Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime

by J. California Cooper

  Quiet as it was kept, I knew Pete had another woman too. The woman even had a baby for Pete cause Gartha didn’t want no more children. I do know Pete was a good father to the daughter Gartha had.

  Not long after that, Fred started building him a add-on room. Just a little one. She made him use cheaper, second-class wood and things. Said, “It’s too expensive and you don’t even need it!” He did it all, then bought cheap curtains and a used big chair. He fought for a TV of his own. The room had a door to the outside so his friends could come in the back way and not disturb Inez when they came to watch the games. Inez wouldn’t let him “eat up all my food!” so he bought a little refrigerator and stocked it up with all kinds of things for games; lunch meat, beers, Cokes, potato chips and all such as that. She told him, “Let them men bring their own food! You spending too much money!” Them men wasn’t there all the time neither, cause they visited each other in turns. Fred just couldn’t satisfy Inez. Sho was a shame.

  Later, more things happened, or didn’t happen, but I had my own family growin up and other things to look after, so I don’t know everything. Sure always thought it was a shame that the man couldn’t enjoy the life he worked so hard for. He was gettin older and he didn’t smile so much, cept at the kids round here. Fred just kept workin and almost lived in that back add-on room.

  Well the years passed that way. Back bent as he walked down the street to home. Frownin a little, head bent down. I guess Fred was thinkin bout his life and it wasn’t happy at all. One day when they had been married about twenty-five years (still no children yet) he came home and went to sit in his little room. Didn’t turn on the TV or radio. He got a plate of cold lunch meat out of the icebox and sat down, forgettin to eat, starin off a million miles into space right there in that little room. There were tear streaks down his face when they found him. He died right there … that day. Sho was a shame. The man had never really lived where he wanted to, like he wanted to.

  Well, hooonney, Inez went to pieces. Allll to pieces. I mean, she fell out! Her life bout fell apart. She took it pretty good the first day, but that night! And all the rest of them days and nights! She looked at that expensive coffin (she insisted!) as they lowered it into the ground and she looked so hurt and confused … and alone. Alone, chile! Seems like she had never thought of death and Fred. But he was gone. Gone!

  His old girlfriend came, crying, so he must have been nice to her too. Poor Fred. Sho was a shame.

  Naturly the days passed, naturly the nights followed and Inez was mi-ser-aBLE. No new man rushed over there like she thought they would with her “fine” self. I don’t mean to sound ugly, but you know what I mean. Her life was more lonely every day. Every day she had the blues!

  Well, Pete didn’t die, but Pete said to himself, “Life is too short!” and he left Gartha. Left that unclean, unhappy home. Their daughter was grown and he had three younger ones over at his girlfriend’s house. (That first girl he had loved in school.) They called him “Daddy” out loud everywhere.

  Gartha liked to went crazy! She whooped and hollered and went on about “I gave him the best years of my life! I been a good wife! I gave up plenty good chances for Pete and now he done left me for some young whore!” (The girl was wrong to go with a married man, but she wasn’t a whore and she wasn’t young. She was Gartha’s age. She had been raisin the children and waitin through the years cause she loved Pete.) I heard Pete said back, “You haven’t ever given anybody your best nothin! You ain’t ever had a best nothin! I gave you the best years of MY life!” Then he was gone, from Gartha anyway. Naturally, life went on for everybody.

  Well … bout two months later Inez came over to my house. She was breakin. She had already been a little gray, but now her hair was almost all gray. New lines of tears or frowns was deep in her face. “Oh, Ella,” she said to me, “I miss him. I miss Fred. I lay in that bed at night or sit in that house wishing I could hear Fred rambling round in the kitchen, in his little room, just anywhere. I wish him and his friends was back there in that room or anywhere else he want to be in that house. I wish I could just smell his smoke, see his cigarette ashes all over. I don’t care. I wish he was there, hungry, so I could fix him somethin to eat … drink … anything! Even wish I could wash his clothes. Ohhh, Ella, I miss him. I miss Fred. I can’t sleep since he been gone.” She said a lot more things, but I can’t remember all of it. Sure is a shame. It was too late for all of it.

