by Mary Monroe
Ruby sat on the living room sofa and Maureen sat on the footstool by the window.
“Close the door. Somethin tells me it’s fixin to get sho nuff cold in here,” Ruby said.
Maureen reached over, shut the door, and turned back to face Ruby.
“When my mama was pregnant with me, a strange preacher man come around on a wagon, sellin used Bibles. Mama wouldn’t buy one, on account of she said they might be stole. Won’t nothin bring the devil in a house quicker than a stole Bible. Anyway, the man come back later on and gave Papa one of the Bibles for free . . . that’s how the devil got his foot in our door.
“Lightnin struck the house that night and I was born, premature. I had a full set of teeth . . . scales on my hands and feet like a serpent. I had webbed toes up until I was five and Mama got me operated on. They say when I got old enough to talk, I had the voice of a man. You see, Mo’reen, I was marked by that stole Bible. That conflicted with me bein a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter and havin healin hands. When I was two, I told Papa to his face I was the devil.”
“You told me that same thing.” Maureen coughed.
“I remember tellin you that, and I wasn’t lyin. My bosom is a battleground for good and evil,” Ruby said, placing her hand on her chest and pressing down hard. “All my life I been straddlin that thin line what divides good and evil. I got Jesus in front of me and in back of me but I got Lucifer on my right . . . and on my left. I axed God for me a second chance, to be born all over. He answered my prayer by givin me you, you is me all over again. You is my second chance. I axed him to make me beautiful the next time. Lord knows you is sharp as a tack. Havin you with me, I feel like I’m the beauty queen myself, you got so many good looks, Mo’reen. You is sort of like a special delivery to me from the Lord. Ain’t no way I can let you go. If you ever do leave me, you’ll be takin away a part of me . . . the part that keeps me alive. Don’t you see why it’s so important for us to live together, forever and ever?”
Maureen stood up.
“Mo’reen, now do you understand me better?”
“What about me? If God made me to be you all over, what I get out of this deal? I don’t like bein you.”
“You ain’t heard a word I just said. You ain’t no regular person. Just like Jesus wasn’t. He was sent here for a special reason. He never married and nothin. He never had no girlfriend or nothin. He was happy.”
“I ain’t Jesus. I didn’t want this. All I want is to live a normal life like other women. I want to get married and grow old and die like everybody else. I don’t want to be no special person livin just so somebody else can have a second time. What about a first time for me?”
“Can’t you see what I’m tryin to tell you? You wasn’t born for the same reasons as Catty or Fast Black. You was a special order. I axed for you, special made. You have to live up to that. You have to, Mo’reen!”
“I’m fixin to go to the upper room,” Maureen sighed. She left Ruby in the living room, but during the night, after Maureen had fallen asleep, Ruby entered the upper room and saw that Maureen had packed a suitcase and set it on the floor.
77
Ruby did not sleep that night. She did not even go to bed. When Maureen came downstairs the next morning holding Loretta’s hand and carrying the suitcase, Ruby was on the sofa staring at the wall.
“Mama Ruby, we fixin to leave. Yellow Jack just drove up. He . . . he the one carryin me and Lo’retta to Miami. I’m takin that job Virgil been tellin me about and that furnished apartment. Virgil and Sister Mary paid the first and last month’s rent for me.” Maureen’s hands trembled and her heart pounded against her chest.
A long silence followed and Maureen felt a chill as she waited for Ruby’s response.
Ruby turned her head mechanically to face Maureen.
“I can’t believe this! I can’t believe you leavin me—”
“Mama Ruby, I am leavin you! I’m sho nuff gettin out of here for good! I want a life of my own!”
“A life of your own? AFTER ALL YOU BEEN TAUGHT?! How long you think you’ll survive out there in that world without me?!”
“I don’t care what you say. You ain’t stoppin me, Mama Ruby.”
“No, no, noooooo!” Ruby cried, shaking her head. She slapped herself against the face with both hands, then started pulling at her hair. “Aaaarrrggghhhh!”
“Stop that!” Maureen shouted, stomping her foot. “You goin to hurt yourself! Please stop, Mama Ruby,” Maureen begged, backing away, pulling Loretta, who was now in tears herself, with her. Ruby stood up, waving her heavy arms threateningly.
