by Mary Monroe
“Remember that old white woman that my mama used to work for when she was young?”
Ruby shrugged. “Your mama worked for a lot of old white women when she was young. So?”
“Uh, maybe you don’t remember me tellin’ you about this one. My mama worked in the District for a old Irish lady named Miss Mo’reen.”
Ruby shrugged again.
“I didn’t want to tell you unless I had to, but before I left home, my mama told me if I ran into trouble I could probably get help from Miss Mo’reen. She’s one of them liberal white women.”
“Othella, I know you tryin’ to tell me somethin’, but I ain’t got no idea what it is. Exactly who is this white woman, and what can she do for us?”
“I went to see Miss Mo’reen today. She said we could both work in her sportin’ house,” Othella said, looking at the floor.
Ruby snickered and clapped her hands together. Then she looked Othella in the eyes and said, “You brought me all the way to New Orleans so some white woman could pimp me?”
“Not exactly. That’s the bad news. She don’t think you are the type that men would want to pay. But I’m goin’ to turn a few tricks for her... .”
“Oh.” Ruby was pleased that she wasn’t going to be asked to sell her body, but she was also disappointed to hear that nobody wanted to buy her body anyway. “So what will I do for this white lady?” She turned her head to the side, looking at Othella from the corner of her eye.
Othella swallowed hard; she had to in order to get rid of the huge lump that had formed in her throat. She was nervous because she didn’t know how to tell Ruby what she needed to tell her, but she managed. “She said you could help out around the house. Be a mammy to the prostitutes’ kids, cook, and clean ... stuff like that. Miss Mo’reen runs a real busy house, so I know them cum-stained bedsheets probably need to be changed a lot. She already got a live-in maid, so you won’t have to do everything by yourself.”
Ruby gave Othella a pensive look as she shook her head. She was still disappointed. “Oh,” was all she could manage. Then she let out a loud breath and said, “I’m goin’ to be a maid and a mammy? That’s what I left home for?”
“At least you won’t have to worry about wallowin’ around in a strange bed with a bunch of strange white men,” Othella said, trying to sound optimistic.
“To tell you the truth, I would have felt better about myself if you had told me that this white woman wanted me to turn tricks for her, too,” Ruby whined.
Othella’s jaw dropped. “Do you mean to tell me that you’d rather be a whore than a maid and a mammy?”
“No. But it would have been nice of her to ask me to do it. Even though I would have told her no.”
“It’s the best I could come up with for now. But if you don’t want to come with me, you can stay here, or you can go on back home, or you can do whatever you want to do. I can’t stop you. But after what you done to that Glenn man, if I was you, I’d lay real low for as long as I could. Cuttin’ half of a man’s pecker off is probably a real serious crime.”
Ruby ignored Othella’s last sentence. “If I’m goin’ to be cleanin’ toilets and floors and shit, I’d rather do it for a colored woman than a white woman. You can go on, and I’ll stay here.” Ruby returned to the kitchen with the toothbrush to finish scrubbing up the spots on the floor.
Othella immediately began to pack. Her plan was to leave after Ola Mae had gone to bed tonight. That way, she’d get out of paying rent for the week. And as far as Ola Mae taking her to court for not giving a thirty-day notice that she was moving out ... well, that old bitch had to find her first. And Othella knew Ruby well enough to know that Ruby would not reveal her whereabouts.
Othella was in the bedroom lying across the bed, leafing through a magazine, when Ruby returned. She ignored Ruby, and Ruby ignored her.
A few minutes past six P.M. , Ola Mae hollered for everybody to come to the dining room to eat the fried chicken that she had prepared, and to meet her new tenant. Ruby chose to remain in the bedroom, so she could sulk in private. Othella reluctantly went downstairs, but less than a minute later, she came bursting back into the room with a wild-eyed look on her face.
“Girl, you ain’t goin’ to believe who Ola Mae’s new tenant is!” Othella didn’t wait for Ruby to respond. She grabbed her by the arm and led her to the stairs. They tiptoed to the landing and peeped around the corner into the dining room.
