Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime

by J. California Cooper

  Anyway, she raised them kids good as she could. She sewed all their clothes. She grew most their food. They lived. Alec always lookin for work, find it sometimes. He helped her work the little garden back of the house so they be sure to eat, but he didn’t do much else. Anything come up like the cow run off, chickens get out, kids get in trouble, something break down in the house, he always say, “Tell my wife” or “Tell your mama!” He thought he was gettin outta work, but he was gettin out of manhood.

  MLee always talked bout her kids going to school and she tried to keep them there. She sure did want em to go to college. At least, one of em. But when West was sixteen years old, he lied about his age and went to join the Navy, said, “I’m gonna make my own life and I want’a see the world.” That’s what they told him, “Join the Navy and See the World.” I hoped that he would, but I don’t blive nothin white folks say bout what they gonna help you do.

  Now, when you live far from everything cept the same people every day, sometimes you ain’t got nothin to do except the one thing most everybody can do and that is have sex. That’s what most the older folks talk bout sittin round on their porches and the children grow up, listen and takin it for granted that that’s what you do! And these boys, if they can’t talk good enough to talk up on a job, they sure can talk good enough to talk up on some sex. Northa got pregnant and left to get married when she was sixteen. MLee tried to talk her into havin the baby if she want it, just keep on goin to school, maybe college and MLee would take care the baby for her. But Northa ask her, “With what?”

  MLee didn’t have no answer cept, “We can try.”

  Northa answered, “You try, Mama. I’m gone.” And was gone.

  MLee was only bout thirty-two or thirty-three years old then, but she really did look like a old woman. Her years wasn’t many, but they was hard … and empty. So her face had a lotta pain in it that centered in her eyes. And her body looked tight, tight, tight.

  MLee said to me, “I’m through. Everything I was tryin to work so hard for is gone. I will not let Alec touch me in bed, so that’s gone too. I’m gettin old. I will just wait to die now.” At thirty-three years old!! Before she gave all the way up, she did some work cookin for a lady and bought herself a brand-new rockin chair. First brand-new thing she ever had. All hers. She put that rockin chair on the yellow porch of that yellow house and sat in it all day after she’d tend to her garden and things. Just sittin there watchin that yellow road and tryin to keep her chickens safe inside the rickety yellow fence. She be there rain or shine.

  The country round here is sparse, neighbors not too near. Not too many trees and things. The sun just burns em up. You got to plant and water regular. All the trees MLee planted got knocked down or rutted by Alec draggin something through the yard or the kids playin. When her kids was growin up, she had tried to plant a tree on each side of the porch so she would have some shade. The trees never did make it and grow. Just burnt up. Nobody remembered to water them or nothin to fight that sun when MLee be gone tryin to work and come home so tired. One did grow one time when she was home sick. But when she went back to work, everybody say they watered it, but they didn’t. So … it died too.

  So, now, I would see her sittin in the hot, hot sun, fannin with a handkerchief or a clean rag, movin that chair back, little by little to stay out the direct sun. Alec had the back of the house; MLee wanted to stay in the front so she could watch the world not inside her house. Them chickens was her company, her friends. If one get out, she go chase it back in again. If she hear squawkin, she go see bout it and come on back to her rockin chair, turn her head and look up that long, long, dusty yellow road again, all day.

  I told her, “I’ll help you plant them trees now. You need em if you gonna sit out here in the sun.” She said, “I’m too tired. And by time them trees be big enough for shade, I’ll be gettin my shade from the earth I’ll be under.” I wanted to get mad at her for givin up, but I was livin the same kinda life and I just understood her.

