by Mary Monroe
Ruby looked at Maureen’s lips as she spoke, then looked up alongside her head.
“Do you like me, Mo’reen?”
“Ma’am?”
“I ax you if you like me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then you’ll never leave me?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said you’d never leave nothin you like.”
“I wouldn’t . . . I guess . . . I ain’t never leavin you then,” Maureen smiled. “Unless . . .” her voice trailed off.
“Unless what?” Ruby asked with alarm.
“Unless I . . . unless I get carried off by the devil, like you say my daddy was.”
Ruby turned away and considered Maureen’s words.
“I won’t let the devil get near you. I’m tough,” Ruby whispered, looking toward the door.
“Then how come he carried off my daddy? You couldn’t stop the devil from carryin off my daddy, how you goin to stop him from carryin me off?”
“Remember that day me and you was sittin on the porch and you axed me if I was the devil?”
“Yeah. You said. . . .”
Ruby looked toward the door again, then leaned closer to Maureen, glancing about the room nervously. “I ain’t goin to mention it, but I am. Don’t you never tell nobody I told you this. Don’t tell Cousin Hattie. Don’t tell nobody back in Florida. They wouldn’t be able to handle havin the devil so close to em. How you think Roscoe would feel knowin he was engaged to marry the devil? What you think Irene and Bishop would say if they knowed they best friend was the devil? And what would my daddy say?”
“If you is the devil, how can you be a Christian too?” Maureen asked, cocking her head to the side and looking at Ruby out of the corner of her eye.
“The devil is the master of disguises! He the only one, cept the Lord, what can be more than one thing at the same time. Though I am filled with the Holy Ghost, I also am the doorway to darkness.”
Maureen covered her mouth with her hand to suppress a giggle. “Mama Ruby, you so funny. You ain’t the devil. The devil was a man.”
Ruby sighed and moved to the window. She started talking with her back to Maureen.
“Virgil’s dead. I just know it. He done died in that foreign country. He took secrets with him,” Ruby said. “Secrets I will carry with me to my grave.”
“About what?”
“You for one. Me. Him. Things I can never tell nobody. Not even you.” Ruby turned slightly to see Maureen’s reaction.
“Bad things?”
Ruby looked at Maureen thoughtfully and nodded.
“Don’t never tell me what they is,” Maureen said softly.
“I hadn’t planned to,” Ruby said firmly.
Maureen leaped up from the bed, ran to Ruby, and grabbed her hand.
“Mama Ruby, let’s stop talkin sad talk. Tell me again about that ole white lady we goin to visit this week.”
Ruby lifted Maureen up, returned to the bed with her, and sat down, putting Maureen on her lap.
“Her name is Miss Mo’reen.”
“That’s my name!”
“It was Miss Mo’reen’s name first. She the one I named you after. She live in New Orleans and got two plum trees in her front yard.”
“She got any kids I can play with?” Maureen asked, her eyes wide and her heart thumping madly.
“She got kids but they all growed up and livin in a foreign country called Ireland. That’s where Miss Mo’reen come from.”
“You said foreigners was the devil’s relations.”
“Not all foreigners. See, Miss Mo’reen been in America most of her life. She don’t even talk like no foreigner. She talk regular English like me and you. None of them crazy accents or nothin.”
“She a nice lady?”
“If God made anything better than Miss Mo’reen, he kept it for hisself. She made me what I am today,” Ruby said proudly. “Girl, I am some successful!”
Maureen looked at Ruby carefully, from her feet up to her face.
“What she make you into, Mama Ruby?”
Ruby looked at Maureen with surprise on her face.
“What Miss Mo’reen make you into?”
“A Christian. In spite of Satan’s toehold,” Ruby answered. She lightly touched her bosom, confirming the presence of her cross and her switchblade.
28
“You sure you don’t want me to drive you and Mo’reen to New Orleans, Ruby Jean? Them buses is goin to sho nuff be crowded with Christmas travelers.”
“Don’t bother, Papa. Mo’reen ain’t never been on no Greyhound bus. She lookin forward to this little ride,” Ruby smiled.
