Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime

by J. California Cooper

He thought of how his children (who frowned and avoided his own cookies) talked happily about their lunches; the little pies, the “great” cookies that MLee put in them. They had even had her put extra sweets in their lunches for their friends until MLee had begun to charge ten cents a pie and ten cents for a bag of cookies. I mean, she paid for her own material, so why not? Mr. Korky had laughed indulgently, at first, but now, with the good taste of the cookies spreadin over his tongue and fillin his mouth and nose, he decided to take MLee’s bakin more serious.

  Wanda had quit about that time, sayin to Mr. Korky as she left, “This nigga done come in here and started kissin up to the kids and doin all that extra work round here and now I don’t get no respeck for nothin I do! And I do plenty! You can take this job back! See how well you do without me!” They hadn’t thought of her again. MLee was savin them $35 a week by takin over all Wanda’s duties. She got a $5.00 raise and now made $30 a week, and she saved $28 of that. The only thing she bought was stamps and writing paper, sugar, flour and condensed milk. Her work was good and her cookin was good, too. And them cookies and pies was excellent!

  Of course, soon now, Mr. Korky asked her for the recipe in a offhand way. She said, “Sure,” and smiled. But when she went to spell out the list, she realized she didn’t even measure nothin, and she sometimes changed the ingredient things she put in. She leaned back in the little rickety chair in her little rickety room and thought about these being Mr. Korky’s walls, his house and the money, his, he paid her with. She thought about them two big cars in his garage and that great big swimming pool she could see the corner of from her room. Then she thought of that little yellow house by the yellow road and how men like Mr. Korky had never been willin to give her husband a good job, or even any job. Or they give him the worsest job and he would be among the first to go when lay-off time came. She crumbled the paper she was writing on and sat back. The chair didn’t rock so she just sat and thought bout money and life. When next she saw Mr. Korky, he brought it up.

  “You get that recipe written down for me, Emmy?” he asked over his eggs.

  MLee stopped walkin back to the kitchen. “Well … No, sir, I ain’t.”

  “Well, get to it, girl. I wanted to look it over this morning.”

  “Well …” she began.

  He looked up at her. “Say, can you write? You know how to write?”

  “A little bit, sir.”

  He pushed his plate aside. “Well, get me a piece of paper and a pen and tell it to me. I’ll write it down for you.”

  MLee tilted her head, smiling. “No need to write it down for me, sir. I already know it.”

  He took one of them ex … as … per … ated breaths and said, “I mean write it down for myself. I need that potato pie recipe too.”

  His children, glad their father might make a cookie they would like, looked at him like, “Oh boy!”

  MLee said, “Sir, I don’t think I want to do that. It’s … it’s a secret recipe my mama gave me.”

  He made that breath again. “Emmy, there are no secret recipes anymore. The world has changed. Everybody knows everything now.”

  She turned to go. “Well, if they know it, then let em use it. It’s okay by me.”

  Mr. Korky pushed his plate away. “You work for me, Emmy. That recipe belongs to me same as you do.”

  “No, sir, I don’t see it thataway.”

  Mrs. Korky spoke up. “Harold, the breakfast table is not a place to take care of business.”

  Mr. Korky looked at his wife with suddenly hard, cold eyes. “If we were SPENDING money it would be a good time. All times are good for you to spend money. I’ll take care of my business when and where I have to.”

  MLee was gone on in the kitchen, thinkin, “Lawd, I don’t want no trouble on my job. I need this here job.”

  MLee had been there a year and she had saved bout $1340. The most money she had ever had at one time in her life. She still didn’t want to lose the job cause she had plans to go back home and fix up her little house. Paint it, put on a roof and do somethin for her little grandchild what was on the way, if there was enough money. She wanted to work a little longer. Two years? Five years? She was always countin money in her head as she be doin her work.

  She thought about Alec too. “We ain’t never gonna be nothin no more. He probly done out and out got him another woman by now. Well, if he still there, he can take the barn and live out there. Poor Rosey cow, maybe he could marry her.” She didn’t blive he had done nothin to that cow, but he did linger feelin Rosey’s tits when he milked her.