  MLee didn’t know what all had happened to her. She said to me, “The last thing I remember sayin ‘yes’ to was when the preacher asked me do I take Alec to be my husband and I say, ‘I do’ and that was that. All else that happened, just happened, and I accepted it and did the best I could with it. Now, inside my head is the wonderment of what all has happened and why. And why ain’t I got nothin to show for my life cept two gone children and this ole yellow house? I’m gettin old. I ain’t loved Alec like a man in a long, long time. When he cheated on me, I just lost somethin I can’t get back. If he had done all the other good things for his family, I mighta coulda fixed it in my mind, but he ain’t done all them good things. And me, what have I ever done for myself? If I happen to live twenty or thirty more years, what’s my life gonna be? They got plenty things in the world and I ain’t got none of it, ever, cept this here rockin chair. So … I’m just gonna sit in it and look down this old yellow dirt road and wonder where it’s goin that I didn’t never get to go to.

  Now, one day when she had done jumped up and run them hens back in her yard a couple of times, she wiped the sweat from her face with that rag and watched her ole sassy hen go through another hole in the fence and get out. MLee just sat there and looked at that hen. She watched it hasten up to get to the unpicked, unscratched grass, justa cluckin and tryin to find a new bug or somethin. She watched that hen move further and further out, away from that yellow house, searchin. She thought to herself, “I must can’t feed her enough. I ain’t got no right to make her stay in here where she done already found most all the food she can. She ain’t scared; ain’t got sense enough to be.” The hen was just’a cluckin that satisfied sound and peckin away. “But she’s eatin better already.”

  MLee still didn’t go get the hen, just watched her a hour or so, til the hen came back all on her own. MLee thinkin, “She came back, but she fuller.” The hen came through the fence, turned its head one side to the other starin at MLee, then she walked on side the house to the backyard, out of sight. When MLee went to bed that night she went to sleep thinkin bout that ole hen.

  The next morning MLee covered her rockin chair with a ragged sheet cloth, patted it, said, “You wait, I’ll be back I reckon.” She sat at the wobbly kitchen table and wrote her daughter, Northa, a letter. Then she walked back to the barn/shed and stood lookin at Alec. He was rubbin the cow’s tits, masterbatin, with his eyes closed. She let him finish, thinkin, “I don’t never give him none cause I always think he got another woman. I guess she don’t give him none neither.”

  When he was finished, he sat down on a stool and crossed his arms over his knees, layin his head down on em. She spoke into the dark misery of that dark barn. “I’m gone.”

  He jerked his head up, startled. “Where you goin?”

  “Goin.”

  He stood. “When you be back?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “MLee, you my wife. I ask you a question. I wants a answer.”

  MLee sighed, said, “You just put your wife back in your pants.”

  Alec groaned. “Oohhm, Lord.”

  “I said I’m goin. That’s all. I be back.”

  Alec took a step toward her. “One these days, MLee, I’m gonna kill you.”

  She looked at him a long silent moment. “Why not? You done killed everything else. My love for you don’t live in me no more ever since … So, anyway … I’m goin.”

  Alec looked at her, hurt and pain in his eyes too. Then there was anger in his face. “I done tole you, I ain’t never done that again.” He raised his hand and took a step toward her, threatenin.

  MLee stood up straight. “Careful now. I got some strength, but I need all my strength.” She looked at the cow. “Rosey, you try to take care yourself. I’m gone.”

  Then she was gone. Walking up the long, long, dusty yellow road. With each step she took, a little bit of old weight fell off her shoulders; she almost clucked like her hen. But a little bit of new weight came on. She was thinkin, �
�I got a new job to do. But what job? Where?” She dropped Northa’s letter off with somebody way down the road and didn’t look back.

  MLee reached the first town that evenin. Dusty and tired, scared and anxious, but determined. She took a little bit of her needed money and bought coffee at a little café in the black section of town. She learned the largest city was bout fifty more miles away, but there was a bus that passed through going that way. It wasn’t too expensive if you took the late, late mail bus that stopped everywhere along the way. The gray-haired waitress gave MLee some friends to look up since she didn’t know nobody in the city and she warned MLee, “In that city you got to have somebody you can trust cause you a woman.”

  When at last MLee got to the city she found the waitress’ friends livin in a shack type house, almost like her own she had left. They wanted $5.00 for the night, $10 for the week. MLee had $12 left, but she took the week.

