“What they doin’—livin’ there like that—is wrong, and you know it.” She turned to appeal to Mattie. “Now, you a Christian woman. The Good Book say that them things is an abomination against the Lord. We shouldn’t be havin’ that here on Brewster and the association should do something about it.”
“My Bible also says in First Peter not to be a busybody in other people’s matters, Sophie. And the way I see it, if they ain’t botherin’ with what goes on in my place, why should I bother ’bout what goes on in theirs?”
“They sinning against the Lord!” Sophie’s eyes were bright and wet.
“Then let the Lord take care of it,” Etta snapped. “Who appointed you?”
“That don’t surprise me comin’ from you. No, not one bit!” Sophie glared at Etta and got up to move around the room to more receptive ears.
Etta started to go after her, but Mattie held her arm. “Let that woman be. We’re not here to cause no row over some of her stupidness.”
“The old prune pit,” Etta spit out. “She oughta be glad them two girls are that way. That’s one less bed she gotta worry ’bout pullin’ Jess out of this year. I didn’t see her thumpin’ no Bible when she beat up that woman from Mobile she caught him with last spring.”
“Etta, I’d never mention it in front of Sophie ’cause I hate the way she loves to drag other people’s business in the street, but I can’t help feelin’ that what they’re doing ain’t quite right. How do you get that way? Is it from birth?”
“I couldn’t tell you, Mattie. But I seen a lot of it in my time and the places I’ve been. They say they just love each other—who knows?”
Mattie was thinking deeply. “Well, I’ve loved women, too. There was Miss Eva and Ciel, and even as ornery as you can get, I’ve loved you practically all my life.”
“Yeah, but it’s different with them.”
“Different how?”
“Well…” Etta was beginning to feel uncomfortable. “They love each other like you’d love a man or a man would love you—I guess.”
“But I’ve loved some women deeper than I ever loved any man,” Mattie was pondering. “And there been some women who loved me more and did more for me than any man ever did.”
“Yeah.” Etta thought for a moment. “I can second that, but it’s still different, Mattie. I can’t exactly put my finger on it, but…”
“Maybe it’s not so different,” Mattie said, almost to herself. “Maybe that’s why some women get so riled up about it, ’cause they know deep down it’s not so different after all.” She looked at Etta. “It kinda gives you a funny feeling when you think about it that way, though.”
“Yeah, it does,” Etta said, unable to meet Mattie’s eyes.
Lorraine was climbing the dark narrow stairway up to Kiswana’s apartment. She had tried to get Theresa to come, but she had wanted no part of it. “A tenants’ meeting for what? The damn street needs to be condemned.” She knew Tee blamed her for having to live in a place like Brewster, but she could at least try to make the best of things and get involved with the community. That was the problem with so many black people—they just sat back and complained while the whole world tumbled down around their heads. And grabbing an attitude and thinking you were better than these people just because a lot of them were poor and uneducated wouldn’t help, either. It just made you seem standoffish, and Lorraine wanted to be liked by the people around her. She couldn’t live the way Tee did, with her head stuck in a book all the time. Tee didn’t seem to need anyone. Lorraine often wondered if she even needed her.
But if you kept to yourself all the time, people started to wonder, and then they talked. She couldn’t afford to have people talking about her, Tee should understand that—she knew from the way they had met. Understand. It was funny because that was the first thing she had felt about her when she handed Tee her application. She had said to herself, I feel that I can talk to this woman, I can tell her why I lost my job in Detroit, and she will understand. And she had understood, but then slowly all that had stopped. Now Lorraine was made to feel awkward and stupid about her fears and thoughts. Maybe Tee was right and she was too sensitive, but there was a big difference between being personnel director for the Board of Education and a first-grade teacher. Tee didn’t threaten their files and payroll accounts but, somehow, she, Lorraine, threatened their children. Her heart tightened when she thought about that. The worst thing she had ever wanted to do to a child was to slap the spit out of the little Baxter boy for pouring glue in her hair, and even that had only been for a fleeting moment. Didn’t Tee understand that if she lost this job, she wouldn’t be so lucky the next time? No, she didn’t understand that or anything else about her. She never wanted to bother with anyone except those weirdos at that club she went to, and Lorraine hated them. They were coarse and bitter, and made fun of people who weren’t like them. Well, she wasn’t like them either. Why should she feel different from the people she lived around? Black people were all in the same boat—she’d come to realize this even more since they had moved to Brewster—and if they didn’t row together, they would sink together.
