The Darkest Child

by Delores Phillips

  “That was a long time ago.That was before I became sheriff, and before I had a wife and children to think about. I don’t want you, Rozelle.”

  “Yes, you do,” Mama said. “I can smell wanting all over you, Angus. Let Sam out, and I’ll do anything you want.”

  “Let’s get one thing straight,” the sheriff said. “I wouldn’t dare touch you.You’ve been with just about every man in this county. I wouldn’t take that kind of filth home to my wife.”

  “By this time tomorrow, everybody gon’ know that you my boy’s daddy,” Mama threatened. “They gon’ look, Angus, and they gon’ see.”

  “I’ve told you once, don’t threaten me,” he said, his voice heavy with contempt.“If you so much as whisper my name, you’ll never see that boy again.You try to remember that, Rozelle.”

  The front door closed, and I lowered my head to my arms and held myself rigid as Mama stepped into the room. She walked past us and out into the kitchen. “Harvey, wake up!” she snapped. “I want you to run up to Pearl’s and get me something to drink.Tell her to send me something. I don’t care what it is. I gotta have something to help me think.”

  thirty - three

  Mama was waiting for us at the top of Fife Street when we came from church that Sunday afternoon.“I’m waiting for them Munfords to come home from church,” she said.“I want you to go over there wit’ me, Tarabelle. I think Mr.Munford can help me get Sam outta jail.”

  That was plan one, and it didn’t work.According to Tarabelle, Mr. Munford had told Mama that he couldn’t help her, and he doubted if she would find a lawyer in town willing to take Sam’s case. He had suggested she go to one of the neighboring counties to find a lawyer, but even then he thought she’d have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find someone willing to defend a Negro charged with assaulting a white man. He thought she’d stand a better chance if Sam’s only charge had been the murder of a Negro.

  Poor Tarabelle had been forced to follow Mama from East Grove all the way to the flats. There Mama had barged in on Harlell Nixon, not at his barber shop, but at the home he shared with his wife and three children. He hadn’t been happy to see her, but he had told her that he was sorry to hear about Sam’s troubles. He, however, could not drive her to Atlanta to look for a lawyer. He didn’t think his car would make it that far.

  On Tuesday evening, after Mama came home from the jail in tears, I suggested she go talk with Mr. Pace, Mr. Hewitt, or Reverend Nelson.“They’re educated men, Mama.Maybe they can tell you how to help Sam.”

  “Educated?” she spat at me. “Junior Fess thought he was educated, and where is he now? I don’t need nobody that’s too smart for they own good.”

  I wanted to tell her that any lawyer she found would be an educated man and, hopefully, a smart one, but I knew it was time for me to be quiet.

  Several days passed before Velman came to reclaim Martha Jean. He arrived with Skeeter, Red Adams, and a tow truck.They went directly to the field where the sun had baked a mud crust around the tires of my mother’s Buick.

  Mama, sitting on her porch chair, lit a cigarette and squeezed it between her fingers as she watched them. “I think I’ll run up to Pearl’s for a bit,” she said, but made no effort to move.

  Velman pulled a pickax from the truck and began to chop at the dirt around the tires, and Mama rose from her chair to stare down at him.“He don’t know what he doing,” she said.“He gon’ bust my tires wit’ that thing.” Ordinarily, she would have said as much to him, but she was refusing to acknowledge them until they acknowledged her. She tossed her cigarette butt over the side of the porch and returned to her chair.“What you think they up to?” she asked.

  Tarabelle, sitting a few steps below me and Martha Jean, looked up and rolled her eyes. “They trying to get that car outta there,” she said.“That’s why they brought that truck.”

  “I know that, Tarabelle. That ain’t what I mean. I just wonder why they ain’t spoke. They act like we ain’t here. That boy ain’t even looked at Martha Jean.”

  “Maybe he decided he’d rather have his car back, ”Tarabelle suggested.

  “I’m going down to help ’em, ”Wallace said.“You want me to find out what’s going on, Mama?”

  “Yeah, Wallace.You find out what they planning to do.”

  Wallace went down to the road, but instead of going out to the field, he climbed into the cab of Red’s truck. Mama yelled for him to get out, but it was more to call attention to herself than to get Wallace to obey, and Wallace must have known it. He stayed where he was.

