She needed money, fast. She didn’t want to do what she had seen the women in the club doing, she just didn’t want to. But she wanted Wardel back so she decided she would go find him, get another job, get the things she was dreamin of, then come on back home. She checked the club to see where Miss Ruby had gone, took her son to her sister’s, which I thought was the third wrong move. She rented her house out, leaving me in charge of care of it and the tenants. I was supposed to give the extra money to her sister for her son cause she didn’t trust her sister to care for the house right. I’d a rather trust her with my house than my son, but …
She got her little short hair done … and packed. I almost cried when she stood in front of me, come to say good-by. She looked so little and alone. And she was having trouble breathing. I told her, “You ain’t thought about this good enough, Audrey. You just doin somethin cause it came up. Walkin into somethin blind. Life is more important than that. You got to know bout what you doin much as you can. You got a son countin on you. You countin on your own self to look out for you, but you ain’t through thinkin bout what you doin yet. Life ain’t so cold as to leave you completely out of it. Wait … and think!” That’s funny, cause I was still givin my life to my mama, wonderin what life was ever gonna hold for me.
Audrey smiled in her little sad way, said, “I’m goin after my husband. I ain’t comin home without my man. We are married.” We said a few more things, but she was intent on going. Anyway, she left for the bus station, walkin, with the suitcase banging gainst her little thin hip. Bewildered.
She got to the new city, was a big place, and Miss Ruby and Wardel had already gone on. Didn’t nobody know by that time where they was then. She followed confused directions and found her a little room she could afford and went straight out to get a job. She ended up a waitress in a little breakfast place. Didn’t pay much, you know that, but she was nice and she made pretty good on tips. In time, she went to town and paid down on some diamond earrings and a fur. She was dreamin, hopin, and breathin. Well? What else you gonna do?
What she thought would take a year, turned into two years. She was still payin on the diamonds and the fur, but it just looked like she wasn’t never gonna get them things out. The store man told her, “Go on, take em home with you. I trust you. You’ll pay.” But she didn’t want to do that. “Thank you, sir, but I don’t want to owe nobody. I got a son gonna be ready for college soon. I don’t need no debts. I’ll pay it off soon, I promise.” The nice store man didn’t stop chargin interest, which would have helped. Audrey just kept workin and payin.
Audrey was gettin tired of everything. No home, no son with her, no nothing. No money. Time was slow and she was gettin in a hurry. Once in a while she thought of the money them girls made on the streets, but that was too low-life for her.
She had noticed them streetworkin girls comin in and out of the restaurant and they seem to be havin a good time. She knew a couple of the girls, talked with em when she was at work, so she knew they weren’t really havin a good time. Plenty shit goes on between the high, false laughters. Anyway, she was waiting for Wardel to come back through. She didn’t want any other man to touch her body. She was keepin herself clean. She wanted respect. She actually still thought she would get her husband back.
She still hadn’t seen Wardel and when she heard from me, I told her I had heard he had been killed over that same woman, Miss Ruby, when she found a new man and tried to quit Wardel and he didn’t want to go. Dead, chile, in all his fine new clothes, sittin in his gettin-old Cadillac.
It had been some years, but she still grieved for her lost marriage. Now she would never have her same home again and her man was gone. She had no dreams then, except for them diamonds and that fur. More time went by while she thought her life stood still.
Then she start payin tention to a nice-looking young man who came in to eat. Well, he made her pay tention to him. He was a workin, quiet man. Name of Louis. Always tended to his own business. He came in for a coupla months, then he asked to take Audrey to a show. He was bout fifteen years younger than she was and he sure was good-looking. He could have anybody, she thought. She sure didn’t have nothin he had to lie to her for. So she spent a little of her savings for a new little outfit and went.
