
“Yeah, he’s over there.”
“He don’t know I’m here I guess.”
“I guess he don’t.”
“Pull that shade down, will you? And keep it down.”
She pulled down the shade.
“All he wont to do is see you start back to work again. Know you on your feet. So he won’t feel guilty.”
“He got a lifetime of feeling guilty. I don’t know how many lifetimes.”
“It ain’t right you to feel that way. I know he did wrong and you got to suffer the consequences. But he got consequences too.”
“He can go out and give other women babies. What kind of consequences he got?”
“Consequences of loving you.”
“Shit.”
She came away from the window.
“It took you a long enough time to pull that shade down. If you wont him to know where I’m at, why don’t you go over and tell him where I’m at.”
“I don’t care if he know or not, cause it ain’t none of my business. But I guess I don’t wont him to know. ’Cause if he don’t cause trouble, you will. All he wonts to do is see you. But I don’t know what you wont.”
“All I wont is not to see that nigger. He can go to Kocomo for all I care.”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“It bother you though, don’t it?” She grinned. “Trying to make it with Tadpole McCormick.”
“I ain’t trying. I have made it, for your information. What’s wrong with Tadpole?”
“It ain’t what’s wrong with him, it’s what’s wrong with you. And he’s too blind to see it. That’s what’s wrong with him. Every since he got that place and seen you singing there he’s been in love with you. I don’t doubt he got the place cause you was there. But you ain’t paid him half a mind till this. It was always Mutt Thomas, Mutt Thomas, Mutt Thomas. I ain’t even going to say nothing about the men, cause that ain’t my place. But if you didn’t have eyes to see then, you ain’t got eyes to see now.”
“I see what I need to see.”
“Yeah, that’s probably your trouble.”
She turned her ass to me and went out.
“Fuck you,” I said.
“You can’t.”
“Y’all hush.” It was Lurene’s voice. The screen door banged. “You know that woman’s sick in there. You ought to wait.”
“Sick or not sick they’s things she’s got to be told.”
“Shhh.”
Cat didn’t shhh, she talked louder. “I know womens that’s had it out been up by now. I don’t even believe that no more. Cause they kept her down to St. Joseph long enough before she even got out.”
“Well, she be up soon, you get evil enough,” Lurene said. “Jeff be up in a little while. I got her down there drying the dishes, and I told her to come on up here. Well, I see you tomorrow morning then. I ain’t hardly got no sleep and they going to have me standing up all night. You know Philip Lorry, the one I said work out there?”
“Yeah.”
“I think he’s started t
o get sweet on me, honey.”
“Well, you need something to make working out there worth it.”
“Yeah, don’t I though. Well, I see you.”
“Awright.”
“Here she is. You be good now.”
“Yes ma’am. Here the key.”
“You lock it awright?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Awright, see y’all. Ain’t you going to kiss me?… See you, Cat.”
“Awright.”
“If that nigger love me he wouldn’t’ve throwed me down the steps,” I called.
“What?” She came to the door.
“I said if that nigger loved me he wouldn’t’ve throwed me down the steps.”
“I know niggers love you do worse than that,” she said.
“Miss Catherine, can I have another piece of chicken?” Jeffy said.
“Yeah, go on in and get it. Then you go on in there and sleep on the floor. You got to sleep on the floor tonight.”
“She don’t have to sleep on the floor, she can sleep in here with me,” I said.
Cat said nothing. “Yeah, I said yeah,” she told Jeffy.
When it was time to go to bed, Jeffy came in with a blanket. She started putting her blanket down on the throw rug on the floor.
“Honey, I said you could sleep up here with me. You don’t have to sleep down there on the floor.”
“Miss Catherine said for me to sleep down here.”
“Well, I said you can sleep up here.”
I turned back the sheets for her to get in. She left the blanket on the floor and came and got in the bed. I could smell fried chicken.
“You wiped your hands, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“You yes ma’am your mama and yes ma’am Miss Catherine, how come you don’t yes ma’am me?”
“You ain’t nothing but twenty-five. I got a sister up in Detroit that’s twenty-five. If I yes ma’am her she slap the shit out of me.”
I said nothing.
“You settled?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
I turned the light out.
“I seen your nigger pacing up and down over there.”