Mama Ruby

by Mary Monroe

  Ruby’s parents and her sister looked like they had turned to stone. There was no movement whatsoever on their faces. Not even an eye was blinking. Ruby, horrified beyond belief, stared from the frozen faces to the pug-ugly mug of her brother-in-law, glaring at him like she wanted to bite his head off. And if he didn’t straighten up soon, she just might do that.

  “I ain’t nothin’ like that,” Ruby insisted, trying to sound as casual as possible. “Y’all know me better than that,” she added, looking from her mother to her father. She was glad to see that their faces had softened and come back to life. Her mother smiled.

  “Baby girl, we know you would never shame this family by gettin’ yourself into a pickle like that,” her father said, smiling. He blinked at his son-in-law. “We trust Ruby Jean as much as we trust all the rest of our girls.”

  Ruby’s mother, her mouth full of corn bread, nodded. “We sure enough do.”

  “I just hope whatever ailment you got, it ain’t nothin’ serious,” Lola added, giving Ruby a guarded look. “It would break my heart and disappoint me if you brought shame on this family.”

  Ruby had to grit her teeth to keep her jaw from dropping. She couldn’t believe the words that had just rolled out of Lola’s mouth.

  Lola knew better than to go too far with Ruby. “But I’m sure that ain’t the case! Ruby Jean ain’t that crazy,” she added, all in one breath, talking so fast her last sentence sounded like it was one long word.

  “I won’t bring no shame on this family,” Ruby mumbled, wishing she could melt into the wall behind her. These family meals had become so uncomfortable that Ruby dreaded them now. And this one was especially painful.

  “I know you won’t, baby sister,” Lola said, winking at Ruby. “I want you to follow in my footsteps.”

  Ruby gave her sister a mild warning look. She knew that Lola was probably thinking that Ruby was thinking about all of the un-Christian-like things she had done before she got married. And she was right. Beulah had told Ruby that Lola had used that chicken-blood-in-a-capsule trick on her fool husband. He thought she was a virgin on their wedding night. “I will follow in your footsteps, big sister,” Ruby said with a smirk.

  “Uh, I hope so, sugar. But what I meant was, I hope you find yourself a man like Arlester to marry, and live out your life with him the way the Bible tells you to. That’s what I meant.”

  “I know what you meant,” Ruby said, the same smirk still on her face.

  Ruby loved Lola as much as she loved the rest of her sisters. But there was a special bond between her and Beulah. She had shared things with Ruby that none of the other sisters would even admit that they knew. Like that fake virginity thing. Ruby had never bothered to ask Beulah, but she wondered how she had been able to get blood from a chicken to put in those capsules. She made a metal note to herself to eventually ask Beulah, or maybe even one of her other sisters. She thought it would be a good idea to know all of the details, in case she and Othella ever needed to fool some man into thinking they were virgins.

  “I been havin’ a few female issues, that’s all. That’s how come I lost a few pounds,” Ruby volunteered, knowing that this subject would not be explored too much longer with her parents and Lola’s goofy husband. “But I’m fine now.”

  “And it didn’t hurt for this girl to lose a few pounds,” Ida Mae said. “Ruby Jean, go in the backyard with Lola and y’all bring the clothes off the line. It’s gettin’ mighty cloudy again, and I don’t want my laundry to get wet.”

  As soon as Ruby and Lola were out of ear-shot, Ruby asked her, “How do you get blood from a chicken to use in them capsules?”

  Lola gasped and gave Ruby an amused look. “Why you askin’ me somethin’ like that?”

  “Don’t mess with me, Lola Mae,” Ruby warned. “Don’t you play dumb with me. Beulah told me about that trick that a woman can use when she wants a man to think she’s still a virgin.”

  Lola gave Ruby a dumb look anyway and shrugged her shoulders.

  “All I want to know is how do you get the chicken blood from the chicken to put in that capsule?” Ruby asked again.

  Lola let out a loud, exasperated sigh and looked around the yard and toward the back door before speaking again. “If you ain’t started courtin’ yet, that ain’t nothin’ you need to be worried about. Or is it?” The amused look was still on Lola’s face.