Now, it had been a long time since Audrey had a man in her life. Breathing wasn’t no problem now. He came back again and again. Soon they were talkin bout dreams and things. Hers first, then his, all his. I don’t know everything, but seemed he wanted to save enough money to go to a smaller town, open a business, marry and settle down. “That’s my whole dream,” he said. “That’s all I was workin for, til I met you. Now you have taken my heart and here I am spending money I should be saving, to take you out cause I’m falling in love with you.”
So with all that love right in her lap, Audrey agreed when he suggested they move in together in order to save a little more money. He moved to her place, of course, and she continued to pay her rent. She washed and tended to his clothes, with love. She cooked for him, kept their bed clean, kept the cubbards full. With her love and money. He was savin. She wasn’t. When she, hesitantly, told him that, he asked her what she made and how much did she save. She told him cause he was her man, wasn’t he? She told him about the diamonds and the fur. He laughed and hugged her. He suggested they put their money together and thereby they would both be saving more. He told her just to keep on payin on her things, she’d get em out one day and show them off when he took her home with him or to whatever place they decided to settle down and start their business. Their dream now. Chile, you talk about happy! Audrey was. Breathin real good.
Then, one day soon after that talk and the joint bank account had been opened, she came home to find Louis crying. Really crying! She rushed to him, asking him to tell her what was wrong. He wouldn’t tell her at first, but after she pleaded a while, he told her, “It don’t look like I’m ever going to have my dream. I’m not ever going to be able to do the things for you I want to, that you deserve. We’re just saving too slow. It’s going to take too long for us to get to be happy.”
Well, I’m not going to try to tell you everything cause I don’t know everything. I do know that about two months after he moved in, he was thinkin out loud, wishing Audrey made as much money as some of them women who were hangin out on the streets. “Just thinking,” he said. Then, too, Audrey remembered hearing, over the time she had been workin round the prostitutes, “Women don’t have no power over nothin but they ass and ain’t no sense in givin it away if it be worth money to you! If you sittin on a gold mine, that’s your power, your bizness! Ain’t nobody else givin they bizness away! So sell it! Own your own body and money!”
To me, that’s a lie, cause how can you own yourself when anybody can have you for a dollar or two? Your whole body! Even your face. ANYBODY!? And I bet, I know, a prostitute don’t even get to keep that dollar! Now!
Soon Audrey had quit her little waitress job and was on the street with the other women she use to shake her head at! She was going on forty-four or forty-five years old. No, that ain’t old, but it depends on what you plan to do! If it makes twenty-year-old women look like they are thirty in five years, forty in seven or eight years, fifty in ten years … what is it going to do to somebody who is already over forty? They say you can take care yourself and it won’t ruin you, but I’ll tell you what I think … rubber tires wear out in a year or so, when you usin them all the time. A woman ain’t nothin but flesh and blood, what you think happens to her … thing? And all them different sizes? Chile, chile, chile.
I wondered what was happening to her breathin now. I pictured her little soul in her tiny body holdin its hands up to its throat, barely breathing at all.
They saved money. Least she did have sense enough to get her earrings and her fur out the stores. She even put down on a diamond bracelet and soon got that out. She didn’t never get to wear em, cause Louis was too tired to take her out, and she was always workin when he went out for so
me “air.” If she did put them on and take herself out to eat somewhere, people thought they were rhinestones. But she knew they were diamonds. That must have had to be enough. Her little sad eyes got sadder and sadder. Sometimes, at night, when she went to bed, alone, cause Louis worked on the graveyard shift now, she could hardly breathe at all.
Audrey got to know her new job pretty well. The other men and women didn’t bother her too much cause she was older and quiet and no real competition. But she learned that women out there can be vicious and even real violent! You may think you goin to them for some pleasure, but you can get robbed, mugged, swindled, beaten and even killed! They don’t just do that to strangers, they even do that to each other! They think they smart cause they don’t pay taxes, but the lawyers who try to keep them out of jail get all the money the tax man don’t! Louis was talkin “One more year, baby.” He was still nice to her, she thought. He gave her little cheap gifts, but after all, it’s the thought that counts … she thought.
