Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime

by J. California Cooper

  We all older. My life has been added to alot. I have more good memories. I play the piano for the Senior Citizen dance of the month. Life don’t have to be dull and dry. My life is so full I have to wring it out sometime. My grandbabies and now, some great-grandbabies! My husband is not always well now, but we takin care of him. He go with me sometimes when I play the piano and he laughs to himself when he sees them old men winkin at me up there on the stage. It ain’t nothin, but it lets you know you are still a little attractive to somebody and you are a woman. Such things like that.

  That’s what I enjoy, bein a woman. In a way, that’s why LaMarie did what she did. She was a woman. And let me tell you, even now, you may not feel like doin a lot of things you used to, but the moon and the stars are still out there. All your life. There is always some beauty in life. Look up … and get on with it. Build you a rainbow. Do it yourself! If you can’t do that, build your mind near one. Learn how to fly. Then … soar a little.

  Living Without a Life or (The Life You Live May Not Be Your Own)

  Sometimes some people, good people, just let life carry them along. If they facing south, they go south. If they facing east, they go east. They don’t have to be real dumb, they just wants a leader, somebody they can trust to live their life for em. Now, sometimes that all turns out okay, but this really ain’t the kind of world where you can trust everybody to do your living. Whether they mean you right or wrong, they got their own life and they may not be thinking bout what you want and need!

  I take a long look at some people and I will tell you what I mean. One night, some years back, a girl baby was born to a woman who did not want another child. She had tried to get rid of this one, but the chile came anyway. It was a weak little baby, small and looking sickly. They named her Audrey cause somebody just happened to laugh and say “Call her Audrey,” and they didn’t care either way so they named her Audrey.

  Audrey grew up always a little hungry and mostly alone cause her brothers and sisters would sit her down and leave her soon as they got tired of her and the mama was gone … again. Her little behind was always full of sores from unchanged, stinging diapers. It took forever to finally get her potty-trained. She sit on that trainin pot so long sometimes til her little behind be shaped just like that pot when they take her off of it. Her stomach was usually empty of solid food and that bottle her mama and them kids tried to keep her on was always full of soured milk or plain water. How that chile kept breathing I don’t know, but she did.

  I was young, but I was home takin care of my mother who was a invalid, so I wasn’t married. I wanted to be, but I didn’t have time to do no courtin or nothin. I took to Audrey and would grab her whenever I could and feed her and clean her up best as I could. I grew to love that little girl, so I watched her as she grew up.

  Audrey stayed small and thin as she grew up. She had a little roundish head with short, short hair and them kinda eyes that turn down on the outside corner so she look like she was always bout to cry. If you add that to the fact that she always had a bewildered look in her face … like she didn’t know why she had been born (well, none of us do, but hers showed) then you know she was a sad-looking little girl. That’s how she drew my heart to her.

  She was smart in school though, when she went, which she usually didn’t do cause wasn’t nothin to wear or what she did have was laughed and teased at by the other kids and they wasn’t all that hot off themselves!

  Strange, to me, but she had a kinda personality that made her smile a lot, pretendin she was happy, I guess. She didn’t know she was pretendin, but she was. Her little heart was always eager to follow a new friend, hopin “this one” wouldn’t turn on her when somebody better came along.

  She got tired of them school kids teasin her after she grew up a little and dropped out of school when she was bout fourteen or fifteen years old. I was watchin her, wonderin what she was gonna do cause I had always felt sorry for and liked that child. Been tryin to feed her for years, give her clothes and all, cause she didn’t have no other way and I can understand that. Well, she went all round this neighborhood askin everybody in some business for a job. The old man what owns the community store decided to give her one. I guess he figured maybe she would pay for some of that food her family was always stealin or maybe she would stop em since she worked there. Anyway, she went to work.

  She was steady on that job! Went every day! I don’t know what she gave to her mama, I know she had to give her some, that’s just the way things were. But she took to buyin herself some little nice things on time payments. New things. Hers only. Got her hair done now and again and just regular kept herself up. She was lookin a lot better and her smile wasn’t so pretend anymore.

