Family

by J. California Cooper

  ALSO BY J. CALIFORNIA COOPER

  A Piece of Mine

  Homemade Love

  Some Soul to Keep

  The Matter Is Life

  The Wake of the Wind

  The Future Has a Past

  FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, JANUARY 1992

  Copyright © 1991 by J. California Cooper

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Doubleday in 1991. The Anchor Books edition is published by arrangement with Doubleday.

  Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cooper, J. California.

  Family : a novel / J. California Cooper. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Afro-American women—History—

  Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3553.O5874F36 1991

  813′.54—dc20 90-36996 CIP

  eISBN: 978-0-307-77858-1

  www.anchorbooks.com

  v3.1

  DEDICATED WITH LOVE

  Joseph C. and Maxine R. Mimi Cooper, my parents

  Paris A. Williams, my chile

  Warren D. Smith, my helper

  Special Others

  Isabelle Allende • Alice Walker •

  Dostoevski • Ben Hecht • Fanny Brice •

  Marilyn Monroe • Paul Robeson • Jack

  Johnson, Champion • Joe Louis,

  Champion • Naomi Nye • Muhammad Ali,

  Champion • Kahlil Gibran • Winston

  Burnett • Richard Pryor, Artist • Hildie

  Spritzer Satomi • Beethoven • Alexandre

  Dumas • Cleopatra of Egypt • Colette of

  France • Earle Mae Liggins • Angela

  Davis • Jerry and Jean Collins • Dolores

  North Reese • Henry “Hollywood”

  Williams • Marilyn Gallagher • Hazel

  Lindyard • Toni Lindyard •

  B. B. Bella, my new cat

  With Special Love for

  The sick, the abused, the disabled, the dying, the starving, the lost, the lonely, the homeless, the poor, the babies.

  (Fear for the Godless, the loveless)

  THE WHOLE HUMAN FAMILY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To all those of you who have encouraged and supported me. I need that.

  My daughter, Paris, who lifts me with her support and love.

  My sister, Shy, who actually reads my work!

  Warren D. Smith, who runs hither and yon, doing things for me so I will have the peace and support to do my work.

  To Temma Kaplan, Barnard College, for her large, generous kind heart full of thoughtful doings. Barbara Tatum, Barnard College, for her sweet, thoughtful kindnesses.

  Amistad Bookplace of Houston, Texas. Thank you, Rosa and Denice, for all the valuable help you have given me.

  To Reid Boates, and Karen and the two little sons that make Reid the most wonderful man/agent I know.

  To the wonderful people of my last publisher—Michael Denneny, Michelle Hinkson, Sarah, Keith—all of them who were, and are, always so considerate and kind.

  To the most wonderful new people of my new publisher, Doubleday—Sallye Leventhal, Evelyn Hubbard, Arabella, Heidi, Tina, Nancy, and others—with their encouragement, faith, and yes, thoughtful kindnesses. I hope never to let them down. Martha Levin too!

  My deep abiding appreciation to Nina Mehta and her assistant, Russell Perreault, my publicists at Doubleday/Anchor, for their consistent attention to, and knowledge of, their profession and mine. They are excellent in their jobs and perfect for me. Besides being efficient, they are very considerate, kind, and quick.

  Joarvonia Skipwith has been a thoughtful friend and supporter. I want to thank her.

  To Jehovah God. Oh, what would I do without Him?

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  About the Author

  AND THE EARTH MOTHER ASKED THE EARTH CHILD AS SHE HANDED IT THE SUCCULENT EARTH FRUIT, “AND WHEN DOES A TREE BEAR FRUIT THAT IS NOT ITS OWN?”

  AND THE EARTH CHILD THREW BACK ITS BEAUTIFUL HEAD, LAUGHING, SAYING, “NEVER, NEVER …” THEN TOOK A HUGE BITE FROM THE HEAVY FULL FRUIT WHICH SENT THE RICH JUICE RUNNING DOWN ITS CHIN, FALLING, FALLING OVER THE MOUNTAINS OF THE EARTH CHILD. ROLLING, ROLLING DOWN AND INTO THE RIVER OF LOVE AND HATE CALLED TEARS. RUNNING, RUNNING EVEN OVER THE FIELDS OF TIME, UNTIL ALL THE JUICES FLOWED TOGETHER AGAIN, BLENDING, INTO THE OCEAN OF HUMAN LIFE.

