Mama Day

by Gloria Naylor

  And I didn’t, did I? I dug back to wherever in our history I had to get it, and let it put my body on remote control. I never missed a beat—my steps didn’t falter, my voice stayed even, I nodded where I should have, stuck in a question now and then, my hands didn’t even sweat—cool. And when you got to that business about “she’d stopped being a redhead with freckles and had just become Shawn,” I thought about how lucky you were that you weren’t walking there with my friend Selma. Because you were really a nice guy. And Selma wouldn’t have heard the pain in your voice—you just weren’t the type to turn your back on five years of a woman’s life with a collect phone call. You brought more than an open zipper into a relationship, and Selma just couldn’t have heard that it was all that work you regretted going down the drain. No, not Selma, hailing from Selma, Alabama. Selma who at twenty-one had come to New York with a bad accent and a bad attitude, knowing she had to lose one and keep the other if those bastards weren’t going to get the best of her. And fourteen years later she had the best—and not one of you to share it with her, or likely to. Because after all, Lord knows, there’s nothing worse than a colored woman with a bad attitude.

  Oh, Selma would have let you begin, but what you had to say would not compute. And by the time you got to that redhead-with-freckles shit, circuits would be popping, wires shooting fire all over the place. And you’d have found that copy of King Lear stuffed into a hole so small, Blue Cross wouldn’t cover its removal. That is, after she had cut you up with some down-home truths: I bet you had to go sniveling around two dozen before you “chanced into” this special one. Did she meet you in her anthropology course? I hear y’all are a lot easier for them to housebreak than chimpanzees. Or did her shrink tell her that the only way to get you out of her nightmares was to screw you? Maybe she’s one of those affirmative action nymphomaniacs—running through you like water, looking for that ever elusive nine-inch thrill? She musta been awful disappointed, huh? But don’t despair, baby, she’ll go on trying, thinking that you and the last two hundred were only the small exception to the rule. No doubt about it, Selma would have lost her cool.

  But, see, I was from Willow Springs and brought up by some very shrewd old women. And as Selma’s spirit was tearing up trees and smashing benches in Riverside Park, I heard my grandmother’s gentle voice: Cocoa, a real lady never has to get mad—if she knows how to get even. And I was already a little more than even. The man was walking with me, holding my hand, telling me about his problems with her. I didn’t care if she was Helen of Troy or the reincarnation of Venus de Milo, she wasn’t there—and she was losing him. I knew the quickest way for me to drop him back into her lap would be to force him to defend their relationship. Because if he had to do that, wasn’t she his closest ally?

  “I’m sure she’s a wonderful woman, George.”

  “She is. And so are you, especially for listening.”

  “Anytime—and I mean that. I wouldn’t wish what you’re going through now on a dog.”

  “You know, you’re being very understanding.”

  “Hey, look, who’s the guy that’s been dragging me all over this city when there must have been other things you could’ve been doing with your mornings.”

  “No, I’ve enjoyed every minute of it, Ophelia. It’s just that …”

  “It’s just that you’re a little confused. And I’m really flattered that I mean enough to you to be part of that confusion. And you were afraid that I might misunderstand—it’s not an issue of black and white, although the crazy, sick world we live in makes it so important. You’re not out to hurt me—still, you owe her an awful lot. So what you need right now is space, to work things over in your head. Well, you’ve got it from me. We can end these meetings, your mission has been more than accomplished.”

  While you were still stunned from relief that I’d spared you from having to say all that, I went in for the kill—planted both feet on the ground, a hand to your shoulder to steady the target before focusing my baby browns and aiming right between your eyes—“I don’t have to see you again. You’ve already turned me into a better woman.” No, I hadn’t misfired, your mind was blown so far up in the air, it was going to take a while for the dust to settle. Selma, honey, calm yourself—this one is a goner.