After the fourth year with him, he said, “One more year, baby. We will be ready. We’ll get us a brand-new car (he drove a sturdy old car), and drive to your home in style! We’ll get us a fine wardrobe and everyone will know your ex-husband, Wardel, was a fool and what he missed by bein such a fool! (she had told him about that). But you’re my woman now! One more year and we won’t ever have to work for anybody again!”
Now, I got to stop here a minute. Every woman knows how she looks and how old she is. She got to know something bout how the world works! When you have a younger man, you got to wonder sometimes, “Why does he love me?” I’m not sayin he can’t, cause it happens for true. But you got to do your own wonderin bout your own self’s life! Cause it ain’t usual. And a woman ought to ask herself why … if she a little bitty, tired, nice-looking, older woman who done already lost a man to a hot-looking woman. But even more than that! When I was growin up, my mama told me, and I knew it was true then and it’s true now, if a man loves you … he don’t want NO OTHER man to put his hands on you! And I don’t care what all these new modern people lie to themselves about, I know that is true today!
Plus, Louis didn’t take her nowhere either. Said, “We got a future. Well go out when we have all the money we need.” Money is a hard thing to mix up in your love. First get the love … then mix up the money if you want to. And love ain’t just words, love is deeds. Good deeds. Anyway … Audrey smiled through her little tear-shaped eyes and went on out to “work.”
Now, one thing … Audrey had come upon an older man who had a strange need. It took a long time for people to fill this need. It seems Audrey could do it in less time than most and it still took her bout three hours to do it. This man paid $20 every twenty minutes. And he needed it once a week, sometimes twice. The man must’a had a lotta money. Audrey decided she wanted to surprise Louis with a bundle of extra money when they made their grand exit out of town, so she put all this special money aside, saved it. She smiled when she thought of it. “We have only one more year and then I’ll surprise him with all this money!” It made her happy to do that. Well, sometimes so many things in your life can be such a big ugly that a little ugly can make you kinda happy.
Audrey and her son, Woody, wrote each other through me and I told her how he was doin when I wrote. He was through school and tryin to start college, but he fell in some kinda love, got married. Audrey didn’t come home. I didn’t like her so much after that, but I tried to understand that she was tryin to live her life and was thinkin she was goin to do a lot for him when she DID come home. Only thing was, this was the time he needed her. He was tryin to live his life and he needed a grown mother or father to help him learn how to think. I don’t know. It wasn’t my business noway.
My mama had died by then and I was alone, so Audrey and Woody was kinda my family. I tried to help him, but I wasn’t his mama. That’s who he needed. He wasn’t bad, he just didn’t have no way to know things, I guess. I guess maybe Audrey thought he had a few years he could lose cause he was young, but his mama didn’t have them years to lose no more. She was at a last minute scramble tryin to make money and hold Louis. Mothers shouldn’t count on bein able to do the important things later in their life, cause kids die young sometimes.
Well, anyway. Louis had to take trips to his “home” now and again. He never did take the bank savings book and no money Audrey knew of except what he needed for the trip. He talked about their marriage, but she had to work and they/he couldn’t take the time off.
Audrey did call home at least once a month though. When she discovered she had a grandchild she did rush home to see it and her son and his wife. She felt like a natural woman. She felt good. She didn’t take too much money, but she took some of her surprise money and gave it to her son to help out with his family. She could tell he was not happy with his wife or life, but Audrey was not too happy with hers either and didn’t know what to do about either one. I was pretty mad about the way her son was left out, but I knew Audrey didn’t know what she was doin. Hell, how many people do?
Audrey was going on forty-nine years old. Each “one” year had turned into several. She was showing her age, but it wasn’t really her age, it was her life. She was going out in the wind, rain, knee-deep in the snow, all night (she hated to go home to a empty house). Standing, in the summer, out in the heat of the sun that built up all day and lasted all night. She was better than a mailman. But she loved Louis and loved to see him smile at the money she brought home, which was less and less cause Audrey was getting older and older. So he smiled and she worked. Out in the weather, alone each night and you know what can happen to a woman, a person in the dark of night. And they saved money.