  Soon after that day I went over cross the high grass of her overgrown lawn to take her a plate of food and she had the TV on to a game and the radio on to another game, just blastin! Was even a cigarette burnin, smokin, layin in one of her beautiful ashtrays! She sat there crying from the bottom of her body. “I’m alone. Fred is gone. My good, good man is gone.”

  Then Gartha came in and I always left when Gartha came and started cryin bout how she had been treated bad by Pete and life. Cause I knew she could have kept what Pete’s other woman had if she had listened to her heart instead of old bitter women who twist and stretch the truth, sometime, til it covers up all their own mistakes. Both Mama Lil’s daughters had missed out on life by listenin to her talk. They should’a looked to see what kind of woman she was! What would a good man who loves peace and a happy home want with Mama Lil for? I may be wrong, but I think you get what you attracts to yourself and what you choose. And you don’t get what you don’t attract! Or choose! I may be wrong, but I don’t think so. I hate to see people unhappy, but you know, sometimes it’s our choice anyway.

  So I left there … sad for Inez, mean as I knew she had been to Fred. They could’a had such a beautiful life. All I could say was, “Sho is a shame.” Two people’s lives messed up! I just couldn’t stop sighin and sayin, “Sho was a shame.”

  I finally forgot about it a little when my husband came home and hit me on my behind while I was fixin up his dinner. I had done fed my two grandkids early and put them to bed til their parents came to pick them up. When he hit me on my behind, I know what that means. (smile) Inez’ life just sorta flew outta my mind cause the best thing, I blive, that you can do in your life is tend to your own business. I have always tried to take care mine. And I blive … that’s why I got some business to tend to. (smile) Sho is a blessing and a joy!

  The Bank of Life

  You know, you can do just so much livin til you gets to a point when you get tired of it. That’s where I am. I done got to the place where I just watch life. Use to do it sittin in there lookin at the television, but that got to lookin like they was gonna kill up the whole human race, so I had to get away from all that blood and killin. They either killin or tryin to make love. People what don’t even know each other in real life nor in the play neither, makin love anyway. So I been comin on out here on my porch, between my marriages, sittin and watching these live folks do their business. Yea, for a long time now.

  Like next door. Which is the easiest I can see cause it’s the closest. Some people, the Dells, been livin there bout thirty, forty years. I ain’t sure cause I ain’t all that old myself, but it’s the same house like ours. The houses are medium size, but they got these big ole long yards. This was my mama and daddy’s house. They dead and gone now, rest em, Lord. I know my mama is restin in the Lord, but I don’t know bout my daddy cause he was a hell raiser. Blived in whippin everybody, I can sure tell you that.

  Anyway, the one who I’m gonna tell you about, still livin in that house, is named Roberta. Roberta Dell was the onliest child her mama had that lived so they sure nuff loved her and took such good care of her, they like to run even me crazy! She always had to stay in the house, or if they let her out, she had to just sit on the porch, quiet like. Just watch us other kids play. Couldn’t even get them little raggidy clothes dirty. Sometime some child go over and sit a minute to talk and Roberta be so glad … til her mama come out and sit and rock, then the visitin child would go away to play and Roberta be alone with her mama again.

  Her daddy drank a bit, but everybody’s daddy drank a
bit! When he come home Saturday nights full of liquor sometime, you’d hear some hollerin and shoutin … by the daddy! And in the backyard you could hear Roberta cryin, beggin him not to hurt her mama. He must not’a hurt her, she didn’t never go to no hospital or nothin. Just next day, Sunday, everything be the same again and they be on their way to church.

  Roberta was a dark black person with the kind of hair you could wet, grease and plait and it would look smooth with pretty waves in it. But we hadn’t done got to that Black was Beautiful part yet, so Roberta sure didn’t think she was beautiful even though her mama thought so. She was beautiful though, well … mostly pretty anyway. Cause it’s hard for anybody to be beautiful no matter what color they are. On television they can do anything with makeup and they do! I bet if we saw them same women walkin down the street without all that makeup on, we wouldn’t even notice em and might even think they was ugly. No, chile, beautiful is hard to come by. Well, sides myself. I sure could’a been.