“Aaaarrrggghhhh—oooooooh!” Ruby cried. Her eyes crossed and she started walking in a slow, zombielike manner toward Maureen. With her arms in the air, Ruby was a gruesome spectacle. Loretta and Maureen looked at her with wide eyes, their mouths hanging open. Ruby began making low, guttural sounds, moving like a Frankenstein’s monster. If it had not been such a serious situation, Maureen would have laughed.
“Mama Ruby, be reasonable,” Maureen pleaded as she eased closer to the door.
“Aaaarrrggghhhh!” Ruby yelled. Loretta screamed and hid behind Maureen. Ruby was still moving toward them, now walking like a mechanical toy soldier.
“I declare, I ain’t never seen you act like this. You done cracked up, sho nuff, Mama Ruby!” Maureen yelled. She turned to run. With Loretta close behind, she ran to the door, snatched it open, and fled, with Ruby still in pursuit.
“Oooohhhh!” Ruby shouted, now running with her arms outstretched. Loretta made it off the porch, but Ruby caught Maureen. Maureen dropped the suitcase as Ruby’s arms went around her waist. “DON’T DO IT, MO’REEN! CAN’T YOU SEE WHAT IT’S DOIN TO ME? I LOVE YOU!”
“Turn me loose, Mama Ruby!” Maureen ordered, struggling with the madwoman. She managed to get free and off the porch. Yellow Jack started the car.
“Come on here, Mo’reen!” he screamed. “Mama Ruby’ll kill us all!”
“Yellow Jack—help me!” Maureen cried, still running as fast as she could toward the car. Loretta had crawled into the backseat and was now huddled in a corner crying hysterically.
“Mo’reen, don’t leave me. I’ll do anything you tell me to do!” Ruby shouted. She was gaining on Maureen. Maureen almost made it to the car. When she turned to look at Ruby, she saw she had left her suitcase on the porch.
“Great balls of fire!” Maureen hollered, looking back to the car and Yellow Jack.
“Come on, Mo’reen!” Yellow Jack called.
“I got to get my suitcase!” Maureen replied. She had stopped running and was standing in one spot shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She ducked as Ruby reached out to grab her and started running back to the porch.
“Aaarrrgghhhh!” Ruby continued, close behind Maureen.
Maureen retrieved her baggage and jumped over the porch bannister to elude Ruby. Instead of running off the porch by way of the steps, Ruby jumped over the bannister as Maureen had. The big woman’s agility made Yellow Jack whistle, and even more frightened. There was no limit to what a woman like Ruby could do; her size was not as much of a handicap as people believed it to be. Maureen leaped into the car over the trunk. She was extremely thankful that Yellow Jack’s car was a permanent convertible. Maureen landed awkwardly in the backseat with Loretta, but quickly tumbled over the seat, where she installed herself next to Yellow Jack.
“DRIVE!” Maureen yelled. Yellow Jack stepped on the gas and the old car started to move, slowly easing up the hill with Ruby running behind.
“Aaaarrrggghhh!” Ruby cried. Miraculously, she caught up with the car and was running along beside it, reaching for Maureen. “YOU CAN’T GO! PLEASE DON’T DO THIS TO ME, MO’REEN! I’LL CHANGE! I’LL BE WHAT YOU WANT ME TO BE!”
“Faster!” Maureen shouted at Yellow Jack, pulling at his shirt sleeve. “She’ll kill you if she catch us, Yellow Jack! You know she will!”
“Have mercy!” Yellow Jack screamed. He stepped on the gas s
ome more. The car was temperamental and not in the best condition. He stomped on the gas pedal and this time the car shot off like a bullet, with Ruby still close beside it. It was too bizarre to believe. The gigantic woman ran like a gazelle, so desperate that she ignored the laws and confines of physical endurance. Finally, the car was far in front of Ruby. Loretta wailed, still huddled on the backseat crying. Maureen sobbed quietly as she watched Ruby running behind the car, until Ruby was no more than a big black dot.
78
The months came and went. Before Maureen realized it, she had been away from Goons six months. She had not seen or heard from Ruby. Too afraid to return home for a visit, she depended on Virgil and Yellow Jack to keep her informed of Ruby’s activities.
“You certain you gave Mama Ruby my phone number and address, Virgil?” Maureen asked the Sunday before the Fourth of July.