Seated at the table in a chair across from Ola Mae, flanked by the elderly couple who had rescued him, was Glenn Boates—the man that Ruby had castrated! His two shabby gray suitcases sat by the door.
“That’s him!” Ruby managed, her hands trembling. “That’s that Glenn man that was attackin’ us!”
“Sure enough! That’s the man whose dick you cut off!” Othella agreed, nodding her head so hard her neck hurt. “And that’s them same two old people that seen us runnin’ out of the restaurant after you cut Glenn! Do you want to stay here now?”
Glenn’s sorry face looked even longer. And it was so gaunt and lifeless, it was hard to believe that he was still alive. The expression on his face was so unbearably sad that Ruby wished, and she had wished this before, that she had not cut him. However, she knew in her heart that if she was ever in the same, or a similar situation again, she would probably do the same thing, if not something worse. This was one of the few times that Ruby felt a real concern about her temper, and what other mayhem she might find herself in the middle of in the future. This was a thought that she didn’t like to deal with for too long, if at all. She shook the thought from her head, biting her bottom lip so hard she almost drew blood.
“As soon as everybody goes to bed and them two old people leave, we need to get up out of here,” Ruby said, the words fluttering out of her mouth like leaves falling off a tree.
“You better think long and hard about what you want to do, and you better do it fast. Are you goin’ to go back to Shreveport, or are you comin’ with me to be Miss Mo’reen’s maid?”
“I guess I’ll be goin’ with you, and be that white woman’s maid and mammy,” Ruby muttered.
CHAPTER 34
RUBY AND OTHELLA WAITED IN THEIR ROOM UNTIL ALL OF OLA Mae’s other tenants had turned in for the night and the company had left. As soon as the house got quiet and dark, they slipped out the front door with their luggage. By this time, it was almost four in the morning.
It took three hours for them to walk to Maureen’s house, and only because they kept getting lost. It was a long and painful walk, with Othella in front, her feet throbbing like she’d stepped on a bed of nails. Ruby marched behind her like a disgruntled soldier, still cussing and fussing. “Lord have mercy! What did I let you talk me into this time?” Ruby growled.
Othella whirled around so suddenly, Ruby bumped into her. “I wish to God that you’d stop all that bitchin’ and moanin’. I’m doin’ the best I can. And if that ain’t good enough for you, you can go on back home, Ruby Jean. Or you can go on back to Miss Ola Mae’s house. I’m sure she don’t know we left yet, and you still got a key to her front door.”
“You know I can’t go back to that woman’s house. Now that we know she knows Glenn, and he’s goin’ to be stayin’ there, too. All I got to say is, this whorehouse-runnin’ white woman better come through or I am goin’ back home. You can stay here and hunt for a job and a husband till the Rapture for all I care. I just hope that the next time a man tries to make you suck his dick, you can get out of doin’ it on your own.”
Othella gave Ruby a contrite look. “Ruby Jean, we’re goin’ to be all right. I know Miss Mo’reen is goin’ to take real good care of us. We’ll be happy.”
“Livin’ in a whorehouse?”
“It’s better than livin’ on the street! It’s better than livin’ with people like that Ola Mae woman! And besides, we won’t stay at Miss Mo’reen’s that long. Every chance I get, I am goin’ to go out lookin’ for a better job and a nicer place for us to live.”
“Pregnant?”
Ruby nodded. “We both know that that bleach douche don’t work all of the time,” she reminded.
“It works for me!” Othella hissed, resuming her walk down the darkened street. “Now come on. Miss Mo’reen is waitin’ on us, and we already much later than I told her we’d get there.”
As soon as Ruby and Othella entered the notorious red light district, they received a lot of stares. Nobody bothered them, though, because it was assumed that they were maids on their way to work.