Lorraine finally reached the top floor; the door to Kiswana’s apartment was open but she knocked before she went in. Kiswana was trying to break up an argument between a short light-skinned man and some woman who had picked up a potted plant and was threatening to hit him in the mouth. Most of the other tenants were so busy rooting for one or the other that hardly anyone noticed Lorraine when she entered. She went over and stood by Ben.
“I see there’s been a slight difference of opinion here,” she smiled.
“Just nigger mess, miss. Roscoe there claim that Betina ain’t got no right being secretary ’cause she owe three months’ rent, and she say he owe more than that and it’s none of his never mind. Don’t know how we got into all this. Ain’t what we was talkin’ ’bout, no way. Was talkin’ ’bout havin’ a block party to raise money for a housing lawyer.”
Kiswana had rescued her Boston Fern from the woman and the two people were being pulled to opposite sides of the room. Betina pushed her way out of the door, leaving behind very loud advice about where they could put their secretary’s job along with the block association, if they could find the space in that small an opening in their bodies.
Kiswana sat back down, flushed and out of breath. “Now we need someone else to take the minutes.”
“Do they come with the rest of the watch?” Laughter and another series of monologues about Betina’s bad-natured exit followed for the next five minutes.
Lorraine saw that Kiswana looked as if she wanted to cry. The one-step-forward-two-steps-backwards progression of the meeting was beginning to show on her face. Lorraine swallowed her shyness and raised her hand. “I’ll take the minutes for you.”
“Oh, thank you.” Kiswana hurriedly gathered the scattered and crumpled papers and handed them to her. “Now we can get back down to business.”
The room was now aware of Lorraine’s presence, and there were soft murmurs from the corners, accompanied by furtive glances while a few like Sophie stared at her openly. She attempted to smile into the eyes of the people watching her, but they would look away the moment she glanced in their direction. After a couple of vain attempts her smile died, and she buried it uneasily in the papers in her hand. Lorraine tried to cover her trembling fingers by pretending to decipher Betina’s smudged and misspelled notes.
“All right,” Kiswana said, “now who had promised to get a stereo hooked up for the party?”
“Ain’t we supposed to vote on who we wants for secretary?” Sophie’s voice rose heavily in the room, and its weight smothered the other noise. All of the faces turned silently toward hers with either mild surprise or coveted satisfaction over what they knew was coming. “I mean, can anybody just waltz in here and get shoved down our throats and we don’t have a say about it?”
“Look, I can just go,” Lorraine said. “I just wanted to help, I—”
; “No, wait.” Kiswana was confused. “What vote? Nobody else wanted to do it. Did you want to take the notes?”
“She can’t do it,” Etta cut in, “unless we was sitting here reciting the ABC’s, and we better not do that too fast. So let’s just get on with the meeting.”
Scattered approval came from sections of the room.
“Listen here!” Sophie jumped up to regain lost ground. “Why should a decent woman get insulted and y’ll take sides with the likes of them?” Her finger shot out like a pistol, which she swung between Etta and Lorraine.
Etta rose from her seat. “Who do you think you’re talkin’ to, you old hen’s ass? I’m as decent as you are, and I’ll come over there and lam you in the mouth to prove it!”
Etta tried to step across the coffee table, but Mattie caught her by the back of the dress; Etta turned, tried to shake her off, and tripped over the people in front of her. Sophie picked up a statue and backed up into the wall with it slung over her shoulder like a baseball bat. Kiswana put her head in her hands and groaned. Etta had taken off her high-heeled shoe and was waving the spiked end at Sophie over the shoulders of the people who were holding her back.