“I axed Mama Ruby to her face when she was goin to call or visit you and she just looked up side my head. Then she said you wasn’t never goin to have no good luck.”
“I see,” Maureen mumbled.
Bored with her job, and lonely in her dull apartment, Maureen spent most of her time with a neighbor and coworker, Gladys Goode, a plain unmarried Christian woman of forty-five.
“Sister Goode, sometime it seem like I went from bad to worse. My mama mad as a Russian cause I left and treat me like a in-law. My man gone off, married to some other woman. Folks don’t bring me nothin but bad news.”
“Mo’reen, it takes time for things to level out. Take this job here. I been filling lobster orders nigh on to ten years. It ain’t no picnic. But before my life was a hog trough. The wrong men and bad company kept me in a pickle. Then I found Jesus. I ain’t had the misery since.”
Maureen looked at her friend for a long time. The lobster factory was located in a cul-de-sac on Preston Street near the docks. Assigned to a small office with a huge window, Maureen sat daydreaming off and on every day as she watched the ships come and go. Her friend Gladys and the two other women who worked in the same office had little in common with Maureen. Being considerably older and bitter, these women concentrated on the church and the lobster orders. Maureen was the only one with a child.
Loretta seemed as unhappy as Maureen. Maureen came home from work every day and found the girl staring at the wall.
“Lo’retta, do you like bein in the city?” Maureen asked one dark Friday evening.
“Naw.”
“Do you miss Mama Ruby?”
Loretta shrugged.
“I think so. It was fun seein her beat up on folks. When we lived with her, I knowed wasn’t nobody ever goin to mess with us. Now, I’m kind of scared. . . .”
Maureen also missed the security Ruby had provided.
“Well, we ain’t done nothin to nobody. Ain’t nobody got no reason to mess with us,” Maureen replied.
79
Yellow Jack now worked as a truck driver, delivering fruit and vegetables from the camps to the produce markets in Miami. Sister Mary’s Sister, an attractive woman with curly brown hair and light brown eyes, was Maureen’s closest friend and Yellow Jack’s latest love interest. He spent most of his free time at her apartment, which was a few blocks from Maureen’s.
“Yellow Jack told me you done lost your job already, Mo’reen,” Sister Mary’s Sister said, sitting on a bench to Maureen’s right, at Logan’s Beach. Yellow Jack sat to Maureen’s left.
“And they never really told me why. I axed Sister Goode what she knowed about it. All she told me was that the folks said I had to go.” Maureen laughed dryly.
“What you goin to do about money?” Sister Mary’s Sister asked.
“Virgil and Sister Mary and Sister Goode say they’ll pay my bills until I find another job,” Maureen answered. “You know somethin, Yellow Jack?”
“What’s that, Mo’reen?”
“If I didn’t know no better, I’d swear Mama Ruby had somethin to do with me losin my job. I been on a down slide ever since I moved to Miami.” Maureen drank from a bottle of cola and turned to face Yellow Jack.
“Oh, I don’t think Mama Ruby would do nothin that low-down and dirty,” Sister Mary’s Sister said.
Yellow Jack and Maureen looked at her at the same time.
“You don’t know Mama Ruby,” Yellow Jack said.
Not only had Ruby and Fast Black, Loomis, No Talk, and Big Red paid Maureen’s supervisor at the lobster factory a visit, they had forced Maureen’s landlord to give Ruby a key to Maureen’s apartment.
“Day before yestiddy, I come home from the meat market and somebody done been in my place and broke my rented television and cooked a chicken and ate it—even left a sink full of dirty dishes! They cut up one of my good blouses and stole my Ray Charles album! Lo’retta told me one day she seen a man’s legs crawlin out my kitchen window! Last week somebody went in there and left a pile of shit in my commode and didn’t flush it, then ripped my phone out the wall!”
“This happened in broad daylight?!” Yellow Jack asked.
“Sho nuff did. Sister Goode say she seen a bunch of ugly folks leavin, walkin out my door like they owned half the world.”
“Did you call the po’lice?” Sister Mary’s Sister asked in a quiet voice.
Maureen shook her head slowly.
“Since when is the law got jurisdiction where the devil concerned?” Maureen asked.
They left the beach and returned to Maureen’s apartment.