  I watched her with the boys, but they didn’t pay much tention to Audrey and it got to where she didn’t expect it. But I noticed, sometimes when I be in the store, how her eyes follow them around with a little longin in em.

  Then, round that time, a new family moved in the neighborhood and they had a son was a tall, hungry-lookin fellow (well, the whole family looked hungry) and, in time, he took to hangin round that store to walk Audrey home. Her little eyes almost stopped lookin like tears and got a little light in em. Good! I was glad! Cause Wardel, (that’s his name) seemed to be a nice boy. He was studyin hard, stayin in school. A nice boy.

  Audrey fell in love with Wardel and when he graduated, they got married. She was bout nineteen years old then and still workin at the store. He found him a job right away! I looked for a baby to show up, but didn’t none come. They got them a little place and was just doin alright. I was proud of both of em! She stopped gettin new clothes and things, but I thought that was all part of bein newly married and tryin to make it.

  A few years passed like that and still no baby. I thought he would keep that job and she might quit workin and settle down to bein a housewife, but he decided on goin back to school, only it was college this time. He dropped down to a part-time job, but Audrey got ANOTHER job and kept workin at the store too. I was tryin to be proud of her, but I wished she had gone back to school too, for herself. She just smiled happily and sent him on his way. He smiled back happily, and went.

  I don’t member what he was studyin, but it took him a long time, and during those four or five years, he began to look better and better, like a college man, you know, while she looked tireder and tireder like some drudge or somethin. They didn’t never hardly see each other, and her eyes got that longin look back in em. I wanted to say something to em, but that was their business. I figured when he graduated, she could sit down and begin to look as good as he did. Catch up, you know?

  Well, he graduated. Lookin real good. Audrey was workin so she couldn’t go to the graduation things and all. She probly didn’t have nothin to wear anyway. But my heart hurt for her. She never had been too strong and workin two jobs took a lot out of her. Her hair never did grow good and her eyes looked like little sideway teardrops. She just didn’t look good at all. Still, I could see a lot of love for Wardel in them eyes. She told me, “Miz Honey, sometimes I can hardly breathe cause life just seems to get so big to me.” I told her, “Keep takin your breaths, chile, deep breaths. The size of life can change on you. Sometimes air is thin, sometimes it’s fat. Sometime you needs more air, sometimes less. Just breathe deep.” I didn’t know exactly what I was talkin bout, but it made sense to me.

  Anyway, they been married bout seven years now, still didn’t have a baby or their own home or nothin. She didn’t stop workin two jobs when he graduated, cause he said it would take him awhile to get sit … u … ated in his new work. Audrey, seeing that he was coming home less and less even for the few minutes she could share with him between her jobs, decided to have a baby … to make home more homelike, you know?

  He grumbled when she got pregnant, but when his son was born, he loved the son and buckled down to bein a good husband and father. Stayin home more, walkin em to church and all. Spendin a little money on em for clothes. I sure was glad.
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  He still kept his looks up though, and his clothes. Soon, he even bought a real house for his family. Audrey smiled again. She had a family. She was a mother. She tried to keep herself up, but she didn’t know how to, very well, and didn’t really have any girlfriends cause the ones that came to be her friend really came to be close to Wardel. He didn’t help her cause he wasn’t going to take her anywhere round his college friends anyway. I could see that.

  After they had been married bout eighteen years, Wardel quit spendin any of his money on them and he start stayin out later and later at night. Sometimes he didn’t come home for the whole weekend, or some weekdays either. Now, Audrey was bout thirty-seven years old, lookin ten years older. He was bout the same age as her, but looked ten years younger. Probly cause he had love in his life and she didn’t have none in hers cept for their son, Woodrow, who they called “Woody.” Woody was round bout eleven or twelve years old then.

  It got so she could hardly breathe again (she said) cause she wanted and waited to hear Wardel’s footsteps to see if he was coming home at night. So many times he didn’t now. She had a house and a son, but she didn’t have the family she wanted. Her man wasn’t really there.