  Mr. Korky thought about MLee’s recipes all the time as he looked out his factory window. He thought about how he needed something new, something different! He turned away from the window with a frown, thinkin how his wife didn’t help him at all. “She wasn’t good for nothin but bringin some good blood from the right people. Was all she was good for!”

  One evenin when he came home from work, he stopped in the kitchen to talk to MLee. But MLee had been thinkin every day too!

  “Well, Emmy, you ever think you’re goin to get that recipe written down? Have you got it yet?”

  “No, sir, I sure don’t.”

  “Why, Emmy? You are going to give it to me, aren’t you? You know, Emmy, if my business does badly you are goin to lose your job. You know that, don’t you? Do you think of that? I need new things all the time to keep people interested. Now, in this house we are one big happy family, all of us. You too. And we have to help each other. Now, I need … want that recipe … then we can all settle back for awhile and you can get paid and keep your job, and I can keep mine.” He smiled, lookin like a vulture.

  MLee looked down at her worn hands. “Well, sir, I know what you are sayin …”

  “Well, good! That’s more like it!”

  “But …”

  “But?” He frowned. “Emmy? I blive you are the greedy sort. Not God fearing. I blive you want some money for that recipe. Wellll, I’m sorry to know that. Greed is a terrible thing. A tool of the devil’s, my mother always said. I’m a fair man, though.” He heaved a big sigh. “What do you want for the recipe? How much?”

  MLee looked down at her hands again. “I don’t rightly know, sir. Let me … Let me think about it a few days, please, sir.”

  Mr. Korky was impatient, “Well, give me some idea. Tell me ‘about’ what it would cost … $50? $100? Can’t be no more than that because I can pick up recipes all over the place.” He started to leave the kitchen. “Better tell me soon because I’m losin interest.” He left in a huff, what you might say.

  That night when MLee sat in her rickety chair looking out her window that faced the utility house outside, she tried to think of what to do. Strained at it, but it didn’t do no good. She knew there was a chance somewhere in this for her, but couldn’t figure out how to dig it up, how to handle it. She opened and stared at the order written out by the Korky children, the list they had given her for their friends. A little light went on dimly in her mind. She tried thinkin harder. She finally fell asleep with the list in her worn, water-soaked, callused hands. Her children, grandchildren, the yellow house, the recipe and Mr. Korky were in her dreams.

  In the mornin when Mr. Korky spoke to her about the recipe again, she told him, “I will tell you somethin this evenin, sir.”

  He pursed his lips. “You like your job, Emmy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He turned to go. “Well, think on that.” He left. He never talked like that when his children were around. They loved MLee and would never have wanted to see her go.

  That same day MLee asked for a little time off and was going back down to her old landlady to try to get someone to help her think this thing out. On the way, she passed a real estate office and noticin it, went in and asked about houses that didn’t cost much. The agents looked at her, laughin, and told her why didn’t she go down to the Black agent that worked out of his house. She got the direction somehow and found her way there, askin him, Mr. Aus
tin, the same question bout some cheap houses.

  He sat her in his little beat up, but clean and polished car and showed her around.

  MLee sat way in the corner of the car like she never been in one before. Maybe she hadn’t, cept a bus. She answered his questions. “I want to live close as possible to that white school for rich kids.” MLee had done built up quite a list of customers at that school, teachers and all.

  “You talkin bout big money, Ms. MLee.”

  “I say close as possible. It don’t have to be right up on it.”

  “This is close as possible. Just get you a car and drive there if that’s where you work. You can get a used car cheap.”

  “How cheap, Mr. Austin?”

  “Bout $300 at least, for one you can count on pretty good.”

  MLee smiled a little. “Find the house, Mr. Austin.”

  He showed her a little lopsided house with whitewash on it. “This one just been had a roof put on fore the widow died, so it won’t leak. It’s a shotgun house, it’s old, but it’s clean, well kept.”

  MLee thought of her own house. “I reckon she was a clean lady.”