  The games people play. I wasn’t coming to your apartment the following Tuesday night to talk about King Lear. You knew it, I knew it, and why we couldn’t just come out and say it, God knows. I hated tiptoeing around the facts of life, probably because of the way I’d been trained. Mrs. Jackson never catered to the romantic side of the birds and the bees. There were no cutesy posters hanging up in the rec room where we all had to meet once a week for hygiene hour; two ugly blowups of the skinned male and female anatomy were taped on the blackboard. And if anybody dozed off during one of her dry lectures about “procreative responsibility,” they’d wake up fast enough in the end when she whacked our half of the blowups with her pointer. You had to cringe for that poor headless guy, getting it straight across the balls—“A final word, gentlemen: keep it in your pants or you’ll pay through your pocket.”

  But I found out most women just didn’t have Mrs. Jackson’s pragmatism about the whole thing. Come right out and tell her what you were both thinking half an hour after meeting someone you’ve clicked with, and you’re a pig. No, you had to join her in fantasy land, and each one had a different threshold for you to cross over: she wanted to be pretty, to be intellectual, to be engrossing, to be adored, needed—special. She wanted to be anything but a skinned-down poster on Mrs. Jackson’s blackboard. And they’re all waiting with some form of that inevitable question, “What is it about me personally that turns you on?” So depending upon the woman, you pick one of the above. And if you lucked into the right answer, it could take anywhere from an hour to a couple of weeks to finally get down to the business at hand. But you’re getting absolutely nowhere if you give them the truth: How can there be anything personal about you to turn me on? At this stage of the game, it’s my own hormones. See, then you’re a smart ass, and even one of those “liberated” ladies will swivel around on her bar stool and find someone else to tell her what she wants to hear.

  And when you have an inkling that someone could be special, even though she’s one of a hundred who happens to be pretty, or smart, etcetera—that takes time to find out. And if you wait for that to develop naturally before asking them to go to bed, they start wondering if something’s wrong with you. You’re a fag or a wimp. So what’s a guy to do? When women run around screaming that men lie to them, it’s because we’ve learned that they want—or even need—to be lied to. They aren’t programmed to accept the fact that in the beginning, sex is sex.

  So there we were with King Lear on our laps, and no, I didn’t want to unravel the symbolism in Act Three, I wanted to jump on your bones. I had wanted to from the moment I walked in the door and saw that you weren’t wearing a bra under that red silk halter. You didn’t need one, you were small up top. And the matching floor-length lounging skirt—now what was that supposed to prove? But you looked fantastic in red. Black women of any shade should live in bright colors—it deepens their skin, and the deeper, the better. Still, I kept imagining how you were going to look soon without any of that stuff on. The question for the evening was how soon. We’d gotten through the preliminaries: I had admired the skillful arrangement of your furniture in that cramped space, and those woven baskets hanging around with dried flowers were actually very lovely. Gifts from home, you said, and your great-aunt even made the cologne you were wearing. God bless her, because you filled the air with lavender every time you moved. I then sat down and had my obligatory glass of mint tea—it was nice that neither of us drank or smoked. I’d never tasted mint that sweet and strong. Also from home, you said. It was amazing what your great-aunt could do with herbs and plants. But didn’t I want to get into the play now? Yes, that’s exactly what I wanted to do, but instead we opened our copies of King Lear.

 
I guess my well-worn edition helped to prolong your nonsense. I’d gone through Lear uncountable times. It had a special poignancy for me, reading about the rage of a bastard son, my own father having disappeared long before I was born. Even if he was the type of man to care, he didn’t—and couldn’t—know that I had been conceived. Under my mother’s circumstances there was no way for him to dream of such a thing. It came as a shock when you opened up and told me that you cried when you first read through the play. It seemed that although your parents were married, your father had taken off before you were born, too. And you were so glad I’d turned you on to this. It showed you how hard the playwright tried to convey that men had the same feelings as women. No, that was not true. No way. Along with The Taming of the Shrew, this had to be Shakespeare’s most sexist treatment of women—but far be it from me to contradict anything you had to say. I didn’t want to waste any more time than necessary for you to work yourself up to untying the strings on that red halter. I had to admit I was touched by your sharing that part of your life with me—more than I had been willing to do—and filed it away for a later date. But I was starting to get a little impatient when we reached Act Three and you had settled yourself into the other end of the couch for a long discussion on symbolism.

  “You know,” I said, “I can identify with this line: ‘None but the fool who labors to outjest his heart-struck injuries.’ I have an injured heart.”