  Next day, still tired and musty, cause she could only take a wash-off cause there was no bathtub in that house, she went and bought a newspaper and, slowly, read the work ads. She walked all over town, went a lot of places, but was not hired anywhere. Them shoes of hers was most wore out now. Secondhand and cheap from the beginnin. She was tired, disgusted and almost started cryin plenty times, but she didn’t.

  Near the end of her $10 week, the landlady, seein her lookin so hard for a job and knowin she did not have the next week’s rent, said, “I knows somewhere they might maybe hire you, but it’s kitchen work.”

  MLee’s eyes gathered them little tears she been tryin to hold back. She didn’t know if they was from tired, scared or joy. She said, “I don’t care no more. I ain’t even got money enough to get back home.”

  “They the cookie-makin family. Korky’s Cookies. They lousy cookies. They always needin somebody cause they don’t pay nothin. The potato chip family, they keep their help cause they pays more. Them cookie people way over on the other side of town though … and I can’t lend you no carfare. Ain’t got it.”

  “Give me the directions. I’ll make it.”

  MLee washed and pressed her “goin to look for a job” clothes, laid em out, woke early next morning, dressed and was gone when the sun came up. She sure hadn’t eaten much that week and she could feel that huge gapin hole in her stomach that made her kinda dizzy sometime. When it seemed like she had walked a million miles, the houses started getting better. She got to where the lawns was wide and spread out all over the place. Acres of it. She finally found the address and stood there lookin at the house a long minute trying to get the feel of the place. Couldn’t stand too long though, less somebody think she was there to steal somethin.

  She took a deep breath, then walked along the side of the house to the back (she thought of her hen havin nerve to go out the yard alone, by itself, and findin what it wanted). So she knocked on the big, ole white door. A strange-lookin lady answered. Was a big, husky, kind of kinky blond, with little, tiny, cold blue eyes. Had on a apron with a spatula in her hand. She was frownin, lookin real mean, said, “Well?” Then she looked behind and round MLee, asked, “You deliverin somethin? What you want?”

  MLee’s voice caught in her throat. “I’m … I’m … I do windows and wash clothes and clean up and …” She dropped “cook” cause she didn’t want the woman to think she wanted her job. “Can I see the lady of the house? Please?”

  The woman with a strange-soundin voice ask her, “Where you come from? Who sent you?”

  MLee’s voice sounded strained. “I just came.”

  The woman squinted her hard, little eyes at MLee. “Mr. Korky is still sleepin. I don’t know what the Mrs. is doin, but I ain’t gonna bother em.”

  MLee’s voice came back. “I need a job. I came to work. I work hard. Please, mam, can I talk to somebody, please?”

  The woman stood lookin at MLee. Hard. Said, “Well, I’m busy and they sleep. Sit down over there on that chair by the pool and wait if you want to. I got work to do! Who told you they need somebody for work?”

  MLee said, “I just came.” She went and sat by the swimming pool, which fascinated her because she had never even seen one before, much less been close to one. The woman closed the door.

  In about ten minutes the woman opened it again, said, “You might as well be doin somethin while you wait. I got plenty in here to do.” MLee jumped up and went almost runnin in. The woman continued talkin. “I got to fix these damn kids their lunch to take to school. Two of em. Why they don’t eat at school, I don’t know!” She slammed a loaf of bread on the counter. “Say they don’t like the food over there in that school. You’ll find everything you need in that cupboard or the refrigerator. I give em peanut butter and jelly or bologna and throw in a apple or somethin. I ain’t got time for all that fixin stuff. You mighta just come by your own self, but I sure do need some help round here!”

  MLee was kinda faint from reachin for food so close to her, but her heart turned over with a little joy. “Yes, mam.”

  “Here, girl, what’s your name?”

  “MLee.”

  “Emily?”

  “Yes, mam.”

  “You can call me Mrs. Friet.”

  “Yes, mam, Mrs. Friet.”