  Anyway … Roberta had these nerves and things from never bein able to do nothin like a real child, so she look like a thin, hard razor blade or somethin. Though her face was round a bit, she always seemed to be sharp and long. I don’t remember her body none cause I didn’t have them kind’a glands would notice her body. The only thing I look on women for is to see is her legs bigger’n mine.

  Roberta went on through school like the rest of us. Me, I went far as I could go, til I got married, then I left. My family didn’t make no fuss cause they had too many to send to school and too little money to do it with anyway. Roberta finished though, up to the twelfth grade, then her daddy died and her mama had a stroke. I guess the mama was so glad to be free of him it was too much for her. I shouldn’t say that but I blive it’s like that sometime. I can sure tell you that!

  Roberta quit school and went on to work without a whimper bout havin to take care herself til her mama and daddy’s Social Security and pensions come through for her. Well, she didn’t know nothin else to do, I guess. We didn’t never hear nothin bout no insurance or nothin and we didn’t know if the house was paid off or nothin like that and we didn’t ask cause we didn’t want to hear no bad news and we couldn’t help her if she had’a needed us. I can sure tell you that!

  Now, Roberta had gone through all her schoolin without a boyfriend cause she was always so tensed up tight and all … and shy too, so … what else? I bet that girl was still a virgin when she got to be bout twenty-five years old. Her mama died then … and Roberta was all alone.

  When the news got around pretty good that she was single over here and had a house all her own, probly paid for, some men came to court her. (Cause I done told you she wasn’t ugly. Far from it!) Nothin seemed to come of none of them men.

  Now, Roberta was a churchgoin woman. Not too much, just every Sunday. But she was lonely and didn’t know how to change life for herself. Sometimes she just come out and stand on the porch and smile over at us. By that time I had done divorced my first husband already. I had a few kids then, and was gettin ready to get married for the second time. (I shouldn’ta done that one either, cause all I got for it was another baby.) But she would smile and walk over, sometimes, and we would try to talk. But, well, she didn’t know nothin to talk to me about. She didn’t do no night life, didn’t have no men friends I was interested in, so what could I talk about? Cept to ask, “When you gonna get married, girl?” She would blush, much as a black skin can, and it can!

  I’d offer her a drink or somethin, but she say she didn’t drink. (I thought that was what she needed to loosen her up some.) Me, I stayed loose. Then she’d play with the kids awhile, said, “I love children,” then she go on back to her house and go inside. She had fixed that house up kinda nice and that big ole, long yard too, but to just fix it up to go sit inside and look at it didn’t seem to make no sense to me. Course, she had a house of her own and I didn’t, so …

  Sometimes, some of them older men came over … from the church, you know. But somethin in her mind told her she wanted love and she must didn’t think them old ones could give it to her. See there? How wrong can you be? I’ve known some older men could run a young man outta town. Old age don’t make everybody weak. Who you think these husky, healthy, good-lovin men turn in to? Yes, chile. But Roberta didn’t have no way of knowin that, so most of em just faded away.

  Then … a man I knew, Earl Western, friend of my new husband start visitin us. A real playboy man, bout thirty-five or so, done been married before, but wasn’t no woman gonna keep him (with him runnin through every women round here, with track shoes!). Earl start comin over to see me bout every day. Well, I had had a little sport with him fore I got engaged, but didn’t nobody know it, of course. Anyway, Roberta came outside one of them days and started workin in her garden. He asked about her. Well, she was a woman and that’s what he liked!

  He leaned back in his porch chair and ask me, “Where her husband?”

  I leaned back in mine and answered, “Ain’t got none.”

  He smiled. “Ain’t got none? A pretty woman like that?”

  I laughed. “What you thinkin bout, boy? You gonna sit on my porch and ask me bout another woman?”

  He sat up straight and laughed that aside. “Well, who she livin with? Her mama?” He started to lean back again.