  “I can imagine—you’re such a nice guy, a lot of women must have run over you.”

  “No, I mean a real injured heart. I caught rheumatic fever when I was a kid, and now I have a murmur.”

  “Oh, my God, is that dangerous?”

  “Not if I’m careful. I don’t get overtired, watch what I eat, get plenty of moderate exercise.”

  “But it’s so frightening, thinking of something going wrong with that part of your body.”

  “That’s because people don’t understand. The heart’s a muscle, that’s all. And we go around fine with other weak muscles—in an ankle or a thigh.”

  “Yes, but you’re talking about—”

  “I’m talking about nothing but a slight inconvenience, which stops being even that with a small adjustment in your life. Two pills a day, and I’ve learned to listen for any irregularities. Come here, Ophelia, I’ll show you.”

  You moved over from your cushion and shared mine. I placed my hand flat on the left side of your chest. “Now, a normal heart would sound and beat like yours: lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub. But listen to mine …”

  I put your ear to my chest, cradling your neck gently with my right hand. “Can you hear it? Lub-dub-swish, lub-dub-swish …”

  “Oh, George, that’s so awful.” You raised your face, a breath away as I kept my hand on your neck. I moved my thumb gently up and down, collarbone to chin, to erase that worried pout.

  “Nooo, it’s not.” A light touch of lips. “Imagine a pipeline with a tiny leak. The blood flows in, it leaks out a little. Flows in, and leaks out a little. As long as too much blood isn’t pressured in, the hole gets no larger, and the leak stays small.”

  “But that means you can’t get too excited or anything.”

  “Oh, you mean like now?” This kiss was long, moist, and deep. “Yes, that’s true,” I whispered as my thumb slid down to encircle the nipple straining to burst through the red silk. “But it also means that from here on in, we take it slow and easy.”

  Miranda’s kitchen floor is strewn with pots and pans. There’s only so much space in them little trailers, and she’s gotta clear her pantry ’cause it’s only three weeks till Candle Walk—there’ll be so much stuff she’ll have no place to put it.

  “I think I’m gonna have to start storing my gifts out at the other place,” she tells Abigail, who’s sitting at her table with a large bowl in her lap. Abigail is making sweet orange rocks; she plans taking them out on Candle Walk. She buys a large sack of fresh oranges around the first of December, punches holes in the fruit, and studs them all over with cloves. Sprinkling a few tablespoons of powdered orris root into her bowl, she rolls her orange all around in it before dropping it in a paper bag that’ll sit in her cedar chest for the next few weeks to dry. She’s gotta make a good three dozen, ’cause folks been greeting her all week. “Come my way, Candle Walk.” They love them sweet orange rocks. One will keep a room or closet smelling good all year. Hear they’re called pomanders in other parts, but that don’t stop the folks in Willow Springs from calling them what they want, just like old Reverend Hooper couldn’t stop Candle Walk night. He ain’t been the first to try—that’s what happens when you get them outside preachers who think they know more than they do. When you open up your mouth too much, something stupid’s bound to come out, talking about folks should call it Christmas. Any fool knows Christmas is December twenty-fifth—that ain’t never caught on too much here. And Candle Walk is always the night of the twenty-second. Been that way since before Reverend Hooper and it’ll be that way after him.

  “I guess I could clear out the shed over there, but I’d hate to start on that.” Miranda sighs.

  For years Miranda ain’t had to greet, “Come my way, Candle Walk.” Folks use that night to thank her. Bushels of cabbage, tomatoes, onions, and beets. A mountain of jams, jellies, and pickled everything. Sides of beef, barrels of fish, and enough elderberry wine to swim in. The ginger cakes ain’t worth mentioning—the ginger cookies, pudding, and drops. And from the younger folks who don’t quite understand, new hats, bolts of cloth, even electric toasters.

  “Hope I don’t get another automobile.” Miranda laughs. “Remember that little Tatum boy, fixing up that old Ford? Now, how he figure that to come out of the earth—guess folks don’t explain to their children like they used to. He was a cute thing, though. And his leg healed so good—can’t imagine him over six feet tall and a daddy now. They gave that new one a funny name—what was it, Keisha or something?”