  “She was. And her son kept the house up pretty good. Needs some work, still, but just for this little money, you can’t get no better.”

  “What it take to get it?”

  “They askin $4000. You got $500 or so dollars, I think we can swing it for $3000. You got good credit?”

  “I don’t know. Ain’t never bought nothin.”

  “Well, if you ain’t got bad credit, I think we can swing it.”

  MLee smiled. “Let’s swing on it.”

  They signed papers that same day and he took her around until he found her a used car for $350. A little green Chevrolet coupe. MLee loved the car, but didn’t know how to drive. Mr. Austin told her, “I know you know somebody can teach you that. I can’t do no more right now.” She had him park the car near his place and went in his office and wrote a letter to Alec. “He gonna be good for somethin! After all, I been married to him for goin on nineteen years now,” she thought.

  She wrote him, “Here is a ticket. Come here now on the next Sunday and teach me how to drive. I’ll get you back home that day.” Then she went to buy a bus ticket, mailed the letter and went back to her job.

  Now she counted her money … $600 for all to be done bout the house … $350 for the car. Little less than $250 left. MLee sighed. “Money sure will get away from you. But this time, I got things I can put my hands on. It ain’t gone up in thin air. I’m gonna own TWO houses. AND I got a car! Chile, chile.” She smiled to herself, but thought again, “I got a debt. Responsibility. I have to make this thing work and I don’t know what I’m doin!” She sighed and went on out to fix the evening meal.

  When Mr. Korky came home, first thing he did was ask MLee bout them recipes. “What have you decided? What have you done about the recipes, girl?”

  MLee hated to lie, but … “I been feelin a little sick, Mr. Korky.”

  “You’re not that sick you can’t even write, are you?”

  “I just don’t feel good. I’ll … see you bout that in a few days, sir. I’m gonna feel better soon.”

  “A few days?”

  “Yes, sir. A few days.”

  Mr. Korky looked at her in silence a minute. “I don’t blive you want this job, Emmy girl. Plus that, you’re going to get sick on me and we need help here, not sickness.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He slammed the door behind him.

  Now the woman MLee was when she got up that mornin, worried, was not the same one who laid down that night, worried. The nighttime worry had a little glow to it. It meant a lot of work, but she was doin somethin for herself. By herself. And she de … ter … mined in her heart she was goin to make things work!

  Sunday MLee waited at the bus station all morning and Alec came in the early afternoon. He told her, “Was a long walk and wait at the bus station. So … this where you are! Why didn’t you write me before? Everybody hear from you, but me.”

  “I only wrote Northa.” She had wrote to me, her friend, too.

  “What you been doin here so long? Why you got to learn to drive?”

  MLee was walkin fast, leadin Alec. She didn’t bother to answer, she was wonderin if she could learn how to drive.

  Alec repeated, “Why you got to learn how to drive?”

  “I got a car.”

  He was shocked. “YOU got a car? Where you get a car from? What you doin here, MLee?” He stopped walkin, angry.

  “I’m goin to pick up my car, Alec.”

  “Is some man done bought you a car, MLee?”

  Now MLee was gettin angry. “What you care? And if one did, he could teach me how to drive, couldn’t he?” She started walkin again. He followed. She was silent, he argued all the way til she pointed and he saw the car.

  He rubbed it, looked under the hood, kicked the tires and looked at MLee. He did know how to drive, but he had never owned a car. He asked her how much she had paid for the car, she told him. Then they got in and drove back to the car lot. MLee was gettin mad, “I have taken care of everything! Just teach me how to drive this thing!”

  Alec jumped out the car and went to talk to the car lot man. MLee tried to stop him, but as she listened, Alec sounded like he knew what he was talkin bout and the car lot man was listenin too. When Alec was through talkin, the man ended up puttin a few more things on and in the car and even gave her a spare tire that was a good one. Then they got in the car and Alec drove away lookin like the man of the house, proud. MLee smiled, glad that she could respect Alec for somethin! Then, she made up her mind to somethin else.