“That’s right! That’s right!” Sophie screamed. “Pick on me! Sure, I’m the one who goes around doin’ them filthy, unnatural things right under your noses. Every one of you knows it; everybody done talked about it, not just me!” Her head moved around the room like a trapped animal’s. “And any woman—any woman who defends that kind of thing just better be watched. That’s all I gotta say—where there’s smoke, there’s fire, Etta Johnson!”
Etta stopped struggling against the arms that were holding her, and her chest was heaving in rapid spasms as she threw Sophie a look of wilting hate, but she remained silent. And no other woman in the room dared to speak as they moved an extra breath away from each other. Sophie turned toward Lorraine, who had twisted the meeting’s notes into a mass of shredded paper. Lorraine kept her back straight, but her hands and mouth were moving with a will of their own. She stood like a fading spirit before the ebony statue that Sophie pointed at her like a crucifix.
“Movin’ into our block causin’ a disturbance with your nasty ways. You ain’t wanted here!”
“What have any of you ever seen me do except leave my house and go to work like the rest of you? Is it disgusting for me to speak to each one of you that I meet in the street, even when you don’t answer me back? Is that my crime?” Lorraine’s voice sank like a silver dagger into their consciences, and there was an uneasy stirring in the room.
“Don’t stand there like you a Miss Innocent,” Sophie whispered hoarsely. “I’ll tell ya what I seen!”
Her eyes leered around the room as they waited with a courtroom hush for her next words.
“I wasn’t gonna mention something so filthy, but you forcin’ me.” She ran her tongue over her parched lips and narrowed her eyes at Lorraine. “You forgot to close your shades last night, and I saw the two of you!”
The silence in the room tightened into a half-gasp.
“There you was, standin’ in the bathroom door, drippin’ wet and as naked and shameless as you please…”
It had become so quiet it was now painful.
“Calling to the other one to put down her book and get you a clean towel. Standin’ in that bathroom door with your naked behind. I saw it—I did!”
Their chests were beginning to burn from a lack of air as they waited for Lorraine’s answer, but before the girl could open her mouth, Ben’s voice snaked from behind her like a lazy breeze.
“Guess you get out the tub with your clothes on, Sophie. Must make it mighty easy on Jess’s eyes.”
The laughter that burst out of their lungs was such a relief that eyes were watery. The room laid its head back and howled in gratitude to Ben for allowing it to breathe again. Sophie’s rantings could not be heard above the wheezing, coughing, and backslapping that now went on.
Lorraine left the apartment and grasped the stairway railing, trying to keep the bile from rising into her throat. Ben followed her outside and gently touched her shoulder.
“Miss, you all right?”
She pressed her lips tightly together and nodded her head. The lightness of his touch brought tears to her eyes, and she squeezed them shut.
“You sure? You look ’bout ready to keel over.”
Lorraine shook her head jerkily and sank her nails deeply into her palm as she brought her hand to her mouth. I mustn’t speak, she thought. If I open my mouth, I’ll scream. Oh, God, I’ll scream or I’ll throw up, right here, in front of this nice old man. The thought of the churned up bits of her breakfast and lunch pouring out of her mouth and splattering on Ben’s trouser legs suddenly struck her as funny, and she fought an overwhelming desire to laugh. She trembled violently as the creeping laughter tried to deceive her into parting her lips.
Ben’s face clouded over as he watched the frail body that was so bravely struggling for control. “Come on now, I’ll take you home.” And he tried to lead her down the steps.
She shook her head in a panic. She couldn’t let Tee see her like this. If she says anything smart to me now, I’ll kill her, Lorraine thought. I’ll pick up a butcher knife and plunge it into her face, and then I’ll kill myself and let them find us there. The thought of all those people in Kiswana’s apartment standing over their bleeding bodies was strangely comforting, and she began to breathe more easily.
“Come on now,” Ben urged quietly, and edged her toward the steps.
“I can’t go home.” She barely whispered.
“It’s all right, you ain’t gotta—come on.”
And she let him guide her down the stairs and out into the late September evening. He took her to the building that was nearest to the wall on Brewster Place and then down the outside steps to a door with a broken dirty screen. Ben unlocked the door and led her into his damp underground rooms.
