by Gayl Jones
I smiled now because I saw that chair sitting out on the side of the road. Mr. Grundy and three men, one sitting and the other two standing, either waiting for their turns, or just talking. Probably seen Mr. Grundy out there with this other man, and just stopped out there talking. They said, “How do?” I said, “How do?” back to them, and you know how men’s eyes widen when some new and halfway-decent-looking woman passes. Sometimes she don’t even have to be halfway-decent-looking, just new. I wondered what would have happened if I’d seen the women and the men at the same time, and the women had seen how the men were looking. They would’ve thought for sure I was after somebody’s husband then.
“You Miss Corregidora’s girl?” This was Grundy.
“Yes.” I stopped.
“Well I be. You sho have growed. You was out here couple of years ago, though, wasn’t you, when the old lady passed. I was scared to say anything to you then, scared you wouldn’t know me. But seem like you changed again.”
“Heavier.”
“I wish my lady was heavy like that,” said the man seated.
“Too young for you, Mose,” said one of the other men.
“Mose think he still thirty,” said the other man, laughing.
“Well, I know your mama gon be glad to see you, honey,” Mr. Grundy said, trying to quiet the other men.
I smiled and went on down the road.
“Man, you spose to be cuttin my hair.”
“Have some respect.”
After I’d got on full time at the Spider, I’d asked Mama if she wanted to come live with me in the city, but she’d said Naw, said she felt peaceful where she was. I wasn’t sure what she meant by “peaceful,” but I thought, peaceful or not, she wouldn’t have left that house. Too many memories. And I was almost beginning to be sure, more her own, than theirs. The lived life, not the spoken one. When I came up to the house it was the same one, the little wooden porch that looked too small for the swing that was on it, the honeysuckle bush, an old wicker rocker. And Mr. Floyd’s trailer was still there, across the road, and a truck patch he must’ve just started. I knocked on the front, but Mama didn’t hear me, so I walked around to the back. I left some avocados I’d brought her on the porch, telling myself it was so they’d get ripe, but the real reason I was thinking was Mama might feel I thought I couldn’t come unless I brought something, but that was silly. I knocked on the back door. She heard me.
“Ursa,” she said. “Hi you, honey.”
“Hi, Mama.” I went over and kissed her.
She was standing up at the stove, stirring some preserves. She canned things for people. They would provide the strawberries or whatever it was, and she would can them. The other thing she did, which I didn’t like, especially now that I could send her more money, was work three days out of each week for some white woman who lived in Midway, who’d come and get her and drive her back. I kept hoping she would stop, but so far she hadn’t.
“Whose preserves?” I asked.
“Mr. Floyd’s,” she said. “His or his mama’s. I think he’s gon give em to her.”
She had gotten bigger around the waist, and looked like Grandmama and Great Gram used to look, the graying hair plaited on the sides and tied in a knot in the back, the way she had been beginning to look just before I left, the way I knew I would look when I got her age. I was in my late thirties and she was in her late fifties. She had stopped stirring to hug me. Now she turned the fire down.
“I missed you,” she said.
I told her I missed her too. I always felt awkward saying things like that. I went over and sat down at the kitchen table. I was wondering if she would have said I missed you if she knew why I’d come. She stood with her back to me for a moment, and then she turned the fire off completely, put the cover on the pot, and came and sat down at the table opposite me.
“Do you want something? I’ve got some ham in there and I could scramble you up some eggs.”
“No, I’m all right,” I said.
“You sure?”
I said, “Yes.”
She sat with her hands on the table.
“It’s good to see you, baby,” she said again.
I looked away. It was almost like I was realizing for the first time how lonely it must be for her with them gone, and that maybe she was even making a plea for me to come back and be a part of what wasn’t any more.
“You look like a gypsy, them beads on.”
I told her they were trade beads, what they used to use for money over in Europe somewhere. I didn’t know where in Europe. She only nodded.
“You here for a long visit or a short one?” she asked finally.
“Naw, I didn’t bring anything, Mama. I’m not staying. I’m getting back on the bus at three-thirty.”
