Also by
J. California Cooper
A Piece of Mine
Homemade Love
Some Soul to Keep
Family
The Matter Is Life
In Search of Satisfaction
FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS TRADE PAPERBACK EDITION, OCTOBER 1996
Copyright © 1995 by J. California Cooper
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Doubleday in 1995. The Anchor Books edition is reprinted by arrangement with Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.
Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is purely coincidental.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Doubleday edition as follows:
Cooper, J. California.
Some love, some pain, sometime / J. California Cooper
p. cm.
1. United States—Social life and customs—20th century—Fiction.
2. Man-woman relationships—United States—Fiction.
I. Title.
PS3553.05874S55 1995
813’.54—dc20
94-45833
eISBN: 978-0-307-77861-1
www.anchorbooks.com
v3.1
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to my editor, Arabella Meyer, for her understanding, consideration and wise counsel. She helped me in many ways; I learned. My appreciation and gratitude to her and all those who worked with her on my book.
I thank my daughter for her understanding ways and her helpful heart.
I am grateful for the support of Mrs. Geraldine Payne of Marshall, Texas, Ms. Rebecca Carroll of New York and Ms. Ruth Beckford, author, of Oakland, CA. You both were wonderfully smart.
I thank all of the readers of my books. You are, everyone, magnificent to me. I really thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Dedicated with Love to
Joseph C. and Maxine MIMI Cooper, my parents
Paris A. Williams, my chile
John E. Walker and William Scott,
best brothers-in-law
My wonderful spirit-sister Willita T. Reagan and husband, John
Special and Extraordinary Others
Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Thurgood Marshall
Carl Sandburg, poet Louis L’Amour, author
Lena Horne Tina Turner Wadie Amar
Gloria K. Duggan John Brown Nat Turner,
abolitionist Dr. Carla Harris Sweet Alice Harris
Gloria Toolsie Charlesetta McMillan
Mother Clara Hale Karen Boates
Green Chimneys, Children’s Service
Earth Island Institute Mary Alice Bomar
Piney Woods, African-American School
Emma Rogers and Candace
My Chickens
Mr. McAdoo, Mr. Doo, Ms. Bertha, Ms. Mamie,
Ms. Chick, Ms. Shirley, Ms. Chanel, Betty Boo,
Mr. Roos, Little Ms. Mimi
Especially
To all those who love and fight for the very young, the very old, trees, animals, water and all living things we are losing from the earth.
I Love You
For all the wonderful things you do to fight the mindless, the heartless and the careless.
Author’s Note
It is rather obvious why I chose this title. I believe it is what life is much of the time. When I think of great lovers in history, there was always some pain involved. Maybe not for everyone, but most likely.
I, also, think Love is beautiful and feels good. I think what some people do with it, who do not know what they are doing, is what makes it painful … sometimes.
Listen to this poem:
Love entered in my heart one day
A sad, unwelcome guest.
But when it begged that it might stay
I let it stay and rest.
It broke my nights with sorrowing
It filled my heart with fears
And, when my soul was prone to sing,
It filled my eyes with tears.
But … now that it has gone its way,
I miss the dear ole pain.
And, sometimes, in the night I pray
That Love might come again.
So maybe it is not Love that hurts, maybe it’s the person we love. It can even be a lack of Love. Because Love itself is beautiful.
I named this book what I think about Life; Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime.
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Dedication
Author’s Note
Femme Fatale
Do-It-Yourself Rainbows
Living Without a Life
The Way It Is
Livin and Learnin
Sure Is a Shame
The Bank of Life
Yellow House Road
Somebody for Everybody
A Will and a Way
About the Author
Femme Fatale
See, there’s one thing I have learned (and I didn’t have to get to be no one hundred years old to learn it either), I know that if you want to find yourself some happiness, you have to get up and go out and work hard for it. Them people that sit and wait just might wait forever! You got to get out there and do something to help yourself. And I knew I had a long way to go cause where I was sittin there just wasn’t nothin!
I was born way back up there in some woods you probably ain’t never heard of. My mother and daddy loved each other so you know they loved me. My daddy’s name was Roscoe Lee. I was a girl, but that’s what they named me. They added a Mae so it was “Roscoe Mae Lee.” I loved my daddy, but I ain’t never even liked that name.
My daddy was a loggin man, a big built man. My mother was built big too. Strong, but still feminine, my gramma say. My mother helped my daddy do some of that loggin work. We had lots of land and all kinds of trees on it. How my mama got to be so husky, I don’t know, cause my gramma is a little bitty thing. Well, with them both bein so husky, you know I am too. But I am very feminine too. Yes, indeed.
I was spoiled, chile, spoiled. Anything I wanted, I got. Within reason. Mostly food. Cakes, pies, candy, cookies, cobblers, ice cream. They just packed all kinds of fat cells in me. But I am big-boned so I carry it well. Yes indeed.