  THE SUN LOOKED DOWN … THE MOON PEERED UP. LISTENING, MOVING ON, SAYING, “EVERYONE KNOWS THAT. THAT’S WHAT MAKES A FAMILY!”

  HISTORY. LIVED, NOT WRITTEN, is such a thing not to understand always, but to marvel over. Time is so forever that life has many instances when you can say “Once upon a time” thousands of times in one life.

  There was a time, long, long ago, when a little man, Egyptian and Greek, came floating up the Nile working on a water vessel going to upper Egypt. With him, another man of African and Italian blood was working his way home to Africa. Upon reaching the end of the Nile, they were friends, and decided to travel on to Africa together with a caravan. They were yet poor, buying one donkey to share between them, when they started across the Sudan. I can see even now the waves of heat from the close, close sun, rising from the earth’s vast sands, enveloping them. They, in their turbans and clean, ragged robes, looking straight ahead toward their home.

  Upon reaching the friend’s home and family, the little man looked and fell in love with his friend’s sister. In time, in spite of her family’s desires, they married. They moved farther down into Africa to live. They had children. After many years, their children had children. And so on and so on.

  Came the time when the slave catchers came. Some of the couple’s living children were taken. Stolen, separated and taken to many lands … sold. A few lived on. They had children. These children had children by their owners and others. Portuguese, Spanish, English, Italian, French, Irish, Scottish, others. Men from lands all over the world. Until one day, near my time, a girl-child was born who was to be my grandmother. In time, my mother was born. She lived and was sold, yet again. That is where I was to come from. Ahhh, how sad, how sad for all of us.

  So, once upon another time, a long, long time ago, time didn’t mean anything to my people, exceptin it was hard times all the time. And time can look endless. That’s the time I was born.

  Some people say we was born slaves … but I don’t blive that. I say I was born a free human being, but I was made a slave right after.

  There was only one person in my family I knew at that time. My mother. We knew we blonged together cause she had birthed me. Didn’t know my daddy. Well, we knew him but wasn’t lowed to tell it and I couldn’t call him daddy, when I was able to talk. Didn’t have no grandmothers livin that we knew of, or nothin like that. Mama said she knew her mama had some kin in Africa somewhere, but we didn’t know where and they didn’t know nothin
bout us now, nohow. See … her grandmama had been most jet black in her color. Or was it her grandmama’s mother? Anyway, I do know we did start out bein black. Just no family, cept just us, my mother and me, and we wasn’t together too much cept in the nights and some most of them the Master of the Land came in and pushed me over and out the bed. I’d lay there on the floor with my eyes closed, suckin my thumbs til he was gone. Then she be mine again. I would rock her to sleep and myself too. I cried cause she cried. We was both tired of the life we was livin. I wasn’t nothin but a baby-child but I was still tired of things I didn’t even know what name to call em.

  My mother had nine more children for the Master of the Land, but they was all sold when they got to be bout three years old by the Mistress of the Land cause they was too white and lookin like the Master of the Land. That, and the money.

  See … my mama had me by a black man so she could have her a brown baby. She wouldn’t tell who my daddy was so they wouldn’t hurt him or sell him cause they hadn’t been let to do no lovin together. She said they was in love but that wasn’t lowed. They didn’t get to be in love nomore tho cause she was watched hard. And I got punished extra lots. And I was even still his property, even if I wasn his own child!

  My mama was very light cause her father had been a Master of the Land. That’s why I didn’t have no grandmother on her side cause Grandmother had killed herself rather than stay in slavery and keep on bringing more babies into the world to be made more slaves or whatever anybody wanted them to be. That’s what I hear tell she said.

  Cause my mama hated white folks, she wanted a brown baby. See … my daddy being a dark-skinned man made me a tan color or whatever God would call it. But a brown slave or a white colored slave … what’s the difference? I was about twelve years old when my mama just musta decided she just couldn’t take life no more. All her babies gone cept me. (Don’t care who the daddy was, they was still her children.) And always havin to harken to the white Master of the Land and get another baby to lose out into anywhere-land, she just couldn’t take it no more. See?