Finally, the time came. They were going to leave in one week. They had thousands in the bank, the bankbook said so and Audrey knew it because she loved to deposit the money in the bank and hear the teller say what the balance was.
Louis “let” her talk him into getting the new car sooner than they had planned. She wanted a Cadillac like Wardel had, but Louis wanted a Buick. “I don’t want no pimp’s car,” he said, “I’m not a pimp! I’m going to be a husband. Husbands have Buicks and Oldsmobiles.” So he got a brand-new off-the-floor Buick. She was so excited, she wrote me, “I’m gonna celebrate my fiftieth birthday by coming home in a brand-new Buick!” I know she smiled and her eyes lit up.
Now … Number 1, Audrey was a woman. Number 2, Audrey ain’t never really had too much … from birth. Number 3, Her heart was in need, her mind was in need, her soul longed to be happy. Truly happy. She musta thought, “I’m almost fifty years old now. I ain’t got too much longer to live maybe. At least I can be happy these next few little years.” She musta smiled through her teardrop eyes … ignorin her difficulty in breathin, and counted money harder.
Finally, it was her last night to be in the big city. Tomorrow they would leave for home, for good. To her grandchildren (there was one more now, though Woody and his wife had separated), to her own home. She thought, “How lucky I am to have a young, hardworkin man, a house rented out, a new car and a savings account. Yea, and a diamond bracelet and earrings and a fur. PLUS, I got a fat sock filled up with $8000 I have saved to surprise Louis with. I’ll open it up on the road when we stop to eat or somethin!” She looked forward to his happy face when he heard about the extra money. That night she said to herself, “This the LAST night I’m gonna have to get out here and face all these crazy people. I’m tired of em, TIRED of em. I hate em. I’m even bout to hate myself! I don’t never want another man’s hands on me but my husband’s.” But Louis had suggested they should get every last dime before they left. He smiled down at her. “I want us to work this one last night, baby.” So, out she went for her one last night of work.
It was a dark, dark Thursday night, streets kinda empty. Snow was on the ground and Audrey was standin knee-deep in it. She was huddled up, shiverin, in a thick coat and low boots the snow kept fallin in. She just noticed all the car lights automaticly, then she saw L
ouis in his brand-new Buick. He drove slowly by the spot where she worked. She bent down to see him better, thinkin he would stop and they could go on home. He bent low in the car so he could see her better, and waved to her. She could see his smile in the flickerin lights. He kept drivin slow for another little piece. She started walkin toward him, then the car picked up speed and moved smoothly on up the road.
Her excitement was so much she forgot the cold snow, she thought, “Hell, we already got bout $32,000 saved and I got that other $8000, what I need to stand out here for? She pulled her coat tight around her little thin shoulders and trudged through the snow … home.
The apartment was neat, but Louis always helped keep it that way. Her bags sat by the closet where she had left them, but his were gone. “Did he put his in the car already?” Her heart began pounding lightly in her breast. She turned to see if his things were gone from the bathroom. Her heart, not wanting to, but pounding just a little louder. Her breathing coming difficult and a little faster. Tears seemed like they had been waiting to run from her tear-shaped eyes. His things were gone from the bathroom. She rushed to the drawers, pulled them open … Empty! She backed onto the bed, holdin her throat, choakin on her sobs, holdin them back because this just couldn’t be true! Something rattled as she sat on the bed. A note.
The note said, “It was good for both of us while it lasted. Don’t look for me. I won’t be there. Louis.” No love, no sincerely yours. No affection. No Nothin.
Now, he had left all her valuables behind, the diamond necklace, the bracelet, the fur. Her $8000 was safe. But he had taken the most important things, the hope, the love, the dreams, the future. She was empty, empty as she lay there for the rest of that night starin at the gray ceiling and the walls closing in on her. Barely breathing at all.
Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime Page 8