  “Boys,” Mama said sorrowfully. “That’s why Sam in jail right now. They don’t listen to nothing you tell ’em ’til it’s too late. Leastways, they ain’t hurt Sam none, not yet.”

  “When do you think they’ll let Sam out?” I asked.

  She ignored my question, and I assumed she had no idea.

  Sitting beside me on the step, Martha Jean concentrated on Laura’s hair, her fingers working the strands into thick braids. I bumped her knee and pointed, and she nodded, indicating that she had already seen the men.

  I propped my elbows on my knees and watched the men as they worked in the field.Velman had removed his shirt, and his bare back glistened with perspiration. I imagined it couldn’t be easy trying to remove a buried car from crusted earth, but Velman’s agile, flowing movements made the task seem effortless.The sight of him caused my stomach to flutter and my underarms to prickle, and I didn’t know why.

  Folding my arms across my abdomen, I turned away and focused my attention on Laura’s neatly parted braids, anything to keep my thoughts away from Velman. I was beginning to like him. I hadn’t at first, when he had seemed pushy and gabby, and when I had thought he was courting my mother. I knew now that he hadn’t cared anything about Mama; he’d been teaching her to drive, bargaining with her for the love of Martha Jean. Now he seemed strong and protective, like someone I could depend on.

  My mother’s grunt of annoyance caused me to glance up. She was frowning and staring down at Velman, who had made his way up to the yard and was standing below the porch.

  “Miss Rosie, I need the key,” he said.

  Mama was slow in doing so, but she reached into the pocket of her dress, then tossed the key down to him.Velman strode back across the road, and Red Adams backed the tow truck into the field.They chained the car to the truck, and on the first try, the car noisily rose up and out of the field.Mama watched until her car was out of sight, then she lit a cigarette, and rocked her body against the back of her chair.

  Martha Jean finished braiding Laura’s hair, then started on Edna’s, and never once glanced up. I think she was staying busy to keep from thinking.That was supposed to work, I knew, but it seldom did.

  We went inside and ate our supper in the stifling heat of the kitchen, then returned to the porch where Mama began telling us of her plans to get Sam out of jail.Tomorrow she would go and talk to the sheriff. She would tell him that Sam hadn’t killed anybody and hadn’t tried to kill anybody.We all knew she had already tried that to no avail.Wallace wasn’t paying any attention to what she said.He was reaching out from the steps and snatching fireflies from the air. “That looks like yo’ car, Mama,” he said, as a Buick turned onto the road.

  Mama leaned forward and sighed wearily.“What he want now?” she asked.The car came to a stop, and Velman got out.

  Velman entered the yard and stopped at the steps.“I got your car all clean and running, Miss Rosie,” he said.“Now we both know it wasn’t my fault it got stuck out there, but I got it out for you just the same. I came to get Martha Jean.”

  “I changed my mind ’bout all that,” Mama said. “Martha Jean gon’ stay right here where she belong. She too young to be over there wit’ you and Skeeter, anyway. People talking.”

  “Then it all stops, Miss Rosie, ”Velman said.“It all stops, and I’ll have Martha Jean no matter what you say.You can’t keep us apart.”

  “Pretty sho’ of yo’self, ain’t y
ou?” she challenged, eyeing him with contempt.

  “No, ma’am. I’m pretty sure of Martha Jean. And you right about one thing; people talking, but they ain’t talking about me and Martha Jean.They talking about you.They talking about what you did to Judy.You a mean woman, Miss Rosie. It don’t make no sense to be so hateful.”

  My mother made a sound like a snake being chopped in half in the middle of a hiss, then she turned on her chair and slammed her fist against the porch wall. It was nearly dark, but I was sure Velman could see hatred in the gray eyes that glared down at him.

  “You can be stopped, Miss Rosie,” he said.“Don’t think for one minute that I don’t know what happened out here.”

  “Shut up!” Mama shouted, then reached a hand up and began to snatch invisible bugs from her nose.

  Velman glanced at me, his brows raised questioningly.

  I shrugged.

  “Bugs, ”Tarabelle said.“Mama, you want me to fetch you some bathwater?”