  The Mistress watched her husband, the Master, hard, hard, but not hard enough to keep him in her own bed. Cause it’s a thousand excuses to be out the house on a country farm that size. And when my mama gave birth to another white baby the Mistress of the Land wouldn’t hate her husband, uh, uh, she would hate my mama more. And, this the truth. I been in that big house, cleaning or somethin like that, when white ladies be talkin and they say that “them nigger womens is sex fiends” or somethin like that and blame it all on the slave women! Just like they wasn’t slaves or that they had made them babies all by their own selves … or forced them white men!

  Anyway … my mama had a hard, hard life. All day she blonged to the Mistress for the work in the big house, and in the nights he chose, she blonged to the Master. Didn’t have her own self no time. A somebody with a mind will surely go crazy like that cause no matter what you think, it don’t count for nothin. She didn’t have nothin of her own but me, and I blonged to them too. And I could go anytime! They told her that, often. See … my mama was pretty and that made the Mistress hate her. And smart … that made the Master want to rule her more. They didn’t want her to have just what only she was born with. Some of the other slaves didn’t like her neither! But my mama was sweet to me.

  I remember that special day cause I had worked in the house side my mama washing three tub loads of clothes, big loads, too! Then we both been sent out to the fields to help there too. It was plumb dark when we staggered in, leaning on each other, too tired to eat, almost too tired to sleep had we coulda at that time. I was cryin a little, don’t know zackly why cause wasn’t nothin really hurtin me, I was just tired … just tired. Tired. Maybe it was cause “tomorrow … tomorrow” was goin to be just the same thing all over again. A new name for the same day, over and over again. That was what made me feel like cryin. I don’t know. I do know we put ourselves down on that cornshuck bed and lay there breathin hard. We had to get up tho, cause we had a few more things to do with feeding the rest of the slaves from the field, foldin those washed clothes, then cleanin up after the slave supper.

  It was THAT day the Master of the Land said my mama was goin to go for to be his son’s night-mate too, smilin down at her like he was doin her some special kinda good favor.

  Now … that man’s son was young. And the Master had many slaves on his land. He knew my mama was old in her body, even as young as she was sposed to be in years. He had to know my mama was tired. Everybody knows bout work! And bein tired! Ain’t that why people try to get somebody else to do their work? People will give you the money they love and hate to part with just to keep from doin their own WORK! Ain’t that true? Even now … today … in your day? See … he could have picked somebody else! She done already carried and had nine of his babies what he got good feelin from and good money for!

  Why didn’t he? I done found out you can’t see into nobody’s mind no matter what comes out their mouths nor what their actions are. But I know for my own self when somebody don’t give a damn bout you and treat you like you ain’t nothin. Now I didn’t wish nobody else, no other woman, no bad luck, to have to use their body when they don’t want to, but, that was my mama … and I wisht he had picked somebody else. Later on, I know he wisht he had too! At twelve years old, I was beginnin to understand life, feeling it.

  That day she came in from her last jobs and helped me finish mine, washing tin plates for the next morning. Then she took me into that ole dark, broke-down chicken house in the black of the night and held me to her close, close. She squeezed me so tight it hurt my bones cause I was already sore from work, but I loved bein in my mama’s arms, so I never said a word. Uh, uh.

  She cried … and I cried again. I didn’t know just what exactly we was cryin bout that time, but there was so many things to cry about it didn’t matter.

  She rubbed my face, my back and arms. Held me away from her, looked at me and cried harder. I did too, cause who likes to see their mama cry? Lord! Not me.

  We finally slowed down cryin. She wiped her eyes, then my eyes, with the tail of her worn-out dress of that ole shitty-color sackcloth. Then she leaned over and drew some lines on the ground. Justa sniffling all the time. I know now there was twelve lines. She say, “That’s how old you are, Clora.” Her name was Fammy, my name was Clora. I sniffed and said, “Yes mama, mam.”