She looked away from me this time.
“I brought you some avocados,” I said. “I left them out on the porch.”
“They so expensive, Ursa. I was down to the store, and Mr. Deak was selling them for fifty cents a piece.”
“I know how you like them.”
She said, “Thank you.” She looked away from me again. I could feel the strain and wondered if she could. I’d always loved her and knew she loved me, but still somehow we’d never “talked” things before, and I wanted to talk things now.
I put my hands up on the table. “Mama.”
“What is it?” She looked at me quickly.
“Grandmama told me something.”
She looked away. She was still beautiful, in their way of still being beautiful, and the way I knew I would still be beautiful when I got to be their age. I could see her mouth tighten. Her own hands had left the table and gone into her lap. She still had her apron on.
“She told me about the man you met at the train depot where you used to work. She told me how you met my father.”
“What you want, Ursa?” she asked quietly.
“Nothing you don’t want to give, but I hope you’ll want to give it.”
She was silent, then she said, “Suppose I told you I don’t want to give it, I never wanted to give it.”
“I’d ask you what you meant.”
She laughed a little, the kind of laugh that’s not really a laugh, as if one had to make more effort to get a laugh, and she hadn’t made enough effort.
“It’s not that I don’t want to talk to my baby,” she said. “I want to talk to you, Ursa.”
“But you can’t.”
“No.”
“You could try.”
She said nothing. She still hadn’t looked at me.
“They knew. If I came back to live with you, I’d have to know too.” I hadn’t intended to say that, and didn’t like why I might have said it. I added quickly, “But I can’t come back and live with you. I have to make my own kind of life. I have to make some kind of life for myself.”
“I knew how situations was with you and Tadpole,” she said.
I didn’t ask her how she knew. There was always someone running to tell things like that. I looked away from her for a moment and then when I looked back at her she was looking at me. It was a quiet look. It was as if she were waiting for me to make her talk. I just kept looking at her, hoping that what was in my look would make her.
“Corregidora’s never been enough for you, has it?” she asked.
“No.”
“I thought it would be.”
“What happened with you was always more important. What happened with you and him.”
Her face tightened for a moment.
“Corregidora is responsible for that part of my life. If Corregidora hadn’t happened that part of my life never would have happened.”
“Wouldn’t it?” My eyes narrowed a little, but not in a way, I hoped, that would make her stop.
She didn’t answer. I wanted to ask her if their past could really have had so much to do with her own, but I just kept watching her. I wanted my eyes to say it. Some things I had to let my eyes say.
“He wa
sn’t a man I met at no depot.” She was shaking her head, looking away from me again. “Naw, I didn’t meet him at no depot. He worked at this place across the road from the depot, where I used to go in to have lunch. I didn’t pay him no mind. He used to stand behind that counter watching me, and I never did pay him no mind. He was a good-lookin man, I guess. Yeah, your daddy was a good-lookin man. Tall and straight as a arrow. Black man. You know, kind of satin-black. Smooth satin-black. You come out lookin more like me than you did like him, I mean about the color. You got long legs like he had. Sometimes during his breaks he’d sit down at one of the tables, and cross his legs twice. You know how some people can do, cross their legs and then bring his foot around, you know, like he was winding his legs around each other. I used to try to do it. I never could though. I bet you can. I wasn’t studyin him, though, cause you know then I wasn’t lookin for a man. They’d tell me, they’d be telling me about making generations, but I wasn’t out looking for no man. I never was out looking for no man. I kept thinking back on it, though, and it was like I had to go there, had to go there and sit there and have him watch me like that. Sometimes he’d be cleaning the counter and watching me, you know how mens watch you when they wont something. It don’t have to be to open your legs up, though most times it is. Sometimes I think he wonted something else, and then sometimes I think that’s all he wonted. I wasn’t out looking for him, I know that, and he never did say nothing to me neither, except this one time. See, I’d always been coming to lunch, and then this one time I come in there and had supper too. Mama and your Great Gram was having something at church, and said they wouldn’t be home for dinner, and I didn’t wont to sit up in the house and eat by myself, so I went over there. I was going to go over there, you know, and then come on home, maybe listen to the radio or read something, and then go on to bed. I went over there and ate my supper. He looked like he was surprised to see me when I come in. But this time instead of just taking my plate away, he stopped there and said something to me. He said it real soft. It was almost like I didn’t hear him, but I knew I heard him. I wasn’t even looking at him. I wouldn’t even look up from the table. He was standing there looking down at me. He said ‘Hello’ real soft. I wouldn’t even look up at him though. I talked back to him, soft too, but I wouldn’t look up at him.