He turned on the single light bulb that was hanging from the ceiling by a thick black cord and pulled out a chair for her at the kitchen table, which was propped up against the wall. Lorraine sat down, grateful to be able to take the weight off of her shaky knees. She didn’t acknowledge his apologies as he took the half-empty wine bottle and cracked cup from the table. He brushed off the crumbs while two fat brown roaches raced away from the wet cloth.
“I’m makin’ tea,” he said, without asking her if she wanted any. He placed a blackened pot of water on the hot plate at the edge of the counter, then found two cups in the cabinet that still had their handles intact. Ben put the strong black tea he had brewed in front of her and brought her a spoon and a crumpled pound bag of sugar. Lorraine took three heaping teaspoons of sugar and stirred the tea, holding her face over the steam. Ben waited for her face to register the effects of the hot sweet liquid.
“I liked you from first off,” he said shyly, and seeing her smile, he continued. “You remind me lots of my little girl.” Ben reached into his hip pocket and took out a frayed billfold and handed her a tiny snapshot.
Lorraine tilted the picture toward the light. The face stamped on the celluloid paper bore absolutely no resemblance to her at all. His daughter’s face was oval and dark, and she had a large flat nose and a tiny rounded mouth. She handed the picture back to Ben and tried to cover her confusion.
“I know what you thinkin’,” Ben said, looking at the face in his hands. “But she had a limp—my little girl. Was a breech baby, and the midwife broke her foot when she was birthed and it never came back right. Always kinda cripped along—but a sweet child.” He frowned deeply into the picture and paused, then looked up at Lorraine. “When I seen you—the way you’d walk up the street all timid-like and tryin’ to be nice to these-here folks and the look on your face when some of ’em was just downright rude—you kinda broke up in here.” He motioned toward his chest. “And you just sorta limped along inside. That’s when I thought of my baby.”
Lorraine gripped the teacup with both hands, bu
t the tears still squeezed through the compressed muscles in her eyes. They slowly rolled down her face but she wouldn’t release the cup to wipe them away.
“My father,” she said, staring into the brown liquid, “kicked me out of the house when I was seventeen years old. He found a letter one of my girlfriends had written me, and when I wouldn’t lie about what it meant, he told me to get out and leave behind everything that he had ever bought me. He said he wanted to burn them.” She looked up to see the expression on Ben’s face, but it kept swimming under the tears in her eyes. “So I walked out of his home with only the clothes on my back. I moved in with one of my cousins, and I worked at night in a bakery to put myself through college. I would send him a birthday card each year, and he always returned them unopened. After a while I stopped putting my return address on the envelopes so he couldn’t send them back. I guess he burned those too.” She sniffed the mucus up into her nose. “I still send those cards like that—without a return address. That way I can believe that, maybe, one year before he dies, he’ll open them.”
Ben got up and gave her a piece of toilet paper to blow her nose in.
“Where’s your daughter now, Mr. Ben?”
“For me?” Ben sighed deeply. “Just like you—livin’ in a world with no address.”
They finished their tea in silence and Lorraine got up to go.
“There’s no way to thank you, so I won’t try.”
“I’d be right hurt if you did.” Ben patted her arm. “Now come back anytime you got a mind to. I got nothing, but you welcome to all of that. Now how many folks is that generous?”
Lorraine smiled, leaned over, and kissed him on the cheek. Ben’s face lit up the walls of the dingy basement. He closed the door behind her, and at first her “Good night, Mr. Ben” tinkled like crystal bells in his mind. Crystal bells that grew larger and louder, until their sound was distorted in his ears and he almost believed that she had said “Good night, Daddy Ben”—no—“Mornin’ Daddy Ben, mornin’ Daddy Ben, mornin’…’ Ben’s saliva began to taste like sweating tin, and he ran a trembling hand over his stubbled face and rushed to the corner where he had shoved the wine bottle. The bells had begun almost to deafen him and he shook his head to relieve the drumming pain inside of his ears. He knew what was coming next, and he didn’t dare waste time by pouring the wine into a cup. He lifted the bottle up to his mouth and sucked at it greedily, but it was too late. Swing low, sweet chariot. The song had started—the whistling had begun.
The Women of Brewster Place Page 15