“When yall comin back?” Ida asked.
Ruby sat with her parents and her two sisters, Carrie and Beaulah, on her father’s patio. They all occupied lounge chairs. A breeze caused goose pimples to rise on Ruby’s bare arms. The others had sweaters on.
“I’ll just be gone a couple of days. Then we’ll spend our last days here. Mo’reen gettin antsy and want to get on back to Florida,” Ruby explained. “I got to get her back to school. She can’t miss too much. Lord knows I don’t want her to grow up to be a fool.”
“Too bad you didn’t apply that same principle to yourself,” Carrie said.
Ruby glared at her sister. Carrie returned the gaze, leaning forward. “You act like you don’t like what I just said!”
“I see you ain’t changed none. Always pickin on me,” Ruby said. “Ain’t you got eyes? Can’t you see I’m a successful woman?” Ruby demanded.
Carrie and Beaulah were as large as Ruby and had the same fiery temper, though her sisters resembled their father rather than their mother, as Ruby did.
“No husband. You just like that Cousin Hattie,” Beaulah said, disappointment in her voice. “Now, why don’t you drag your tail on back to Shreveport and find you another husband? You ain’t got no business bein in Florida in the first place.”
“I told yall how I been wrestlin with the devil for so many years,” Ruby said.
“Yall leave Ruby Jean alone. Can’t you see she is trying to get back on the right track?” Reverend Upshaw said, giving Carrie and Beaulah stern looks.
“Least I got Jesus to fall back on,” Ruby said.
“We all got Jesus to fall back on,” Ida said. “What’s keepin you in Florida anyway, girl?”
“My lovely home for one. I got a house fit for a king. Why, compared to what yall got—my house is heaven!” Ruby shouted. “I got me a house out in the country away from all the mess that go on in a city.”
“Ruby Jean, Mo’reen say yall live damn near in the Everglades!” Carrie said, rising, facing Ruby with anger in her voice. “She told me hens lay eggs on your living room sofa!”
“And say every kind of bug you can name get loose in the house durin bug season,” Beaulah added.
Carrie returned to her seat after Ruby’s glare got the better of her.
“Ruby Jean, what’s so special about your house?” Ida asked quietly, touching Ruby’s knee.
“It’s Mo’reen’s room,” Ruby said in a low voice.
Each member of her family turned to look in her face.
“What about Mo’reen’s room?” Reverend Upshaw asked.
“It’s sanctified,” Ruby said. “If I remove her from it, she’ll surely die.”
“That Florida sun done baked what little bit of a brain you had,” Beaulah said nastily. “A bedroom is a bedroom!”
“Yall don’t understand. Mo’reen ain’t no regular child. She a gift from the Lord. Her presence make the upper room so special,” Ruby wailed.
“THE UPPER ROOM?!” Beaulah shouted, laughing so hard her sides hurt and she cried. She laughed until she started to choke on her own tongue. Ida leaped up from her seat to pound on Beaulah’s back.
“You see why I can’t stay around yall?” Ruby said, rising. “Papa, you know I never liked bein laughed at,” Ruby pouted. She went to her father and threw herself down on the
ground, placing her hands on his lap. “Papa, I love yall, but I’m important in Florida. Them folks in Goons, they need me. They’d be lost without me. I can’t turn my back on em.”
“We need you too, daughter,” the preacher said.
Ruby looked at Beaulah, who was holding her sides and trying desperately not to laugh again.
“I see now why you run off with that carnival woman. You is sho nuff a clown, Ruby Jean,” Carrie said.
Carrie and Beaulah were both married to preachers and lived in comfortable houses not far from their parents.
“My husband always said Ruby was a fool,” Carrie laughed. “Even if she is a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter.”
“Ruby Jean never had a lick of sense no how,” Beaulah added.
Ruby remained at her father’s knee, looking up in his face for consolation.
“Carrie Mae, where is your husband today?” the reverend asked.
“Huh? I don’t really know,” she replied.
“Where your husband at today, Beaulah Lou?” he asked.
“I ain’t seen him since this mornin,” she said nervously.