  She had him drive to her little house and MLee opened it with her own keys. Alec thought she had rented that house. MLee said, “They left the stove and the icebox here, that’s good. What can you do to help me fix this house up? I want you to check the wirin and the gas pipes … and get this yard straightened out. And look here.” She pointed out the back door. “I got TWO trees! Ain’t they pretty?”

  Alec scratched his head. “Well, they ain’t yours no longer’n you live here. I done planted you two at home. They ain’t this big yet, but they growin good. MLee, why you got to stay here? Why’nt you come on home like you got some sense?”

  MLee looked at Alec like he had lost his mind. She knew he musta lost his memory. She said, “I got some sense. And a woman got to do what a woman got to do.” She started toward the front door, then asked him, “You got any money to help me do what I have to do?”

  Alec shook his head no, sadly. “I’m still tryin to get a job somewhere, but don’t nobody want to hire me cause I’m old, and they don’t want to pay me nothin if they do hire me. I done worked some … but … not enough to do nothin with. What you have to do, MLee? What you tryin to do?”

  MLee looked around her new, little house. Said, “I’m tryin to do somethin for myself. Tryin to live with a capital ‘L’ for a change. You promise me a lot when we got married. You didn’t do it, so now I’m gonna try to do it for myself.”

  “MLee, I tried. Lord knows I tried. But a man gets tired … and disgustit, when everwhere he turns he got to take the lowest thing there is. Then, when he do get somethin good, some white man come along and want it … for hisself, for his son, for his friend. They make you don’t feel like nothin! You got more nerve than me, cause I was scared to go out in the world and find somethin, like you done done. And I wanted to stay where you are.”

  MLee took one of them deep, heavy sighs. “Them ain’t all the reasons, but we ain’t got time now to talk. We done already had nineteen years and you didn’t use it and you ain’t said nothin. Now we on my time and I got things to do. Let’s go.”

  She didn’t tell him the house was hers. She had put a small mattress in for Alec to sleep on. She told him, “We gonna go get a few things you can work with for a few days. You stay here til next Sunday, and by that time maybe I can drive good enough to drive you home and myself back.” T
hey went out to the hardware store and lumber yard for a few small things. Then they went on her drivin lessons. She practiced every day when she went to the market and every evenin after the dinner things was cleared away. She was afraid of drivin, but she learned cause she had to.

  Mr. Korky was angry with MLee now, but didn’t fire her. He was tryin to think of a way to get the recipe. He was tryin different things at his plant, but he didn’t know about the condensed milk and the sweet potato. MLee used these things and threw cans and peelins away in the bottom of big bags as soon as they were used. She knew Mr. Korky wouldn’t dig in em, and Mrs. Korky either, though Mr. Korky had told his wife to. He hired another girl to “help” so she could report on MLee. But MLee got up early and the girl was lazy.

  On Saturday, before the Sunday she was to take Alec home, Mr. Korky came rushin into the kitchen. He smiled. “Well, are you ready to hand over that recipe and make your mama and you famous?” He chuckled. “Heh, heh, heh.”

  “Sir, I can’t give away my mama’s secret.”

  “No? Not even for $200?”

  “No, sir.”

  He rubbed his chin, “Well, I got another answer. My children, you know they just love you, and they like those cookies and pies of yours too! Suppose you come work down at the plant? We’ll have another girl, in the meantime, and you can still live here, cause this is your home. And you can make the cookies yourself! I’ll give you all the help you need. We’ll keep it small, at first, then as you learn to trust me and know I think of you as family, so the recipe belongs to me too, in a way, Heh, heh, heh. And I’ll increase your pay by … oh … $10 a week! No! No, $20 a week! I know it’s a lot, but … well, you’re worth it. Alright? You’ll be going up in the world! Progress!”

  MLee looked at him, startled, “You mean I could work in the office down there? But I don’t know nothin bout office work.”

  Mr. Korky shook his head quickly, “No, no!” He knew his office help would die if a Negro worked in such a place with them. “No, no. Just dumbbells get stuck in a office! I want you right down there, in there with the people who count!”