  She don’t get an answer and looks over at the table. “Abigail, you ain’t heard a word I said. And you done rolled that orange twenty times.”

  Abigail glances down at her lap. “Lord have mercy, I was a million miles away.” She drops the orange in a bag and goes to wash her hands at the sink. “I was worried about the new letter we got from Baby Girl. What we supposed to make of that?”

  “I told you it was just some of her foolishness.”

  Abigail takes the letter out of her pocket. Reads it again and frowns. “But I still don’t know how we gonna answer this part: ‘I met a man. He’s no good. And it’s over.’ Now, we can say, ‘We are very glad you met a man. We are sorry he’s no good.’ But, then, should we be glad or sorry it’s over?”

  “Abigail, Abigail, Abigail.” Miranda shakes her head. “Don’t you know Baby Girl by now? That don’t sound to me like nothing but a temper tantrum. This is probably the same man who in the last letter she was having such a lovely time seeing New York with. And in one single month—he’s no good, and it’s over. She’s hard-headed and she’s spoiled, and this is one who won’t let her have her way. I’m starting to like him already.”

  “Well, it seems he ain’t around no more for you to like or dislike.”

  “Uh, huh. You think about it. In seven years, we get a letter a month—not counting September, ’cause she’s just been home. That makes in my calculation … seventy-seven letters. Now, in all them letters, how many times did she mention who she was seeing—named or unnamed? How many, Abigail?”

  “I can’t recollect.”

  “You can’t recollect ’cause there ain’t been a one—excepting this one. And she’s always going out, ’cause she’ll come here and talk about ’em if you press her. And you know me, I press. But this is the first time she’s written us about one. And whoever the boy is, God bless him, ’cause he’s shaking her up—and she needs a good shaking. Baby Girl’s got a strong will, Abigail, strong as mine. And it’s gonna take a strong man to do her. Sure sparks are flying up there—that’s what happens when
like meets like. But I’ll lay you even money on one thing, when we hear about him again, he’ll have a name.”

  “So what we gonna tell her in the letter?”

  “We’ll tell her …” Miranda studies for a moment. “You know, we’re gonna play us a little game. Tell her that we are extremely happy that this is over. Because the last thing she needs is a no-good man. Yeah”—Miranda nods—“let’s tell her that.”

  Candle Walk night. Looking over here from beyond the bridge, you might believe some of the more far-fetched stories about Willow Springs: The island got spit out from the mouth of God, and when it fell to the earth it brought along an army of stars. He tried to reach down and scoop them back up, and found Himself shaking hands with the greatest conjure woman on earth. “Leave ’em here, Lord,” she said. “I ain’t got nothing but these poor black hands to guide my people, but I can lead on with light.” Nothing but a story, and if there’s an ounce of truth in it, it can’t weigh even that much. Over here nobody knows why every December twenty-second folks take to the road—strolling, laughing, and talking—holding some kind of light in their hands. It’s been going on since before they were born, and the ones born before them.

  This year is gonna be a good one, ’cause the weather’s held and there ain’t no rain. A lot of the older heads can bring out their real candles, insisting that’s the way it was done in the beginning. They often take exception to the younger folks who will use kerosene lamps or sparklers, rain or no rain. They say it’s a lot more pleasant than worrying about hot wax dropping on your hands. The younger ones done brought a few other changes that don’t sit too well with some. Used to be when Willow Springs was mostly cotton and farming, by the end of the year it was common knowledge who done turned a profit and who didn’t. And with a whole heap of children to feed and clothe, winter could be mighty tight for some. And them being short on cash and long on pride, Candle Walk was a way of getting help without feeling obliged. Since everybody said, “Come my way, Candle Walk,” sort of as a season’s greeting and expected a little something, them that needed a little more got it quiet-like from their neighbors. And it weren’t no hardship giving something back—only had to be any bit of something, as long as it came from the earth and the work of your own hands. A bushel of potatoes and a cured side of meat could be exchanged for a plate of ginger cookies, or even a cup of ginger toddy. It all got accepted with the same grace, a lift of the candle and a parting whisper, “Lead on with light.”