“Neither one of em was in church this mornin,” the reverend pointed out. “And their whereabouts at this moment is unknown.”
He looked down at Ruby.
“Where your husband, girl?” he asked.
“Dead. I suspect his soul is poppin like popcorn in the lake of fire.”
“The devil he was, that’s where he should be.”
“I know it, Papa. Him with his white woman and his drinkin and all . . .” Ruby sobbed.
The reverend looked from Beaulah to Carrie.
“Least Ruby Jean know where her man is,” he said.
Carrie and Beaulah sighed and gave Ruby dirty looks.
“Carrie, didn’t your man go up side your head last month with a pop bottle?” Ida asked. “And you, Beaulah, didn’t your man get caught with his hands in the church treasury? With all that commotion in yall’s own backyard, you ain’t got no right to be low ratin Ruby Jean, is you?”
“No, ma’am,” Beaulah mumbled.
“No, ma’am,” Carrie said, lowering her head and coughing to conceal her embarrassment. “No, ma’am,” she repeated contritely.
“Long as Ruby Jean here, don’t let me hear yall messin with her no more. Is that clear?” the preacher said.
The two sisters nodded.
“Now, Ruby Jean, what time your bus leavin for New Orleans?” Reverend Upshaw asked, stroking Ruby’s face.
“First thing tomorrow mornin,” she said. “My bus leave here first thing tomorrow mornin.”
Maureen suddenly came running out on the patio before the conversation could continue.
“Mama Ruby, carry me on back to Florida—I can’t stand it here! I’m fixin to go out of my head!” she wailed, throwing herself to the floor on her knees next to Ruby.
“Yall see what I mean? This girl would have to be weaned before she could give up Florida,” Ruby said.
The visit had done nothing but depress Maureen. None of the kids in the neighborhood had ever heard of the game grown-folks and none had ever seen a murder. Only a few of them would admit to drinking pot liquor! And being surrounded by so much obesity annoyed Maureen. Both of Carrie’s daughters were stout and made bad playmates. They couldn’t even run fast. The most walking they did was to and from the kitchen and the candy store. They only talked about food. Beaulah’s only child, a homely thirteen-year-old named Lee Humphrey, was even worse than Carrie’s girls as far as Maureen was concerned. He was tall and had a slablike face with pimples. On three separate occasions, he had enticed Maureen upstairs to a vacant bedroom in her grandparents’ house and exposed himself to her.
“Mo’reen, tetch my thing,” he’d said the last time.
“How come?” Maureen asked, frowning at her cousin’s limp penis. “Yeck!” she said, shaking her shoulders, not taking her eyes off the boy’s organ.
“Just tetch it like I said, girl!”
“What’s wrong with it?” she asked. She looked up at Lee’s face for a long time, before lightly touching his penis.
“That’s it . . . that’s it,” he sighed. “One day we’ll do somethin different,” he promised.
“The shake?” Maureen asked.
“The what?”
“I seen Virgil do what I think you want to do to me with a lady back home. The shake,” she said quietly.
“Oh we’ll do some shakin all right,” Lee promised with an obscene grin.
“Mama Ruby say if I was to ever let a boy get in my stepins he’d bring the devil with him and I’d have the devil in me for the rest of my life.”
“Listen here, girl, you keep listenin to Mama Ruby and you goin to end up believin everything she say.”
“What you mean?”
“Grown folks don’t want kids to have no fun.”
“How come?”
“Cause they want to have it all. Long as Mama Ruby don’t know you havin fun, she’ll be happy. You remember that. Do you hear me?”
“. . . Yeah,” Maureen said thoughtfully, promising herself to remember.
29
Maureen kept thinking about what Lee had said to her during the bus ride from Shreveport to New Orleans. She sat next to Ruby, resting her head on Ruby’s chest. Maureen could feel Ruby’s bosom rise and fall with each breath. Ruby leaned her head against the window.
Surely she could have a good time and keep it from Ruby so Ruby would still believe she was totally devoted to her. She could remain with Ruby until Ruby died. That thought frightened Maureen. Where would she be without Mama Ruby? What kind of life would she have without Mama Ruby? What would she be prepared for? If Ruby suddenly died, she would have nobody. And she’d be lonely. Maureen lifted her head and looked at Ruby.
