The Upper Room

by Mary Monroe

“So?”

  Maureen had her back to Ruby.

  “I’m gettin kind of restless. Like life is sho nuff passin me by.” Maureen paused.

  “And?” Ruby sat up on the sofa.

  “And . . . and I got a itchin to move to Miami. Virgil say he can get me a job as a file clerk in the office at the lobster factory, and Sister Mary say she know a Jew what owns a building that’s always got vacant furnished apartments and Black Jack say—” Maureen was cut off by a loud crash. The whole house shook. She turned around to see that Ruby had risen from the sofa and fallen out in the middle of the floor.

  “What’s wrong, sugar?” Maureen asked. She jumped up and ran to Ruby.

  “You goin to leave me after all I done done for you?!”

  “I have to leave, Mama Ruby. If I don’t, I’ll go crazy.” Maureen tried to lift Ruby off the floor and had no success.

  “You can’t go, Mo’reen. I won’t let you. You don’t know what you sayin!”

  “But, Mama Ruby, I have to go. I can’t stay here for the rest of my life! I don’t want to be like you!”

  “AND WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME?!”

  “Everything! You kill folks. You do all kinds of crazy things that I know can’t be right. You run everybody’s life. I ain’t goin to continue lettin you run mine. You always tellin me I should be the happiest girl in Florida. Well I ain’t! I ain’t cause I want to get away from you. I want a life of my own. I want to be happy. If you love me, you should want me to be happy. I can’t be happy livin here. Please try to understand.”

  Ruby pounded her thighs wrathfully and wailed.

  “You stop that!” Maureen ordered, leaning over Ruby to remove the huge teeth. “Come on and get up, please!” Maureen grabbed Ruby’s arms and forced her up.

  “You want to leave me so you can go play footsie with that nigger Black Jack!” Ruby accused.

  “I want to leave you for a lot of reasons. Can’t you see I’m a grown woman now? I’ve been a grown woman for a long time.”

  “Aaaarrrggghhh!”

  “Shet up, Mama Ruby, and listen to me. I don’t like livin out here in Goons no more!”

  “Aaaarrrggghhh!”

  “I ain’t got nothin to call my own. I hate that upper room. I hate this house. I hate the way you treat me!”

  “Aaaarrrggghhh!”

  “Will you stop all that hollerin?! I’m leavin this place if it’s the last thing I do and there ain’t nothin you can do to stop me!”

  “Aaarrrggghhh!”

  Unable to stand Ruby’s screams, Maureen ran to the upper room.

  62

  Virgil’s little house was on Davis Street. On one side was a Pentecostal church. On the other side was a saloon called the Come On Inn.

  “I declare, Mo’reen. On a weekend we get loud singin and prayin from both directions. Church folks cryin the blues. Drunks at the saloon gettin beat up callin out to God. I swear, if the church folks went to the saloon and the drunks went to the church in the first place, it would make more sense!” Virgil laughed. Maureen sat with him and his wife, Mary, on his front porch. A pitcher of tea sat on the steps next to three empty glasses.

  “Well, I think I would be much better off here in Miami,” Maureen sighed. “I’m so de’pressed livin out in Goons anymore.”

  “Then why won’t you leave?”

  “I intend to.”

  “Mo’reen, you been leavin Goons since I come home. I been home four months now. You been foolin around with Black Jack tellin him all this mess about you movin on to Miami; how long you think Black Jack goin to wait on you to make up your mind?”

  “I am goin to leave, I’m tellin you. I just got to wait for the right time, that’s all.”

  “When is the right time?”

  “When Mama Ruby realize she can live without me.”

  Virgil looked at Maureen so long she became nervous.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked, shifting in her seat.

  “I don’t think you really want to leave Mama Ruby.”

  “You just watch me. You can get away from her, so can I. You changed, I can too. You use to be so different. Somethin like Mama Ruby. Full of nerve. Kind of crazy. Bold. You don’t seem like my same brother.”

  “What was he like before?” Mary asked, looking from Maureen to Virgil. Mary was a quiet and petite mulatto woman from Tampa. She had moved to Miami eight years previously to work in the factories. Her only sister, Sister Mary’s Sister, so named because during the time her mother carried her that was the only title used, worked with her. Sister Mary’s Sister was Maureen’s age, unmarried, and living alone. She was Maureen’s newest friend.