  “Shut up! I need to think,” Mama said, and snatched a bug from her forehead. After a minute or two, she stared once more at Velman. “Give me that damn key.You go on and take that girl. What do I care? People trying to take all my children, but they ain’t gon’ get ’em all.”

  Velman stepped between us as he climbed the steps with the key. “Miss Rosie, I can’t be going through this,” he said. “I don’t want you coming back to my house tomorrow or next week saying how you done changed your mind again.This ain’t no good for nobody.”

  When it became apparent that Mama was not going to respond to him, Velman placed the key on the floor beside her feet, then backed away.He crossed the porch to the steps, took Martha Jean’s hand, and led her down to the yard. My sister did not even turn around to wave as she followed him up Penyon Road, and this time it was easier for me to watch her go.

  “Mama, can I drive yo’ car?”Wallace asked, as soon as Velman and Martha Jean were out of sight. “Just down the road a bit and right back? Can I?”

  “You can get me some bathwater,” Mama said, as she picked the key up from the floor.“Tarabelle, you and Tangy Mae get the house clean.There’s something in there.”

  thirty - four

  The schoolyear began on the same day the county fair opened its gates to the Negro population. It wasn’t the best of days. I walked to and from school with Laura, who spoke very little going and not at all coming back.We arrived home to find Edna waiting for us on the front porch, and I wondered what it had been like for her alone all day with Mama.

  Mama was sitting on the floor of the front room when the three of us went inside. She wore a white dress with purple polka dots. Her shoes were off and her stockings were twisted about her legs. She was drunk. On the floor surrounding her were scattered bills of small denominations.Three five-dollar bills stuck out from the side of her right fist. She raised that fist and shook it at us.

  “This here is cursed money,” she said. “It ain’t no good. Ain’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Cursed money that the white man won’t even touch.”

  When Tarabelle and Wallace came home, Tarabelle stopped and peered down at the bills. “How much money you got there, Mama?” she asked.

  “Don’t matter,” Mama said. “It ain’t no good. It won’t get my baby outta jail.” Her words were slurred, and her head seemed to favor her left shoulder.

  “Is it counterfeit?”Tarabelle asked, reaching down to examine one of the bills.

  Mama drew up a leg, then kicked her foot at Tarabelle in a slow, half-hearted effort.“Don’t touch it,” she said.“Ain’t counterfeit. It’s cursed. Everything that boy touch is cursed.”

  “Mama, can we see if they’ll take it at the fair?”Wallace asked. “They’ll be in another county before they figure out it’s counterfeit.”

  “Ain’t counterfeit,” Mama repeated. Her head rolled to the right, and she dropped the money from her hand and forced out a sob. “Tangy Mae, I want you to cook up some greens and take ’em down to Sam.Throw about five or six neck bones in the pot. I don’t think they feeding him, and they wouldn’t let me see him but ten minutes.”

  “Where you get all that money?”Tarabelle asked.

  Mama struggled to her knees, holding onto an armchair to balance herself.“Ain’t you been listening to me, Tarabelle? I got it from that damn Velman Cooper. Fifty dollars I got here, and it ain’t worth fifty cents.They can’t even prove Sam done nothing. I don’t understand why they keeping my baby.”

  “Can I have a dollar of yo’ money, Mama?”Wallace asked.“To go to the fair?”

  “Is that all you can think about? Yeah, you take yo’self a dollar, and get on outta my sight. And you make sho’ it ain’t nothing but a dollar.”

  Wallace picked up a dollar and held it out for Mama to see.“It’s just a dollar,” he said, “but what about Laura and Edna? Ain’t they going, too?”

  “Wallace, you trying to tell me all y’all can’t ride off a dollar? You take ’em wit’ you and make sho’ they get a ride. Now, don’t say nothing else to me.You oughta be shame of yo’self, anyhow. Tangy Mae, pick that money up!”

  I dropped to my knees, gathered the bills together, and gave them to her.With her chin now resting against her chest, she thumbed through the bills and dealt out a dollar to me. “You share this wit’Tarabelle,” she said. “All y’all go on to that damn fair and just forget about Sam. I’m his mother. I’m the one s’pose to do the worrying. Gone now, get on outta my sight.”