“This is it,” Othella said, stopping in front of a large light blue house that reminded Ruby of the old plantations that the slave owners used to run. And that was exactly what it used to be. However, it had been renovated, repainted a few times, and brought up to speed as far as the modern world was concerned. Two white gliders sat on either side of the large wraparound front porch. Red and gold brocade curtains covered every window that Othella and Ruby could see. A neat row of fake red roses had been planted in the front yard and on the sides of the house, resembling a necklace.
“This looks like a palace,” Ruby said with a loud sigh, gazing around in awe.
“Well, it looks like a palace, but don’t expect to get what Cinderella or Sleepin’ Beauty got,” Othella advised. “Ain’t no charmin’ prince goin’ to come here to rescue us.” A sad look crossed her face, one she didn’t want Ruby to see. But she turned her head too late. Ruby saw it and it made her sad, too.
“You don’t think we’ll be happy in this place?” Ruby asked, shifting her suitcase from one hand to the other. She looked around some more, then back at Othella.
“I left home to get away from my prostitute mama, and look at me. I’m fixin’ to be one myself,” Othella said. There was such a hopeless look on her face, Ruby wanted to grab her hand and run. But she knew she couldn’t do that, at least not yet.
“We don’t have to do this, Othella. But you need to make up your mind and tell me what you want to do now.” Ruby still wanted to grab her friend’s hand and run.
“I still say it’s better than us livin’ on the streets, or in Ola Mae’s house. Only until we come up with somethin’ better though,” Othella answered with a weak smile. “Just one thing; no matter what happens, I hope to God you won’t do nothin’ crazy... .”
“Like what?” Ruby asked, both eyebrows raised. Othella responded with a blink. “Oh, you mean like what I done to that Glenn man? That couldn’t be helped, you know that. I won’t do nothin’ else crazy as long as nobody messes with me.”
Fifty-four-year-old Maureen O’Leary was the third of three daughters in a family of Irish-American dirt farmers. She had been living a shady life in New Orleans since the age of seventeen when her family moved to the United States from Dublin, Ireland. She had two ex-husbands and five estranged adult children somewhere in Ireland.
Throughout Maureen O ’Leary’s youth people—her relatives especially—had told her that she should have been a man. She was almost six feet tall, and as husky as a lumberjack. She kept her thick, but short, jet black hair slicked back like a duck, or hidden beneath a wig. She acted like a man, too. She smoked cigars, gambled, and fought and drank like an Irish sailor.
With work being so scarce for all women, black and white, Maureen had decided that if she was going to work, it had to be a job that was worth her time. Farming and any other type of mundane labor, which her ignorant father and her stupid ex-husbands had settled for, was out of the question. She was too ambitious to even consider such low-life endeavors. She wanted to live the good life and wear fancy frocks, drink good whiskey, eat lavish meals, and live in a beautiful, opulent house. That meant she either had to marry a wealthy man or make her own money by doing something on the shady side. She didn’t have the education or desire to do anything practical such as nursing or teaching, like her sisters. Not only were those jobs dull, but they didn’t pay enough money to suit her. The only women Maureen knew of who were making good money were the prostitutes, the madams, and women involved in other criminal activity. She had a female friend who smuggled drugs throughout the country for her gangster husband. When things got too slow in that business for the friend, she turned a few tricks on the side.
Unfortunately, Maureen had never enjoyed sex enough to make it her vocation. But she knew that a lot of other women did, and if they had enough alcohol or drugs in them, a good “adviser” could convince them to perform more tricks than a trained monkey.
Maureen knew that she had what it took to be a good madam. She had convinced herself that this line of work was her calling, after several of her lovers had put the idea in her head. That, and the fact that she had skills as good as any man’s when it came to manipulating women.
One of Maureen’s lovers, after her second divorce, was a man who frequently visited the brothels in New Orleans’ notorious red light District. He helped her find the house that she purchased for her new business venture. He also helped her hand pick her first stable of women, finding them everywhere from the bar room floors to the church pews. She was so charismatic and likeable, she became an immediate success. She was now the most beloved, most successful madam in the District.