“ ‘Hello.’
“ ‘Hello.’
“ ‘Your supper was okay, wasn’t it?’
“ ‘Yes.’
“ ‘I’m glad. You ain’t never been in here to have your supper.’
“ ‘No.’
“ ‘I always like seeing you in here. They ain’t nothing else good about this place.’
“I said nothing.
“ ‘My name’s Martin, what’s yours?’
“I didn’t answer.
“ ‘I always wanted to know who you was.’
“I still didn’t answer.
“ ‘You always like to know who you talking to, or looking at. I mean, if you like somebody.’
“No answer.
“ ‘You still there?’
“ ‘Yes, I’m still here,’ I said so softly I almost didn’t hear myself, but he must’ve heard me.
“ ‘I’m glad you still there,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d got up and gone.’
“ ‘No.’
“ ‘My name’s Martin.’
“I still wouldn’t tell him what my name was.
“ ‘I don’t mean you no harm.’
“I wouldn’t say anything. I just kept looking down at the table. I wouldn’t even look at him. I felt as if tears were in my eyes, but I hoped he didn’t see them. It was like I couldn’t say nothing, Ursa, it was just like my mouth was there, but I just couldn’t say nothing. I kept expecting him to be like the other mens was, and say real evil, ‘You got a mouth, ain’t you, bitch? I know you can talk,’ but instead he was still soft. He said, ‘I didn’t come over here to mean you no harm, woman. I just wanted to talk to you.’ That was the first time anybody called me woman. I didn’t feel like a woman. I couldn’t been more than your age when you left here. Naw, I didn’t even feel like no woman and he called me one. I would’ve just stayed there, my eyes glued on that table. I know I would’ve just stayed there, till he left or something. I don’t know. But all a sudden this ole woman come in selling these Jehovah Witness pamphlets and come over to him first. ‘The Lord knows you guilty,’ she said. I think that’s what she said. He said, ‘Yes, He does.’ I don’t know what else, because I put my money down on the table and got up and left. I could feel his eyes following me, like he wanted to push that ole woman away, but I could still hear her talking. Then I was out the door, and went on back home. I couldn’t help feeling like I was saved from something, like Jesus had saved me from something. I went to bed real early that night. But still it was like something had got into me. Like my body or something knew what it wanted even if I didn’t want no man. Cause I knew I wasn’t lookin for none. But it was like it knew it wanted you. It was like my whole body knew it wanted you, and knew it would have you, and knew you’d be a girl. But something got into me after that night, though, Ursa. It was like my whole body knew. Just knew what it wanted, and I kept going back there. I told Mama and Grandmama that I had to work, you know, and I go there and eat my supper, and then I come home and eat supper again. My stomach got all stretched out too. I almost felt like I was getting a baby then. First two nights he wouldn’t say nothing to me. Pretend like he wasn’t even looking at me. I knew he was though. And I kept telling myself I wasn’t looking for no man, I just wanted him to be my friend or something. You know, just somebody other than Mama and Gram I could go talk to sometime, you know what I mean. I wasn’t lookin for no man, cause I didn’t feel like no woman then. Sometimes even after I had you I still wouldn’t feel like none. But then I just kept going there. It wasn’t until bout the third or fourth night, he come and said something to me again, like he was getting up his nerve too.
“ ‘I wouldn’t mean you no harm,’ he said. Still that soft voice, almost like I really couldn’t hear it now, or like I didn’t want to hear it. ‘I wouldn’t mean you no harm, woman.’