  “Before I went to the army, I’d never lived nowhere else but with Mama Ruby. Everything she said was gospel. Lord knows she said and done a lot of crazy stuff. And I was right there with her. I started seein things different. I knowed I had to get away from her, lest I end up just as crazy as she was. I learned a lot shet up in that prison. I hate to say it, but Mama Ruby is as crazy as a bessie bug, and I’ll tell her to her face,” Virgil said.

  “You ever thought about havin her put away?” Mary asked Virgil.

  Instead of answering, Virgil looked at Maureen. They both laughed.

  “I’d like to see the person who got enough nerve to try and put Mama Ruby in a nut house,” Maureen replied.

  “It ain’t right for Lo’raine and Lo’retta to be growin up around somebody like Mama Ruby. Them kids is the main reason you need to leave, Mo’reen.”

  “Virgil, I declare, I am goin to leave her. Real soon. I can’t stand the mess I’m in too much longer. I been havin headaches. I’m nervous. I can’t sleep. I can barely eat. I’m goin sho nuff crazy, yall,” Maureen complained.

  “Mo’reen,” Mary began, rising. She stood in front of Maureen and placed her hand on her shoulder. “Girl, we can help you. I got a piece of money from some property my daddy had. Virgil got him a good job. We could get you one of them furnished apartments and help you and them kids out till you can do better.”

  “And you’ll see more of Black Jack,” Virgil added.

  “You owe it to Lo’raine and Lo’retta, Mo’reen. Leave that place. Yellow Jack’s fixin to move into a apartment on Wilson Street,” Mary informed Maureen.

  “Sho nuff? I declare.” Maureen was really worried now. With Yellow Jack leaving Goons, she would have to depend mostly on Catty and Fast Black for company. She frowned at the thought.

  “I got a feelin somethin sho nuff bad is goin to happen if you don’t leave Mama Ruby soon,” Virgil warned.

  “Like what?”

  “Just about anything. Wherever Mama Ruby is, strange things have a way of happenin.”

  63

  Virgil, Mary, and Maureen left the porch and went into the living room. In the saloon next door Loomis, No Talk, and Fast Black shared a table in the center of the floor.

  “Ain’t that ole Boatwright comin this way?” Fast Black asked Loomis. They all looked toward a side entrance. Willie Boatwright was walking toward the table, leading a middle-aged, but very attractive, woman.

  “Evenin, Boatwright,” Loomis said, eyeing Boatwright’s companion. “Who that you got with you?”

  “I want yall to meet Othella Johnson from Silo,” Boatwright said.

  No Talk’s eyes slowly scanned Othella’s slim body. Loomis smiled and brushed off his lint-covered shirt. Othella smiled at the men.

  “Howdy do, yall,” Othella greeted. She had changed. Though her body was still youthful and firm, her once jet black hair was now completely white. Her skin was dry and spotted. Her eyes were vacant and her voice now trembled when she spoke. The years had been hard on her. Twenty years earlier all her children had perished in a fire that swept through her shabby house in Silo. Five years after that a jealous lover shot her in the foot, and she now walked with a noticeable limp. She had suffered two nervous breakdowns and had once been diagnosed as insane. Her current lover, a Silo dwarf called Midget, was Boatwright’s ha
lf brother.

  “Evenin, Miss Othella,” Loomis grinned, clearing his throat. Fast Black kicked his leg under the table. No Talk pulled out a dollar and waved it at Othella.

  “I declare,” she giggled. “I never knowed Miami had so many fancy men!”

  “This no-talkin fancy man belong to me,” Fast Black pointed out, giving Othella a hard look.

  “I don’t see your name on him,” Othella said, hand on her hip.

  Fast Black gasped.

  “How long you plannin to stay in this neck of the woods?” she asked.

  “That depends,” Othella said in a breathy voice, looking into Loomis’ eyes.

  “Shoot! You ain’t got to worry about Othella takin your man, Fast Black. She my brother’s woman. She is got too much class for somebody like No Talk anyway!” Boatwright interjected. “Othella is fifty-five years old!”

