by Janet Walker
Chapter Forty-One
BANQUET
An hour after leaving Miz Grace’s office, Tracy stepped inside her mother’s apartment in Area Place. Right away, she saw Diane across the room, standing at the kitchen table, chopping collard greens for boiling, a cigarette dangling from her lips. The old stereo in the living room played softly—Mama always listened to the stereo when she cooked. The man singing boasted about strokin’ something. Tracy didn’t understand but assumed it had to do with sex. Mama’s music. Country juke-joint music. Tracy hated it.
Diane Sullivan looked up when her daughter came in. She squinted because of the cigarette smoke and grunted, “Hey.” On the table beside her was an open bottle of beer.
Tracy lay down her duffel bag on the couch in the living room and walked to the kitchen table. “Hey,” she replied.
Diane glanced up. “Madge drop you off?”
Stupid question, Tracy thought, but she answered meekly. “Yes, ma’am.”
Diane snorted with contempt but said nothing.
Tracy watched the dark-green leaves being shredded beneath the moving knife in Diane’s pale fingers. Greens were a Sunday dinner, so she wondered what had put her mother in the mood to cook them on a Saturday.
Diane tossed her head, gesturing toward the bedroom off the kitchen. “Charles in there.” When Tracy did not respond, Diane looked hard at the girl and demanded, “Go speak. Today his birthday.”
Tracy thought quickly. Yes—today was November 10th, and Mama always made a fuss over birthdays, but Tracy did not like Charles now, and Mama knew it. Ever since he came into her room and touched her in August, Tracy had successfully avoided him when she came home on the weekends. He was either at work or watching TV in the bedroom he shared with Diane, coming out, it seemed to Tracy, only when she was holed up in her room. That was how they had played it on the weekends, each listening for sounds of the other before venturing into the main space of the apartment. Now, Tracy stood rooted at the table and stared stubbornly at the raw collard greens. She didn’t care if it was his birthday—she did not want to speak to Charles.
“You hear me?” Diane threatened.
Tracy did not move, but a voice in her head spoke clearly. You hate her. Tracy glanced at her mother and realized she agreed with the voice. She did hate Diane, because what kind of mother would force her daughter to speak to the man that had tried to molest her?
Diane snatched her gaze away from her moving hands and drilled a quartz-green glare into her daughter. In response, Tracy stepped away from the table and moved slowly to the bedroom door, which was open. At the doorway, she put both hands on the jambs and looked in. Charles lay on the bed, hands behind his head, barefoot and shirtless, watching a football game on TV. When he saw Tracy, he immediately sat up.
Tracy noticed the humility and apology in his actions and despised them as cowardice. “Hey, Charles,” she said softly.
“Hey, Tracy,” he said affably. He waited, as if he expected her to say more, but she turned away. Immediately, she saw Diane’s hard face above the greens.
“That’s how you speak to somebody on they birthday?”
From the bedroom, Charles protested, “She spoke, Diane. Leave her alone, now,” he whined.
Mother and daughter ignored the man and stared at each other. Tracy turned away, stepped back to the bedroom door. “Happy birthday,” she mumbled, and Charles returned her greeting with a pained look of understanding. Tracy passed the greens at the table, retrieved her duffel bag from the couch in the living room, and went into her bedroom, where she shut the door. Moments later, the smoky vocals and smooth jazz instrumentals of Sade filled her ears, and she relaxed. Soon, her arms and legs began to feel heavy and the muscles in all parts of her body ached with soreness. Miz Grace’s program was grueling.
Tracy realized she had fallen asleep when her eyes flew open at the sound of her name.
“Tracy!”
Diane’s scratchy voice clawed through the wall of the bedroom, making Tracy wince.
“Git out here and go to the sto for me!”
Anger settled upon Tracy heavily like a saturated cloak and she remained lying prone, staring at the painted white ceiling, and did not answer. What about the bullies? Good, because I worry about you when you’re not with me. I promise you, baby, you and I can go all the way together. I feel as if I have twelve daughters. I worry about you when you’re not with me.
“Tracy!” The voice, digging again.
Tracy sighed, flung her body off the mattress, yanked open the bedroom door, and stomped into the living room, where she hesitated, pouting in displeasure, arms folded petulantly across her chest. “Hm?” she asked her mother, who stood yards away, at the kitchen table.
At the sight of her daughter’s defiant body language, Diane drew her head back as if insulted. “Uh-uh,” she objected. “You don’t come out here wit’ no attitude like that! Straighten up yo face and yo walk ’fo I knock the shit outta you! And git the hell over here.”
The pout melted away. The arms unfolded. Without stomping, Tracy walked into the kitchen. By the time she reached the table, memories of violent interactions with Diane had altered the teen’s manner into one of humility. She saw right away that her mother held the large knife and was now using it to dice a block of cheese.
“Go to the sto and git me some milk so I can make this macaroni.”
Behind Tracy, the stereo in the living room still played. This time, a woman sang whose voice sounded to Tracy like the hard-faced women who drank and smoked with Diane. Oddly, though, the woman sang about a maid, it seemed, because she spoke about a clean-up woman. On the stove behind Diane, a huge pot threw up steam and a pungent smell. The collard greens. From behind the closed door of Diane and Charles’ bedroom, Tracy could hear the faint sounds of a televised ball game. N-C-A-A doubleheader! the man on the TV announced. Tracy’s eyes fell on the table. Diane’s beige hands pushed the thick knife into the soft orange flesh of the cheese. The fingers were the strong flushed fingers of a laundress, the backs of the hands lined with ropy veins. Tracy had always thought her mother’s hands were too large for Diane’s small body.