“I think I mighta even been liking him calling me that, like men never did call women that before, or like that was just a special name for me, his special name for me.
“ ‘You ain’t leavin again?’ he asked.
“ ‘I haven’t left,’ I said. I didn’t know whether he meant imaginary leavin or real leavin. But I was still sitting there.
“ ‘I want to walk you home. I’d like to walk you home tonight,’ he said.
“ ‘I live kind of a distance. We live over in Bracktown.’
“ ‘You take the bus?’
“ ‘Yeah.’
“ ‘I ride you over there then.’
“I said nothing, but he took it to mean yes. Maybe it had meant yes.
“ ‘Who you live with?’
“ ‘My mama and my grandmama.’
“ ‘Maybe tha’s why you seem like a old-fashioned girl.’
“I said nothing.
“ ‘I got to go over here and wait on these people. Don’t leave now.’
“I said I wouldn’t.
“I waited for him, and he stood waiting on the bus with me, and rode me home. He didn’t even try to do nothing that first time. He didn’t even ask me for a kiss. It was like we got along real well, like I wouldn’t even believe you could get along that well with a man. But then I know it was something my body wanted, just something my body wanted. Naw. It just seem like I just keep telling myself that, and it’s got to be something else. It’s always something else, but it’s easier if it’s just that. It just always makes it easier. And then maybe he just wanted something else.
“He rode me home again, and then one night it had got kind of cold. You know, it was Indian summer and you never really could tell in the morning how it would be in the evening. I always took a sweater or jacket or something to work, but he didn’t, cause he liv
ed just right up the road, but, you know, riding me home all that way, he’d get cold, so he asked if he could go home and get his jacket first. He asked if I wanted to wait downstairs for him, but I said Naw, I said I’d go up. I guess I was thinking if I didn’t it would be like saying that I didn’t trust him. And then I was trusting him, and I was trusting myself too, because I really didn’t think nothing would happen. But then he was getting his jacket, and then he all of a sudden touched my hand, and was talking about my hands, how I had nice long hands, and asked if I played piano, and asked if I minded if he touched me. Naw, I didn’t mind, because I didn’t mind it. Because I didn’t think anything would happen, and I trusted myself, because I knew I wasn’t looking for a man.”
She stopped. I didn’t ask her to go on. I knew she would go on when she was ready. She just kept sitting there for a long time. I just kept watching the side of her face, her mouth tightening again, the rows of plaits, the bun in the back, her profile. It was like I hadn’t seen anyone so still as she’d suddenly gotten, more like when a movie freezes than in real life. Then the quivering started about her mouth again.
“It was like my whole body wanted you, Ursa. Can you understand that?”
“Yes, I can understand.”
“I knew you was gonna come out a girl even while you was in me. Put my hand on my belly, and knew you was gonna be one of us. Little long-haired girl on my lap. You come out baldheaded though. They just kept looking at me, Mama and Gram. I knew they hated me then. Cause you come out all baldheaded. White skin before you got the little pigment you got now, and baldheaded. They hated me, but then your hair start to sprout, and got real long. I used to put a little ribbon on your head so people would know you was a girl. People didn’t know whether you was a boy or a girl … I knew you’d be a girl. I knew my body would have a girl.”
I said nothing.
She looked at me quickly, and then looked away again.
“He kept asking if he could touch me certain places, and I kept saying yes. And then all of a sudden it was like I felt the whole man in me, just felt the whole man in there. I pushed him out. It was like it was just that feeling of him in there. And nothing else. I hadn’t even given myself time to feel anything else before I pushed him out. But he must have … I … still that memory, feeling of him in me. I wouldn’t let myself feel anything. It was like a surprise. Like a surprise when he got inside. Just that one time. I didn’t go see him anymore. I wouldn’t even have my lunch there. Once he came to the depot and asked me why was I fighting him. I wouldn’t say nothing to him. Then he just left me alone. He said he knew what I was now, and he could play that game too. I didn’t know what he meant, but it made me feel bad. When I knew about you, Great Gram went and talked to him. I begged her not to, but he came and married me and then … he left me.”