  “I ain’t worried about her takin my man. Can’t no woman take my man, lest I let her. I’m just worried about these other women in here. Miss Othella is got a pretty good shape on her. Shoot. I hope my shape be that good when I’m fifty-five!” Fast Black exclaimed.

  Loomis jerked his head around to face Fast Black.

  “Fast Black, your shape ain’t that good now.”

  “Don’t yall start no mess on my account,” Othella begged, raising her hand. “I just want to have me a little fun and get on back to Silo. I don’t like bein involved in no commotion. I’m fixin to find Midget—”

  Just then Midget walked up.

  “Othella, Boatwright, yall, we fixin to haul ass! Two niggers is fixin to cut one another up!” Midget announced.

  Before anyone could respond, all hell broke loose. Glasses started sailing through the air. Shots rang out. Women screamed. Men cursed. Fast Black prayed. Loomis grabbed Othella’s hand and followed Fast Black and No Talk as they climbed out a back window.

  Virgil, Mary, and Maureen hit the floor next door.

  “Sound like the gunfight at the OK Corral,” Maureen chuckled. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see Mama Ruby runnin out of there.”

  “Just listen to all that mess. There wasn’t this much commotion on the battlefield.” Virgil laughed.

  “I seen Fast Black and her bunch goin in there earlier. I know they mixed up in the mess some kind of way,” Mary said. “Mo’reen, run to the back door and take a look-see at my hens. Make certain they ain’t got scared and run wild.”

  Just as Maureen ran from the room, Virgil got up and went to the living room door. Fast Black was banging away. He opened it just wide enough to lean his head out.

  “What you want, woman?”

  “We need a Band-Aid! Boatwright’s brother’s woman from Silo got hit up side her head with a ashtray!”

  “I ain’t got no Band-Aids, Fast Black.”

  “Dammit to hell! Oh, Loomis, put Othella in Yellow Jack’s Cadillac. We’ll carry her out to Goons where Mama Ruby can doctor her,” Fast Black yelled as she ran off Virgil’s front porch.

  Virgil opened the door wide and went out to the porch. He felt his chest and held his breath. He recognized Othella immediately.

  “Oh, Virgil, the hens is OK,” Maureen yelled, running back to the living room.

  Virgil returned inside and slammed the door shut. Mary and Maureen gasped and ran to him.

  “What’s the matter? You look like you just seen a ghost,” Maureen whispered, grabbing his trembling hand.

  “I did, Mo’reen. I just seen a ghost.”

  64

  Ithought yall was goin to carry me to that Ruby woman’s house, fancy man,” Othella pouted. She lay next to Loomis in his lumpy bed, her legs wrapped around his.

  “Shoot. I go messin with Mama Ruby this time of night, she liable to bust my brains out. Why don’t you just go on to sleep anyway?” Loomis retorted.

  “I knowed I should have gone on with Midget. You done brought me out here and made a fool out of me. I’m layin up here in this lumpy bed in the dark with a fool. You men is all alike. You. Midget. Boatwright. All men. I bet Midget about to worry hisself to death wonderin where I went. He suppose to carry me back to Silo in the mornin. Shoot.”

  “Goddamn it, woman. Didn’t I tell you I’d carry you back to Silo myself. In my cousin’s jazzy Cadillac. First thing in the mornin.”

  Othella was silent for a full minute before replying.

  “I been thinkin. Fast Black say she’ll lend me some clothes, if I wanted to stay in Goons a few days. I just might take a notion and stay here a little while. A few days at least.”

  “That’s good. Now take your damn self to sleep. I got to work in the fields tomorrow.”

  Othella wrapped her arms around Loomis’ waist.

  “Fancy man, that Mama Ruby woman . . . what she look like?”

  “Like fifty miles of bad road,” Loomis grunted sleepily.

  “I want to see her. I use to know a woman they called Mama Ruby. I want to—”

  “Goddamn it, Othella! You been runnin off at the mouth for hours. Do you Silo women ever shet up?”

  “I ain’t no Silo woman. I’m originally from Shreveport, Louisiana,” Othella said proudly.

  Loomis sat up.

  “That’s the same place Mama Ruby come from,” he told Othella.

  Othella sat up.

  “The more I hear about this woman, the more she sound like a woman I use to know.”

  “She could be,” Loomis growled.