  Out on the road Tarabelle kicked a tire on Mama’s car. “She coulda took us,” she said angrily. “I ain’t been in that car since she got it.You’d think she could drive me over to East Grove sometimes, but she won’t.And every time I get paid, she right there taking my money.”

  “I ain’t been in it, neither, ”Wallace said. “It don’t matter to me. I’m gon’ get my own car and my own house.”

  “You ain’t even got no job, Wallace, ”Tarabelle shot back. “You done quit school saying you was gon’ get one, and you ain’t even looked. I wish somebody in that house would do something, besides me. I’m sick of y’all, and I don’t wanna go to no damn fair, smelling pig shit and going ’round in circles on some ol’ stupid ride.”

  “Then don’t go,” I said.“You don’t have to go.”

  “I ain’t going.” She stopped, flipped a hand in my direction, and said, “Tan, you give me my dollar.”

  “Our dollar,” I corrected.

  “My dollar.You think I don’t know ’bout that money you hide in yo’ sock? You got money, Tan. I’m the one work every day and half the night, and you walking ’round wit’ money in yo’ sock when I ain’t got a penny. Give me my dollar, and I don’t wanna have to break yo’ arm to get it.”

  “Here,” I said.“Take the doggone thing if it’ll make you happy.” “It ain’t gon’ make me happy. But maybe I wanna strut around awhile wit’ money in my sock.Maybe I wanna know how it feels. Huh?”

  She snatched the dollar from my hand, and as I glared at her unchanging expression, it occurred to me that she was right. She worked every day and never had a penny to show for it. My anger evaporated.

  “Wallace, take the girls on,” I said.“I’ll catch up to you in a bit.”

  “Okay, ”Wallace answered, “but you might not. If I see somebody going that way in a car, I’m gon’ catch a ride.”

  The fairground was quite some distance away, located on a stretch of land between the flats and North Ridge. For the sake of the girls, I hoped Wallace could catch a ride.Maybe later I’d be able to catch one myself, but for now I wanted to talk to Tarabelle. I turned to find her watching me.

  “Are you going back to sit with Mama?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Nah. I ain’t in no mood to listen to her carry on ’bout nothing. She ain’t that worried ’bout Sam nohow. All she worried ’bout is money.”

  “Well, what are you gonna do?”

  “I don’t know.” She began to walk, and I followed.“I’m so tired, T
an, I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I feel like I could sleep for a week.”

  “Go back home.You don’t have to listen to Mama. She’s probably asleep by now, and if she’s not, you can just pretend she’s not there.”

  “How?”

  “Just close her out. I do it all the time. I just think of something else until I can’t hear what she’s saying.”

  “Yeah? Well, that’s easy for you. Everything is easy for you.You ain’t got nothing else to do. I got that big fat white lady to worry ’bout. She big as the house, and now she stay home every day wit’ me, trying to tell me how to run things.Then she whine and carry on, wanting me to always rub her back. I be washing clothes, she say rub her back. I be washing dishes, she say rub her back. I can’t hardly get my work done for all time stopping and rubbing her back. Some people just ought not have babies.”

  We reached the top of Fife, and continued on. I did not see Wallace, and assumed he had caught a ride. As we neared town, Tarabelle stopped and studied the road, as if deciding what to do.

  “Might as well go to the fair,” she said. “You gon’ be running ’round wit’ that boy when we get there?”

  “If I see him.”

  She grunted and smacked her lips in distaste, but said nothing. We reached Market Street, then crossed the railroad tracks and turned north at Erwin in the direction of the flats.

  “Wanna stop by and see if Martha Jean wants to come?” I asked.

  Tarabelle glanced at me.“Why you scared to be by yo’self?” she asked. “Only time you ever by yo’self is when you reading them books, and even then you make silly faces and talk to yo’self.”

  “Why do you always want to be alone?” I countered.“You never do anything with anybody, except Mattie.”

  “Mattie. I was wondering when you’d get around to bringing her up.You jealous, ain’t you?”

  “No. I was at first, but I’m not now,” I answered truthfully.

  “I knew you was. Mattie is different. She ain’t like everybody else who all time laughing when I say things that ain’t funny. She know when to laugh and when not to.”