  Well, Audrey wasn’t no plain full-out fool, so one night she stood across the street from that big huge building where he worked and waited for him to come out and then she planned to follow him to wherever he was going to, to see why he did not come home. When he did come out, he had on different, even better clothes than he left home in. Them clothes were even sharper than his usual ones.

  He walked right on past his new Cadillac car, leavin it at work, you see, and walked on down the street. His head was high, lips parted in a big smile, shoulders thrown back proudly and walkin like he was steppin off into heaven. Audrey followed him.

  Now, Audrey was small, rather timid, and brown. No one paid any attention to her and Wardel never looked back. Used to doin whatever he wanted to, I guess.

  Well, Wardel turned into one of them nice apartment buildings Audrey had never even been in (cause Wardel never took her out, you see). He turned in like he lived there hisself and was going home! He even had a key! Audrey stopped and blinked her eyes, wonderin if this was another office, as he waved at the uniformed man in the entrance hall and went on to a elevater, stepped in and disappeared. She did not know what to think cause she hadn’t heard about him havin no new office and she didn’t cheat on him so she had no practice at bein cheated on herself. She just stood there with her mouth hangin open, lookin confused. It’s the kind of thing where “after” you know, you wonder how you could’a been such a fool. You know what I mean.

  It was already kinda dark, so she moved over behind some large bushes in front of the building and scootched down in order not to be seen. She watched the colorful, richly dressed, laughin people come and go, in and out of the building for almost two hours! She finally just sat on the ground cause her legs were gettin numb and stiff from the cold. It was really cold too.

  She was lookin down at the ground, trying to think through her confusion when she heard Wardel’s voice. She looked between the stiff branches and leaves to see him walking down the pathway, laughin and talkin, with his arm around this pretty, pretty woman who had a fur stole over her shoulders, just under Wardel’s arm. The woman had on sparklin earrings and a twinklin necklace and matchin bracelet. Audrey could even smell her perfume! Her dress was long like a formal gown and had a split up the side that showed a very pretty curved leg and a shapely foot in high-heeled gold sandals. Chile!

  Audrey stood up, in spite of herself, but Wardel didn’t see her cause his eyes were full of that woman, with his mouth smilin that handsome look of his. They high-stepped to the corner and into one of them cabs was waiting there and were driving away when Audrey came to herself and ran behind them, jumpin into the next cab, saying, “Can you follow that cab there, sir?”

  “Can you pay?” Sir asked.

  “Yes, sir, I blive I can,” Audrey answered as she tried to keep her eye on Wardel’s cab. The cabdriver grunted and pulled out. He followed them, but they only went three blocks and stopped in front of a lit-up nightclub. Wardel had stopped to pay as the lovely, slender woman strode into the club with her furs hanging from one shoulder, chile.

  Audrey stopped her cab across the street and asked the cabman as she paid, “Are them diamonds on that woman there?”

  The cabman laughed. “On any other woman I would say they ain’t, but I know for a fact that Miss Ruby don’t wear nothin but the real thing! The only thing I know is false on her is that wig she wearin. Yes, mam! Them are diamonds! And the fur is real too! Whatever it is, it’s real!” He drove off laughin.

  Audrey didn’t cross the street right away, she watched the people going in the club, heard the loud laughter, the music coming out. She didn’t have much money, but there was a $10 bill stuck in a secret place of her purse she was savin for something for Woody. She crushed the $10 bill in her hand as she thought, “Should I?” She waited til she thought the place would be kinda full and went to the door of the club. The man at the door looked at her clothes, but, then, all kinds came to hear Miss Ruby sing. He took her money, gave her $5.00 in change and turned to the next customer. She moved into the dark club stayin near the wall at the back. One of the waitresses pushed and pointed her to a table almost behind a well-decorated post and took her order for a beer. Even just a beer, it was $2.00. She asked the waitress for a straw as she flashed by and when she finally got one sat there sipping slowly. She looked around for Wardel. Ahhhhhh, there he was, close to the stage talkin to a few ladies and men. Buyin them drinks! While she had to save her money for necessities! Two jobs! How long had she been workin to help him spend his money over a bar?! And on another woman!?