“Mama, come see what somebody done! I come home from the playground and stepped in a pile of mess in the kitchen!” Loretta hollered as Maureen, Yellow Jack, and Sister Mary’s Sister entered.
“What in the world done happened now?” Maureen cried, rushing to the kitchen.
Four bushel baskets containing cow manure and chicken bones sat in the middle of the floor. Big piles of the manure had been carefully placed in front of the baskets.
“Great balls of fire!” Maureen sighed, almost laughing.
“Who could have done somethin like this?” Yellow Jack asked. He walked on in and went to the baskets to inspect the contents closer. “This is sho nuff crazy!”
Yellow Jack looked at Maureen and shook his head.
“Is we goin to move, Mama? It seem like every day somethin different happen!” Loretta said.
“I ain’t goin no place,” Maureen replied.
80
In September, Fast Black and Catty started visiting Maureen on a weekly basis, each time showering her with detailed accounts of their activities. Fights, robberies, and thefts were nothing unusual for Fast Black, so Maureen wasn’t surprised when Fast Black revealed her latest activities.
“I went up side No Talk’s head with a skillet the other night for goin through my pocketbook. He been jealous since I got me a job workin for Mama Ruby. We been sellin beer like Mama Ruby use to do when she first come to Goons,” Fast Black informed Maureen.
“How is she?” Maureen asked tiredly. She stood leaning against her living room door as Catty and Fast Black shared the sofa.
“Doin real good!” Catty said quickly, looking at Maureen out of the corner of her eye.
“That’s wonderful,” Maureen replied with a smile.
“That’s Jesus,” Catty reminded. “If you ain’t got Jesus, you ain’t got nothin.”
“Ain’t it so,” Fast Black added, clapping her hands and shaking her head.
“Mo’reen, when is you goin to come to your senses?” Catty asked.
Maureen gave her a surprised look.
“What you mean?”
“Mo’reen, you know what Catty mean. If you was my girl I’d have you put in a home! Runnin off like you done!”
“I’m a grown woman, Fast Black. Can’t nobody do nothin to me,” Maureen snapped.
Catty rose, grabbing the denim shoulder bag she brought with her.
“Mama Ruby said you done got too big for your britches. That brown-eyed wench Sister Mary’s Sister done it to you. Bitch!” Catty spat.
&nbs
p; “You just hate Sister Mary’s Sister cause she got Yellow Jack sewed up, Catty!”
“I wouldn’t have Yellow Jack!” Catty yelled.
“What’s wrong with Yellow Jack?” Fast Black asked angrily, giving Catty a dirty look. “What’s so wrong with my boy you don’t want him, Catty?”
“What’s wrong with him? Ha! I’d like to tell you what’s wrong with your son, missy!”
Fast Black slapped Catty hard across the face and Catty grabbed a handful of her hair.
“Oh shit!” Maureen complained. “Hey! Yall get out of my house with that mess! You want Lo’retta to walk in on yall actin like fools?”
Fast Black and Catty stopped suddenly and started straightening their clothes and hair.
“Now. Like I was sayin, Mo’reen, that Sister Mary’s Sister the one got you so high-and-mighty these days,” Catty continued.
“Don’t you be comin to my house talkin about my friend, Catty,” Maureen warned, shaking her fist in Catty’s direction. “You can leave right now!”
Catty and Fast Black gasped and stormed out the door, whispering and glancing back as Maureen stood on her front porch with her arms folded.
Several hours later, Maureen turned in for the night. She was depressed and lonesome. It had been weeks since she lost her job and so far she had been unable to secure another one. She cried a lot over Loraine and found herself missing Black Jack. She had awakened the night before clutching a pillow between her legs after having dreamed of him.
Music coming from a tavern at the end of the street sometimes kept Maureen from sleeping at night and she would wake up, off and on, sometimes getting only two or three hours’ sleep. This particular night, the music had kept her up until one A.M. When she finally dozed off, she was awakened by the ringing of her telephone. She picked up the phone on the fifth ring.
“Hello,” she said sleepily.
There was no answer.
“I said HELLO!” She spoke hard and held the receiver with both hands.
Her room was small and accommodated only her twin bed, the end table, and a three-drawer dresser. A picture of Jesus hung on the wall over her bed.