  “Course they could just be two women with the same name, huh? I doubt if this the same woman I use to know. Maybe it’s just somebody like her, huh, Loomis?”

  “Let me tell you one thing. Nowhere on this planet is there another woman like Mama Ruby.”

  65

  Roscoe ran what was considered a store in the living room of his compartment on the camp. In it he had an ice box and a counter containing items he sold. On the wall was a sign that read

  NO CREDIT BEVERAGES FOOD

  Mama Ruby Beer Gum

  Bobby Boatwright Pop Popsicles

  The Flatt Family Pot Liquor Beef Jerky

  Fast Black Buttermilk Potato Chips

  Loomis Moonshine Day-Old Tea Cakes

  Maureen stood at the counter waiting for Roscoe to bag a six-pack of beer Ruby had sent her to pick up. He was taking his time.

  “Roscoe, can you make haste? Mama Ruby can’t get her day started without a beer,” Maureen said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other impatiently.

  “OK, darlin,” Roscoe replied, not moving any faster.

  Loraine and Loretta stood near the door inspecting the potato chip rack on the counter.

  After handing Maureen the bag, Roscoe stood back and looked at her, then shook his head.

  “What’s the matter?” Maureen asked, feeling self-conscious.

  “Where was you last night?”

  “I spent the night at Virgil’s house. Why?”

  “Girl, when is you goin to slow down and get yourself married?” Roscoe placed his hands on his hips and gave Maureen a stern look.

  “Slow down? Roscoe, if I slowed down any more I’d be dead. What would I be slowin down from? Who you think I am, Fast Black or somebody?”

  “How old is you now? Thirty?”

  “I’m twenty-five, Roscoe, and you know it.”

  “And you ain’t never been married?”

  “No. But I know my ship’ll come in one day,” Maureen smiled.

  “Well if you was to ax me, I’d say your ship was the Titanic. I ain’t never in my life seen no—”

  “Thanks for the beer, Roscoe!” Maureen snapped, cutting him off.

  Roscoe was only teasing her, and she knew it. He loved her and wouldn’t do anything to hurt her. A widower for thirty years, Roscoe had no children of his own and had been eager to take in No Talk when he lost both his parents in an automobile accident at sixteen. When there was work, Roscoe worked in the fields, but he loved managing his little “store.”

  “Yall get off my counter!” Roscoe shoute
d at Loretta and Loraine. “These kids around here just keep my place in a mess.” Roscoe moved over to the potato chip rack and rearranged it. Loretta and Loraine ran to the doorway, giggling.

  “I’ll be seein you, Roscoe. Come on, kids,” Maureen said, on her way out the door. She smiled at Othella, who was entering.

  “Howdy do,” Othella said to Maureen. “Them your kids?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “They twins, ain’t they?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Twins run in my family. I had a twin brother. He died in the war. I had three uncles what had twins.”

  “Sho nuff?”

  “Sho nuff. I had me a bunch of kids one time.”

  “Oh? Where they at?”

  Othella looked down at the floor before replying.

  “They burned up one night when my house caught on fire,” Othella replied, looking in Maureen’s eyes.

  “I declare, lady. That’s too bad. Can’t you have no more kids?”

  “I’d like to. The thing is, I’m a little long in the tooth to be havin babies,” Othella laughed. “My last one was born dead. She was the prettiest little ole thing I ever had.”

  Maureen shook her head in pity and excused herself as she and the twins left.

  Othella looked out the screen door at them walking toward Duquennes Road. Then she turned to Roscoe.

  “Hi, Roscoe.”

  “Howdy, Othella. I see you made it through the night. After that commotion in Miami, I bet you rarin to get on back to Silo, huh?”

  “I might hang around a few days. I kind of like Loomis and his friends. I’m glad now he brought me to your store to get that beer last night. I want to meet some of his other friends.”

  “Oh, we a nice bunch out here. We mind our own business. We Christians. We all got more than we need.” Roscoe liked Othella. She was a pleasant woman with a nice smile. He could not imagine what she saw in a rogue like Loomis. “It sho nuff is good to see you again, Othella.” Roscoe reached over his counter to touch her hand.

  “Loomis sent me for more beer, Roscoe,” she smiled.

  “Comin right up!” Roscoe lifted his ice box top and removed the beer.