  “I don’t see you or Beulah that often, and I just want to know now in case I don’t see y’all for a while,” Ruby replied. “I’m goin’ to start courtin’ soon.”

  “Well, it ain’t no secret. Flodell, Bessie, and almost every other gal I know knows about it. Even Carrie and Vera.” Carrie and Vera were Ruby’s two middle sisters, born eight months apart.

  “I don’t,” Ruby chortled. “So you need to tell me.”

  CHAPTER 22

  THERE WERE TIMES WHEN LOLA WANTED TO SLAP RUBY. ESPECIALLY when she displayed a smug look on her face like she was doing now.

  “You don’t know? I should hope not! Trust me, you don’t want to grow up too fast, Ruby Jean.”

  “But I do want to grow up soon,” Ruby wailed.

  “What’s that got to do with that chicken blood trick?”

  “I don’t know when I’ll meet me a man, uh, like your husband. There might be one or two before him and, you know how it is... .”

  “You might get weak? You might not be a virgin by the time you meet your husband-to-be?”

  Ruby nodded. “I might get weak and do somethin’ ... nasty before my time. I want the man I marry to think he’s the first,” Ruby whined. “Like you.”

  “Let me tell you somethin’ right now, little girl. Virgins over fifteen around here is as rare as hens’ teeth. Other than you, I sure don’t know none. And I am stupefied that any man in his right mind is dumb enough to think there is. I mean, there is some somewhere, but virgins is real rare. And to tell you the truth, I am surprised that one of these boys ain’t already got to you.”

  “I’m surprised, too,” Ruby said with a nervous cough. “But like I just said, I will start courtin’ soon and I just—”

  Lola held up her hand and gave Ruby an impatient look as they started to remove the clothes, sheets mostly, from the clothesline. “You don’t need but a few drops of blood, see. And you get it when you cut up a chicken. You drain the blood into a cup or somethin’, then you use a spoon or a eyedropper, and you drip the blood into the capsule. It’s so easy, any idiot could do it.” Lola paused and narrowed her eyes to look at Ruby. “What you been up to, girl?”

  “Nothin’ yet. Like I said, I don’t see you that often. I want to know this kind of stuff in case me, or one of my friends, need to do it. I think it’s a real good trick.”

  “Honey, we women know all kinds of tricks when it comes to sexin’. Since we’re on the subject, I guess I should also tell you how to keep yourself from gettin’ pregnant, huh?”

  “It wouldn’t hurt,” Ruby muttered, looking over Lola’s shoulder toward Othella’s house. She couldn’t tell her sister that Othella had already shared that information with her. And she certainly couldn’t tell her sister that she had gotten pregnant anyway, knowing that she probably could have prevented it—had she followed Othella’s instructions more diligently, or aborted her pregnancy with a triple dose of that harsh Black Draught laxative. But it was too late for any of that now.

  “You douche with bleach and or vinegar every time after you do the deed.” Lola was curious as to why Ruby was staring at her with a look of disbelief on her face. “You don’t believe me?”

  “And that’s supposed to keep me from gettin’ pregnant, huh?”

  “It’s supposed to, but it don’t always work. I hope you know that.” Lola paused again and gave her sister a very concerned look. “Baby sister, please don’t bring no baby into this world until you know you can take proper care of it. A baby is a gift from God, but sometimes them gifts come before they are supposed to, and the mama ends up sufferin’... .”

/>   I know, Ruby thought, blinking hard and fast to hold back her tears.

  “You got somethin’ in your eyes? Why you blinkin’ like that?” Lola wanted to know.

  “I got somethin’ in my eyes ... dust, I guess,” Ruby told her. “Uh, we better hurry up and get them clothes and sheets off the line. I can smell the rain comin’.”

  The next couple of days were very difficult for Ruby. She was depressed, she was concerned about her baby, and she was mad with everybody involved. Especially Simone. She was the one who had insisted, no, forced Ruby to give up her child. And Othella had not helped Ruby’s case at all. After thinking about it, Ruby felt that Othella should have challenged Simone and insisted that Ruby keep the baby, especially if she thought there was a chance that Ike was the father.

  Ruby was even mad at her father for being so damn eager to help Simone get rid of that poor little innocent baby.