  MLee took care with the lunch, which, you know, Mrs. Friet didn’t do. Even putting in cookies. When Mrs. Friet saw her do that, she said, “Them kids hate them cookies. Take em out!” So MLee put in a few celery sticks and some cheese while Mrs. Friet wasn’t payin no tention. She used meat, lettuce and tomatoes on the sandwiches, wrappin and puttin them neatly in the bright-colored lunch boxes, setting them on the counter. By that time the children, a boy, fifteen, and a girl, thirteen, were downstairs. They looked at MLee strangely and didn’t speak to Mrs. Friet as they reached for a piece of toast, drank the juice sittin out and left with their lunch boxes. A driver took them to school.

  Mr. Korky came downstairs next. Mrs. Friet told him, in a whining, overworked voice, “This here is Emily. She’s lookin for work. You all was asleep, so I told her to help me til you came down. I got so much to do round here. So she done the children’s lunch. She seem alright enough … but I don’t need no real help. I can do it once I get caught up.”

  Mr. Korky looked at MLee, then round the kitchen. “Caught up with what, Wanda?”

  Wanda laughed a servant’s laugh. “It’s just about done now, that’s why you can’t see nothin. I stay busy workin, Mr. Korky. It’s a million little things round here I want to do, just can’t get to em all!” Mrs. Wanda Friet wasn’t really tryin to help MLee get a job, she was just a little lazy and wanted all the help she could get from somebody who followed orders and didn’t ask no questions.

  Mr. Korky decided to keep MLee on for the day since she had already started. He went on and left goin to his business. Wanda found plenty work for MLee to do that day, but MLee did it slow. Good, but slow, so it would take all day. She needed the money, she needed the job. Wanda whined to Mrs. Korky about how overworked she was and Mrs. Korky said, “Well see what Mr. Korky says later.” When the family sat down to dinner, later that evenin, the children talked bout their lunches. So neat, fresh and different. “Better than in a long time!” they said. It was different, because they were known not to have good appetites. Wanda glared at them. MLee thanked God, cause Mr. Korky later told her to stay on.

  MLee walked back to her rented room that evenin, tired as a coal miner, but she was full … and she had a job. She slept like a big tree falls, hard. She rose fore dawn the next morning and walked back to work, ready. The cupboards were full of things to choose from. She baked a cake and a roast that mornin, packin a good lunch full of good things for the children. She thought of her children she hadn’t been able to do that for, so she enjoyed doin it for these new ones. The children liked her and showed it.

  It wasn’t a week fore she was given a room and a permanent job. Now she could save every dime she made. No more rent to pay. No food to buy. And she didn’t have to mind Wanda anymore. She was on her own. Sh
e wrote her children. She got lonely, but didn’t know exactly why cause she would have been alone at home. She didn’t miss Alec. She just felt lonely. Like somethin was missin. Yes, she was on her own. All the way.

  When the Korkys entertained, MLee helped with the bakin of breads, cakes and pies. She was good at it. She kept thinkin on some kind of cookin their children would like, cause she remembered that’s how she got her job.

  Now MLee found and liked that thick condensed milk in the can. All through the day she dip her finger in and lick it. She kept tryin to make up a cookie with that milk. She loved oranges and for the first time could have all she wanted. She loved baked yams with butter and she loved nuts, all kinds. So bout two months later, she took all them things, mixed em in a cookie batter she already knew, made the cookies and the next day put some in the lunches. Them kids LOVED them cookies. Mr. Korky had smelled the cookies when he was leavin home that morning and he waited at the dinner table that night for dessert to be served. When none came, he asked Wanda what that smell had been. She told him, “Oh, Emly tryin to make cookies for the kids. I done told her they don’t like cookies, but she bought the stuff herself so if she want to waste her money …” Mr. Korky sent for MLee and asked for a cookie for dessert. When she brought him a few, he ate them, chewin and lookin at the door MLee had went through thoughtfully. He sat there thinking a long time.