“What would I do if you was to die, Mama Ruby? Who would take care of me? Who would keep the house clean? Who would iron my clothes? Who would cook for me and whip me when I needed it?”
Ruby turned her head mechanically and faced Maureen, her lips quivering.
“What?” Ruby mouthed.
“I ax what would I do if you was to die?”
“I don’t plan on dyin no time soon.”
“Oh,” Maureen said. She returned her head to Ruby’s chest. A minute later she lifted it again.
“But what if you die in a accident or get cancer or somethin? What would I do? I wouldn’t have nobody to take care of me.”
“You got Jesus,” Ruby said with conviction.
“Oh,” Maureen said again. “You don’t never want me to leave the upper room. You don’t want no man in the upper room. Then I can’t never get married, right?”
“Right.”
“No husband. No kids. I won’t have nobody in this world if you was to die. I’d rather die myself than get adopted by Grandma Ida and have to live in Shreveport. I wouldn’t want to be Fast Black’s little girl or Irene’s little girl. What would happen to me?”
“Didn’t I just tell you you had Jesus? What more do you want? Gold?”
“I can’t see Jesus. He can’t talk to me. I’ll be lonesome. Mama Ruby, do you want me to have fun?”
“Is what you call fun in the Bible?”
“I don’t know.”
“If it ain’t in the Bible, I don’t want you to have nothin to do with it. I done already locked horns with the devil enough over you.”
“And if you is the devil, how come you keep talkin about how you been wrestlin with him and lockin horns with him, if you is him?”
“How many times do I have to tell you Satan is capable of bein more than one person?”
“What you mean by that?”
Ruby lowered her eyelids and took several long, deep breaths before talking again. Maureen waited anxiously.
“What you mean, Mama Ruby?”
“. . . ‘And he asked him, what is thy name? And he answered, saying, my name is Legion: for we are many,’ ” Ruby whispered just loud en
ough for Maureen to hear.
“Reverend Tiggs talked about that from the Bible one Sunday . . . the man with the unclean spirit what couldn’t be tied down with chains,” Maureen said.
“Couldn’t be tamed . . . for we are many,” Ruby said, turning to face Maureen. “Did I answer your question?”
“. . . St. Mark . . . chapter five . . . verse nine?”
“Hallelujah,” Ruby replied. “You understand how I can be the Lord’s fold and the devil’s walkin stick?”
“Yeah . . . I think I do,” Maureen responded, still confused. “Mama Ruby, how in the world did you get in such a mess? Is you the only person in the world what tangle with the devil so much? How come you can get away with so much and still get to go to heaven?”
“I been to hell and back. I seen the Lord’s throne. I seen a serpent rare back and spit oppression in the face of man. I seen it all. I seen em string up a man by his neck. I seen em set a fire to a house with a old man confined to a wheelchair in it. I seen it all. These old eyes done seen it all. I can’t explain it all to you now, how I ended up in such a mess. You too young to understand. I’ll tell you one day after you get growed up. But believe, I done seen some of everything.”
“You seen God?”
“Stared in his face.”
“You seen the devil?”
“Looked him eyeball to eyeball.”
“Oh. Well, can you beat up God?”
“I done cussed out the devil. That’s bigger than beatin up God. What you got to say about that?”
Maureen nodded and reached up to brush Ruby’s hair back from her forehead.
“Mama Ruby, you is tough, sho nuff. I heard Fast Black do a brag on you. She say you could bite a nail in half.”
“With my gums.”
“Fast Black say you can beat up Cassius Clay.”
“With one hand tied behind my back.”
“What about Fi’del Castro?”
“What about him?”
“Can you beat him up?”
“Him and the horse he ride.”
“Oh.”
The bus pulled into the town of Scheny and parked in front of Sam’s Grill, where all the passengers got off and went inside to order beverages and snacks. Ruby and Maureen devoured their french fries and sloppy joes quickly and carried their drinks back to the bus with them.