  She say, “They gonna count you a woman soon, for sure.” I almost smiled cause I thought that might be good but she only cried more, with no sound now. I said, “Yes mam. Don’t cry like that, mama.” She say, “Lord, I can’t help you none, child.” I held her tight, said, “Yes you do, mama.” She heaved a big sigh, said, “No. I can’t help you none, baby. Mama can’t even help herself.” I held on to her tight.

  She looked down at me, rubbed my tears from my eyes, wiped my running nose, said, “No matter whatsomever happens, you remember I loves you. I loves you very hard. You my child.” She was squeezin my shoulder and it hurt, but I still didn’t do nothin but look up at her. She said, “You always gonna remember that?” I nodded through my tears and I still didn’t know exactly why we was cryin this time. But I did not care. Somehow this little piece of time we was havin together was worth anything to me. It was OUR TIME and hadn’t nobody appointed it to us. It was just ours and we took it cause we had a mind of our own, even if we did have to hide to use em!

  Then we heard those dam-awful footsteps! We knew it was somebody white cause they was walkin in shoes. All the slaves was barefoot, you know that. My mama let loose of me and jumped up knockin her head on some wood cross the door. She never hollered to show her pain, just ran out the chicken house leavin me behind. Some reason I never even got to think of made me just sit in there and cry like my heart was goin to break. I was feelin so low, so sad … I couldn’t help myself from all those tears. I finally got up and dried my eyes, brushed the dirt and dried chicken dodo off my piece a’ clothes and wound my way to our shack
in the blackest night I ever been in. See? Life made that night black, not the sky or the sun bein gone. My mama feelin bad and bein hurt, hittin her head, and all that cryin made that night so dark. Sometime, when life be hittin you with a sledgehammer, it don’t stop til it done drove you all the way down, far as you can go down … to the bottom.

  I WAS SO TIRED, so worn out, inside my body and head and outside where my muscles was, I just fell into the bed with them cornshucks just rustling under me. I didn’t even wash up or take off my clothes like my mama made me to do. I just wanted to sleep. I was tryin to keep my eyes open til mama came in so I could hold her, make her warm and me too. But I was too tired.

  Sleep had drug me so far down til I could feel I was bein shaked but it seemed like it was another world somewhere. I knew it couldn’t be, just couldn’t be, mornin already. But the shakin kept up and somebody, Miz Elliz, was callin my name. “Clora, Clora child! Wake up! Wake up!” Miz Elliz was the old woman who watched out for the babies while their mamas was in the fields. I pulled with all my might to open my eyes, to move. Then she said, “Clora child, your mama done killed herself! You wake up and come on over to my shack where them other children be. They won’t see you there so fast while they mad. She done killed the Master too! Come on now! Child, come on! Heist yourself up and move!” I was wide awake in a second. Cryin again. And scared! I grabbed Miz Elliz’s skirts and stumbled after her to her shack and tumbled in with the other slave babies under the raggedy covers. Miz Elliz cautioned with a fierce whisper. “Hush! You be quiet now! Don’t … you gonna get me in trouble too! Hush!” Then in another moment in a little softer whisper she said, “I know you hurt and you sad … cause your mama gone. But if you want to live … hush now … hush.”

  I lay in the dark listening to the sounds of the other children sleepin, thinkin … if I want to live. But, I don’t want to live. My mama was gone. I didn’t have nobody now. Maybe Miz Elliz, but she belonged to everybody the Master told her to keep care of. Then my mind landed on the Master. The Master. The Master wasn’t no Master no more. He only was gonna have six feet of land now and he couldn’t command nobody to come to where that would be. But that didn’t make me feel no better bout my mama. She was gone forever. I even rather have the Master back if I could get Mama back. I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, I wanted to die. But all I could do is lay there and be still … and hush. I found out later when the slaves wasn’t scared to whisper bout it that mama had gone to the son like she was ordered to do, but on her way from whatever place that was set up for them to meet, the Master had caught her to ask her about it and his son. They was in the farmyard and she just picked up a pitchfork and stabbed him with it. Then she went somewhere near where they kill the hogs, got her a knife, went back and finished him to death while he screamed for help. No help came cause them slaves wasn’t gonna move! They might be blamed for whatever was happening! Then she stabbed herself … she was bent double over the fence, bled to death, standin up.