Despite the war and thousands of people being out of work, business was booming in the brothels. Some men came alone, sneaking in and out like shy burglars. Some came in groups of three or four. One evening, a busload of rowdy sailors showed up, so horny they were willing to fuck each other if they couldn’t get to the women in time.
The men didn’t all come to have sex. Some came out of boredom, curiosity, and loneliness. The party atmosphere, the alcohol, and the scantily clad women were potent inducements.
An attractive but obese blue-eyed blond woman in her late twenties greeted Ruby and Othella when they knocked on Maureen’s front door. Like everybody else who had noticed them, she assumed they were maids. She shook her finger in their faces and scolded them for knocking on the front door when they knew that they needed to use the back door. She was stunned when Othella told her the reason they had come. But when Othella got to the part about Ruby’s role, the blonde still made Ruby go around the house and enter through the back door. To show her loyalty, Othella accompanied Ruby and entered through the back door, too.
Mazel Hawthorne was Maureen’s longtime cook and maid. She was a bitter middle-aged black woman with ordinary features on a face that almost always displayed a menacing scowl. There was a freshly starched red and white checked bandana tied around her head at all times, except when she went to bed or church. She let Ruby and Othella in, looking at them and their suitcases with contempt. She brusquely ordered them to wipe their feet on the doormat before entering.
Mazel was just as fat as the white woman who had refused to let Ruby and Othella enter through the front door. She wore face powder and some rouge, but it did her no good. She was still plain. Ruby was impressed to see that the white uniform that the Mazel woman wore looked expensive and new.
When Othella told Mazel that Maureen was expecting them, she glared at them, wondering what these two black crows were up to. She directed them to Maureen’s room by pointing the way with her finger, shaking her head as they marched across the floor like sneaky soldiers.
Mazel Hawthorne was an astute woman, especially when it involved other black folks. She had a keen sense of smell, and she had already sniffed BIG trouble brewing with these two newcomers.
CHAPTER 35
IT WAS EARLY IN THE DAY AND THREE OF THE FOUR FULL-TIME prostitutes who lived with Maureen were still in the bedrooms upstairs that they worked and slept in. The fat blonde was sprawled on a black velvet settee in the garishly decorated parlor with a cigarette dangling from her lip, sipping wine from a coffee cup. Brocade draperies with gold, green, and orange stripes covered every window. Large pictures of scantily clad women lined one wall. And as hard as it was to believe, on
the opposite wall there was a large picture of Jesus in a lime green robe leading a flock of sheep.
“Mazel! Uhh, Mazel! Get your lazy tail upstairs and look in on them young’uns of mine. Then fix me a hot toddy and some grits!” the blond woman yelled toward the kitchen area.
Before Ruby and Othella could make their way to Maureen’s room, the mean-looking black woman who had let them in the back door stomped back through the parlor all the way up to the top of the stairs.
“I hope y’all here to help Mazel with my kids,” the blond woman said with a smile. “I’m Fanny. But call me Fat Fanny like everybody else calls me. And y’all can see why,” she laughed, slapping herself on her hip. She rose from the settee, which was a few feet to the side of a large shiny black upright piano. Crouching on the floor next to it was a life-size ceramic lion with eyes that looked almost real. Fat Fanny strolled over to Ruby and extended her hand and they shook. Othella shook the blonde’s hand, noticing how hot, clammy, and sticky it was. Being that they were in a whorehouse and this woman was a whore, she didn’t want to know where that hand had been.
“How many kids do you have, Fat Fanny?” Ruby asked, pleased to see that Fat Fanny was even larger than she herself was. Her face was average-looking, but probably would have been pretty without the three chins attached to her thick neck. One thing that Ruby firmly believed about large people was that they were more tolerant of other large people. If that was the case, she and this woman were going to get along just fine.
“Three, but don’t let that scare you none. The two oldest is seven and nine, and boys, so they’ll stay out of your way. They ain’t much trouble. I usually send ’em to my mama when we get real busy. But my baby, Viola, she’s just a few months old, so she needs a lot of attention. I like to keep her around me because my mama is too busy for me to leave Viola with her very often.”