They dressed me pretty enough for a child livin in the woods. Always clean and fresh. Remember how some people say, “She sure is going to be a heart breaker!” I was real small, but I remember them sayin that about me. A heart breaker! Now, I didn’t really know what that was, but they seem to think it was a good thing to be. Their eyes flashed when they said it, and Mama and Daddy always grinned. Gramma lived with us and she would shake her head, but she smiled when they said it too.
Our house was kind of a big log cabin, naturally, with all them logs outside. With some of the money my parents made, they built a attachment to our house, another log cabin, and opened a little grocery store. I guess they got tired of going all the way into town to do their shopping. It wasn’t real big, just stocked staples and things these country people out round here use a lot.
That’s another thing, out here there wasn’t hardly nobody to play with cept on Sundays when church was go
ing on. And you weren’t supposed to be playin then. If their parents come to the store, they wasn’t there long enough to get into a game or nothing. It’s just too far for a child to walk through all these woods less it would be a emergency or something.
Anyway, we were all happy … Gramma says. Then one day Daddy fell from a tree into the river with the branches on top of him. My mother rushed to him and tried to move that huge branch while trying to swim in the muddy riverbed. She finally had hold of him and was strugglin to get him loose, but my daddy had broke his neck and that branch was just carrying my daddy on down the river. Mama couldn’t pull him loose and she wouldn’t let go of him. Then, it was too late to let go. See? She went down with him. Down that ole river to death. It wasn’t just the branches, Gramma say. Mama WOULDN’T let go of him.
I hope you never have to feel how much that hurt. Only me and Gramma was left. Us … and all that painful hurt. The empty kind of pain that makes a home in your heart. Such big people as mine took up a lot of room in the house. Loud laughter, or arguing in all that space of all them woods. But the most empty place was my heart. No big strong arms to hold me, or throw and catch me like my daddy did. No big strong arms to hold me with all that love and tenderness my mama wrapped around me whenever I cried or even when I just went close to her. It was like I was dropped in a well and couldn’t stop fallin in all that empty darkness. Thank God I had my gramma and she had me.
Gramma took over all the business and kept on runnin the store. She had to, cause I was in school. When it was time for me to get to the main road for the bus to school, I had to walk a long, long, silent, empty road all by myself. Gramma standin there at the door. I cried, but she gave me a good, long stick and told me, “Get on down that road like you got some sense. You got to do what’s for you to do. Stop wastin time. I’m too old and you too old (I was seven) for me to have to walk you down that road. (She’d kiss me.) That ain’t the worse road, nor the longest road you gonna have to travel in your life! Now, go on and get started on this one. You goin where they might make you ready for the rest of your roads. I needs help my own self!”
But, sometimes, when I got off the bus comin home from school, she would be standin there, waiting for me. We would hold hands or hug round the waist all the way home. I would tell her things from school. Try to make her laugh. She would tell me things from the few people who came to the store, tryin to make me laugh. A little time would pass and we was alright. We still missed Mama and Daddy, but we made peace with it. It was us loving each other. Oh, you got to have some love, see? Yes, indeed.
Now, that was fine, just what we both needed for a long, long time. I have no complaints about my gramma. Love from your family is some of the best love. But time passed and I was growin into my teens.
We had us a little TV. Gramma didn’t spend much money, ever. Whole lot of my good time stuff was gone with my mother and daddy gone, but Gramma did buy us a TV. We was so far out from any electric rays that we couldn’t get but one channel and it was kinda hazy fuzzy. But sometimes I could see some things clear. I saw pretty women, handsome men and love stories. I looooved the love stories. One of the programs talked about this Femme Fatale and that’s when I realized that one of them Femme Fatales was in me. Couldn’t nobody else see her, but I knew she was there. I felt her deep down inside me. See? Yes, indeedy!
I was in high school then. Everybody liked me, boys and girls, but no boy liked me “Special.” Well, I was so big and strong and healthy. Big head, big arms, big legs and breasts. Round and feminine it seemed to me. I was pretty, to me. I was everybody’s friend because I was fun. Laughed a lot. Sometime to keep from cryin, but they didn’t know that.
My gramma had kept my hair braided all my life, sometimes only takin it loose and combing and braiding it once a week. Old as I was, she still did it because she liked to and I let her because I loved her. I had long, long hair all the way down my back. But them boys didn’t care nothin bout my hair or nothin else I had, because I was always left alone when people paired off at school parties and such. See?
Physical shapes have always been in style, ain’t no gettin around it! Forever. Boys liked me but they wanted something better. Something to make other boys jealous, which I guess I couldn’t do. So when it came to love, it wasn’t so much prejudice as it was preference. See? They could not see the Femme Fatale that was in me.