  It was another week before she caught Othella and Simone at home.

  “If I didn’t know no better, I’d swear y’all been avoidin’ me,” Ruby accused that Saturday around midnight when she’d tiptoed up on the front porch of Simone’s house. Othella had opened the door.

  “Other than them bill collectors, we ain’t been hidin’ from nobody,” Othella said in a very defensive manner. “And we sure ain’t got no reason to be hidin’ from you. You are the one that had a baby that nobody knows about.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to y’all about,” Ruby said, brushing past Othella. She sat down hard on the couch next to Simone, who was in a short gown and drinking home-brewed whiskey from a coffee cup. “Simone, did you arrange everything all right with them asylum folks?”

  “If you mean did I get that child situated with them nuns, the answer is yes. Now I suggest we don’t talk about this subject no more after tonight,” Simone said hotly. She took a long, loud drink from her cup, frowning as the harsh liquid burned its way down her throat. “That was a major ordeal for me to get caught up in. And”—she paused and looked from Othella to Ruby—“I still ain’t tellin’ neither one of y’all the name or location of that asylum.” She blinked and let out a deep sigh, as if gearing up to deliver even more unpleasant news. “I told them nuns that that baby’s mama died.”

  Ruby’s breath caught in her throat, along with a huge lump. She held her breath because it was the only way she could keep herself from crying some more. “You didn’t have to tell them folks that,” she whimpered. “What if ...”

  “What if what?” Simone snapped.

  “What if I marry me a real nice understandin’ man, and he wants to adopt my child? We might have to deal with all kinds of red tape with them nuns,” Ruby said firmly. And she meant every word. In her mind, her fantasy was that she would marry a decent, compassionate man (soon she hoped) and she would tell him about her baby. He would insist on retrieving the baby girl and helping Ruby raise her.

  “Girl, have you lost your mind? If and when you ever find a husband, you are goin’ to have a hard enough time keepin’ him happy and under control with the normal, everyday problems we all have. And say you did do somethin’ that crazy, like tellin’ your husband you had a baby. What about your mama and daddy? Do you want them to ever find out about this? Well, honey, I am tellin’ you right now, if you do, you better not tell them I was involved in this mess!”

  “I wouldn’t tell them nothin’,” Ruby said, her lips trembling. “I don’t want to get you in no trouble, Simone. Not after all you done for me. Honest to God.”

  Simone shook her head and her fist. “Lord, why didn’t I send somebody to get your daddy when you first passed out in my house that night?” she muttered, and shot a hot look at Ruby. “Girl, it’s too late to be havin’ pipe dreams about you and a husband and y’all raisin’ that baby and livin’ happily ever after. Now like I said, I ain’t tellin’ you or Othella where that asylum is, or the name of it. So any notions y’all might have down the road about goin’ to get that baby—forget it. Them nuns got it on paper that the mama is dead; a colored retarded cousin of mine that died givin’ birth to that baby. That’s exactly what I told ’em. And y’all both know that when it comes to colored folks, nobody—not even them nuns—is goin’ to be too particular about maintainin’ the proper paperwork after a while. If anything, Ruby, if you was to ever show up there askin’ about a baby, they more than likely will just call the law on you and have you hauled off to jail. They might even wrap you up in a straight jacket and lock you in a room in that same asylum yourself! And I know they would, because I seen ’em do stuff like that all the time. You hear me?”

  Ruby stared off into space, but she’d heard every word that had come out of Simone’s mouth. She nodded. She sniffed. She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye.

  Othella looked toward the back of the house to make sure none of her siblings were lurking about. Then she looked at Ruby and spoke in a low but firm voice. “Mama is right. And to tell you the truth, this subject is gettin’ real stale. The sooner we forget about this, the better off we’ll all be.”

  “That’s easy for y’all to say.” Ruby sniffed, getting more and more depressed by the second. Her eyes were red and slightly swollen. It was obvious to Simone and Othella that Ruby had been doing a whole lot of crying lately. “What if I can’t never have no more babies?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that none. You look right fertile to me. And there will always be some boy, or some man, willin’ to stick his pecker in you and fill you up with his baby-makin’ batter. Like I tell everybody, sex is like gumbo. As long as it’s available, even when it’s bad, it’s good. And that’s all that boys and men care about when it comes to that. Othella, go in that kitchen yonder and pour Ruby Jean a glass of beer. She looks like she could use some.”