  While she waited, Audrey began to notice other things, like women leavin with men after talkin a minute or two. Money changin hands. Women comin back in straightenin their clothes, pattin their purses. Hair messed up a little. Some women lookin mad, some men lookin mad. Some women lookin glad, some men lookin glad. Everybody seemed to be very busy. Audrey understood what was happenin. She just shook her head in shame for them.

  Then, suddenly … the stage lights came on, a man came out in a classy suit, tellin a few jokes. And then he introduced a band and Miss Ruby! “One of the last few nights here,” he said as he waved his arms. “Miss Ruby is goin on to better things, leavin us here. But we will see and hear Miss Ruby, with that voice of hers again, I am sure! And now, ladies and gentlemen …” Audrey didn’t hear the rest because of all the applause was goin on and her mind had snapped into the fact that Miss Ruby was leavin soon. Her man, her husband, Wardel, would be safe! Ooohhh, I can’t tell you how her little starved heart gathered that little piece of hope and smothered it in her breast.

  The lights on the stage made Miss Ruby more beautiful than she really was and them diamonds just sparkled their behinds off. Audrey was blinded by what she thought she saw. The woman sang and moved her body in them suggestive sexy ways. She threw that wig hair around like she was born with it on her head. Audrey watched the woman look over at Wardel on all the best lovin lines and she seen Wardel standin with a drink in his hand and his mouth wide in a possessive smile, drinkin that woman in. His eyes glittered like the diamonds on Miss Ruby’s ears, throat and arm. Audrey’s heart just sucked all the air out of her and dropped down to the soles of her feet, like a kite slowly fallin to earth when all the air is gone.

  Audrey left after the first show. She was filled with fear, and envy, jealousy and pain. Her little teardrop eyes ran tears as she walked all the way back to her home. The one good thought was Miss Ruby was leaving. She picked her son up from her sister’s house and finished walking home. Later, as she held her son in her arms and listened to his gentle snoring, she decided in her heart-tired way not to mention anything to Wardel.

  But Wardel mentioned it to her a few days later. He came home to pack what he wanted to take with him that he hadn’t alr
eady taken away. He was leavin with Miss Ruby!

  Audrey cried, “But our house? Us?”

  Wardel said, “Keep it … til I come back.”

  Audrey cried, “But our family? Our son?”

  Wardel said, “Well. I love my son. But you his mother and you got a job. Two! You’re gonna take care of him.”

  Audrey said, “But … what will we do? What will you do?”

  As he walked out the door, Wardel said, “Live! I’ll be living! I can get a job anywhere and I might not even have to do that!”

  Audrey watched him get into his new car and drive away. She held her throat with both hands. She could barely breathe.

  Now, sometimes what looks like bad luck is really good luck. Of course, she survived. I told her, “Look, you got a whole life you can build it like you want to. Go on back to school. I’ll help you all I can. Soon your son be grown enough, send him to college too. You all can work your way through. Thirty-eight, thirty-nine or forty ain’t old … if you got your health.” But her heart hurt and it got in the way of her mind. Time passed though, and that helped.

  One of the first things she did was go look at some diamond earrings. Ohhhhh, they was high-priced! She couldn’t even begin to look at a necklace or a bracelet! Then, she went to look at furs … from outside the store, through the windows. They was priced high too.

  After her heart got its wind back, she took a deep breath and decided she needed more money now, then she would get them diamonds and a fur, just like Miss Ruby, and win her a man too. Or, maybe, she would go find Wardel and get him back. I just shook my head cause who would want him … back? But that little money she made on both her jobs, one, a stock clerk, one, a sorter in a laundry, they didn’t pay no money enough for her needs and her dreams. And our little town seemed dull with no future to it, with Wardel gone. So, she didn’t exactly plan a way, she followed a way. A woman goin after her man.