Still, I would look down and round myself and know for sure a Femme Fatale was in there, just couldn’t nobody else see her. That hurt. Well, one or two boys did see something, but they wasn’t what I liked, cause … boys come in styles too! The track star, the football star, boys in the school band, that kind. They had their style. Cute, tall, short, husky and all. Yes, indeed.
I might as well tell it all. There was one boy named Wyndel. He seemed to like me a lot. He was a nice, fat, young man weighed about 200 pounds. Now, some men can weigh that and fit the fashion style. If it be in their shoulders, chest and leg muscles. Wyndel’s was mostly in his waist, thighs and arms and such like that. It makes a different shape like that sometimes, see?
Well, we graduated from school. Wyndel went on to mechanics school cause he loved cars. Plus it pays good money. I just settled in at home to help Gramma cause she was getting even older and all that and she had been taking care of me all my life. The business was very good because people knew from all the years we had been there that they could count on us. They ordered and we bought, we ordered what they wanted and they bought. So things were workin out all right. I worked in the store most of the time at that time.
I could mostly do what I wanted to do, but there wasn’t anything to do out there where I was. Didn’t have to keep any special store hours cause we had a bell people could ring if they wanted something. You might think being in a store would bring some men I could meet and like, sometimes. But let me tell you. Out here?! These women get a man and he don’t ever get out of their sight! Married or not, see? And they hold on to them men for their dear life. They snatch up them men so fast in high school, ain’t none left, no how … and they never let them go! You can practicly see their fingerprints on his clothes and skin. If she die first and he’s left behind, likely somebody, her best friend, maybe, is already at the house and got her hooks into him the minute the wife takes her last breath! So workin out here in this store didn’t help me in the love business, no way.
I know we all sisters and all that, but we just got some different kind of sisters out here, I guess. They sisters, but they are women first! Single women, honey! Black ones and white ones and any other ones! Personally, I don’t think men ought to have that big a priority in anybody’s life cause we just as important as they are. Because I am a woman to me, whether I have a man or not! But you can stand back and have a attitude if you want to, just you are going to have to wait a little longer for the man who wants you to come along and find you! Specially out here where I am! Yes, indeed!
Anyway, I don’t know if you evvvvver been lonely. Chile, chile, chile, that is one of the most hurtin things. Hurts all over your mind and slowly takes over your body til you are only one big empty hurt, all day, and for sure all night.
Now I know they got this thing where you can make love to yourself!! But I don’t like that. I don’t want to be my own thrill … see? I want a man to be my thrill. I feel the same about other women’s married husbands. I don’t want one of them. I want my OWN man. That’s how I lived then and now.
I got so nothing seemed to matter to me at all except that there wasn’t never no arm around me, no lips on mine. Nobody close to me. Chile, I was lonely. And gettin older. I’m tellin you I liked to died sometime. You hear me? I don’t rightly know who said it, but the night is just right, just made for makin love. That moon shining down on two people sure is different when it is shining down on only one.
Well, to tell the whole thing, I got so lonely I even started liking Wyndel and sent him a message. When he came, I didn’t do it too quick, but, finally, I asked
him, “Wyndel? Have you got a woman?”
Wyndel grinned. His little fat chin adding a lip to his cute smile. “Girl, what you talkin about?”
“I’m talkin about have you got a woman? A lover?”
He laughed a minute then he took a deep sigh and said, “I ain’t interested in no girl, Roscoe. I just work on my cars.”
I took a quick breath. “Well, I ain’t talkin bout girls. I’m talkin bout men and women, feelings and stuff. Don’t you ever think of having a woman of your own?”
He took a screwdriver from his pocket. Said, “Welll, sure I think … about it. But don’t nobody seem to want me. So I don’t worry bout it.”
“Stop lyin, Wyndel.”
Wyndel sat down and put his head in his hands, resting his dimpled elbows on his knees, and grinned again. I struck out again, on this new road. Said, “Well, I do, Wyndel. I … like you, as a man.”
He looked up at me. “Well, can I have a picture of you, Roscoe?”
I looked down at him. “Wyndel, I’m offerin you my heart.”
He was the one who blushed first, then I blushed and that was how we started. We made a date that was to be a special date and that made it a special night, I thought. I dreamed of that night, even with Wyndel. I was going to make love for the first time!
The night arrived, Wyndel came over, smilin and grinnin. Nothing in his hands. No flowers, no candy. Now ain’t nothing wrong with a fat lover, nothin! They’re better than some skinny ones … I heard. But Wyndel came over in his regular clothes. He was bathed and clean, but you got to do more than that when it’s a special night, see? Was a button off his regular shirt. Shaggy ends to his clean everyday pants. He wore sandals with socks! Ugh! Toes hangin over the sole. Nothin special did he do for this special date, but come over. You know, men come like that in all sizes. He was not prepared, nor dressed, for a Femme Fatale.
Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime Page 1