  I smiled slowly. “Noooo, her mama and daddy dead. She all alone.”

  He shot forward again. “Alone?! She rentin?”

  I was gettin bored talkin bout Roberta. “Naw, that’s all hers … now.”

  He turned complete round to look in my face. “Who … is her man?”

  I raised up then. “Man, what you want to know all her business for? Don’t be settin up here on my porch askin me bout no other woman! When you sittin here talkin to me, ain’t no other woman!”

  He pushed that aside too. “Do she work?”

  “I’ll invite her over while you go get some more beer”— I hit him on his knee with my empty beer can—”then you can ask her for yourself.” Well, he didn’t go get no beer and I didn’t get to invite her over cause he so cheap, he jumped up and went to help her lift somethin in her garden and introduced hisself!

  He gave that woman the BIG rush, chile. Every day he was there, bringin things and doin things. He was really workin on her, and since he was big and strong AND good-lookin … well. Little by little he got into her good graces. He always left right around nine or ten o’clock at night, so I know she wasn’t sleepin with him cause there was no home for him to rush off to and she didn’t have nobody there to spoil any plan she made for the night. I know the other women he was seein then and that’s who he went off to sleep with when he was through bein a “nice” man over at Roberta’s.

  Now, a woman like Roberta couldn’t help fallin in love with a man like Earl. The rotten always seem to get the good. Look at me. Both my husbands was rotten, that’s why I left them. Least that’s why we separated our lives anyway!

  Earl and Roberta got married, chile. They “eloped” cause he didn’t want nobody gettin no invitation spreadin the news and then somebody tellin Roberta, or them other women either, bout his business. He didn’t want nothin to mess up his plans, present or future either.

  After they got married, he kept his regular job, but he didn’t do no more yard work or nothin round the house. And instead of leavin that house at ten o’clock at night, he start to coming home at ten or eleven or twelve o’clock at night. Even later on the weekends!

  Roberta looked so happy and bright, soft and womanish before they got married. Shining in what she thought was their love. I wanted to tell her, “Honey, he lookin for a free home and a cook.” But you can’t magine how happy she looked and how hard it would’a been to tell her something that would make her unhappy and, plus, she wasn’t goin to blive it anyway! You know how you have a hard, hard time tellin somebody in love to have some sense bout what they doin! She didn’t have no friends to help her think!

  Over the next thirteen years she went throu
gh solid hell! He never did bring his pay home, less it was a emergency. Women called on the phone day and night. He gave them the number hisself! Some of them no-heart women even came to the door askin for him! Two times with babies! Babies Roberta never seemed to have cause she was so tight and tense and more like a razor blade every year! Her nerves was on her side, if you ask me, cause to have his baby would’a put another lock to his side.

  I heard her once when they argued, well, he argued, she cried. With a voice just full of tears, she told him, “I have a heart under these breasts you never touch. My blood runs hot in my body just like them other women! What’s wrong with me for you?” I didn’t hear his answer. Then she said, “What’s between man and woman, husband and wife, is supposed to be beautiful. Why does ours have to be so ugly? Am I ugly to you?” I heard her moan clean over to my porch. “Am … I … ugly to … you? Why can’t I have your babies? You make me so bluuuue. So bluuuue.”

  That hurt me to my bones! See, cause I know! I know what it feel like to have the blues. And this child had the blues with a hundred blue-black “u’s” in it. See? When a man fool around on the outside even just a little bit, his woman or his wife think, right away, that something is wrong with her! That something is missin, that she ain’t as good as the other woman or why would he turn to the other woman?! Then, sometimes she get so disgusted with her life she just lets herself go. She changes her body too. She get fatter or thinner, harder or stupider even. Stops laughin, or even smilin, til they find somebody what puts that love for their own self back in them. I seen it happen to men too, when their women cheat on them. That cheatin stuff is a bitch with a capital “B.” The real Blues is a Bitch! Some people can sing about the blues. Most people don’t feel like no singin when they have em. I can sure tell you that!