Diane looked up sharply. She had given an order, and it had not been obeyed. “The hell you standin’ here fuh? Put yo shoes on and go git me some milk!”
Dicing again.
Tracy hesitated. “Mama…”
The dicing stopped.
“Um…” Tracy’s stomach and eyes warmed. “I…I can’t go outside.”
Diane looked at her daughter in disbelief.
“I-I-I’m not trying to be disobedient.” Tracy hesitated. The disobedient was a Kingdom Hall word, and she surprised both of them by using it. “Um,” she said, hurrying on, “I-I-I just…don’t…I’m scared…to go outside.”
“The hell you talkin’ about, Tracy, now I need this milk! I don’t wanna hear no stupid excuse shit from you today!”
Tracy pounded inside. “I…I’m not trying to make an excuse, Mama. I—”
Charles, having heard Diane’s yell, pulled open the bedroom door and stood in the doorway. “Err thang ah’ight?” he asked groggily, his eyes red from sleep.
Diane began chopping the cheese again, furiously. “Tryna git this damn macaroni done and Tracy talkin’ ’bout she don’t wanna run to the sto and git me some milk!” she explained.
Tracy refused to turn, refused to look at him. She hated Mama for acknowledging Charles and pretending he deserved an explanation about what was going on between them.
“I’ll go git it,” Charles’s voice offered meekly.
Tracy said nothing.
“No! Let Tracy take her ass and git it! And git me some cigarettes, too, while you at it.”
Tracy stared at the cheese and did not move. Her whole body burned now, but it was not from a fear of encountering Jinya Daggett. Instead, the heat came from an excitatory fear generated by what was taking place in the kitchen. It was the first time in her life she had ever ref
used to do something Diane had ordered her to do.
With a shocking whumf!, the blunt point of the knife slammed against the wood tabletop. Tracy and Charles jumped, startled.
“Ann!”
“Bitch, don’t you see this knife in my hands?”
Tracy had backed away from the table without realizing it. “I’m scared to go outside!” she explained in a sob.
“The hell you scared about!”
“Ann, I said I’ll go git the milk—”
“Shut the fuck up, Charles! What the hell you scared about?”
The room grew still as they waited for her answer. When she hesitated too long, Diane exploded again.
“The hell is you scared abou—!”
“Jinya Daggett!” It was a yell. “She said she gonna get me.” It was the whine of a frightened child.
Again, the room fell silent. Except for the stereo. Betty Wright’s singing.
Diane’s anger stalled for a second, then displeasure seeped back into her face. “Jinya Daggett?” she sneered.
“Who that is?” Charles asked, but no one answered.
“The girl who shot that teacher?” Diane asked Tracy.
Tracy nodded.
“Who that is, Ann?”
“You know who she is, Charles,” Diane snapped impatiently. “Tall light-skin girl. One with the gray eyes, look like a man. Bulldagger.”
“Oh oh oh yeah, I know who you talkin’ ’bout.”
“What she after you fuh?” Diane asked Tracy suspiciously. “You been messin’ wit’ her?”
The question offended and angered Tracy, because “messing with” was Diane’s language for “having sex with.” Tracy sighed with exasperation, sucked her teeth, rolled her eyes. “I ain’t like that,” she stated firmly.
“Then what the hell she wont wit’ you?” Diane demanded.
“She said she gonna beat me up.”
“Why she wanna do that?” Charles asked.
Tracy ignored him.
“Why she wanna beat you up, Tracy?” Diane demanded. “What you done did to make her mad?”
The accusation stung. At the same time, something awakened in the part of Tracy’s spirit that harbored courage, and she drew up her chin and looked steadily and boldly at her mother’s eyes. It was the first time she had ever done so.
“When I told Aunt Madge Jinya put those bruises on me, she went to Jinya and talked to her about it.”
Mother and daughter stared at each other. Charles knew their secret, they knew he did, but it was the first time they had ever spoken it, admitted it, given it voice, in his presence. Embarrassment flickered across Diane’s face, leaving it flushed. She glanced at Charles, looked at the table, began dicing the cheese again.
“I tole Madge to keep her ass outta our business,” Diane complained. “And now she done made it so you can’t even go outside.”
Tracy didn’t think it was possible, but in that moment her estimation of her mother fell lower. What Aunt Madge had done wasn’t the issue, and Diane knew it. When the woman looked up again, she saw in her daughter’s eyes an emotion that looked like disgust.
“I’ll git the milk, Ann,” Charles announced wearily. He walked back into the bedroom to get dressed.
Diane returned to her task, carefully pressing the blade into what was left of the block of cheese, cutting, separating. Tracy, stunned by her own defiance, stood beside the table, unable to move. Nor did she know what to say. Instinct, and a swift examination of her mother’s grim downcast face, told her to say nothing. Still, she burned with curiosity. How angry was Diane for what had just happened? When would she retaliate? Tracy was suddenly grateful for Charles’ presence. The really bad beatings only happened when he and Mama were separated, and the other beatings rarely took place when he was in the apartment. Still, he would be gone in a few minutes, so Tracy quietly stepped away from the table. The motion caused Diane to look up. Tracy hesitated, timidly returned her mother’s look. The green eyes shone like ocean ice, and a chill slipped into Tracy’s skin. Retaliation would come, she knew it, although probably not that day. Tracy left the kitchen and escaped to her bedroom. There, she locked the door, determined to keep it locked until Charles returned from the store.