  CHAPTER 23

  RUBY’S DEPRESSION BECAME SO SEVERE THAT HER PARENTS were more than a little concerned. They didn’t know what was bothering their daughter, and no matter how much they tried to pry the information out of her, they had no luck.

  “Ruby, whatever it is that’s got you walkin’ around with such a long face, it can’t be so bad that you can’t talk to us about it,” her mother said for what seemed like the hundredth time to Ruby. Her father usually said something similar, or sometimes the exact same things her mother said.

  “Ain’t nothin’ the matter with me,” she mumbled each time they asked.

  Ruby’s sisters and several other relatives also tried to find out from Ruby what was bothering her. But like always, Othella was the only person that she felt comfortable telling some of her troubles to. Lately, Othella didn’t even have to ask Ruby why she was so depressed.

  “I just miss my baby, that’s all,” Ruby said. She and Othella occupied Simone’s back porch steps around eleven-thirty one Friday night, six weeks after the baby’s birth. Ruby was still associating with Othella behind her parents’ backs. Ironically, after all these years, Othella was one reason why her life was so dreary now. And it was all because she had not helped her convince Simone to let her keep her baby... .

  “It’s too late to do anything about that now. You need to concentrate on things that you can fix,” Othella suggested.

  “Like what?”

  “Well, your folks still think you too good to hang out with certain peoples,” Othella stopped and gave Ruby a hard look.

  “They don’t want me to get ruined,” Ruby explained.

  Othella stared at Ruby in slack-jawed amazement. “In your case, with them hoity-toity folks of yours, you can’t get no more ruined than pregnant!” she shouted.

  Ruby gave Othella a disgusted look. “There is worse things that can happen to me than gettin’ pregnant,” she insisted, her bottom lip trembling.

  “Yeah—dead. Or locked up for life in some dank prison like my uncle Andre for robbin’ a bank.”

  “Your brother treats me like I’m a stranger these days. Some of them other boys I was with, they treat me the same way.” Ruby looked out toward the bushe
s behind the garden beyond the well. “All them times I went in the bushes with one, and now I can’t get them same ones to give me the time of day.” Ruby looked at Othella and gave her a warm smile. “I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you to talk to, Othella. If you ever left here, I’d go crazy or die. Maybe even both.”

  “Ruby, you need to make some more friends. Forget about my brother, and the rest of them hit and run boys, that hit you and ran.”

  Ruby shrugged. “As long as I got you, I don’t need no other friends. Eventually, I’ll get another boyfriend, I guess. One that’ll stay my boyfriend for a while.”

  “Maybe there’ll be some new boys in our school. I heard somethin’ about some of them sharecropper families havin’ kinfolks movin’ here from Baton Rouge. I know they must have some boys around our age.”

  “Oh?” The information that Othella had just revealed obviously pleased Ruby. “That’s good to hear. That’s somethin’ for us to look forward to,” she said eagerly. She was even willing to settle for a sharecropper’s son for a boyfriend now—as long as he was cute and cool.

  “It don’t matter to me. I won’t be around too much longer, so I don’t care,” Othella responded, speaking in a flat, detached tone of voice.

  Ruby turned her head to the side and gave Othella a confused look, peering at her from the corner of her eye. “What are you talkin’ about, girl? Where you goin’?”

  “I ain’t goin’ back to school when it starts back up.” Othella sniffed and sucked in some of the night air. “I’m goin’ to go to New Orleans and find myself a husband. Last year when I was there visitin’ one of Mama’s friends, I seen servicemen all over the place. I wanted to marry me one then. A couple of years ago, Uncle Laurent came back from the army with a bullet in his head, so he gets some kind of army money every month now. Even though he dropped his rifle and it went off accidentally and shot hisself, it don’t matter. The government got money and they give it to men who serve. With his check from the government, and the money that Uncle Laurent makes drivin’ trucks cross country, he treats his wife real good. That’s what I want, a man that can offer me some real security and attention.”